Thanks to:

Phew! This is my first speedrun. I hadn't heard of any Raven Shield runs or exploitable bugs before beginning this run, so the few tricks which I used in this run were simply all the ones that I managed to find, and unfortunately, none of them allow for any extreme time-saving.

Since I don't have any previous Raven Shield runners to thank for providing me with any tricks, my thank-you list is rather short:
Mike, for answering my incessant questions about various timing issues and game bugs, and for coordinating everything,
Nate, for juggling and encoding my 14 gigabytes of source files,
and the verifiers, for scrutinizing the video (and plan files and campaign files).

Recording Method Notes

• I used Fraps (slow, stupid framerate capping, and gross chroma subsampling), recording at 60 FPS.
• I used 4× anti-aliasing throughout the run.
• Audio was also recorded using Fraps through Stereo Mix on a SoundMAX built-in card, so there is some audio noise (and the gain was approximately -0.95).
• Raven Shield seems to throw loads of Direct 3D switch resolution calls when changing between the game menus and the in-game display, even if the resolutions in both are the same. This causes Fraps to stop recording when such a transition takes place (even if the resolutions are the same) UNLESS the game is running in windowed mode. To activate windowed mode, one can use the command "togglefullscreen" after the game has loaded, or switch applications while Raven Shield is launching (This is what I did, and it works for no apparent reason, haha.). This seems to let Fraps record across game-menu transitions (or crash if the in-game resolution is different from the menu resolution). Because of this, I have played the whole game at 640-by-480 in windowed mode in order to catch each level's in-game footage with the corresponding mission debrief screen in one clip.

Game Version and Game Settings

• Version 1.60 of the game was used. (This has been the most recent version for a long time.)
• Always Run was on, and Auto-Aim was off.
• All in-game sound volumes were maximized, and Sound Quality set to High, however I turned off Virtualization and 3D Audio.
• The resolution was set to 640-by-480. Animated Geometry, Hide Dead Bodies and Low Detail Smoke Grenade were all off, and all other graphics settings were set to High.
• All HUD features were enabled except for Display Waypoint Info.

Assorted General Notes

• In the planning screens for each mission, after loading my plan, I also clicked through each team member to show what equipment they had, and panned around in the planning view to show where all the waypoints were.
• There are a few things worth mentioning about what I do in the planning view in the video:
  • The plan files seem to store which team was selected and the most recently selected waypoint on each team when they were saved. These are restored when a plan is loaded, so after my loading of some plans (and after switching view to another team's path), you may notice that the first waypoint selected is some seemingly arbitrary one in the middle of the team's path.
  • Since the game is bugged, when you load a plan, it will only correctly show the milestones for the team that was selected when the plan was saved; on other teams, you have to modify that team's path first before the game updates the display of milestones. This is why I have added and deleted a waypoint in some of the planning screens.
  • Since the game is bugged, when you first enter the planning screen, right-clicking on a waypoint to select (or view, in my case) a waypoint action (Flash, Breach, et cetera) is messed up and does not show the action currently assigned to the waypoint. That is why I had to go through the right-click menu an extra time for all plans that had grenade throws or door breaches planned.
• The weapons I typically used were the FAMAS G2 (shoots at about 1100 RPM, and has a reasonable aim-steadying rate and good damage, though the recoil is rather insane) and MP5A4 (good running accuracy, reasonable damage, and very fast aim-steadying) with the High Capacity Magazine attachment.
• I typically give AI teammates the FAMAS G2 or MP5SD5 with the HCM attachment. (Usually I give them the MP5SD5 when I want their shooting to have less of a chance of alerting the terrorists of their position, so my teammates have more time before they are shot at.)
• The team members that I usually chose (when I wasn't making teams of expendable guys) were ones with high Assault and high Observation skills. This meant that I used a lot of Recon guys (or girls).
• I skipped the credits at the end of the game because they are over 11 minutes long. I also skipped the last cutscene because I was recording to a RAM disk that wasn't large enough to capture all of it (it is about 2.5 minutes long).

General Strategies

• Only put as many people on a team as is necessary (for firepower or ammunition purposes).
  • It seems that before and after opening a door (and if the team is sufficiently separated, and probably in other situations), the team leader will stop moving and the team will enter a "Regrouping" phase until everyone is together. This takes up a lot of time when three or four people are on a team.
• Put enough people on a team to avoid any team member reloading.
  • Team members will typically stop moving to reload when they have expended half a clip, taking time.
• Preopen doors for other teams if possible.
  • Teams will take ages stopping and opening doors which are in their way and closed, and also stop and enter a "Clearing Room" phase after passing through the doorway, if they just opened it. The total penalty is approximately 5 seconds.
• Strafe-dodge or circle-strafe terrorists that are shooting at you.
  • Though I call it strafing, it is most effective when running forward or in one of the forward-diagonal directions, since these are the only directions that can be run in at maximum speed. This proves to be a very good survival tactic (especially point-blank, and even against Elite terrorists).
• Run-and-gun as much as possible, and if you must stop moving to shoot a terrorist, do it at the closest distance possible.
  • When Recruit terrorists spot you, they will delay for about 1 second before firing (unless they are wall-hacking, or use their zero-reaction-time cheat, which they do, but not too frequently - see the bloopers video for examples), and using this delay period to get closer to the terrorist allows you to fire without waiting for your crosshair to shrink as much, or have a higher hit probability when firing, or be able to shoot fewer bullets, or a combination of all of these.

