WIPs

21 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

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...

21 - WIP #1

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.

Here's some ideas, most of which I doubt, but room for thought.

All these alternates change fuel requirements, and time point differences will mean different enemy placement at other
time points.

1) Grab the rightmost gem before heading to the left, if the Marble and Missile are out of the way, no enemy's to bother
you, and a more direct finish to the level.

2) Perhaps bust a wall on your way up? You can bust the brick directly to the right of the gem, or the one above it, on
your way there, and then go through it on the way back, which direction you need to go in anyway.

3) Go above, maybe you can more effectively go around the springs this way. For one thing, it looks like a cleaner way
to get to the door on return.

Further Discussion

I noticed that using delay-phasing on the last dred phased in this route would save a little time.

WIPs

22 - WIP #1

22 - WIP #2

22 - WIP #3

22 - WIP #4

Thread Discussion

22 - WIP #1

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.

You can grab gems while enemies are stunned on top of them.

So you can...that ought to speed things up. Take 2:

22 - WIP #2

About the end though, I wonder how early you can phase the block before getting the last few orbs
and make it through.

Lots of ideas implemented here...can't believe I saved 4 seconds, but here it is:

22 - WIP #3

One more time. Saved a little over a second on this:

22 - WIP #4

Further Discussion

WIPs

23 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

Idea: release the blue trackbot and manipulate it into tripping the red switch for you.

23 - WIP #1

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.

Further Discussion

You can definitely manipulate the blue trackbot to go where you want him to. You just need to be positioned to the left
of him to make him go left. Otherwise it doesn't seem ever to happen in this situation though. On the other hand you'll
always have to go down to get the gem in the red switch corridor so it seems unlikely this could save time.

WIPs

24 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

24 - WIP #1

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.

Further Discussion

WIPs

25 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

In this level, it's important to note that the marbles can greatly screw up your plans.

In some areas, you can jump over them, some not. In every case, you can blow the floor out from under you, to send a
marble on a detour, which you can hop over.

If the marbles are really a problem, make note of the marble trap spots in which you can permanently trap some marbles
(yes, multiple at once!).

We should see which gems can be gotten while teleporting.

This should help us route plan better. [the image is missing a some of the tele-grabbable gems]

The next part of planning is finding which travel point each gem is closest to, this should help identify some
collection groups and strategy.

Based on the above, it appears to me that we should start by either getting the gem above Jetman, or to the right of
Jetman, then head to the group around that gem's nearest teleporter. It seems we should end by leaving the teleporter
directly above and left of the exit, and grabbing the gems around the exit.

I present the most insane route to date:

Looks quite good, I think it's the route with the shortest amount of actual travel.

Alternate Ending:

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.

Further Discussion

WIPs

26 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

This is another of those levels where the enemies cause a lot of issues.

This overall is probably the route though.

Note the two possibilities for the gem and switch on the right.

I change colors halfway through from pink to blue to avoid some confusion with 3 lines of pink in the same tiny passage.

Yeah, that was the main theme with this one. 26:

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.

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.

Further Discussion

There is a single fuel tank at your starting position. There is a gem under the marble on the right.

WIPs

27 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

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)

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!

Further Discussion

WIPs

28 - WIP #1

28 - WIP #2

Thread Discussion

Note, the blue route requires Svimmer's trick.

As does this one:

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.

You can make the first cycle, the jump to get the first two gems is really hard to perform (on the first time, after
that it magically becomes automatic, and I'm not even being ironic!) so the timing must be real tight or something else
is going on. Anyway then you just press the cyan button once and proceed as before.

3 seconds saved on this level thanks to Ilari and Svimmer!

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.

No stunner, no waiting for the marble at the end.

Further Discussion

WIPs

29 - WIP #1

Thread Discussion

Route 1:

Route 2, let's try to use the teleporter:

I've been mapping out this level for gem relationships, with ideas with various levels of reliability.

Maybe others can find some ideas here that escaped us.

slamo may have found the fastest route already, but here's some other routes based on the above:

A key point about this last one is, that it avoids some cross over, and starts the final leg of the route at the bottom
left. The middle of route 2 here may not be optimal, but there's a lot that can be reworked with the same basic idea,
ending up with the final leg.

From Anonycat:

Further Discussion