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LotBlind: 2015-05-19 03:52:00 pm
Dude, this was the last of it! It's over now!

(talking about the bank mission, I'm some ways into Blackmail)

I noticed I could squeeze through a narrow horizontal opening only after drinking a slow-fall potion... I don't know how that works exactly. I can't imagine it changes your hitbox. Also you gotta try the gates around the map, they're actually incredible for lean boosting. That's the official name of the trick by the way: lean boosting. You should hone your technique with them to make sure you've got the hang of it in the rest of the missions. Also I'm not sure if consuming a slow-fall potion might not actually help you get further in the same time simply because you lose less speed to ground friction. Not sure if speed potions will do anything.

I managed to get caught inside a door again, using the old method. A single door this time. And the interesting bit is I couldn't make it through at all until I drank a SLOWFALL POTION! Damn, they're really turning into a versatile tool, that's the third known use so far. Come to think of it, it's probably the same effect I mentioned above (letting me slip through the gap). You do need to crouch and jump in the direction you're going to cause it to push you a little forward so you're partially through (you can try to mantle things to make it easier if there are any things around). TBH I still don't fully get it. A rope is always needed to get yourself initially lodged in. With a rope I think all you need to do is turn around to face the way you came from and if you fired the rope close enough to the door, when you jump off, you'll be inside it. Maybe.

Get Basso to do the job!
Mission 1 hard: you could just send the guy in to save his girlfriend himself while doing what you're good at, stealing the necessary things. Might this speed it up at all?
I barely run Quake
So, being new to SDA and Thief 2 running, I have a few questions.

1.) Is there a specific version/engine I'm supposed to be using for Any% Normal runs? If so, how can I go about getting that? I'm currently using 1.22 with Tafferpatcher.

2.) How optimized is this game right now? Is there much left to improve on? It's one of my favorite parts of speedrunning and I'd like to attempt to contribute where I can.

3.) Where is the best place to post runs and look at times? I saw that both Thief 2 and Dark Project were on Speedrun, but no times had been uploaded.

4. And finally, I'm still learning right now (I've gotten up to First City Bank and Trust), is there a better way to learn than simply watching the videos of runs and ILs and copying what they do?


I read through the forum but didn't notice any of the questions I just asked fully addressed, but I might have missed something. Thanks.
Hello and welcome!

1) Well the philosophy is always avoiding redundancy whenever possible, so the general rule for versions is to run the fastest one. Now it might prove out something like 1.18 or 1.07 is the fastest. However, because those two aren't well supported on modern PCs (I have an XP to run it in), it's not expected for the runners to necessarily run those versions. As for the rest you can use any version the way it came out the "box" i.e. Steam or GOG, but can't use any unofficial patches for anything other than purely cosmetic reasons.

2) Socrates has some fairly optimized any% ILs (individual level runs). Personally I prefer to think "what hasn't been done yet at all?" so if I were you I'd deliberately choose another category but ofc it's up to you. His any% SS records are also fairly good but improvable. And I'm currently looking for more ways to improve them but my research will affect other categories equally much.

3) You can do what Socrates is doing and upload the runs and post the video links here for feedback. His runs are the fastest for this game and the categories he's doing. Check out his YT channel (socratesjohnson).

4) Yes, that and other questions are best answered by looking in the Strategy Guide, which is expressly intended for sharing knowledge in a well-ordered fashion. Well, the tricks are currently in whatever order. Here you go! https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Thief_2:_The_Metal_Age

Ofc the best way to do things is (after reading the guide) is to try things out for yourself.

The Guide also has some ideas for categories which will certainly be accepted. You should bring up in this thread if you find any new tricks or want to run a category other than those listed. The guide doesn't have Socrates' comments on the any% runs because he's too lazy for that.
Edit history:
Hazzmat: 2015-06-01 11:33:24 pm
Hazzmat: 2015-06-01 08:23:31 pm
I barely run Quake
So would the version of Tafferpatcher that includes 1.22 not be allowed then as it is a fan patch and not something official? I can't find anything it changes that would be too much of an issue, but I'd like to make sure before I start. Also, thank you for your answers.
The game is a bit funny in the sense that the fan patches became official ones (so far as SDA is concerned) when they got bundled into the GOG product. It's because if we didn't allow those versions of games, everyone would be discouraged from running them. So you can run the game in whatever form or shape it was in when you bought it off GOG or if you've patched it with the same patches yourself. I think Socrates runs the same version but maybe he'll show up to confirm that...

