In the past, scripted runs of PC games were accepted on SDA. However, after long, careful consideration by the SDA dictators and many heated debates on the forums, it was decided that scripts are no longer accepted on the site. In order to not mix runs that can no longer be obsoleted with the rest of the runs, all runs using scripts have been moved to this page.
Runs on default versions:
Return to the Game List, the FAQ, or the Home Page.
Hard mode with scripts 0:31:00 by Blake Piepho, done in 180 segments appended to one file.
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External audio commentary is available in a .mp3 file. German subtitles are available in a .ass file.Author's comments:
This is my first and only segmented Half-Life speedrun. I had the idea for this in year 2000, started working on it in 2003, and completed it in October 2006.
This run was done through many small segments in aim of achieving a high level of perfection. The final time from start to the death blow on Nihilanth is 29:41.
I have to give a big thanks to people that made a segmented Half-Life run before me, these people are Radon (-think.circle-), Dopefish, and RandomEngy. I'd also like to thank RandomEngy for capturing the video and his video editing support.
I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to link and tell your friends about it.
Single-segment with HLSP Bunny 1:00:33 by Blake Piepho. Demo was captured to avi and compressed to a 320x240 and 640x480 version. The original demo file is available as well, but will only play in Half-Life v1.1.2.0.
Author's comments:
This run was quite an endeavor which turned out to be much harder than I had first anticipated. When it was all said and done I had spent roughly 4-5 hours a day for 3 weeks working on this. I am very satisfied with the completed result.
I think this run went a bit faster than my average run attempt. There were some delays which I rarely did but also some extra shortcuts which I rarely did in my many failed attempts.
I had really rough start health wise in this run, but recovered mostly by the part where you get mugged. At the start of "We've Got Hostiles" I had only had 13 armor which was very low for this point, typically I would have around 40 armor which was very consistent, and thus the run was flukishly low on armor at this point. After armoring up, shortly after blasting 3-arms I only had 82 armor; which was very rare, I had 100 armor at this point on virtually every other run attempt, but this was still ok, it was in the events to come that I would almost doom myself. In the electric water part I had the map load right when I landed in the water, this makes you lose an extra 22 armor. At about 18:50 my computer started chunking massively causing me run onto the electric rail and get hit my alien slave, the demo is also chunky at this point. Fortunately it only lasted for about 10 seconds. At 19:20 I only had 35 armor after using the armor dispenser, normally I would have 90-100 armor at this point. At 19:44 I hit a trip mine, only the second time I ever hit a trip mine in my many attempts. This took me down to 40|0 which is extremely low health for this point and I was considering restarting the run for I had little hope to make it through the next parts, but I decided to continue.
At 22:55 I decided to take a small detour to get an extra 10 armor (which turned out to only be an extra 5 because of the water worms) because I never been at this low on armor before and wanted to play it safe. This is something I regret doing now. I would go on to finish the rest of the level strong, only taking 1 alien slave hit and no hits from the spies, salvaging my yearly misfortunes, and finishing up apprehension with 79 armor.
At 28:20 I had an unusual mistake in falling off the conveyor belt but it was only about a 12 second delay. At 29:47 I snuck up on a guard and grabbed him before he could see me, otherwise you have wait for him to finish a long speech for you have grab him. At 30:35 I lost 40 armor to my own grenade launcher shot, which is somewhat BS and sucks a lot. I made this up by doing the rest of questionable ethics quite nicely; this was one of my best jobs on this level. In the 34:00-34:50 part I hid from the helicopter a lot because if you're out in the open when it's out it will do insane damage to you.
I am very happy with the way everything went up to 41:00; I barely missed an air boost jump here that ended up costing me 15 seconds. At 42:15, since I had so much armor and still 1 more trip mine, both of which I didn't normally have, I was able to do a small shortcut which I very rarely got to do. At 43:50 since I had so much armor still, I decided to let some of the head crabs damage it while I had some free health you use. At 44:45 I went to the room with head crabs to get rid of my armor for a grenade jump coming up. The amount of boost you get from an explosive it proportional to the health you lose, so armor will make you lose much less health and thus much less boost. I accidentally took a little too much damage from the head crabs so I had to take a small detour to get more health.
Everything went pretty nicely up until 52:40, at which point Gonarch went insane and demanding that I do an insane amount of damage to him before he would continue. But I managed to salvage the situation losing little armor and only cells. At 55:40 I had a very high amount of armor so I didn't have to take a 30 second detour to get more. Everything went very well up to 57:50, which is important because the part starting at 57:50 is by far and away the hardest part in the game to go fast through. Here I go all out using the egon weapon wildly; doing anything I can to prevent damage. At 58:12, since I still had 74 armor, I decided to mulch through the rest of level, which is what I ideally had planned to do, but 74 armor is a luxury you can't count on. I made it to Nihilanth with 26 armor, which would mean only a large blast from Nihilanth himself would kill me. I am very pleased with the way Nihilanth went, the only thing that really could have been much faster would have been dropping down and going for the kill sooner, before his head opened up, but I didn't want to take this risk.
Overall I'm quite satisfied with the final result, and don't plan on doing anymore HL marathon runs. However, I still have plans to do a segmented run, teaming up with some other HL runners. Stay tuned for when this run hits the shelves, I'm expecting a time between 38 and 39 minutes!
Hazard Course in 0:03:10 by Blake Piepho. Demo was captured to avi and compressed to a 320x240 and 1024x768 version. The original demo file is available as well, but will only play in Half-Life v1.1.2.0.
Author's comments:
Hazard Course with HLSP Bunny and scripts in 0:02:45 by Albin Sigby and Daniel Babik, done in 8 segments appended to one file.
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Author's comments:
Total: 2,42,26
Segment 1 (map: t0a0) - 21,48s by rayvex:
Nothing special except for the wierd bug that keeps the door open if you time it right (you can hear the head banging 2-3 times against the door). This is necessary for the next part as we can go back to the first room which provides enough space for proper circlejump to gain speed.
Segment 2 (map: t0a0) - 14,42s by rayvex:
The time scripted sequence allows me to circle around and gain some speed for the next part. At the 3rd door I had to slow down abit in order to slide through. If I had kept the speed, I would have crashed into the door resulting in a time loss of ~0.2s.
Segment 3 (map: t0a0) - 21,84s by rayvex:
Doing a small circle while the scientist talks to gain speed for the next pipe section. Not much to say about the rest of this seg.
Segment 4 (map: t0a0a) - 48,41s by quadrazid:
Longest segment in the run. Was pretty hard to make it but I'm satisfied. Only flaw would be at the door in the recharger room.
Segment 5 (map: t0a0b1) - 13,95s by rayvex:
Jumped onto the button and then over the crate in order to keep my speed without having to do a new longjump. After picking up the crowbar I used LJ to jump over the crates and broke the vent grill while being in the air, so I could jump into the vent without losing any speed.
Segment 6 (map: t0a0b2) - 8,66s by quadrazid:
Nothing fancy. Had to pick up 4 AR grenades for upcoming boosts. Then boost over the gate with as small health loss as possible.
Segment 7 (map: t0a0c) - 21,32s by quadrazid:
Avoiding the first gas leak to save some health. Making a AR-boost up the ladder and keeping the speed til the elevator. Was a pretty tricky boost, because I wanted to save as much health as possible for next segment. A pretty known trick in half life is that the elevator does not move. It just teleports you to the next map. The teleport trigger is slightly outside the elevator so it's even possible to stand outside it to save time.
Segment 8 (map: t0a0d) - 12,36s by quadrazid:
Pretty tricky segment to nail. I had to get Barney as close to the scanner as possible and also set the scientist at a good position before the AR-boost, and before that receiving the health. Avoiding damage from the electrical rail. The "trigger_endsection" which ends the game is reachable from the floor under the railway.
We had fun making this run together and mostly agreed along the project. We didn't have any big problems and are satisfied with the final result.
Assault-rifle boost script:
(only a few numbers were changed between the different boosts)
alias w wait
alias +aids "force_centerview;+duck;w;+jump;fps_max 60;w;w;w;w;w;w;cl_pitchspeed 999999;cl_yawspeed 21500;w;cl_pitchdown 75;+lookdown;-jump;+right;w;-right;+attack2;w;-attack2;-lookdown;+left;w;-left;cl_pitchdown 89.999;force_centerview;fps_max 100"
alias -aids "-duck"
bind mouse2 +aids
Single-segment Hazard Course with HLSP Bunny and scripts in 0:02:54 by Daniel Babik.
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Author's comments:
Best time: 1:36:57 by Half-Life 2 done Quick team on 2006-03-08 in 88 segments.
Author's comments:
In case you think we timed our jumps too perfectly, know that this speed-run was NOT focused on timing jumps. For bunnyhopping, we used a simple macro which presses the button assigned to "jump" repeatedly, for as long as it is held in. This was done to increase focus on less tedious and more complicated tricks in the run, as well as to prevent people from doing silly things like making an in-game script with hundreds of "+jump" commands and binding jump to the mousewheel as well as 12 buttons on a joystick to stomp on. In case you're wondering, yes, the above method has actually been used before the macro was voted as an option.
This run is also not perfect. We have spent a long time trying to cut down on seconds throughout various maps, but some do have their weaknesses. Sometimes we may run into a pole, walk when we could have sprinted, or miss a teleport or two. Nevertheless, we spent a large amount of time finding revolutionary shortcuts and shaving off seconds, so it should at least be quite an undertaking to improve on this run significantly.
For this run, we began timing the moment we were able to move as per SDA rules, and stopped the moment we lost control. These times were the tram opening and the explosion of the portal, respectively. We clocked in for a total time of ~1:36:50, with an SDA time of ~1:37:03. We finished with 26 non-traditional segments, most of them due to the random and difficult nature of their content, for a total of 88 segments.