Game Oddities/Stupidities

• Stupid Grenade Switching (Mission 5, Mission 10)
  • This applies to all consumable item types. When throwing a grenade, if the player still has grenades of that type remaining after the throw, that grenade will be switched back to after the throw; otherwise, the player's primary weapon will be switched to. This is important because after beginning a switch to a weapon or item, the game won't let you cancel the switch and switch to something else. How stupid.
• Command-Walking (Mission 8, Mission 10)
  • When telling your teammates to move to an objective (or Open and Clear, Open, Flash and Clear, et cetera) using the Action key, they move to the objective at walking speed only.
• Switch Team Resets (not relevant to this run)
  • When switching control between team members, your team will enter "Regrouping" mode, so if you had placed team members in specific locations, these will be messed up unless you press Toggle Team Hold or Toggle All Team Hold immediately after switching.
  • Similarly, if you switch control to another team, the team you were previously controlling enters "Regrouping" mode, and so does your new team.
• Sniper Pistol Preference (sort of influences Mission 4)
  • When any AI teammate with a sniper rifle as a primary weapon moves, it will switch to the secondary weapon (pistol or machine pistol) if it still has ammunition. After they stop moving for about 20 seconds, they will switch back to the sniper rifle.
  • This would not be an annoyance if the game let me select "None" as the secondary weapon, as it does for the primary weapon; currently, the only way I know of making them do this is to switch to their pistol and shoot out all the bullets, but this takes quite a long time and is obviously inappropriate in a speedrun.
• Crosshair Misplacement (influences all aiming at doors, and Mission 5, and the rest of the entire run to some extent)
  • In all screen resolutions that are an even number of pixels by an even number of pixels, there is no single center pixel, but four 'center pixels'. So, an acceptable placement of the single red pixel at the center of Raven Shield's crosshair (and the pixel which the four ancillary crosshair pieces point at) would be any of these four 'center pixels'. However, Raven Shield centers the crosshair on none of these four, but instead the pixel to the bottom-right of the bottom-right center pixel. This is something to be aware of when trying to aim precisely (whether it be for shooting or issuing commands), especially at 640-by-480.
• Half-Resolution Night Vision
  • Activating night vision seems to halve the already-low resolution.
• Securing Surrendered Terrorists
  • Teammates (or perhaps it is only teammates on other teams) who walk near surrendered terrorists will "secure" them, which wastes about 5 seconds.
  • I had a 50-second run of Mission 10 that I went with until I finished running Mission 12, (getting times of 40 seconds and 35 seconds on Missions 11 and 12), at which point I realized that in the Mission 10 run, Green team had been held up by a surrendered terrorist, so I decided to go back and re-run from Mission 10.
• Click-and-Hold Menus (Mission 7, Mission 8, Mission 14, Mission 15)
  • The Open and Clear command is only available by aiming at a door, holding down the Action key with unbroken aim at the door the whole time, and then moving the mouse to select the appropriate action on the radial menu, and then pressing the left mouse button (this binding is not configurable in Raven Shield's controls).
  • This has caused a lot of grief in some missions.
• Last-Terrorist Omniscience
  • This is a useful thing to be aware of, though it doesn't seem to help much in this run. When there is one terrorist remaining (even in the Terrorist Hunt practice mode), that terrorist knows where your team is, and may walk to your team.
  • This is also in effect in the Terrorist Hunt practice mode and suitable multiplayer game modes as well.
• Poo Inter-Waypoint Pathfinding
  • Anybody who has tried to make a plan will note this. The paths drawn between consecutive waypoints in the planning screen are not optimal corner-cutting ones.
  • To make things worse, if you try to place intermediate waypoints to cut the corners, sometimes the paths drawn will still go via points on the old non-cutting route, as if there are some fixed toll booth points on the map that must be passed through when going between two areas.
  • To make things even worse, even if you manage to spam your plan with a dense packing of waypoints at a nasty corner such that the lines drawn in the plan show that the corner is being 'cut' satisfactorily, if you watch the team AI try to walk it in-game, you may notice that the teammates still move back and forth from the toll booths as they try to traverse the corners.
  • Even though the pathfinding is so bad, it is still very CPU intensive; one special case cut my framerate down to under 1/5 normal (see bloopers video, #96, 201 FPS to 37 FPS) (though not in this run, thankfully).
• Only One Attachment Per Gun
  • Everyone who has played the game knows about this and is annoyed by it. Most guns can only have one additional 'attachment', usually selected from High Capacity Magazine, Silencer, and Mini Scope. I see no physical reason for not allowing all three at once.
  • In any case, this means that I often pick guns solely because they already have one of these attachments integrated (some people use the L85A1 (or G36K or AUG) so that they can have a scope with a HCM, but I mostly had my teammates use the MP5SD5 with a HCM).

