Now that the first fight with Scrippa is the longest, I've been thinking on how to improve the fight. An approach that may work would be using those domes to evolve Rex (or some other Denjuu) to boost their stats, then use it to recruit Scrippa.
By obtaining a "chainsaw" and evolve Rex to its forest form, it has an attack stat of 33 at level 4. Using it's electric arrow move then allows it to deal 13 damage on Scrippa with critical. Along with using the ally/friend, this allows 19 damage per turn, allowing the fight to end in 3 turns, at the cost of having to defeat some random NPC for a chainsaw.
Edit: Chainsaw, Canteen, Jerrycan seems to allow 18+ damage/turn. Also the "friend assist" seems to always deal 6 damage at level 4 Rex regardless of attack stat.
Edit2: Siguri forest at level 5 deals 16 damage with crit using move 2. Along with the 6 damage from friend that is 22 damage per turn. While this requires recruiting Siguri, it also means the 3rd turn does not need friend to appear, unlike with Rex forest. However, obtaining a chainsaw for Rex can be done in 1 turn at the start fights, so that might be worth investigating.
Currently takes ~4,000 frames to fight Siguri (takes 2 turns), recruit, manip chainsaw, and fuse.
It's about ~1724 frames faster not recruiting Siguri up to Scrippa encounter. Ie. It takes 2440 frames to get a chainsaw and fuse.
Edit3: In Power version, the 2nd Hermit does not appear at the first turn, even if Scrippa's speed is 25. In Speed, it does for some reason.
Edit4: You lose 1710 frames using Siguri compared to the current run at the point you beat scrippa and recruit.
Edit5: After resyncing the TAS up to the Skrippa fight:
From the current TF2 TAS, with zero delay, every move Skrippa uses misses, and all damage done is crit, the first fight ends at 32521, compared to 33899 for the strategy of using only Rex with delays.
Using chainsaw Rex with the same conditions ended the fight at 34012. This means no matter what, unless somehow there's a way to 2TKO, the current strategy is optimal.
To clarify:
Starting the fight (When screen blacks out and lag):
* Current route: 28356
* Chainsaw Rex w/o item: 30802
Ending the fight:
* Ideal current route strat: 32521
* Current route strat with delays due to bad luck: 33899
* Ideal chainsaw Rex w/o item strat: 34012
To find how long it takes to grab the item, and resync everything else, I use the frame for when Tokaribe Field movement begins:
* Without item: 25252
* With item: 25801
So it took 549 frames to grab the item, which would allow a 2TKO Skrippa.
The current route takes ideally 32521-28356 = 4165 frames (
01:09.42) to beat and recruit Skrippa.
The current route with luck manip takes 33899-28356 = 5543 frames(
01:32.38) to beat and recruit Skrippa. This means 1378 frames (
00:22.97) were used to manip luck.
The ideal chainsaw Rex without attack boost item takes 34012-30802 = 3210 frames (
00:53.50) to beat and recruit Skrippa. However, it uses 30802-28356 = 2446 frames (
00:40.77) to set up, and so ends up being slower.
Given that it takes 549 frames to grab and equip the item, we can add that time to the time to the start fight time. This gives a value of 30802+549 = 31351 frames. Given the ideal Skrippa time for the current route is at 32521, this means the fight can only last within 32521-31351 = 1170 frames (
00:19.50) before you end up losing time.
Using cheats to get a 2TKO fight starting from 30802 gave an end frame of 33250. This means the fight took 33250-30802 = 2448 frames (
00:40.80). Adding 549 frames to take account into grabbing and equipping item gives 2448 +549 = 2997 frames (
00:49.95). This would give a time of 33799 frames, or 100 frames faster than current run due to luck manip. Since this is the time it would take given 0 frame delay, chances are it'll take longer, thus the current route, even with its 5543 frame fight will end up faster.
By the time the gnome toss is reached, at least 2-4 frames have been wasted due to additional lag, and the run then desyncs due to same RNG, but timer is different by 2.
Edit: After the gnome toss, RNG is off by 2. It further diverges by the bank, but at least the "time spent" timer is rather close:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/53578226177494078
