GTA San Andreas Official Thread

Joshimuz

2013-02-03 05:57:44 am

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So did you check out the Management Issues thing yet? :p

Shhhhhhh

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In the end of the shortcut, after the farm

ooooooh, AFTER the farm, right I see. Sorry for some reason I read it as before the farm.
This is probably much better yes

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Why are you saying that time saved for ST isn't useful if spent swimming?

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When you argue against my swimming suggestions, I'm not sure if you have an alternative in mind. I hope we can at least agree that the current setup is losing time compared to almost anything.

I don't know. I read your message at 1-2 am last night and I just couldn't get it into my head that doing swimming elsewhere would save time o_0
I was just thinking that swimming elsewhere would just take as long to get the lung cap as anywhere else, when obviously doing it during bits that I have to wait anyway is free time swimming.

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My suggestion

I will try this! Like I said in my last post I was thinking a lot about trying this, I guess I was just too lazy to think of how it would work or something, but it can save a good 2-5 minutes

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Jumping from planes at speed may take a little bit of practice but I don't find it risky at all.

Fair enough, I will do this then Cheesy

[quote]So did you check out the Management Issues thing yet? :p[/quote]
Shhhhhhh

[quote]In the end of the shortcut, after the farm[/quote]
ooooooh, AFTER the farm, right I see. Sorry for some reason I read it as before the farm. 
This is probably much better yes

[quote]Why are you saying that time saved for ST isn't useful if spent swimming?[/quote]
[quote]When you argue against my swimming suggestions, I'm not sure if you have an alternative in mind. I hope we can at least agree that the current setup is losing time compared to almost anything.[/quote]
I don't know. I read your message at 1-2 am last night and I just couldn't get it into my head that doing swimming elsewhere would save time o_0
I was just thinking that swimming elsewhere would just take as long to get the lung cap as anywhere else, when obviously doing it during bits that I have to wait anyway is free time swimming.

[quote]My suggestion[/quote]
I will try this! Like I said in my last post I was thinking a lot about trying this, I guess I was just too lazy to think of how it would work or something, but it can save a good 2-5 minutes

[quote]Jumping from planes at speed may take a little bit of practice but I don't find it risky at all.[/quote]
Fair enough, I will do this then :D

Nixixix

2013-02-03 12:46:27 pm

I was unclear about the swimming in my first post too, sorry. Glad the points got across now.

I tried the heli + missiles with a PCJ and found it taking very nearly the same time in either order. That helicopter is annoyingly slow to get to a stop, and getting the missiles does indeed take long enough that the blades stop before I get back in. Getting the missiles with the bike is both easier and less risky, so carry on doing it that way.

I also did another try of the swimming including the way to Cesar, though I had no Cesar there for lack of a proper save. I also had (exactly) three upgrades of lung cap to start with; you'll get shorter cycles and it will be different. Anyway, predictably my previous estimates were off. Without diving the boatride took 55 seconds. Diving for one bar before taking the boat (it might be faster to start the boat first if you're good), I only got one dive in the middle and another almost at the end, taking 2:25 total. Your current swimming route took 2:50 with the dinghy, getting one dive at the start and 2½ after that. I got more than two upgrades in all that time, so it seems that no extra swimming will be necessary. You just have to figure out what's best to leave off from these to still make use of the time in Snail Trail.

I was unclear about the swimming in my first post too, sorry. Glad the points got across now.

I tried the heli + missiles with a PCJ and found it taking very nearly the same time in either order. That helicopter is annoyingly slow to get to a stop, and getting the missiles does indeed take long enough that the blades stop before I get back in. Getting the missiles with the bike is both easier and less risky, so carry on doing it that way.

I also did another try of the swimming including the way to Cesar, though I had no Cesar there for lack of a proper save. I also had (exactly) three upgrades of lung cap to start with; you'll get shorter cycles and it will be different. Anyway, predictably my previous estimates were off. Without diving the boatride took 55 seconds. Diving for one bar before taking the boat (it might be faster to start the boat first if you're good), I only got one dive in the middle and another almost at the end, taking 2:25 total. Your current swimming route took 2:50 with the dinghy, getting one dive at the start and 2½ after that. I got more than two upgrades in all that time, so it seems that no extra swimming will be necessary. You just have to figure out what's best to leave off from these to still make use of the time in Snail Trail.

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-02-04 05:14:13 am

2013-02-04 05:04:34 am

I decided to casually run the game up to Snail Trail so I could thoroughly experiment with all the swimming.

The unupgraded (and singly upgraded, it seems) lung capacity is only 10 seconds with a 20 second recharge, which makes diving during the boating to Cesar impractical. Luckily it won't be needed there after all. The dinghy is easier and faster to get on and off of, but now requires more care because leaving it at too much speed makes it go farther than your dive.

In Outrider, taking the NRG at the start is trivial. With it, visiting the airport in the end is borderline doable without delaying the mission end. I was taking only the helicopter from the airport, not the missiles. With my inconsistent execution and variance in the van's timing, I got a run where I didn't make it back before the van was there, a run where I got back just as the van arrived, and a run where I would have easily had time to get the missiles too. I don't think that that really matters though. Getting the heli at that point helps so much by adding swimming time to Snail Trail that it's seems like a no-brainer to get. With that there isn't any better time to get the missiles, so they should be picked up as well, even if that delays the completion of Outrider when unlucky.

Other than not having the extra bikes / armor you would get in the alternative, the only drawback I can think of is that starting Snail Trail (up to the train moving) is faster with the bike than with landing the helicopter twice or landing once and running to the sniper rifle and back (there's no need to land to end Outrider). You'd have to determine the difference in your hands yourself though.

I did some proper research for Snail Trail, both staying far from the reporter and keeping as near as possible. The train always takes 'exactly' 3:06 from leaving the station in SF to "approaching" the destination. After 3:26 the reporter leaves the train as soon as you're near enough, or at 5:26 if you aren't. From leaving the train, it takes 56 seconds for him to be waiting for a cab (at the earliest 4:22 after the train leaving). I got the impression that the cab also spawns only when you're near enough; the mission fails after a minute of waiting if you don't show.

Fortunately enough, there's an easy way to swim the maximum. The northmost (nearest) area of water in the Marina is near enough to trigger him to leave the train immediately, while still swimming until he's almost ready for the cab. It isn't quite near enough to cause the cab to spawn, but from the timing above it's quite easy to see when you must leave. There's at least one relatively good parking space for the helicopter near the water, so it doesn't take long to get from swimming to flying over the target. A bonus is that you can keep swimming until you get the lung upgrade as long as it's less than a minute extra. Of course that adds to the total time, so you wouldn't do much of that on purpose.

In my trials, I could be swimming in the marina 90 seconds after the train leaving, giving me over 2½ minutes to swim without slowing down the mission at all.

One idea to push Snail Trail even further is going for an extra dive next to the pier in the end of the cab route when you know that he will stay near enough to you. In a couple tries I didn't manage to quickly snipe both targets from the beach (even climbing around), but there may be a way. Missiles?

I didn't calculate and test a full plan for the swimming yet. If you don't do that soon, I just might.

It seems that (at least for me) the frame limiter doesn't affect the oxygen, only the swimming speed. Fortunately you don't need to swim any distance in Snail Trail. If you have a much higher FPS than me, maybe it also makes it impossible to control the dive?

In your LS run yesterday, in Burning Desire, right at the start of driving to the molotovs, you turned right, later left and right, where you could instead go straight, turn right once and continue straight the rest of the way for very nearly the same total distance. I can't see how that wouldn't be faster. Might be what you intend to do already, I don't remember your previous runs here. Nothing else to complain about in that LS that wasn't obvious, well done! Though I certainly don't see everything.

I had no problems repeating K9's boat trick at Cesar's car, other than the end position being unpredictable (to match with my unpredictable approaches) and killing Cesar once. I was playing with the frame limiter on at that point, it must be that. Also, in Tagging Up Turf, the limiter is the reason you can quite easily make the jump to the tag on the roof, even from the lower level. Sometimes it helps, sometimes hinders...

Oh, I also had no problems with the Badlands races turn shortcut in either race. Guess you could make it work too. Or I was lucky and/or going too slow (despite not slowing down for it on purpose), I didn't do any extra tries. But the ones were with the frame limiter off.

I decided to casually run the game up to Snail Trail so I could thoroughly experiment with all the swimming.

The unupgraded (and singly upgraded, it seems) lung capacity is only 10 seconds with a 20 second recharge, which makes diving during the boating to Cesar impractical. Luckily it won't be needed there after all. The dinghy is easier and faster to get on and off of, but now requires more care because leaving it at too much speed makes it go farther than your dive.

In Outrider, taking the NRG at the start is trivial. With it, visiting the airport in the end is borderline doable without delaying the mission end. I was taking only the helicopter from the airport, not the missiles. With my inconsistent execution and variance in the van's timing, I got a run where I didn't make it back before the van was there, a run where I got back just as the van arrived, and a run where I would have easily had time to get the missiles too. I don't think that that really matters though. Getting the heli at that point helps so much by adding swimming time to Snail Trail that it's seems like a no-brainer to get. With that there isn't any better time to get the missiles, so they should be picked up as well, even if that delays the completion of Outrider when unlucky.

Other than not having the extra bikes / armor you would get in the alternative, the only drawback I can think of is that starting Snail Trail (up to the train moving) is faster with the bike than with landing the helicopter twice or landing once and running to the sniper rifle and back (there's no need to land to end Outrider). You'd have to determine the difference in your hands yourself though.

I did some proper research for Snail Trail, both staying far from the reporter and keeping as near as possible. The train always takes 'exactly' 3:06 from leaving the station in SF to "approaching" the destination. After 3:26 the reporter leaves the train as soon as you're near enough, or at 5:26 if you aren't. From leaving the train, it takes 56 seconds for him to be waiting for a cab (at the earliest 4:22 after the train leaving). I got the impression that the cab also spawns only when you're near enough; the mission fails after a minute of waiting if you don't show.

Fortunately enough, there's an easy way to swim the maximum. The northmost (nearest) area of water in the Marina is near enough to trigger him to leave the train immediately, while still swimming until he's almost ready for the cab. It isn't quite near enough to cause the cab to spawn, but from the timing above it's quite easy to see when you must leave. There's at least one relatively good parking space for the helicopter near the water, so it doesn't take long to get from swimming to flying over the target. A bonus is that you can keep swimming until you get the lung upgrade as long as it's less than a minute extra. Of course that adds to the total time, so you wouldn't do much of that on purpose.

In my trials, I could be swimming in the marina 90 seconds after the train leaving, giving me over 2½ minutes to swim without slowing down the mission at all.

One idea to push Snail Trail even further is going for an extra dive next to the pier in the end of the cab route when you know that he will stay near enough to you. In a couple tries I didn't manage to quickly snipe both targets from the beach (even climbing around), but there may be a way. Missiles?

I didn't calculate and test a full plan for the swimming yet. If you don't do that soon, I just might.

It seems that (at least for me) the frame limiter doesn't affect the oxygen, only the swimming speed. Fortunately you don't need to swim any distance in Snail Trail. If you have a much higher FPS than me, maybe it also makes it impossible to control the dive?

In your LS run yesterday, in Burning Desire, right at the start of driving to the molotovs, you turned right, later left and right, where you could instead go straight, turn right once and continue straight the rest of the way for very nearly the same total distance. I can't see how that wouldn't be faster. Might be what you intend to do already, I don't remember your previous runs here. Nothing else to complain about in that LS that wasn't obvious, well done! Though I certainly don't see everything.

I had no problems repeating K9's boat trick at Cesar's car, other than the end position being unpredictable (to match with my unpredictable approaches) and killing Cesar once. I was playing with the frame limiter on at that point, it must be that. Also, in Tagging Up Turf, the limiter is the reason you can quite easily make the jump to the tag on the roof, even from the lower level. Sometimes it helps, sometimes hinders...

Oh, I also had no problems with the Badlands races turn shortcut in either race. Guess you could make it work too. Or I was lucky and/or going too slow (despite not slowing down for it on purpose), I didn't do any extra tries. But the ones were with the frame limiter off.

Nixixix

2013-02-05 05:58:23 am

Here's something I didn't expect, although it makes perfect sense. Both the dive time and the recharge time for a single bar of oxygen vary wildly depending on how hard you're swimming. Other unexpected factors are the stamina and muscle stats, or at least one of them. That has to be the reason why I got much longer dive times with my old save even though the lung capacity was only three steps up.

