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There are certainly improvements to be made on some of the earliest levels...as time has gone on we've learned more tricks and I've gotten better with movement. Chutes and Ladders in particular would be better if the "hold alt" trick was utilized. We've generally agreed to keep moving on instead of starting from scratch in the interest of completing the run, as I believe it can still be very entertaining. If someone (or me) decides to revisit this when it's done, there's a great wealth of knowledge now, possibly with more tricks to come.
Visible progress with level 30:
Link to video
"Wiggling" up ladders and narrow shafts is key here to maintain the horizontal jumping speed when exiting them. I believe this is also the first known use of "pre-phasing", although it's a very minor use (first brick on the way back). There are some crates that either get in the way or help you out, I tested phasing certain ones to make the trip back quicker and this is what I found to be optimal.
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Time for a full WIP. 30 levels:
Link to videoIf you've seen the 10 level WIP and want to jump ahead, skip to 2:55
Statistics so far -
Movie length: 9:39.95 s
Rerecords: 19792
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3 seconds saved on this level thanks to Ilari and Svimmer!
Link to video
Changes:
The first jump at the top of the ladder is now able to get both gems. I phase down slightly to reposition and make the jump possible, since it involves subpixel shenanigans to get any height.
Holding alt down the crate stairs lets me get some more distance and makes falling down the stairs possible.
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Let's do another level today, 28 is quick and fun:
Link to video
The key here is to get onto the bridges with the teal switch flipped. To get the earliest cycle I have to get to the teal switch ASAP and trap the marble (which also happens to get it turned around, which I was unaware of). It would be faster to press the switch once and go back to get the 2nd gem, but the red switch gets flipped before you can get to the bridge, blocking you off.
Going down the "crate stairs" is awkward because you can't just fall down to the next one. This is the best solution I could come up with. There is a better way to do it after all, I'll fix it (probably won't post a new video)
I get the stunner because if I went down straight away, the marble would block me off.
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Level 27!
Link to video
Getting those two gems through the green teleporter turns out to be faster. It takes roughly the same amount of time but requires much less fuel to charge. I get the enclosed gem from the right instead of left because of the batbot, which doesn't take much extra time. Also, surprise ending!
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27 route
I will probably need to spend some time in the charging area since fuel is necessary to get to the exit. Fuel/time tradeoffs will be investigated just like I did with Underground.
Perhaps it's faster to go through the green teleporter the first time I pass it, get the gem below it, and then teleport back? Especially if you factor in fuel requirements.
I'm fairly sure it's better to get the enclosed gem from the bottom instead of the top because of fuel drain differences. (10 units/frame vs 20 units/frame)
EDIT: There is actually a gem behind the rightmost marble. Shouldn't change much, I think...
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Nach wrote:
The biggest wait is the circling the middle. The rest of the level needs to be planned around eliminating that.
I see you wait the moment a missile passes before you go towards the innermost gem, then you need to wait based on the second missile coming for you.
There's three very important points about this:
1) The two missiles distance from each other while constant, shifts their meet, as one direction is longer than the other. Meaning what may just barely lose out on being able to return directly may have some leeway on a different cycle. By how many tiles do you miss your escape by?
2) Your top speed matches that of a missile, can you manage to follow a missile around that at top speed? If so, you can follow the missile in, duck down the latter in your one tile leeway to avoid certain death, grab gem, and return hot on its tail.
3) A stunner appeared on the level. Perhaps with manipulation, you can make it appear sooner? The main point it can be helpful is for the middle.
1) I tried entering the middle chamber at all sorts of points and it didn't result in a faster run, surprisingly. I also went with the philosophy that the run should be centered around getting into the middle chamber efficiently, but there are too many bottlenecks to make that worthwhile. Ideally I would have a missile closely follow me in so that by the time I'm done collecting, it's passed and I can safely escape. I got a run that came close to achieving that (there's an early cycle that works) but it resulted in too much time loss elsewhere.
2) I wish it worked like that, however it's impossible to keep up with it because it can turn corners perfectly and I cannot.
3) This is something I haven't tried, perhaps I can make this work.
Svimmer wrote:
you guys realize that if you use the random powerup and if it should happen that someone later comes up with a way of manipulating them more efficiently, the whole run could be obsoleted by an almost certainly less interesting one?
if on the other hand you could manipulate the power-up not to get in your way, you could be sure of avoiding that problem.
We agreed that using powerups as they appear is reasonable. They can't be manipulated efficiently, that I'm sure of, and it would be unreasonable effort to optimize an RTC time to perfectly place powerups when and where they're needed.
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Nach wrote:
This is another of those levels where the enemies cause a lot of issues.