General Tricks and Special Tricks

• Fluid Door Less-Restricted Door Opening (Mission 5, Mission 9, Mission 10)
  • Doors can be opened with Fluid Door (and Fluid Door Fast), but cannot be opened with the Action key, when:
    • Holding a grenade with the pin out (but not 'cooked'; unfortunately, Raven Shield doesn't allow for this)
    • Shots were fired by the player within the previous few seconds (I don't know if switching control of team members and switching back fixes this).
  • However, while the throwing of the grenade is taking place, it seems that neither method of opening works.
• Starting Waypoint Placement Trick (Mission 4, and Mission 8 onwards)
  • There are two game bugs which in combination cause this to work:
    • The conversion from where on the map you click to an in-game position is bugged; it seems to place the waypoint or click as if you had clicked closer to the center of the screen than you actually did.
    • The verification of waypoint placement as being a valid starting waypoint location uses a different calculation, and seems to correlate well with whether your mouse cursor clicked (or released the waypoint) inside the spawn area as shown on the screen.
  • In combination, these mean that if one views the map fully zoomed out and pans such that a spawn area is barely visible at a corner of the map view, placing a waypoint in the spawn area will place it reasonably outside the spawn area (perhaps about 1 meter to 1.5 meters in-game).
  • I discovered this when I had just finished Mission 7 and was viewing my plan for Mission 4; I noticed that Gold team's spawn point was clearly outside the spawn area, and could not reproduce it by zooming in on the top-left corner of the spawn area and placing the waypoint as precisely as possible.
  • After discovering how to reproduce it, and having a 'go' ruling from Mike for the use of this trick, I decided to use this in the following missions, but not re-run all the previous missions.
• Initial Double All Team Hold Trick (Mission 9 onwards)
  • When the game is "Deploying teams..." (or after pressing the checkmark in the Retry Action dialog) and the mission is about to begin (or indeed any time after the mission has begun), you can double-press your Toggle All Team Hold key, and it will begin the mission with all teams in "Moving" mode.
  • This avoids the delay of approximately one second at the beginning of each mission before the other teams mobilize (which seems to be synchronized with John Clark's introduction phrases).
  • I noticed this after starting to attempt runs for Mission 9, but decided not to re-run all the previous missions (which would have been painful).
• Team Switching to Cancel "Clearing Room" Trick (not used, because I realized this after completing the run)
  • When another team is in the "Clearing Room" phase after entering a room, you can switch to the team and switch back to your original team, causing the "Clearing Room" phase to end and them to get on with running.
  • I realize now that this could probably shave off a few seconds across the whole run (near the end of Mission 12 is an obvious example), but it is a pain to execute, since it would have to be done ALL THE TIME, and the aiming of your original character in your team could have been changed by the AI control by the time you switched back.
  • It also obviously should be used with caution when team members on your original team have a Go-To or similar order pending, since switching teams will cancel it.

Mission-Specific Comments

For each mission I have stated how many kills my team got in total by the end of the mission, as well as the total number of terrorists that may be spawned in each instance of the level (according to my observations).
The timestamped comments assume a 5-second Station ID at the beginning of the compiled video, and 60 FPS video (for the framenumbers from 0 to 59).

Glossary

• FS: Fixed-Spawn Terrorist
  • These guys are generated in every instance of the level, as far as I can tell. Some of these guys patrol: they walk back and forth along a pre-defined route throughout the mission until they are alerted, at which time they may stray from it.
• RS: Random-Spawn Terrorist
  • What I think is the case is that each level has a selection of random spawn points, and in each instance of a level, the game randomly selects from these the ones that it will populate with a random terrorist. The total number of random spawns used per instance also appears to be random on some levels, though. For example, I noticed that on Mission 13, there are 29 fixed spawn points and 20 random spawn points (by counting in UnrealEd), of which I have seen between 5 and 8 used per instance of the level (since I have seen between 34 and 37 total kills resulting in mission success).

