Alien: Isolation

2015-02-12 09:20:53 pm

Saturnine: congrats on the new WR of 3:16!

In mission 2's "distract the looters" room where you'd normally turn off the generator and climb under the floor, it is actually 20+ seconds faster to throw a flare to the right side of the room (into the far doorway on the right that you'd enter to get to the generator console) and then crouchwalk/moonwalk left - directly through the middle of the room where the humans start. Whether 20+ seconds is worth use of a flare this early in the game remains to be seen, but FYI.

Saturnine

Edit history:

Saturnine: 2015-03-01 11:04:18 am

Saturnine: 2015-03-01 11:03:59 am

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:26:38 pm

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:26:12 pm

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:25:47 pm

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:24:47 pm

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:24:11 pm

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:24:05 pm

Saturnine: 2015-02-28 10:23:02 pm

2015-02-28 10:15:01 pm

So there's been several developments since the last post here!

A couple of weeks ago, runner PsychoHypnotic discovered a pair of techniques, which have been subsequently named PsychoHopping and PsychoRunning. The two techniques involve mashing crouch while running. PsychoHopping works as follows. While running, keep the run key held, and at a certain, consistent cadence of taps, press the crouch key. Done properly, this can result in you running very slightly faster, which saves a notable amount of time over the course of a run. However, done improperly, you can lose time, so if you do PsychoHop, be sure to spend a good chunk of time practicing it and making sure you're actually moving more quickly when doing it.

Psychorunning is the same thing - except it's combined with moonwalking. As we've known for a while - holding forward and to the right allows you to walk in complete silence. If you run while doing this, Amanda skips every other step while running, allowing you to run slightly more quietly. If you tap crouch (at almost any speed - you can tap quite slowly or quite quickly, though tapping too quickly may cause you to slow down) while running forward and to the right causes you to run silently.

This obviously has huge implications throughout the run, and has dramatically changed the way running this game has gone as of late. The problem with PsychoRunning however, is that when making sharp turns, ripley will take a step or two even if doing the technique correctly, and too many steps will often attract the alien. Turning to the left seems to make this problem worse, presumably because Ripley starts to run more directly forward while making left turns. Taking right turns is almost no problem though, and can be done with ease. One solution is to stop psychorunning at left turns, and just turn manually while walking or crouching. The other solution is to just take wider left turns, and slide along walls and obstacles where helpful or necessary. Both options have their up and downsides.

The day Psycho revealed his new movement techniques, he achieved a time of 3:08:49, beating the previous world record by ~4 minutes. Since then, everyone's been in a frenzy of attempts trying to get ahead of one another. Just recently, a certain Lite_Z got an absolutely AMAZING time of 3:01:55. I recently caught up a bit with a 3:04:51. Infomastr has recently gotten into the action after achieving a 3:12:39 which is certain to improve in no time. However, with Lite's 3:01, we all have our work cut out for us as we attempt to match that run. Personally, I'm crossing my fingers for another major tech discovery, because damn is that run sexy and going to be a pain to beat. Lite's sum of bests is 3:00:30, which may indicate that the sub 3 could be within reach with the PERFECT run, or with some major new tech. Promising possibilities lie with a recent possible discovery that may make tram cars come early, or may at least allow for a better understanding of how to maximise time spent waiting for said trams.

Do note: PsychoHypnotic's sum of bests is sub 3 hours, HOWEVER, keep in mind that that sum includes a couple of splits that have a dialogue glitch in them that allowed him to skip a massive amount of in-engine cutscene waiting, and we have no idea how that glitch happened as of yet. If you think you know of a way to skip Samuels' dialogue in mission 12, allowing you to begin the puzzle immediately, or how to skip Marlow's dialogue in the Anesadora in mission 15, allowing you to begin a similar puzzle immediately, PLEASE LET US KNOW HOW! It would be a huuuge deal if the dialogue skip were to be figured out - it would shave a few minutes off of all times on those two chapters alone, and may have further use in other parts of the game.

So there's been several developments since the last post here!

A couple of weeks ago, runner PsychoHypnotic discovered a pair of techniques, which have been subsequently named PsychoHopping and PsychoRunning. The two techniques involve mashing crouch while running. PsychoHopping works as follows. While running, keep the run key held, and at a certain, consistent cadence of taps, press the crouch key. Done properly, this can result in you running very slightly faster, which saves a notable amount of time over the course of a run. However, done improperly, you can lose time, so if you do PsychoHop, be sure to spend a good chunk of time practicing it and making sure you're actually moving more quickly when doing it.

Psychorunning is the same thing - except it's combined with moonwalking. As we've known for a while - holding forward and to the right allows you to walk in complete silence. If you run while doing this, Amanda skips every other step while running, allowing you to run slightly more quietly. If you tap crouch (at almost any speed - you can tap quite slowly or quite quickly, though tapping too quickly may cause you to slow down) while running forward and to the right causes you to [i]run silently[/i].