For every level transition we included a special _2.dem demo which is automatically generated while recording during a map change, to help bridge the gap between loading a new level and the autosave which occurs a few seconds afterward. However, they do not count as their own segment as they were not necessary and were only included for video continuity.
If you have any questions about how we performed the tricks shown in the video, read the HL2DQ Tricks text as well as the HL2DQ Questions Guide text.
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CREDITS
=======
In case you missed it at the end of the video, here's a list of the people that helped make or support the run over the course of it's creation. Thanks guys, and sorry if you weren't included, the old forums are down and are memory is only so good!
Runners:
--------
Max]I[muS-X
suga
bandit5k (aka Minim)
magzy
DaleLewill
Chomp (aka Chomp On This, emerica)
Dark_Devil
FU3L3D
LightningX
Lonerville
Ben 'nVa' Riley
Daniel 'o40' Lundgren
Pincus
|Z|Option
HL2DQ Founders:
---------------
Tamale
MatthiasII
Mythik
Planning/Tricks:
----------------
bi0_gauss
chabo
Chib
Cyberwrath
DaleLewill
DemonStrate
Downup
dude
eLe
Fragalishus
geaowe
Kay
LightningX
lml-mike
Lonerville
major5013
Max]I[muS-X
Nam3
Naz
Nezumi
Pincus
]eQm[_9800_PRO
RTC
speCter
trh
Wampa
New Site Admin:
---------------
Samuli 'Samppa' Ylikraka
Demo Uploads:
-------------
SuperJer
Technical help from Valve:
--------------------------
Martin Otten
Yahn Bernier (Yucca will assimilate you)
Video Work:
-----------
RandomEngy
doxliy
DemonStrate
|Z|Option
Previous Half-Life/Half-Life 2 Runs:
------------------------------------
David 'marshmallow' Gibbons
Spider-Waffle
Dopefish
Radon (aka -think.circle-)
RandomEngy
Dark_Devil
Special Thanks To:
------------------
jacen
Notes
Forumers:
---------
Ad&Hoc
Aquashark
Drunksailor
happyface_0
Hlook
jimsfriend
Kiudee
n1ght
ways
xeen
=========
MAP TIMES
=========
This is the times as listed on the HL2DQ website (www.hl2dq.net). The times are rounded down and do not include _2.dem times.
Map name..............Time (part times).....Runner....................Time saved d1_trainstation_01....2:40..................Lonerville................1:09 d1_trainstation_02....0:25..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:06 d1_trainstation_03....0:13..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:02 d1_trainstation_04....1:27.(0:20 + 1:07)....Max]I[muS-X...............0:09 d1_trainstation_05....7:30.(7:10 + 0:20)....Max]I[muS-X...............0:05 d1_trainstation_06....0:13..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:01 d1_canals_01..........0:54..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:10 d1_canals_01A.........1:19..................bandit5k..................0:24 d1_canals_02..........0:13..................bandit5k..................0:04 d1_canals_03..........1:45.(1:30 + 0:15)....Pincus....................0:37 d1_canals_05..........1:18.(0:37 + 0:41)....bandit5k + DaleLewill.....0:26 d1_canals_06..........0:37..................FUEL3D....................0:53 d1_canals_07..........1:34..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:09 d1_canals_08..........1:12..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:29 d1_canals_09..........1:14..................DaleLewill................0:01 d1_canals_10..........1:45..................magzy.....................0:05 d1_canals_11..........1:28.(0:29 + 0:59)....Max]I[muS-X...............1:23 d1_canals_12..........1:37..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:16 d1_canals_13..........0:26..................LightningX................0:02 d1_eli_01.............6:43..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:02 d1_eli_02.............5:43..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:25 d1_town_01............0:23..................bandit5k..................0:08 d1_town_01A...........0:13..................bandit5k..................0:05 d1_town_02............0:15..................bandit5k..................0:01 d1_town_02A...........0:11..................bandit5k..................0:09 d1_town_03.................(skipped)..................................All of it d1_town_04............0:35..................bandit5k..................0:11 d1_town_05............2:40.(0:22 + 2:18)....bandit5k + Max]I[muS-X....0:20 Part I................44:33...........................................7:52 d2_coast_01...........0:14..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:08 d2_coast_03...........0:44..................bandit5k..................0:19 d2_coast_04...........0:28..................nVa.......................0:09 d2_coast_05...........0:25..................bandit5k..................0:09 d2_coast_07...........0:31..................bandit5k..................0:05 d2_coast_08................(skipped)..................................All of it d2_coast_09...........0:48..................bandit5k..................0:16 d2_coast_10...........0:16..................o40.......................0:01 d2_coast_11...........0:47.(0:23 + 0:24)....Max]I[muS-X...............0:42 d2_coast_12...........0:37..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:01 d2_prison_01..........1:34.(0:37 + 0:57)....Max]I[muS-X + suga........0:39 d2_prison_02..........0:29..................Dark_Devil................0:11 d2_prison_03..........0:26..................suga......................0:39 d2_prison_04..........0:11..................suga......................0:07 d2_prison_05..........0:35..................suga......................0:16 d2_prison_06..........5:36.(4:15 + 1:21)....suga......................1:11 d2_prison_07..........4:30.(0:33 + 3:57)....suga......................0:34 d2_prison_08..........7:54.(0:32 + 7:22)....suga......................0:14 Part II...............26:05...........................................5:41 d3_c17_01.............2:29..................suga......................0:00 d3_c17_02.............1:15..................magzy.....................0:06 d3_c17_03.............0:13..................suga......................0:06 d3_c17_04.............0:14..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:06 d3_c17_05.............0:25..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:07 d3_c17_06a............1:54..................suga......................0:31 d3_c17_06b............0:27..................Chomp.....................0:06 d3_c17_07.............1:23..................suga......................0:16 d3_c17_08.............0:45.(0:16 + 0:29)....Max]I[muS-X + suga........0:13 d3_c17_09.............0:11..................suga......................0:07 d3_c17_10a............1:04.(0:50 + 0:14)....suga + Max]I[muS-X........0:11 d3_c17_10b............1:40.(1:33 + 0:07)....suga......................0:16 d3_c17_11.............0:11..................suga......................0:11 d3_c17_12.............0:17..................suga......................0:09 d3_c17_12b............0:13..................suga......................0:12 d3_c17_13.............1:03.(0:04 + 0:59)....Max]I[muS-X...............0:42 d3_Citadel_01.........0:28.(0:24 + 0:04)....Max]I[muS-X...............0:02 d3_Citadel_02.........0:45.(0:01 + 0:44)....Max]I[muS-X...............2:06 d3_Citadel_03.........0:42.(0:16 + 0:26)....|Z|Option + suga..........0:20 d3_Citadel_04.........0:32.(0:14 + 0:18)....suga + Max]I[muS-X........0:45 d3_Citadel_05.........1:57..................Max]I[muS-X...............0:19 d3_breen_01...........6:29.(4:26+1:28+0:35).suga......................1:46 Part III..............24:37...........................................8:37 Total time............1:35:15.........................................22:10
The tricks are listed by map and order of appearance. Not all maps are listed, as some do not contain any complicated or notable tricks that have not already been covered before it. You might notice I got bored and had a little fun with it, at the expense of humor everywhere, and I'm pretty sure it gets more and more disturbing as you go down. Further proof that I am slowly slipping into speedrun-induced paranoid schizophrenia.
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d1_trainstation_01
==================
Q.) How does he move so fast?
A.) This is a trick called "bunnyhopping" and is explained under the HL2DQ Tricks text. You will see a lot more of this, so get ready.
For this run, we used a simple macro which presses the button assigned to "jump" repeatedly, for as long as it is held in. This was done to increase focus on less tedious and more complicated tricks in the run, as well as to prevent people from doing silly things like making an in-game script with hundreds of "+jump" commands and binding jump to the mousewheel as well as 12 buttons on a joystick to stomp on. In case you're wondering, yes, the above method has actually been used before the macro was voted as an option.
---
Q.) Why did the guard disappear and reappear at the end of the hallway? Did the video skip?
A.) No, what you saw is called "teleporting" and is listed under the HL2DQ Tricks text.
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d1_trainstation_02
==================
Q.) Um, did I just see him walk THROUGH a guard?
A.) Yes, you did. The guard is pre-programmed to walk to an exact point, and Gordon passed that point before the guard did while ducking. Since the guard's only priority was to walk to the point at the time, he continued walking. Ducking helps Gordon to squeeze through easier for some reason, probably because his center of gravity is smaller and therefore easier to slip through the model of the guard, although that I am not sure about.
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d1_trainstation_04
==================
Q.) OK, first of all, that guy just flew on a can of paint. That's impossible. Cans don't fly!
A.) How do you know? Have you ever gone outside and tried to fly on a can of paint? It's quite relaxing. Also, this trick is called "flying" and covered in the HL2DQ Tricks text. You will also be seeing much more of this.
---
Q.) How is he walking on air? Is he standing on the telephone lines?
A.) No, what he is standing on is commonly called a clipbrush. It is invisible, solid, and designed to block the players movement, to prevent him from getting to icky places that the designers don't want him to go. Suckers.
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d1_trainstation_06
==================
Q.) Why did he jump so far forwards in the last map, if he was only going to run backwards in this one?
A.) At the end of each map is a trigger which loads the following map. You cannot advance to the next map without passing this trigger, even if the trigger is in an inconvienent place. In this case, the load trigger in the last map was ahead of the board I grabbed in this one.
---
Q.) Blah blah, "flying", right we got it. How am I even asking a question?