The previously stated dive and recharge times of approx. 10 and 20 seconds I timed from CannibalK9's run, which had swimming both on the surface and below like yours. When swimming (straight down) only the minimum required to stay underwater when diving, I got 20 and 12. When only periodically pressing the dive (secondary fire) button and not touching anything else, I estimated a similar total from the time to level up. Dive-only could have the additional benefit of working the same with the frame limiter off, though you still need to be able to get out of the water.

The lung cap upgrades seem to come from 60 seconds spent underwater. Just 2:57 of dive-only swimming got me the required two upgrades, coming out with no oxygen or health.

Swimming time in the marina is under 2:40, so some more is needed. If the additional diving when waiting for the cab to arrive on the pier doesn't work, I can't think of a better spot to dive than just before taking the boat to go to Cesar. Getting the 20 seconds of a full oxygen bar there should be more than enough. The current swimming route would be replaced with a drive on land.

In the end of Snail Trail, I've still only managed to snipe one target from the beach, as the other one starts running. Rockets didn't work either.

In Outrider, I tried forgetting the NRG-500 and just driving the Sanchez to the airport. In total it seemed to be faster, with surprisingly little difference in getting from the last roadblock through the missiles to the helicopter. The most direct route isn't very NRG-friendly before the airport, and I didn't try alternatives. Taking the NRG at the start took some 20 seconds and the difference between roadblocks couldn't have been all that many seconds. Without the NRG, with a relatively good execution I got to the end in 4:17 after starting the van moving, while the van averaged 4:12 to get there. After learning it you'll probably do better on an average run even though that was my best of 5. You should still try it with both bikes to compare. As I posted yesterday, I did comfortably beat the van once with the NRG as well. I just timed neither the van nor myself then, so it might have been a super-slow van.

My time from finishing Outrider with the helicopter to flying over the train in Snail Trail was around 1:05. In your last SF run you did the equivalent with the bike in 48 seconds with a minor tumble at the rifle; my average mistakes probably amounted to more than that. So you won 17 seconds and a bike in the garage, being on the bike while I had the helicopter. By taking the first NRG at the start of Outrider, you could have done something more in the mission time, but not saved time directly. From starting the train, it took you 1:40 including a troublesome bike crash to get the helicopter in the air, while I probably flew to the same distance from the destination in 20 seconds. Let's say I'd generally have won 1:05 more time to swim during Snail Trail due to getting the helicopter earlier, while you had saved 17 seconds overall and a bike (maybe two) in the garage. To me this looks like the early heli is worth it even if it slows down Outrider: 1:05 of swimming in the marina amounts to about 40 seconds of dive time, and getting that probably slows you down by almost a minute no matter how you get it.

There might be a faster route with not getting the helicopter in Outrider if there is a decent way to swim during it instead. I still don't see one.

Funny how complicated this gets with just a few moving parts. I'm surprised if I didn't make a single mistake. I can only try to imagine planning a full run from scratch!

Here's something I didn't expect, although it makes perfect sense. Both the dive time and the recharge time for a single bar of oxygen vary wildly depending on how hard you're swimming. Other unexpected factors are the stamina and muscle stats, or at least one of them. That has to be the reason why I got much longer dive times with my old save even though the lung capacity was only three steps up.

The previously stated dive and recharge times of approx. 10 and 20 seconds I timed from CannibalK9's run, which had swimming both on the surface and below like yours. When swimming (straight down) only the minimum required to stay underwater when diving, I got 20 and 12. When only periodically pressing the dive (secondary fire) button and not touching anything else, I estimated a similar total from the time to level up. Dive-only could have the additional benefit of working the same with the frame limiter off, though you still need to be able to get out of the water.

The lung cap upgrades seem to come from 60 seconds spent underwater. Just 2:57 of dive-only swimming got me the required two upgrades, coming out with no oxygen or health.

Swimming time in the marina is under 2:40, so some more is needed. If the additional diving when waiting for the cab to arrive on the pier doesn't work, I can't think of a better spot to dive than just before taking the boat to go to Cesar. Getting the 20 seconds of a full oxygen bar there should be more than enough. The current swimming route would be replaced with a drive on land.

In the end of Snail Trail, I've still only managed to snipe one target from the beach, as the other one starts running. Rockets didn't work either.

In Outrider, I tried forgetting the NRG-500 and just driving the Sanchez to the airport. In total it seemed to be faster, with surprisingly little difference in getting from the last roadblock through the missiles to the helicopter. The most direct route isn't very NRG-friendly before the airport, and I didn't try alternatives. Taking the NRG at the start took some 20 seconds and the difference between roadblocks couldn't have been all that many seconds. Without the NRG, with a relatively good execution I got to the end in 4:17 after starting the van moving, while the van averaged 4:12 to get there. After learning it you'll probably do better on an average run even though that was my best of 5. You should still try it with both bikes to compare. As I posted yesterday, I did comfortably beat the van once with the NRG as well. I just timed neither the van nor myself then, so it might have been a super-slow van.

My time from finishing Outrider with the helicopter to flying over the train in Snail Trail was around 1:05. In your last SF run you did the equivalent with the bike in 48 seconds with a minor tumble at the rifle; my average mistakes probably amounted to more than that. So you won 17 seconds and a bike in the garage, being on the bike while I had the helicopter. By taking the first NRG at the start of Outrider, you could have done something more in the mission time, but not saved time directly. From starting the train, it took you 1:40 including a troublesome bike crash to get the helicopter in the air, while I probably flew to the same distance from the destination in 20 seconds. Let's say I'd generally have won 1:05 more time to swim during Snail Trail due to getting the helicopter earlier, while you had saved 17 seconds overall and a bike (maybe two) in the garage. To me this looks like the early heli is worth it even if it slows down Outrider: 1:05 of swimming in the marina amounts to about 40 seconds of dive time, and getting that probably slows you down by almost a minute no matter how you get it.

There might be a faster route with not getting the helicopter in Outrider if there is a decent way to swim during it instead. I still don't see one.

Funny how complicated this gets with just a few moving parts. I'm surprised if I didn't make a single mistake. I can only try to imagine planning a full run from scratch!

Joshimuz

2013-02-05 11:18:55 am

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In your LS run yesterday, in Burning Desire, right at the start of driving to the molotovs, you turned right, later left and right, where you could instead go straight, turn right once and continue straight the rest of the way for very nearly the same total distance.

Oh yeah I did, I read this yesterday and I still did it in those runs, my bad Q__Q

Quote:

I had no problems repeating K9's boat trick at Cesar's car, other than the end position being unpredictable (to match with my unpredictable approaches) and killing Cesar once.

Hmm, I did try it a few times, perhaps I just wasn't doing it right, I'll have to try this again once I practice the new swimming route.

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Oh, I also had no problems with the Badlands races turn shortcut in either race.

Yeah it turns out I didn't either, no idea why I thought it killed me. Oh well

Quote:

Here's something I didn't expect, although it makes perfect sense. Both the dive time and the recharge time for a single bar of oxygen vary wildly depending on how hard you're swimming.

Oh rly

Thanks for all this, I don't have the time or the patience to test these things, I really appreciate it ^__^
I will test all this at some point, however right now I'm kind of sick of San Feirro, so I'll probably stick to doing other stuff for now, I don't mean to ignore all your great new findings or anything :S

[quote]In your LS run yesterday, in Burning Desire, right at the start of driving to the molotovs, you turned right, later left and right, where you could instead go straight, turn right once and continue straight the rest of the way for very nearly the same total distance.[/quote]
Oh yeah I did, I read this yesterday and I still did it in those runs, my bad Q__Q

[quote]I had no problems repeating K9's boat trick at Cesar's car, other than the end position being unpredictable (to match with my unpredictable approaches) and killing Cesar once.[/quote]
Hmm, I did try it a few times, perhaps I just wasn't doing it right, I'll have to try this again once I practice the new swimming route.

[quote]Oh, I also had no problems with the Badlands races turn shortcut in either race.[/quote]
Yeah it turns out I didn't either, no idea why I thought it killed me. Oh well

[quote]Here's something I didn't expect, although it makes perfect sense. Both the dive time and the recharge time for a single bar of oxygen vary wildly depending on how hard you're swimming.[/quote]
Oh rly

Thanks for all this, I don't have the time or the patience to test these things, I really appreciate it ^__^
I will test all this at some point, however right now I'm kind of sick of San Feirro, so I'll probably stick to doing other stuff for now, I don't mean to ignore all your great new findings or anything :S

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-02-12 05:12:51 pm

Nixixix: 2013-02-12 04:21:27 pm

Nixixix: 2013-02-09 07:55:04 am

Nixixix: 2013-02-07 02:09:23 pm

Nixixix: 2013-02-06 09:42:34 am

2013-02-06 06:39:37 am

Yeah well, I don't have the time and patience to (even learn to) speedrun the game, so this works nicely. Grin

I think I've now found the perfect swimming strategy. Turns out there is a good place to swim in Outrider after all. After getting the NRG, just go forward and on the left there's a platform above water where you can climb back up. This lets you cram all the swimming in the two timed missions.

Here's my schedule:

Outrider

0:00 start van
---- pick up weapons, clear roadblocks (use all rockets), get NRG-500
~2:40 start diving (to get this timestamp, needs good execution)
---- dive with dive-button only except where needed to stay under to spend remaining health
3:40 get out of the water (time it from starting the van)
---- race to finish hopefully before the van

intermission: park next to save point (there's no despawn area here at this point), save, start Snail Trail

Snail Trail

---- grab parked NRG, get sniper rifle
0:00 start train
---- drive to airport (btw, just walk down from the guard stall roof, don't jump and CJ won't stumble), get missiles
~1:10 get helicopter (to get this timestamp, needs ~perfect execution, compare to your 1:40 with the crash)
---- fly to Marina (avoid ghost trees in Richman), land on levelish ground on the grassy slope NE from the water
~2:30 start diving, dive-button only, use all health
~2:40 first lung upgrade
3:25 reporter leaves the train
4:00 get out of the water (time it from starting the train or the above)
---- fly near the reporter, follow the cab until it's near the destination
---- land on the beach, dive and stay underwater until lung cap upgrade
---- fly to the regular sniping spot, snipe the targets

If all goes perfectly, with this schedule you should be able to complete both missions as soon as you would without the swimming. Compared to your run you only lose the NRG in the garage.

You can adjust the out-of-water times to match your performance. If you tend to get to the finish early, you may want to get out earlier in the first swim just in case the van is faster than usual or you crash on the way there. When you lose time somewhere, you'll want to get out of water later both times to avoid waiting. All three swimming occasions can be extended for quite a while. However, I didn't test exactly how long the last one allows and wouldn't leave too much extra there.

In Outrider, I first tried getting the NRG and swimming at the start. There was enough time to swim over 50 seconds, but unfortunately clearing the roadblocks just a little ahead of the van means that the wrecks don't despawn before the van gets to them. I got van arrival times roughly 30 seconds later than normal.

I had one run where the van kept hitting the wall next to the finish until I scared peds off its way by shooting, that worked well.

I managed to do the diving with FPS limiter off (just start in a position you can directly climb up from), but at Santa Maria Beach it was a bit hard to get off the water. As you probably have more FPS than me it might be near impossible. If you're better than me and not unlucky, you may be able to make it without that swim at all, at least by adjusting the out-of-water times a bit.

---

The drive from the end of the Badlands mission to start Tanker Commander seems a bit rough and not all that straight either. I had the thought of going north at the start and taking the shortcut next to The Truth's farm and through the railroad tunnel. When I didn't crash at all, it saved a few seconds compared to your faultless-looking 2:06 in the first run yesterday. Most tries I did fall from the bike at least once so either I was going too fast at places or I just lack the practice. Anyway it feels like at least safer than your current route (that I didn't even try), possibly also faster. When you use the same route later as a part of going from King In Exile to Catalina's place (same start point, different end point), it should save way more because you can skip going to the town.

Quote from Joshimuz:

(forgetting mission start times) Every time I do this a puppy dies, however this should just be something I should know and writing down on the splits is embarising XD

After yesterday's LS run, I can't help myself. Which is more embarrassing, writing the times in the splits or forgetting them during the run? Even if it doesn't lose that much time, my understanding is that such mistakes will easily make it harder for the run to pass SDA quality control.

The whole game has quite many of these timed mission starts. Probably some of them you don't even see in regular practice due to starting from the same save. In the full run I think you'll easily lose sync after LS.