Yeah, that was the main theme with this one. 26:
Link to video
I tried numerous combinations doing different sections in different orders, and this is the fastest thing I came up with. This is the first level to use a random powerup; I figure it's there and it makes the run faster, so I may as well use it. This is the longest level to date, but a lot of it is just waiting unfortunately.
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So here's the craziness in action. Huge amounts of luck manipulation involved here, but the result is worth it. It's slightly out of order from the route map but that doesn't matter. Nach's alternate ending was slower by around 0.3 s.
Link to video
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A couple ideas for 25 now that we know we get fuel.
Route #1
This one is mostly horizontal travel, going with a general row-by-row idea.
Route #2
Taking a couple passes vertically in this one.
The reason I get the last gem when I do is because I need to wait for the door to open. I'll have to experiment with adding/removing teleports - there is a distance at which you're better off traveling instead.
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One quarter of the way through now, level 24:
Link to video
On the edge sections, doing the top or bottom first mostly depended on the missile timings. Thankfully they didn't get in the way if I went to the top first. The fist stunner lasts long enough to do the middle section safely - I tried a few patterns to collect those gems and this is what I found to be the fastest.
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Level 23:
Link to video
This probably requires some explanations:
The reason I stop flying before going into the green teleporter is that I get bottlenecked by the marble even if I go fast as possible. Instead of wasting fuel and then just waiting, I walk there. This fuel conservation saves me time because it allows me to fly longer later in the level.
Fuel is also conserved by climbing up the scrolling ladder, which achieves the same speed as flying.
I tried using a trackbot to flip the red switch but it didn't work out. (after it falls off the ladder it just continues to the right)
In the last room, using the ladder to go down is faster than phasing through the brick.
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FractalFusion wrote:
Here's my idea.
Don't know if it works or not.
Edit: Exchanging where the path first crosses is better, if possible.
Edit 2: Or maybe switching the initial start direction with the part of the path that goes through start later, by going down and right instead.
I've been thinking about a new route as well...here's a similar idea with less overlap.
This plus better horizontal movement should shave some more time off this...
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Nach wrote:
Wouldn't getting some of the other stunners speed up the collection?
Not necessarily. They can help in some cases, like the last one, but most of the time enemies will either completely block a passage or land directly on top of a gem you need. Given the amount of enemies I was better off letting them move.
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Finally, level 22. (glitched sound)
Link to video
I'm pretty sure this level has the most gems in the entire game. I had to finesse the hell out of this one - this level alone counted for almost 2000 rerecords! Hope you enjoy the insanity though.
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Here's what I've got for level 21...
Link to video
I was able to do almost everything I wanted here, but the ending is terrible. The springs are holding me back way too much. I did learn a key thing about planning around fuel chargers: it is not worth the time charging fuel for flying across surfaces that you could have just walked across. The speed gain vs charging time is just not worth it. Any other skips are subject to testing, for example it's worth flying out of the first hole but the rest are just phased through.
I don't know if this is the fastest way to go about this level, but I'm out of any alternate ideas of how to get around the spring problem.
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Into the 20's now!
Link to video
The enemies were actually sort of cooperative in this one. The marble at the beginning got in the way but the missiles were lined up almost perfectly. The extra fuel is probably not necessary to beat the stage, but I pick it up anyway because I need to wait a bit for the last missile.
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A general idea for 21. Since there are no fuel pickups, I'll have to hang out in the charging square for whatever fuel is necessary, and if I end the level with any fuel left, then it's not optimized. I'll have to investigate the holes on the top half of the level - there's a depth at which it will be more worthwhile to dig through than to fly out and fall in. It might even be better to skip a lot of fuel and just dig through all of them...
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Level 18! (glitched sound)
Link to video
Fuel management was a big factor in this one. I saved some fuel for the section after the teleporter, as it's much faster to fly over the spear than to fall and jump (you actually need two jumps, since you can't clear the spear and ledge in one). The trade-off is that you sacrifice some speed by walking through certain tunnels, but I tested both and it does pay off.
Route 2, let's try to use the teleporter:
This one is mostly horizontal travel, going with a general row-by-row idea.
Route #2
Taking a couple passes vertically in this one.
The reason I get the last gem when I do is because I need to wait for the door to open. I'll have to experiment with adding/removing teleports - there is a distance at which you're better off traveling instead.
This plus better horizontal movement should shave some more time off this...
A general idea for 21. Since there are no fuel pickups, I'll have to hang out in the charging square for whatever fuel is necessary, and if I end the level with any fuel left, then it's not optimized. I'll have to investigate the holes on the top half of the level - there's a depth at which it will be more worthwhile to dig through than to fly out and fall in. It might even be better to skip a lot of fuel and just dig through all of them...