Item Randomizer hacked

[Phazos: True Phazon deity]

Ok so... I've been playing through the Item Randomizer and was wanting to see what hacks it would work with. so far not many of the ones I have... or that I know of.

Phazon hack does not seem to randomize the items you get. or at least I don't think it does.
Impossible does but it just becomes a pain.
Ice metal works to an extent but you can get stuck slightly.
Legacy, stardust, and Z factor, go to a black screen after the START GAME screen.

So. I want to know. What hacks work with the Item Ranomizer?
Also for the fun of it. Door Randomizer as well.

[MetroidMst]

For the Door Randomizer, probably 0 hacks ever. If it isn't a halfhack that has every single door as the original game, forget it.

Item Randomizer will also most likely have issues with anything other than a halfhack, and especially if a hack has more/less items than the original? I don't quite know how the thing works, but I don't think it would handle that seeing how it was made for the original.

[personitis]

I think the general consensus on mixing item and door randomizers with hacks has been "play at your own risk." With that said, I wouldn't be able to tell you as I haven't tried to do so myself. :neutral:

In addition to what Mst has said, take note that the randomizers edit the original pointers in the game. If there are any newly added PLM/door pointers to the ROM, they won't be touched at all.

[Phazos: True Phazon deity]

Ok. I can understand that. Still would be a bit interesting to see an Item or door randomizer with a hack overlay... might be a bit amusing.

[Lunaria]

Now, what WOULD be nice if someone could work on making tailor made item randomizers for hacks.*nudge nudge* I'm sure some hackers keep notes on their work so it should not be that hard to get the documentation needed.

[Phazos: True Phazon deity]

ooh... that would be nice. Good idea Crys.

[Zhs2]

The real problem would be having a list of valid pointers, both for door locations and door outs on a door randomizer and the PLM room and item lists for an item randomizer. That certainly isn't going to be global for all hacks, especially if the creator is competent!

[Lunaria]

No, obviously you'd have to make a specialised version for every single hack. :p

[Grimlock]

So if I understand correctly this hack just scrambles all the items up?  Wouldn't that just make the game unbeatable under most circumstances?  I can't see playing a game, spending on hour or two to just hit a brick wall... I guess it could be fun to see how hammered the game progression is when the best items are collected 5 minutes into the game, maybe that's the purpose of the hack?

[Smiley]

Actually it's beatable under most circumstances, at least in the case of vanilla SM. The randomizer has most of the permastuck situations ironed out, but I think they're still possible, albeit extremely rare.

[Quietus]

Yeah, it's gone through a number of revisions, and it's not even just the permastucks any more.  There are options to turn off the more laborious stuff, in particular traversing Maridia without the Gravity Suit.

[Jordan5]

And recently they have added an option of greater item randomisation, so you can get an upgrade where an expansion was and vise versa. This could create more permastuck situations again, though.

[Phazos: True Phazon deity]

true enough but if someone were to figure out the over all pathways of some of the hacks. (I.E. Phazon hack) then it would be interesting. Granted it'd take a good load of time to do capped off with a lot of ironing out things. Cause in Phazon hack you don't just have the typical items but you also have Phazon Particles and Artifacts to be picked up which could end up also causing some problems as well.

[Quietus]

As has already been mentioned, for it to work, it'd essentially have to be built from scratch for each hack on an individual basis, since each hack has a different setup, not to mention data of all varieties being repointed here, there, and everywhere.

[Phazos: True Phazon deity]

true enough Quietus. It'd take a good while but IMO would still be interesting to see none the less.

Will it ever happen? Not likely considering...

[Quietus]

Probably not, to be honest.  I suspect that it's a lot of work, since you'd be doing the donkey work from the ground up, and a hack would have to be massively popular to warrant it.

[Aran;Jaeger]

Ok. Actually, I think I would be able to analyse all/most (depending on the hack) "over all pathways" for a given hack, since I do such "sequence break analysis" for a quite long time now, have played almost all hacks (and hence know the general layout of most of them) and I´d estimate having a sufficient knowledge about what can be done within Super Metroid.

So, provided that I get a small list of hacks that have preferably the following properties:
* People are to some extent sure that the technical part of making a randomizer for the given hack would be doable (I am refering to the hacks within which the item-randomizer caused black-screens and similar potential issues, for example)
* At least some people are interested in having an item-randomzer for the given hack (I will not do any kind of door-randomizer analysis though, because I estimate that this would be way too complicated)
* The hack is not too huge/complex (I guess regarding me, that would cut off at least Phazon hack, Redesign and SM Super Zero Mission), but on the other side, the hack should not be too linear, since if the route is too stringent, then it is likely that an item-randomizer would not give a nice variety of routes either
* The hack can be opened with SMILE (makes analysing MUCH more comfortable... (cuts off SM Impossible, for example) )
* The hack is not one of the latest released hacks and the hack is within Metroid Construction´s hack list (means: I´d rather like to analyse a hack that I already know)
(* no/few one-way-doors or "transition-mazes" (like for example in SM So Little Time (do not take this as me saying this hack would be bad, since provided one has a video-guide for it, the hack can be fun) ), and I´d prefer a halfhack (reason: layout), but it does not have to be one, and...  ?)