A.) Actually, I just wanted to note that the flying technique used to descend featured in this map is called "sailing" and is listed under the HL2DQ Tricks text. As much as you might not like it, flying is a technique, a skill, and NOT a glitch on par with "noclip". Sure, it's not traditional, but it is also not easy, and has many complex forms of itself to master.
---
Q.) Hey, wait just a minute! He skipped the crowbar... What gives?
A.) We saved quite a bit of time skipping Barney's dialogue, and as you'll see later, we didn't need it anyway. Besides, I have yet to see Gordon put that crowbar to ANY industrial use, and frankly, I don't trust him with it.
============
d1_canals_01
============
Q.) How did he roll up the wall? Is that like flying?
A.) Sort of. That is called "wallclimbing" and is described in the HL2DQ Tricks text.
---
Q.) I noticed he took no damage when he fell on that train. Where can I download teh hax?
A.) If you land on a sloped surface that is curved just right, you are able to slide down it without incurring damage. Sprinting helps. I'm not sure why.
=============
d1_canals_01a
=============
Q.) That guy jumped from one underground tube to the next in a single bound! No fair, I can't jump that far.
A.) That is called "circlejumping" and is listed under the HL2DQ text. It also couldn't hurt to hit the gym a little, fatty.
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d1_canals_02
============
Q.) Liek, that iz tottaly teh sped hax.
A.) What? If you bunnyhop on slime, such as the kind found on the downward ramp here and in the sewer on the last map, you essentially gain the same speed as a bunnyhop but without leaving the ground, accelerating you FAR faster than normal bunnyhopping.
============
d1_canals_03
============
Q.) How did you blow open the explosive barrel in the crowded hallway in one shot? It takes at least two, and that's just to light the thing on fire.
A.) If you hold in the secondary fire button, then hold in the primary fire button, and keep them held in, you charge the pistol. To fire the extra rounds, release the secondary fire.
---
Q.) When did Gordon become such an Olympic swimmer? All my guy can do is doggy paddle.
A.) This is called "speedswimming" and is found in the HL2DQ Tricks text.
---
Q.) WAT!? HE ZOOMED UP THAT LADDER LIKE...ZOOOM!
A.) Is it just me or are you getting more and more idiotic? This trick is called "ladderjumping" and can be found in the HL2DQ Tricks text.
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d1_canals_05
============
Q.) Ooh, I see what you did there. he tossed that barrel next to the airboat for good luck. Like salt, but with a barrel, and no salt.
A.) Actually, we thought we needed the barrel, but it turned out we didn't, and we never fixed the mistake.
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d1_canals_06
============
Q.) After that big jump over the dam he lands right through a rock. Airboat noclip anyone?
A.) First of all, there is no such thing as "airboat noclip". Second, the rock isn't solid, as it is beyond the load trigger that you normally aren't expected to pass.
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d1_canals_07
============
Q.) How did he open the big doors without going into the building? What did he even shoot at, I couldn't see anything!
A.) This is a trick first discovered by Marshmallow. What he is shooting at is an explosive barrel, which is the trigger that blasts open the doors.
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d1_canals_08
============
Q.) The alarm always go off for me on this map, and the giant doors always close. What did he DO?
A.) This is the first example of enterclipping, as described in the HL2DQ Tricks text. There is a trigger at the entrance to the big open area, that if passed sets off the alarms and closes the doors. It is fairly thick, so finding a way to skip it was a bit of ingenuity on my part. I discovered that while in an airboat, the section of the airboat that sets off a trigger is near the middle, but not exactly in the center. There was actually more of the airboat that could be exposed to a trigger without setting it off in the FRONT of the airboat than in the back. If you tried entering the airboat while it was on the other side of the trigger while it was facing forwards, even with the maximum distance away from the airboat that it takes to be able to get inside, there was not enough room to avoid setting off the trigger. When I found how the sections of the airboat that set off triggers were divided, the solution was simple; turn the airboat around! And that's my story. Say, are you still reading this? A golden sticker for you!
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d1_canals_11
============
Q.) I just saw him go through a WALL. I'm scared. Hold me :(
A.) Look, we haven't killed him...yet...so he's not a ghost. This is the second example of "enterclipping" found in the HL2DQ Tricks text. How convienent that it looks like Gordon fit through that tiny hole in the wall, though.
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d1_canals_13
============
Q.) Hmm, he flew straight up. I thought flying was repeatedly jumping off of an object?
A.) I told you flying was complicated. "Climbing" is just one of several techniques available with flying, as detailed in the HL2DQ Tricks section.
=========
d1_eli_02
=========
Q.) Why did you throw every single item on the board off the map? What are you, obsessive compulsive?
A.) No way. What I was doing was getting rid of anything Dog will get distracted by when I took his toy away. If you take away his toy of the moment, he immediately finds something else on the map to throw around. If he has nothing else to distract himself with, you're able to throw the only toy left on the map to wherever you want, and get Dog to follow. Once the time limit was almost up, I grabbed the toy Dog was playing with and threw it near the dumpster, so when he had to run to the dumpster on the next part he wouldn't have far to go. I'm smart like that. Also, I did it so the voices would stop bugging me.
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d1_town_01a
===========
Q.) What health does he grab at the beginning of the map? I can't find any there.
A.) If a health kit (or any pickup item for that matter) is close enough to the wall, it's possible to pick it up from the other side.
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d1_town_02
==========
Q.) How does he climb the wall so fast with a cinderblock? I read in the HL2DQ Tricks text that an object had to be cylindrical to wallclimb with it.
A.) If you were paying attention to the text you would have noticed bandit5k's alternative method for wallclimbing, discovered on this very map.
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d1_town_04
==========
Q.) How did he fall all the way down that mine shaft without losing health?
A.) He lands on the side of the barrel at the perfect angle, sloping off of the edge and saving his life. This was a very random and difficult trick to do, as hitting the barrel just right is hard enough, let alone hoping that the barrel doesn't bounce or roll away once it hits the ground.
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d2_coast_01
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Q.) WTF! He bounced on a barrel and flew across the freaking map! Last I checked the rubber content of a metal barrel was somewhere between 0 and -1 percent.
A.) This is called "stuckjumping" and is described in the HL2DQ Trick text.
---
Q.) OK, now he hit the ground after a 70 foot drop and took no damage at all. What is the ground made of in this game, cotton candy and baby's breath?
A.) The small section of ground he landed on was sloped just right to "absorb" any impact he would have gained otherwise. This was mostly a matter of luck. Ask me a question like this again and I'll break both of your legs.
---
Q.) How does he go careening over the hill then?
A.) This is called "collision boosting" and is described in the HL2DQ Tricks text.
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d2_coast_05
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Q.) So Gordon can just pop into the air at random now? Does the HEV suit come with springs on the feet in this game?
A.) The first jump is thanks to an antsy rollermine popping out of the ground at the exact moment Gordon passes over it. The second is simply a collision boost against part of the bridge railing.
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d2_coast_09
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Q.) Gordon passes right through that police barricade, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't obeying traffic laws either.
A.) He duckjumps over it, not through it, and for once I think I agree with you.
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d2_coast_10
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Q.) How did he survive the fall off the cliff? He had 8 health... No uh wait, I mean it was a sloped surface, PLEASE DONT HURT ME! :( :( :(
A.) Actually this time the answer is slightly different. See Gordon's suit power go down as he scrambled along the cliff wall? If you sprint against a sloped surface, you can slow your descent and save yourself the pain of broken legs. Both of them. You heard me.
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d2_coast_11
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Q.) Wait wait, don't tell me. It's a gravity jump, and you can find it in the HL2DQ Tricks text. Great. But how does he go so high?
A.) Well it was just a great gravity jump to begin with, but what you don't see very clearly between segments is that he careens off of the top of the hill to the left for extra height, then uses his horizontal velocity plus the sprint button to slide up the niche in the terrain.
---
Q.) And uh, that fall at the end there. Sloped surface...? *cowers*
A.) He survives by landing between two pieces of terrain that are too close together for Gordon to pass through and hit the floor, or something like that. There are some spots that you can fall between if they're tight enough that restrict all movement but ducking until you eventually slide free, but that also manage to remove all fall damage no matter what the height. Luckily the spot was small enough that after one crouch I was no longer stuck.
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d2_prison_01
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Q.) Why is he shooting random rockets and mortars at nothing? Is he easily frightened?
A.) Of course he is, why else would he be running away from all the bad guys? However, if the final video ended up re-cammed in this area, you wouldn't be asking this question. I haven't seen the video yet though. In fact, I haven't even played the game. I just make stuff up and apparently, you read it. In any case, I'll answer this one by saying that he actually DOES hit the gunship, but it is either behind a building or off-camera for those two shots. Satisfied?
---
Q.) Gordon never even killed the second gunship, so why did it blast open the wall?
A.) Maybe it just felt like being nice? It only takes 4 hits on the second gunship, after the first is destroyed, to open the wall. Don't ask me why. We don't make the game, we just destroy it.
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d2_prison_02
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Q.) How does he blast through that little nook in the beginning like that? When I duck I move so slow...
A.) It's called "crawljumping" and it is described in the HL2DQ Trick text.
---
Q.) Well then how does he slide so fast through the ripped gate? He's not jumping there.
A.) It's called "speedcrawling" and it is described in the HL2DQ Trick text. Aren't you getting sick of hearing this?
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d2_prison_03
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Q.) The gate opens but he never goes upstairs and presses it. Am I missing something?
A.) You're able to "use" items through walls in Half Life 2, including buttons, if you're close enough.
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d2_prison_06
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Q.) Why does Alyx teleport at the beginning of this map if he never "teleports" her?
