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MvC2 System

Introduction to Programmable Controllers

This article is a crash-course on programmable controllers (mainly ASCII V Pad Pro). It'll explain how they work, their limitations and their abilities. This article is fairly indepth and it'll discuss the basics of a programmble controller.

How Program Pads Work

What you can do with a program pad:

Save time by having difficult and simple sequences come out all the time
Fastest possible mashing
Establish and reproduce accurate spacing
Test an idea out to its limits
Loop sequences for infinites
Allow a higher understanding of the game due to the nature of the program pad

What you can't do with a program pad:

Random mashing. Some things are genuinely random and can't be controlled.
Work with new age games that require analog sticks
Eliminate all randomness from the game. Certain things in the game random 100% of the time: supers, slow down, and mashing throws.

The three main functions of the programmable controller are:

Programming something 1 frame at a time from scratch
Having the program pad record your manual inputs, going back and editing them frame-by-frame
Setting buttons to mash 4 different ways at various speeds: Turbo, Auto-Fire, Hold-Turbo, and Hold

You get much better results if you program something frame-by-frame, however you'll run into problems like the combo not working. This is explained in another article, but I suggest reading the rest of this one to get a general idea of how they work. When you're inputting 1 command you're inputting the button/direction and its length. So for example, d+lp would be set as down+lp for 001-255 frames. The ppad can register the bare minimum of inputs for multi-input moves, for example a fireball would be 3 commands. The game can take very 'robotic' inputs, that is to say that a super-jump could be down one frame, and up the very next -- meaning it requires no neutral frame in between.

There are times when inputting something for yourself and tweaking it can be better. For instance, if you're trying to find a general timing to a move and don't want to wait, you'd just input the move and wait, then input something else when it happens. That way, when you go back to edit the sequence, you can see a big pause where you waited. However, when it comes to complicated and technical stuff, this isn't very useful.

The turbo options aren't that useful, however, they're really well done. If you need to find a mashing pattern or rhythm, chances are you'l accomplish it. They're also useful when you set someone to do one attack once every 3 seconds because you're testing out unfly.

Button Layout of ASCII Pad V Pro

from the instruction manual

Like all PS1 controllers, it has the same D-Pad, face buttons (Square, Triangle, X, Circle), shoulder buttons (L1, L2, R1, R2), Start button and Select button. There are five extra buttons used to perform programming functions and an LCD screen to display script details, info about where scripts are stored, which buttons are in rapid-fire mode, etc.

The button labeled "1" to the bottom right of the D-Pad and the button labeled "2" to the bottom left of the attack buttons are used to initiate programmed scripts. It's possible to store up to sixteen scripts at the same time - two per attack/shoulder button. Basically you can assign scripts to each of the following combinations: 1+Square, 1+Triangle, 1+X, 1+Circle, 1+L1, 1+L2, 1+R1, 1+R2, 2+Square, 2+Triangle, 2+X, 2+Circle, 2+L1, 2+L2, 2+R1, 2+R2

The three buttons at the bottom control the programming and turbo aspects of the program pad. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to call the left button "Turbo," the middle button "Menu," and the right button "Program."

Programming a Sequence from Scratch

1) Press the Menu button.
2) Press the Program button twice.
3) Select the sequence trigger by pressing either 1 or 2 along with any attack button.
4) Press the Program button.
5) Press the Program button twice, press Right four times, press the Program button.
6a) Press the Program button.
6b) Enter your desired D-Pad/button combination.
6c) Press the Program button.
6d) Use the D-Pad to select the duration of the combination - Left/Right to increment by 1 frame, Up/Down by 10 frames.
6e) Press the Program button.
6f) Repeat step 6 until the entire sequence has been entered.
7) Press the Program button twice, press Right four times, press the Program button.
8) Press the Menu button.

Press the sequence trigger (using 1 or 2 along with the appropriate attack button) to run the list of commands. To cancel a sequence, press either 1 or 2 along with any attack button. This is useful if something goes wrong and you don't want to sit through the remaining actions. For example, sometimes one-frame links will fail to combo due to unlucky frame-skipping if the game is running on turbo speeds.

Start and Select can be used within command sequences, but not as sequence triggers.

Steps 5 and 7 add five frames of inactivity to the beginning and the end of the sequence. This may not be necessary for all games, but i always throw them in there to be safe. Sometimes the ppad screws up the very first action in a sequence.

