The spawn timer begins when you collect that weapon pick-up from the helpful kid, and thus starts the frame rule. It is obtained as fast as possible, manipulated into Wpn6. The grenade pack was trivially manipulated from the building. The reason to manipulate Wpn6 is due to the length of death animations, and will see lots of use in later scenes.

The game was generous, as an agent dropped another grenade pack just for us! Miraculously, very little manipulation was needed, the RNG was already good. I damage two buildings at once with two grenades, with two more destroying them separately. If the buildings are simultaneously destroyed by a single grenade, they only drop one power-up.

The spawn timer was perfectly in sync, down to the very frame. When the camera locks in place, the death animation of one agent finishes and another spawns. The kill was counted.

During this scene, I am charging. I also shoot without losing this charge, and this is the first instance where I shoot while keeping charge. I also pick up Wpn7, as I will soon fight enemies with more than 1 HP. The spread shot fires 3 distinct bullets at a time, meaning 3 damage instead of 1. The graphics lie -- I'm not firing 6 shots at once, my hitboxes script claim only 3 hitboxes are there.

The vehicle I hop into has a speed of 2.5 pixels/frame. Rolling averages out to around 2.78 pixels/frame. Despite the vehicle being slightly slower, I hop in because of the tremendous advantage of being able to shoot while moving, which rolling around won't allow with such frequency. And besides, even in the vehicle, I still have to wait a few frames for the camera to fully scroll in place. It's too bad I only use it for this part of the entire run.

The FBI Van took a full-power 10-damage charge and a stream of spread shots. It didn't live.

T5 already did a stellar job up to this point. Other than a single lag frame, I couldn't make any improvements thanks to the frame rule called the Spawn Timer. It's thanks to this frame rule that I believe it is impossible to improve even by a single frame.

I tried a cool strat involving ice shots, in an attempt to glitch the hit detection, but alas, there was far more lag than frames saved from the battle. I haven't checked if I beat the frame rule with the ice shots, but with that much lag, I don't think it would help.

I intentionally delay the kill by a few frames. I'm still getting within the frame rule for the next scene anyway, but this is so I can more easily copy what T5 did.

I did what T5 did: Synced up the RNG, jump, throw grenades, knife something, and have the timing down to the frame on every kill. I would like to hear if anyone can come up with a different RNG that still beats this scene in the same amount of time.

For luck manipulation, I fired the last two spread shots I had. Every shot of Wpn7 counted for something. I love this stage! Wpn6 was picked up in time for the last kill.

Enemies freeze on the ground and ignore your shots as the camera pans up... Or at least that was intended. Apparently the code to handle that was poorly done. So, off-screen, I get two packs of grenades. Lazy luck manipulation at its finest, when you can see the off-screen hitboxes and have an RNG scanner script.

I should hope it's obvious that I keep a charged shot ready while still shooting every agent that comes down.

This enemy takes double damage from grenades. I'm not sure why, really. Regardless, this enemy is also why I charged my shot in the first place. There is a faster way to kill this enemy, by digging into the ground and burying him, but you will die by doing this, and only get one "frame rule" ahead in return. I glanced over the RNG scanner and came to the conclusion I would not be able to recover my stock of grenades and weaponry in a timely manner.

Incidentally, about that frame rule... I was 5 frames too slow to reach this scene to beat it. Thus, the frame rule wasted 26 frames. Ouch.

To the extent that I can tell, the only allowed spawn position for the agents is coming down on ropes from the sky. If they could spawn elsewhere, you wouldn't be seeing them on ropes coming down in this run.

The ropes still cause nightmares until the camera locks in place, but it's already done its damage. I manipulated the first one to be as far right as possible to still be in sight for a needed kill.

There is another vehicle I can hop into here, but the mobile offense provided here has zero value. I manipulate up Wpn7 and take it once I fire the last shot I need to.

I carefully measured the rolls and made sure that my last roll stops right when I've gone far enough to lock the camera and thus summon the boss. A 10-damage charged shot, grenades, and numerous spread shots from Wpn7 happened.

There is one point during the battle where I stopped shooting momentarily, when I jump to avoid the only attack the boss makes. While I do make a few downward shots, there's an odd thing about Y velocity the game does: While I am still traveling upwards, downward shots have a minor effect on your Y velocity, while if you're in the process of falling back down, a downward shot actually pushes you up much harder. I can afford the minor pushes easily, but the major shove wastes too much time.

It's possible to jump over the shield and kill the guy behind it to pass this scene. But it turns out it's faster to just blast the 20 HP iron shield right through.

T4 did it surprisingly fast. Even this run unlocks this scene 2 frames slower. This route through was inspired by T4's efforts. While it is possible to beat T4's time here, the RNG didn't agree, as I needed a grenade drop as well. Regardless, what I have here lets me beat a frame rule, without a frame to spare, later on.