Mission 1 (25 kills out of 25 to 26)
My plan was essentially a very refined version of the plan I used on Elite skill last summer (I don't have that plan file any more, but I remember that there were breaching charges used).
00'34''29'''	This was the first time I tried randomly spamming grenades in this level. I don't think I hit anything.
00'51''30'''	Here, I got my teammate ready to move up the stairs into the large open area.
00'55''16'''	I got lucky this time. The four FSs in here do not often run conveniently into a line.
01'01''47'''	I walk forward a bit here because sometimes there is an RS across the fence, and I wanted to check if he was behind the wall next to the FS. About a second was wasted here.
01'15''11'''	Here, I tell my teammate to stop moving so that he can kill whomever he is shooting at sooner.
01'23''31'''	Hmm. On viewing the map in UnrealEd, I notice that in fact both of these guys were FS, but the second guy I killed patrols from the base of the steps by the far barrels, up around the back of the machinery, down the near steps, and out the door to my right into the long machinery room (which I checked at 45 seconds into the mission). So, I really should have walked up the near steps right after killing the non-moving FS. Perhaps three seconds were lost here, though Green team seems to have had a kill near the end anyway.
Mission 2 (10 kills out of 25)
This mission can be won by just rescuing all the hostages, so since I saw an easy way to do that, but didn't see a way to kill all the terrorists (in the far house with the sniper on the second and first floor, the close hostage room with a patrolling terrorist on the balcony upstairs, the fixed-spawn sniper in the tower next to the close hostage room, the closest house, the room next to the closest house that has the ladder, the lowest hostage room) in under 50 seconds, I decided to just rescue. I only had one other team in this mission, whose job was just to go straight to the outside of the furthest house and clean up any terrorists that might have interfered with the rescue. The run route is fairly straightforward otherwise. I was also wearing heavy armor in this mission because I didn't need to climb any ladders or switch weapons or reload quickly. Also, since running backwards or sideways is much slower than running in one of the three forward directions in this game, I couldn't easily see if the hostages were colliding with anything when they were following me to the rescue point (This could be done easily with carefully placed teammates, though. When the AI teammates spot hostages, they will be marked on your map.).
02'10''26'''	I think the crosspiece in the window momentarily obstructed the view of this FS, and thus made him 're-see' me at this point, so being Recruit mode, he would normally wait about another second before he would begin shooting.
02'15''40'''	Fortunately, this "I need some - eeugh!" patrolling FS was only alerted by my presence but was not actively aiming at me; in all level attempts that I recall in which he was actively aiming, I ended up dying as I turned the corner.
02'19''57'''	I could have shot this door as it opened to make it open faster.
02'27''26'''	Sometimes the FS patrolling the balcony above killed me here. Other times, he killed me a few seconds earlier because he had been standing on the landing at the top of the staircase, and had a line of sight when I shot at the FS guarding the hostage.
02'30''44'''	During the times that this FS I killed here did not run towards me, I often died because he was too far away to shoot at reliably while running.
02'33''53'''	Sometimes, this FS guarding the hostage had moved to my right (on the non-raised ground in this room) by the time I got here. In those cases, I needed to react soon and kill him or else he would have executed the hostage. Often, the other FS down the corridor on the right ran my direction (he usually headed for the doorway which I had just entered from), and I could run-and-gun him as I left the room with both hostages following me.
02'42''45'''	There were dropped frames at this point for some reason.
02'51''35'''	I got really lucky here. I suspect that if the terrorist shot a second burst of shots, they would have hit me, if I hadn't won first.
Mission 3 (27 kills out of 26 to 28)
This mission can be won by just rescuing the hostages, but doing so obviously takes much longer. The routes for the other teams were straightforward. I ran this mission with expendables leading the two other teams, since there were casualties in almost every run attempt.
03'52''02'''	This FS had killed me many times in previous attempts. Fortunately, he was only in Alerted mode and not Active Aiming mode when I landed, so I could run closer before shooting him. There is also an RS that could have been generated to the right of him.
04'04''02'''	This room is always quite insane. I don't know of any quick way of clearing all the terrorists while avoiding having shots fired at me from at least one of them. All the terrorists that I killed here were FS.
04'09''54'''	I think there are two more RSs, one in each of the right and left alcoves here.
04'12''06'''	This is a fast way of killing the FS in here: opening the door and shooting through the open doorway without walking into the room first.
04'20''54'''	In my practice mission run, I got a time of 47 seconds (with deaths) once when this FS became the last terrorist and used Last-Terrorist Omniscience to walk towards me, meaning I could kill him while still going down the ramp. In a previous campaign mode run attempt, this guy used LTO, but instead walked towards the other teams (to the parking lot), slowing my win.
Mission 4 (28 kills out of 27 to 32)
This mission was quite painful to run, mainly because most attempts ended up exceeding one minute with many terrorists left unkilled. Also, the frequent deaths of both people on Green team and Gold team meant that this was another level in which I only used expendable guys on those teams. I used heavy armor on this mission as well because I didn't need to switch weapons or reload very quickly.
05'14''30'''	I pre-issued a Toggle Team Hold command so that my teammates didn't form a traffic jam with Green team.
05'18''52'''	I told my teammates to go here to kill the FS sniper in the tower, and also any other terrorists that may be here. (Usually, I had to wait for Novikov to switch to his sniper rifle before the sniper was killed. Another thing I noticed was that the sniper in the tower didn't usually shoot at either of them, but if I switched control from Arnavisca to either of them, then the sniper would immediately start shooting at me. Do operatives that I control immediately lose loads of Stealth skill or something?)
05'25''01'''	I normally tried to clean out at least one of these two FS (the second one was patrolling, so was not always in sight) for Green team, but my shooting was poo in this run.
05'45''24'''	This area is highly variable in terms of how many terrorists are spawned here and the position of the patrolling FS (which I killed here).
05'54''45'''	This was probably my cleanest clearing of this room across all my attempts. All three were FS, but the third one usually runs right, taking cover behind the blue barrels, making him hard to kill. Luckily, I killed him before he made a left turn this time.
Mission 5 (28 kills out of 28)
This mission was kind of fun to run. The route's success depended on terrorists not spawning in two places: the wooden pipes room next to the fire station, and the base of the staircase in the middle of the airport check-in building. By my count in UnrealEd, there are 25 fixed spawn points and 12 random ones, so assuming the total number of terrorists is always 28, that gives a better than half chance (54/99) of an instance of this level not having terrorists in those two places. Because of the time constraints, I made Green team go into the second-floor room that has a view of the hangar through large windows, and stand there, hoping that they would kill everyone in the hangar in reasonable time. (Not infrequently, Yacoby would end up being ducked and not kill the FS standing on the airplane wing, because there was a box on the other side of the window obstructing her line of sight.) In an older plan, I had Gold team breach the door to their hostage room, but in this plan I just had them open it, again to save time. Another thing that should be mentioned about Gold team's plan is the fact that after leaving Milestone 3, Gold team seems to randomly open the door to the FS (if it has not already been opened) and go inside as they pass. I chose to use the FAL because it can shoot through the metal doors in this level. (The M14 also can, and now after completing the run I realize that the G3A3 also probably can, and after checking just now discover that the AK-47 can, as well.) A mildly interesting note is that after I produced this level attempt, I kept it because it was a new personal best, but continued to attempt to make an injuryless run, since I didn't consider Bogart to be expendable. A few hours later I discovered that injuries heal after a one-mission rest (I didn't test if the character in question would still heal if he was included in the next mission, though.), so decided to proceed to the next mission with the outcome of this run. (The best injuryless run I produced during the ignorant re-running period was 54 seconds.)
