It's interesting, but I originally thought it tracked your top 10 fish, but I found soon as I entered ANY value in 014C I was always in the top rank for the class. Even if I had caught zero fish.

I couldn't find the exact place in memory where it basically rolls the other competitors' weight totals to compare yours against, but it seems like a static number modified slightly by what frame you confirm to end a day on.

I got the above by initially setting all the fish to 75% max weight catchable for the lake and incrementing the weight of one fish .1lbs at a time (not going over the max for the lake). I found that I /could/ start winning at about 16lbs/32.5lbs/60.5lbs total for each respective class, but odds were a coin toss as best. Anything lower and I wasn't finding any frame windows I won or got promoted.

The above total weights I was not finding any frame windows where I didn't win or get promoted. going .1lbs total below there started being a small window where I wouldn't get 1st or promoted.

I have a feeling the game checks the ROM for the other fishers' base weigh-ins and does a little RNG dance to add to their totals. It does all this without showing it so it's a lot harder to figure out, but it's how the other hot-b fishing games work and they do show it there (EG: Super Black Bass).

Been digging through the memory to figure out what the game uses to determine ranking. It checks the total weight of your five largest catches (memory 0147-014B). This determines your ranking, mixed with some frame-based RNG.

Lake Amada (Class C) 
 Target Bass Weight: 2.1lbs - 4.0lbs (small solid shadow). 
 17lbs total of top five fish is your ideal goal. 
 0.1-0.2lbs less can still win but odds are worse the lower you go.
 Largest Fish Size doesn't matter.

You'll need an average weight of 3.4lbs for your top five bass to cement a promotion with 17lbs total.

Lake Japan (Class B) 
 Target Bass Weight: 4.1lbs - 8lbs (2nd to largest shadow with "holes" in fins)
 34lbs total of top five fish is your ideal goal.
 Again a bit less can still win but odds improve to lose as you go lower.

You'll need an average of 6.8lbs per fish for your top five bass to ensure you advance to Class A.

Lake More (Class A) 
 Bass Weight 8.1lbs - 16lbs (Largest shadow) 
 62lbs total of top five fish is your ideal goal.
 It was possible to win as low as 60lbs, seemed close to a 50% chance.

You'll need an average of 12.4lbs per fish for your top five bass. If you're above 12lbs average and feeling lucky you do have a chance to win with that.

Shocking, I know, but there's actually not a lot out there for this game in specific. But, I found some more detailed info from the Gameboy game which was also dev'd by Hot-B and seems to line up with what little info the NES manual offers, so hopefully it's accurate (enough) here too:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gameboy/581674-black-bass-lure-fishing/faqs/63610

-----------
Lure Colors
-----------
        Along with choosing the type of lure to use when going fishing, you may
also choose between lure 'color', with red, blue and silver the available
options. The following are the optimal conditions for each color type.

        Red
        ---
        Rainy/Cloudy Days
        Very Shallow or Deep Waters
        Early Morning or Late Afternoon


        Blue
        ----
        Clear or Cloudy Days
        Middle Depths
        1:00pm - 3:00pm

        Silver
        ------
        Clear Days
        Shallow to Middle Depths
        Early Morning or Late Afternoon

Ultimately I'm not entirely sure color /actually/ matters in the NES version.

The manual suggests that the bass tend for deeper waters midday. For the first lake this doesn't matter but has anyone experimented with deeper lures in the other three lakes?

Spinner and Worm are the "sink" lures that are used for deeper fishing. Manual instructs "during the daytime" ie: Not morning or evening to use Sink Lures.

Popper, Frog, and Pencil are all float lures for morning/evening use.

All of the lures work well with the "Left, Right, Up/A, repeat" movement method. (According to the manual again). Worm can "dance" at depth with Up/A.

I was reviewing the manual trying to find any insights on lures or whatnot and at the back almost they have a tip to use the name HBMAX. What it does is change the depth meter's function for fishing and fighting.

Fishing it increases to display the efficacy of your fishing technique and it's attractiveness to the fish - instead of depth of the lure.

Fighting it increases to show the strain on your line while reeling. Sounds normal up to 10, and line breaks seems like maybe the first "tick" ending at/above 12.5.

Ultimately it doesn't really change how the game functions or what fish show up or how easy/hard it is to catch them best I can tell. I'm not sure it'd be super beneficial once the game is learned, but it would be helpful for learning how to play at least - having a numerical queue on how you're handling the lure as well as one to help gauge when you'd lose the lure.

I personally don't see why it would be disallowed. I doesn't seem to give an unfair advantage over someone who's practiced and wouldn't need the visual guides anyway.

I'm planning to do some more runs with it to see if it affects ranking or whatnot too, but the manual never claims to do anything other than change the functionality of the depth meter.

