Ratchet and Clank

2007-07-29 01:46:06 pm

Long live SF64!

Ok, I found a different shortcut on Oltanis Orbit: Gemlik Base which does allow you to skip the big room full of enemies and some other stuff. Basically you make your way to just past the first group of 3 machine gun dudes where, on the map, you are now in an area adjacent to an elevator and the steps leading up to Quark. You can use decoys to glitch through a railing and through into the elevator shaft. When I did it I fell all the way down the shaft, (the door at the bottom doesn't open) then the lift came down to meet me (I think i jumped up through it), I hit the button and then went up to fight the Quark space battle properly!

The only problem with this level now is that having the decoy glove this early is expensive at 7500, or 5000 bolts with the persuader. This makes buying the Devastator extremely difficult, which would likely mean it would need to be postponed. Without the devastator, the planes on Gemlik base are extremely difficult, and the bomb-firing ships on Oltanis, the next level, are extremely difficult without it as well. Basically I think that while the Decoy glove is insanely awesome, it's also messing up the run because of bolt requirements.

Further in the run I didn't find any other shortcuts except that perfect forcefield skip at Gadgetron HQ that skips straight to the hoverboard races. I also found out how to do different moves on the hoverboard besides just using the R1 button for a "Scratcher." R2, L1, and L2 each do their own move and when combined the effect is phenominal. All 4 different moves and several flips can get you up to 600 points in one big jump! Great for building up that boost meter.

I tried glitching into the room where you need the codebot to get it - the one with the 15000 bolts. I made it into the room, but there were no boxes! I collected the gold bolt, but the boxes weren't there! Interestingly, there were the visuals for some Nanoteck, but no boxes to hold t! I wan hoping for the bolts, but oh well!

I was able to successfully and quickly beat Drek with only the Devastator, Blaster, and Bomb Glove, and no PDA. I used the ammo replenishing techniques mentioned a few posts up to get the ammo refills to appear.

Ok, I found a different shortcut on Oltanis Orbit: Gemlik Base which does allow you to skip the big room full of enemies and some other stuff.  Basically you make your way to just past the first group of 3 machine gun dudes where, on the map, you are now in an area adjacent to an elevator and the steps leading up to Quark. You can use decoys to glitch through a railing and through into the elevator shaft. When I did it I fell all the way down the shaft, (the door at the bottom doesn't open) then the lift came down to meet me (I think i jumped up through it), I hit the button and then went up to fight the Quark space battle properly!

The only problem with this level now is that having the decoy glove this early is expensive at 7500, or 5000 bolts with the persuader. This makes buying the Devastator extremely difficult, which would likely mean it would need to be postponed.  Without the devastator, the planes on Gemlik base are extremely difficult, and the bomb-firing ships on Oltanis, the next level, are extremely difficult without it as well.  Basically I think that while the Decoy glove is insanely awesome, it's also messing up the run because of bolt requirements.

Further in the run I didn't find any other shortcuts except that perfect forcefield skip at Gadgetron HQ that skips straight to the hoverboard races.  I also found out how to do different moves on the hoverboard besides just using the R1 button for a "Scratcher." R2, L1, and L2 each do their own move and when combined the effect is phenominal. All 4 different moves and several flips can get you up to 600 points in one big jump! Great for building up that boost meter.

I tried glitching into the room where you need the codebot to get it - the one with the 15000 bolts.  I made it into the room, but there were no boxes! I collected the gold bolt, but the boxes weren't there! Interestingly, there were the visuals for some Nanoteck, but no boxes to hold t! I wan hoping for the bolts, but oh well!

I was able to successfully and quickly beat Drek with only the Devastator, Blaster, and Bomb Glove, and no PDA. I used the ammo replenishing techniques mentioned a few posts up to get the ammo refills to appear.

tenfoLd

2007-07-30 11:33:50 pm

Alright I got my copy back...wooo. I haven't even put it in yet and messed around with stuff but for now i think we should forget (for now) finding these crazy glitches and shortcuts (helpful as they may be) and just start from the very beginning. Which route are we gonna take first through novalis, plumber? or mayor guy? How much bolts should we have by the end of novalis? Plumber costs 500 and leads to aridia but we cant get the trespasser until we get the swingshot which is in kerwan where the mayor leads to. If we go ahead and get both infobots we don't have to backtrack, I think this is the best choice because if we do the plumber first (since it is closest and it ends right where it started) then we go to the mayor, That way when we get to kerwan we'll have more bolts to buy heli-pack/swingshot.

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-07-31 07:59:59 am

2007-07-31 02:39:47 am

Long live SF64!

I agree that backtracking should be eliminated, and I also agree that coming up with a solid non-glitched route is the best use of our time. If we set out by saying that the run won't contain glitches which allow passing through solid boundaries or death warping or anything, then planning the run will be much, much easier.

On Novalis, I think Plumber, then Chairman is the best route. Collecting 500 bolts on the way to the plumber is no problem, and while the routes (plumber-chairman vs. chariman-plumber) may not make any difference in timing (either begins and ends within 2 seconds of the ship), doing the plumber first seems logical since the entrance is right where you start.

Here's a sample route for the first 45 min. to 1 hour of the game. I bolded anywhere that bolts are required and included many Target Bolts notices where the [X] may be replaced with a target value that will best allow a later Bolt requirement to be met at a decent speed. I noted any infobots, weapons, gadgets or items acquired as part of the route to help keep it organized.

Veldin
- Fastest route to Clank
- Optional bolt collecting

Novalis: Tobruk Crater
- Plumber (need 500 Bolts for Aridia infobot)
- Planetary Chairman (acquire Kerwan Infobot)
- Target # of Bolts Before Leaving: 1000

Kerwan: Metropolis
- Collect bolts on the way to Al's Robo Shack
- Go to Al's Robo Shack and purchase Helipack for 1000 Bolts
- Take Hovertrain for Eudora Infobot
- Obstacle Course (don't begin course without 700 bolts)
- Purchase Swingshot for 1000 Bolts

Aridia: Outpost X11
- Go to Swingshot course to acquire Trespasser
- Defeat Sand Sharks for Skid to acquire Hoverboard
- Target # of bolts before leaving: 1700

Eudora: Logging Site
- Use Trespasser to get Blarg Station Infobot from General
- Optional: Follow level to get Suck Cannon
- Target # of Bolts before leaving: 2000

NebulaG34: Blarg Station
- Destroy Blarg Warship for Rilgar Infobot
- Purchase Blaster for 2500 Bolts
- Defeat Mutant Boss and purchase Grind Boots for 2000 Bolts
- Explore outside of station with Clank for Hydrodisplacer
- Target Bolts before leaving: 1900

Planet Rilgar: Blackwater City
- Follow path to Hoverboard races
- Win Platinum Zoomerator (Target Bolts: [X])
- Follow path to Quark's Trailor and acquire Ubris infobot for 4000 Bolts

That's what I've got so far. I went to this point because I just played through what I could in 1 hour of casual play and this is where I made it to. You're right that we should focus on more of the important details starting at the beginning, so I'll start working on getting the target bolt values for the first few levels and then maybe see what kind of times I can get on the first few levels. Once we can see how time and bolts relate to each other then we'll be in business!

Edit:
I've begun timing myself using the in-game time listed when you arrive on a new world (just after auto-saving) and noting my number of bolts.

Planet Time Bolts Expenses
Veldin - 0:02 - 863 Bolts - No Expenses
Novalis - 0:07 - 1159 Bolts - Spent 500 Bolts
Kerwan - 0:16 - 163 Bolts - Spent 2000 Bolts

Edit2:
I got to Kerwan with 865 bolts and had a good bit of difficulty getting the swingshot when the time came, so I'm going to say 900-1000 bolts before leaving Novalis. This should give about 1200 at the time you buy the Helipack, then maybe 800 when starting the fitness course. I'll figure out the maximum number of bolts that can be acquired on the fitness course to get that requirement.

Edit3:
The number of bolts on the fitness course is about 300 and about 375 maximum if you also get bolts from the other little platforms on the last island. I added 700 as the target number before entering the course.

After finding it fairly easy to get 1300 entering Kerwan, I changed the minimum when leaving Novalis to 1000 instead of 900-1000. So maybe the following bolts in the following areas:

Kerwan: +900
Novalis up to Plumber: +500
- Infobot: -500
- Chairman part: +100
- Total: 1000
Kerwan up to Al's: +200
- Hoverpack: -1000 (total: 200)
- Up to Fitness Course: +500
- On Fitness Course: +300
- Swingshot: -1000
- Total: 0

Edit4: Added Target Bolts at end of Aridia to be 1700 and changed Eudora to have correct route description and make the Suck cannon optional. Added Eudora end target of 2000 bolts. Added target of 1900 for Blarg Station and edited route.

I agree that backtracking should be eliminated, and I also agree that coming up with a solid non-glitched route is the best use of our time.  If we set out by saying that the run won't contain glitches which allow passing through solid boundaries or death warping or anything, then planning the run will be much, [i]much[/i] easier.

On Novalis, I think Plumber, then Chairman is the best route. Collecting 500 bolts on the way to the plumber is no problem,  and while the routes (plumber-chairman vs. chariman-plumber) may not make any difference in timing (either begins and ends within 2 seconds of the ship), doing the plumber first seems logical since the entrance is right where you start.

Here's a sample route for the first 45 min. to 1 hour of the game. I bolded anywhere that bolts are required and included many Target Bolts notices where the [X] may be replaced with a target value that will best allow a later Bolt requirement to be met at a decent speed.  I noted any infobots, weapons, gadgets or items acquired as part of the route to help keep it organized.