You can also join us this Saturday at 1PM Wisconsin time or 9PM EEST or 6PM GMT or whatever floats your boat when we have our periodic Skype talk about strategies and tricks and things. I'm sure Socrates is fine with that too. My Skype is Sviimhoinen.
Always move forward, never sleep.
I think my version is 1.21, but I have noticed newer ones than that out.

But basically, yeah, what Lot said, and any additional questions, feel free to ask!  Glad to have another runner for the game. Smiley
I'm making a big update for the Strategy Guide and also dumping all the new (and recently dug-up) things in here too. Note that .07 (=v. 1.07) things may or may not work for 1.18 too. If you don't get something I've written about ask me to elaborate.

Mission 1: leaning into the door while blocking is another way to activate Jenivere. Also blowing the whistle right off and relying on Basso to be slow enough so you can block him off at the side door before he leaves the mission complete zone works.

Alerting Jenivere using a broadhead an archer has fired? Needs testing but should work in theory if you can obtain the arrow quickly enough.

You can drop the key at a door to alert NPCs behind it. Works for Jenivere too.

Mission 7:
-the reward for killing the two spiders in the dungeon is a gas mine (unlike in .07 where it's a gas arrow). Also in .07 the lady is a zombie not a corpse. She still has the purse though. The bars between the dungeon and the tunnel leading towards the mini-catacomb don't withdraw in .07 because the button is broken.
-.07 has an exit zone to the south in the secret corridor leading to the graveyard secret. Makes for a much faster exit than entering the streets.
-the guards don't need to be equipped with gears in order to be able to open gear doors for you.
-the jagged rocks that form the ceiling of the low gap reaching into the secret corridor (with the graveyard) are something you can get stuck on. When you do, if you keep running [diagonally] through the gap while uncrouched, and especially if you also mash jump, you get progressively more and more bent over, until you emerge on the other side at which point you get hurled forwards at a high speed. Might save time even though you're stuck for a bit. Doesn't seem to work with smooth ceilings.
-Managed to mantle from inside one of the fireplaces in this mission outside it after leaning inside and spazzing out. Probably .07 only or .18 as well.

Assorted:
-Using auto-search bodies may be best.
-Taking a screenshot can sometimes affect the game state. Observed when being completely stuck (unable to move or lean in any direction) with both the in-game screenshot button and using an external program to do it (which ofc isn't allowed for speed running). This is a bit weird to say the least. What happened is Garrett sort of un-leaned a little ways and after doing it several times while flailing about (TM) I was able to free myself.
-Easier ways to initiate door transgression (trick named by Lytha, means passing through a locked door):
1) Knock the rope arrow into the door by leaning forwards and hop on before it's out again. The idea is if it's inside the door there's a better chance you'll get inside it too.
2) To do it without a rope arrow, you need to be next to the door, crouched, and leaning forwards if you need to to be able to reach something that can be mantled (a thin ledge may be enough). When you then jump the game might send you backwards a little ways and into the door. Then repeat this to get further inside until you can see through the door on the other side. At that point just consume the slowfall potion.
-Unfortunately we found you can't do a complete door transgression using these methods even if you get inside one in NewDark because of altered mantling physics that lack the aforementioned effect.
-You can jump off the bottom of a body of water to get to the surface a little faster.
-The different kinds of mines are mapped to the same hotkey, i.e. if you only have a flash mine and you press your "mine" hotkey it'll give you the flash one.
-You can "trap" doorways by laying down mines in the nook between the opening door and the doorframe (if it's wide enough). After they get armed, if an NPC opens the door, getting squeezed between the door and its frame tends to set the mines off. Ofc you can just lay down mines period...
-You can remotely arm a mine that's lying on top of another object by knocking it off it or by destroying or moving the object. It only gets armed after it's landed on the floor.
-Jumping on objects with slanted surfaces or NPCs gives you a boost proportional to your falling velocity. It also removes falling damage and makes the fall silent.
-You can also get a small boost (NPC boost) by leaning into NPCs in a certain way. Hard to find uses for this probably because it's quite modest.
-Object boost: another way to get boosted is by standing next to an object with a 90-degree corner (this needs a bit more testing but most objects are like that anyway). It also needs to be sufficiently low. Then you lean around the corner so it snaps you on that side, but you have to face an angle only about 45 degrees from the side of the object you were standing on. Then you jump and as you land, you get boosted. At best the speed is somewhat greater than just running but it takes a while to set up so again it might be difficult to utilize for time-saving.
-You could sometimes find it useful to drop an object somewhere and collect it again on the return trip to be able to select it easily on that time.
-You can use any kind of arrow to hit buttons (at least the kind that involve dart boards and similar targets). This means if you're in no hurry to trigger the effect quickly and you have a spare gas or fire arrow, you could fire such an arrow faster than drawing the bow all the way because they'll hit the target even if they're flying slowly.
-Using a slow-fall potion while elevatoring might make you able to reach somewhere faster by making the last jumps take you higher.
Always move forward, never sleep.
I found a way to block golden boy on Life of the Party, at least if he runs through the pantry to the kitchen.  Inside the pantry on the way to the elevator is a crate right next to the door, and dropping that in the threshold will block him.  I've noticed that sometimes he'll get spooked and run around the opposite direction and sit in the doorway to the kitchen, however, so I'll have to see what can be done about that as well.