This obviously has huge implications throughout the run, and has dramatically changed the way running this game has gone as of late. The problem with PsychoRunning however, is that when making sharp turns, ripley will take a step or two even if doing the technique correctly, and too many steps will often attract the alien. Turning to the left seems to make this problem worse, presumably because Ripley starts to run more directly forward while making left turns. Taking right turns is almost no problem though, and can be done with ease. One solution is to stop psychorunning at left turns, and just turn manually while walking or crouching. The other solution is to just take wider left turns, and slide along walls and obstacles where helpful or necessary. Both options have their up and downsides.

The day Psycho revealed his new movement techniques, he achieved a time of [url=http://www.twitch.tv/psychohypnotic/c/6147745]3:08:49[/url], beating the previous world record by ~4 minutes. Since then, everyone's been in a frenzy of attempts trying to get ahead of one another. Just recently, a certain Lite_Z got an absolutely AMAZING time of [url=http://www.twitch.tv/lite_z/c/6216247]3:01:55[/url]. I recently caught up a bit with a [url=http://www.twitch.tv/saturnine/c/6221896]3:04:51[/url]. Infomastr has recently gotten into the action after achieving a [url=http://www.twitch.tv/infomastr/c/6200934]3:12:39[/url] which is certain to improve in no time. However, with Lite's 3:01, we [i]all[/i] have our work cut out for us as we attempt to match that run. Personally, I'm crossing my fingers for another major tech discovery, because damn is that run sexy and going to be a pain to beat. Lite's sum of bests is 3:00:30, which may indicate that the sub 3 could be within reach with the [b][i]PERFECT[/i][/b] run, or with some major new tech. Promising possibilities lie with a recent possible discovery that may make tram cars come early, or may at least allow for a better understanding of how to maximise time spent waiting for said trams.

Do note: PsychoHypnotic's sum of bests is sub 3 hours, HOWEVER, keep in mind that that sum includes a couple of splits that have a dialogue glitch in them that allowed him to skip a massive amount of in-engine cutscene waiting, and we have no idea how that glitch happened as of yet. If you think you know of a way to skip Samuels' dialogue in mission 12, allowing you to begin the puzzle immediately, or how to skip Marlow's dialogue in the Anesadora in mission 15, allowing you to begin a similar puzzle immediately, PLEASE LET US KNOW HOW! It would be a huuuge deal if the dialogue skip were to be figured out - it would shave a few minutes off of all times on those two chapters alone, and may have further use in other parts of the game.

Saturnine

2015-03-07 03:17:52 pm

Apologies for the double post, but some news.

Infomastr, as predicted, caught back up pretty quickly after achieving a 3h04m40s time, and still with loads of potential to improve.

I also just recently got the games' first sub 3 with a time of 2h58m30 and thus getting world record. (For an, in all likelihood, short amount of time considering my luck with records.)

But yeah! Sub 3 is possible, and even plausible with current techniques, which is awesome, and will surely mean that we'll soon see a bevy of sub 3 times pouring in.

Lite

Edit history:

Lite: 2015-03-25 06:16:10 am

2015-03-25 03:34:34 am

Hello everyone interested in this awesome speedrun Smiley

Recently got a new PB and improved WR, 2:53:59. This can be improved but I do not wish to do such a thing atm.. this was my goal for the SGDQ submission. http://www.twitch.tv/lite_z/c/6393779 Uses all the current best strats possible, including twitchy_damage_inc 's mission 7-8 idea/strat! The m16-after space walk sequence human/alien area coulda gone a lot smoother, but if you can manage to come out and blow away the first human with one shotgun shot and then flame the alien, you'll have the best time for that mission. I improvised a little there and lost some time, but not much! Very fun speedrun, I suggest others to pick this up and try and challenge this time as it has a few mistakes early on. The final missions are very strong though, however no fast walk on mission 19.. damn!

AKheon

Edit history:

AKheon: 2015-07-11 10:13:47 am

AKheon: 2015-07-11 10:13:33 am

2015-07-07 06:09:03 am

Glitch advocate

Hey, I have something here that might be an useful new technique?

Basically, if you lean at the same time you examine any of those Plasma / Ion Torch prompts, you can activate a sort of glitched auto-lean. Just normally walking makes you lean all over the place. Unlike normal leaning, you are also able to activate prompts in this mode, therefore it might make it easier to do more of those tricks where you shove Ripley's head through a door crack and activate something from the wrong side? You're the experts, so I hope you find some use for this (if it is indeed a new find).

EDIT:

Saw a Youtube-video where the player gets pushed out of bounds by a dying android. You think this could work for exploits somewhere?

Soliduz Znake

2015-10-15 10:09:32 pm

hey just to let anyone who don't follow on the speedrun Alien Isolation page. I found a glitch that makes the alien disappear entirely except for scripted parts. although I found the glitch, most of the testing were done by Twitchy_damage and others.
more info on how its done in here:
http://www.speedrun.com/ai/thread/eyrxa

Infomastr

2016-09-07 05:59:23 pm

An extremely significant glitch was discovered recently that allows us to clip through doors, walls and other objects. It saves approximately 2 hours from the (now obsolete) any% route by enabling us to skip from Mission 3 to Mission 18 (and then finish the game normally). Explanation: http://www.speedrun.com/ai/thread/z43hm