06'48''35'''	There is a point I should make about this flashbang throw. Normally, I intended to time the throw such that it would "bang" after I turned the corner and let the FS sniper at the other end of the tarmac spot me momentarily. Obviously, I blanked out and forgot about this on this attempt. This is important because I found that whenever I alerted the FS sniper, the FS patrolling the first floor hallway next to the hangar would storm out to the tarmac area next to the forklift (I assume the FS sniper relays the news of my presence to the patrolling FS somehow). This preopens the door for Green team.
06'55''36'''	Here, I attempted to remedy the poo flashbang throw by throwing the frag late enough so that the sniper would regain sight before he died (and alert the patrolling terrorist). Unfortunately, another team member killed him too soon. I assume the FS patrolling the hallway would have taken too long to open the door for Green team at this point, anyway.
06'58''50'''	Fortunately, the RS to my left missed me here. Go strafe-dodging!
07'01''29'''	This grenade was for the RS that was (this time) behind the window.
07'05''50'''	Here, you can see that Green team had to open the door because of my poo flashbang throw.
07'05''56'''	Here, I used Fluid Door Open to open the door as I was holding the frag grenade ready to throw.
07'06''58'''	I used the frag grenade here to preopen the door for my Red teammates to go over to the lounge area. This made it much less likely that our winning of the mission would be waiting on them.
07'08''11'''	The guy behind the door was FS. This kill was my sole reason for using the FAL.
07'09''58'''	This patrolling FS walks from here up the stairs and between the two rooms on the second floor. Had I seen his shadow cast on the stairs when I was shooting the FS behind the door, I would not have been surprised by him here.
07'11''01'''	This is the Go-To order that let my teammates go to clear out the otherwise untouched lounge area.
07'14''15'''	An RS is sometimes here. Also, sometimes the patrolling FS that I killed at the base of the stairs is also here, or behind the door on the left.
07'17''27'''	For how NOT to clear this hostage room, see the "walkthrough" on YouTube with video identifier 413r9OYufr8, at 3 minutes and 26 seconds. (To be fair, though, he did get unlucky because the FSs behind the table ducked; when this happened in my run attempts, I would usually end up losing because one of them killed a hostage. He said that he cheated "for entertainment purposes only". What the heck?)
07'20''11'''	It appears that I shot near the hostage, too. Oops, sorry.
07'22''30'''	Going out on this raised walkway let me clear out this FS sniper and the two FSs in the parking lot, who would otherwise have been untouched.
Mission 6 (19 kills out of 18 to 20)
This mission is very luck-dependent. The patio area at the back of the house often has more terrorists spawned there, which are either directly under me or obstructed by the patio table or pillars. In this run, I happened to get all the terrorists at the end to be easily accessible. I think that any time of under 40 seconds is reasonably good. I put only one person on each of the other teams to eliminate the "Regrouping" phases.
08'14''24'''	This grenade was for the FS patrolling between the balcony and the room next to the hostage room. Had I thrown it earlier, I would have been able to open the door to the house slightly sooner.
08'31''37'''	There is sometimes an RS at the corner at the top of the steps here, but I always finish reloading soon enough to kill him safely.
08'34''33'''	I don't know why I messed up here. I really should have ducked and then took out them both cleanly.
08'40''50'''	I'm not sure why I couldn't kill this terrorist with my first burst. Usually, there are many more terrorists in this area (I've seen two on the balcony area near me, and one at the top of the steps at the far side of the balcony). The one down on the grass is FS.
Mission 7 (22 kills out of 22)
This mission was relatively easy to run. I don't ever recall Green team failing in the ground floor hostage room, as long as the flashbang was used. I put only one guy on each of the other two teams again (and therefore put good guys, since they were likely to have survived unscathed through to the end of the mission in any instance that I got a good mission time). The starting Bravo waypoint for Green team was made to prevent a traffic jam that would otherwise have resulted between Green team and my Red team members.
09'31''35'''	I "luck manipulated" - or 'rerolled', as I would call it - until an RS was here. I'm not sure if this was actually is necessary for a fast run, but at least it meant that there was a guaranteed kill early in the run and a lower chance of unkilled terrorists left over at the end.
09'33''37'''	Here you can see the team AI pathfinding messing up. Consistenly, my teammates would became confused and walk randomly (and slowly) off to the side (as seen here) whenever I got to the top of these steps. At this time, I also issued Go-Code Bravo so that Green team could start moving.
10'01''52'''	This Open and Clear order let my teammates kill the terrorists on the ground floor and the long elevated walkway in the large machine room.
10'07''43'''	This guy was RS. I think there was also the possibility of another RS on the ground floor in this boxes room.
10'14''29'''	I got lucky here: the second terrorist I shot is usually crouched off to the left on the outside the window of the other room, where I could not have killed him so easily. In any case, all the guys I killed here and the final one in the second room were all FS.
Mission 8 (34 kills out of 32 to 36)
This mission requires quite a lot of rerolling to get the terrorists not to spawn in certain places (the alley between the two roads, and the dark room on the ground floor next to the fire), the other two teams to survive, and also my Red teammate not to lag behind me too much (which he does in this run). This mission was so painful that I decided to accept this time of 44 seconds though I think 41 seconds is optimal using this plan. There is something that should be mentioned about the plan for Green team here. I set Green team to throw a smoke grenade after entering the front room of the building, but didn't give anyone on Green team a smoke grenade. This was deliberate: it causes Chavez to stand there and face the door (and make a throwing action while holding his MP5SD5) for a moment, and from experimentation in Observer mode, I found that it also causes Maldini to spot and kill the FS if he comes through the door (usually he does).
11'13''42'''	I checked here for the RS behind the car, absent this time.
11'18''41'''	I would fail this throw about half the time (the grenade would hit the crosspiece) when I had Windows mouse sensitivity in the middle (Does anyone know how to properly turn off the ultra-stupid Windows XP mouse acceleration? Turning off "Enhance pointer precision" doesn't completely get rid of it.). Setting the Windows sensitivity to the second-lowest let me have reasonably low acceleration with reasonable resolution. (Silly mouse driver writers, the sensitivity setting should not affect the resolution (the minimum amount I must move the mouse before the game sees anything).)
11'27''00'''	This throw is pretty hard. I needed to wedge it at the base of the door near me so that it could kill the FS sniper on the other side that Green team may or may not have killed by that point. (This made it mildly annoying, because if I didn't get audible verification of the kill, I wouldn't know if it was because my throw had been crummy or the guy had been dead to begin with.)
11'29''41'''	Using the heartbeat sensor here showed me that there are no terrorists on the room on the right. (So my estimated minimum time for the run is 41 seconds in this case; if there had been terrorists in that room, I would have needed to make a detour and my estimate would be 43 seconds instead.)
11'37''09'''	I heard the reloading of the RS sniper that Green team didn't kill here, so opened (and shot open) the door to kill him. (Before, I had tried just opening the door and hoping that Walther would finish him off, but Walther would often only fire a few shots and then return to following me without finishing the kill.)
11'40''04'''	Walther was so far behind me! What did he get caught on when following? If Walther had been right behind me at this point, I probably would have finished the mission by 42 or 41 seconds.