New Blackmail video is encoding right now with a time of 2:32, a good 22 seconds faster than my previous best thanks to our (Lot and I) brainstorming session a while ago.  Still trying new ideas for that speed potion glitch, but so far no luck.
Always move forward, never sleep.
Blackmail 2:32



Description:

Using the Jenivere trick on the second floor door, I was able to attract the guards on the other side and make then open the door for me. Loot route had to change slightly to grab the urn in the bedroom, but luckily that was the only other piece of loot I had to grab. Leaving the estate via the roof with a scouting orb seemed faster, but about an hour after recording this, I saved 4 seconds off of this time by leaving the normal way, but I wanted to upload this one anyway to show off the roof exit.
Always move forward, never sleep.
Blackmail 2:28



Description:

Same Jenivere trick as my previous video, except this time I leave through the house instead of the roof and can consistently get 2:28.
I barely run Quake
Running Interference 100% in 4:46



Can be improved a lot, I just wanted to get a basic route going. I also don't know if there's an existing route out there already. If there is, I couldn't find it.
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2015-08-04 02:41:08 pm
Hazzmat: there probably wasn't. I don't know of any 100% runs. Good you chose Expert and I'm really liking your efforts so far!

You're certainly thinking along the right lines: e.g. getting the last piece of loot after starting the descent on the dumbwaiter is an example of how speedrunners optimize things.
- what actually happens if you don't water arrow the torch? Does that make the Basso & Jenivere goal fail a lot?
1:45 There's minor version differences with the A.I. but you can generally just run up to dudes and knock them out even if they seem to have been alerted so long as you're fast enough. Ignore this if it doesn't work in your version.
-remember to use forward lean to be able to grab stuff or open doors etc. that much faster, esp. if you're about to do a 180.
2:10 probably faster to just throw all 3 crates out the way and lose the mantling or actually hop onto the last crate instead of it.
-Socrates can confirm that remembering door directions is a bitch and a half, but maybe this might help: Once you've done enough work on the route, try to think of each door as being either "nice" or "bad" to create that emotional connection to them. As if half of them were red, half green. I just thought of that actually.
2:40 could probably have just run up to the guy without stopping. Also when you're knocking them out you don't have to do it from directly behind them, you can keep running by their side. It's a bit riskier for you because you absolutely need the pickpocket but that's how it goes.
- check out what it says in the guide about speed potions, including what do when the effect is ending... So in your route you currently get only maybe 5 seconds of running then you stop: you should look for a better time to use it when there's few obstructions. Alternatively you could open the door ahead of time but that loses a tiny bit of time in the hearth room... hmm.
- getting the other flash bomb is not a bad idea at all because those allow you to pick pockets even if you've accidentally (or on purpose) alerted a guard saving more time overall. You might even wanna look out for opportunities to flash and rob multiple guards at once, if not in this mission then elsewhere.

I presume you're using loot maps that show the item locations too? Seems that's going to be important for you since you're gonna need to visit almost every place anyway in each mission. You wouldn't believe the stuff Socrates has been missing Tongue

So yeah I like what you're doing, keep it up! Those little snags like getting caught in furniture will iron out by themselves. Just keep trying new things and see what works!

