Guaranteed sub-strings

Since there is a lot of technical talk in this post I want to ask something, but it might belong in a new thread, so mods feel free to create if you feel necessary.

My question is this, and it dates back to VF3, possibly VF1 & VF2 also:

For example, Jacky's PP6PK in VF3 was not a 4-hit combo as the elbow was blockable. BUT, if the first punch didn't connect, the following P6PK would connect as a combo. I'm not sure if this situation even has a name in the VF world, but to my knowledge it happened with any character that had a circumstance like Jacky's.

Another example that comes to mind is Shun's PP2KK. The same applies here, that in itself is not a combo, but if the first punch doesn't connect, you end up with a three-hit combo. There is actually a great situation to use this in VF5. It is after successfully landing Shun's BT P+G. Almost without fail people will tech-roll when they land from the throw, and if you dash forward with Shun and go right into PP2KK the distance created always makes the first punch whiff, and with high success you will get the second punch to connect, followed by the 2KK.

Anyone know why this happens?

 

This might be it's own idiosyncratic mechanism not present in all techniques. The system may read which of the attacks have hit already and which have not, and may allow certain strings to be a natural combo depending upon the circumstances. I guess the determining factor could be whether or not a technique lands during hit stun.

The opposite may also hold true. I'm not sure if Sarah gets a canned string to land if Flamingo lands as a counter hit, but since it's a two-in-one technique, if she does, you would think that the hit stun generated by the second hit would cancel the effects of the first kick, no? I'm not sure if you play Tekken, but Hwoarang gets a free launch with LFS f+3,3 and RFS f+4,4 if the first part lands on a counter hit, even though the first part is a two-in-one technique. I mention this just to show that the concept exists somewhere in case the Sarah example doesn't work.

In the examples you gave, if hit stun is already present when the second technique lands, then nothing else will combo. With the example I gave, the system reads whether or not the first technique lands without (necessarily) regarding the second in determining whether a third technique will combo.

Again, I think there may be isolated instances where certain strings have their own unique properties. Another strange attack property was noted by akai, where jabs in Final Showdown have two active frames. The frame which lands on an opponent appears to have no bearing on the frames situation afterwards. As an example, if the second frame is the frame to land, the frame advantage will be +2 just as if the first active frame landed. Usually, the later an active frame lands the better the advantage afterwards.

Idiosyncrasies abound in Virtua Fighter.