11'54''11'''	I think the terrorist in the dark blue suit was RS.
Mission 9 (0 kills out of ... unknown)
This mission was quite easy to plan, but quite tedious to run. This is also the first mission in which I used the double-tapping Toggle All Team Hold trick at the beginning. The obvious bug in this mission that should be exploited is the fact that having any single team member sitting in the extraction zone will win the mission for you once you have bugged a phone and typed on the laptop. I also noted that setting Green team's Rules of Engagement to Recon throughout the route didn't seem to help. He still shot at the FS when he got a chance. So, my plan was to go straight to the laptop (the furthest), have Chavez go to the phone on the lowest floor, and Maldini sit in the extraction zone. I gave each of us the Electronics Kit.
12'29''33'''	Here you can see that Chavez was right behind me by the time I get the door open and start running down the stairs, and this was my reason for putting Green team's spawn point so far back.
12'45''17'''	I got confused here. In all previous run attempts, I would have been holding the smoke grenade at this point, and would open the door and immediately press and hold Fire to pull the pin from the smoke grenade, preparing to throw it. During this mission attempt, however, I got the idea of Fluid Door Opening the door and shooting it with the pistol at the same time (shooting doors and hitting them far from the hinges usually swings the doors open faster than the normal opening action). Since I was so used to only pressing Fire once, this resulted.
12'48''49'''	I could write much about what could happen when throwing this smoke grenade. The long summary is: sometimes the FS around the corner runs down the hallway towards us and we lose, sometimes he opens the door and stands in the doorway and we lose, sometimes he opens the door and moves to a point in the phone room within view of the phone and we lose, sometimes he moves into the phone room behind the vertical boards and while my teammate is bugging the phone he walks back out from behind the barriers and spots my teammate and we lose, sometimes he runs down the hallway in the other direction (and turns the corner) and leaves the door closed and my teammate must open it and clear the room inside (what happens here) and we win, and sometimes he enters the phone room and stays behind the vertical boards for long enough for us to win (I have only done this once, and it was in Pracice Mission mode on Elite skill, however, I did not 'optimize' Green team's route down the long staircase, so the run was still waiting on Green team.).
12'52''05'''	There is a patrolling FS that often is behind the wall to my right here.
12'58''05'''	I really should have switched to Green team and let the AI make Arnavisca finish the laptop typing at this point. I don't know why I didn't do that. I suppose it was because I was still used to running the mission on Elite mode where seeing the "Opening Door" at all would warrant a restart.
Mission 10 (31 kills out of 28 to 31)
This mission was also rather luck-dependent, and took many tries, but makes up for it with fun intense action from about 20 seconds in onwards. This mission is another one that can be won by just rescuing the hostages, but that is clearly slower.
13'51''11'''	I trashed one grenade here to make switching back to my sniper rifle faster later.
14'01''02'''	If I didn't kill this security FS, nobody else would have.
14'05''15'''	This kill was kind of slow. I have seen up to two terrorists in this room.
14'08''32'''	This grenade was for the FS just on the other side of that door. I found that if I didn't throw this, the guy would have come through the door by the time I entered the President's Suite, and I would be unable to kill him easily.
14'09''01'''	This order was crucial: see the following comments.
14'09''36'''	I checked the map here to see that my team wasn't lagging behind and would enter the hallway I had told them to go into in time.
14'12''33'''	I Fluid Door Opened this door and threw my last grenade in to explode the locked door to the vault.
14'14''24'''	I found that aiming at the head gave the most reliable one-shot kills here. Too often, I had nailed a chest shot that failed to kill this FS.
14'15''09'''	If any part of this Raven Shield run's plan could be called funny, this would be the funniest part. This was the only reason I was using a sniper rifle at all in this mission. In my preliminary Practice Mission runs of this level, I had Green team go down the staircase at the other end of the bank after clearing out the library in order to enter this room to kill the FS inside, which took a very long time (perhaps resulting in a total time of about 59 seconds). Therefore, since my teammates are otherwise unused at this point, I decided to try telling them to go to the door from here (I used to issue an Open and Clear). It is quite funny that the face of the door is not visible, but the door handle is, which is the only thing that you can aim at from here to issue the order! The previous Go-To order was also crucial, because placing my teammates into that hallway (or further out into the main bank hall) makes them walk to this door via the main hall (and get some kills on the way) rather than down the hallway I was aiming down at this point. I spammed with several Action key presses here, though it seems (judging from the presence of the door icon) that the grenade's view-shaking effect did not affect what I was actually aiming at.
14'18''13'''	Here, I checked the map to make sure my teammates were going the right way.
14'25''40'''	Strafe-dodging is successful again! (All guys that I killed from here onwards were FS.)
14'29''20'''	In the ideal situation, the FS in the second room would have come out as I was killing the first one. In the worst situation, the FS would have just sat in the room and I would have to have gone to open the door to kill him, or restart the mission.
14'34''16'''	I switched control over to my teammates here to finish off the FS behind the door.
Mission 11 (30 kills out of 30)
I don't have much to say about this mission in general, other than the fact that Green team got obliterated by a FS at the very beginning very frequently. I use expendable teammates again, since I was essentially doing most of the time-sensitive killing.
15'25''07'''	I rerolled the level until there was no terrorist spawned on the walkway above. (This way, I avoided having to go up to the second floor.)
15'48''08'''	I told my teammates to move here so that I could go clear the other large room.
15'57''38'''	Here, I switched to Green team to clear out the gas room that they would otherwise definitely have failed (the gas FS behind the beef that I kill at the end always caused this).
Mission 12 (29 kills out of 29)
I ran this mission with expendable guys because the death rate was rather high (Green team had to deal with a swarm of enemies after entering the house). Another problem was Green team's potential reloading. They came fairly close in this run, but fortunately Noronha got some one-shot kills and didn't shoot out more than half the clip by the time I switched to him.
16'43''06'''	I double-tapped Toggle All Team Hold, and then tapped Toggle Team Hold to make my teammates not get in a traffic jam with Green team.
16'45''04'''	This grenade blasted away the double doors for Green team.
16'45''11'''	I told my teammates to start following me again.
16'46''24'''	I issued Go-Code Bravo to let Gold team start moving.
16'46''36'''	This grenade blasted the door away for my teammate to enter the pool room (and means I didn't need to issue an Open and Clear command at it while running past).
16'48''15'''	This grenade blasted away the double doors for Gold team. Yes, each of my attempts for this mission began with all this spam!
16'50''44'''	There was often a serious load of dropped frames at this point, for some reason.
16'56''49'''	Fortunately, the terrorist in the room stopped shooting before I entered the doorway.
17'06''31'''	The door on the left had a FS behind it, and there is sometimes an RS behind the door on the right, though I can't tell if I killed one there this time, though I suspect I did, since I heard my first "Hostile down" notification get interrupted before I killed the third (visible) FS.
17'11''03'''	This terrorist (triggered by Gold team, I think), had caused me many failed mission attempts at this point.
17'13''45'''	More dropped frames are here for some reason. The guy that was walking into the speaker here was usually doing it at the other speaker.
17'15''45'''	I switched to Green team to clean up the last FS that they missed because they were too busy "Clearing Room".
Mission 13 (34 kills out of 34 to 37)
This was faster than expected. Often, Green team needed to go down the staircase at the end of their route to kill an RS before we won.
18'09''30'''	The guy by door was FS, and there could have been up to two RSs nearer to me here.