Socrates: Can you check your e-mail again for another notification? The guy said he changed the out address to make it circumvent spam filters, so did it work? Did you ever test mouse wheel (scroll) for frobbing things? That seems like one of those actions it's best to spam a lot. Anything that's not loot just gets instantly discarded anyway.
I barely run Quake
Thank you for the tips. I actually completely forgot about small things I could do to save time like the forward leaning. Like I said, I just wanted to get a basic route down. I more enjoy single segment runs rather than ILs, but I'll definitely improve this.

-If I skip over the water arrow at the start both guards end up chasing me and, because I have to stop and pick things up or pickpocket occasionally, they chase me throughout the entire level and usually kill me.
-At 1:45 that guard is almost always too far away from me to reach before he starts attacking me. When I was slower in getting there he was in just the right spot but I haven't been able to get him without stopping again.
-2:10 was just me trying things for no real reason and failing, I throw 2 out of the way now and just jump over the third.
-2:40 I think I was trying to get the key out again because it was replaced by what I pickpocketed.
-I've been toying with speed potions a bit whenever I redo the run. I haven't timed each of them so I don't know for sure but it seems to me that it's fastest to use it after the wedding rings. I cover lots of distance and might be able to get the guard cycles where I can take both of them out without stopping.
-I'm also trying to find a good place to use the extra flash bomb, probably at the guards in/next to the parlor. The problem with them is that it makes a lot of noise and last time I tried, the guards at the door to the main hall heard and were in the hallway when I came back. When I was first routing I used it at the end by simply running past the guards, grabbing the plate and goblet in the center then turning around and flashing all 3. There were a few problems with that, the first being that it was inconsistent where they'd be. The second was that I had to pickpocket all of them before the hit the ground. The third was that I have to save the guard with the arrows for last because it switches from the blackjack to the arrows(Although there might be a setting that changes that, I haven't looked). Then there was the positioning again, one time they were so far away from each other that one woke up after the flash and wasn't able to be KO'd. I was almost killed by the 2 guards at the door because they shot me quickly.

I'm using a loot list, if that's the same thing I don't know. I've gotten a 4:36 already, a little bit after the recording, just didn't really feel like recording again. http://i.imgur.com/kMItR2w.jpg
Also, my friend tried running the first mission with the version that's available from steam and it's got some changes, not sure which version it is. There's only 2 coins in the compartment above the stairs leading up to the main hall from the kitchen, rather than 3. Like I said, I'm on 1.22 and would rather have the correct version. I don't want to route for a long time then find out that it's invalid, after all. Do you know what patches were added with the GOG version? Thanks for the help again.
Always move forward, never sleep.
Lot, I think email notifications for threads come only for the first unread post, since I got one when Hazzmat posted his run (very cool BTW) and I didn't get an email about the 2 after that since I hadn't read the thread yet.  Otherwise, the KB ones are coming through.

It's also nice to see someone else on the end of Lot's wall of text suggestions. Tongue  I'm looking forward to see more of your progress, Hazzmat!  I can just imagine Framed 100% will be a complete bitch since it would need to be pretty much ghosted, if I remember correctly, but good luck!
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2015-08-05 11:58:41 am
You enjoy SS runs more than ILs... does that mean you're going for an SS 100%??

The water arrow: yeah seems legit if the alternative is to flash them. However you should still try just distracting them with a clang and see if this causes them to face the other way as you cross the light. Another matter what happens with Jenivere then.

BTW if you run into new knowledge or tricks...
1) if you feel it's too specific for the 100% category you could create the page for that category and start listing that stuff (mission per mission) over there
2) if it's possibly good for some other categories as well just add it to the big tricks page but also note it here so we don't miss it

I believe there is a setting that changes that pick-up behaviour.

Version 1.22 eh? You could check the version differences section of the guide for what is known. Aside from that we know that mission 1 has a missing piece of loot (the one your friend couldn't find) in version 1.18, which I believe must have been replaced (and similar little fixes with object positioning may have been done without anything major) for one of the versions since, I'd like to guess 1.19. My expertise is version 1.07 and some of its differences from 1.18. There are as mentioned in the guide at least two slots for any% categories but not for 100% or low%, but that just means you can't  play 1.07 with them. If you do your runs on whatever later version (basically 1.19- are all clumped together because they all support modern systems) and someone does v. 1.18 (as if) that might technically obsolete your runs if that version gives better times but yeah... who's going to do that any time soon?

