Is PJ
Alright. So, after Shiden found a way to get barrier skip to work consistently on Saturday, I spent a bit of time derusting and then grinded some attempts yesterday. Idk if anybody else has this issue, but changing the resolution/framerate absolutely destroyed what little stability this game had. Every single attempt before this one crashed. 10 straight attempts crashed. Absolutely unreal. Anyways, my new PB is 18:46 (maybe 18:47? didn't time it frame-by-frame):
I wrote a bunch of notes in the video description, but I'll reiterate a few key points.
-After I get the skip, I change the video settings back to 1080p60fps. Playing at 56fps is nearly impossible for me because the collision detection simply fails to work (which is why this skip works!). Even though it takes like 10 seconds to switch back to 60fps, I more than make up that time by actually being able to move. The elevator skips in area 12 are also impossible for me at 56fps.
-When playing with Vsync on, there are a lot of differences. The game is super super choppy even at 60fps, and some of the invincibility frames don't work properly. The gas skip in the Albatross sometimes doesn't work at this framerate (you'll get hit like 2-3 times instead of being able to swing through), and my setup for the area 10 spike skip doesn't work because I don't have invincibility for the top row of spikes. Some of my swings go a bit farther at this framerate, so I had to adjust (the area 10 grapple after killing the first soldier had to change). For reference, with Vsync off (default), my framerate was over 300. Although the gameplay speed didn't change, it has a lot of negative effects.
-Because I don't have rocket launcher, I have to kill every boss with pistol. The 1-cycle kills in areas 3 and 10 are incredibly hard to do. I was somehow able to get both in this run by mashing on the fire button with both thumbs. Also, I've only been able to land on top of the area 10 boss at 60fps once. The collision detection for that setup is already really bad, but at this framerate it simply doesn't work unless you get immensely lucky.
-I had pretty great luck on the area 7 boss, but super bad luck on area 9 enemies and area 10 enemies. For some reason, the flydroid operator kept ducking my vector cannon shots in area 10, and then I thought I needed to kill an enemy to refill health (was thinking of my post-spike-skip health). I also had the worst flydroid pattern that I've ever seen on the boss himself.
-The Albatross went amazingly well.
This run can obviously be improved, but it'd require 1-cycling the area 3, 10, and 11 bosses and still matching this luck on the area 7 boss. I got the barrier skip 2nd try, crusher skip 1st try, and had a flawless Room B in the Albatross. Cutting out the mistakes I made and switching video resolution quicker could probably hit a low 18-minute time. I won't be going for it though. This category is far too volatile. I can't run a game that crashes this frequently. I'll still try to get a 100% run though.
One last note: my in-game time should be accurate. The in-game timer seems to be really accurate within the levels themselves (even though it doesn't count the map or trucks), but the game adds the time from your previous save. Since I wanted a better comparison, I basically "cleared" the timer between each attempt. I'd just make a new game and quit to menu as quickly as possible. As long as I (or any other runner) does this between attempts, the in-game timer should be able to be used for comparison. I wouldn't recommend it for any official timing of course, but it does seem consistent enough to use for estimation.
Best of luck if anybody tries to improve this!
I wrote a bunch of notes in the video description, but I'll reiterate a few key points.
-After I get the skip, I change the video settings back to 1080p60fps. Playing at 56fps is nearly impossible for me because the collision detection simply fails to work (which is why this skip works!). Even though it takes like 10 seconds to switch back to 60fps, I more than make up that time by actually being able to move. The elevator skips in area 12 are also impossible for me at 56fps.
-When playing with Vsync on, there are a lot of differences. The game is super super choppy even at 60fps, and some of the invincibility frames don't work properly. The gas skip in the Albatross sometimes doesn't work at this framerate (you'll get hit like 2-3 times instead of being able to swing through), and my setup for the area 10 spike skip doesn't work because I don't have invincibility for the top row of spikes. Some of my swings go a bit farther at this framerate, so I had to adjust (the area 10 grapple after killing the first soldier had to change). For reference, with Vsync off (default), my framerate was over 300. Although the gameplay speed didn't change, it has a lot of negative effects.
-Because I don't have rocket launcher, I have to kill every boss with pistol. The 1-cycle kills in areas 3 and 10 are incredibly hard to do. I was somehow able to get both in this run by mashing on the fire button with both thumbs. Also, I've only been able to land on top of the area 10 boss at 60fps once. The collision detection for that setup is already really bad, but at this framerate it simply doesn't work unless you get immensely lucky.
-I had pretty great luck on the area 7 boss, but super bad luck on area 9 enemies and area 10 enemies. For some reason, the flydroid operator kept ducking my vector cannon shots in area 10, and then I thought I needed to kill an enemy to refill health (was thinking of my post-spike-skip health). I also had the worst flydroid pattern that I've ever seen on the boss himself.
-The Albatross went amazingly well.
This run can obviously be improved, but it'd require 1-cycling the area 3, 10, and 11 bosses and still matching this luck on the area 7 boss. I got the barrier skip 2nd try, crusher skip 1st try, and had a flawless Room B in the Albatross. Cutting out the mistakes I made and switching video resolution quicker could probably hit a low 18-minute time. I won't be going for it though. This category is far too volatile. I can't run a game that crashes this frequently. I'll still try to get a 100% run though.
One last note: my in-game time should be accurate. The in-game timer seems to be really accurate within the levels themselves (even though it doesn't count the map or trucks), but the game adds the time from your previous save. Since I wanted a better comparison, I basically "cleared" the timer between each attempt. I'd just make a new game and quit to menu as quickly as possible. As long as I (or any other runner) does this between attempts, the in-game timer should be able to be used for comparison. I wouldn't recommend it for any official timing of course, but it does seem consistent enough to use for estimation.
Best of luck if anybody tries to improve this!