[size=16][u]Veldin[/u][/size]
 - Fastest route to Clank
 - Optional bolt collecting

[size=16][u]Novalis: Tobruk Crater[/u][/size]
 - Plumber (need [b]500 Bolts[/b] for Aridia infobot)
 - Planetary Chairman (acquire Kerwan Infobot)
 - Target # of Bolts Before Leaving: 1000

[size=16][u]Kerwan: Metropolis[/u][/size]
 - Collect bolts on the way to Al's Robo Shack
 - Go to Al's Robo Shack and purchase Helipack for [b]1000 Bolts[/b]
 - Take Hovertrain for Eudora Infobot
 - Obstacle Course (don't begin course without 700 bolts)
 - Purchase Swingshot for [b]1000 Bolts[/b]

[size=16][u]Aridia: Outpost X11[/u][/size]
 - Go to Swingshot course to acquire Trespasser
 - Defeat Sand Sharks for Skid to acquire Hoverboard
 - Target # of bolts before leaving: 1700

[size=16][u]Eudora: Logging Site[/u][/size]
 - Use Trespasser to get Blarg Station Infobot from General
 - Optional: Follow level to get Suck Cannon
 - Target # of Bolts before leaving: 2000

[size=16][u]NebulaG34: Blarg Station[/u][/size]
 - Destroy Blarg Warship for Rilgar Infobot
 - Purchase Blaster for [b]2500 Bolts[/b]
 - Defeat Mutant Boss and purchase Grind Boots for [b]2000 Bolts[/b]
 - Explore outside of station with Clank for Hydrodisplacer
 - Target Bolts before leaving: 1900

[size=16][u]Planet Rilgar: Blackwater City[/u][/size]
 - Follow path to Hoverboard races
 - Win Platinum Zoomerator (Target Bolts: [X])
 - Follow path to Quark's Trailor and acquire Ubris infobot for [b]4000 Bolts[/b]

That's what I've got so far.  I went to this point because I just played through what I could in 1 hour of casual play and this is where I made it to. You're right that we should focus on more of the important details starting at the beginning, so I'll start working on getting the target bolt values for the first few levels and then maybe see what kind of times I can get on the first few levels.  Once we can see how time and bolts relate to each other then we'll be in business!

Edit:
I've begun timing myself using the in-game time listed when you arrive on a new world (just after auto-saving) and noting my number of bolts.

Planet   Time   Bolts          Expenses
Veldin - 0:02 - 863 Bolts - No Expenses
Novalis - 0:07 - 1159 Bolts - Spent 500 Bolts
Kerwan - 0:16 - 163 Bolts - Spent 2000 Bolts

Edit2:
I got to Kerwan with 865 bolts and had a good bit of difficulty getting the swingshot when the time came, so I'm going to say 900-1000 bolts before leaving Novalis. This should give about 1200 at the time you buy the Helipack, then maybe 800 when starting the fitness course. I'll figure out the maximum number of bolts that can be acquired on the fitness course to get that requirement.

Edit3:
The number of bolts on the fitness course is about 300 and about 375 maximum if you also get bolts from the other little platforms on the last island. I added 700 as the target number before entering the course.

After finding it fairly easy to get 1300 entering Kerwan, I changed the minimum when leaving Novalis to 1000 instead of 900-1000. So maybe the following bolts in the following areas:

Kerwan: +900
Novalis up to Plumber: +500
     - Infobot: -500
     - Chairman part: +100
     - Total: 1000
Kerwan up to Al's: +200
     - Hoverpack: -1000      (total: 200)
     - Up to Fitness Course: +500
     - On Fitness Course: +300
     - Swingshot: -1000
     - Total: 0

Edit4: Added Target Bolts at end of Aridia to be 1700 and changed Eudora to have correct route description and make the Suck cannon optional. Added Eudora end target of 2000 bolts. Added target of 1900 for Blarg Station and edited route.

tenfoLd

Edit history:

tenfoLd: 2007-07-31 05:27:54 am

2007-07-31 05:25:08 am

I like it, you are very organised. Grin

Anyways so is it confirmed that we are gettin the suck cannon and what for. Not to say it is a bad idea, but I was just wondering.

Small skip: Novalis: You can skip the little section of the bridge and it getting bombed by jumping across the river/creek and jumping on a rock located near the raised circle platform. A little faster way to get to the mayor and not missing out on too many bolts.

Edit: also has anyone figured out if jumping is faster then running for pre-helipack levels.

edit: for any part with elevators such as the way to the mayor just jump off the top and hit square to wrench dive.

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-07-31 04:55:20 pm

2007-07-31 06:40:07 am

Long live SF64!

First, I'm very glad you got your copy of the game back! Now we can start having real discussions about this stuff, give each other feedback, and maybe compete a bit on level times and such!

Quote:

Anyways so is it confirmed that we are gettin the suck cannon and what for. Not to say it is a bad idea, but I was just wondering.

I keep finding it to be immensely useful on almost every level. It is a no-ammo solution for small enemies that not only kills the enemies, but automatically gives you their bolts. Then the full suck cannon also becomes powerful a lock-on rocket launcher which is useful in lots of situations, especially prior to acquiring the devastator. Thus far it isn't strictly required I guess, but it's been so helpful for me that I've assumed it to be worthwhile.

I guess I'm being a bit selfish by including it - perhaps I should at least try running through the game without it...

Quote:

Small skip: Novalis: You can skip the little section of the bridge and it getting bombed by jumping across the river/creek and jumping on a rock located near the raised circle platform. A little faster way to get to the mayor and not missing out on too many bolts.

Indeed! I noticed it mentioned several pages back and I've been using it. As long as you know which rock to jump at, it's a perfect skip over to the Mayor.

On a related note, after killing the 3 enemies prior to the mayor, you can run towards where the bridge will extend... you'll then see yourself in the bridge extension cutscene and start that much closer to the bridge. Nifty trick.

Quote:

Edit: also has anyone figured out if jumping is faster then running for pre-helipack levels.

I've wondered the same - I tend to jump a good bit in pre-helipack levels just out of the impulsive urge to go faster, but I doubt if it's any faster. Confirming this would be good though.

Quote:

edit: for any part with elevators such as the way to the mayor just jump off the top and hit square to wrench dive.

This would actually apply throughout the game I suppose... you could long jump off a ledge and then wrench dive and then continue long jumping. I'd forgotten about this and have just been falling naturally - might save good time on long falls like the lift after the trespasser. That makes me wonder if the stomping move of the thruster pack is any faster.

[hr]
I've been wondering about the timing provided by the in-game timer. We need to figure out if it is tracking seconds at all or if it's rounding to the nearest minute after every save and discarding the seconds before it continues timing or what. If the timing system has lots of inaccuracies then we'll have to time stuff separately if we ever start getting serious about times and stuff.

That and Tenfold, are you able to skip cutscenes? That's been the most annoying thing for me is that I can skip all the opening cutscenes and then the ones up to "Entering Novalis Atmosphere" or whatever, then after it shows that cutscene, I can't skip anything else through the rest of the game. I've got completed files on my memory card, so I can't figure out why that is. Any kind of manual timing would be really difficult if cutscenes aren't supposed to be timed. That and we're assuming that whoever eventually records will need to be skipping cutscenes, so I want to see if others are having this issue.

Edit:
Keep checking that post for changes to the route and whatnot. Edit 4 says what I've added.

Blarg Station:
Route provides least amount of travel time in the room with the ship. I detailed some bolt numbers for each area.
Destroy Blarg Battleship
- Because the target of 2000 leaving Eudora doesn't give enough to buy the blaster, we must collect bolts on the Battleship. I found about 1000 easy bolts bringing the total to 3000.
- Buy Blaster for 2500 bringing total to about 500
Defeat Mutant Boss
- Follow path to boss
- Bolt room behind a Trespasser lock (~1200 Bolts!)
- Obtain Grind Boots for 2000 Bolts. Bolt total should be about 1800.
Explore Outside with Clank
- Acquire about 100 bolts along the way
- Get Hydrodisplacer
- Finish level with 1900 Bolts

Edit 2:
Question: What is the best method for killing the fish on Pokitaru when taking the boat rides? Without the suck cannon or pyrociter I'm having trouble with them - having trouble surviving the boat rides consistently that is. I can make it alive using just the wrench, which seems to be the best option. Swings seem better than jump attacks because they are faster, are better with multiple enemies, and especially because if a fish is knocked off the boat, it is dead, meaning a 1 hit kill where they normally take 2 hits.

If anyone gets a chance to play through those boat rides with only the blaster and bombs, let me know what methods you use to survive it.

Edit2: Neato!

I found out a while back that hovering (press R1 twice with thruster pack) allows you to more quickly traverse some parts of magneboot paths, but then the hover becomes a glide at the vertical portion of a vent for example - however I did find a solid use for it! On Orxon just before watching the Hoven infobot there is a spherical metal room which you must traverse up to the next doorway. Normally this takes like 8 seconds to trod up with the boots, but with hover you can glide right up to the door in like 2 seconds! Not a big find, but this should certainly be explored on any other magnetic surfaces in the game - unfortunately in R&C 1 they are almost exclusively vents and the like.

Edit3:
On a casual playthrough with like 30 deaths and atleast 20-25 minutes lost I got to Veldin in 3:20, so it seems that 3:14 final time that the other guy mentioned is a pretty good goal. I'm getting way ahead of the current planning though... anyway... playthrough without suck cannon is very doable with the hardest parts being the Blarg Station and Pokitaru. I purchased the pyrociter on Kalebo III for the bot rooms, which is a great purchase since the pyrocitor may act as a good 3rd weapon in the Drek fight to help trigger the ammo refills. Interestingly, I ended up with almost exactly 7500 bolts at Kalebo III where a decoy glove would allow a simple skip through the forcefield saving several minutes. This will have to be discussed, though its probably best to leave it out and call the run a no glitch run rather than open any cans of worms. However even a glitch run might not benefit from any glitches prior to this due to the high cost of the decoy glove and the SDA-unapproved nature of the out of bounds glitches. This single glitch could be gracefully incorporated without the onslaught of other possibilities. But again I'm getting ahead of things.

First, I'm very glad you got your copy of the game back! Now we can start having real discussions about this stuff, give each other feedback, and maybe compete a bit on level times and such!

[quote]Anyways so is it confirmed that we are gettin the suck cannon and what for. Not to say it is a bad idea, but I was just wondering.[/quote]
I keep finding it to be immensely useful on almost every level. It is a no-ammo solution for small enemies that not only kills the enemies, but automatically gives you their bolts. Then the full suck cannon also becomes powerful a lock-on rocket launcher which is useful in lots of situations, especially prior to acquiring the devastator. Thus far it isn't strictly required I guess, but it's been so helpful for me that I've assumed it to be worthwhile.

I guess I'm being a bit selfish by including it - perhaps I should at least try running through the game without it...

