Axiom Verge

Alowishus

Edit history:

Alowishus: 2015-05-25 11:03:32 am

Alowishus: 2015-05-25 09:43:47 am

2015-05-25 09:25:42 am

You can use the trenchcoat to just bypass the Kur boss (though I am sure this is known). I haven't watched runs so I don't know how that fits in to the route. Interestingly you can't exit through the left though you can through the right.

There's a video. Hope its useful, its pretty obvious.

EDIT: I haven't beaten the game yet so I dunno if all bosses need to get killed or not. Just an observation.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-26 01:42:07 am

Pretty neat, but an any% speedrun doesn't go near Gir-Tab.

I was testing the drone zip more and realised that you can zip past multiple rooms, if there is a solid wall blocking entry to the next room. For example, if your zip takes you to a join between rooms where the border walls are, you keep going up into the next room above.

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-27 12:44:59 am

angelar: 2015-05-26 08:47:02 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 08:46:45 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 07:06:52 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 07:06:40 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 06:38:45 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 06:37:26 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 06:36:52 pm

2015-05-26 06:36:01 pm

A grapple glitch (for which I got inspiration from Synophis' warpless run) appears to allow you to traverse 3 blocks vertically, allowing you to both skip Sentinel and exploit Athetos. ~~(May be the same premise as the drone zip glitch where it gets you lodged in a block and places you on the nearest open space above.)~~

There may be other applications for this elsewhere as well, though the Athetos glitch is only useful if you have the Flamethrower or enough size nodes to hit with Kilver, so this may not be terribly useful for speedruns.

As far as I can tell, it involves simply hooking directly to the ceiling, swinging forward, then immediately glitching upwards. ~~A more experienced runner / someone with better execution may need to investigate for the nitty gritty of how it works.~~ thanks to grygor for a probably should have been obvious explanation

I performed the Sentinel skip on a 13% run (no health nodes,) so it is possible to do it reliably enough without taking excessive damage.

Also, related to the OP: a recent patch on PC corrects the issue with save warping & the timer stopping menu screen (I actually suggested this to Happ on twitter.) Exit to title now returns you to the speedrunning menu, where the timer is uninterrupted. Presumably this will eventually be on PS4, as well.

A grapple glitch (for which I got inspiration from Synophis' warpless run) appears to allow you to traverse 3 blocks vertically, allowing you to both skip Sentinel and exploit Athetos. [s](May be the same premise as the drone zip glitch where it gets you lodged in a block and places you on the nearest open space above.)[/s]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyEGOJbntBY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MHHZsnPM84

There may be other applications for this elsewhere as well, though the Athetos glitch is only useful if you have the Flamethrower or enough size nodes to hit with Kilver, so this may not be terribly useful for speedruns.

As far as I can tell, it involves simply hooking directly to the ceiling, swinging forward, then immediately glitching upwards. [s]A more experienced runner / someone with better execution may need to investigate for the nitty gritty of how it works.[/s] thanks to grygor for a probably should have been obvious explanation

I performed the Sentinel skip on a 13% run (no health nodes,) so it is possible to do it reliably enough without taking excessive damage.

Also, related to the OP: a recent patch on PC corrects the issue with save warping & the timer stopping menu screen (I actually suggested this to Happ on twitter.) Exit to title now returns you to the speedrunning menu, where the timer is uninterrupted. Presumably this will eventually be on PS4, as well.

Tohloo

2015-05-26 10:33:06 pm

Radicool

You can use the reverse slicer to to hit Athetos from the ceilling instead of getting size nodes.The reverse slicer isn't terribly out of the way, you have to do a detour on the way to Athetos and do a small puzzle to gain access to it but it does deal pretty low damage from what I have seen.The only other weapon that hits him is the flamethrower as demonstrated and maybe some weapon you can get from the secret areas but those arnt in speed run mode anyway

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-26 11:13:47 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 11:13:17 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 11:10:40 pm

angelar: 2015-05-26 11:10:29 pm

2015-05-26 11:09:39 pm

A use for Reverse Slicer?!

It takes well over 4 minutes of straight shooting (at a horribly non-intuitive speed at that) to clear the fight, + the amount of time it takes to get the weapon, with 0 Power Nodes. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 with 9 Power Nodes, so probably somewhere between 3 and 2 for a typical low% run.