I could write down a list of item-combinations for all/most obstacles within paths in the given hack that would suffice to be able to get from A to B (A and B positions within a room, or two rooms...) and put it somewhere here.
Also, I would need quite some time to do something like that (depending on the hack, too), since I am working on other SM related projects already, so if someone wants to have such a thing "quickly", then I guess I cannot help (and, the more the physic of the given hack differs from SM physic, the longer will it probably take, depending on how big the differences are, since then I cannot apply the knowledge that I already have and would have to test things...).

I would also need to know
* Parameters of the ruleset that corresponds to the analysis (Is out of bounds, GT-code, SpaceTime-beam,... allowed or not?) aswell as the way I judge about if an obstacle can be cleared or not ["this and that" is doable with
-TAS (tools such as savestates and slowdown),
-very advanced tricks or details that are not that well-known
- more well-known methods (whatever that means (would need at least a rough definition...)
- ...                                                                                                                                 ]
* how detailed the analysis would have to be (for example: Just saying that with a given item-comb. "this and that" is possible, or give the explicit method that would have to be used...)
* what kind of item-randomizer is wanted (one that only switches major items with major items aswell as minor items/expansions with minor items/expansions, or a randomizer that can mix items from both types (for example: switching a Missile with Gravity) ).

[Important sidenote: It is likely that I forgot to ask about/mention more specific things that would be important and would have to be considered for such an item-randomized-hack.]
Edit: Oh, and it would be nice if there would already exist a map of that hack, otherwise I would have to refer to rooms using their names in SMILE probably...

[Dessyreqt]

The coding for my item randomizer is pretty specific for vanilla SM nowadays, so having it work (and produce completable games) on a hack would be... a surprise. Basically the current one goes straight to the PLMs, gives them an item that will unlock more PLMs, and so on.

The old randomizer just scans an area of data for item PLMs and does a replace; it's much more likely to work on a hack than current randomizer, but major items aren't guaranteed to be swapped around. Also not guaranteed to be beatable.

While we're talking about item randomizer, I'll just leave this here: http://i.imgur.com/vqtEXLY.png

[Quietus]

But, but what if I don't want Morph. :cry:

[Dessyreqt]

You know it's only a 1/3 chance to give you morph, right?

Anyway, source is pretty freely available for the item randomizer, and to make it work with a hack, you should only have to change one file, RomPlms.cs (and I guess the smv11.sfc file). If you happen to write a new version of that file for hacks, I'd be happy to merge it into the current item randomizer.

[Lunaria]

Aran;Jaeger: I could supply you with quite decent information on IM if you care for that one, it's a bit on the large side though. :P

[Aran;Jaeger]

"Super Metroid Ice Metal 1: Uninstall" (I am quite sure you meant this hack with "IM") is a GOOD choice. I like the idea of analysing the overall-pathways of that hack, since it fits into the scheme that I had in mind quite well:
It can be opened with SMILE, I´ve played through that hack (and I remember that I already glitched myself through some obstacles in this hack), there is a map (including the items) of that hack (and I hope there is no missile or something like that missing), the hack is not linear (and provides different routes), and although the hack is relatively big, I think I can handle that, since Ice Metal is not a brutal hack and I´d say it is more on the easier/medium-difficulty side. The physics are (slightly) different, but at least I know that basic moves like IBJ. are still humanly feasible there.

One important question though: Are there different versions of that hack (neglecting the other hack "SM Ice")? Since if "yes", then I would have to know the version that I should investigate. So, if nothing is said about versions, I will simply start doing the version that I have (since I guess there are no other versions of it).
I will write down the corresponding tricks that are used to get from A to B, because after judging if "TAS" could do it, and given the list with all options to get past the obstacles in there, one can still reduce the options afterwards to those that are judged as humanly doable and build the randomizer according to those remaining options, I guess.

[And, Dessyreqt, I do not know to whom you were refering to, so if you meant me, then well, I do not have the knowledge to change those files properly...(but I guess you refered to any person who COULD do that)]

[Lunaria]

There have been various bug fixes, make sure you have the latest version, which is 1.4!

[Phazos: True Phazon deity]

I would ask myself "what have I done?" but to be honest I wouldn't mind an item randomizer of Ice Metal. It was actually one of the first hacks I played through and I LOVED it.

[Aran;Jaeger]

Ah, ok, Crys. But what were those fixes about? I mean: Have there been changes regarding item placements or the rooms´ layouts or physics? Or in other words: Were there changes after 16.09.2012, which seems to be the day I downloaded the patch from Metroid Construction´s list?
Edit: Or how can I see if I have the latest version?