[quote]Small skip: Novalis: You can skip the little section of the bridge and it getting bombed by jumping across the river/creek and jumping on a rock located near the raised circle platform. A little faster way to get to the mayor and not missing out on too many bolts.[/quote]
Indeed! I noticed it mentioned several pages back and I've been using it. As long as you know which rock to jump at, it's a perfect skip over to the Mayor.

On a related note, after killing the 3 enemies prior to the mayor, you can run towards where the bridge will extend... you'll then see yourself in the bridge extension cutscene and start that much closer to the bridge. Nifty trick.

[quote]Edit: also has anyone figured out if jumping is faster then running for pre-helipack levels.[/quote]
I've wondered the same - I tend to jump a good bit in pre-helipack levels just out of the impulsive urge to go faster, but I doubt if it's any faster.  Confirming this would be good though.

[quote]edit: for any part with elevators such as the way to the mayor just jump off the top and hit square to wrench dive.[/quote]This would actually apply throughout the game I suppose... you could long jump off a ledge and then wrench dive and then continue long jumping. I'd forgotten about this and have just been falling naturally - might save good time on long falls like the lift after the trespasser.  That makes me wonder if the stomping move of the thruster pack is any faster.

[hr]
I've been wondering about the timing provided by the in-game timer. We need to figure out if it is tracking seconds at all or if it's rounding to the nearest minute after every save and discarding the seconds before it continues timing or what. If the timing system has lots of inaccuracies then we'll have to time stuff separately if we ever start getting serious about times and stuff.

That and Tenfold, are you able to skip cutscenes? That's been the most annoying thing for me is that I can skip all the opening cutscenes and then the ones up to "Entering Novalis Atmosphere" or whatever, then after it shows that cutscene, I can't skip anything else through the rest of the game. I've got completed files on my memory card, so I can't figure out why that is. Any kind of manual timing would be really difficult if cutscenes aren't supposed to be timed. That and we're assuming that whoever eventually records will need to be skipping cutscenes, so I want to see if others are having this issue.

Edit:
Keep checking [url=http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=consoles_newer;action=display;num=1121307628;start=165#177]that post[/url] for changes to the route and whatnot. Edit 4 says what I've added.

Blarg Station:
Route provides least amount of travel time in the room with the ship. I detailed some bolt numbers for each area.
[u]Destroy Blarg Battleship[/u]
 - Because the target of 2000 leaving Eudora doesn't give enough to buy the blaster, we must collect bolts on the Battleship. I found about 1000 easy bolts bringing the total to 3000.
 - Buy Blaster for 2500 bringing total to about 500
[u]Defeat Mutant Boss[/u]
 - Follow path to boss 
 - Bolt room behind a Trespasser lock (~1200 Bolts!)
 - Obtain Grind Boots for 2000 Bolts. Bolt total should be about 1800.
[u]Explore Outside with Clank[/u]
 - Acquire about 100 bolts along the way
 - Get Hydrodisplacer
 - Finish level with 1900 Bolts

Edit 2:
Question: What is the best method for killing the fish on Pokitaru when taking the boat rides? Without the suck cannon or pyrociter I'm having trouble with them - having trouble surviving the boat rides consistently that is. I can make it alive using just the wrench, which seems to be the best option. Swings seem better than jump attacks because they are faster, are better with multiple enemies, and especially because if a fish is knocked off the boat, it is dead, meaning a 1 hit kill where they normally take 2 hits.

If anyone gets a chance to play through those boat rides with only the blaster and bombs, let me know what methods you use to survive it.

Edit2: Neato!

I found out a while back that hovering (press R1 twice with thruster pack) allows you to more quickly traverse some parts of magneboot paths, but then the hover becomes a glide at the vertical portion of a vent for example - [i]however[/i] I did find a solid use for it! On Orxon just before watching the Hoven infobot there is a spherical metal room which you must traverse up to the next doorway. Normally this takes like 8 seconds to trod up with the boots, but with hover you can glide right up to the door in like 2 seconds! Not a big find, but this should certainly be explored on any other magnetic surfaces in the game - unfortunately in R&C 1 they are almost exclusively vents and the like.

Edit3:
On a casual playthrough with like 30 deaths and atleast 20-25 minutes lost I got to Veldin in 3:20, so it seems that 3:14 final time that the other guy mentioned is a pretty good goal. I'm getting way ahead of the current planning though... anyway... playthrough without suck cannon is very doable with the hardest parts being the Blarg Station and Pokitaru. I purchased the pyrociter on Kalebo III for the bot rooms, which is a great purchase since the pyrocitor may act as a good 3rd weapon in the Drek fight to help trigger the ammo refills. Interestingly, I ended up with almost exactly 7500 bolts at Kalebo III where a decoy glove would allow a simple skip through the forcefield saving several minutes. This will have to be discussed, though its probably best to leave it out and call the run a no glitch run rather than open any cans of worms. However even a glitch run might not benefit from any glitches prior to this due to the high cost of the decoy glove and the SDA-unapproved nature of the out of bounds glitches. This single glitch could be gracefully incorporated without the onslaught of other possibilities. But again I'm getting ahead of things.

tenfoLd

2007-07-31 04:40:06 pm

Nice find with the magneboots, for the fish I'd say just memorize where they come on the boat and hit em with the wrench, you could mix in some suck cannon as well.

Psonar

2007-08-01 12:20:38 am

Long live SF64!

Yeah the fish are no problem, almost fun, with the suck cannon - Pokitaru is my number one reason to get it. When I ran the game without it I stalled for like 20 minutes and tons of deaths trying to make it through Pokitaru with just the wrench, bombs, and blaster. By the end I found myself making it through the boat rides with nearly full health, so I know it's doable without. Just takes a lot of tricky concentration on timing the wrench hits so that the fish don't jump you during the downtime right after a wrench swing. If I didn't end up so close on the Devastator on the Oltanis Orbit station I'd just buy the pyrocitor early, since it works well too on fish too. Plenty to think about.

If you want to hear about another nifty trick or two, I've found some stuff to speed up Clank's "Explore the Station" portion at Blarg Station. Just after the big hovering portion, you can avoid all the enemies by jumping in the crevice to the right of a big box instead of going between the boxes as intended. This causes clank to "slide" over to the other side. Jump around the next box as well and then maybe punch 1 of the critters before retreating to the climbing wall to the right. Then after the long winding path, instead of grabbing the ledge and going across at slow speed, you can hit your helipack to glide across the seam of the edge over to the doorway saving tedious hand-over-hand motion.

Ratchet also has a faster option to hand-over-hand ledge movement. Just boost up, boost forward, then glide to the left and grab hold again, and repeat. It's tricky, but it feels about 2-3 times faster than traversing the ledge normally. Useful on Quartu and that's about it...

On Blarg Station, in the room with green fogger things and swingshot targets, just after the trespasser bolt hoard, you can grab the target without climbing to the top, from the 2nd level up by boosting up and out and holding down the swingshot button. Can save 5 seconds depending on the fogger timing.

A similar swingshot skip may be performed on Kalebo III just before the robot room with the swingshot targets before it. There's a yellow target that can be accessed early letting you swing over to a ledge allowing a clean shot at the button opening the door.

Just some random mentions of little things I ran into along the way...

Yeah the fish are no problem, almost fun, with the suck cannon - Pokitaru is my number one reason to get it. When I ran the game without it I stalled for like 20 minutes and tons of deaths trying to make it through Pokitaru with just the wrench, bombs, and blaster. By the end I found myself making it through the boat rides with nearly full health, so I know it's doable without. Just takes a lot of tricky concentration on timing the wrench hits so that the fish don't jump you during the downtime right after a wrench swing. If I didn't end up so close on the Devastator on the Oltanis Orbit station I'd just buy the pyrocitor early, since it works well too on fish too. Plenty to think about.

If you want to hear about another nifty trick or two, I've found some stuff to speed up Clank's "Explore the Station" portion at Blarg Station. Just after the big hovering portion, you can avoid all the enemies by jumping in the crevice to the right of a big box instead of going between the boxes as intended. This causes clank to "slide" over to the other side. Jump around the next box as well and then maybe punch 1 of the critters before retreating to the climbing wall to the right. Then after the long winding path, instead of grabbing the ledge and going across at slow speed, you can hit your helipack to glide across the seam of the edge over to the doorway saving tedious hand-over-hand motion.

Ratchet also has a faster option to hand-over-hand ledge movement. Just boost up, boost forward, then glide to the left and grab hold again, and repeat. It's tricky, but it feels about 2-3 times faster than traversing the ledge normally. Useful on Quartu and that's about it...

On Blarg Station, in the room with green fogger things and swingshot targets, just after the trespasser bolt hoard, you can grab the target without climbing to the top, from the 2nd level up by boosting up and out and holding down the swingshot button. Can save 5 seconds depending on the fogger timing.

A similar swingshot skip may be performed on Kalebo III just before the robot room with the swingshot targets before it. There's a yellow target that can be accessed early letting you swing over to a ledge allowing a clean shot at the button opening the door.

Just some random mentions of little things I ran into along the way...

Psyknux

Edit history:

Psyknux: 2007-08-10 12:28:17 am

2007-08-02 03:46:48 pm

Sub-Terrania!!!

Wow, you all sure have been busy with this game in the past week.

Thankfully summer term just ended so I can start contributing ideas again (and actually BE here...).

With some of the ideas here I could easily beat my 2:29 (in-game time) on an any% SS.

Also, I neglected to ask if anyone wanted to see some footage of my 2:29 run, to comment on what was good, what I could have done, etc. Unfortunately I didn't start taping until Umbris (because most of my runs ended there due to me never having enough bolts to buy the Blaster), but whatever: I have Veldin through Rilgar on seperate runs that could be uploaded too.

Buying the Decoy Glove and using it to skip large portions of levels, especially Kalebo III, sounds like a big help; however I couldn't do that in one of my runs because the time spent to get the bolts to buy the Decoy Glove would most likely be more than the time saved. :/ For instance, in my 2:29 run it took me 10:04 (real time) to finish Kalebo III from the time I could control Ratchet to the time I pressed Triangle to get in the ship. Using the shortcut, I see a finish time of maybe 4 minutes at best, and I don't see myself collecting about ~3000 in 6 minutes and saving a lot of time.