A.) But he does, only in a different way. He places the ammo box where Alyx lands, so when she later tries to move, there is already an obstruction in the way and she automatically teleports to her destination. What did you think that crate was doing there, keeping her feet warm?
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d2_prison_07
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Q.) Apparently Gordon has the mentality of a three year old, because every time I see him in a speed-run, he's carving something moronic on the walls. Has he lost his mind?
A.) Gordon is mute, and he's always looking for creative ways to express himself. Like beating his name into a wall, for example. The crowbar is his brush and the world is his canvas, and if you don't keep your mouth shut about it you just might find "GORDON WAS HERE LOL" written in skull fractures across your forehead.
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d3_c17_02
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Q.) Nova Prospekt must have scared the wits out of Gordon, he can't even get up the nerve to raise his gun!
A.) It wasn't really Nova Prospekt, Gordon is just a sissy in general. Just look at the guy, he's got big ol' black wireframe glasses that just screams "emo".
Since I'm sure your just about sick of sarcastic answers though, here's the real scoop. Gordon's gun automatically lowers for all of d3_c17_01, as it is a dialogue sequence. Normally, after you leave the laboratory and the door closes behind you, the gun snaps back into "ready" mode. Unfortunately, we left the map too fast for the gun to fix itself. Ah, the trials of speedrunning.
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d3_c17_03
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Q.) So he gets to the big metal barrier and then, well, I don't get the relationship between big explosions and jumping higher. Any help?
A.) It's called "impact boosting" and you can find it in the... Actually, I'll let you figure this one out for yourself.
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d3_c17_06b
==========
Q.) When he is flying on that little piece of wood, where exactly does he go? I've looked for a window there but haven't found one.
A.) That's because it's hidden. Don't ask me why, but until you go through it the window looks dark and static, like every other "window" on the building.
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d3_c17_09
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Q.) HEY! What's Alyx doing at the beginning of this level? She's not supposed to be there!
A.) Did you ever stop to think that maybe the problem isn't with the level, but with your face? Alyx just doesn't like you. We also suspect that Alyx joins your party in this level because we left her still a part of our party two maps before this one, and she never had the chance to leave.
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d3_c17_10a
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Q.) What exactly is that giant black pistol you picked up out of that bloody mess?
A.) That bloody mess was Alyx, not looking her best. Sadly, the gunship murdered her before she ever made it up the stairs. Don't feel bad, she was just a tease anyway, but look at the sweet gun she drops! It's pretty much just a rapid fire pistol, but it looks nice. Finders keepers.
==========
d3_c17_10b
==========
Q.) At the end of the map, Gordon launches himself to the top of the stairwell with an energy orb? How?
A.) This is called "orbjumping" and can be read about in the HL2DQ Tricks text.
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d3_c17_13
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Q.) So now Gordon can fall straight out of the sky on to a paved road and STILL take no damage? Maybe the CEMENT broke his fall.
A.) Well technically, Gordon was never actually falling for most of the object's descent. See "freefalling" in the HL2DQ Trick text to understand why.
---
Q.) HEEEY, you skipped the strider battle! Don't you kill ANYTHING in this run?!
A.) Not when we can avoid it, unless they die a funny, gurgly death. There are two triggers of interest at the end of the level. One that spawns Dog and Barney, and another that spawns the combine. To make Dog open the barrier, all the combine need to be dead. However, the trigger that spawns the combine never actually spawn the combine UNLESS the correct striders are destroyed. I found how to get around this quite by accident, but this is how it works. The combine are able to be killed early, but in the event that you refuse to do anything, they have a set amount of time to live before Dog takes care of them himself. If you hit the combine trigger and wait around this amount of time (approximately 9-10 seconds), THEN hit the trigger that spawns Dog, the combine timer has already ended and Dog assumes them to be dead. He will then open the barrier, effectively skipping the strider battle.
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d3_citadel_01
=============
Q.) What's going on at the end there? I can't make out what's happening.
A.) That's because there is a trigger you have to pass at the end which calls the "fadeout" command; very annoying. The whole point of this procedure lies in the trick itself. You might notice that I end up OUTSIDE of the container on the next map. I found that if you enter the loading trigger on this map while carrying an object with the gravity gun, it forces you outside of the container, opening up the possibility of flying through the level and saving a lot of time. The only trouble was finding a method of touching the loading trigger, which is over your head and beyond the blinding fadeout trigger, while holding something with the gravity gun. I finally managed to prop the wood against the wall under the trigger, jump on to and off of the wood, then as I began my ascent (on a small jump, the trigger isn't that far above your head), I grabbed the object with the gravity gun before I hit the trigger. Problem solved.
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d3_citadel_02
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Q.) How did you avoid falling to your death?
A.) We found that if you ducked while the object was underneath you and being held with the gravity gun, you will slide backwards along the wood. If this was done just as the wood was close to touching the ground, you were able to use the wood as a safetly slope much like the other damage-less landings.
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d3_citadel_03
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Q.) How did you manage to keep your weapons?
A.) Since you are supposed to be in the center of the room at this point if you were dumped off by the container, the programmers didn't count on someone being right at the boundary where guns can be taken back into inventory. If you stand close enough to the forcefield as your guns are floating in the air, you're able to take all of them back again. Usually the device still manages to suck them out of your hands and make them useless, but sometimes, most likely a direct result of firing your weapon at the right time, the device fails to take them from you and you get all your weapons back.
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d3_citadel_05
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Q.) Why did you go in the container all the way across the room? Why not the first container? Was it dirty?
A.) It's pretty self-evident I jump into the far container because it's closer to my final destination than the beginning container.
---
Q.) Why are you facing the wrong way the entire ride?
A.) It's a demo recording bug.
===========
d3_breen_01
===========
Q.) Holy crap, how did Breen die so fast?!
A.) Listen, Breen was old. Let it go.
P.S. If you hit the core three times with an energy orb, Breen dies.
Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Using the sprinting ability to travel faster in and under water.
Explanation
-----------
If you hold the sprint button before you enter the water, you are able to keep your sprint even while underwater, until your suit power runs out.
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Speed Crawling
==============
Team Discoverer: DaleLewill
Description: Using the sprinting ability to travel faster while crawling.
Explanation
-----------
If you hold the sprint button before you enter a crawl, you are able to crawl at faster speeds until your suit power runs out.
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Bunny Hopping
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Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Jumping continuously at accelerating speeds.
Explanation
-----------
Jump while moving forwards, then jump again as soon as you hit the ground. If your timing is right, you'll gain speed. Continue doing this upon each successive jump.
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Crawl Jumping
=============
Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Jumping continuously while ducking to slowly decrease speed or speed through very small corridors.
Explanation
-----------
Identical to bunnyhopping, but while holding the duck key. This does not keep, let alone gain, your previous speed as bunnyhopping does, and in fact it deplenishes your speed fairly slowly. However, it can take you through tight corridors like vents much faster than you ever could speed crawling, provided you have the speed to begin with, and there are no turns.
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Circle Jumping
============
Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Jumping further than normal from a standstill.
Explanation
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The idea behind this is to increase your forward velocity both by sprinting and by using extra speed provided by strafing. Turn left or right from the direction you want to jump towards, and then hold in the strafe key that will now take you in the direction you originally wanted to go. At the same time, hold in the sprint and forward keys. After about a fraction of a second, quickly turn back toward the intended direction and jump.
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Collision Boosting
==================
Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Using speed and the slope of objects/terrain to propel yourself over and past obstacles.
Explanation
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Simply charge full speed into an object or terrain. With enough speed, you can use just about anything solid to collision boost off of. However, the best objects are slanted much like a ramp. The height and distance you get from it depends on the slope of the object.
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Dale Jumping
============
Team Discoverer: DaleLewill
Description: Transportable collision boosting.
Explanation
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Carrying an object while bhopping, preferably something sloped like a barrel sideways, then dropping or throwing it at your feet at just the right time so you collide into the top edge of the object and achieve a collision boost.
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Impact Boosting
===============
Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Dramatically increasing velocity and/or height with the power of explosive weapons.
Explanation
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Take out a weapon that explodes, and fire it at the ground while running/jumping in the intended direction. If it is a grenade, make sure it is behind you, and wait until it explodes before moving away from it for maximum effect.
===============
Gravity Jumping
===============
Team Discoverer: Many
Description: Using the gravity gun to boost yourself vertically.
Explanation
-----------
The simplest way to perform this trick is to stand on object, preferably flat, crouch, look down, and shoot the gravity gun's primary fire at the object. The object will rebound off the ground and throw you into the air. The height it gives you depends on the weight, area, your location on the object, and other such properties of the object. This can be done without crouching, and sometimes it helps to jump just as the object is rebounding off the ground for extra height, although this may end up stifling your jump instead.
========================
Advanced Gravity Jumping
========================
Team Discoverer: Max]I[muS-X
Description: Gravity jumping with the additional aid of more complex physics manipulation.
Explanation
-----------
Same concept as gravity jumping, but simply more complex in it's use of physics to gain height. For example, some objects can be tilted off their axis by duckjumping on top of the edge of them, after which they quickly return to their initial state. You can use the added force of the object's edge trying to push itself up, on top of the rebounding effect from the gravjump, to propel yourself to even higher heights.
Other examples, such as gaining massive height from a gravjump off the airboat, involve standing on the edge of a bulky object, then firing the gravity gun at it sideways, so that the object is thrown perpendicular to the ground, simultaneously throwing the edge with you on it upwards violently.
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Ladder Jumping
==============
Team Discoverer: Pincus
Description: Climbing ladders at extremely fast speeds.
Explanation
-----------
For reasons not altogether understood by myself, if repeatedly jump and crouch while on a ladder, it sends you hurtling up it. That's about it for this one.