18'15''51'''	My shooting was kind of crummy at this point, but the second burst of shots was the important one; there was a prone sniper FS under the airplane wing all the way at the other end of the tarmac. Killing him here meant that my team members were much less likely to get wiped out when they walked over there.
18'24''27'''	There could have been up to two RSs at the top of these stairs.
18'26''28'''	The first guy I killed here was FS, and the one behind the glass (Judging by the delayed "Threat neutralized." notification, I suspect that I killed another guy behind the obvious one.) is RS.
18'30''23'''	This Go-To order was not necessary in this run, but there was a FS patrolling that room; I assume my teammates killed him when they passed by the window.
18'38''54'''	There was sometimes an RS in this room, and sometimes some terrorists rushed into here from the hangar.
18'40''43'''	The flashbang that Gold team threw at Milestone 3 went off at this time.
Mission 14 (48 kills out of 46 to 48)
This level's run was rather interesting. This run was a result of my use of my Practice Mission run plan where I selected the best team members (Chavez, Yacoby, et cetera), whereas I would have liked to use expendable guys. However, I flukily managed a new personal record of 55 seconds after only 20 minutes of run attempts, though Chavez, Yacoby and Bogart all died. I decided that since I had sufficiently good guys remaining for the last mission, I would keep this run (but only after trying to run it again many times with expendable guys, and managing only 58 seconds). I also decided that running Mission 15 without those three guys was probably no harder than re-running this mission in a reasonable time and then running Mission 15 with the three guys. Some things happened in this run which I would have thought warranted a restart, but I suppose at that time I just wanted to get experience running this level, as I had only finished my run of Mission 13 25 minutes before.
19'47''43'''	This grenade blasted the door for Green team.
19'50''12'''	Normally, seeing that Novikov's pathfinding messed up at the fence and caused him to end up up so far behind me at this point would cause me to restart. Whenever this happened, when I proceeded through the door, Novikov would enter the slow idiot mode that we saw my teammates do at the beginning of my Mission 7 run, and cause a big traffic jam with Gold team's members. This game is lacking a proper replay feature because that would just illustrate how bad the AI is, right?
19'52''05'''	I had seen this gun sticking through before, but it is not too common. (The terrorist responsible is a FS.)
20'05''28'''	Normally, at this point, I would have to race Gold team to get through the doorway first and kill the FS on the left. I think Novikov's traffic jam 'solved' that problem. I am guessing now that the traffic jam caused Novikov to regroup with me via Gold team's route, which is faster than the route he would have taken otherwise (looping through the garage the same way I did).
20'10''20'''	This guy is a patrolling FS.
20'12''21'''	This was my routine map check to see how far Novikov got at this point (This situation I would have considered to be slow, since Novikov should be at the other side of that doorway by this point).
20'15''23'''	All enemies that I kill starting with this guy are FS. The guy on the showroom floor that I didn't see is RS, I think.
20'22''04'''	This (rather slow) Open and Clear gets Novikov to kill the FS in the room (and the terrorist that I think is RS on the showroom floor that I missed).
20'37''56'''	It sounds like Novikov first killed the FS in the room, and then shot the showroom floor guy through the window.
Mission 15 (40 kills out of 38 to 41)
The plan for this mission is not too complicated, but I had to run it for about three days (!) to get this run, though it should be said that this run was produced the first day I switched all team members back to using the FAMAS G2 from using the MP5A4. My plan was: have Gold team clear out the close building, and Green team defuse the bomb and then pass across the second floor in the main building, and I would order my team to pass across the Corvo Bar in the main building and into the back alley, while I cleared out the third floor and the roof of the main building.
21'26''14'''	There were two FSs on the roof. I threw this grenade with the hope of killing at least one of them.
21'40''04'''	Both these guys were FS. Sometimes, the guy on the left enters the Corvo Bar and causes problems after a few seconds. Also, sometimes a FS patrolling the staircase on the left is in my face at this point, and because I don't expect him, and he spots me quite soon after I enter (since the door is not obstructing his view for as long), he typically takes me out. (See the bloopers video, #51 for an instance where this happens, but I act fast enough to survive.)
21'42''28'''	I had failed this Open and Clear order many times. Sometimes, I strafed too far left before issuing it, and a FS in the Corvo Bar had a line of sight to me for long enough to start firing. Other times, I failed to aim exactly at the door. Other times, I fumbled with the radial menu (I heard the click sound, but what happened? Nothing.) and failed to issue the order. This order let my teammates clear out the Corvo Bar as well as the FS in the back alley.
21'47''13'''	My plan for this area was to kill all terrorists visible here and then keep moving up. As far as I'm concerned, both these guys are RS on my route, though I suspect both of them may just be patrolling and FS. I think the terrorist already dead on the floor was the FS that often ran to the bottom of the staircase and killed me.
21'52''24'''	This kill and the next kill were patrolling FSs.
21'58''44'''	FS, patrols the roof around the glass windows, and (annoyingly) behind the triangular wall there. Killing him here is critical for a sub-60-second run using this plan, I think.
22'00''11'''	The FS on the window pane often caused dropped frames at this point. I guess it was because he tried to pathfind to me.
22'02''23'''	This FS eats up a lot of time on this floor.
22'04''20'''	It was easier to deal with this FS when running back to the staircase. Also, someone on the roof would remotely detonate the bomb had I not had it defused by this point (maybe it was the other terrorist visible through the window that I didn't kill here).
22'11''14'''	Here, I told Raymond to regroup so that she could kill anybody left in the Convo Bar that was remaining (sometimes the FS sniper at the other end of the room is).
22'12''45'''	I told Raymond to stop moving so that she could kill the person she was shooting at.
22'17''02'''	The first guy right next to the door was unexpected, but the killing of these other two FSs played out normally: I shot the close guy, and then tried to strafe-dodge the far sniper's first and only shot, and then killed the far sniper. It didn't sound like he hit anywhere near me at all, though.
22'22''23'''	This was the most flukey win I have ever had. I don't know if the first terrorist was FS or not, but the killing of Gospic must have been due to a shot out of the bottom-left corner of my accuracy rectangle, at what must have been a hair sticking out the top of his head. (Gospic popped out of view for a frame because he was ducked when he was killed; you can also see this happen at the time that I killed the blue FS after entering the double doors to the main building.)
It should be said that I think there is a faster way to complete this mission: instead of branching from the staircase to clear out the third floor, head straight to the roof after entering the main building, and clear out the roof first (hopefully when passing the third floor on the staircase you would have killed at least the closer patrolling FS), and then kill the remaining patrolling FS on the third floor from the roof (through the glass windows), and then use LTO to kill the final FS (the one in the room on the third floor, behind the table). Using this other plan, you could also possibly not have Green team defuse the bomb, since it doesn't let people on the roof spot you until they are about to die. Also, you may want to throw away an additional frag grenade at some point (there doesn't seem to be a good time to fit one in, though) so that you can avoid Stupid Grenade Switching when throwing a grenade down from the roof through the window to preopen the door for the FS in the room (behind the table, that I am proposing using LTO to kill). This run attempt was essentially waiting on me from 50 or 51 seconds in (when all the other teams seem to have finished killing), so assuming the situation played out the same for the other teams (and the other Red teammates) and I had run using my new plan and had cleared the roof by that time, I assume a time of 53 or 54 seconds could be achieved (after waiting for LTO to lead the FS in the third floor room out).