On a side note, if you look at the glitches guide at GameFAQs, it's me that's credited with finding the forcefield glitch in Hoven. Tongue

The last thing I'll add for now is the time it took (in real time) for me to complete each planet (from Umbris on since I didn't tape the run beforehand) in my 2:29 run so you can compare and contrast my times to your times:

[I believe the in-game timer at the start of Umbris is 0:46; not entirely sure though...]

EDIT: Added bolt counts as well. The amounts shown are how many bolts I have when I get on the ship to go to the next planet.

Rilgar - Bolts: 2622 (just enough to buy the Blaster when I arrive at Umbris)
Umbris - 11:27 (slow... :/); Bolts - 4860
Batalia - 8:35 (wasted about 20 seconds); Bolts - 5187
Gaspar - 2:36 (wasted about 5 seconds); Bolts - 8263
Orxon (Clank) - 8:06 (wasted at least a minute here); Bolts - 9562
Pokitaru - 7:36 (could be faster); Bolts - 8608
Orxon (Ratchet) - 3:19 (could probably do it in 3:00); Bolts - 8762
Hoven - 4:11 (probably should aim for 4:00); Bolts - 8917
Oltanis Orbit - 11:52 (hate 10+ minute levels... -_- ...though this is my favorite level in the game. I play it safe and kill the six gunners before the room with a lot of foes.); Bolts - 2469
Oltanis - 3:40; Bolts - 1408
Quartu (1) - 4:43; Bolts - 4003
Kalebo III - 10:04 (should be more like 9:30); Bolts - 5933 (from here on, I usually buy Devestator ammo before leaving the planet, which explains why Quartu (2)'s and Veldin Orbit's bolt counts are lower)
Quartu (2) - 5:18; Bolts - 5673
Veldin Orbit - 5:33 (went the wrong way once and wasted ~5 seconds); Bolts - 5462
Veldin - 16:26 (could be so much better...); Bolts at the final vendor - 7136

More from me as I look more closely at all these posts.

Wow, you all sure have been busy with this game in the past week.

Thankfully summer term just ended so I can start contributing ideas again (and actually BE here...).

With some of the ideas here I could easily beat my 2:29 (in-game time) on an any% SS.

Also, I neglected to ask if anyone wanted to see some footage of my 2:29 run, to comment on what was good, what I could have done, etc. Unfortunately I didn't start taping until Umbris (because most of my runs ended there due to me never having enough bolts to buy the Blaster), but whatever: I have Veldin through Rilgar on seperate runs that could be uploaded too.

Buying the Decoy Glove and using it to skip large portions of levels, especially Kalebo III, sounds like a big help; however I couldn't do that in one of my runs because the time spent to get the bolts to buy the Decoy Glove would most likely be more than the time saved. :/ For instance, in my 2:29 run it took me 10:04 (real time) to finish Kalebo III from the time I could control Ratchet to the time I pressed Triangle to get in the ship. Using the shortcut, I see a finish time of maybe 4 minutes at best, and I don't see myself collecting about ~3000 in 6 minutes and saving a lot of time.

On a side note, if you look at the glitches guide at GameFAQs, it's me that's credited with finding the forcefield glitch in Hoven. :P

The last thing I'll add for now is the time it took (in real time) for me to complete each planet (from Umbris on since I didn't tape the run beforehand) in my 2:29 run so you can compare and contrast my times to your times:

[I believe the in-game timer at the start of Umbris is 0:46; not entirely sure though...]

[b]EDIT:[/b] Added bolt counts as well. The amounts shown are how many bolts I have when I get on the ship to go to the next planet.

Rilgar - Bolts: 2622 (just enough to buy the Blaster when I arrive at Umbris)
Umbris - 11:27 (slow... :/); Bolts - 4860
Batalia - 8:35 (wasted about 20 seconds); Bolts - 5187
Gaspar - 2:36 (wasted about 5 seconds); Bolts - 8263
Orxon (Clank) - 8:06 (wasted at least a minute here); Bolts - 9562
Pokitaru - 7:36 (could be faster); Bolts - 8608
Orxon (Ratchet) - 3:19 (could probably do it in 3:00); Bolts - 8762
Hoven - 4:11 (probably should aim for 4:00); Bolts - 8917
Oltanis Orbit - 11:52 (hate 10+ minute levels... -_- ...though this is my favorite level in the game. I play it safe and kill the six gunners before the room with a lot of foes.); Bolts - 2469
Oltanis - 3:40; Bolts - 1408
Quartu (1) - 4:43; Bolts - 4003
Kalebo III - 10:04 (should be more like 9:30); Bolts - 5933 (from here on, I usually buy Devestator ammo before leaving the planet, which explains why Quartu (2)'s and Veldin Orbit's bolt counts are lower)
Quartu (2) - 5:18; Bolts - 5673
Veldin Orbit - 5:33 (went the wrong way once and wasted ~5 seconds); Bolts - 5462
Veldin - 16:26 (could be so much better...); Bolts at the final vendor - 7136

More from me as I look more closely at all these posts.

Psyknux

Edit history:

Psyknux: 2007-08-10 01:02:37 am

2007-08-10 12:29:11 am

Sub-Terrania!!!

Decided to make a new post for a new run.

Trying to do SS practice runs is annoying me so I'm trying segmented runs for now.

Here's what I've got; again, timing is in real time (from the time I can control Ratchet to the time I get on the ship, with the exception of Umbris and Orxon (C)), with the number of bolts at the end of the planet listed after that.

Veldin - 1:26, 785 bolts
Novalis - 6:30, 1545 bolts
Kerwan - 9:46, 1939 bolts
Aridia - 5:01, 3817 bolts
Eudora - 5:23, 4717 bolts
Nebula G34 - 11:08, 6490 bolts
Rilgar - 5:56, 2652 bolts
Umbris - 11:18, 4188 bolts
Batalia - 8:53, 5929 bolts
Gaspar - 2:46, 8735 bolts
Orxon (C) - 8:02, 9806 bolts
Pokitaru - 7:55 (with a death), 8792 bolts
Orxon (R) - 2:58, 8940 bolts
Hoven - 4:04, 9319 bolts
Oltanis Orbit - 11:27 (with a death), 3071 bolts (Qwark defeated in 2:04; would've been faster but I got unlucky and didn't get any extra rockets from the other ships)
Oltanis - 3:53, 3059 bolts
Quartu (1) - 4:30, 5598 bolts (Giant Clank section done in 1:22)
Kalebo III - 10:12, 8749 bolts (Hoverboard race completed in 2:08.71)
Quartu (2) - 4:52, 9804 bolts
Veldin Orbit - 5:04, 9512 bolts (Ship section of the level took 0:45)
Veldin - 14:07, 10065 bolts at final vendor (Drek took 0:05 as Giant Clank, 7:54 total; compare that to the 9:29 total that I got in my previous run; most of that improvement is thanks to Psonar's findings about how to cause the ammo boxes to respawn)

Total In-Game Time (according to the save file, saved about a second before hitting the final switch): 2:21.
(EDIT: Hmm...by my calculations, the total time spent in levels is 2:25:11. Does this mean the in-game timer doesn't count in-level cutscenes? And I assume in-level cutscenes would exclude the stuff you see on infobots, since that would total a lot more than four minutes.)

Taking the better time for each planet from these two runs, I can subtract 68 seconds from this recent run, meaning a segmented run could go sub-2:20. This gives me a 10-minute buffer for mistakes on an SS while still having it be sub-2:30; however, there are several trouble spots which makes this harder than it seems:

Umbris: still tend to mess up here; not necessarily die, but I tend to go slowly through large portions of the level.
Gaspar: the beginning strategy is risky and I'm not sure I want to use it when doing an SS. It really doesn't save that much time compared to going through normally.
Orxon (Clank): There always seems to be one Gadgebot that gets destroyed in the bombfield (after getting the Magneboots). At least it's not as troublesome as...
Orxon (Ratchet): This, I feel, will stop any good SS run if Ratchet fails to get on top of the Magnestrip properly. I'll take one or two failures here, but any more and that's the end of the run.
Kalebo III: The hoverboard race is, of course, no problem: I can finish that in just over two minutes. The problem is getting there, with those three test bot rooms being the worst of it, IMO. If I get through those without taking a lot of damage (and without taking too much time), then the rest of the level goes pretty fast.

EDIT: I guess I'll make a .txt file showing what I do as well...

Decided to make a new post for a new run.

Trying to do SS practice runs is annoying me so I'm trying segmented runs for now.

Here's what I've got; again, timing is in real time (from the time I can control Ratchet to the time I get on the ship, with the exception of Umbris and Orxon (C)), with the number of bolts at the end of the planet listed after that.

Veldin - 1:26, 785 bolts
Novalis - 6:30, 1545 bolts
Kerwan - 9:46, 1939 bolts
Aridia - 5:01, 3817 bolts
Eudora - 5:23, 4717 bolts
Nebula G34 - 11:08, 6490 bolts
Rilgar - 5:56, 2652 bolts
Umbris - 11:18, 4188 bolts
Batalia - 8:53, 5929 bolts
Gaspar - 2:46, 8735 bolts
Orxon (C) - 8:02, 9806 bolts
Pokitaru - 7:55 (with a death), 8792 bolts
Orxon (R) - 2:58, 8940 bolts
Hoven - 4:04, 9319 bolts
Oltanis Orbit - 11:27 (with a death), 3071 bolts (Qwark defeated in 2:04; would've been faster but I got unlucky and didn't get any extra rockets from the other ships)
Oltanis - 3:53, 3059 bolts
Quartu (1) - 4:30, 5598 bolts (Giant Clank section done in 1:22)
Kalebo III - 10:12, 8749 bolts (Hoverboard race completed in 2:08.71)
Quartu (2) - 4:52, 9804 bolts
Veldin Orbit - 5:04, 9512 bolts (Ship section of the level took 0:45)
Veldin -  14:07, 10065 bolts at final vendor (Drek took 0:05 as Giant Clank,  7:54 total; compare that to the 9:29 total that I got in my previous run; most of that improvement is thanks to Psonar's findings about how to cause the ammo boxes to respawn)

Total In-Game Time (according to the save file, saved about a second before hitting the final switch): [b]2:21[/b].
([b]EDIT:[/b] Hmm...by my calculations, the total time spent in levels is 2:25:11. Does this mean the in-game timer doesn't count in-level cutscenes? And I assume in-level cutscenes would exclude the stuff you see on infobots, since that would total a lot more than four minutes.)

