I tried, it didn't work. Energy Storage is probably useful for a TAS that wants to get the one cycle without Buster Unit (probably 19 seconds faster than not trying for it, assuming the TAS needs energy storage.)
The out of bounds is weird. We have some special weapons (same crouching animation as jetskates) that have backward momentum, so maybe those would work? Only one of them we can get before Cardon Ruins, and it would cost more time to get than to do the Roll segment.
WIP 1: Intro-snake pit
Link to videobk2
I've finally finished planning out the zenny/upgrade routes. The only deviations from the RTA route will be forgoing the 2600 zenny hole before the snake pit as well as the Power Raiser Alpha before Tronne, and picking up the Power Raiser Omega from the shop trip after Cardon. I should be able to easily farm the 21460 zenny for that trip from manipulating high zenny drops from the 6 tanks that you fight during downtime as well as the 9240 zenny hole and 1 wasp nest. I'm almost certain it is impossible to forgo the wasp nest nor the zenny hole even with max zenny drops from every enemy in the game up to that point. Likewise, doing the bank robbery sidequest later on to steal 200k zenny in order to upgrade the Grand Grenade will be a necessity.
There are a few problems I have encountered in the run so far. One is that, according to some speedrunners, there is apparently a rare glitch that will sometimes cause you to get a 4th shot in your volley with a minimum energy stat. There is no video evidence of this glitch, and I could not figure out how to reproduce it myself, but if possible it could save some time on the first boss as well as other parts of the run before upgrading the energy stat.
Another problem I have been having is manipulating the positions of multiple enemies at once. All 8 snakes in the snake pit have random positions that cannot be manipulated individually, so I'm not sure if there is any methodical way I can determine the optimal pattern for them. This is further complicated by the fact that you can kill multiple snakes with one shot if they stack up perfectly on top of eachother. I suppose you could even kill all 7 in the 2nd room with 1 stutter-shot volley if such a pattern exists to facilitate this. This is the best pattern I have been able to find so far via trial and error, but you have plenty of opportunity to manipulate RNG prior by shooting walls with buster shots. Getting the 4 ground units in City Hall into optimal positions will probably be more difficult to manipulate than the snake pit since you have to kill the carriers beforehand, but I think it will be simpler to determine what the optimal locations for them actually are.
Wow, I liked what I saw. I expected it to be not that entertaining. Definitively a good job. :)
Glad to know that you finished the routing. Why don't you pick up the power Raiser Omega? I'm not sure to understand for that one deviation.
Ah perhaps my wording was a bit ambiguous. I am in fact getting the Power Raiser Omega whereas real-time runs do not. The reason they don't is because on the N64 version, the more common version for real-time runs, the auto aim is too aggressive which causes the larger hitbox of the omega shots to hit the spikey boss's armor while aiming at his head.
Airborne movement is faster than running but halts you for a few frames each time you hit the ground. Pre-spring boots, chaining jumps together vs simply running breaks even over long distances on flat ground, but jumping allows you to adjust your directions with much greater precision since turning has an acceleration period while in the air but not on the ground. Since diagonal jumping has a different default angle than diagonal running(relative to the camera), once you jump once to adjust your angle you have to commit to chaining jumps together until the next time you make a turn, otherwise you will have to compromise your straight-line trajectory more than once.
