This page is still a heavy work-in-progress.
Understanding this Page
There are a number of shorthands and acronyms for areas in the game used commonly throughout this page:
- VoR: Valley of Repose
- EC: Emergence Cave
- FC: Frontier Cavern
- SCx: Subterranean Complex
- AW: Awakening Wood
- HoB: Hole of Beasts
- WFG: White Flower Garden
- BK: Bulblax Kingdom
- SH: Snagret Hole
- PP: Perplexing Pool
- CoS: Citadel of Spiders
- GK: Glutton's Kitchen
- SR: Shower Room
- SmC: Submerged Castle (sometimes also SC)
- WW: Wistful Wild
- CoC: Cavern of Chaos
- HoH: Hole of Heroes
- DD: Dream Den
To indicate a specific sublevel of a cave, the number is appended to the cave's acronym. For example, "SCx7" refers to the seventh sublevel of Subterranean Complex.
Numerical values will usually be represented in the same way the game's code does. For example, speeds are usually represented as units of distance per second.
For some references for units of distance:
- A leader's spherical hitbox has a radius of 8.5 units.
- The maximum distance from a leader to their cursor is 100 units.
General Mechanics
Control Stick
Actions with the Control Stick depend on how far the stick is from its centre point. However, this distance is amplified in the corners of the square range of inputs. This makes diagonal inputs more easily possible on physical controllers. The distance is stored as two numbers between 0 and 1 for the X and Y axes.
A held direction on the Control Stick will always be rounded to the nearest 10 degrees.
Walking speed and directions
Due to the 10 degree rule, walking in perfectly straight lines from one location to another will rarely be practical.
Without the Rush Boots upgrade obtained, a leader will have a maximum speed of 160 units per second (u/s). With the upgrade, the maximum speed is 205u/s. However, movement speed is exponential with relation to time, so it will rarely ever exactly hit the maximum speed. Instead, it will oscillate slightly within 1u/s above or below the maximum, or more if the terrain is not perfectly flat.
A leader will walk if the stick distance is 0.85 or more.
Cursor movement
The cursor will move more or less at a constant speed of 300u/s in the direction held. It can be at most 100 units from the leader in any direction, so it will take at most 20 frames to move the cursor from any possible position to any other position without also moving the leader.
The C Stick
The C stick allows for direct control over Pikmin, essentially giving each one a specific goal position relative to Olimar. These positions form a line going out from Olimar, with each Pikmin having a specific part of the line to fill. In this state, Pikmin will interact with anything they touch, such as attacking enemies, digging treasures, or carrying objects.
This is usually referred to as "c-sticking" or "swarming" depending on the community.
The direction is generally in the direction the stick is held, but an exception is made when holding a Pikmin, in which case Pikmin will always form their line behind Olimar.
Intended use
C-sticking generally makes Pikmin move more directly to a given location, so it is very useful for long walks. The extra control is very versatile, so it is usually better to try to use it in any scenario.
One less intuitive exception to this is when Pikmin can end up stuck on collision, such as when navigating a corner or when whistling Pikmin that can't find a way to the leader. In these scenarios, a neutral C stick will allow Pikmin to attempt some pathfinding before resorting to leaving the party and being idle.
Unintended applications
The direct control over Pikmin allows for some useful tricks:
- Pikmin do not care if others reached their goal. This means that by having a Pikmin at the end of the line (usually by throwing and whistling them), they can be controlled remotely. This is useful for when Pikmin need to reach a location while a leader is not necessary, like grabbing a treasure up a ledge or going around a wall to deal with a hazard on the other side.
- C sticking towards oneself while throwing basically universally increases maximum throw speed by ensuring more Pikmin are close enough to be grabbed. However, if Pikmin need to be held for a length of time, the C stick will effectively be leading Pikmin away from the captain more often than not, so in those cases C sticking is a little more situational. Examples of such scenarios include swapping the held Pikmin to a slower type with the D pad or setting up something called a momentum throw, as is explained later.
Throwing
Performed with the A button, throwing Pikmin is one of the standard ways of making them interact with objects. There are three main parts to the process of throwing a Pikmin, each corresponding to a part of an A press. Grabbing the Pikmin requires pushing the A button, although it can take more than a frame if a Pikmin needs to move closer to the leader to be teleported into the leader's hand. Once the Pikmin is being held, it will stay that way until the A button is released. Finally, the Pikmin is thrown when the Pikmin has been held and the A button is no longer held.
Thrown Pikmin speed
Abusing collision
Throwing vs C sticking
Whistling
Dismissing
Camera
Pausing
Pikmin Types and their Uses
Mention more types=more slow
Reds
Purples
Whites
Blues
Yellows
Bulbmin
Carrying Objects
Charging
Unlockable Items
Sprays
Collecting
Explain Spray Dupe; spray swap
Usage
The Napsack
Intended use
Climbing walls
Breaking the Script
Cutscene skips
Useful Examples
Caveats
Sequence Breaks
Day 1 Extinction (D1E)
Early Blues (EB)
Early Yellows
Minor gate skips/shortcuts
GK napsack, SR Early, random VoR shortcuts, etc.
Miscellaneous Exploits
Applications of the Random Number Generator (RNG)
Cave Generation
Spicy and Bitter Sprays
CaveGen
The Pikmin Technical Knowledge Base (TKB)