======
Flying
======
Team Discoverer: DemonStrate
Description: Using HL2's physics against itself to repeatedly jump off objects and simulate flight.
Explanation
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When you hold an object underneath yourself, you end up standing on it. After about a second of this the game automatically makes you let go of the item. However, if you stand on an object while still holding it, and then immediately jump, you will jump off the object and the object will follow you to your new height. If you repeatedly do this, you will continue to gain height. With most objects holding in the forward button helps, as it maintains your place on the object, whereas otherwise it starts to come out from under you. Flat objects with a good amount of room for standing are easiest to fly with.
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Flying (Climbing)
=================
Team Discoverer: Lonerville
Description: Flying in such a way that you gain height and distance rapidly.
Explanation
-----------
Normally if you hold in forward while flying without letting go for a certain amount of time, eventually you'll end up gaining too much speed and flying off and past the object. However, if the object is slanted in front of you just right, you are repeatedly jumping forward off and INTO the object, therefore you are not only kept from flying off the end, but you jump more rapidly, as you land on the object faster. This makes for a sharper climb in height and better speed.
================
Flying (Sailing)
================
Team Discoverer: Lonerville
Description: Using the crouch key while flying to descend or maintain a certain height.
Explanation
-----------
If you simply stop bhopping while flying on an object, since you are standing on the edge, either the object will tip and not fall, or it will fall out from under you and prevent you from flying further. However if you crouch while flying on an object, and the object is held close enough that you crouch on it and not behind it, you stop bhopping and start to lose height. As long as you don't stay too long in this state, you are able to start flying again. This can be used to descend, to maintain a certain height, or to keep yourself from flying off the end of an object.
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Flying (Hovering)
=================
Team Discoverer: Lonerville
Description: Staying in one place while midair, using an object.
Explanation
-----------
This trick can be achieved in two ways. One is simply to take a long flat object and fly without moving forwards. Eventually the object will slant enough that you are barely standing on it, balancing the jumping and falling enough that you won't gain any height. If the object has enough surface area, you're generally also able to teeter around the back edges, causing the object to try to adjust itself and remain in air.
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Wallclimbing
============
Team Discoverer: Max]I[muS-X
Description: Using small and/or cylindrical objects to fluidly "roll" up a wall.
Explanation
-----------
This trick is essentially the same concept as flying, but it is faster for gaining height than climbing while flying and can be done with small objects. Cylindrical objects work best and are preferred with this trick. The standard method of wallclimbing is to hold the object with the cylindrical, curved part of the surface facing the wall (this usually means holding the object sideways) at chest level, then to move toward the wall, and just as the object touches, to quickly jump forward and lower the object. If done right, instead of bumping up the wall as normal flying will do in this situation, you will fluidly "roll" up the wall.
Another method to use if the object is not cylindrical, as bandit5k discovered, is to jump over the object and shoot it with the gravity gun, giving it vertical velocity, then grabbing and bunnyhopping on the object up the wall.
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Staircasing
============
Team Discoverer: Lonerville?
Description: Using an object while midair to lower yourself to the ground like a series of stepping stones.
Explanation
-----------
If you stand on the back edge of a flat object with sufficient surface area while midair, without jumping, the object will slant underneath you and you will begin to fall. However, since the object is slanted you will land on it at regular intervals, therefore slowing lowering you to the ground without damage.
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Free Falling
============
Team Discoverer: DaleLewill
Description: Falling while balanced on an object and landing without recieving any damage.
Explanation
-----------
If you stop flying while midair on an object with enough surface area (usually better if it is long) and balance yourself in the middle, both you and the object will drop at the same rate. Since your gravity in HL2 is not relative to the "earth" but to any surface beneath you, you do not receieve fall damage once your object hits the ground. It is possible that your object may break, however.
===================
Object Acceleration
===================
Team Discoverer: Lonerville?
Description: Using the same method as flying to accelerate horizontally.
Explanation
-----------
While flying, jumping occurs much more frequently as the "ground" you are standing on is constantly being pulled up to the same level as your feet. Consequently, you can fly while moving forward (from a standstill) to build up speed with bunnyhops faster, then duck and pull the object out from under you to resume bunnyhopping normally. This is only good for gaining speed for the first few seconds, before bunnyhopping normally would have been faster.
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Super Turbo Up
==============
Team Discoverer: Lonerville
Description: Using a special falling collision with a falling object to propel yourself vertically.
Explanation
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The reasons as to why this trick works is not understood. If you are climbing with an object, it is possible to "slide" past it by making yourself unstable, either naturally or using the strafe keys, resulting in both you and the object to begin falling at different angles and speeds. After doing so, although it is very rare, there is a chance that the angles of both you and the object you were flying on will intersect, and the object will touch you in such a way that for some reason, your character boosts upwards to significant heights.
This has only been done with a pallet so far, and upon collision, the pallet has been upright.
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Orb Jumping
===========
Team Discoverer: suga
Description: Using the force of a collision between an object and an energy orb to dramatically increase player velocity.
Explanation
-----------
Although orbjumping has been known throught the HL2DM community for some time, this specific single-player rendition of a jump using energy orbs was first performed by suga, as inspired by a video called "Josh2High". The method involves first standing on a part of an object, where ideally the part of the object has small surface area but the object itself is large and heavy. Grab an energy orb with the gravity gun, and fire it at the object in such a way that the part of the object you are standing on is launched in the intended direction.
Alternatively, as demonstrated by Chib, you are also able to boost off of an enemy elite's energy orb, if you collide with it at the right angle.
==================
Brute Acceleration
==================
Team Discoverer: Max]I[muS-X
Description: Using the complicated properties of in-game models to launch yourself at tremendous horizontal speeds from a standstill.
Explanation
-----------
This works best with a small object with a complicated model, such as a piece of a broken bottle. If you duckjump on top of the object and stay there for half a second, then try to jump, you may find you are stuck either under or in one of the jagged edges of the object. However, you are able to move fractions of an inch in your intended direction. Using this technique, you can jump fast and repeatedly with virtually no time taken to land back on the ground. What this results in is the added velocity of many bunnyhops in a very short amount of time.
Once you "jump" far enough away from the object that you are "released", release the duck button and resume bunnyhopping with the additional velocity. As a side note, sometimes you may be "crushed" doing this trick, either because you clipped the object or a part of you was trapped between the object and the ground.
===============
Brute Launching
===============
Team Discoverer: Max]I[muS-X
Description: Using a similar concept as brute acceleration to launch the player vertically.
Explanation
-----------
When flying with an object, if you collide into a surface such that the bottom of the object is pressed up against the surface, there is a chance that for a short period of time both player and object will be stuck in that position without falling. In this position, the player is keeping the board against the wall, but some as of yet unknown dynamic is holding the player to the board/wall. It is believed that the player model is fighting to release itself from this adhesive force in the general direction of the velocity it was previously travelling in. When it is finally freed, it's fight with the board has amplified it's previous velocity in much the same fashion as brute acceleration. The result, if applied vertically, is the player is launched into the air.
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Stuck Jumping
=============
Team Discoverer: Pincus
Description: Using the game's clip prevention techniques against itself to transfer large amounts of force to the player.
Explanation
-----------
In the unlikely event that a solid object passes through another solid object in the world, the game automatically tries to push the objects out of each other with tremendous force. The object continues to push until it is freed from it's faulty position. This is why you are sometimes "crushed" when accidentally clipping inside of objects while doing seemingly innocent things in the game.
To take advantage of this, it is possible to use forced animations, such as the closing of a door, the raising of a ramp, etc. to trap objects inside of the animated object, and deform both the physics of both objects. If the animated object isn't necessarily an object, such as a door, then only the regular object's physics will be deformed. When an object's physics are "deformed", it is holding large amounts of energy trying to push itself out, which can be transferred to the player when you touch it. For optimal height versus distance, it is best to duckjump into the diagonal of the object. Forces depend on both the size and shape of the object you are touching, as well as the way you touch it.
==============
Gravity Flying
==============
Team Discoverer: Max]I[muS-X
Description: Using objects held with the gravity gun to simulate flying using alternate methods.
Explanation
-----------
So far this has only been done with one object, but there are others which potentially can achieve the same result. The object which was used was the holding container for prisoners in the citadel, found hanging high above at the beginning of citadel_03 and able to be grabbed with the super gravity gun. If you lay it on it's back, stand a little away from it on the end that resembles pincers, and grab it with the gravity gun, you will find that the distance the object is held away from you is far too short on this end of the object. It cannot penetrate you, so it scrambles wildly around your body as you continue to hold it, trying to find a stable place to rest (inside of you), and finding none.
It is very random, but it is possible to lower the object below you as it is doing this, and if you are lucky, it will be twisted below you in such a way that it's movements pull itself up. This action combined with very fast and repetitive jumping allow for essentially the same concept as flying, but far more limited. Because the object is constantly trying to adjust it's position while beneath you, you do not automatically let go of the object even though you are occasionally standing on it, as you normally would. It's benefits are that it is able to climb in a straight line, and at a faster rate than normal climbing with an object.
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Enter Clipping
==============
Team Discoverer: Max]I[muS-X
Description: Using the "entering" animation most common with vehicles to skip triggers and pass through walls.
Explanation
-----------
When you enter something, a vehicle for example, the player model is not actually passing through the area between yourself and the vehicle, but disappears, and is replaced by the model of the vehicle for the time you are using it. When it shows you entering the vehicle, it is only an animation, nothing more. For this reason it is possible to pass through triggers upon entering a vehicle, provided the width of the trigger is smaller than the maximum possible width between the player and the vehicle upon a successful "entering".
