[SM] Nightmare 1.13

[JAM]

Last of more harder versions of Super Metroid. Based on Veteran. For experts, TASers, maniacs and doomgods. Difficulty is increased, approx. 16 times more harder that original game. This is nuts... This is crazy. This is true insanity! Overall difficulty is close to Doom's Nightmare more (that's why this name), but still passable.

Now you'll need to collect at least half ammo of each type just to open door of this type and go further! Because of that, the course should be altered to gain more ammo as soon as it ever possible. To fight Mother Brain, you should collect full ammo. When you ran out of Missiles and Super Missiles, use Power Bombs.

As for layout, it have minimal changes (mostly doors) to prevent player from performing sequence breaks. So, it's vanilla, but very hard vanilla with some ASM coding. I'll ever say, it's [spoiler]BDSM[/spoiler]

What you'll get:

Overall world damage	*4
Samus attack damage	/4
|
Missiles	50
Super Missiles	10
Power bombs	10
|
Energy	399
Reserve energy	100
|
Missile pickup	1
Big energy pickup	10 5
Small energy pickup	2 1
|
Ceres Ridley Hits	125
|
Ceres timer	15"00
Zebes timer	75"00

Note that overall damage includes damage of all projectiles, spikes and aggressive environments and samus attack damage includes doors.

Patches used
[spoiler]By Kejardon:
Elbow fix

Self-made patches used:
Safety fuse
More powerfull orange doors
Spore Spawn music fix
Diagonal map section fix
Golden Torizo code freezing fix
Reserve tank division
Smart Crystal Flash[/spoiler]

EDIT: Version 1.13 is bugfree (as far as I know). Redownload it if you have 1.10 or 1.11 or you can't beat the game at all! Version 1.12 have a permastuck in Dachola area (if you haven't got enough tanks, you can't escape)
1.10:7;2. 1.11:3; 1.12:14
Have fun =)

[spoiler=Updates since v1.10]
Mother Brain's vulnerabilities are changed. Now the brain form can be killed with full inventory.

Blue sidehoppers' vulnerabilities are changed. With max inventory (or at least 10 Super Missiles and 32 Missiles) room can be cleaned in 2 rounds.

Third state of blue sidehoppers room is added.

Alarm subroutine is tweaked.

Energy drop subroutine is tweaked. Thus, no more energy drops with full energy. Thanks to Peteza34 for discovering the bug.

Reserve tanks display is smoothered.
[/spoiler]


[spoiler=Updates since v1.11]
Metroid damage increased.

Energy ball amount decreased. I've set 10 and 2 just to beat Bomb Torizo, but since even this amount is not enough to beat him normally (you're forced to jump over him), I've restored the values I originally planned.

Permastucks are removed. First Energy Bomb can be collected normally and now you can enter Crocomiro room to progress. And Wrecked Ship too.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Updates since v1.12]
Drop rate of spores are changed. Now these little bit...  things will give you nothing very rarely.

Nova will no longer give you nothing.

Some doors are exchanged to restore original course: Speed Booster, Crocomiro, Wrecked Ship.

Permastuck in Brinstar is fixed. Now you can escape from Dachola's lair even with zero tanks and access this area earlier.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Ceres hints]
General
Use savestates. Seriously.

Beat Ridley and see easter egg #1.

Get first Missile block and see easter egg #2.



Ridley
Ridley is a touch one. You should hit him 125 at least times and get hitted no more than 4 times by his body.

If his tail has touched you, give up. Chances to win are less than 0.1%

Don't just stand on the door.

When he is performing ram attack, avoid the tail. Don't try to avoid the body, it's insanly hard.

Stand in the border of blocks near the door. And evade counterclockwise attack by doing spinning jump on the door.

Palette will changed when you hit him 62, 87 and 112 times. When he is red, there are only 13 hits to go!