Taking the better time for each planet from these two runs,  I can subtract 68 seconds from this recent run, meaning a segmented run could go sub-2:20. This gives me a 10-minute buffer for mistakes on an SS while still having it be sub-2:30; however, there are several trouble spots which makes this harder than it seems:

Umbris: still tend to mess up here; not necessarily die, but I tend to go slowly through large portions of the level.
Gaspar: the beginning strategy is risky and I'm not sure I want to use it when doing an SS. It really doesn't save that much time compared to going through normally.
Orxon (Clank): There always seems to be one Gadgebot that gets destroyed in the bombfield (after getting the Magneboots). At least it's not as troublesome as...
Orxon (Ratchet): This, I feel, will stop any good SS run if Ratchet fails to get on top of the Magnestrip properly. I'll take one or two failures here, but any more and that's the end of the run.
Kalebo III: The hoverboard race is, of course, no problem: I can finish that in just over two minutes. The problem is getting there, with those three test bot rooms being the worst of it, IMO. If I get through those without taking a lot of damage (and without taking too much time), then the rest of the level goes pretty fast.

[b]EDIT:[/b] I guess I'll make a .txt file showing what I do as well...

Psonar

2007-08-10 07:29:05 am

Long live SF64!

Wow, incredible work newmansage!

I'm glad my random findings at least helped with the Drek fight. I've read through your comments and such and it sounds like you've put a lot of time into running the game.

On Orxon, if you fall, do you glide back down to the bottom of the metal duct and try again? That seems to be about a 5-10 second loss. I kept trying to find the some consistant method of doing that part and pushing forward further than seemed necessary seemed to help, because then if I fell through, sometimes I could turn around and grab hold of the vent and pull myself up. I would also aim to get on top of the vent near the clamp holding it up, because that seems like it might help, but probably not. I'm sure you've tried everything I have and more.

I never had trouble in the mine field with the Orxon gadgebots - my problem was always the 10 bot section later. I always have to back track for at least one bot and sometimes 3 or 4. A few times I managed a pretty cool strategy of leaving a group of them out of communication range and attacking only with bots that spawn nearby.

Something else effective... you don't have to kill all of the mutants in that portion... you can navigate your bots around some of them to avoid the risk of backtracking - maybe you already do that. For the bomb field it might be worth it to let them catch up to you once while crossing it, I often check for stragglers and have to let them catch up once to avoid trouble.

The in-game timer does run during the "skippable" info-bot and character cutscenes (which my game won't let me skip! grr!), but perhaps it doesn't run during some other things like weapon selection, gadgetron dealers, or certain in-gage non-skippable cutscenes - I'm not sure.

Are you indeed able to skip all of the info-bot and character cutscenes? I can skip them up to "Entering Atmosphere of Planet Novalis" and then I can't skip them the rest of the game, which was really annoying. If you're skipping them, then there's no telling what my 3:30-ish time would have been without cutscenes.

Oh and quick question... how are you leaving Kerwan with 1000+ bolts? Are you not hurting at all for bolts for the swingshot? Are you hitting up some bolt hoard I didn't know about? (Like the one on the building with the gold bolt.... say is that faster? Sneaky, sneaky...)

Wow, incredible work newmansage!

I'm glad my random findings at least helped with the Drek fight. I've read through your comments and such and it sounds like you've put a lot of time into running the game.

On Orxon, if you fall, do you glide back down to the bottom of the metal duct and try again? That seems to be about a 5-10 second loss. I kept trying to find the some consistant method of doing that part and pushing forward further than seemed necessary seemed to help, because then if I fell through, sometimes I could turn around and grab hold of the vent and pull myself up. I would also aim to get on top of the vent near the clamp holding it up, because that seems like it might help, but probably not. I'm sure you've tried everything I have and more.

I never had trouble in the mine field with the Orxon gadgebots - my problem was always the 10 bot section later.  I always have to back track for at least one bot and sometimes 3 or 4.  A few times I managed a pretty cool strategy of leaving a group of them out of communication range and attacking only with bots that spawn nearby.

Something else effective... you don't have to kill all of the mutants in that portion... you can navigate your bots around some of them to avoid the risk of backtracking - maybe you already do that. For the bomb field it might be worth it to let them catch up to you once while crossing it, I often check for stragglers and have to let them catch up once to avoid trouble.

The in-game timer does run during the "skippable" info-bot and character cutscenes (which my game won't let me skip! grr!), but perhaps it doesn't run during some other things like weapon selection, gadgetron dealers, or certain in-gage non-skippable cutscenes - I'm not sure.

Are you indeed able to skip all of the info-bot and character cutscenes? I can skip them up to "Entering Atmosphere of Planet Novalis" and then I can't skip them the rest of the game, which was really annoying. If you're skipping them, then there's no telling what my 3:30-ish time would have been without cutscenes.

Oh and quick question... how are you leaving Kerwan with 1000+ bolts? Are you not hurting at all for bolts for the swingshot? Are you hitting up some bolt hoard I didn't know about? (Like the one on the building with the gold bolt.... say is that faster? Sneaky, sneaky...)

Psyknux

Edit history:

Psyknux: 2009-10-20 07:23:17 pm

2007-08-10 10:10:34 pm

Sub-Terrania!!!

Thanks, Psonar. There are other things you found that helped me as well, such as the hovering over magnestrips; that helped me traverse the metal sphere on Orxon and the magnestrip on Veldin more quickly.

On Orxon, if I fall, it's usually too late for me to get back on the magnestrip since I tend to walk towards the flames a bit before trying to get on top. I'd like to say that whether Ratchet gets on top of the strip or not is dependent on his animation while walking; however, I have no way to prove this without extensive testing.

I worded the last post incorrectly; it's not the bomb field I have trouble with, but rather the room after that, since I tend to go through too quickly and the sparks sometimes destroy one or more of the gadgebots. I generally have few problems with the 10-bot field, though occasionally a gadgebot will get destroyed; however, the time it takes to retrieve it is usually far less compared to the time you lose if you die so I'm not too concerned with that.

No, I am not able to skip any infobot/in-level cutscenes from "Entering Atmosphere of Planet Novalis" onward...well, that's not 100% true. I have been able to skip the cutscene where Drek sends Qwark to Gemlik Base, but that only works for me if I load a file that's at that point, and if it's the first load since the first time I turn on the PS2. Even then, I can only skip half the scene. And no, I didn't skip that cutscene in my 2:21 game.

When I first started my practice runs, the only time I was at risk of being short on bolts was Umbris, where I usually didn't have enough to buy the Blaster. Now, there isn't a single spot where I have monetary problems. As for what I do on Kerwan, perhaps this vid (EDIT: no longer available) could answer some of your questions, as well as give you a small sample of the things I do near the beginning of the run (sorry for the abysmal quality of the vid; as of now pretty much the only place I can put vids is on my geocities site; I've been meaning to sign up someplace where I can put my vids but I've been both busy and lazy). I also go and destroy that huge wall of crates just before the train ride, though that only gets me about 250 bolts. Still, much of the beginning of the run is balancing speed with bolt collecting, as the vid demonstrates.

Quote:

Are you hitting up some bolt hoard I didn't know about? (Like the one on the building with the gold bolt.... say is that faster? Sneaky, sneaky...)

I have no idea what you're talking about... >_>

...seriously, though, I highly doubt it's faster.

That reminds me...I do get the crates over in that small alcove off to the right just after getting the infobot for Eudora, but still, that's only about 200 bolts...

Thanks, Psonar. There are other things you found that helped me as well, such as the hovering over magnestrips; that helped me traverse the metal sphere on Orxon and the magnestrip on Veldin more quickly.

On Orxon, if I fall, it's usually too late for me to get back on the magnestrip since I tend to walk towards the flames a bit before trying to get on top. I'd like to say that whether Ratchet gets on top of the strip or not is dependent on his animation while walking; however, I have no way to prove this without extensive testing.

I worded the last post incorrectly; it's not the bomb field I have trouble with, but rather the room after that, since I tend to go through too quickly and the sparks sometimes destroy one or more of the gadgebots. I generally have few problems with the 10-bot field, though occasionally a gadgebot will get destroyed; however, the time it takes to retrieve it is usually far less compared to the time you lose if you die so I'm not too concerned with that.

No, I am not able to skip any infobot/in-level cutscenes from "Entering Atmosphere of Planet Novalis" onward...well, that's not 100% true. I have been able to skip the cutscene where Drek sends Qwark to Gemlik Base, but that only works for me if I load a file that's at that point, and if it's the first load since the first time I turn on the PS2. Even then, I can only skip half the scene. And no, I didn't skip that cutscene in my 2:21 game.

When I first started my practice runs, the only time I was at risk of being short on bolts was Umbris, where I usually didn't have enough to buy the Blaster. Now, there isn't a single spot where I have monetary problems. As for what I do on Kerwan, perhaps this vid (EDIT: no longer available) could answer some of your questions, as well as give you a small sample of the things I do near the beginning of the run (sorry for the abysmal quality of the vid; as of now pretty much the only place I can put vids is on my geocities site; I've been meaning to sign up someplace where I can put my vids but I've been both busy and lazy). I also go and destroy that huge wall of crates just before the train ride, though that only gets me about 250 bolts. Still, much of the beginning of the run is balancing speed with bolt collecting, as the vid demonstrates.

[quote]Are you hitting up some bolt hoard I didn't know about? (Like the one on the building with the gold bolt.... say is that faster? Sneaky, sneaky...)[/quote]
I have no idea what you're talking about... >_>

...seriously, though, I highly doubt it's faster.

That reminds me...I do get the crates over in that small alcove off to the right just after getting the infobot for Eudora, but still, that's only about 200 bolts...

Psonar

Edit history:

Psonar: 2007-08-11 01:34:44 am

2007-08-11 01:33:09 am

Long live SF64!

Hmm, on Kerwan, looks like you go in with more bolts than I do and then you get a few hundred more from the helicopter, which I never thought to attempt destroying with just bombs. I guess I went pretty minimalist for the first few levels and then went bolt happy later on since I was getting the blaster at the Blarg Research Station.