tl;dr - Any version is fine, ideally use whatever is fastest. BTW only versions that Steam or gog have picked up on are valid but I'm sure you knew that.
There is now a Thief 2 skype group (instead of just me and Socrates), so if anyone would like to be added to it, my skype is "sviimhoinen"
I barely run Quake
Yeah I'd like to do SS 100%. That's really the only reason I haven't been improving on the ILs all that much. Once I finish routing the game as a whole I'll make improvements wherever I can; right now I'm just trying to get through each level without spending ridiculous amounts of time. I changed where I use the speed potion in Running Interference to after the wedding rings and it's much faster, allowing you to KO both guards in Parlor without stopping. I'll try to record a better time for that and record what I've got for Shipping & Receiving after that.

And yeah, Framed is gonna be interesting to say the least, no killing or KOing at all. Luckily there isn't too much to pickpocket, so you can just ignore some of the guards.
I'm an Olympic Straferunner
Hi everyone, I'm a long time Thief 2 runner but only recently discovered the SDA forums and this great Thief 2 community. I've been a glitch-finder and speedrunner for many years now but I'm only recently getting back into the hobby. I thought I'd introduce myself with some of my work.



I just recently discovered this glitch after trying to install 1.18. I couldn't get it to work, so I reinstalled 1.21 with Tafferpatcher. I found that my level-skip saves had a few visual glitches, which you can see in the video, but on Ambush in particular the end-of-level trigger actually extended out of bounds. This video was from my glitch demonstration stream and shows the run on the glitched save and the run from a fresh load of the level via restart.

With this glitch it's possible to skip the rooftop dash completely. I demonstrated it on the clean install to illustrate the difference. My PB with this corrupted save is 1:39 but I can consistently pull 1:43's and 1:42's even with movement errors. I've tried to replicate the glitch by making new saves. So far I've found that I can copy the corrupted save (that is, load the corrupted save, save to a new file, and load that save with the glitches intact) but the act of saving is not responsible for corrupting it. So if I restart, save, and then reload the save, the level is not glitched, as is to be expected.

I'll be researching this more in the coming days and uploading more videos relating to these corrupted saves. Hopefully there is some way of making this consistent. It's easy to see that this kind of glitch could save a huge amount of time on any run since nearly every level in Thief II ends with hitting an end-of-level zone.

Anyways, I look forward to collaborating with you all!
I barely run Quake
Here's the route for Shipping... And Receiving so far. I mess up a few times, but you get the general idea.



From what I've noticed, guards don't start their cycles until you get within a certain range. Meaning you can mess up one area entirely and it might not affect you later on.

There's also something I really haven't found a way around yet, which is the statue in the pile of crates on the north east corner of the map. Originally I tried getting that after going into TM Blackheart's, but that makes the Hammerite move towards the civilian and eventually end up in the doorway. The problem with that is that I can't KO him and the guards with 1 invis potion; which I'm usually left with by this point, I just got lucky.

I also couldn't find the spots for the lock pick in Lucky Selentura and TM Blackheart's, so if you know them I'd appreciate it. There's probably way more optimized routes for this but this was the way I found that minimized the amount of unnecessary running.
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2015-08-06 11:24:53 am
jakeplissken: Heartily welcome to the SDA T2 thread! If you would like to be on the Skype group just add me: sviimhoinen for real-time discussion when preferred.

The save corruption thing you found is interesting but at the same time not that interesting. The reason is that can happen with basically any game if (installation of something else) causes files to get slightly damaged. I'm thinking what's happening is the game hasn't actually finished loading in all assets (hence missing textures) but is thinking that it has. Save files shouldn't contain any mission architecture data, just some flags and object information, so that's all that could be altered from the normal. The lights being on could be from the game making every light be on by default and if that default state has been changed, it saves that information, but in this case it hasn't been loaded in. That's my quick glance theory.

Now if you could find a way to reproduce such effects consistently strictly in-game, THEN that could be used for an NG+ or RTA run. You'd have to be able to demonstrate how you created the corrupt save file so others could confirm it works for everyone.

Versions before 1.19 are not supported by any OS since XP. I happen to have an XP lying about so I'm using that to explore v. 1.07 for its specialities. Have you been running any% or what? Should we be giving you feedback on your runs? I get that one was mostly just a demo of the glitch. Please take a glance at the Strategy Guide which will let you catch up on what's new in the scene! It should have right about all the information available starting from Poesta's old notes from this very thread, and some stuff posted on TTLG.

