Speedrunning TNM

[AgentSmithereens]

Anyone interested in this? I thought it might be a fun idea, so I started thinking about it today, i.e. just seeing exactly what you need to do to progress in the game, and so far I've got to the space-station in a little over 2 and a half hours. I've decided to stop there because I don't know which ending is quickest, so am posting here to (a) look for help and (b) maybe get the devs to give a few hints?

On the run that I did, I chose the PDX side, based on the fact that I can do the ABI mission a hell of a lot quicker than the ATC mission, although I'm not entirely sure which path's quicker.

I'm thinking the most important thing is to get level 4 speed enhancement as quickly as possible, and maybe look to invest in some lollerskates. In the run that I did I didn't bother with the voodoo transporter things because I figured that it wasn't worth it looking around the slums for random artifacts. Is this a sensible plan? It does mean that quick transport does rely completely on SE, and hence bio cells. Also it seems that in the PDX missions there isn't really a huge focus on combat; I only really needed to kill a few people, so I doubt it's very important to look for weapons until you get to ABI, where the game gets noticeably harder. On the other hand I noticed that the item I used the most was the multitool; there are so many places where you're required to hack keypads etc, and this completely contrasts with lockpicks which I very rarely found mysef using.

Some other things to think about:
- use the sewers?
- look for money as well as equipment?
- which skills to invest in?
- are augs apart from SE really that important?
- side with Goats / Llamas?
- which end-game?
- any cool opportunities to grenade jump?

I think a rough idea for a total time would be 90 minutes-ish; I'd be very pleased if it could be completed sub-1 hour.

Edit:
8 August 2009

It is done!

Final time (for the version without the DXI glitch) is 56:50.

I've put the whole thing up on Youtube:

Part 1 (Phasmatis' apartment, Downtown money, Silver Dragon) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlqxFt97o90
Part 2 (PDX, WC, Goats) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS_Q23dcRF0
Part 3 (Goat City, OSC) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiUa5S0byPg
Part 4 (OSC, DXI) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw5ZJiCHG_U
Part 5 (DXI, DXO, ABI) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnwhpuNrIvI
Part 6 (ABI Tech labs) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4MaeEDf9cU
Part 7 (Space-Station, end-game cutscene) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwv3SI4ACeQ

Here are some of the level times:
Start to Corporate - 6:07
Silver Dragon, WC Level 2, PDX stuff - 9:13
Llamas and Goats stuff - 6:32
NSC/OSC - 11:15
DXI - 5:57
DXO etc - 5:34
ABI - 8:40
Space-Station - 3:32


It's not the most efficient run, e.g. in terms of items (I pick up about 10 gas grenades and only use 2), but I think it's pretty good, even though I could probably cut a few more minutes off. I said in the first post that I'd be pleased to get under an hour, and I have so that's cool.

[Jaedar]

I think if you go PDX, and game break with early DXO, you could do it really fast... And no augs other than SE are probably worthless. And siding with llamas is quicker, since you don't have to enter the temple, however, killing abomination or dark templar might be even faster.

[AgentSmithereens]

Hmm I hadn't really thought about gamebreaking things. When you say 'gamebreaking' what exactly do you mean? If you mean putting in codes when you don't actually know said code (e.g. in your DXO example), then I'm not doing that; I want a legitimate speedrun, not one where you cheat. However if you mean 'gamebreak' as in do things the developers didn't expect you to do (I have a great example at ABI but I'm not going to tell you as it'll ruin the surprise), then I'm all for it. Is killing Abomination or Dark Templar at all beneficial?

Something else to think about which I forgot earlier is locations of repair bots and medbots, obviously the ones at PDX will be the most important (assuming we're doing a PDX run), but are there any others in accessible locations? (e.g. the one in the OSC in the room full of hoverbots).

Something else is the fact that I've never patched my game. Are there any really important things I should know about in the newer patches (I can't be bothered to read through the hundreds of fixes Jonas has written up).

[Kee715]

Well the 15,000,000,000 crash causes and serious bugs have been fixed, however some exploits were fixed, like the inventory stacking bug. As far as I know most of the fixes will NOT hinder a speed run unless you depend upon things like the inventory stacking bug.

Also you should look at the original Deus Ex speedrun for a few tips, things like grenade jumping and grenade landing are great time savers. http://speeddemosarchive.com/DeusEx.html

Now not much in the DX speedrun will be helpful in TNM, but exploits like grenade jumping are good. In addition to conserving your BE by bunny hopping with speed enhancement and turning the aug off in mid air and back on when hitting the ground.

And for convenience here are some of the guy's comments on his speedrun:

Anyway, I am going to include every segment comments, as well as trick explanations.

* "Bunny" hopping - an easy and efficient trick from Thrull's run. Lets me preserve bioenergy while moving at full speed available from fast run aug. The principle is to jump with the speed aug on, turn it off and before hitting the ground turn it again. Rinse and repeat. Can be done without bioenergy, but it's inefficient.
* Grenade jump - despite the name, this is not a damage boost. It is just using U engine physics to your advantage. First, you need to start "surfing" on the grenade by throwing it under yourself and after that, jump with your speed aug on, if it's needed. The resulting boost can be described as awesome++. It is exactly the same as elevator jump in UT.
* Grenade fall - close in principle, lets me survive incredibely high falls. It is about surfing on the grenade as well.
* Grenade climbing - climbing by planting grenades on walls and then jumping on them.
* Grenade clipping - by standing on the grenade thrown near a vertical surface when it flips you get pushed inside the wall. Most of the time it equals a telefrag and your death, but with thin vertical surfaces like glass or fences you get moved to the second side, along with a bonus of weirdly turning camera.