Added: I didn't try this but it would appear that in OG Loc there's a quicker first half for the drive to the Burger Shot. You've turned left to the railroad, went along it, jumped to the freeway and climbed right back up. I would instead go front-left diagonally across the railroad, turn right, take the second left, turn right and arrive to the same spot. Measured from the map (lookie here, the aerial map is great) this seems to be about 85% the distance. There's two sharp turns more and somewhat more possibilities for bad traffic, but still.

--- Added 02-07

Yesterday, when you fell to your death with the parachute after jumping from the Hunter when you were going to change to the other chopper, I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with (horizontal) speed. I'd say that you also were a bit high but most importantly exited too early when you were still above the lower roof below the helipad. You even fell to the lower level in the end.

I don't know at what point the parachute thing is determined, but I would hope that it's good enough if you exit a fraction of a second later there (but best to aim at the center of the helipad of course, knowing that you stop the moment you exit). In case the parachute mechanics force you to be near to the ground already when you press the exit button (I doubt it), then maybe your speed was indeed high for that small helipad and would have required accurate timing. About the height, I think you would have easily survived a properly timed drop to the helipad, but likely taken damage. Lower would be better and not too risky.

Going to get the Hunter for High Noon is the perfect place to jump from a plane at speed by the way. There's level ground with enough space, especially since you answer the phone anyway and get free walking time.

Another one, after Saint Mark's Bistro when you just fling the plane over the fence, surely it's better to fly to the casino like I think someone suggested in the chat as well. There's almost a runway next to the ring road (between it and the casino) and it's easy to land there (take off too), but obviously just ejecting at full speed is faster. Doing it on the strip right next to the save point should work too but with traffic, getting the altitude right is probably something you don't want to try at that point in the run. Maybe if you happen to have a load of health.

In Fender Ketchup, it looked to me like the scare-o-meter went up fast when you *turned away* from a parked car when near it, even when you wouldn't have collided with it anyway. Crashing into the side of the car that came from the side also seemed to work wonders but seems too dangerous. Worth experimenting with, but I've always hated that mission and don't have an appropriate save right now.

---

I've been watching CannibalK9's run again. I keep noticing more new routes and things that you've improved all over the place, well done! Other routes you do the same, not many slower and those that I've noticed seem to make sense for safety, SS and all. So yeah, when I urged you to watch it again, maybe not. There were just the couple of missing tricks that made me wonder.

As I've been focusing on things to improve, I need to emphasize that I can't believe how good and reliable your execution is, especially when focused in the full run. I don't think I could ever come close. Some more practice and somehow keeping concentration for 7 hours straight for the full run will make it practically perfect, accepting some unavoidable bad luck and even lapses of concentration in that long a time.

--- Added 02-09

Tested a couple of things again.

Photo Opportunity: CannibalK9's boat landing really works much worse with the frame limiter off. I can get it on land but it stops far from Cesar, and with more FPS it's likely worse. Also had the pleasure of driving Cesar's car during rain, you can guess how well it went in the grassy shortcuts. It makes sense to save some extra times before starting the mission if it looks like it's going to rain.

Outrider + Snail Trail: When Outrider went really well I could get all of the first lung upgrade there, totally avoiding the last swim. But if it's needed, there's no hurry. The targets are more patient than I was, they wait to be sniped for at least 2 minutes. Anyway, a smarter use for the extra time if Outrider goes very well might be to get the armor before going to swim.

Tried some jumps from helicopters and airplanes too with the run in mind. It really is hard to damage yourself badly (and that's all about height, not speed). Flying to the casino and jumping out right next to the save point without taking any damage is also easy, there's plenty to work with even with traffic. The plane doesn't need to be horizontal at all either, which makes it easier to avoid the trees. Still, better practice it well first.

--- Added 02-12

Here are some new things I've tested that came to mind during the new record run Sunday. Less generally useful stuff I've sent in private.

OG Loc: Freddy goes faster when you're near behind him. By following him through the first three alleys and only going ahead of him by road during the fourth, he arrives 13 seconds earlier than normal. That means not much time to set up the kill, but still enough if you're fast and traffic isn't horrible.

Toreno's Last Flight (safety): You can move away from the gunfire before shooting down the helicopter. The obvious spot is near the first intersection on the route you would take after the mission anyway, putting a building between you and the gunmen. This doesn't waste many seconds but obviously isn't worth it if you can make the normal way reliable.

Interdiction: In a few tries I had no trouble having the helicopter stay parked between where the package ends up and the shack. Since there's the backup helicopter anyway, it should be worth trying. This is just a hunch, but probably holding S to land firmly and not exiting until completely stopped helps.

High Noon: I tried it many times and got really random results, never the fastest possible. Even when it went relatively well, my Hunter still despawned. If you can't make it either, either you don't need the Hunter (fly straight there), or you should use the Hunter to kill him. It's not faster than the standard strat with some luck, but it's more consistent. Unfortunately the Hunter still despawns.

Vertical Bird: I tried to skip disabling the SAMs quite a lot of times and never had any trouble. Just use "countermeasures" (alt fire) periodically as soon as you're airborne until there are no missiles. The first person camera can also be useful here when destroying the boats. Especially when wrong targets want to take priority, you can just aim manually.

Fun bonus... You can save maybe half a second on every visit inside Woozie's casino by sprinting on the edge of the elevated square first instead of going for the slightly more direct route that doesn't allow sprinting.

Yeah well, I don't have the time and patience to (even learn to) speedrun the game, so this works nicely. ;D

I think I've now found the perfect swimming strategy. Turns out there is a good place to swim in Outrider after all. After getting the NRG, just go forward and on the left there's a platform above water where you can climb back up. This lets you cram all the swimming in the two timed missions.

Here's my schedule:
[spoiler]Outrider

0:00 start van
---- pick up weapons, clear roadblocks (use all rockets), get NRG-500
~2:40 start diving (to get this timestamp, needs good execution)
---- dive with dive-button only except where needed to stay under to spend remaining health
3:40 get out of the water (time it from starting the van)
---- race to finish hopefully before the van

intermission: park next to save point (there's no despawn area here at this point), save, start Snail Trail

Snail Trail

---- grab parked NRG, get sniper rifle
0:00 start train
---- drive to airport (btw, just walk down from the guard stall roof, don't jump and CJ won't stumble), get missiles
~1:10 get helicopter (to get this timestamp, needs ~perfect execution, compare to your 1:40 with the crash)
---- fly to Marina (avoid ghost trees in Richman), land on levelish ground on the grassy slope NE from the water
~2:30 start diving, dive-button only, use all health
~2:40 first lung upgrade
3:25 reporter leaves the train
4:00 get out of the water (time it from starting the train or the above)
---- fly near the reporter, follow the cab until it's near the destination
---- land on the beach, dive and stay underwater until lung cap upgrade
---- fly to the regular sniping spot, snipe the targets[/spoiler]

If all goes perfectly, with this schedule you should be able to complete both missions as soon as you would without the swimming. Compared to your run you only lose the NRG in the garage.

You can adjust the out-of-water times to match your performance. If you tend to get to the finish early, you may want to get out earlier in the first swim just in case the van is faster than usual or you crash on the way there. When you lose time somewhere, you'll want to get out of water later both times to avoid waiting. All three swimming occasions can be extended for quite a while. However, I didn't test exactly how long the last one allows and wouldn't leave too much extra there.

In Outrider, I first tried getting the NRG and swimming at the start. There was enough time to swim over 50 seconds, but unfortunately clearing the roadblocks just a little ahead of the van means that the wrecks don't despawn before the van gets to them. I got van arrival times roughly 30 seconds later than normal.

I had one run where the van kept hitting the wall next to the finish until I scared peds off its way by shooting, that worked well.

I managed to do the diving with FPS limiter off (just start in a position you can directly climb up from), but at Santa Maria Beach it was a bit hard to get off the water. As you probably have more FPS than me it might be near impossible. If you're better than me and not unlucky, you may be able to make it without that swim at all, at least by adjusting the out-of-water times a bit.

---

The drive from the end of the Badlands mission to start Tanker Commander seems a bit rough and not all that straight either. I had the thought of going north at the start and taking the shortcut next to The Truth's farm and through the railroad tunnel. When I didn't crash at all, it saved a few seconds compared to your faultless-looking 2:06 in the first run yesterday. Most tries I did fall from the bike at least once so either I was going too fast at places or I just lack the practice. Anyway it feels like at least safer than your current route (that I didn't even try), possibly also faster. When you use the same route later as a part of going from King In Exile to Catalina's place (same start point, different end point), it should save way more because you can skip going to the town.

[quote="Joshimuz"](forgetting mission start times) Every time I do this a puppy dies, however this should just be something I should know and writing down on the splits is embarising XD[/quote]
After yesterday's LS run, I can't help myself. Which is more embarrassing, writing the times in the splits or forgetting them during the run? Even if it doesn't lose that much time, my understanding is that such mistakes will easily make it harder for the run to pass SDA quality control.

The whole game has quite many of these timed mission starts. Probably some of them you don't even see in regular practice due to starting from the same save. In the full run I think you'll easily lose sync after LS.

Added: I didn't try this but it would appear that in OG Loc there's a quicker first half for the drive to the Burger Shot. You've turned left to the railroad, went along it, jumped to the freeway and climbed right back up. I would instead go front-left diagonally across the railroad, turn right, take the second left, turn right and arrive to the same spot. Measured from the map (lookie [url=http://myepsilon.org/content/maps.htm]here[/url], the aerial map is great) this seems to be about 85% the distance. There's two sharp turns more and somewhat more possibilities for bad traffic, but still.

--- Added 02-07

Yesterday, when you fell to your death with the parachute after jumping from the Hunter when you were going to change to the other chopper, I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with (horizontal) speed. I'd say that you also were a bit high but most importantly exited too early when you were still above the lower roof below the helipad. You even fell to the lower level in the end.

I don't know at what point the parachute thing is determined, but I would hope that it's good enough if you exit a fraction of a second later there (but best to aim at the center of the helipad of course, knowing that you stop the moment you exit). In case the parachute mechanics force you to be near to the ground already when you press the exit button (I doubt it), then maybe your speed was indeed high for that small helipad and would have required accurate timing. About the height, I think you would have easily survived a properly timed drop to the helipad, but likely taken damage. Lower would be better and not too risky.

Going to get the Hunter for High Noon is the perfect place to jump from a plane at speed by the way. There's level ground with enough space, especially since you answer the phone anyway and get free walking time.

Another one, after Saint Mark's Bistro when you just fling the plane over the fence, surely it's better to fly to the casino like I think someone suggested in the chat as well. There's almost a runway next to the ring road (between it and the casino) and it's easy to land there (take off too), but obviously just ejecting at full speed is faster. Doing it on the strip right next to the save point should work too but with traffic, getting the altitude right is probably something you don't want to try at that point in the run. Maybe if you happen to have a load of health.

In Fender Ketchup, it looked to me like the scare-o-meter went up fast when you *turned away* from a parked car when near it, even when you wouldn't have collided with it anyway. Crashing into the side of the car that came from the side also seemed to work wonders but seems too dangerous. Worth experimenting with, but I've always hated that mission and don't have an appropriate save right now.

---

I've been watching CannibalK9's run again. I keep noticing more new routes and things that you've improved all over the place, well done! Other routes you do the same, not many slower and those that I've noticed seem to make sense for safety, SS and all. So yeah, when I urged you to watch it again, maybe not. There were just the couple of missing tricks that made me wonder.

As I've been focusing on things to improve, I need to emphasize that I can't believe how good and reliable your execution is, especially when focused in the full run. I don't think I could ever come close. Some more practice and somehow keeping concentration for 7 hours straight for the full run will make it practically perfect, accepting some unavoidable bad luck and even lapses of concentration in that long a time.

--- Added 02-09

Tested a couple of things again.

Photo Opportunity: CannibalK9's boat landing really works much worse with the frame limiter off. I can get it on land but it stops far from Cesar, and with more FPS it's likely worse. Also had the pleasure of driving Cesar's car during rain, you can guess how well it went in the grassy shortcuts. It makes sense to save some extra times before starting the mission if it looks like it's going to rain.

Outrider + Snail Trail: When Outrider went really well I could get all of the first lung upgrade there, totally avoiding the last swim. But if it's needed, there's no hurry. The targets are more patient than I was, they wait to be sniped for at least 2 minutes. Anyway, a smarter use for the extra time if Outrider goes very well might be to get the armor before going to swim.