Do you get the suck cannon?

Do you buy any other weapons besides the blaster, devestator and pyrocitor?

Psyknux

2007-08-11 02:53:10 am

Sub-Terrania!!!

Actually, I didn't think to destroy the helicopter until recently; I didn't destroy the helicopter in my 2:29 run, instead getting bolts in Eudora and Nebula G34 that I didn't get in my 2:21 run.

Yes, I do get the Suck Cannon, as it is IMO one of the best weapons to get in this run. On Nebula G34 it helps give me free ammo for the warship as well as against the aliens and the Alien Queen. On Pokitaru it really shines, getting rid of all those annoying fish far more quickly than any other weapon. And against Drek it is my weapon of choice during the second phase as Ratchet, where he starts shooting out the mines.

No, I do not buy any weapon besides the Blaster, Devastator, and Pyrocitor. While other weapons may be nice to have, each extra weapon you get costs extra time at the vendor and lowers the chance of getting ammo that you need from the ammo crates (unless you've only used ammo for one weapon). This is also important because, ideally, I want to use the vendor only 5 times in the game: first, on planet Umbris to buy the Blaster; second, on Gemlik Base where I buy the Devastator; third, on Kalebo III where I purchase the Pyrocitor; the fourth and fifth times are to purchase Devastator ammo, on Quartu and Drek's Fleet, respectively.

By the end of the game, this is my inventory:
Weapons: Bomb Glove, Pyrocitor, Blaster, Suck Cannon, Devastator
Gadgets: Trespasser, Hydrodisplacer, Swingshot, Hologuise, Heli-Pack, Thruster-Pack, O2 Mask, Pilot's Helmet, Grindboots, Magneboots
Items: Hoverboard

My Quick Select is only changed once in the game, to replace the Pyrocitor with the Hologuise once I get to Quartu the second time. Also, interestingly, that is the only time I use the pause menu, with the exception of performing a manual save just before I hit the final switch after defeating Drek. From the top and going clockwise, the quick select ring goes Bomb Glove, Swingshot, Trespasser, Suck Cannon, Hydrodisplacer, Blaster, Devastator, Pyrocitor/Hologuise, and is what I've gotten used to in my runs.

Actually, I didn't think to destroy the helicopter until recently; I didn't destroy the helicopter in my 2:29 run, instead getting bolts in Eudora and Nebula G34 that I didn't get in my 2:21 run.

Yes, I do get the Suck Cannon, as it is IMO one of the best weapons to get in this run. On Nebula G34 it helps give me free ammo for the warship as well as against the aliens and the Alien Queen. On Pokitaru it really shines, getting rid of all those annoying fish far more quickly than any other weapon. And against Drek it is my weapon of choice during the second phase as Ratchet, where he starts shooting out the mines.

No, I do not buy any weapon besides the Blaster, Devastator, and Pyrocitor. While other weapons may be nice to have, each extra weapon you get costs extra time at the vendor and lowers the chance of getting ammo that you need from the ammo crates (unless you've only used ammo for one weapon). This is also important because, ideally, I want to use the vendor only 5 times in the game: first, on planet Umbris to buy the Blaster; second, on Gemlik Base where I buy the Devastator; third, on Kalebo III where I purchase the Pyrocitor; the fourth and fifth times are to purchase Devastator ammo, on Quartu and Drek's Fleet, respectively.

By the end of the game, this is my inventory:
[b]Weapons:[/b] Bomb Glove, Pyrocitor, Blaster, Suck Cannon, Devastator
[b]Gadgets:[/b] Trespasser, Hydrodisplacer, Swingshot, Hologuise, Heli-Pack, Thruster-Pack, O2 Mask, Pilot's Helmet, Grindboots, Magneboots
[b]Items:[/b] Hoverboard

My Quick Select is only changed once in the game, to replace the Pyrocitor with the Hologuise once I get to Quartu the second time. Also, interestingly, that is the only time I use the pause menu, with the exception of performing a manual save just before I hit the final switch after defeating Drek. From the top and going clockwise, the quick select ring goes Bomb Glove, Swingshot, Trespasser, Suck Cannon, Hydrodisplacer, Blaster, Devastator, Pyrocitor/Hologuise, and is what I've gotten used to in my runs.

Psyknux

Edit history:

Psyknux: 2009-10-20 07:25:35 pm

2007-08-16 09:46:50 pm

Sub-Terrania!!!

Wow, I amaze myself sometimes.

Just finished a single-segment practice run with an in-game time of 2:27 just before hitting the final switch.

EDIT: Elasped time from the time the first cutscene begins to the time I reach the final screen (with the Gadgetron helpdesk girl) is 2:48:35, although my disc locked up for 24 seconds on one of the scenes (which I'm not too happy about; I may have to buy another disc)

There were three deaths in the run: one on Gaspar and two on Gemlik Base.

Times for each individual planet to be up shortly.

EDIT: ...and here they are:

Veldin - 1:29
Novalis - 6:31
Kerwan - 9:45
Aridia - 5:26
Eudora - 5:33
Nebula G34 - 10:53
Rilgar - 5:49
Umbris - 11:04
Batalia - 9:16 (messed up a jump and also was slow on the Invinco-Lock)
Gaspar - 3:41 (died near the beginning)
Orxon [C] - 7:59
Pokitaru - 7:35
Orxon [R] - 3:29 (luckily the magnestrip shortcut worked the first time!)
Hoven - 4:14
Gemlik Base - 12:19 (two deaths, remember)
Oltanis - 3:44
Quartu (1) - 4:41
Kalebo III - 10:08 (I was sure I would die after being hit twice before reaching the central hub, but somehow I made it...)
Quartu (2) - 5:03
Drek's Fleet - 5:12 (got spotted but quickly dispatched the sentry bot)
Veldin - 14:28 (Drek took 7:45; would've been faster if I had been a little more aggressive with the Devastator)

Comparing these with my segmented 2:21 run, I was actually faster going through several planets, and this run really helped improve my confidence in doing an SS run. My target in-game time will remain at 2:30 (which means about 2:50 overall), however, as things could've gone much worse than they did. The biggest example of this is Orxon [R], where Ratchet could've consistantly failed to get on top of the magnestrip to take the shortcut.

EDIT2: A rough guideline (EDIT3: No longer available) for my speedruns.

Wow, I amaze myself sometimes.

Just finished a single-segment practice run with an in-game time of [b]2:27[/b] just before hitting the final switch.

[b]EDIT:[/b] Elasped time from the time the first cutscene begins to the time I reach the final screen (with the Gadgetron helpdesk girl) is 2:48:35, although my disc locked up for 24 seconds on one of the scenes (which I'm not too happy about; I may have to buy another disc)

There were three deaths in the run: one on Gaspar and two on Gemlik Base.

Times for each individual planet to be up shortly.

[b]EDIT:[/b] ...and here they are:

Veldin - 1:29
Novalis - 6:31
Kerwan - 9:45
Aridia - 5:26
Eudora - 5:33
Nebula G34 - 10:53
Rilgar - 5:49
Umbris - 11:04
Batalia - 9:16 (messed up a jump and also was slow on the Invinco-Lock)
Gaspar - 3:41 (died near the beginning)
Orxon [C] - 7:59
Pokitaru - 7:35
Orxon [R] - 3:29 (luckily the magnestrip shortcut worked the first time!)
Hoven - 4:14
Gemlik Base - 12:19 ([i]two[/i] deaths, remember)
Oltanis - 3:44
Quartu (1) - 4:41
Kalebo III - 10:08 (I was sure I would die after being hit [i]twice[/i] before reaching the central hub, but somehow I made it...)
Quartu (2) - 5:03
Drek's Fleet - 5:12 (got spotted but quickly dispatched the sentry bot)
Veldin - 14:28 (Drek took 7:45; would've been faster if I had been a little more aggressive with the Devastator)

Comparing these with my segmented 2:21 run, I was actually faster going through several planets, and this run really helped improve my confidence in doing an SS run. My target in-game time will remain at 2:30 (which means about 2:50 overall), however, as things could've gone much worse than they did. The biggest example of this is Orxon [R], where Ratchet could've consistantly failed to get on top of the magnestrip to take the shortcut.

[b]EDIT2[/b]: A rough guideline (EDIT3: No longer available) for my speedruns.

DLH112

Edit history:

DLH112: 2007-08-17 02:53:49 am

2007-08-17 02:50:14 am

I found a glitch in this game that may be already known, and may be useless. It seems like it might be useful though. I forget if I saw the "blue" glitch from a link I saw on sda or searching youtube, but you watch an in level cinema underwater and it will appear blue like you're underwater. However, what I found and am not sure if it is known is that watching the movie refills your oxygen, and if you are touching the ground then you start walking underwater like its above water.

edit: lol i searched for ratchet & clank blue glitch, and it said this:
Did you mean: ratchet & clank dblue glitch
and when i clicked it i got
No Videos found for 'ratchet & clank dblue glitch'

tenfoLd

2007-08-17 04:01:19 pm

Great times there newmansage! It seems a run of Ratchet and Clank on sda will finally be possible.

HalfMillennium

2007-08-22 03:11:42 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Why are you doing the Hoverboard race on Rilgar? It's not necessary to finish the game, and it isn't too difficult to win the Kalebo III race without the Zoomerator. Unless it's to collect Bolts, I can't see what the point is.

I'm not sure if anyone's pointed this out yet, but there's a shortcut on Batalia. Instead of solving the bolt crank puzzle before the city, fly up and grab the edge of the vent which you use the get into the city, and get to the Commando from there.

Linkinito

2007-08-22 04:09:02 pm

This is my avatar

Hoverboard Race on Rilgar = Zoomerator = Bolts = Faster completion after.

HalfMillennium

2007-08-22 08:49:19 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

If you total up the time it takes to get there and win the race, I'm not sure if it would outweigh the time saved in the only two points where it could save time. Where would it save time in the rest of the run?

The time gained by having the Zoomerator for the Kalebo III race is seconds at best. As long as you hit every booster, you can be in first place by the end of the first lap and win easily. The speed gained from boost pads is the same as the speed gained from manual boosts, and once you've cleared the jump over the water on the first lap, you should be boosting for pretty much the rest of the race if you hit every boost pad.