Escape
Try to evade smoke puffs. Or use damage boost if you can. But keep in mind that smoke will damage you

Use arm pumping in 2 rooms after Ridley to save about 10 sentiseconds

For the stairs room, good time is 10"70 and higher

For the room with crushing ceiling, good time is 6"70 and higher

For the main shaft, good time to escape is at least 3"96 (calculated experimentaly), maybe less for good TASer if use slowdown and saves
[/spoiler]

Everyone love screenies!
[spoiler]

This time should be enough to escape



If you've seen this many times, then you're very close to escape.



Escape is possible. Proofpic



Escape is possible, take 2. Proofpic



Moving the rain between layers



Zebes is awaken. Main action begins!



Easter egg #1



She is fully exhausted for a short time



Easter egg #2
[/spoiler]

[Peteza34]

I think I found a possible glitch...  I noticed that the enemies still drop energy refills even though my energy is at max.  I'm guessing that you intended for us to open the missile door to the bombs by refilling our missiles in the room before it but those flies keep dropping energy refills.  It seems like the drop rate for the missile refills is like .01% or something crazy like that.  I'm hoping that this is a glitching and you weren't expecting us to sit there for an hour killing flies until we get enough missiles for that door, otherwise I think I'll be done with this hack.  Anyway, just wanted to bring that to your attention.  Cheers.

[JAM]

I think I found a possible glitch...  I noticed that the enemies still drop energy refills even though my energy is at max.

Thanks for discovering it. As far as I know, there are 2 subroutines. One of them stops spawning energy if your energy is at max while second one causes increased amount of energy drops if your energy between 30 and 50. And since your energy at start is 49, both of them are running in the same time. Looks like, the second one is having highest priority. I will fix it.

I'm guessing that you intended for us to open the missile door to the bombs by refilling our missiles in the room before it but those flies keep dropping energy refills.  It seems like the drop rate for the missile refills is like .01% or something crazy like that. 

I have increased drop rate of missiles from 20% to 40% but since "more energy drops" subroutine is on, this thing is happening.

Anyway, just wanted to bring that to your attention.  Cheers.

Thanks, wait for the version 1.11

[Quietus]

I like these hard hacks, JAM, but I eventually got bored of trying to get past Ridley.  There having a challenge, which I like, and then there's this, which is just a touch silly.  I'll give it another try if you either adjust Ridley, or start the hack from Zebes.  Until then, I'll be leaving it.

[Qactis]

and then there's this, which is just a touch silly

Hence the Nightmare  :heheh:

guessing this hack is like the hardest difficulty in Descent, Duke Nukem, or maybe "Funny" in Phalanx

[Peteza34]

Thanks for fixing that JAM.
Edit: sorry i'm impatient

Additional hints for Ceres:
[spoiler]I found that a good way to avoid Ridley's attacks is to bait him to attack high by jumping, running underneath him, then walljumping over him when he swings back.  Ridley always uses his fireball attack an even number of times.. usually 2 or 4 times in a row.  And when Ridley twirls his tail he will always charge you right after.

As for the escape sequence, it is slightly faster to stop a step or a step and a half away from the door and let it open then it is to keep holding left until the door opens.[/spoiler]

[Quietus]

Permastuck: In the Red Brinstar shaft, you can get stuck in the first Power Bomb area.  One Super + two refills from cacti = 3, which isn't enough to open the door back or to Power Bombs.  You can't circle back to your ship either, as it's blocked by a yellow door above.

[Peteza34]

It seems like I am at a point where I can't advance any farther..  I am in the same room that Quietus mentioned in the post above this one and I'm pretty sure I have every item that I can possibly have at the moment.  I have 2 SMs, 24 missiles, spazer, ice, wave and charge beam but I need either 3 SMs or one more cactus enemy to open up the power bomb door.  Those slug-like enemies don't drop SM refills I don't think.

[JAM]

Additional hints for Ceres

Thanks for info. I will include your hits with giving you credit.
[spoiler]I completly about the doors. It can save about 60 centiseconds in total!