Tried some jumps from helicopters and airplanes too with the run in mind. It really is hard to damage yourself badly (and that's all about height, not speed). Flying to the casino and jumping out right next to the save point without taking any damage is also easy, there's plenty to work with even with traffic. The plane doesn't need to be horizontal at all either, which makes it easier to avoid the trees. Still, better practice it well first.

--- Added 02-12

Here are some new things I've tested that came to mind during the new record run Sunday. Less generally useful stuff I've sent in private.

OG Loc: Freddy goes faster when you're near behind him. By following him through the first three alleys and only going ahead of him by road during the fourth, he arrives 13 seconds earlier than normal. That means not much time to set up the kill, but still enough if you're fast and traffic isn't horrible.

Toreno's Last Flight (safety): You can move away from the gunfire before shooting down the helicopter. The obvious spot is near the first intersection on the route you would take after the mission anyway, putting a building between you and the gunmen. This doesn't waste many seconds but obviously isn't worth it if you can make the normal way reliable.

Interdiction: In a few tries I had no trouble having the helicopter stay parked between where the package ends up and the shack. Since there's the backup helicopter anyway, it should be worth trying. This is just a hunch, but probably holding S to land firmly and not exiting until completely stopped helps.

High Noon: I tried it many times and got really random results, never the fastest possible. Even when it went relatively well, my Hunter still despawned. If you can't make it either, either you don't need the Hunter (fly straight there), or you should use the Hunter to kill him. It's not faster than the standard strat with some luck, but it's more consistent. Unfortunately the Hunter still despawns.

Vertical Bird: I tried to skip disabling the SAMs quite a lot of times and never had any trouble. Just use "countermeasures" (alt fire) periodically as soon as you're airborne until there are no missiles. The first person camera can also be useful here when destroying the boats. Especially when wrong targets want to take priority, you can just aim manually.

Fun bonus... You can save maybe half a second on every visit inside Woozie's casino by sprinting on the edge of the elevated square first instead of going for the slightly more direct route that doesn't allow sprinting.

Patrick

Edit history:

Patrick: 2013-02-14 11:10:53 pm

Patrick: 2013-02-14 09:00:36 pm

Patrick: 2013-02-14 08:55:08 pm

2013-02-14 08:54:44 pm

You're amazing nixixix&Joshimuz :-D
Hi there,
I also have some ideas. I am not sure what you think about yet another flood of information. :-D But I say that you can just respond to 10% every day or so.

link to the maps: http://www.myepsilon.org/content/maps.htm

I tested the lung capacity thing and the two timed missions are enough for a good runner. The principle is, as nixixix pointed out, do not use space in order to save oxygen;mash the left mouse button to 're-dive' early; train down health;go on land to refill the bar. You should not fail horribly though and optimize the shooting part just in case you fail semi-horribly. :-D I assume that you can dive without danger until the 'waits for taxi' text appears.

extras to do if time is plenty: NRG, armor (for following missions), another bike (for Yay Ka-Boom-Boom;see below), saving rockets

gaining time:
555 gives you some time to dive. If the victim comes very early then the mission won't fail - he will wait for you to come back and there is no problem to jack it, even the police does not care (at least the one police man I encountered once).
Planning and practice - where to aim and so on.
if you fail horribly: skipping the heat-seeking RPG (see below)

Death abuse:
how? you can let CJ hurt himself in the waiting time of the Catalina mission and then shoot at the gas tank.
when? after Tanker Commander
where? on the serpentines, the southernmost crossing of the street with a path. You end up a few footsteps away from the 'Body Harvest'.
time saved? time won: over 50s (50s if the traffic is great); time lost: under 15s
time lost: You need to collect a rifle in 'Body Harvest' for "chase guys on a quad bike"(reason) and having no weapons you will have to run over the driver of the combine harvester after stealing it.

2nd drive to Catalina: There is a plane on a hill near the 'uphill serpentine skip shortcut'. I haven't timed it against a good land route though, but it is a bit faster than Cannibal's route.

Toreno's Last Flight: the heat-seaking RPG is just luxury. The helicopter stops in mid-air while turning, between the start and highway (just try and it will be clear) and is easy to shoot with practice, using the rockets from Outrider.

Amphibious Assault: You can climb up the rocks. Using a boat is probably slower than swimming. Taking out some boats with rockets is recommended.

There are heat-seeking rockets in the ruins you drive by in 'Monster', it is faster to take them than those at the airport.

Start of LV: I think it is faster to fly the old plane to the Maverick before going to the Casino than the way Cannibal did it but I am not sure.

High Noon: The minigun is worth testing. You can do High Noon after Black Project (where you collect it) and then do Green Goo. It will also make killing Big Poppa faster.

Edit: By all means, leave Sweet behind in 'Grove 4 Live'. :-D And grab the minigun after Vertical Bird, 4k-5k bullets (I needed 4k when being efficient).

You're amazing nixixix&Joshimuz :-D
Hi there,
I also have some ideas. I am not sure what you think about yet another flood of information. :-D But I say that you can just respond to 10% every day or so.

link to the maps: http://www.myepsilon.org/content/maps.htm

I tested the lung capacity thing and the two timed missions are enough for a good runner. The principle is, as nixixix pointed out, do not use space in order to save oxygen;mash the left mouse button to 're-dive' early; train down health;go on land to refill the bar. You should not fail horribly though and optimize the shooting part just in case you fail semi-horribly. :-D I assume that you can dive without danger until the 'waits for taxi' text appears.

extras to do if time is plenty: NRG, armor (for following missions), another bike (for Yay Ka-Boom-Boom;see below), saving rockets

gaining time: 
555 gives you some time to dive. If the victim comes very early then the mission won't fail - he will wait for you to come back and there is no problem to jack it, even the police does not care (at least the one police man I encountered once).
Planning and practice - where to aim and so on.
if you fail horribly: skipping the heat-seeking RPG (see below)

Death abuse:
how? you can let CJ hurt himself in the waiting time of the Catalina mission and then shoot at the gas tank.
when? after Tanker Commander
where? on the serpentines, the southernmost crossing of the street with a path. You end up a few footsteps away from the 'Body Harvest'.
time saved? time won: over 50s (50s if the traffic is great); time lost: under 15s
time lost: You need to collect a rifle in 'Body Harvest' for "chase guys on a quad bike"([url=http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/grand_theft_auto_san_andreas_1003_57.html]reason[/url]) and having no  weapons you will have to run over the driver of the combine harvester after stealing it.

2nd drive to Catalina: There is a plane on a hill near the 'uphill serpentine skip shortcut'. I haven't timed it against a good land route though, but it is a bit faster than Cannibal's route.

Toreno's Last Flight: the heat-seaking RPG is just luxury. The helicopter stops in mid-air while turning, between the start and highway (just try and it will be clear) and is easy to shoot with practice, using the rockets from Outrider.

Amphibious Assault: You can climb up the rocks. Using a boat is probably slower than swimming. Taking out some boats with rockets is recommended.

There are heat-seeking rockets in the ruins you drive by in 'Monster', it is faster to take them than those at the airport.

Start of LV: I think it is faster to fly the old plane to the Maverick before going to the Casino than the way Cannibal did it but I am not sure.

High Noon: The minigun is worth testing. You can do High Noon after Black Project (where you collect it) and then do Green Goo. It will also make killing Big Poppa faster.

Edit: By all means, leave Sweet behind in 'Grove 4 Live'. :-D And grab the minigun after Vertical Bird, 4k-5k bullets (I needed 4k when being efficient).

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-02-16 07:19:42 am

2013-02-15 03:42:49 am

Lots of good stuff there!

Quote from freakypaddy:

The principle is, as nixixix pointed out, do not use space in order to save oxygen;mash the left mouse button to 're-dive' early; train down health;go on land to refill the bar.

No need to go on land as far as I know. Idling in the water without pressing anything does the same but saves you from swimming to shore which consumes oxygen. Or did you time the recharge to be faster on land?

Quote:

I assume that you can dive without danger until the 'waits for taxi' text appears.

I had all the timings of Snail Trail researched in an earlier post. From my experience you could dive even longer, because he waits a full minute for the taxi if you're not near. But any extra swimming can just as well be done in the end at Santa Maria Beach, because there the targets seem to wait infinitely.

Quote:

extras to do if time is plenty: NRG, armor (for following missions), another bike (for Yay Ka-Boom-Boom;see below), saving rockets

Bike for Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, see what below?

There's not much to save rockets for, other than Toreno's Last Flight, but getting time for the armor and more bikes would be good.

Quote:

555 gives you some time to dive.

This is an excellent point and I should have thought of it already. You get the fast car the valet is going to park, and there's a good jetty to dive from not too far, east and slightly north from the hotel.

I tried it three times. From the end of the cutscene showing the D.A.'s car to swimming took me 20 seconds. From getting out of the water to being back also took 20. The D.A. took 87, 90, and 100 seconds to arrive; in Josh's practice runs yesterday: 80 and 108. To play it safe you could swim for 35 seconds and be back at 75 if all goes well. Some care is required because wanted stars fail the mission.

Short diving sections like this are ideal because all oxygen recharge is done while moving. This saves more like 45 seconds of swimming later. If we can also live without getting the missiles during Snail Trail, and use the faster way to enter the airport (punching the gate), there could be enough time in the other timed missions to collect the armor and even two bikes in the garage. I'll come up with a full plan when I next get to test this.

Quote:

Start of LV: I think it is faster to fly the old plane to the Maverick before going to the Casino than the way Cannibal did it but I am not sure.

The Hunter is faster than the Maverick, and not much slower than the plane for that short trip. The total distance flown is almost the same either way, right? Still, hard to be certain without testing.

Quote:

High Noon: The minigun is worth testing. You can do High Noon after Black Project (where you collect it) and then do Green Goo. It will also make killing Big Poppa faster.

I tried High Noon once with 200 minigun rounds from the regular pickup, couldn't do anything. The car just doesn't seem to take damage from shots early on, other than lose its tires. Rockets from the Hunter are the only thing I've seen an effect with.

Where could the minigun be used for Big Poppa? I didn't think he could be shot before chasing him with the car. Or do you mean Big Smoke for whom it certainly helps?

Quote:

Edit: By all means, leave Sweet behind in 'Grove 4 Live'. :-D

Man! I was just going to mention the same thing.

I found another similar one:

Mike Toreno: You need to enter the car with T-Bone at the start, but after that you can ditch him. It's faster to drive the bike to the airport without him. Unfortunately he teleports there during a cutscene and you still need to take both of them back to Jizzy's, so no bikeride there.

--- Home Coming

There's a police Maverick on top of the police station where you pick up Sweet. It's much faster than the Sparrow and you get to use it quite a lot in the following missions.

Strategy A, the current run:
- manipulate Sparrow to spawn
- fly with Sparrow to pick up Sweet
- fly with Sparrow to Grove Street

Strategy B:
- manipulate Sparrow to spawn
- fly with Sparrow to pick up Sweet
(Maverick spawns during cutscene if not before)
- fly on the roof and switch to Maverick
- fly with Maverick to Grove Street

Strategy C:
- fly with Hydra to Maverick
- manipulate Maverick to spawn (hover nearby waiting for the area to load before approaching, and/or fly out and back to spawn it)
- switch to Maverick
- fly down with Maverick to pick up Sweet
- fly with Maverick to Grove Street

Just the flight to Grove Street is 10 seconds faster with the Maverick, making B almost as fast as A.

C is even faster, even including the extra time to safely land the Hydra at the mansion beforehand. C also saves you from worrying about the Sparrow spawn. However, I haven't found a 100% way to spawn the Maverick on first approach. Also flying the Hydra fast can be dangerous. For single-segment, you might want to land the Hydra at the mansion but only use it if the Sparrow doesn't spawn.

--- Added 02-16

Some test results for 555 edited in above.

Quote from freakypaddy:

2nd drive to Catalina: There is a plane on a hill near the 'uphill serpentine skip shortcut'. I haven't timed it against a good land route though, but it is a bit faster than Cannibal's route.

I didn't find a fast way to get the plane, and it's a slow plane: the flight took 70 seconds. Do you remember your time?

--- High Noon

I ran some more repeats. The weirdest thing is that every time I shot Pulaski's tire(s) my Hunter stayed, every time I didn't it despawned. Shooting the tires also makes the rest of the mission easier / more consistent, so good.

Jacking him from the driver side actually seems easier than the passenger side, and also faster because you can only throw him out and not enter the vehicle. After shooting his tires it's faster to run him over with the Bandito or shoot him with the minigun than use his Buffalo.