(Moved this from guides as I'm not 100% confident I have this correct yet.)

I spent most of a day running trial and error for certain times and frame windows for the several potential time-saving ? options for travel: Hillsfar - Rock Quarry, Big Tree - Hillsfar, Hermit's Place - Hillsfar, Ruins - Hillsfar, and Rock Quarry - Hillsfar.

Of these only three actually had the potential to work in favor of the run (Cleric route): Big Tree-Hillsfar, Hillsfar - Rock Quarry, and Rock-Quarry - Hillsfar.

Where you end up seems to be linked partially on the time of day in-game it is, but it's more specifically to a window of frames since frame 129 after a reset or power-on. Every 8967 active frames game time advances to the next hour. A handful of frames can be lost from events like a thief approaching you for a job in Hillsfar.

I initially tried each one based on the time of day, 1 - 12 (AM/PM didn't seem to matter). This gets obscured somewhat from resting, as the destination of the ? paths still seem to be consistent with what time it WOULD be if you hadn't rested opposed to what time it IS since you've rested. The run's short enough that if you never rested it'd be between 12-1am in game.

What's great is the return route from the Quarry to Hillsfar only works at 11 and 1. That lines up nicely to when it's usually possible to get TO the quarry with the quest. The hope is to leave the quarry inside of one of those two 8967 frame windows, which could be as much as 1000 frames delayed depending on progression and events. That's mostly why it felt like it was 50/50 when I was initially testing this return trip with save states, I had the state saved right on the border of these frame windows.

The game starts at 2pm. So your windows (Frame-wise) for a successful trip from Rock Quarry to Hillsfar are frames 80833-89799 and 98767-107733 (again these will be affected by dead frames). My 30:34 run exits the quarry at 102973, comfortably in the latter window, so I got the trip back to Hillsfar.

Similarly, you have three windows (or one large window) to get to the Quarry from Hillsfar on the 1st of the ? options between frames 80833 and 107733. My 30:34 run left 88831.

The shortcut I didn't use in my run that was the only viable one for Cleric I found was Big Tree - Hillsfar. This one works (relevant to the run) from 2-4 or frames 130-27030. This is a time save of almost 2300 frames, or a bit over 38 seconds, from going to the trading post then Hillsfar, assuming no falls on the treck to the trading post. This is using the three inputs ? path. My 30:34 could've used this as it left the big tree at 12120, well under 27030.

A concern I had was using the Big Tree - Hillsfar shortcut might cause the trip to the quarry to be too soon to work, or worse put the return trip at risk. It might be possible it could, but it's not likely in most cases I feel.

So, in summary, there are three shortcuts to use:

#1: Big Tree after finding the Acolyte: use the 2nd ? option (three inputs) and it'll take you directly to Hillsfar.

#2: Hillsfar after getting the quest to go to the Rock Quarry: Use the 1st ? option (four inputs) and it'll take you directly to the Rock Quarry.

#3: Rock Quarry after finding out Darhma's hideout is the Haunted Mansion: Mash A-button after leaving the quarry to get into the riding section. It'll take you directly to Hillsfar.

#1 should work 100% of the time so long as you exit the tree before frame 27030.

#2 should work if you leave Hillsfar between frames 80833 and 107733. A little later might work depending on how many dead frames (where the internal clock doesn't tick) you had during the run.

#3 should work if you leave the Quarry between frames 80833 and 89799 OR between 98767 and 107733.

If you're not on emulator (Everdrive/etc or actual cart) if you're loading a character to ride about as quickly as you can generally you'll start at about frame 1900-2000. 8967 frames is 2:29.45.

The Hillsfar-Quarry window is approximately 21:53.89 - 29:22.22

The Quarry to Hillsfar windows are 21:53.89-24:23.32 and 26:52.78-29:22.22.

GG! with no rings too? That's amazing!

Fair enough, it also doesn't reference saving a party name to load up your six characters a bit faster. Much less of a notable issue with a 5+ hours run. For win% it saves at least a full second the few times I was trying it out (for a party of three).

It doesn't say specifically, but should be freshly made characters only (pre-created is fine, but still Level 1, 300g, 0xp, and no items). Maybe encourage, but not require given it'd be new, showing the party after a successful run?

Also, is a pre-saved party allowed? I'd assume it'd be better to say 'nay' given none of the current runs are using that option to save a bit of time when loading up the party, perhaps should be noted in the rules to clarify though.

re: Hard Reset- mesen it's clear (on my version at least) that it's a hard reset because it'll have a few frames of green after resetting (rather than just black with soft reset). FCEUX shows Power On instead of Reset. Hopefully other emulators have similar tells?

Or is there a way to "Soft" reset the game from within the game (and thus this rule is referring to not using that)?