A scene that is not really noteworthy. Spending grenades on that building isn't possible without wasting time.

This scene has an interesting combination of requirements. The 3 kills I mentioned does NOT include the helicopter -- It has to be standard agent kills. I meet both requirements within a few frames of each other. Priority is made to destroy the helicopter quick, as that's the longer requirement to fulfill. The Spawn Timer is not the limiting factor here, not by a long shot.

There are simultaneous manipulations taking place, where I have to get the right weapon from the helpful kid (Wpn7), as well as pick up grenades from the buildings. This scene turned out pretty well.

Kind of a breather scene following that last tricky one. Which is good, as I had to redo these parts a few times.

I still need to set the rolling into the next scene optimally, though.

Apparently, they thought that since the first tank didn't beat me, the second one surely will!

While I do spawn grenades off an enemy, this is actually a byproduct of manipulating both agent's death animations. I needed them to take long enough dieing for them to count in the next scene. By the way, there was no way I could take the grenades, but I didn't need them anyway.

When I got to this scene, my script says the camera locks right when the Spawn Timer reads 30. This was a pretty triumphant moment when I saw, once and truly, I could beat the frame rule. It was down to the very frame. I had earlier seen a possibility that I could beat the frame rule, and worked towards it, restarting this level several times, even messing with 1-1's ending for new RNGs, just to see if I could. And I did.

Had that earlier kill finished one frame early, it wouldn't count. Had it finished one frame late, it would have blocked a new agent from spawning. Imagine how I must have felt when I had hit such a tiny target.

Alas, would have been perfect if I had Wpn6, but I have to make do with grenades, Wpn7 shots, and manipulate the shortest death animations.

That first building I blew up to mess with the RNG. I take Wpn7 from it anyway, but it was unneeded. The second one I blow up is apparently a grenade shop. It ignores the RNG and always drops a special grenade pack containing 30 grenades. This serves for the rest of the entire stage.

The tank was nothing special. Their third attempt just doesn't work out!

The frame rule comes in full force here. As I did not believe I could save anywhere near enough frames to beat it by one "frame rule", I let this attempt through. Nor sure how I'm slower than other runs here.

During this scene, I manipulate Wpn6 and Wpn7. Although Wpn6 use was brief, there are no more "kill x agents" scenes later on. I may as well save every last frame I can.

Same deal as with the Heavy Fire Agent in 1-1.

Although, I should have checked if I could bury him instead. I would eat a death, lose my grenades, and possibly have a difficult time handling luck later on. I may mark this as "possible improvement."

Here's the reason why I pick up Wpn1, the green cloud weapon: The building handles hit-detection poorly. There's no check in place to prevent lingering hitboxes, such as those from green clouds, fire, or ice weapons, from hitting repeatedly. It happens that Wpn1 has a larger hitbox than Wpn2 or Wpn3, meaning I can start damaging the building earlier.

The building will always drop something. I manipulate it into being Wpn1 so that the item drop doesn't interfere.

Same thing, but rather than charge through, I jump over the building. I carefully checked, jumping over saves a few more frames than just rolling straight through, where it won't help with the previous building.

On the way to the next scene, I knife an agent. What luck that he should have Wpn7, the spread shots! Exactly what I needed!

The tanks will always shoot with the exact same timing. There are two ways to stop this: Destroy the tank before it shoots, or stand next to one. I can't fulfill either on both tanks at once, so I must jump to avoid an attack. It otherwise goes smoothly enough.

Some sub-pixel manipulation of the camera on the previous scene in order to let it lock one frame earlier here. Nothing major.

With time to kill, I show off how many grenades I picked up, and how lucky I can be. Not a lot to do other than set myself up to fight the end boss. I had taken the spread shots just in case I needed to manipulate the RNG. Turns out I needed to avoid as many RNG calls as I could, meaning the weapon wasn't fired at all.

It's instant pudding! Though, despite being pudding, only one team had known to eat the darn thing. In fact, only one person among the entire DTC3 found this out. That person... Is NOT me. No, even I'm not that awesome. pirate_sephiroth of T5 is the one to have found it.

In order to eat it, you must first hit the hydrant so that it soaks the pudding up just right for eating. It won't let you hop on its head if you don't do this. Then hop aboard its head just like you would on any regular agent. You can bite 5 times before you are forced to jump off, but there is a 1 frame window where you can jump right back on and repeat the eating process.

The alternative of hitting the hydrant over and over is 3318 frames slower than chowing down. Mainly due to the fact you have to wait for the pudding boss to stop holding it down each time.