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Post-Comments Comments

Last summer, I started attempts on a segmented Elite run of the campaign, but gave up after a while, managing 88 seconds on the first mission without injuries, and 69 seconds with many team members getting creamed.
This summer, I saw a very poor but rather boastful solo "speedrun" of a 35-terrorist Penthouse Terrorist Hunt on YouTube (q8cVAAxPDZ0, 3 minutes 7 seconds), so I decided to make my own better but still poor one (io_OsEX-BVk, 2 minutes 4 seconds).
The next day, I tried running Mission 9 of the campaign (Penthouse, "Shattered Glass") in Practice Mission mode (on Elite skill, but that doesn't really change much in this mission), which I managed 41 seconds on.
Two weeks later, I saw that Tigger77 had posted a Quality Test topic for Raven Shield on the SDA forums, showing an attempt of the first campaign mission on Recruit skill, so I decided to start my own IL run of Raven Shield on Recruit skill.
I figured that running each level in Practice Mission mode made re-running of levels easiest, and perhaps made the most sense, since the levels are clearly independent apart from injuries being carried forward from previous missions, and the cumulative random stats improvements to all the characters over time. However, since I didn't think an IL set with Chavez dying in multiple levels would be very meaningful, I decided to disallow injuries across all missions except for the last mission (ouch!).
Upon completion of the IL run and discussing it with Mike, he suggested that it might be best to rerun the game segmented in Campaign mode, so I did that, and got an equal or better time on each mission (making use of the fact that character injuries and deaths were certainly allowed this time).
(My Practice Mission times on Recruit skill without injuries were, in seconds: 59 50 50 56 49 40 57 53 42 53 47 35 57 63 65.)
So, additional thanks go out to the boastful guy on YouTube for the poor run of the practice level, Tigger77 for encouraging unaware my run of the game on Recruit mode, and Mike again for suggesting re-running the game in Campaign mode, resulting in an improvement of 79 seconds!
Final thanks go to Smilge's Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn run, which I copied the smiley face drawing idea from. =)

If you have successfully read through these ten thousand words of blather, congratulations!
I hope you have enjoyed the run, and have learned something new about running the game. Thanks for watching!