The main problem with current Athetos is, so far as I can tell, there isn't a terribly quick way to do it, so I'm not entirely sure how bad 2-3 minutes really is. I need to do the typical Low% route instead of no% shenanigans to see how the strat I used for that playthrough pans out in a more normal run.

Going to get Flamethrower in a typical low% run may not take all that much time if you get it last / plan saves around it, but the glitch still requires grapple as well, and all the detours probably makes the potential time saved on Athetos not worth it. Furthermore, the need for a glitchy strategy is mostly invalid on a 100% run.

Grygor

2015-05-26 11:16:26 pm

That grapple glitch also allows you to teleport through 2 tiles vertically with just the trenchcoat.

It works because the teleport actually has the same range horizontally and vertically - but because Trace's hitbox is normally 2 tiles high but only 1 tile wide, you move through one fewer tile teleporting vertically. (There needs to be enough free space for Trace's whole hitbox for a teleport to work. However, at max swing with the grapple, his hitbox is 2 tiles wide but only 1 tile high, which allows him to teleport through an additional tile vertically.

Obviously this probably won't work with just the labcoat.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-27 03:34:30 am

Nice find with the grapple. I would imagine with that grapple trick, many minutes might be skipped if we can find just the right places.

Heidrage

2015-05-27 05:35:47 am

Willing to teach you the impossible

LOL, I love this community. Mr. Happ takes away the ledge and yall find another way to brake the boss. I am sure we will find something to make this work out in our favor.

Also, amazing find with the zipping. I am sure it will help in at least one category.

CoolJosh3k

Edit history:

CoolJosh3k: 2015-05-27 06:20:03 am

2015-05-27 06:16:42 am

I think right now we need 2 things:

Identify all the places we can save time with drone zipping and grapple clipping, then compare to the time it takes to go out of our way to get the grapple.
Have a full size map made, that is pixel perfect and shows where tiles line up on the overall grid.

From what I can tell, horizontal grapple clips only work on walls 1 block thick. Vertical grapple clips should pass through an infinite number of blocks, even into another room, but require a damage boost (as seen in the the sentinel video demo).
I could be wrong about the vertical grapple clip, in that the damage has no effect and you just have to have almost-perfect timing with the tier 2/3 teleporting.

Synophis

Edit history:

Synophis: 2015-05-27 12:44:44 pm

Synophis: 2015-05-27 12:40:31 pm

Synophis: 2015-05-27 12:39:59 pm

Synophis: 2015-05-27 12:39:01 pm

2015-05-27 08:55:01 am

Wow, people have found some amazing stuff.

I haven't tried any of this new stuff out yet so like how does moving around the edges of the rooms work in drone zipping? Can we move in that space infinitely and find a room we want to enter? The one obstacle for massive sequence breaking is that entering Mar-Uru requires you to have the red coat. Can either of these new tricks be used to either enter Mar-Uru early or get the red coat early? Can the grapple room be entered by drone zipping and therefore making getting the grapple worth while?

I'll try to do some experimenting during the weekend.

edit: I must have been dreaming or something to think you could move around the edges of the rooms. In reality, the game looks for the next valid position above you and places you there. If there were a massive chain of blocks above the zipping spot then you'd end up multiple levels above the original position. The interesting question is that what if there is a spot where there are no valid positions above the zipping spot, what will happen? There's also a problem of crashing the game when entering some doors off-screen. At least with the instance I experimented with (teleporting off-screen video), the door really far apart always crashed the game whereas the door really close by always worked as it should.

Wow, people have found some amazing stuff.

I haven't tried any of this new stuff out yet so like how does moving around the edges of the rooms work in drone zipping? Can we move in that space infinitely and find a room we want to enter? The one obstacle for massive sequence breaking is that entering Mar-Uru requires you to have the red coat. Can either of these new tricks be used to either enter Mar-Uru early or get the red coat early? Can the grapple room be entered by drone zipping and therefore making getting the grapple worth while?