If you could work out a strategy for the fish on Pokitaru, the Suck Cannon could be negated. I sometimes stand at the back with the Blaster in first-person view. You can quickly throw the wrench if it's necessary.

Also, a few time-savers...

When you get to the chairman's ship on Novalis, make sure the guard robot on the RIGHT is the last one you defeat. Then move toward where the bridge will be as quickly as you can, because you restart from there after the cut-scenes.

In-level cut-scenes can be skipped by holding R1, R2, L1, L2, SELECT and START and quickly releasing them. The only exception to this that I'm aware of is the crash landing on Novalis.

I'll also give you something which should make Kalebo III much easier, and may even negate the need for the Pyrocitor. There's a huge shortcut after the first test room at the top of the platform ride. Kill the Blargs up there, then jump onto the crates, fly up and hover over the fence. It's a high fence, so you might need to use the helipack to do it. You can land directly after the third test room, skiping the second one as well and hopefully making things much easier.

If you total up the time it takes to get there and win the race, I'm not sure if it would outweigh the time saved in the only two points where it could save time. Where would it save time in the rest of the run?

The time gained by having the Zoomerator for the Kalebo III race is seconds at best. As long as you hit every booster, you can be in first place by the end of the first lap and win easily. The speed gained from boost pads is the same as the speed gained from manual boosts, and once you've cleared the jump over the water on the first lap, you should be boosting for pretty much the rest of the race if you hit every boost pad.

If you could work out a strategy for the fish on Pokitaru, the Suck Cannon could be negated. I sometimes stand at the back with the Blaster in first-person view. You can quickly throw the wrench if it's necessary.

Also, a few time-savers...

When you get to the chairman's ship on Novalis, make sure the guard robot on the RIGHT is the last one you defeat. Then move toward where the bridge will be as quickly as you can, because you restart from there after the cut-scenes.

In-level cut-scenes can be skipped by holding R1, R2, L1, L2, SELECT and START and quickly releasing them. The only exception to this that I'm aware of is the crash landing on Novalis.

I'll also give you something which should make Kalebo III much easier, and may even negate the need for the Pyrocitor. There's a huge shortcut after the first test room at the top of the platform ride. Kill the Blargs up there, then jump onto the crates, fly up and hover over the fence. It's a high fence, so you might need to use the helipack to do it. You can land directly after the third test room, skiping the second one as well and hopefully making things much easier.

Psyknux

Edit history:

Psyknux: 2007-08-26 07:02:11 pm

2007-08-23 03:00:06 am

Sub-Terrania!!!

Quote:

If you could work out a strategy for the fish on Pokitaru, the Suck Cannon could be negated. I sometimes stand at the back with the Blaster in first-person view. You can quickly throw the wrench if it's necessary.

I'd prefer getting the Suck Cannon, as many of the bolts I need early in the game come from the path taken to get to the Suck Cannon. It takes less than 3 minutes to get the Suck Cannon, anyway, and I need it for more than just Pokitaru.

Quote:

When you get to the chairman's ship on Novalis, make sure the guard robot on the RIGHT is the last one you defeat. Then move toward where the bridge will be as quickly as you can, because you restart from there after the cut-scenes.

I already do this so that doesn't help me. Sad

Quote:

In-level cut-scenes can be skipped by holding R1, R2, L1, L2, SELECT and START and quickly releasing them. The only exception to this that I'm aware of is the crash landing on Novalis.

I knew there was a way to skip cutscenes but I never tried to do that because that normally resets the game. This is definitely the biggest (real-time) time saver compared to my current run (as this won't reduce the in-game time much).

Quote:

I'll also give you something which should make Kalebo III much easier, and may even negate the need for the Pyrocitor. There's a huge shortcut after the first test room at the top of the platform ride. Kill the Blargs up there, then jump onto the crates, fly up and hover over the fence. It's a high fence, so you might need to use the helipack to do it. You can land directly after the third test room, skiping the second one as well and hopefully making things much easier.

I can't quite get over the fence...

EDIT: On a different note, I decided to work on perfecting the Drek fight. I didn't tape it but I'm pretty sure it only took about 6 minutes due to 1) cutscene skipping, 2) being more aggressive and 3) getting ultra lucky with the ammo crates and getting mostly Devastator ammo (I'm talking about 40 missile's worth at least).

Anyway, just so you all know, currently I only have time to practice on Thursdays (starting September I should have time on Tuesdays as well), and I'm holding off on trying for a submittable run until 1) I get some DVDs that I can record on and 2) I figure out how to use this DVD recorder that we have (I didn't even know we had one until recently when I saw it on top of the TV in our living room, and here I was saving up all the money from my paychecks to buy one -_-).

[quote]If you could work out a strategy for the fish on Pokitaru, the Suck Cannon could be negated. I sometimes stand at the back with the Blaster in first-person view. You can quickly throw the wrench if it's necessary.[/quote]
I'd prefer getting the Suck Cannon, as many of the bolts I need early in the game come from the path taken to get to the Suck Cannon. It takes less than 3 minutes to get the Suck Cannon, anyway, and I need it for more than just Pokitaru.

[quote]When you get to the chairman's ship on Novalis, make sure the guard robot on the RIGHT is the last one you defeat. Then move toward where the bridge will be as quickly as you can, because you restart from there after the cut-scenes.[/quote]
I already do this so that doesn't help me. :(

[quote]In-level cut-scenes can be skipped by holding R1, R2, L1, L2, SELECT and START and quickly releasing them. The only exception to this that I'm aware of is the crash landing on Novalis.[/quote]
I [b][i]knew[/i][/b] there was a way to skip cutscenes but I never tried to do that because that normally resets the game. This is definitely the biggest (real-time) time saver compared to my current run (as this won't reduce the in-game time much).

[quote]I'll also give you something which should make Kalebo III much easier, and may even negate the need for the Pyrocitor. There's a huge shortcut after the first test room at the top of the platform ride. Kill the Blargs up there, then jump onto the crates, fly up and hover over the fence. It's a high fence, so you might need to use the helipack to do it. You can land directly after the third test room, skiping the second one as well and hopefully making things much easier.[/quote]
I can't quite get over the fence...

[b]EDIT:[/b] On a different note, I decided to work on perfecting the Drek fight. I didn't tape it but I'm pretty sure it only took about 6 minutes due to 1) cutscene skipping, 2) being more aggressive and 3) getting ultra lucky with the ammo crates and getting mostly Devastator ammo (I'm talking about 40 missile's worth [i]at least[/i]).

Anyway, just so you all know, currently I only have time to practice on Thursdays (starting September I should have time on Tuesdays as well), and I'm holding off on trying for a submittable run until 1) I get some DVDs that I can record on and 2) I figure out how to use this DVD recorder that we have (I didn't even know we had one until recently when I saw it on top of the TV in our living room, and here I was saving up all the money from my paychecks to buy one -_-).

HalfMillennium

2007-08-23 05:04:48 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Quote:

I knew there was a way to skip cutscenes but I never tried to do that because that normally resets the game. This is definitely the biggest (real-time) time saver compared to my current run (as this won't reduce the in-game time much).

I'm not sure if holding them for a few seconds does reset the game, but doing it quickly only skips these scenes. As I said, you can't skip the Novalis intro, and I'm not sure about any others. I think they can all be skipped, but I'll check to make sure.

Quote:

I can't quite get over the fence...

If you can't get over the fence straight ahead of you, try the left side of the fence. There isn't as much distance between the crates and the fence on the left. Once you're above the water, turn right and head for the deck. I'll have to test it again (the crates nearest the back were destroyed in my current file, so I'll have to get there again on a new one)

Psyknux

2007-08-26 06:42:32 pm

Sub-Terrania!!!

Ugh...note to self: don't try to speedrun a game when you've only gotten 2 hours of sleep the previous night...

Anyway, the cutscene skipping really helped; even with the countless deaths in this practice run, I still ended up doing far better timewise than the previous run. Also, I was able to skip every cutscene, including the one on Novalis...

I'll put the times for each planet just for comparison to the non-cutsceneskipping runs; from now on I think I'll just post the notable times until I get a final run that I feel is worthy of submission. Again, the times listed are from the time I can control Ratchet to the time I get on the ship, so some planets probably don't show much improvement:

Veldin - 1:29
Novalis - 3:30
Kerwan - 5:51
Aridia - 4:13
Eudora - 4:03; at this point my controller started becoming nonresponsive so I ended up jumping a lot instead of Stretch-Jumping. This lasted until about Orxon.
Nebula G34 - 9:24; died in the Clank part trying to take a small shortcut; I don't think I'll try that again...wasted about 45 seconds...
Rilgar - 3:32; thanks a lot, game, for making that climbable wall in the flood section wall-jumpable Angry

Umbris - 10:29; oh man, I died against the Snagglebeast TWICE. The first time was my fault but the second time the game wouldn't let me get out of the lava, as though a magical force field appeared that was determined to make this run more painful than it already was...
Batalia - 5:21
Gaspar - 3:41; Died, wasted about a minute
Orxon [C] - 7:44
Pokitaru - 5:14; the game wouldn't give me the mission complete until I picked up some missiles, wasting about 7 seconds
Orxon [R] - 2:20; wasn't as lucky as the last run--didn't get on the magne-strip until my third try
Hoven - 3:35; switched to the Heli-Pak after I was having problems taking a shortcut with the Thruster-Pak. Deplanetizer destroyed in 1:12.
Gemlik Base - 10:38; I don't know if I'll ever be able to get through here without dying at least once; the death that occurred here was just before a continue point, too...Qwark defeated in 1:42.
Oltanis - 4:03; On that narrow pathway near the end the bomb-launching ship hit me and knocked me off, wasting about a minute.
Quartu [1] - 2:41
Kalebo III - 10:45; Died at the WORST possible time: the final test bot "room." After that death I was out of Pyrocitor and Devastator ammo. Since I wasn't thinking I decided to take them out using the wrench instead of the Blaster. That was just FUN.</sarcasm>
Quartu (2) - 3:15; There was a death, but it was right after a continue point so I only lost 10 seconds.
Drek's Fleet - 4:27
Veldin - 11:05; Drek took 4:55 from the time I started the fight as Giant Clank until I defeated him. Any of y'all still think using the PDA is faster?