Not jacking him and instead blowing up his car with the minigun is also possible and not *very* slow, but his car only takes damage after CJ's first line of dialog.

Lots of good stuff there!

[quote="freakypaddy"]The principle is, as nixixix pointed out, do not use space in order to save oxygen;mash the left mouse button to 're-dive' early; train down health;go on land to refill the bar.[/quote]
No need to go on land as far as I know. Idling in the water without pressing anything does the same but saves you from swimming to shore which consumes oxygen. Or did you time the recharge to be faster on land?

[quote]I assume that you can dive without danger until the 'waits for taxi' text appears.[/quote]
I had all the timings of Snail Trail researched in an earlier post. From my experience you could dive even longer, because he waits a full minute for the taxi if you're not near. But any extra swimming can just as well be done in the end at Santa Maria Beach, because there the targets seem to wait infinitely.

[quote]extras to do if time is plenty: NRG, armor (for following missions), another bike (for Yay Ka-Boom-Boom;see below), saving rockets[/quote]
Bike for Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, see what below?

There's not much to save rockets for, other than Toreno's Last Flight, but getting time for the armor and more bikes would be good.

[quote]555 gives you some time to dive.[/quote]
This is an excellent point and I should have thought of it already. You get the fast car the valet is going to park, and there's a good jetty to dive from not too far, east and slightly north from the hotel.

I tried it three times. From the end of the cutscene showing the D.A.'s car to swimming took me 20 seconds. From getting out of the water to being back also took 20. The D.A. took 87, 90, and 100 seconds to arrive; in Josh's practice runs yesterday: 80 and 108. To play it safe you could swim for 35 seconds and be back at 75 if all goes well. Some care is required because wanted stars fail the mission.

Short diving sections like this are ideal because all oxygen recharge is done while moving. This saves more like 45 seconds of swimming later. If we can also live without getting the missiles during Snail Trail, and use the faster way to enter the airport (punching the gate), there could be enough time in the other timed missions to collect the armor and even two bikes in the garage. I'll come up with a full plan when I next get to test this.

[quote]Start of LV: I think it is faster to fly the old plane to the Maverick before going to the Casino than the way Cannibal did it but I am not sure.[/quote]
The Hunter is faster than the Maverick, and not much slower than the plane for that short trip. The total distance flown is almost the same either way, right? Still, hard to be certain without testing.

[quote]High Noon: The minigun is worth testing. You can do High Noon after Black Project (where you collect it) and then do Green Goo. It will also make killing Big Poppa faster.[/quote]
I tried High Noon once with 200 minigun rounds from the regular pickup, couldn't do anything. The car just doesn't seem to take damage from shots early on, other than lose its tires. Rockets from the Hunter are the only thing I've seen an effect with.

Where could the minigun be used for Big Poppa? I didn't think he could be shot before chasing him with the car. Or do you mean Big Smoke for whom it certainly helps?

[quote]Edit: By all means, leave Sweet behind in 'Grove 4 Live'. :-D[/quote]
Man! I was just going to mention the same thing.

I found another similar one:

Mike Toreno: You need to enter the car with T-Bone at the start, but after that you can ditch him. It's faster to drive the bike to the airport without him. Unfortunately he teleports there during a cutscene and you still need to take both of them back to Jizzy's, so no bikeride there.

--- Home Coming

There's a police Maverick on top of the police station where you pick up Sweet. It's much faster than the Sparrow and you get to use it quite a lot in the following missions.

Strategy A, the current run:
- manipulate Sparrow to spawn
- fly with Sparrow to pick up Sweet
- fly with Sparrow to Grove Street

Strategy B:
- manipulate Sparrow to spawn
- fly with Sparrow to pick up Sweet
(Maverick spawns during cutscene if not before)
- fly on the roof and switch to Maverick
- fly with Maverick to Grove Street

Strategy C:
- fly with Hydra to Maverick
- manipulate Maverick to spawn (hover nearby waiting for the area to load before approaching, and/or fly out and back to spawn it)
- switch to Maverick
- fly down with Maverick to pick up Sweet
- fly with Maverick to Grove Street

Just the flight to Grove Street is 10 seconds faster with the Maverick, making B almost as fast as A.

C is even faster, even including the extra time to safely land the Hydra at the mansion beforehand. C also saves you from worrying about the Sparrow spawn. However, I haven't found a 100% way to spawn the Maverick on first approach. Also flying the Hydra fast can be dangerous. For single-segment, you might want to land the Hydra at the mansion but only use it if the Sparrow doesn't spawn.

--- Added 02-16

Some test results for 555 edited in above.

[quote="freakypaddy"]2nd drive to Catalina: There is a plane on a hill near the 'uphill serpentine skip shortcut'. I haven't timed it against a good land route though, but it is a bit faster than Cannibal's route.[/quote]
I didn't find a fast way to get the plane, and it's a slow plane: the flight took 70 seconds. Do you remember your time?

--- High Noon

I ran some more repeats. The weirdest thing is that every time I shot Pulaski's tire(s) my Hunter stayed, every time I didn't it despawned. Shooting the tires also makes the rest of the mission easier / more consistent, so good.

Jacking him from the driver side actually seems easier than the passenger side, and also faster because you can only throw him out and not enter the vehicle. After shooting his tires it's faster to run him over with the Bandito or shoot him with the minigun than use his Buffalo.

Not jacking him and instead blowing up his car with the minigun is also possible and not *very* slow, but his car only takes damage after CJ's first line of dialog.

Patrick

Edit history:

Patrick: 2013-02-16 07:32:47 pm

2013-02-16 07:31:20 pm

Hi there,
as I said, there is no reason to be stressed because of all the input, it will become less after some time and you can read the posts in many small sessions and be done eventually.

I am going to post a few more paragraphs in 10h-15h, and now a few easy facts. Later I am probably going to see whether I can criticize/praise/expand more of nixixix's points than after reading them once.

I am having problems to plan things you need to actually time as I am bad compared to speedrunners and it would take many attempts for some tests. Are you interested in doing stuff like that quick&dirty, Joshimuz?

High Noon: I was stupid, I thought you guys know the strat and had discarded it: You can crash into the front of Pulaski's car from the side (easy), so that he had a building in front of him and CJ on the left. He backs up longer than in Cannibal's run this way. I think that it might become a quite consistent strategy if you practise it much.

Helicopter stuff and the gang wars:
Not sure if known, but to provoke gang wars you can kill people while being in different territories (color does not matter), its place is the territory where you stand while starting it. Which is great, I start most of my wars by destroying gang cars with the minigun. But if possible I headshot them without destroying the car, because of the police.

Instead of flying home after Groove 4 Life I would drive home while winning over territories.
About the way towards CJ's house: Helicopters are over-estimated, maybe it is even faster to fly to Sweet with the plane and then driving as all the helicopter strats take qute a bit of time to get them. With the minigun (see the post I linked to earlier for my long post pro-minigun) and maybe other weapon strats, too you can go by this strategy:
after 1st wave) get to the edge of the territory
after 2nd wave)drive towards your destination (mansion)
If it is feasible chase the gang car that spawns in the first or second wave. After the war you can destroy it and then only need to destroy one more gang car to provoke the next war.

Hi there,
as I said, there is no reason to be stressed because of all the input, it will become less after some time and you can read the posts in many small sessions and be done eventually.

I am going to post a few more paragraphs in 10h-15h, and now a few easy facts. Later I am probably going to see whether I can criticize/praise/expand more of nixixix's points than after reading them once.

I am having problems to plan things you need to actually time as I am bad compared to speedrunners and it would take many attempts for some tests. Are you interested in doing stuff like that quick&dirty, Joshimuz?

High Noon: I was stupid, I thought you guys know the strat and had discarded it: You can crash into the front of Pulaski's car from the side (easy), so that he had a building in front of him and CJ on the left. He backs up longer than in Cannibal's run this way. I think that it might become a quite consistent strategy if you practise it much.

Helicopter stuff and the gang wars:
Not sure if known, but to provoke gang wars you can kill people while being in different territories (color does not matter), its place is the territory where you stand while starting it. Which is great, I start most of my wars by destroying gang cars with the minigun. But if possible I headshot them without destroying the car, because of the police.

Instead of flying home after Groove 4 Life I would drive home while winning over territories.
About the way towards CJ's house: Helicopters are over-estimated, maybe it is even faster to fly to Sweet with the plane and then driving as all the helicopter strats take qute a bit of time to get them. With the minigun (see the post I linked to earlier for my long post pro-minigun) and maybe other weapon strats, too you can go by this strategy:
after 1st wave) get to the edge of the territory
after 2nd wave)drive towards your destination (mansion)
If it is feasible chase the gang car that spawns in the first or second wave. After the war you can destroy it and then only need to destroy one more gang car to provoke the next war.

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-02-18 09:47:02 am

2013-02-16 11:28:49 pm

Quote from freakypaddy:

Death abuse:

This should be good, although Body Harvest without weapons may require a more careful strat.

Based on some experimenting I guessed that the hospital you respawn at is simply always the nearest one. I drew a map based on that and it looks like it's quite exact: I tried dying just a few meters from a point where areas of three different hospitals meet, and spawned at exactly the predicted hospital each time.

I haven't yet thought about other useful times for death abuse, but this map should help. Find ~~it attached to this post~~ an updated version attached to my next post.

The base I used is the aerial map from the previously mentioned link. If anyone wants a high resolution version with or without thinner lines, one on the game's own map, or only the layers I added, just ask.

Quote from freakypaddy:

High Noon: I was stupid, I thought you guys know the strat and had discarded it: You can crash into the front of Pulaski's car from the side (easy), so that he had a building in front of him and CJ on the left. He backs up longer than in Cannibal's run this way. I think that it might become a quite consistent strategy if you practise it much.

This is pretty much what I tried to do before I started popping the tires. I got relatively good at pushing him to the building, but both how he starts and how he backs up seem random. Even him reversing can be so fast that it cancels your jacking attempt.

Combining this with shooting his tires is hard for me, there's not much time. Anyway, with popped tires it's quite quick even letting him go for a bit.

Quote from freakypaddy:

Helicopter stuff and the gang wars:

Josh knows the gang war mechanics pretty well.

I would think that Home Coming (after getting Sweet) and Beat Down On B Dup are faster by helicopter, but it might make sense to time that. Leaving the chopper after completing Beat Down could be good, when Sweet is no longer an issue. You could take territories on the way back to Grove Street and during Grove 4 Life (without Sweet). Also on the way back to the mansion as you say.

One problem with all this is that gang members possibly spawn more rarely before Riot, at least according to CannibalK9's commentary. I'm not sure I can see the difference, and it's a bit hard to measure, but it could be there. Still, avoiding the random explosions and low-health cars during rioting has to be good for single-segment.

---

Thanks to you I played through the endgame with the minigun now, though not for my first time. It makes the gang territories safe, easy and almost fun. It has almost all the benefits of grenades but with good range and rate of fire, and doesn't take all that much more time to get. You also need less extra running around collecting health, armor, and ammo pickups, even though most of that is waiting time anyway.

With my not perfect gameplay, the detour to Toreno's place after Vertical Bird cost 40 seconds, plus 9 seconds per 500 minigun ammo. An extra cost is that you can't carry a rocket launcher, but the minigun does most of its jobs anyway.

Based on a feeling it seems worth it, though the time invested is still substantial compared to M4-only. You can get 200 minigun ammo from Black Project anyway, to speed up Smoke and possibly something else, though that also excludes rockets.

---

Ice Cold Killa: When Jizzy is out of the car, it's faster to drive over him than shoot him.

[quote="freakypaddy"]Death abuse:[/quote]
This should be good, although Body Harvest without weapons may require a more careful strat.

Based on some experimenting I guessed that the hospital you respawn at is simply always the nearest one. I drew a map based on that and it looks like it's quite exact: I tried dying just a few meters from a point where areas of three different hospitals meet, and spawned at exactly the predicted hospital each time.

I haven't yet thought about other useful times for death abuse, but this map should help. Find [s]it attached to this post[/s] an updated version attached to my next post.

The base I used is the aerial map from the previously mentioned link. If anyone wants a high resolution version with or without thinner lines, one on the game's own map, or only the layers I added, just ask.