I'll try to do some experimenting during the weekend.

edit: I must have been dreaming or something to think you could move around the edges of the rooms. In reality, the game looks for the next valid position above you and places you there. If there were a massive chain of blocks above the zipping spot then you'd end up multiple levels above the original position. The interesting question is that what if there is a spot where there are no valid positions above the zipping spot, what will happen? There's also a problem of crashing the game when entering some doors off-screen. At least with the instance I experimented with (teleporting off-screen video), the door really far apart always crashed the game whereas the door really close by always worked as it should.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-27 11:52:46 am

The videos I made to help explain drone zipping on a post are back a page: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/axiom_verge_50.html#axiom_verge_50

Being in a room during the drone zip, means all the solid walls and platforms are there, but certain things like enemies are not active. You have to navigate the room blind, since the camera is stuck where the game things you ought to be, but if you enter a door it will return to normal. This is how I got into Kur early, even though it doesn't do any good for us (yet?).
The drone zip is taking advantage of the game trying to correct your position, but sending you vertically as a fail safe. Trace will keep going upwards, even through multiple, unseen rooms, until there is a gap (at which point he would no longer be stuck in a wall).

If anybody does stream and captures interesting stuff, or speedrun attempts, I'd probably be one of at least a few people wanting to see it. Youtube uploads are great!

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-27 05:33:08 pm

2015-05-27 05:30:08 pm

Quote from CoolJosh3k:

From what I can tell, horizontal grapple clips only work on walls 1 block thick. Vertical grapple clips should pass through an infinite number of blocks, even into another room, but require a damage boost (as seen in the the sentinel video demo).
I could be wrong about the vertical grapple clip, in that the damage has no effect and you just have to have almost-perfect timing with the tier 2/3 teleporting.

I don't think the vertical grapple glitch works in the way I originally suggested. Grygor's explanation is the most logical. Being able to traverse 3 blocks vertically is simply a matter of glitching being the same distance in all directions (which diagonal glitching would support,) not necessarily that it gets you stuck in a block. One has to consider that probably one of the first things glitching/teleporting checks is whether or not there is a valid space on the other end of the tiles being glitched through.

That said, I couldn't reproduce this in any areas that were more than 3 blocks tall.

[quote="CoolJosh3k"]From what I can tell, horizontal grapple clips only work on walls 1 block thick. Vertical grapple clips should pass through an infinite number of blocks, even into another room, but require a damage boost (as seen in the the sentinel video demo).
I could be wrong about the vertical grapple clip, in that the damage has no effect and you just have to have almost-perfect timing with the tier 2/3 teleporting.[/quote]

I don't think the vertical grapple glitch works in the way I originally suggested. Grygor's explanation is the most logical. Being able to traverse 3 blocks vertically is simply a matter of glitching being the same distance in all directions (which diagonal glitching would support,) not necessarily that it gets you stuck in a block. One has to consider that probably one of the first things glitching/teleporting checks is whether or not there is a valid space on the other end of the tiles being glitched through.

That said, I couldn't reproduce this in any areas that were more than 3 blocks tall.

Grygor

2015-05-27 06:07:58 pm

For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention that:

Drone zip also works with glitch blocks that you need address bombs to destroy (not that there are any places where this would be useful).
So far it looks like drone zip doesn't work with blocks that are removed by passwords (though again, it wouldn't be useful).
It also looks like it doesn't work if there are no rooms above the one you're in, so you can't use it to wrap around to the bottom of the map or anything like that.

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-27 07:09:30 pm

2015-05-27 06:58:27 pm

Does it work with Address Disruptor 2 blocks?

edit: Looks like it works on the red bubble blocks from Eribu as well, so seems like most any breakable or dispel-able block.

Grygor

2015-05-27 07:07:11 pm

Yes, it totally does.

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-27 07:10:46 pm

2015-05-27 07:10:32 pm

Quote from CoolJosh3k:

Have a full size map made, that is pixel perfect and shows where tiles line up on the overall grid.

Do you actually have something like this? I haven't been able to find anything like it.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-27 07:16:48 pm

Quote from angelar:

Quote from CoolJosh3k:

Have a full size map made, that is pixel perfect and shows where tiles line up on the overall grid.

Do you actually have something like this? I haven't been able to find anything like it.

