The game has always been quite a grind anyways, I guess it won't hurt to try it with the 1-Tower red RNG block.

Really, it's one extra level to manipulate for that red block to go there. It sounds like a lot of work, but it's done pretty easily once you get the hang of it.

I've gotten the 1-Tower red block like twice lol. I'll see what I can do. What block movements even produce the red block going to the tower? From retrospect it appears impossible but I know ot can be done.

The box on the right needs to go left twice. Not sure if it will be rta-viable to get that manipulation, but we can try.

It's definitely not marathon safe to even try for the red block on 1-2, but it does happen sometimes.

The thing is, I would actually recommend using Luigi when trying to get the red block to 1-Tower. I'm not sure what the deal is with that, but I seem to get it to appear there a bit more often when I play as the green one :P

Could somebody actually test that out to see if it has any difference?

Yeah I can test that right now.

What about for 100%, is there a known setup to manipulate blue shell for that?

Ok, I'm playing around with TASing it, and I don't think the start time on pushing file 1 or double/triple jumps matter. Granted, I'm new to TASing and I'm running the 100% route, but I'm not getting different results (for example) when I triple jump to get Coin A versus normal jump, or have different delays in terms of picking File 1. @koffingrockz, has this issue been solved since your posts? (Also, is there an NSMB Discord?)

Edit: This is bizarre, I have it TASed to entering 1-2 but occasionally I get blue shell but usually it's 1-up mushroom.

I've tried messing around with it some and I couldn't figure it out really. Hopefully you can figure some things out while TASing.

In that case, the 100% route is completely unrelated to the Any% route because of the 2 wall jumps underground, et cetera (as I suspected). From what I've seen, koffing's statement regarding hitting coin blocks also influences the rng, and since that is the easiest thing to control, (hopefully) today I'm going to pick some (5) events that I control if they happen or not and get the results for what the box gives on 1-2 (if anything).

First box, mushroom+box 2, box before Coin A, triple jumping off the Coin A platform, box before pipe to Coin B. 32 cases, hopefully one of them gives Blue Shell.

Edit: I just started playing around with it and switching the time start to 00:00:01.000 on January 1 2017 gives me blue shell. Guess there's that!

Do normal jumps affect rng?

Only double and triple jumps from what I remember. But we still don't fully understand the RNG manip.

also btw just an update to a prev comment in the forum, me and walrus have TAS cycle with shell consistient enough that most of the time shell in 1-2 is faster than towershell by 2-4 seconds depending on movement rng. never grind towershell, you need 1/18 luck to get it, which would be idiotic to grind for

Earlier today, I’ve been trying to see what factor cause the RNG to change before entering World 1-2 by using RAM Addresses from TASVideos and here's what I have concluded.

The RNG is changed when :

• Reseting the game (turning off your console) [Quitting the game or doing Input Reset doesn’t affect the RNG]
• The intro custcene is running while on the menu
• Selecting Mini-Game
• Starting a New Game (RNG can change +600 times due to the intro cutscene)
• Starting a Level
• Making a Double Jump
• Making a Wall Jump
• Breaking a Block with Big Mario
• Walking and doing Ground Pound with the Giant Mushroom
• Throwing a Koopa Shell (not kicking)
• Changing Screen (going on the underground for example)
• Fireworks

• For some reasons in World 1-2, the RNG change all the time even if you do nothing, but it don't impact the Power-Up in the Red Block because the Power-Up in the Red Block is defined after finishing World 1-1.

So with these results, I don’t think we can be able to Manipulate the RNG for having the Blue Shell 100% of the time because of the number of factors, unless you’re doing my strat with the SaveStates but I hope it will allow people to understand how the RNG works in this game.

Based off research I've done I can confirm that all that is correct. When you start a new game, the RNG changes the exact same amount 100% of the time during the intro cutscene meaning we can actually get a consistent RNG value into 1-1 using starting RNG manipulation which is determined by the date and clock of the DS (maybe more, I'm unsure yet and need to test more). I've done testing and have had some consistent results before but sometimes it stops working for some reason after performed a few times in a row, meaning either I'm failing RNG start manipulation in those situations or there is something deeper I'm missing into how it's determined. Also, I'm positive 1-2 RNG changes with the music, hence the constant changes (not important for this topic though). Keep in mind these results were done by testing on EMU with BIOS and then testing on DS (and finding a good consistent way to start at the correct clock time). I'll probably start researching this again but I've been really on and off. You can see here I was constructing a document to release after finding, or so I thought, 100% consistent methods but I've marked it up to make sure this doesn't confuse anyone to think it's working. It's a good proof of concept though! (also not 100% sure if the clock RNG starting manip is down to the second or tenth of a second or etc.)

"Tutorial": https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_gf5lDwgHIlsz_B5hK6EtrQC8ePyHtRZtLymEOe-Ck/edit?usp=sharing

My RNG notes that I jotted down all through testing, some may be out of date but a quick overview seems to be all correct: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sH_2IEJ4Bhp6alBahmK3YWf8ezItcT2gL7jPAFcuIV0/edit?usp=sharing

Oh also, can confirm the setups are consistent even if they do stop working. When they don't give the blue shell they consistently give another item and I keep changing the starting time till I find one that works again but after a few times, sometimes much more, it just changes the item it's giving (human error on OG DS doesn't help me 110% confirm this but I'm positive this is correct).

Im gonna begin RNG testing, I have a VC, EMU, and OG console copy of the game, so I will be going to be looking for everything. Im no goddamn genius, and im a shite speedrunner, but I can TAS for my life. If I find this shit, I will learn and go for fast 8-2 in runs. sub 8:05 pace out of w5 is free with rng manip.

also I might know why your rng manip isnt working zach but Id need to see footy of you playing to confirm

ok through some testing Ive determined that rng changes by date/time roughly every 0.3-0.5 seconds, So I just need to find a window that works, this is nice progress. My current setup is manipulating warpless luck, so I need to just mess around with the date/time

wait I just realized If I ever get fast 8-2 3rd try or better, And finish the split, Ill have a 22 SOB. thats fucking nuts