[quote="freakypaddy"]High Noon: I was stupid, I thought you guys know the strat and had discarded it: You can crash into the front of Pulaski's car from the side (easy), so that he had a building in front of him and CJ on the left. He backs up longer than in Cannibal's run this way. I think that it might become a quite consistent strategy if you practise it much.[/quote]
This is pretty much what I tried to do before I started popping the tires. I got relatively good at pushing him to the building, but both how he starts and how he backs up seem random. Even him reversing can be so fast that it cancels your jacking attempt.

Combining this with shooting his tires is hard for me, there's not much time. Anyway, with popped tires it's quite quick even letting him go for a bit.

[quote="freakypaddy"]Helicopter stuff and the gang wars:[/quote]
Josh knows the gang war mechanics pretty well.

I would think that Home Coming (after getting Sweet) and Beat Down On B Dup are faster by helicopter, but it might make sense to time that. Leaving the chopper after completing Beat Down could be good, when Sweet is no longer an issue. You could take territories on the way back to Grove Street and during Grove 4 Life (without Sweet). Also on the way back to the mansion as you say.

One problem with all this is that gang members possibly spawn more rarely before Riot, at least according to CannibalK9's commentary. I'm not sure I can see the difference, and it's a bit hard to measure, but it could be there. Still, avoiding the random explosions and low-health cars during rioting has to be good for single-segment.

---

Thanks to you I played through the endgame with the minigun now, though not for my first time. It makes the gang territories safe, easy and almost fun. It has almost all the benefits of grenades but with good range and rate of fire, and doesn't take all that much more time to get. You also need less extra running around collecting health, armor, and ammo pickups, even though most of that is waiting time anyway.

With my not perfect gameplay, the detour to Toreno's place after Vertical Bird cost 40 seconds, plus 9 seconds per 500 minigun ammo. An extra cost is that you can't carry a rocket launcher, but the minigun does most of its jobs anyway.

Based on a feeling it seems worth it, though the time invested is still substantial compared to M4-only. You can get 200 minigun ammo from Black Project anyway, to speed up Smoke and possibly something else, though that also excludes rockets.

---

Ice Cold Killa: When Jizzy is out of the car, it's faster to drive over him than shoot him.

Joshimuz

Edit history:

Joshimuz: 2013-02-17 03:25:47 pm

Joshimuz: 2013-02-17 03:21:19 pm

Joshimuz: 2013-02-17 03:20:31 pm

2013-02-17 03:20:07 pm

Sorry about not being very active in this thread. This page is one of the tabs that Chrome loads everytime I open it so trust me when I say I see this almost everyday Tongue

So this morning before I was going to do a run I read this thread and saw all this awesome information, sorry I didn't get most of it into the run, however I did quickly practice the Minigun collection/spawn abuse and I just want to say thank you. Its an incredible strat and I'm so glad we have it now, it makes gang territories much more bearable.

So yeah, sorry for not posting too much but trust me I'm reading every word, and thank you!

Patrick

Edit history:

Patrick: 2013-02-18 09:20:25 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 09:18:03 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 09:06:15 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 08:09:06 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 07:50:17 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 07:49:47 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 07:49:10 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 07:09:51 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 06:51:16 am

Patrick: 2013-02-18 06:51:15 am

2013-02-18 06:29:38 am

Edit:Parts edited in are bold or blue.

Thanks for thanking me (^^) and for forgetting my name, I am not proud of it. ;-) I was only checking the 555 part and a few others. 555 is unaffected by you I am sure because you can actually watch the D.A. 'toadying' (right word?...) starting from the police station and traffic lights should be independent of where you are. He drives past three of them and they are red for 21s and green for only 12s so that causes the great variation.

I thought I might write some beta (e.g. untested) stuff in spoilers, too, maybe nixixix gets so exited about it that he/she does the testing for me. Tongue

:-D

If the traffic light before the car park is red, put your vehicle next to the other valets and later run out of the car park. It saves a bit of time.

I believe you can infer when that light turns green a minute beforehand from when the other traffic lights turn red/green and drive towards the hotel accordingly (if you lose 10s on the drive then the light turns red? drive without risk, else you lose 20s waiting for it to turn green again).

When diving, I'd stay under water the whole time using the space bar and/or by swimming under the boat to keep CJ from resurfacing. It costs health (i.e. one save) but is 30% more effective (1/1.30 less time required).
I agree on 40s travelling time, though even without that sports car. For Cannibal it took only 61s from after the cutscene until you can get in (ridiculous traffic light luck), so depending on how fast you are in the other two 'diving missions', i.e. how risk of wasting time in 'non-waiting parts' you have to take 25s should be ok.

San Fierro garage bike spawning:
If you save and reload, then most of the time police bikes are driving arround. You can use satchel charges to ‘attract’ near cops (you start with ~15 in SF, as you collect some additional ones in a Catalina mission).

Lung capa&extras suff
Today I once had roughly 20s to spare having done everything (555:30s diving) except for ‘another bike’ after just 5-10 attempts (mainly to practise). So with enough practice one should be able to consistently get all the extras except for the last one without losing any time anywhere and therefore the focus is probably rather consistency than getting more extras in. An unpractised runner has to take more risks. Risk= risk to waste time outside of the waiting parts

when not meantioned the times are time 'used' in the waiting part/gained in non-waiting parts:
saving time:
punching the gate must be version specific – it does not seam to work in my version (v2). E: saw it, will be attempting again 10s or so
micro-planning (where exactly to aim etc.)
555 diving (I feel: 20s very safe, 30s safe, 40s half save - without mistakes 0s to spare in nixixix's fastest time; multiply by 1.3 for time saved)

extras to do while the timed parts - in order of importance:
heat-seeking RPG (-20s)

armor (-10s)
the armor near the second road block
safety
a little bit of time

NRG
Edit: I didn't consider getting an NRG after Snail Trail. As in my plan you park one in the garage it wastes too much time. Is it useful as a backup strat if you are too slow in Outrider? See next edit.
used:~~~20s + parking
(I timed 20s lost (ignoring parts on foot) but my poor skill contaminates the result)
if you wasted much time in Outrider, either
run to the train (afaik he will walk the last part), drive the Sanchez to the NRG, park the NRG.
or park the NRG before the mission, run, drive to airport directly
Much time left? I am going to test that later

saved: if it replaces the helicopter, then you drive it for ~135s (like Cannibal). I didn’t time anything though. I just know that the NRG is 10% faster than the police bike (Sanchez not tested) on straight lines, 10% difference on every 'checkpoint'.
in response to the edit above: It probably wastes more time than it saves. Need to time it though.
Death abuse stuff: Without much practice the drive after Body Harvest is very hard, so it probably saves 20s to abuse death there which you then lose again because you need to buy a rifle later (in that Catalina mission). 10s compared to Cannibal in the segmented run. As you the BF-Injection you can skip this. :-D

Death abuse after ‘The Da Nang Thang’ by destroying your boat saves time.
Comparison: CannibalK9 got a phone call and then a bike came immediately (luck manipulation :-) – i.e. he redid the segment until being lucky). Abusing death and having ‘normal luck’ is roughly as fast as it is without death and Cannibal’s ‘luck’. I think destroying your boat is faster when finishing it off with the shotgun. Haven’t tested yet, though.
Crazy how inefficient death abuse is – but otherwise you would probably do it all the time. :-D

‘another bike foy Yay Ka-Boom-Boom – more below’: nothing. :-) Sometimes no police bike spawns at the garage save point, so it is nice to have one bike in it, I said that just because getting a police bike is less likely and more time consuming without weapons (after death abuse).

Ice Cold Killa – nrg vs helicopter: Maybe my flying style is inefficient, but the helicopter is just 2s faster from the garage to Jizzy than CannibalK9 was with the NRG, even when ignoring the time it takes to land at the garage and then you depend on a non-crappy car spawn or the limo for the ~60s driving afterwards (Amphibious Assault).

Toreno’s Last Flight:
Every time I tried I took nearly no hits at all but in all my tests I got a police bike. Using the tricks from above you should get one most of the time. You can kill the guys left to you before destroying the helicopter but afaik they normally don't hurt you if you just run to the bike like Cannibal.

A ‘healthy’ strat is helpful for the following mission 'The Da Nang Thang'

The Da Nang Thang:
if you have near full heath (ignoring the explosion damage in the cs):
Don't alert the guys behind the 'down-and-up-part'. Therefore only kill the shotgun guy, do not jump down, but you can run the whole time.
Pacifist strat, collecting the heart and gun. Keep distance to enemies while running past them.
If low on health collect the armor
Pacifist strat just running, not climbing. Funny that the guys you save don't die - but no need to kill anyone.
I have not tested the parts after that, yet but make sure that you have ~half health (not tested exactly) left at the end for the death abuse part.
low health: not tested, as that is a back-up strat.
Unfortunately,
the boxes don't contain anything
that granade guy does not drop grenades - I tried killing him before triggering him throwing it - maybe he drops it if you kill him between triggering him and him throwing the grenade?

In my next post I am going to look closer at nixixix's posts. Btw, I just realized that it is selfish to focus on one's ideas before responding to the responses about them. I am not sorry Tongue

but it won't happen again.

E: Unfortunately, satchel charges disappear in cutscenes. I tried it during 'Mountain Cloud Boys'. Maybe there are exceptions.
untested:

Snail Trail: get to the destination early, attach a satchel charge to the taxi in Snail Trail, the range of the remote control is great enough.
to be tested: how far away you can be there

The tow truck does not tow the vehicles in Outrider, Key to Her Heart (side-mission), therefore probably not in 555. Not practical in a SS anyways but it would save more time than the extras.

E: commenting the run - should take much time until I am done. I admit that until I posted this I had only watched your runs for 2h and that was an old run. So some things I had written might be worse than your strats.

parking he NRG is still better. :-)
Snail Trail:
I think nixixix (and I) meant you should swim at the place nearest to the station because then you are near enough to trigger him to get out and can dive while he walks (~45s) and then fly away to make vehiles spawn in time.
Don't turn the frame limiter on again for that short following section
great method of scaring the taxi driver. He was 20s faster than in Cannibals run (120s vs 140s), probably due to luck.

Ampibious: Use your rockets. :-) I'd destroy the first one and maybe the one at the end before jumping off the ship

save at the casino, not the airstrip

Monster, attempt #1: where you crashed into the rock maybe you should have driven arround even without the rock. 3m47s is impressive! Collect the rocket launcher next time, I wrote about it above.

Highjack: overtake the truck after Cesar is in, breaking is faster than accelerating.

Interdiction (end): When I parked the heli with the side facing the water it worked, but I need to test it, not sure how often I did it.

Collect the rockets on the mountain and at the end of the mission (the one you are supposed to use for the mission).

S. is just viewing: are you serious about 100% SS? Are you likely to do it?

Edit:Parts edited in are [b]bold[/b] or blue.

Thanks for thanking me (^^) and for forgetting my name, I am not proud of it. ;-) I was only checking the 555 part and a few others. 555 is unaffected by you I am sure because you can actually watch the D.A. 'toadying' (right word?...) starting from the police station and traffic lights should be independent of where you are. He drives past three of them and they are red for 21s and green for only 12s so that causes the great variation.

I thought I might write some beta (e.g. untested) stuff in spoilers, too, maybe nixixix gets so exited about it that he/she does the testing for me. :P :-D

If the traffic light before the car park is red, put your vehicle next to the other valets and later run out of the car park. It saves a bit of time. 
[hidden=beta]I believe you can infer when that light turns green a minute beforehand from when the other traffic lights turn red/green and drive towards the hotel accordingly (if you lose 10s on the drive then the light turns red? drive without risk, else you lose 20s waiting for it to turn green again).[/hidden]
When diving, I'd stay under water the whole time using the space bar and/or by swimming under the boat to keep CJ from resurfacing. It costs health (i.e. one save) but is 30% more effective (1/1.30 less time required).
I agree on 40s travelling time, though even without that sports car. For Cannibal it took only 61s from after the cutscene  until you can get in (ridiculous traffic light luck), so depending on how fast you are in the other two 'diving missions', i.e. how risk of wasting time in 'non-waiting parts' you have to take 25s should be ok.

San Fierro garage bike spawning:
If you save and reload, then most of the time police bikes are driving arround. You can use satchel charges to ‘attract’ near cops (you start with ~15 in SF, as you collect some additional ones in a Catalina mission).