Given showing a reset and stats rolling isn't required for the runs is there any reason to disallow save state starts? It does provide a potentially unfair advantage vs. hardware runners who can't save state start, but it doesn't do much other than open the game a bit more by letting folks skip the initial RNG gatekeeper of waiting for 500+ stat points... and THEN praying that run can be a run at all >_>

I bring it up as it's not expressly disallowed, but perhaps it should be clarified for or against in the rules?

After trying to get and use save-stated stats:

Seems that the 1st turn RNG, at least for events, gets locked in when you lock in the IQ stat. I had a state earlier that had 528 stats but even waiting up to 10 seconds I was stuck locked into Fief 15 getting hit by the plague. Turn order and such also seems to be pretty static as does NPC actions. After turn 1 though anything can happen again.

And I just got it!

Anyone else struggling - Hold the Jump button as you're falling onto the ladder then you can just press right on d-pad to break the boulder.

I've been trying D-pad inputs with jump like the initial block by the dragon but I've yet to once get this block to break. Any tips or advice one is supposed to get it to break?

Lost almost a full minute forgetting Malor coords alone.

Excellent, thanks for the info! Also, you can run?! Thanks for the tip there too! :D

Are the jumps over the vents just frame perfect? Or is there some setup to make them work I'm missing just watching the runs?

Also there seems to be a trick to more or less ignoring the zappy tomato that I'm missing too. Granted I still have to hit all the switches not being able to jump them yet, I still spend a lot of time dodging it.

I overlooked my ROM being the prototype too >_> Thanks for catching that Ryu~ At least I have a run ready if you do make a new category, but I'm not sure how essential it'd be. I guess I'll find out today ;) Gotta get a run done with the right game this time!

Right off the bat: The prototype version has significantly more limited paddle response in regards to the angles the ball can be bounced at relative to the PAL release. It does seem a bit slower, and is running 50FPS.

Apologies! I didn't notice that on the ROM.

I'd be down to add more categories, sure.

Would you mind detailing a few more specifically with rules/goals for me to work from?

___edit 1

So I'll figure out how to add the cat and sub cats, but yeah Time Trial Mode A is with other cars. Probably should default to one lap and 60 points and have a individual level for each country.

___edit 2

Bleh. They don't make this easy. Added an individual level for each track and mode, assuming 1P, 1L(ap), and 60PTS as defaults for the other settings. I wanted to make it a "level category" one for each mode, but I can't assign individual levels to a specific level category. Trying it as variables was just ending up looking bad and was more a pain. ILs only show the top three sadly, but unless someone's better at wrangling SRC's categories I'm good with it this way.

___edit 3

I'm trying to change the board to include MS but I keep getting an "Invalid URL" error when I try to save that setting =_=... I guess just make sure your actual time is in the comments and I'll see about fixing that if I can ever save the MS setting. I've been rounding .40/.20 down and .60/.80 up.

___Edit 4

They fixed it so I could save the settings and allow milliseconds.

If you're truly worried about it, people can be asked to capture their settings live before runs to confirm it's disabled (set to zero). Took me a good few mins to even find the setting >_> But yeah, would take a few secs before any given run/set of runs to show the emulation settings are set to default.

Having to do it before every run would 100% be tedious - but ultimately if one were truly concerned it was in effect, they could simply load the rom in the same version of Mesen and play a sequence with each setting on it for frame by frame comparisons if needed.

Does this affect the input display option in Mesen? Could one tell if this run-ahead was not zero based on that?

Ultimately, seems like y'all want to just avoid potential drama happening here rather than keep a viable emulator available to runners. I mean, it's kinda silly that existing Mesen runs are okay, but new ones are expected to include cheaters because it's a problem in some games. Cheaters will find another way to cheat.

Here's probably the best compromise I can devise: Have the settings be shown AFTER a run. PB? Show your settings. WR? Definitely show your settings. People will still figure out how to cheat even this if they're determined to cheat, but would be less of a PITA than showing settings before every run.

If you have to be super particular - have them switch to "display capture" then showing the menus on the emulator the run shows completed in, you can see them open the emulation settings in the emulator window.

Again, all this seems to be putting superficial hoops up for honest runners to jump through that a cheater will still figure a way around.

I've gotten Megaropolis ~5 times on map 802.

It's definitely not the BEST map by far, but it's VT's area code, so I've kinda adopted it and learned how to work it.

777 really has an advantage for speedrunning almost all the other categories (based on the less than 20 total maps I've seen/used) Honestly, I haven't been able to Megaropolis 777 yet though. It's harder to manage it's land value and growth at full-map scale to improve population. Also keep having random-ish power bugs/outages a lot (on all maps granted, but really hurts when you don't have real estate for more plants).