Using the exit animation, it is similarly possible to pass through walls, but this one is trickier. There are small areas surrounding the vehicle which are designated to be spots where the player is able to be exited, and are checked to make sure these places are clear before a player exits. If one of these places is blocked, it will force the player to exit into one of the other possible exit locations. If ALL the exits are blocked, it will not allow the player to exit until they are free. To trick the game into thinking an exit is free when it is not, it is possible to violently change the position of the airboat, usually via midair crash, upon exiting the vehicle near a wall. This is actually how I first accidentally discovered the glitch.
There are other, simpler ways to exit through a wall, but these are dependent on the area. For example, in some places the vehicle naturally thinks an exit is free, but it is only by strange design of that specific terrain, and you end up being partway inside of a wall, after which you are automatically and instantaneously pushed to the other side.
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Teleporting
===========
Team Discoverer: Lonerville
Description: Blinking an NPC straight to it's destination while it is in path mode.
Explanation
-----------
There are essentially three modes for an NPC to be in. We'll call them Stand Mode, Follow Mode, and Path Mode. The latter is the one we're interested in. This is the mode where an NPC is headed for a specific point on the map, and will continue to try to get there no matter what block it's path. For example, even if you completely block an NPC's path while it is in path mode, it may try to strafe around the objects for a few seconds, but it will eventually teleport on the other side or straight to it's intended point, depending on how long it was delayed.
Taking advantage of this knowledge, it has been found that holding or lowering an object over a "sweet" spot just above and in front of the NPC's head while they are in path mode, most easily when they have just begun moving, will trick the NPC into thinking there is no way around the object and instantly teleports the NPC to it's destination.
Best time, hard difficulty: 0:37:13 by Josh 'Inexistence' Peaker, James 'TYPICAL' Tooley, Jared 'CooL' O'Brien, cRZYFST, Foxtreme on 2010-03-09, done in 31 segments appended to one file.
Get Flash to see this player.
Author's comments:
From the Phase 1 time of 47:12, we have managed to save 11:41, to reduce the time down to 35:31. This run was done in 31 segments, 14 ones per map which were unavoidable, 17 extra segments. Through the run we've had some runners appear, some disappear, and a couple stick through the whole way, and I'm certain we've come together as a group to make this possible and I know it's been a fun, frustrating and worthwhile experience.
Here's a list of the tricks that appear in the run:
=============================================================
Bunnyhopping: Our main method of movement. Jumping as soon as you hit the floor and also holding forward, you can gain some crazy speed quite easily, though controlling it well takes a lot of practice
Wallclimbing: Jumping and pressing 'use' repeatedly to jump, drop an object, then pick it up again to boost you up, then repeating it. Our way of remaking flying from hl2, as Valve made it so that when you stand on an object, you are forced to drop it, and so we came up with this. It's possible to do it without being pressed against a wall with certain objects, as seen in ep1_c17_01_seg2, where we use the bin to do a roof transfer, but it's very difficult and only usable with some objects.
Wallstrafing: Rarely used, and mostly used in vents, so you don't notice it much. If you run against a wall at a certain angle, you can increase your speed a lot. Very useful for getting through vents faster and also just shaving off time in tight corridors where you can't bunnyhop.
Fast Rocketing: If you run out of rockets, so having your ammo as 0, if you hold down fire with the rocket launcher out and pick up a rocket, you'll fire it as soon as you pick it up. This means that as soon as you've fired your last rocket and it hits something, you can pick another one up and fire it instantly. VERY fast compared to picking a bunch up and firing one at a time.
Gravity Jumping: Standing on something and firing at it with the gravity gun, boosting you into the air or wherever you need to go.
Orb Jumping: Firing an orb at something and having it flip, such as a sheet of metal on an edge, with you standing on it, will send you high into the air if done right.
Speedcrawling: Holding sprint before crouching, and using the sprint while crawling to increase speed.
Collision Boosting: Using the impact of the geometry of the map to have the game send you into the air or in a different direction
Damage Boosting: Using the damage from things like a grenade or an smg mortar, and the fact that it pushes you away from it to gain speed or skip things.
Teleporting: Blocking an npc from moving by placing something in a certain spot above their head, making them assume there is no way around it, so they teleport to their next spot, shortening some scripted sequences.
Ladderjumping: Pressing duck and jump on a ladder repeatedly for some reason sends you up it very fast.
I think I may have missed a few there, but those are the ones I can remember, and if not, just pretend it's in there.
Analysis segment by segment:
Ep1_citadel_00
Phase 1 time: 07:56
Our time: 06:47
Notes: We didn't technically save as much time as it seems, as their demo started at a different time and it doesn't have time taken off for regaining control.
Segment 1 [02:48] [Inexistence]:
This map is awful. I hated this map. This first segment was fine, as all I had to do was escape the map and get the bike across to the other side. It didn't even need to be in the right position, as I could adjust it in the next segment. Really not much to this one, except I found later on, after we were about 75% done with the run, that we only need to start timing from when we gain control, which was 32 seconds into this demo, so that shortened our predicted time happily.
We tried lots of ways to break this map and get Alyx to get through it all quicker, but we could only do what you see. That's pretty much all for this segment.
Segment 2 [03:59] [Inexistence]:
Here's where it got frustrating. When we first began this map, I assumed that it was barely improvable from the Phase 1 demo and so I got an okay demo (Slower than the Phase 1 time by 3 seconds I believe) and said we'd move on the next day. However, thankfully DemonStrate stopped me and said we should be aiming to improve the Phase 1 time no matter what. So we stayed on it for 2 weeks I think, trying to improve it. We were aiming for one segment, but eventually decided to split it into two because it was just too difficult for one.
Right, to the skips we use. We originally just went through the map with no skips used at all. This obviously isn't that great, but we didn't know of any. Then it turned out that by doing some fancy jumping, you can get on the other side of the gunship before you're supposed to, which I do. It was then found, that at a certain point, you can run through a trigger, and Alyx will assume she has finished her speech and teleport to the other side of the gunship. If you go through the map normally, you don't notice this trigger and nothing happens. So we did that, which saved a fair bit of time. Then we found you can teleport Alyx at a particular point, which saves a couple of seconds. We figured we had wrung out all of the skips and shortcuts for the map at the point, until DemonStrate mentioned to us that he had something hilarious. If you put the bike that's in the earlier area underneath where Alyx lands when she drops down after the gunship, she falls through the floor and goes to the bottom of the map.
I tried it out, and at one point just tried going on with the map while she did it. Well, I was surprised when she glitched and stopped doing her scripted sequences like climbing down a ledge and crawling under objects, she just teleported from one side to the other, saving a hell of a lot of time. I think 13 seconds overall it saved. So then we had to do this, and combining all of these skips, we got a great time for the map, saving around 37 seconds from the Phase 1 I believe (Then another 32 seconds from the timing differences).
I originally got a time one second faster than this. However, when I opened console immediately after the next map loaded, and made a save file, something strange occurred. It seemed that the next map glitched and didn't execute a certain command, because we had saved before it had chance. And so the save file was unusable, meaning I had to rerun the segment again and again, and eventually came up with this time, which, while a second slower, was the closest I'd manage without going insane this early in the run.
So yeah, that's the map done. This was the first segment I went insane on, which I've done with a number of segments in the run, where, when I get the time I want, I end up screaming that we're moving on, as everyone else left the running to me as I was utterly determined to get the time.
Ep1_citadel_01
Phase 1 time: 02:56
Our time: 02:41
Segment 1 [crzyfst] [0:08]:
Ugh, what a pain this segment was considering its length of barely 8 seconds and its rather unspectacular look. I kid you not when I say that I tried the jump across the pit at least a thousand times. If you think it's easy to do, go ahead and do it cause the sad thing about this segment is that you'll only be able to appreciate the difficulty of it if you actually tried it yourself. Originally we had planned to go to the left of the yellow tube, however, I noticed that it should be possible to go to the right of it which should have made skipping the following trigger a bit easier. Unfortunately, I only managed this version of the jump twice, both times failing to skip the trigger and one time missing the jump into the tunnel at the end. We ended up using my second segment when we realised that skipping the trigger was to no real avail in the following segment.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [2:33]:
I don't really have much to say about this segment. Since crzyfst didn't skip the trigger in the previous segment, I assumed I'd have to slow down to let the combine soldier die before I could pass him, but I seemed to be able to just squeeze past. I could've wallstrafed against the wall at the start, but I didn't know of the trick at that point.
The bunnyhopping is pretty good here. I really don't think there's much else to say. I shouldn't have hit that wall after the bridge. Go into that room. Alyx talks. When my gravity gun gets messed up, we found that you could just pick it up, rather than waiting to be able to collect it, which let us finish the map a little quicker.
Ep1_citadel_02
Phase 1 time: 1:25
Our time: 1:13
Segment 1 [TYPICAL] [1:13]:
Back when I was doing this it seemed like a perfect time... I think less of it now because I wasn't too good at TSA's when we had just started running. Anyway, the way of doing this map the fastest is by getting Alyx to the end as quickly as possible. The best way to do this is by making sure that no combine get in her way.
You can see the first instance of this when I randomly jump off of the bridge. The reason I did this was to dodge the trigger that spawns combine. The next trigger can be avoided but it takes too long and it doesn't affect Alyx too much to really benefit from avoiding it. After that just hope that whatever did get in her way didn't hurt her too badly and hope that she opens the door quickly enough.
Ep1_citadel_02b
Phase 1 time: 1:58
Our time: 1:48
Segment 1 [Inexistence] [0:52]:
This segment wasn't that eventful really. We grab that sheet of metal for later, it's very important for the next map. Alyx seemed quite random with how quickly she wanted to walk onto the elevator, which is why it seems that I'm slow at the start of the segment, but it appeared that going a little slower let Alyx catch up and overall get on the elevator faster than if I just ran straight for it.