[u]Lung capa&extras suff[/u]
Today I once had roughly 20s to spare having done everything (555:30s diving) except for ‘another bike’ after just 5-10 attempts (mainly to practise). So with enough practice one should be able to consistently get all the extras except for the last one without losing any time anywhere and therefore the focus is probably rather consistency than getting more extras in. An unpractised runner has to take more risks. Risk= risk to waste time outside of the waiting parts

when not meantioned the times are time 'used' in the waiting part/gained in non-waiting parts:
saving time:
punching the gate must be version specific – it does not seam to work in my version (v2). [color="blue"]E: saw it, will be attempting again[/color] 10s or so
micro-planning (where exactly to aim etc.)
555 diving (I feel: 20s very safe, 30s safe, 40s half save - without mistakes 0s to spare in nixixix's fastest time; multiply by 1.3 for time saved)

extras to do while the timed parts - in order of importance:
heat-seeking RPG (-20s)

armor (-10s)
the armor near the second road block
safety
a little bit of time

NRG
[b]Edit: I didn't consider getting an NRG after Snail Trail. As in my plan you park one in the garage it wastes too much time. Is it useful as a backup strat if you are too slow in Outrider? See next edit.[/b]
used:~~~20s + parking
(I timed 20s lost (ignoring parts on foot) but my poor skill contaminates the result)
if you wasted much time in Outrider, either 
run to the train (afaik he will walk the last part), drive the Sanchez to the NRG, park the NRG.
or park the NRG before the mission, run, drive to airport directly
Much time left? I am going to test that later

saved: if it replaces the helicopter, then you drive it for ~135s (like Cannibal). I didn’t time anything though. I just know that the NRG is 10% faster than the police bike (Sanchez not tested) on straight lines, 10% difference on every 'checkpoint'.
[b]in response to the edit above: It probably wastes more time than it saves. Need to time it though.[/b]
Death abuse stuff: Without much practice the drive after Body Harvest is very hard, so it probably saves 20s to abuse death there which you then lose again because you need to buy a rifle later (in that Catalina mission). 10s compared to Cannibal in the segmented run. As you the BF-Injection you can skip this. :-D

Death abuse after ‘The Da Nang Thang’ by destroying your boat saves time.
Comparison: CannibalK9 got a phone call and then a bike came immediately (luck manipulation :-) – i.e. he redid the segment until being lucky). Abusing death and having ‘normal luck’ is roughly as fast as it is without death and Cannibal’s ‘luck’. I think destroying your boat is faster when finishing it off with the shotgun. Haven’t tested yet, though.
Crazy how inefficient death abuse is – but otherwise you would probably do it all the time. :-D

‘another bike foy Yay Ka-Boom-Boom – more below’: nothing. :-) Sometimes no police bike spawns at the garage save point, so it is nice to have one bike in it, I said that just because getting a police bike is less likely and more time consuming without weapons (after death abuse).

Ice Cold Killa – nrg vs helicopter: Maybe my flying style is inefficient, but the helicopter is just 2s faster from the garage to Jizzy than CannibalK9 was with the NRG, even when ignoring the time it takes to land at the garage and then you depend on a non-crappy car spawn or the limo for the ~60s driving afterwards (Amphibious Assault).

Toreno’s Last Flight:
Every time I tried I took nearly no hits at all but in all my tests I got a police bike. Using the tricks from above you should get one most of the time. You can kill the guys left  to you before destroying the helicopter but afaik they normally don't hurt you if you just run to the bike like Cannibal.

A ‘healthy’ strat is helpful for the following mission 'The Da Nang Thang'

The Da Nang Thang:
if you have near full heath (ignoring the explosion damage in the cs):
Don't alert the guys behind the 'down-and-up-part'. Therefore only kill the shotgun guy, do not jump down, but you can run the whole time.
Pacifist strat, collecting the heart and gun. Keep distance to enemies while running past them.
If low on health collect the armor
Pacifist strat just running, not climbing. Funny that the guys you save don't die - but no need to kill anyone.
I have not tested the parts after that, yet but make sure that you have ~half health (not tested exactly) left at the end for the death abuse part.
low health: not tested, as that is a back-up strat.
Unfortunately,
the boxes don't contain anything
that granade guy does not drop grenades - I tried killing him before triggering him throwing it - maybe he drops it if you kill him between triggering him and him throwing the grenade?

In my next post I am going to look closer at nixixix's posts. Btw, I just realized that it is selfish to focus on one's ideas before responding to the responses about them. I am not sorry :P but it won't happen again.

E: Unfortunately, satchel charges disappear in cutscenes. I tried it during 'Mountain Cloud Boys'. Maybe there are exceptions.
untested:

Snail Trail: get to the destination early, attach a satchel charge to the taxi in Snail Trail, the range of the remote control is great enough.
to be tested: how far away you can be there

The tow truck does not tow the vehicles in Outrider, Key to Her Heart (side-mission), therefore probably not in 555. Not practical in a SS anyways but it would save more time than the extras.

E: commenting the run - should take much time until I am done. I admit that until I posted this I had only watched your runs for 2h and that was an old run. So some things I had written might be worse than your strats.

parking he NRG is still better. :-)
Snail Trail:
I think nixixix (and I) meant you should swim at the place nearest to the station because then you are near enough to trigger him to get out and can dive while he walks (~45s) and then fly away to make vehiles spawn in time.
Don't turn the frame limiter on again for that short following section
great method of scaring the taxi driver. He was 20s faster than in Cannibals run (120s vs 140s), probably due to luck.

Ampibious: Use your rockets. :-) I'd destroy the first one and maybe the one at the end before jumping off the ship

save at the casino, not the airstrip

Monster, attempt #1: where you crashed into the rock maybe you should have driven arround even without the rock. 3m47s is impressive! Collect the rocket launcher next time, I wrote about it above.

Highjack: overtake the truck after Cesar is in, breaking is faster than accelerating.

Interdiction (end): When I parked the heli with the side facing the water it worked, but I need to test it, not sure how often I did it.

Collect the rockets on the mountain and at the end of the mission (the one you are supposed to use for the mission).

S. is just viewing: are you serious about 100% SS? Are you likely to do it?

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-03-09 02:28:29 am

Nixixix: 2013-02-19 09:55:20 am

Nixixix: 2013-02-19 09:11:33 am

Nixixix: 2013-02-18 10:32:52 am

Nixixix: 2013-02-18 10:31:53 am

2013-02-18 09:49:43 am

Good run, Josh! Lots of new strats used, lots still to learn. You both played great and had the RNG with you most of the time. Still enough big losses to leave room to improve. Soon you'll be hungry for sub-6:30.

Shame about Misappropriation, I don't think I've ever seen the FBI take the briefcase *and* the helicopter either. At least you can be prepared to shoot them from now on. Even bigger shame near the end not having saved. Riot mode killed you there, it's a lot nicer to run from the police when you can get cars. Now I really think you should do most of the territories before Riot.

Thanks for blindly trusting my advice with T-Bone in Mike Toreno. Somehow I was really scared of it not working for some weird reason. And good use of the minigun! Don't forget to use it for Smoke.

Quote from freakypaddy:

About the way towards CJ's house: Helicopters are over-estimated, maybe it is even faster to fly to Sweet with the plane and then driving as all the helicopter strats take qute a bit of time to get them.

I did some dirty runs to test this.

For Home Coming, flying the Hydra to Sweet and jacking a car is definitely faster than even my fastest way to get the police Maverick. Getting a car immediately but it being a Bobcat, I won 10 seconds.

For the transit part of Beat Down On B Dup, in a couple of tries I couldn't get Sweet to co-operate with the Maverick and lost loads of time. However, my time with Sweet's car was about the same as CannibalK9's run with the Sparrow, so probably losing against the Maverick when properly executed.

Overall, if we continue from Beat Down without a helicopter in any case, the times are comparable. On land is easier to execute without problems and with good luck getting a car, probably faster.

Quote from freakypaddy:

If the traffic light before the car park is red, put your vehicle next to the other valets and later run out of the car park. It saves a bit of time.

How to combine that with keeping the traffic from blocking his route? ETA: Tried it, it's no problem to run from blocking traffic to intercept him in the garage. Not sure if I slowed him down a little in the process, but my timing wasn't optimized anyway.

Quote:

Death abuse stuff: Without much practice the drive after Body Harvest is very hard, so it probably saves 20s to abuse death there which you then lose again because you need to buy a rifle later (in that Catalina mission). 10s compared to Cannibal in the segmented run. As you the BF-Injection you can skip this. :-D

Buying a rifle only loses ~6 seconds since you're already buying weapons anyway.

Could you expand on that BF Injection thing? Josh only uses it to go from Body Harvest to King In Exile, the same trip you'd skip by dying.

One potential problem is that the Sanchez might not spawn when starting from the hospital. At least it's a bit random starting from the save point. I guess Small Town Bank gives you a weapon?

Quote:

Ice Cold Killa – nrg vs helicopter: Maybe my flying style is inefficient, but the helicopter is just 2s faster from the garage to Jizzy than CannibalK9 was with the NRG, even when ignoring the time it takes to land at the garage and then you depend on a non-crappy car spawn or the limo for the ~60s driving afterwards (Amphibious Assault).

You also need a bike to do Ice Cold Killa. How to get one if flying there?

Quote:

E: Unfortunately, satchel charges disappear in cutscenes. I tried it during 'Mountain Cloud Boys'. Maybe there are exceptions.

I also tried it for High Noon before, disappeared.

Quote:

Snail Trail: get to the destination early, attach a satchel charge to the taxi in Snail Trail, the range of the remote control is great enough.
to be tested: how far away you can be there

Nice thinking! The taxi stays pretty far from the other target though, maybe too far? And you would need to trigger the explosion at a precise time. You could just drop one on the ground where they will stand. The savings are limited as you can't be far from the target for a long time, but this needs to be experimented with. Unfortunately satchels disappear here as well.

Quote:

save at the casino, not the airstrip

At what point? If the save needs to be loaded, it takes a long time to get an aircraft when starting from the casino.

The one grief I have with the saving is the save before flight school. Surely the only reason to ever load that is if the game crashes?

Quote:

Interdiction (end): When I parked the heli with the side facing the water it worked, but I need to test it, not sure how often I did it.

When I mentioned earlier how parking between the drop site and the shack works, I was also parking sideways.

Quote:

Collect the rockets on the mountain and at the end of the mission (the one you are supposed to use for the mission).

Good idea. Then you wouldn't pick up the minigun in Black Project because the rockets are better for You've Had Your Chips and last even after that.

I had trouble deciphering all the details in your post. I think I'll try to optimize the schedule for the timed missions from scratch and let you comment on the result.

---

I updated the hospital map from my previous post to include the situation before Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, when the three northmost hospitals are disabled. Tested that it works like the map says too. Before The Green Sabre only the two hospitals in LS are enabled, and that isn't interesting. Edit: Removed attachment from here, newer version in a later post.

--- Added: some minor things from the run.

Quote from Nixixix:

Ice Cold Killa: When Jizzy is out of the car, it's faster to drive over him than shoot him.

This is partly faster because you don't need to wait for him to get up. If you then miss him, you can still revert to shooting.

Don Peyote: In the end, in my experience you can land the helicopter in the marker and it'll stay. It's slow to land and take off under the overhang, but it keeps Paul and Maccer safe. Some middle ground might be best.

High Noon: Land the helicopter on the north side of the village, or it despawns during the first cutscene. Plus like I said, shoot his tires or it despawns during the last one for some weird reason, at least for me. By the way, the car is fixed during that cutscene, so popping the tires is never a bad thing.

Good run, Josh! Lots of new strats used, lots still to learn. You both played great and had the RNG with you most of the time. Still enough big losses to leave room to improve. Soon you'll be hungry for sub-6:30.

Shame about Misappropriation, I don't think I've ever seen the FBI take the briefcase *and* the helicopter either. At least you can be prepared to shoot them from now on. Even bigger shame near the end not having saved. Riot mode killed you there, it's a lot nicer to run from the police when you can get cars. Now I really think you should do most of the territories before Riot.

Thanks for blindly trusting my advice with T-Bone in Mike Toreno. Somehow I was really scared of it not working for some weird reason. And good use of the minigun! Don't forget to use it for Smoke.

[quote="freakypaddy"]About the way towards CJ's house: Helicopters are over-estimated, maybe it is even faster to fly to Sweet with the plane and then driving as all the helicopter strats take qute a bit of time to get them.[/quote]
I did some dirty runs to test this.

For Home Coming, flying the Hydra to Sweet and jacking a car is definitely faster than even my fastest way to get the police Maverick. Getting a car immediately but it being a Bobcat, I won 10 seconds.