And I didn't know that you can evade ram attack. Sometimes I can evede ram attack by jumping under Ridley, but when he's flying back he hitting me every time.

Talking about fireballs, once he did it to me 12 times in a row =)
[/spoiler]

Permastuck: In the Red Brinstar shaft, you can get stuck in the first Power Bomb area.  One Super + two refills from cacti = 3, which isn't enough to open the door back or to Power Bombs.  You can't circle back to your ship either, as it's blocked by a yellow door above.

Thanks! Yeah, I will fix that. It works normally in Crazy, but in Nightmare there are just not enough ammo to escape or proceed.

[Peteza34]

Yeah the ram attack can be evaded.... I had to heavily abuse the rewind feature to be able to evade most of the attacks lol.

[Quietus]

Permastuck: In the Red Brinstar shaft, you can get stuck in the first Power Bomb area.  One Super + two refills from cacti = 3, which isn't enough to open the door back or to Power Bombs.  You can't circle back to your ship either, as it's blocked by a yellow door above.

Thanks! Yeah, I will fix that. It works normally in Crazy, but in Nightmare there are just not enough ammo to escape or proceed.

The easiest solution would be to just remove the door cap from the door you enter through.  It'd mean you can't progress, but can always just go back.

[JAM]

The easiest solution would be to just remove the door cap from the door you enter through.  It'd mean you can't progress, but can always just go back.

Yeah. I was planning to do that. Looks like there are more places where you can't progress because of green doors and lack of Super Missile pickups. I will try to fix this (mainly by exchanging green and orange (sometimes pink) doors) and post version 1.12 patch tomorrow.
EDIT: Done. Can't sleep before did it, LOL.
Version 1.12 is out. Check the first post

Yeah the ram attack can be evaded.... I had to heavily abuse the rewind feature to be able to evade most of the attacks lol.

Actually, I can hit Ridley 125 times without rewinding the game. Event without saves, but for 1 time of 20 or so.

[Peteza34]

Ok cool I got past that part and got my power bombs.  Did you intend for the power bomb doors to take 11 bombs to open?  Also I noticed you changed the energy refills from 10 and 2 to 5 and 1 lol.

Edit: Er 10 bombs not 11.
I wouldn't have the patience to restart the game 20 times(though it would probably take me more like 40), thats why I abuse the rewind and save states.

[JAM]

Ok cool I got past that part and got my power bombs.  Did you intend for the power bomb doors to take 11 bombs to open?  Also I noticed you changed the energy refills from 10 and 2 to 5 and 1 lol.

Edit: Er 10 bombs not 11.

Actullally, it's a variable value that depending on distance from the center of explosion. The more time door is damaged by blast, the sooner it will open. If lay all Power Bombs just in front of door, you'll need 5 Power Bombs to open orange door =) If lay all Power Bombs in distance of 1 screen from the door when the blast will just touch it, then you'll need up to 56 Power Bombs to open the door =)

[Peteza34]

And... finished!

8:44 100%

To be honest, the only really hard parts were ceres station and tourian.  Ridley was a little difficult too because of the massive amount of HP he had I guess, but overall this hack didn't really live up to its name.  I'd say the hack was more tedious than it was difficult... I had to go through Tourian about 8 times and keep running back to my ship to refill missiles and super missiles.  Well anyway, thanks for the hack... I enjoyed it.

[JAM]

Thanks for playing =) I glad that you liked it. In nearby future I'll made a little tweaks. Now I just need to complete the hack by myself, LOL.

EDIT: I did version 1.13 with minor changes. Please, use it instead of 1.12.

Version 1.14 may become final.

[spoiler=What is planned]
•Full compatability with Golden Torizo code
•Ceres event improvement
•Metroid damage improvement
•Tweak of ending scene dependance on game time. Looks like, 15 hours is too much for the best ending
[/spoiler]