This segment isn't too hard. I wish I'd been able to get Alyx to step on the metal, as it sends her flying into the air for some reason, it's pretty cool.
Little note for this segment, for some reason the demo for it is a little weird and it carries on even when the segment itself is finished. The elevator doesn't move and nothing else happens, but sounds keep going and the timer on demoui keeps running, even though it's gone past the time it says. Oh well.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [0:56]:
This was the harder part of the map. Getting the orb into the generator quickly is difficult for some reason for me, and then the stalker knocks it out. I hate that I miss an orb, but it doesn't waste that much time, especially because this is a good segment for what happens after that. The stalker is only vulnerable after a certain point, so what you need to do is keep firing orbs into the generator, getting the elevator as low as you can when the stalker becomes vulnerable, then you hit him with an orb and get another one into the generator as soon as you can. I did this pretty well in this segment, and it got the time low enough to accept.
Take the metal for the next map, where it's very useful, grab health. And onto the next map.
We knew it was possible for this map to reach the bottom without the elevator. You can use the metal to reduce or remove fall damage if done right, or use the tubes at the side to make our way down, but Alyx was required to get to the next map, so we couldn't do that.
Ep1_citadel_03
Phase 1 time: 5:50
Our time: 4:45
Segment 1 [TYPICAL] [0:48]:
Killing the guards as fast as possible so that Alyx can do her thing is what affects the time at the beginning. After that getting above the elevator is the next thing. Gordon is only forced to drop objects that he's standing on. Since the metal sheet is slanted he's not standing on it but rather "surfing" on it if you will. For this reason he doesn't drop it but since he's pulling it up gains height with it. Going over that elevator can't be done too fast otherwise Alyx won't close the doors behind you (needs to happen.)
Segment 2 [crzyfst] [0:08]:
Another short segment for me that is basically based on trial & error although there were certain moves you could do that would work better than others. Basically, you fire the metal sheet into the elevator shaft, wait a second, and then just drop down yourself. If you're lucky you land on the sheet in a funny way that let's you not lose any health at all. From there, it's just picking the sheet up again with the gravity gun, waiting for the door to the citadel's core to open and placing the sheet right on the edge of the lower platform in preparation for the following orb jump. Weirdly enough, I had less problems with this segment than with my ep1_citadel_01 segment.
One thing we noticed later on is that if you drop down the elevator shaft before the door in the control room begins to close behind Alyx, the game simply becomes unbeatable because Alyx will freeze up once you did your business in the core and went back up to the control room. Fortunately, I realised this when I tried beating the map in one segment. This meant for me to go back to the elevator drop cause at that time I was the only one left even running the part. Eventually, I ended up with an equally good segment, despite the time I had to wait for Alyx to get into the room.
Segment 3 [Inexistence] [0:08]:
This segment was quite hard. Originally, we used the metal to orb jump up, and then just left it and didn't bring it with us to the next part. We'd grab an orb, run down the corridor, into the chamber and then activate the generator, then grab one of the monitors and use that for the next jump.
Then, one night crzyfst mentioned that we could bring the metal with us and use that for the next orb jump. So we used that, and quickly realised we didn't need to go into the chamber, and barely even the corridor. So we proceeded to constantly attempt this, also trying to lay the metal exactly on the edge after the jump, which is very hard to do.
So yeah, we'd pop into the corridor, take a shot, move out a little, stop the demo and make a save, then hope that the orb actually hit the generator and everything would work. At this point I had a terrible pc, and I could actually know when I hit the generator just because my pc lagged when it did hit, so I had an easier time of it.
Segment 4 [TYPICAL] [0:53]:
There is a lot of finicky movement in this segment which turns out to be my favourite kind of segment. Anyway, the orb jumps should really already be explained above me, there is room for improvement with the one that I got in the way that you can get really lucky and get a massive boost into that corridor but I wasn't so patient so I got the cheap one.
The other main factor to this is the orb catchers. Making sure that an orb is placed in them ASAP is the other major dictator in what time you can get from this segment. The reason that I don't go down into the pit where the orb catchers are is because if I do then one of the orbs will get released and I'll have to place another one into a catcher.
Segment 5 [TYPICAL] [2:48]:
I found this trick. Yeah... there's not much that can speed up this segment, mostly filled with story babble and me messing around. The main thing to note here is where I hit the combine soldiers right in the face! Not because it was fun but because they give us some tools which can greatly speed up later levels. Apart from that the only other factor in time is making sure that I don't screw the end up. Think I could have done a better job looking back at it now.
Ep1_citadel_04:
Phase 1 time: 3:05
Our time: 2:47
Segment 1 [crzyfst] [2:47]:
This turned out to be a very annoying segment as well, basically because it contained a lot of Alyx Vance doing stupid things. The first thing that can mess with your time is that Alyx might take ages to reach the room at the very end of the corridor if you step too far into it. Getting that part right took a couple of tries for me at least. Another sensitive part was getting Alyx to get as close to the terminal as possible so that she wouldn't have to walk such a long distance after her monologue ended. The rollermines would constantly block or disturb her in some way or another, so getting that right took some practicing as well. Sometimes she would also get blocked by the mines once you'd taken out all the combine which would immediately call for a restart. Speaking of which...
Killing the combine soldiers with only the rollermines was medium hard I guess. Sometimes the mines would jump in weird directions you wouldn't expect which would waste a lot of time sometimes. So I figured I'd sacrifice one of the orbs we just collected one map earlier to kill as many soldiers as possible and take out the remaining ones with the mines. Once that whole part was over the boring part began... Getting on the train, listening to more annoying monologues and eventually finding yourself in the train wreck. When the screen turned black I speed-crawled towards Alyx and started pushing the stalker off of her with the gravity gun. Once that was done, the only thing left to do was firing the gravity gun at the door a couple of times until it opened, getting out of the train and speed-crawling through the opening in the ground, straight into the next map.
Admittedly, this wasn't the hardest segment in the run but definitely a map with lots of opportunities to screw with your time... and temper. This was my last segment in the run. The last one I actually tried was ep1_c17_00a where I wanted to prove that grav-jumping off a stone right up to the top level of the garage would be faster than the route you see in the run. Obviously I was wrong.
Ep1_c17_00:
Phase 1 time: 3:13
Our time: 1:21
Segment 1 [TYPICAL] [0:24]:
This segment has a bit of history behind it for me. I'd just got back from a friends 18th and was pretty messed up. After some moping I went into chat and ran from like... 3AM to... 6AM trying to match Josh's time but end up with less health. I'm guessing that towards the end of the night the alcohol was wearing off because I was getting better and better till I beat his amount of health and suit. Looking back that was one of my favourite segments simply because of the company and that I BEAT YOU JOSH HA!
Anyway I use the grenade i stole from the guards in the citadel to jump over the barrier to get away from that awful smell that the girl was waving around. With the use of some speed crawling and jumping when the vent tilts upward (gains speed because of the slant above Gordon's head) I could get through the vents fairly quickly and find Alyx waiting for me on the other side.
Segment 2 [TYPICAL] [0:57]:
This segment used the "Purple Bug". This is a trick that I found which makes reflective textures purple. This may sound like a hindrance but when you're wandering through a pitch black area... you can see a lot more than nothing. By doing this I could see tons of stuff while in the dark which really helped me move around while doing this segment. Things to note here are the wall climb over the combine train, running around in the dark and extreme bunny hopping.
Ep1_c17_00a:
Phase 1 time: 3:06
Our time: 3:03
Segment 1 [CooL] [0:28]:
This segment wasn't as bad as some of the others, all I was required to do was bunnyhop down the corridor, do a gravity jump to get to the top of the parking garage, and then start turning the wheel as soon as I had reached the top. I was doing this map along with Typical and cRZYFST, things did get pretty competitive, but I managed to come out with 28 seconds.
Segment 2 [TYPICAL] [2:35]:
I really don't like this segment because it's long and there are some pretty tricky bits at the beginning. The explosive container is necessary because there is a regular zombie that blocks the door otherwise and takes ages to get rid of with any other method. The next trick is wall climbing over the fence with that chair. This simply saves me having to go all the way around the fence to get to that door and cuts off a couple of seconds. Sadly I run into a barrel but the part after went so well that I just kept the segment. After that it's just hitting the switch that starts the wait which is pretty hard to do quickly since taking damage makes use "un-usable".
After that I need to survive two minutes while taking an explosive barrel into the elevator. I use a god spot which is close to the elevator and hope that Alyx doesn't get gimped while I wait. The explosive barrel is to be used later in the game. Watch very carefully and you'll see a fast zombie on fire jump past me a few times.
Ep1_c17_01:
Phase 1 time: 3:22
Our time: 1:54
Segment 1 [Inexistence] [0:42]:
This is the second segment in the run that drove me insane. We originally didn't plan for the barrel from the previous level, but Typical had thought of that while he ran it, so we had it to use. Not getting hurt by the barrel exploding isn't too hard, nor is running and opening the gate just enough to get the valve out. Sometimes it's hard to get the valve actually out, I used a method of pressing secondary fire a lot of times, which would remove any debris from around the valve, so I didn't pick up broken pieces of crates instead of the valve.
It's possible to get to Alyx quicker, so she doesn't even manage to get into her talk, but I only got that a few times, and it's only a second difference or so and needs real luck, and along with everything else expected in this segment, not worth trying to get every time.
Pretty easy getting to the combine. Sometimes I'd mess up getting through the gap or punting the crate too late, but generally easy enough. Now, the next part. What you have to do is kill the combine as fast as possible, which will let us get to the next area. Since we don't really have any guns at this point, apart from the pulse rifle, which isn't fast enough, we have to make do. Originally, we didn't throw the dustbin across, and just went slightly off-course later to pick another one up, but this one was far more convenient and faster.