Nah, I ment that we would benifit greatly from this. I'd be happy to do an area and others can do the rest as a team.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-27 07:19:20 pm

Quote from Grygor:

For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention that:

Drone zip also works with glitch blocks that you need address bombs to destroy (not that there are any places where this would be useful).
So far it looks like drone zip doesn't work with blocks that are removed by passwords (though again, it wouldn't be useful).
It also looks like it doesn't work if there are no rooms above the one you're in, so you can't use it to wrap around to the bottom of the map or anything like that.

I did not think to try those address bomb places.
The only real trick with drone zipping, is navigating blind.

angelar

2015-05-27 07:31:04 pm

Hmm, I can't seem to get the zip to work at the demo'd Kur location where you get the drone ... Is it tricky positioning? I usually remain behind the beam rather than getting scuttled into the top room.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-27 07:53:44 pm

I found that one always worked with ease for me. So long as most of Trace is standing where the beam should reappear you should be okay.

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-27 08:57:14 pm

angelar: 2015-05-27 08:16:18 pm

angelar: 2015-05-27 08:06:22 pm

2015-05-27 07:57:44 pm

Alright, found a solution for this; just need to drone again:

Anyway, some other details about the grapple trick: doing it feels more consistent if you only tap forward to swing, not hold forward. Jumping makes it harder where as the point where you turn around to swing the opposite direction leaves you right up against the blocks for several frames, giving you a pretty wide window to teleport upwards.

CoolJosh3k

Edit history:

CoolJosh3k: 2015-05-27 08:42:20 pm

2015-05-27 08:42:00 pm

In that video you are more to the right, then you are on the beam, I think.

angelar

Edit history:

angelar: 2015-05-27 09:00:20 pm

2015-05-27 08:59:26 pm

Other videos displaying the problem before I troubleshooted it. More than likely it doesn't matter where you're positioned as long as you're clipping the block.

Grygor

Edit history:

Grygor: 2015-05-28 12:58:34 pm

2015-05-28 04:15:05 am

Okay, I did some more playing around with drone zip and found out a few more things (this is on PC version):

Even though the zones fit together perfectly, they are all independent maps. You can't zip across map boundaries, so you can't zip from one zone to another.

Zone transitions rely on having the proper object and event data loaded. Object and event data loading (as well as camera control data) is triggered by going through doorways. Because of this, if you zip into a room with a zone transition and then go through that zone transition, the game will immediately crash - you have to exit through another door first. This is only possible in Eribu though - both the Indi and Ukkin-Na entry rooms can be zipped into.

Even though enemies and events aren't active in the room you zip into, tile attributes are - acid still damages you, ~~destructible blocks can still be destroyed,~~ and so on. (EDIT: see my next post)

Zips are consistently inconsistent. Some zips require you to just leave the room with the drone, some require you to unload the room by going two rooms away or entering a different zone, and some require you to unload the room and then come back. But whichever of those you need to do to trigger a zip from a given location will always work there.

Blocks that are removed by passwords actually CAN be used to zip, but three of them don't work for other reasons (and wouldn't be useful if they DID) and the one that does work also doesn't do anything useful.

Okay, I did some more playing around with drone zip and found out a few more things (this is on PC version):

Even though the zones fit together perfectly, they are all independent maps. You can't zip across map boundaries, so you can't zip from one zone to another.

Zone transitions rely on having the proper object and event data loaded. Object and event data loading (as well as camera control data) is triggered by going through doorways. Because of this, if you zip into a room with a zone transition and then go through that zone transition, the game will immediately crash - you have to exit through another door first. This is only possible in Eribu though - both the Indi and Ukkin-Na entry rooms can be zipped into.

Even though enemies and events aren't active in the room you zip into, tile attributes are - acid still damages you, [s]destructible blocks can still be destroyed,[/s] and so on. (EDIT: see my next post)

Zips are consistently inconsistent. Some zips require you to just leave the room with the drone, some require you to unload the room by going two rooms away or entering a different zone, and some require you to unload the room and then come back. But whichever of those you need to do to trigger a zip from a given location will always work there.

Blocks that are removed by passwords actually CAN be used to zip, but three of them don't work for other reasons (and wouldn't be useful if they DID) and the one that does work also doesn't do anything useful.

CoolJosh3k

2015-05-28 09:41:20 am

I figured most of that out, but did not realise that the acid and drill still worked.