Hazzmat:
The fact that guard cycles start only after you've gotten close enough confirms entirely my suspicions - I had noticed they didn't always notice corpses if I was far enough from them. Could you edit that into the guide under "guards" along with any other observations? In fact while people probably get that there's scripted events, if you find specific ways to trigger/not trigger them you could mention that in the mission-by-mission comments.

I spent some time earlier trying to look for more wall-picking spots in that mission but I couldn't open nearly every door using that method. I'm not sure you can, and this is in fact another point to be added in the guide if you do a thorough check-up on what's going down with them. There's unlikely to be version differences with that (or I'm not sure) so maybe you should mention the version you're running so you're not accidentally discouraging someone else from trying it on their version.

Hazzmat I'm editing more stuff into this post after watching the run...

EDIT
Are you thinking of eventually having a true SS or just RTA?

1:55 could parkour onto the high deck (whatever it's called) a bit faster? Maybe even rope arrow, hop onto it and try using the things off the rope.
4:20 you're leaving the rope behind... remember you can usually keep them if need be by just grabbing them as you're falling. Also I wonder if the crouch to detach from ladders feature also works with ropes. It was added in v. 1.19. It's not necessarily useful here but something to keep in mind if you don't want the height the jump adds.
5:00 you can just jump through glass as you should know
5:20 the way you're doing this jump is a bit odd... you should just strafe and jump and only adjust your view while flying
13:25 nice boost!

Another thing that could actually affect routing quite a bit: don't forget about elevatoring. You could buy those 5 flares (and any extras you pick up) and use them to maybe change the way you approach some of the crates in facility B or something like that.

I wonder if unalerted spiders etc. take more damage just like guards. If you notice something like this could you edit it in?
Edit history:
Hazzmat: 2015-08-06 11:47:21 am
I barely run Quake
Ok, I added it. I don't know exactly where the trigger for each set of guards in that mission is, but the main one I did notice was that the patrolling guard that comes from the third floor of Building B and walks down the stairs to the first floor is always going down the stairs by the time I'm finished with looting the warehouse. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how much time I spend KOing the two patrolling guards on Floor 2 or getting the spice bag and invis potion from the crates below. Other than that, the guard that's at the bottom of the stairs leading from Building B to Building A is always there regardless of how much time I spend on Floor 2. So I think his trigger is likely either on the 3rd floor or on the stairs to the 3rd floor.

As for the wall-picking spots, I haven't been able to find the ones I was missing.

This is likely going to be a large run with probably a lot of mistakes, at least at the start, so there will probably be a true SS one day but I would hate to lose a long run to something small like a guard seeing you. I'd be fine with doing true SS only, I just need to get way better. I don't think RTA would really be a problem as long as people aren't blatantly save-scumming. In the Quake Any% community, both RTA and SS are accepted, and SS runs are all on top of the leaderboard anyway because it's just generally faster. If we allow RTA then we could just make it so that if you have an RTA run it has to be timed with a timer and you have to submit that time rather than your in game time; While if you get SS you can submit in game time.

1:55 I didn't even think of doing that, I usually use that time to get Davidson's Key in my item menu but I could do that as well as parkour. I'm not sure if you have rope arrows by this point, however. The only rope arrows I can think of right now is the ones in the chest you get in Building B.
4:20 I also didn't think of taking the rope arrow with me. I can't really think of another place that I'd use it, honestly.
5:00 I'll have to remember that, it'd make hitting that a lot less silly.
5:20 That's just a habit I get from playing Quake a lot. I circle-jump in a lot of games for whatever reason, must just be muscle memory. I'll try to work on that though.

Elevatoring would probably be very easy to accomplish as there are a lot of flares in crates that I just ignore, especially at the start. Next time I'm doing Shipping & Receiving I'll look into the spider thing. I'll try it on the big spider as it seems to not notice you until you get closer; While the small spiders notice me as soon as I make contact with the ground next to the elevator regardless of how much noise I made.
I'm an Olympic Straferunner
Thanks LotBlind! Yeah, I was mainly showing it off as an oddity which allowed me to get an insanely fast Ambush time. It's not consistent and even if I could find a way to reproduce it, I doubt it would shave off any time in an RTA. I messed around with every other mission that had a damaged save and didn't find anything major.