Editing an Action within a Sequence

1) Press the Menu button.
2) Press the Program button twice.
3) Select the sequence trigger using 1 or 2 along with the appropriate attack button.
4) Press the Program button.
5a) Use the D-Pad to find the action you'd like to change - Left/Right to increment by 1, Up/Down by 10.
5b) Press the Program button.
5c) Enter your desired D-Pad/button combination.
5d) Press the Program button.
5e) Use the D-Pad to change the duration of the combination - Left/Right to increment by 1 frame, Up/Down by 10
frames.
5f) Press the Program button.
5g) Repeat step 5 for each combination that needs changing.
6) Press the Menu button.

Inserting an Action into a Sequence

1) Press the Menu button.
2) Press the Program button twice.
3) Select the sequence trigger using 1 or 2 along with the appropriate attack button.
4) Press the Program button.
5a) Use the D-Pad to find the position where you'd like to insert an action - Left/Right to increment by 1, Up/Down by 10.
5b) Press the Turbo button.
5c) Press the Program button twice.
5d) Enter your desired D-Pad/button combination.
5e) Press the Program button.
5f) Use the D-Pad to change the duration of the combination - Left/Right to increment by 1 frame, Up/Down by 10 frames.
5g) Press the Program button.
5h) Repeat step 5 for each combination to be inserted.
6) Press the Menu button.

The selected action and every action thereafter will be pushed back by one position to make room.

Deleting an Action from a Sequence

1) Press the Menu button.
2) Press the Program button twice.
3) Select the sequence trigger using 1 or 2 along with the appropriate attack button.
4) Press the Program button.
5a) Use the D-Pad to find the action you'd like to delete - Left/Right to increment by 1, Up/Down by 10.
5b) Press the Turbo button.
5c) Press press Down on the D-Pad.
5d) Press the Program button.
5e) Repeat step 5 for each combination to be deleted.
6) Press the Menu button.

Deleting an Entire Sequence

1) Press the Menu button.
2) Press the Program button.
3) Press Right on the D-Pad.
4) Press the Program button.
5) Select the sequence trigger using 1 or 2 along with the appropriate attack button.
6) Press the Program button.
7) Press the Menu button.

It's also possible to delete an entire sequence by individually deleting every action it contains.

Activating and Deactivating Rapid-Fire Buttons

1) Press the Menu button.
2) Press the Turbo button.
3) Press Down on the D-Pad to select "Turbo" on the LCD screen.
4) Toggle rapid-fire functionality by pressing the desired attack button.
5) Press the Menu button.

A capital "T" should appear in the top right corner of each rapid-fire button on the LCD screen.

Enabling and Disabling Rapid-Fire Mode

1) Press the Turbo button to enable rapid-fire mode.
2) Hold any activated button to engage rapid-firing of that attack.
3) Press the Turbo button once or press the Menu button twice to disable rapid-fire mode.

The word "ON" should appear on the left side of the LCD screen while rapid-fire mode is active.

Conclusion

That's it for the basic aspects of the programmable controller, there are much more complicated things that can come up when dealing with them. It is my opinion that you should look into getting a programmable controller only if you're interested in exploring a game much further than human limitations allow. There is no point (in my opinion) to have a programmable controller unless you're going to do something that only a ppad can do. There are a lot of complications with programmable pads, but after overcoming them, the ppads nature will seem simple; it'll be the game that is much more complicated than once thought. Programmable controllers tend to make a game seem much more complicated than once thought since they open up every tiny aspect of the game. This makes any game really complicated, moreso when you're programmable controller isn't executing what you programmed into it 100% of the time. This was the biggest problem with using program pads before; they wouldn't output the same result 100% of the time. This made certain combos and situations pratcially impossible since the frame skipping cycle was offsetting what the programmable controller was outputting. That's the biggest reason people with program pads used gameharks/game genies to record their combos/situations on stages. If not, the win/loss counter is usually 50+! Recently, joo found a way to make the programmable controller execute something 100% of the time. This technique has to do with MvC2's frame skipping and the programmable controller's perfect output. This article explains the skipping and how MvC2 works when displaying frames.

Enormous Thanks to Majestros for letting me use (more like copy paste) his information