All of the nade tricks require IMMENSE amount of planning to fit with grenades in the run.

* Avoiding the text box - just jump through where the text box should be. It will make you avoid the convo.
* Friendly text breaking - Found by me. Mostly, we always want to *avoid* the convos. But if it's impossible, you can use a crowbar or a baton to stop those. You do it by jumping before the text box, starting to hit with a melee weapon. The game should shift into a convo, and the attack you started should hit and break the convo. Only usable on some people.
* Speeding through text - You need to press spacebar during the convo, it will speed through it in a second-two tops. Makes choices for you, so watch out!
* Super speeding through text - The last one. If you jump earlier and keep the spacebar pressed, you'll speed through the convo instantly.
* NPC opening the door - You need to force an enemy to open a door for you. Easily noticable in the first segment
* Open every door with one lockpick - a known bug that lets you use only one lockpick even if the door requires ten. You need to open the inventory after starting using the lockpick on the door and wait the time that would be necessary to open the door with sufficient lockpicks. Then turn the inventory off (you can use the time to manage things in it as well). The door should stand opened before you.
* Scope trick - If you turn on the scope and shoot just after that, your accuracy is 100% perfect. Very handy.
* Ledge jumping - jumping at the ledges normally unreachable by running at them at an angle.
* Moving during loading - during loading, you can move your mouse or press some key and it will start working after loading ends. I use it to make the menu appear just after loading to save as fast as possible for example, or to start moving
* Helicopter trick - found accidentally by me. It requires you to press right mouse button on a helicopter before starting and jumping at the same time. It makes you avoid the conversation. For some reason it works only in one segment.

I am not sure how many of the useful ones have been fixed, but I am sure most still work.

[AgentSmithereens]

Yeah cheers for the help, but for the record I do know what I'm doing here, with regards to grenade climbing/jumping/falling/clipping, and other stuff. I did contribute a bit to Dex's DX speedrun (I'm acknowledged at the end ).

On the subject of grenade clipping, does anybody exactly know what's required to make it work? I tried to do it in the subway train window to get to the Corporate sector quicker, but it wouldn't work. Does there have to be a specific brush type to make it work?

[Jaedar]

Actually I believe the keycode to DXO is on some whiteboard in the WC building, so you could always go past there and check it out. Also I believe that using codes/logins/passwords without obtaining them that play through is technically a valid speedrunning technique.

[AgentSmithereens]

Well, I don't know. We'll see how it goes, and if I get an urge to do it even faster, maybe I'll do it without finding out the codes ingame.

Ok, here's something interesting. To get to the Corporate district you need 1000 credits. Or, Scara PMs you and offers you a way to do it for nothing, which he usually does once you've found a certain number of credits. In the unpatched version I'm using you can get this PM early if you don't listen to the whole of King Kashue's PM after Scara's 1st PM in the apartments, and instead just head out to the Downtown district. As you exit, you'll trigger the Scara PM which tells you to how to get a free subway pass.
I did an experiment to see which path was quicker and here are the results:

Doing random jobs and finding money - 5 mins 18 secs
Doing Scara's / NVShacker's sub-mission - 4 mins 25 secs

Therefore it would be more worthwhile to not patch the game, and encounter this bug, than it would be to patch it. However if I don't patch it I'll have to deal with the tougher than usual OSC mission, complete with numerous hover-bots and the fire traps etc.
What to do?

[~Psychotic~]

I think you'd be better off using the latest patch for it since it just seems more authentic. And also more of a challenge when you don't have exploits to help you out.

[Jaedar]

Well, the hover bots and additional traps will probably not be a problem, since you are just going to be running past them. And I don't think the extra traps take an entire minute to bypass, although, they might.
I'd recommend the empirical method, IE testing to see what to do
Also, you can use the extra money to buy multitools since you seemed to need those (or explosives, for faster boss fights)

[AgentSmithereens]

I've just searched through the patch notes for 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 (by searching for "scara" and "pm") and can't find it, so I guess it hasn't been fixed yet?

I'm also incapable of recreating it right now, but there's a video of Youtube of it so I'm looking at that to see how it works.

[Jaedar]

Another thing that might be interesting to try is going into Despots place early, and then doing WC, that might speed up the game by quite a bit. (this may have been fixed though)

[AgentSmithereens]

Looking good so far; I've just got to the Shadowcode level after 23 minutes; I'll post the run tomorrow.

This makes a change to my previous playthrough, where after 23 minutes I'd still be talking to Phasmatis in his apartment.

[~Psychotic~]

I think the Cloak Aug would be extremely useful. Any Aug that allows you to bypass security forces directly should help. Cloak, Radar Transparency, Run Silent, Spy Drone, etc etc.

[JizzyJeff]

Leviathan might frak things up a bit.

[AgentSmithereens]

Yes I'm getting cloak from Jonas after DXI, it'll be very useful against the aliens at the space station. But run silent is not an option because we need speed aug. At the moment I'm considering whether to take a minor detour during the 1st Downtown mission to go to Sols and kill Kunio-Kun for hisd aug upgrade cannisters. This would be very beneficial if I worked out how to get the buggy Scara PM, so I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone at Sols when I'm meant to knock out Sol. At the moment at the OSC I've only got level 2 speed, and I need level 4 for a jump during the Shadowcode mission, so it'll probably be worth it to kill Kunio-Kun, even if I can't work out what causes the bug.

JizzyJeff, I'm guessing you meant to say 'freak'? If you did, then yes, this is a potentially tricky section as Leviathon's accuracy tends to be a little unpredictable.

And if you didn't realise, I will be making videos for this.