I'm mainly interested in running any% but my previous single segment PB was around 1:06:00 for a no death/reset run using stuff that I routed myself which is much slower than the current strategies. For instance I was using the elevatoring/slowfall method for Framed instead of mantling and I exited Angelwatch via the fourth floor window and dropped down. On top of that I had a crazy risky strat for Blackmail that is still 30 seconds slower than using the Jenivere trick. So I still have a bit of grinding on the new strategies before I get a PB that I'm satisfied with. I got a 1:03:48 on stream but with many resets.

I was also thinking of getting hold of XP for one of my older laptops. 1.07 has the potential to shave a lot of time off. Blaadiblaadiblaa demonstrated on one of his Youtube videos that the vault in First City Bank and Trust can be blown open with two mines and a fire arrow, which saves about 2:20. 1.00 might have even crazier stuff than that.
Hazzmat: what you're saying about RTA timing is true - it really uses real time, but that's what is being used for the any% runs already so that's not a problem.

Hmm... I really hadn't thought that it's going to add another category. The thing is you can use saves either for safety or for retrying the same difficult tricks. Unfortunately if you're going to use them in the first place, I don't see a way we could split "just-safety" and "risky-strat" RTA runs from each other. So in essence you just have to choose if you want to start creating a sufficiently consistent strategy or if you will go all-out with save-scum strats, because even one reset makes the run RTA. HOWEVER, it's not like we care what you do in your practice runs.

Are you using lots of hotkeys for different items? You should use them for the most common ones. This also lets you select other types of items faster - e.g. if you hotkey to a lockpick, you'll know the other keys are right next to them. Another skill you gain with time. I don't actually have to be super-good at it myself cause I don't intend to do runs Smiley

The main thing with items is not to look at which items you have on you at any given time, but just get used to the various tricks they might enable to do and scout for opportunities in the missions, only then think about if there's an actual way to arrange for having that item at the germane time. Maybe a future route change will enable it

I also play Quake (Live) and I know what you mean by circle jumping. Personally it just causes me to jump instead of running a lot Smiley

PS like I said there's a skype group. If you join it we'll all be there and can discuss stuff in more depth whenever necessary.

jakeplissken: Please take some records off Socrates. I feel like he's developing a self-esteem as of late.

Alternatively, if you do start running 1.07, there's more stuff than just that vault that is impossible in 1.18+ or 1.19+. Mostly to do with the old mantling code. However, time is also wasted elsewhere.
Hazzmat: You should test the guard patrol starting more thoroughly if you would... It would be useful to know (well, confirm the suspicion) that there surely can't be triggers laid out separately for each guard all around the map for where they start moving. It has to be something distance-based, but is that 2D or 3D distance and how long is it anyway. That would certainly be very useful!

I don't know when I'll be able to get back on T2 with all the front page updates, pre-release checks and verification that has to be done.
Edit history:
Hazzmat: 2015-08-09 12:26:48 am
Hazzmat: 2015-08-09 12:22:03 am
I barely run Quake
I'll look into it now. I don't think it's on a guard to guard basis but more like once you get in a certain area the guards in that area will begin their movements. I think I could test it with the pirates and the guards outside of Building B. If I spend 5 minutes or so in Building A without ever going to B then theoretically they should still be in their starting positions by the time I get there and hit the trigger.

What I was thinking was that when you hit a set of guards' trigger, they start moving and don't stop until the end of the level or KO/Death. But until then they just stand in position or maybe aren't even loaded in. It kind of makes sense, given the size of the levels and the hardware when the game came out. Might have just been an optimization.


Then again I might just be seeing things that aren't there, who knows. I'll edit the post once I'm done.

EDIT: I was right, at least in that NPCs only begin their cycles once you get within a certain distance. I spent around 5 minutes running around on the rooftops of Building A, but when I ran to the side of Building B, the guards were in the same positions as if I had ran there immediately. I think the trigger might be the long line of crates that forms the wall between Building B and Building A.

Side note: I assume people know that you can mantle the spike fence and get on the rooftop near the start. I couldn't find any use for it, even in 100%, other than maybe manipulating guard patterns in Building A; if the cycle theory is correct anyway. You need too much stuff on the inside for it to be of any use so far.

You can also get OOB at the corner of Building B if I remember correctly, where the cliff meets the water. Just run off the edge of the building, jump, and use a slow fall potion in the height of your jump while aiming towards the edge of the cliffs. It's extremely useless from what I can tell and  someone has probably already discovered it.