However, Mugg did find a trick with this boss. You can hit the hydrant and have it spray more water at this boss. In order to register the attacks to the hydrant, the giant pudding monster must not be in a "swat nasty alien away" animation. To avoid the repeat of this action, I must travel to the left. I made sure to shoot at the earliest possible frame where my hits register, and even manipulated the luck of my bullet positions to do so.

Oh, yeah. There's also a cooldown between hydrant sprays, justified by that pudding monster holding it down. Must wait for that, too.

First, standard manipulation of Wpn7 and grenades. I don't mind being "slow" here...

Next, standard anti-air routine of jumping. I'm not too worried about every last frame...

One of these days, I should remind myself to check if burying him is faster than conventional shooting. Please label this as a "possible improvement". Ammo is certainly far less strained here than in 1-1, that is certain.

Spawn killing scene. This therefore means the Spawn Timer works in full force, so any frame "losses" earlier don't count thanks to the frame rule here.

Standard spawn killing scene. Nothing special.

Standard spawn killing sce- Yeah... No. This demonic scene was taunting me about its frame rule during the DTC3, which I failed to get. But at last I've come back for it!

I can't avoid grabbing the helpful kid's weapon, or else I don't lock the camera in time for a spawn. Meaning I must manipulate Wpn6 to prevent frame loss. This affects where the spawns come from. And, of course, I must also time the kills along the way carefully, not to mention have them spawn correctly even before I enter the scene. That last grenade of mine proved its importance, all right.

Basically, a number of luck manipulation miracles had to come together at once. Among said manipulation involved shooting the mailbox using a charged shot. You see, the mailbox shaking advances the RNG, but shooting downwards pushes me upwards. However, a charged shot, for some unknown reason, does not affect your momentum in the least. So that is why you see the all-powerful charged shot disappear into the infinite depths of the mailbox.

After this scene, on the way to the minigame, a few downward shots lets me avoid having to jump a second time. This allows less of that slow air time than two jumps would have, meaning I get more of those speedy rolls along the ground.

The fireball's X-velocity depends on your position when it is fired, while the initial Y-velocity depends on the RNG (manipulate lowest possible). For clear reasons, manipulate the fireball so that it is as close as possible to that vehicle.

The little agents on the ground affect the RNG. Play around with 'em if you need to adjust the RNG.

Finally, upon winning this minigame, if you drive yourself into the fireball at the same frame, you retain control over your ship, and further agents will spawn. The best way to maintain entertainment, as more stuff happens, but it's also a good way to get last-minute RNG manipulation as well. I don't exactly NEED this last-minute manipulation, but I figure I may as well use it.

The result of said pleads gave me Wpn6. Death to enemies came swift. Very swift, in fact. I beat the DTC3 runs by half a second at least for my expedience with this weapon.

I walk a few frames before rolling. This is so that once I finish my second roll, I can release the charged shot upwards to hit the tower guy. Alas, I didn't kill him fast enough to stop the screen from locking for a moment, slowing it down from entering the next scene sooner.

However, even with this slow down, I still make it to this scene under the frame rule. The Spawn Timer ticks at the exact moment of the screen lock, so a well-timed kill let me avoid waiting out an extra 31 frames.

Though, I would have appreciated at least one frame of error. Oh well, make it frame-perfect or bust, then. Regardless, I do appreciate beating that frame rule here! Very much so.

Fairly standard spawn killing scene. Notably, I do have some time to manipulate things I need. Before leaving Scene 3, I had 13 grenades. I walk out of this scene carrying 43 grenades. Bah, still not enough.

This... Was a very tricky scene to handle. First, before this scene locks, enemies can spawn up to four. So in order to clear this scene fastest possible... Saw that first enemy appear when I cleared scene 4? Yes, that one had to die in time for this scene.

This scene required some acrobatics to pull through without wasting a single kill. As a result, this scene unlocks almost instantly!

What luck we need to jump to get around an obstacle, and joy! We're at the perfect height to kill the guard! What fun!

A short bit of walking was done following a jump. This is to lock the next scene with one fewer roll needed. Ultimately, it's so I can shoot upwards earlier.

Despite the rather short time given to charge, I abuse the auto-firing aspect of Wpn6 to give me as much time as I can for charging, yet still shooting bullets. When I finish my roll, I shoot and charge. When I jump, this gives me another moment where I can safely release B without losing charge, to then fire another volley of auto-firing death. Then the 5-damage charge is ready and I fire that.

While the timing of the enemy kills is pretty strict on scene entry, it's still not quite as acrobatic as Scene 5.

Oh, how fun. I need to jump to clear an obstacle in the scene, with the enemy grenadier to shoot an annoying projectile! The jump makes one enemy impossible to kill in a timely manner without use of a grenade.