Total deaths: 9 (I only listed 8; the last one didn't waste any time at all)

Adding up the in-level totals amounts to 1:58:00, while the time taken from the first cutscene to the final screen is 2:07:26. Pretty nice, I'd say, despite all the deaths. Getting sub-2:00 seems within my reach, but I think I'll just settle for anything between 2:00 and 2:05.

Ugh...note to self: don't try to speedrun a game when you've only gotten 2 hours of sleep the previous night...

Anyway, the cutscene skipping [b][i]really[/i][/b] helped; even with the countless deaths in this practice run, I still ended up doing far better timewise than the previous run. Also, I was able to skip every cutscene, including the one on Novalis...

I'll put the times for each planet just for comparison to the non-cutsceneskipping runs; from now on I think I'll just post the notable times until I get a final run that I feel is worthy of submission. Again, the times listed are from the time I can control Ratchet to the time I get on the ship, so some planets probably don't show much improvement:

Veldin - 1:29
Novalis - 3:30
Kerwan - 5:51
Aridia - 4:13
Eudora - 4:03; at this point my controller started becoming nonresponsive so I ended up jumping a lot instead of Stretch-Jumping. This lasted until about Orxon.
Nebula G34 - 9:24; died in the Clank part trying to take a small shortcut; I don't think I'll try that again...wasted about 45 seconds...
Rilgar - 3:32; thanks a lot, game, for making that climbable wall in the flood section wall-jumpable >:(
Umbris - 10:29; oh man, I died against the Snagglebeast TWICE. The first time was my fault but the second time the game wouldn't let me get out of the lava, as though a magical force field appeared that was determined to make this run more painful than it already was...
Batalia - 5:21
Gaspar - 3:41; Died, wasted about a minute
Orxon [C] - 7:44
Pokitaru - 5:14; the game wouldn't give me the mission complete until I picked up some missiles, wasting about 7 seconds
Orxon [R] - 2:20; wasn't as lucky as the last run--didn't get on the magne-strip until my third try
Hoven - 3:35; switched to the Heli-Pak after I was having problems taking a shortcut with the Thruster-Pak. Deplanetizer destroyed in 1:12.
Gemlik Base - 10:38; I don't know if I'll ever be able to get through here without dying at least once; the death that occurred here was [i]just[/i] before a continue point, too...Qwark defeated in 1:42.
Oltanis - 4:03; On that narrow pathway near the end the bomb-launching ship hit me and knocked me off, wasting about a minute.
Quartu [1] - 2:41
Kalebo III - 10:45; Died at the [i]WORST[/i] possible time: the final test bot "room." After that death I was out of Pyrocitor and Devastator ammo. Since I wasn't thinking I decided to take them out using the wrench instead of the Blaster. That was just [i]FUN[/i].</sarcasm>
Quartu (2) - 3:15; There was a death, but it was right after a continue point so I only lost 10 seconds.
Drek's Fleet - 4:27
Veldin - 11:05; Drek took [b]4:55[/b] from the time I started the fight as Giant Clank until I defeated him. Any of y'all still think using the PDA is faster?

Total deaths: 9 (I only listed 8; the last one didn't waste any time at all)

Adding up the in-level totals amounts to 1:58:00, while the time taken from the first cutscene to the final screen is [b]2:07:26[/b]. Pretty nice, I'd say, despite all the deaths. Getting sub-2:00 seems within my reach, but I think I'll just settle for anything between 2:00 and 2:05.

HalfMillennium

2007-08-28 01:04:20 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Quote:

I was able to skip every cutscene, including the one on Novalis...

That's strange. I'll check it again.

Quote:

Getting sub-2:00 seems within my reach, but I think I'll just settle for anything between 2:00 and 2:05.

If you could pull off the Kalebo III trick, you probably could get sub-2:00.

Is the Blaster necessary? It's actually quicker to kill the Snagglebeast using the Bomb Glove in my experience. The only other point where the Blaster seems necessary is on Hoven, where you have to defeat a helicopter to trigger a platform, but the helicopter can be defeated with Comet Strikes.

Psyknux

Edit history:

Psyknux: 2007-08-28 08:18:03 pm

2007-08-28 03:05:19 pm

Sub-Terrania!!!

Quote:

Is the Blaster necessary? It's actually quicker to kill the Snagglebeast using the Bomb Glove in my experience. The only other point where the Blaster seems necessary is on Hoven, where you have to defeat a helicopter to trigger a platform, but the helicopter can be defeated with Comet Strikes.

Umbris is impossible for me to do (quickly) without the Blaster--for the bomb turrets, while within Bomb Glove range, I would have to wait until they stop shooting bombs for those brief moments before I can destroy them (without getting hurt) with the Bomb Glove; for the floating mines, I would also have to use the Bomb Glove to destroy them quickly, but I would definitely run out of ammo before getting to a vendor/the Snagglebeast fight.

For the Snagglebeast fight, I start off with bombs until I get close enough to where he starts shooting me with fireballs, then I retreat and use the Blaster until he stops, then get close again and use bombs, then retreat, and so on. I am, however, a little conservative with the bomb use--I try to use those only after the Snagglebeast falls into the lava, then when he makes his way back to the center of the arena, I quickly get to him and just mash the circle button to throw bombs while he is unable to shoot fireballs at me. I usually run out of bombs near the end, but by then I can just shoot him with the Blaster.

Other than Umbris, I use the Blaster on Batalia (to destroy tanks), Orxon (to destroy forcefields/pterodactyls/screamers), Hoven (for the helicopter), Kalebo III (to hit forcefield switches), and Veldin (mainly just the Drek fight).

Also I just realized that if I don't have the Blaster then I would be forced to use the Pyrocitor against Drek in order to have three weapons under 80% so I can get ammo crates to appear. This would be time-consuming because:
1) Pyrocitor ammo doesn't deplete as quickly as Blaster ammo and requires that I use 49 ammo instead of 41 like the Blaster, and
2) the Blaster damages Drek faster than the Pyrocitor.

While I could wait until near the end of the game to get the Blaster, saving time having to collect bolts at the beginning, Umbris would be difficult for me to get through. Even with the Blaster I am left with only one nanotech at times, so without it I doubt I could ever get far.

And just so you know, I have done a wrench-only game so I know I can get through any level with just the wrench; it would just take longer.

EDIT: Okay, against the Snagglebeast I guess I'll be aggressive with the bombs, staying at maximum range so he doesn't shoot me with fireballs. It seemed to go down quicker that way (although I had just enough bombs to take it down on today's run).

I decided to do another run today. It seems that lack of sleep diminished my overall ability last time, as this run had an in-level total of 1:47:19 and a total completion time of 1:56:39. And this is with 5 deaths, two of which were on Gemlik Base (again... -_-). So...I guess my new goal is 1:55-2:00, especially with Umbris and Kalebo III being completed in 8 minutes now, and Veldin in 10 minutes (Drek took 4:37, and that could go faster, too).

[quote]Is the Blaster necessary? It's actually quicker to kill the Snagglebeast using the Bomb Glove in my experience. The only other point where the Blaster seems necessary is on Hoven, where you have to defeat a helicopter to trigger a platform, but the helicopter can be defeated with Comet Strikes.[/quote]
Umbris is impossible for me to do (quickly) without the Blaster--for the bomb turrets, while within Bomb Glove range, I would have to wait until they stop shooting bombs for those brief moments before I can destroy them (without getting hurt) with the Bomb Glove; for the floating mines, I would also have to use the Bomb Glove to destroy them quickly, but I would definitely run out of ammo before getting to a vendor/the Snagglebeast fight.

For the Snagglebeast fight, I start off with bombs until I get close enough to where he starts shooting me with fireballs, then I retreat and use the Blaster until he stops, then get close again and use bombs, then retreat, and so on. I am, however, a little conservative with the bomb use--I try to use those only after the Snagglebeast falls into the lava, then when he makes his way back to the center of the arena, I quickly get to him and just mash the circle button to throw bombs while he is unable to shoot fireballs at me. I usually run out of bombs near the end, but by then I can just shoot him with the Blaster.

Other than Umbris, I use the Blaster on Batalia (to destroy tanks), Orxon (to destroy forcefields/pterodactyls/screamers), Hoven (for the helicopter), Kalebo III (to hit forcefield switches), and Veldin (mainly just the Drek fight).

Also I just realized that if I don't have the Blaster then I would be forced to use the Pyrocitor against Drek in order to have three weapons under 80% so I can get ammo crates to appear. This would be time-consuming because:
1) Pyrocitor ammo doesn't deplete as quickly as Blaster ammo and requires that I use 49 ammo instead of 41 like the Blaster, and
2) the Blaster damages Drek faster than the Pyrocitor.

While I [i]could[/i] wait until near the end of the game to get the Blaster, saving time having to collect bolts at the beginning, Umbris would be difficult for me to get through. Even with the Blaster I am left with only one nanotech at times, so without it I doubt I could ever get far.

And just so you know, I have done a wrench-only game so I know I can get through any level with just the wrench; it would just take longer.

[b]EDIT:[/b] Okay, against the Snagglebeast I guess I'll be aggressive with the bombs, staying at maximum range so he doesn't shoot me with fireballs. It seemed to go down quicker that way (although I had [i]just[/i] enough bombs to take it down on today's run).

I decided to do another run today. It seems that lack of sleep diminished my overall ability last time, as this run had an in-level total of 1:47:19 and a total completion time of [b]1:56:39[/b]. And this is with 5 deaths, two of which were on Gemlik Base (again... -_-). So...I guess my new goal is 1:55-2:00, especially with Umbris and Kalebo III being completed in 8 minutes now, and Veldin in 10 minutes (Drek took [b]4:37[/b], and that could go faster, too).

HalfMillennium

Edit history:

HalfMillennium: 2007-08-28 10:11:53 pm

2007-08-28 10:06:35 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Wrench-only? I didn't know Drek was even possible with the wrench only.

Have you still not achieved the Kalebo III shortcut yet?

There's another shortcut I can give you, on Orxon as Ratchet. When you get to the first Magneboots path, if you walk off the edge of it as it turns toward the ground (or slightly before), you'll fall off, and can use the swingshot and perhaps the helipack to cross the barrier without having to deactivate it, which should save a few seconds. If you're not already using it, it should help.