zombe on 18/3/2014 at 15:33

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Encountered "some dude" on twitch doing various speedrun practices - including SS2 (and constantly talking with chat, which was nice - extracted quite a lot of speedrun related information about SS2 and others). He quite likes speedrunning SS2 as it is ... um, kinda short :rolleyes:.

SS2: 15+ minutes (http://www.twitch.tv/cirno_tv/c/3832892)
... just barely made the fast teeth cycle despite fuckups - nice Yay! moment.

Major timesavers:
* being semi dead.
* TP out of bounds shenanigans.

The record run is much faster ... but i can not find it nor anything ever remotely as fast anywhere (SDA has only some 25+ min which does not use out of bounds trick despite having the means to do so - probably was not known at the time). Anyone seen the record run?

ZylonBane on 18/3/2014 at 17:36

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I can't watch any speedrun where people run through the entire game facing sideways. It looks so profoundly idiotic I want to reach through the screen and repeatedly slap them.

zombe on 19/3/2014 at 06:43

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Found the M1 video he mentioned (13:46): (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fS3U_Ksldw)

Nothing different, just better execution (~30s saved in Engineering alone vs Cirno).


edit: just to be clear - he absolutely 100% died, 1HP is what the game sets his health AFTER the level transition for some reason. And he can not take any damage as for the game - he is dead already (i believe the ubermensch cheat does the same).

* semi dead: When the character dies then the controls will be disabled, screen fades out, and player gets booted to main screen (without QBRD). Ladders on the other hand have some special controls and that state change will reset the "dead" controls - allowing one to escape the level in time to cancel the death fade-out to "player died" procedure (back to main menu or GBRD). One just has to make sure that one lands on a ladder AFTER dieing - which he does by being airborne at the time while falling towards the ladder (impossible difficulty setting is crucial here to allow dieing fast - which i find amusing).

This dead stance (face on the floor) creates a bit of problems in some spots (L3, the room with research implant and vial) - have to jump from wall geometry to a desk and then from desk to desk to get out (Jumps he sometimes misses. Made a few misjumps in the provided example too: missed the chair bounce needed to get on the table / missed the jump to wall geometry to get on the table inside).

Also, getting in/out of bulkheads is hindered.

Note: in engineering the Many ride fade out is similarly canceled (I mean on the way back. On the way in he just bounces on the armors to get over the trigger box) by level transition too.

* TP: Due of his dead stance his collision geometry is unusually clobbered together (but crouching is also usually sufficient given having good geometry around to use) - mantling straightens him up. If his TP location was set while he was in the kissing-the-floor position and he TP's while mantling has him temporarily stretched out -> his fat ass will end up being outside of the level geometry. Player has two different collision boxes, hence he will still be partially in the level without falling into the void (except when beneficial in some very special locations [notice the setup of cornering/view-direction alignment and TP location at the teeth for example]).

This allows sliding "under" doors and such.

At least that is how i understood the explanation.

This is the part i really hate about speedruns - in the sense that i wish games with their mechanics would not be broken in a way that would mandate the diagonal movement by speedrunners.

I'm fine with bunny-hoping through (at least they are facing where they are going) - as HL2 speedrun is just wicked awesome with that.

voodoo47 on 19/3/2014 at 20:19

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don't forget to delete the shields.