Grenades, charged shot. These scenes make me wish I can freely switch between weapons, but I'll just have to deal with handling Wpn6 all the way through.

More acrobatics. Which made me somewhat discouraged about having to go through this scene a second time when I realized the RNG was not going to cooperate in my first attempt. I count myself lucky that I only had to redo back from Scene 7. Scene 5 was also quite the acrobatic scene.

These acrobatics involves manipulating enemies such that they don't take up the spawn limit while certainly far out of reach off-screen. They eventually spawn good enough for me, and on I go.

Yes, I still would like to switch weapons at will. The best substitute being manipulate an enemy agent along the way instead. I lose several frames by dedicating them to the RNG, but at least I get the preferred weapon with only that loss.

My first attempt had the RNG in the wrong spot by a long, long ways. It... Wasn't pretty. My only course was to go back and redo a bunch of scenes, but once again, I'm glad to avoid redoing Scene 5.

This boss flies. It also gets only one attack at me before blowing up. The hitbox you are to shoot at is the head. However, once it loses 100 HP (half dead), the new hitbox is its entire body, making it much easier to hit with later attacks.

While I did walk in with 30 grenades, it still wasn't enough. I ran out, and could have thrown more if I had them. In fact, ammo in general was tight -- I ran completely out of both Wpn7 and grenades. The boss was down to 1 HP when I ammo ran out. The basic shot finished it off. Couldn't ask for a better timing for when ammo runs completely out -- The exact moment where one more would not have helped.

Then again, I was still in need of grenades. Still, I beat the DTC3 runs when killing the boss.

According to my measurements, T2 cleared this scene 57 frames faster than this run. Honestly, I have no clue how it happened, and I even analyzed their .vbm carefully. Said can be said of T1, and I'm just as confused as to how they're slower than my run here, by 33 frames.

While the kill counter reads 17 when that van stops, the counter isn't used to unlock this scene. Instead, it's just used to determine whether that van has done its job and drive away. I still must wait out those bombs.

As I'm forced to wait, I think it's time to reveal just how lucky a TAS can be.

I checked to see if jumping off that stone in the way to throw grenades at it was faster. I did indeed destroy the machine the moment it spawned, but it was three frames too slow. Reason being I didn't scroll the camera quickly enough.

Instead, just jump on the stone and roll right off. Rolls are faster than walking, and so scrolls the camera faster. Thus locking this scene earlier and making that flying machine spawn earlier.

... Oh, another waiting scene. How fun.

I figure weapon drops and more is a good idea. Don't you? Of course you do!

However, I leave the right building alone. I discovered a little trick that saves a fair amount of time involving that building.

The trick is the fact I jump high enough that my shots are created off-screen, and thus placed beyond the screen boundaries to reach the well-offscreen copter.

I need a building intact long enough to make the well-timed jump. And now you know why I left that right building alone in the previous scene.

On the way here, I can't avoid the weapon orb from that helpful kid. So I manipulate it into being Wpn7, the spread shots, keeping the same weapon as always.

Each bomb has 15 HP. For obvious reasons, I use a charged shot on the first one. I tried to make use of grenades here, but I just wasn't positioned right for a toss to provide any assistance.

Instead, I just shoot the spread shots. I duck with each shot so that the upper shot of each spread shot actually hit the bombs.

Grenades and a single shot for the first peg. Charged shot goodness and a few shots for the second peg. These things have 10 HP, no trouble getting them down.

This boss is in two phases...

For the first phase, the boss has a collective HP. It doesn't matter which one of the four you attack, as any damage counts toward the whole phase. Nothing special needs to be done as far as damage needed, standard TAS-speed damage is done.

However, there is an effective speed-limit in terms of how much damage you can do, thanks to a glitch. If you reduce the collective HP to zero before the fourth "boss piece" shows up, it never spawns, and destroying the other three pieces in the second phase will not end the battle. In effect, gameplay comes to a screeching halt when the player is stuck in a snowy wasteland without the ability to continue. Thus, I delay the last bit of damage until the fourth one shows up.

In the second phase, the boss comes in smaller pieces. Since the fourth one takes so long, I put priority in killing the fourth one ASAP. I destroy the other pieces in such a way to minimize the delay in destroying this fourth one. The middle-sized ones each have 15 HP, and the small ones 10.

On the way here, I destroy two buildings. The first one needs to drop grenades -- How can I possibly destroy the second building without grenades? The manipulation worked out well, and I pick up spread shots trivially from building 2, by throwing grenades while up against the box.

As for the scene itself, if the boss lived long enough, it would jump straight back up and wait for the missiles it launched to do their job. Thankfully, I kill the boss at the speed of TAS and this annoying wait does not apply.

I tweak the RNG on the way out of this scene. This is my only free time to do so until the next weapon pick-up I get.