TTYD Plane Flight Optimizer

Given a ramdump at the start of a plane flight, attempt to find an optimal set of inputs which will reach the destination as quickly as possible.

About

One of the most uncertain areas in terms of optimization is plane flights in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Such theories as flying along a brachistochrone have been presented, but with limited understanding of the physics engine, they were left without any certainty to back them up. This project aims to determine the optimal flight path (and sequence of inputs to achieve that path) via a genetic algorithm (GA) using the GAUL library. This relies upon a decompilation of the game's flyMain function, which is ultimately responsible for the plane physics calculations.

The genetic algorithm, in brief, will construct a pool of (random) possible controller input strings (the population, in GA lingo). Then, we will run the reverse-engineered physics simulation on each of the initial input strings. Based on the results of the simulation, we measure how long each one of those input strings takes to get to the target. Those input strings that perform well are then mutated and crossed to produce new inputs based on known-good inputs, and these new candidates are used to build the next pool of possible input strings. This process is repeated until the algorithm has devised an optimal input string to quickly fly to the target.

How to Run

1. Use Debug Dolphin Emulator to dump the game's RAM at the start of a plane flight.
   • Go to your Dolphin folder in Command Prompt and run the following: Dolphin.exe -d
   • Boot up the game
   • After the plane flight starting animation finishes, pause the game
   • Click View and toggle Memory
   • Go to the Memory window
   • Click Dump MRAM
2. Run the following command using Python 3.7 or later:

   ./export_player.py --ram A.raw --landingX B --landingY C --platformX D \
   --interferenceX1 E --interferenceX2 F --interferenceY G > playerdats/H.dat
   

   For the above command:
   • A is the filename of your RAM dump from step 1
   • B and C are the respective x and y float coordinate values of your desired landing position (can be approximate)
   • D is the x-axis edge of the takeoff platform (certain plane physics change once past this x-axis edge)
   • E, F, and G are only required when there is an interfering piece of collision in the middle of your flight, in which case E and F are x-axis coordinate values and G is a y-axis coordinate value, such that you are considered to be colliding with the interfering collision if you are between E and F and below G
   • H is the filename that you would like to use to represent the scenario provided from step 1
3. Edit the Makefile to add another optimization at the bottom. Copy over one of the existing optimization runs (the ones that have ga_main as a dependency) and change it to read in the appropriate player.dat file. Also change the name of the output file to something informative.
4. make <<condition>> to spin up the simulation! It will absolutely work the first time, no segfaults or linker errors. 5(a). Debug the makefile because it didn't work. If you have installed gaul somewhere unusual (like in your home directory), make sure you edit GAUL_BASE to point to this location.
5. To view the progress, use the included plotResults.py script. (Instructions will pop up when you ./plotResults.py on the console.)
6. Modify TTYD-sim-to-inputs.lua to read the generated .txt file, and run this script using Dolphin Lua Core

Constraints and TODO

• This program runs on Linux. MMTrebuchet wishes you luck if you want to cross-compile it for your OS of choice.
• There is no known way to automatically pull the plane panel's x-axis edge from RAM. As a result, the user has to manually deduce what the edge is, which may lead to inaccurate physics calculations. A better understanding of the game's collision system is required to pull this information automatically.