For the transit part of Beat Down On B Dup, in a couple of tries I couldn't get Sweet to co-operate with the Maverick and lost loads of time. However, my time with Sweet's car was about the same as CannibalK9's run with the Sparrow, so probably losing against the Maverick when properly executed.

Overall, if we continue from Beat Down without a helicopter in any case, the times are comparable. On land is easier to execute without problems and with good luck getting a car, probably faster.

[quote="freakypaddy"]If the traffic light before the car park is red, put your vehicle next to the other valets and later run out of the car park. It saves a bit of time.[/quote]
How to combine that with keeping the traffic from blocking his route? ETA: Tried it, it's no problem to run from blocking traffic to intercept him in the garage. Not sure if I slowed him down a little in the process, but my timing wasn't optimized anyway.

[quote]Death abuse stuff: Without much practice the drive after Body Harvest is very hard, so it probably saves 20s to abuse death there which you then lose again because you need to buy a rifle later (in that Catalina mission). 10s compared to Cannibal in the segmented run. As you the BF-Injection you can skip this. :-D[/quote]
Buying a rifle only loses ~6 seconds since you're already buying weapons anyway.

Could you expand on that BF Injection thing? Josh only uses it to go from Body Harvest to King In Exile, the same trip you'd skip by dying.

One potential problem is that the Sanchez might not spawn when starting from the hospital. At least it's a bit random starting from the save point. I guess Small Town Bank gives you a weapon?

[quote]Ice Cold Killa – nrg vs helicopter: Maybe my flying style is inefficient, but the helicopter is just 2s faster from the garage to Jizzy than CannibalK9 was with the NRG, even when ignoring the time it takes to land at the garage and then you depend on a non-crappy car spawn or the limo for the ~60s driving afterwards (Amphibious Assault).[/quote]
You also need a bike to do Ice Cold Killa. How to get one if flying there?

[quote]E: Unfortunately, satchel charges disappear in cutscenes. I tried it during 'Mountain Cloud Boys'. Maybe there are exceptions.[/quote]
I also tried it for High Noon before, disappeared.

[quote]Snail Trail: get to the destination early, attach a satchel charge to the taxi in Snail Trail, the range of the remote control is great enough.
to be tested: how far away you can be there[/quote]
Nice thinking! [s]The taxi stays pretty far from the other target though, maybe too far? And you would need to trigger the explosion at a precise time. You could just drop one on the ground where they will stand. The savings are limited as you can't be far from the target for a long time, but this needs to be experimented with.[/s] Unfortunately satchels disappear here as well.

[quote]save at the casino, not the airstrip[/quote]
At what point? If the save needs to be loaded, it takes a long time to get an aircraft when starting from the casino.

The one grief I have with the saving is the save before flight school. Surely the only reason to ever load that is if the game crashes?

[quote]Interdiction (end): When I parked the heli with the side facing the water it worked, but I need to test it, not sure how often I did it.[/quote]
When I mentioned earlier how parking between the drop site and the shack works, I was also parking sideways.

[quote]Collect the rockets on the mountain and at the end of the mission (the one you are supposed to use for the mission).[/quote]
Good idea. Then you wouldn't pick up the minigun in Black Project because the rockets are better for You've Had Your Chips and last even after that.

I had trouble deciphering all the details in your post. I think I'll try to optimize the schedule for the timed missions from scratch and let you comment on the result.

---

I updated the hospital map from my previous post to include the situation before Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, when the three northmost hospitals are disabled. Tested that it works like the map says too. Before The Green Sabre only the two hospitals in LS are enabled, and that isn't interesting. Edit: Removed attachment from here, newer version in a later post.

--- Added: some minor things from the run.

[quote=Nixixix]Ice Cold Killa: When Jizzy is out of the car, it's faster to drive over him than shoot him.[/quote]
This is partly faster because you don't need to wait for him to get up. If you then miss him, you can still revert to shooting.

Don Peyote: In the end, in my experience you can land the helicopter in the marker and it'll stay. It's slow to land and take off under the overhang, but it keeps Paul and Maccer safe. Some middle ground might be best.

High Noon: Land the helicopter on the north side of the village, or it despawns during the first cutscene. Plus like I said, shoot his tires or it despawns during the last one for some weird reason, at least for me. By the way, the car is fixed during that cutscene, so popping the tires is never a bad thing.

S.

Edit history:

S.: 2013-02-18 12:21:27 pm

S.: 2013-02-18 10:29:46 am

2013-02-18 10:28:50 am

Quote:

I updated the hospital map from my previous post to include the situation before Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, when the three northmost hospitals are disabled. Tested that it works like the map says too. Before The Green Sabre only the two hospitals in LS are enabled, and that isn't interesting.

is the one in LS's countryside not enabled?

Anyway, the LS hospitals have the nasty thing that they have you sit through a long tutorial, so definitely not worth it.

It also might be worth looking into Busted-warps.

----

If you have enough muscle, you could also get the girlfriend from the SF golf course. Only requires you standing next to her and pressing Y. From then on if you die you keep your weapons, and you can basically ignore her. Makes dying less penalizing, as you don't need to load a save that's 4 missions back and lose 20 minutes :p (Although not forgetting to save works better I guess Tongue

). Plus it might allow for some death warps later on, at the points where keeping your weapons is vital.

I'm not sure if any route takes you close to her, but if there is, getting her would probably take less than a minute.

However, I don't think you'll have enough muscle anyway (Not even looking at Sex Appeal), so prolly 100% stuff only. Could maybe try eating stuff like the 100% segmented does, to keep fat up. But you still need to build muscle so nvm.

[quote]I updated the hospital map from my previous post to include the situation before Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, when the three northmost hospitals are disabled. Tested that it works like the map says too. Before The Green Sabre only the two hospitals in LS are enabled, and that isn't interesting.
[/quote] is the one in LS's countryside not enabled?

Anyway, the LS hospitals have the nasty thing that they have you sit through a long tutorial, so definitely not worth it.

It also might be worth looking into Busted-warps.

----

If you have enough muscle, you could also get the girlfriend from the SF golf course. Only requires you standing next to her and pressing Y. From then on if you die you keep your weapons, and you can basically ignore her. Makes dying less penalizing, as you don't need to load a save that's 4 missions back and lose 20 minutes :p (Although not forgetting to save works better I guess :P ). Plus it might allow for some death warps later on, at the points where keeping your weapons is vital.

I'm not sure if any route takes you close to her, but if there is, getting her would probably take less than a minute.

However, I don't think you'll have enough muscle anyway (Not even looking at Sex Appeal), so prolly 100% stuff only. Could maybe try eating stuff like the 100% segmented does, to keep fat up. But you still need to build muscle so nvm.

Nixixix

2013-02-18 10:41:45 am

Quote from S.:

(before The Green Sabre) is the one in LS's countryside not enabled?

I was surprised to find that it's not. Even tried dying just outside the hospital, takes you to LS.

Busted-warps, of course! I'll come back with a map maybe tomorrow, assuming it works the same way.

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-03-09 02:30:07 am

Nixixix: 2013-02-19 09:24:31 am

2013-02-19 09:18:45 am

As promised, here is the same map for police stations. The mechanic is identical: When busted, you're teleported to the nearest enabled station. Until Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, the three northmost stations are disabled. Until The Green Sabre, only the station in LS is enabled. Edit: Removed attachment from here, newer version in a later post.

First impressions: The trip to meet Catalina for Tanker Commander after Badlands should shorten nicely.

Joshimuz

Edit history:

Joshimuz: 2013-02-19 11:34:03 am

Joshimuz: 2013-02-19 11:31:45 am

Joshimuz: 2013-02-19 11:17:58 am

2013-02-19 11:06:36 am

I feel my lovely relaxing time in the badlands has come to an end hasn't it?

EDIT: Ok tonight I think I'm going to do the Badlands to practice these new things.

I think I have this right...
I kill myself in-between Body Harvest -> King In Exile as soon as I can because I am already in range of the correct hospital and have no weapons that are useful until Small Town Bank
I get busted in-between Badlands -> Tanker Commander (First Date)... But where would I do this? The best place I could do this is the er... windy road? The one north east of The Truth's farm

freakypaddy

2013-02-19 11:28:37 am

Getting busted: I just tested it and it is unlikely to happen in a run. Unfortunately if you get busted in LS you respawn in LS, unlike the pure-distance hospital 'rule'. The death warp you mention is not sure yet. I am going to test it again now. What is sure is that you have to kill yourself after Tanker Commander, search (CTRL+f) this page for 'southernmost' for that one. You should get it when looking at the map (remember: gas tank+hurt yourself in the waiting time of the Catherina mission / +fire for the unsure death abuse.

Joshimuz

2013-02-19 11:38:42 am

Ah yes, Tanker Commander -> Body Harvest. I think here I will have to kill myself on the winding road north-east of The Truth's farm, which is a good landmark

Nixixix

2013-02-19 11:43:35 am

Quote from freakypaddy:

Unfortunately if you get busted in LS you respawn in LS, unlike the pure-distance hospital 'rule'.

I can't test that right now. Any idea what counts as LS for that purpose? I don't see any place that you would want to get busted near LS at all. Are you sure you didn't test on a save that didn't have Badlands open yet?

Quote from Joshimuz:

I get busted in-between Badlands -> Tanker Commander (First Date)... But where would I do this? The best place I could do this is the er... windy road? The one north east of The Truth's farm

I suppose different options would have to be timed. Initially my favorites are the freeway on your current route and that windy road reached via the railroad tunnel (on my previously proposed route).

Joshimuz

2013-02-19 11:50:01 am

Quote:

Any idea what counts as LS for that purpose? I don't see any place that you would want to get busted near LS at all. Are you sure you didn't test on a save that didn't have Badlands open yet?

There are different police for different areas. Like the Badland police use the 4x4 cars while LS use bikes and the LS specific cars... Perhaps it depends what kind of police man busts you?
If it is, this is going to get really hard because I'm going to have to get specific police offers to bust me at specific times D:

Quote:

I suppose different options would have to be timed.

I will try to try both options and the whole theory in general tonight.

I feel like this is mostly going to effect the Badlands area, since I don't have too many important weapons here and its long travel times.

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-02-19 11:59:12 am

2013-02-19 11:56:46 am

That and probably the death after The Da Nang Thang that freakypaddy proposed. I guess you can get enough weapons in Yay Ka-Boom-Boom.

Quote from Joshimuz:

There are different police for different areas. Like the Badland police use the 4x4 cars while LS use bikes and the LS specific cars... Perhaps it depends what kind of police man busts you?

If it's this I was very lucky when testing my theory/map by going to a spot where three areas meet and getting busted on different sides of it. Alternatively, I guess there could be an exception for city areas.

Joshimuz

2013-02-19 12:18:36 pm

Ok So here is my Strat for tonight...

Badlands -> Tanker Commander - I get busted either on the freeway or the windy road and test it works! To teleport to Dillimore
Tanker Commander -> Body Harvest - I kill myself on the winding road to get to Angle Pine
Body Harvest -> King In Exile - I kill myself asap since the truth's farm is in range of Angle Pine
King In Exile -> Against All Odds - I kill myself on the freeway along the normal route to get to Los Santos

Nixixix

Edit history:

Nixixix: 2013-02-19 12:31:03 pm

2013-02-19 12:26:42 pm

Quote from Joshimuz:

King In Exile -> Against All Odds - I kill myself on the freeway along the normal route to get to Los Santos

Getting busted and going to Dillimore seems better. Especially with the tutorial at LS hospitals! Though I think that my regular route (a lot of it the same as the route with Cesar's car but in reverse) might be faster. Not sure how quick the busted thing generally goes.

Otherwise sounds good.

Patrick

2013-02-19 01:35:13 pm

Oh well, I am too lazy to test that bank robbing mission properly. In the quick and dirty test I used 'slowitdown' to play like a pro. Cheesy

If you manage to keep her running all the time it should take 5s from being at the alleyway leading towards ammu-nation w/o buying and 23s with buying. 17s lost
If the ambulance spawns and you skip the armor (save before the mission, be a little careful), then skipping the drive saves 10s (segmented run quality drive skipped) - 20s (crappy drive skipped) depending on how good you are at driving that strange vehicle on a hard route. Remember that the BF Injection has a gas tank. :-) And drive the ambulance to the right then onto the gras, then to the marker.
So you lose a few seconds. The advantage is that this gives you 20 rifle ammo instead of 10.

First death abuse: my description is exact, please kill yourself exactly where I said. :-) It is save, I have tested it.