At one point I began to use the gas cylinder and set one of the combine on fire, so I could just kill three and the other would die, but he was taking longer than it'd take me to kill all four, so I stopped using it, as it was just adding difficulty. I'm embarrassed about the miss on the combine, but I'd been running this for days when I managed this demo, and it was the time I was aiming for and very very difficult.
Earlier on in running this, I managed to get a time of 44 seconds, which we actually thought was almost impossible to beat, because as I was bunnyhopping past the antlions, they both hit me in the back and it gave me some extra speed. However, I found that just from improving at running it, I was getting matching times of that, so I knew we could get lower. The wallclimb was the thing that really cinched it for me. I found it was very hard to get a fast wallclimb with the bin, but I remembered that the more speed you go into the wallclimb with, the faster it is generally. So I took the corner very wide and came at it with a lot of speed, which let me get the wallclimb far faster, and get the 42 seconds I was aiming for.
I was very frustrated with this segment at that point and knew it was the best I'd get and I was very happy with it.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [1:12]:
This segment was irritating. The roof transfer was quite difficult to manage, but not too bad. I originally lowered myself down gently from the roof, which took a lot more time than just the brutal jump down here, but the crates will change their contents to give more health when it's needed, so it all works out fine. I have to go to the door to activate the trigger so that Alyx can arrive and everything. That collision boost is quite hard to get, so it added a lot of retries to the run. I'm not too happy with how I did with killing the combine and those antlions.
The best case scenario with Alyx is that you kill the antlions before she tries to shoot them, and she just runs straight to the console. That obviously didn't happen in this run. For some reason though, sometimes the antlions all just die and Alyx starts walking to you for the next scene. That happened in this situation, which is why I got the best time for this segment. I was very lucky. The teleport on Alyx wasn't too great, but it was okay. That's it for this segment and this map!
Ep1_c17_02
Phase 1 time: 2:16
Our time: 1:14
Segment 1 [TYPICAL] [0:41]:
I love this segment. There are just so... many interesting things. Anyway, I prove that it's possible to get through most of the game without the shotgun by killing all of the guards with an empty gasoline can. In the dead time where Alyx talks about... stuff, I suit up and get full health for the road ahead. After the guards open the doors I get outside as fast as possible and wall climb over the barrier which stops you from progressing through the game. I jump straight off the building and through the hole because we don't need much health for the following segments. It is possible to get down from there without taking any damage. There are multiple ways in fact, it's just that speed is the main objective here.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [0:33]:
This segment was quite hard just because of how cramped the whole thing was. The speedcrawling at the start was easy enough. What you don't notice is that I am also wallstrafing, which is putting me just a little below regular walking speed, which is great considering where crawling through a vent. So yeah, I do that and then run out of sprint, so I begin jumping constantly in the vent to keep my previous speed as much as I can.
In the phase 1 demo a lot of time was wasted her being careful around the barrels. I just braved it and jumped over them. Teasing out the elevator to fall can be hard sometimes, and I got a little caught by it, but not enough to really lose any noticeable time.
Ladderclimb up the ladder and then into the next vent. Wallstrafe and speedcrawl through there as well, and then into the next room. I previously waited for all of the barrels to explode before dropping down, but I realised that to get a better time I needed to drop down before the last one exploded, so I did that and managed to not die.
Overall, a good, fast segment that I'm happy with.
Ep1_c17_02b
Phase 1 time: 0:26
Our time: 0:17
Notes: Yes, this map is before c17_02a. Silly Valve
Segment 1 [Inexistence] [0:11]:
This is the segment I am most proud of in this run. I originally had a time of 16 seconds for this segment, then I managed to squeeze it down to 13. At this point, I considered it close to optimal, but figured I'd be able to get it down well enough to get to 12. Actually, I'd best talk about what happened in this segment before.
In the Phase 1 run, he already had two smg mortars, and one is needed for the next segment. So he shot the explosive barrel when it appeared, then used an smg nade to get the plug almost every time. However, we didn't have those, as for the Phase 1 run they used the "map" console command, which gives you standard weapons. We had no smg nades, but you can find one in the crates in this segment. So we realised we'd have to just shoot the plug. It's a very exact shot, and we just had to hope that the smg would actually hit the plug. We originally went with shooting the barrel, then the plug.
Using this strategy, I managed to finally squeeze my time down to 12 seconds. I was very proud, but to my horror, I realised that after a while I could get 12 semi-consistently and 11 was possible. I even did timescale practices, where I slow down the game to play it, and I never managed an 11 second one. But I tried. Over and over. I found tiny, partial-second improvements. I used a wallstrafe at the very beginning of the map, which saved maybe 0.1 seconds. Tiny, tiny things like that. I did it so much that I could probably do it eyes closed, just because of the muscle memory of doing it.
Then I realised that I didn't need to shoot the barrel at all, I could just shoot the plug directly. That saved enough time to get my time down to 12.0 ? 12.1 seconds. And just from trying over and over, thousands of times I'm sure, I did it. I got 11.9 seconds. The demo is actually shown as 1 tick before it turned 12. There are 66.666 ticks in a second, and I was one tick under being 12 seconds. I was so proud of my 11 seconds, and I don't believe this demo can be improved more than 5 or 6 ticks.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [0:06]:
This segment also sent me mildly crazy. In the Phase 1 demo, suga bunnyhop'd down the street a little, and did a mortar jump against a lorry. It was fast, and I was amazed by it, but then I discovered this method. I saw the slanted rock, and figured that with enough speed, it would send me up onto the ledge I needed to get on. It felt a lot like my Team Fortress 2 experience with rocketjumping, where you would rocketjump sideways off walls to get a lot of speed, so I did it with the mortar, and I hit the ramp and it sent me flying. I didn't reach it first time of course, but I knew it was possible.
I spent hours running this, almost as much as the first segment. Approximately every 20 minutes or so I'd actually reach the ledge I needed, at which point I'd have to headshot an invisible, unspawned combine to get past him and get to the end of the map. I did this over and over, getting my time down from 9 seconds to 6. I was very happy with this time. Then I realised that we needed a shotgun for the next map. The combine next to the one I originally killed had a shotgun. So I had to run it again. More hours put into it, again and again. It was very hard to shoot the head of something I couldn't see. Then I realised that even when I killed him, just walking over the shotgun wouldn't pick it up instantly for some reason.
So I had to look down and press use to pick it up. More hours. Eventually I managed it, 6 seconds, with a shotgun, and everything looked fine. Another segment I went insane over.
Ep1_c17_02a
Phase 1 time: 4:12
Our time: 1:56
Segment 1 [Inexistence] [1:12]:
This segments annoyed me. It was fair enough with the killing combine, but the gunship was so goddamn random. The combine were taken out with the orb mainly, some with shotgun too. You see I missed the shot on the crate, which is just one of a few missed shots that lost no time in the segment.
Typical timed it and found out that it's faster to shoot a rocket, switch weapons and switch back, then fire again, than it is to just wait for the rocket launcher to reload, so we use that in this. Also, we can use fast rocketing when we're out of rockets and getting more from the crate. As you can see, I manipulated the gunship through sheer luck to always stay in the right position so I could hit it. That's the fastest routine I could get it to follow and it happened maybe 1 in 40 or so attempts, which, when trying to get everything else right, made it very hard.
But yeah, very fast gunship fast, then I mess up on the combine by missing shots a lot, but it makes little difference in the end, so it's all good.
I found the timing for the grenade at the end quite hard to get right for some reason. It is relatively simple. But it worked in the end anyway. I'm not insanely happy with this segment due to a lot of missed shots, but it's definitely very fast.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [0:26]:
This segment took a long time. We all contested for this a lot, there were a lot of fancy tricks we had planned, but it turned out that the fastest method was a much simpler way. Just so you know, the teleport on Alyx at the start doesn't speed anything up, it was just easy and looked cool.
We originally, after killing the combine with the hopper, planned to do a mortar jump down this corridor. It turned out that while it may seem faster, it's actually faster to be more in control and just bunnyhop down there. While flying through the air, aiming the orb to kill those zombies right is very hard. So we removed that trick, and then we were going to use the orb that the elite combine fire and boost off of that to go down the corridor quicker. Much too hard, and barely useful, along with the health we lost from it too.
For some reason, for that door, you have to walk a little past it to be able to open it, which is why I do so, then get lucky to be able to get through the zombies. Originally we were going to grab the bedside cabinet at the side for the next segment, but instead I found we can use a bench for the shortcut to be much faster and also easier.
For this segment, the main problem isn't getting through it. The main problem is Alyx actually managing to live. I mean, there's a LOT of zombies trying to kill her in this thing, and we only kill the minimum to get past, so she has to just survive on her own really. I'd say maybe 95% of my completed runs had Alyx not live through them.
Segment 3 [Inexistence] [0:07]:
This was a very hard segment. It may not seem it, but getting that wallclimb is actually really difficult. There's clipping everywhere to try and prevent you from doing it, and also the segment is usually done at regular wallclimb speed, but sometimes if you're lucky, you get a boost from the bench for some reason and it just throws you straight up, which I got in this segment. There's weird clipping in this part, so I seem to get caught on things, though I do get caught near the end due to my own fault from being excited at getting this segment so well.
Segment 4 [Inexistence] [0:11]:
This segment was supposed to take around 1:40. Usually, you have to kill the poison zombie, then Alyx gives a talk, and you wait for zombies to bust down the door, then run through the area. However, one time while trying this segment, I missed the poison zombie with a rocket and I hit the door the zombies usually break down. It broke and let the zombies in. Turns out that for some reason, that door breaks if hit with a rocket. Not a grenade, or a mortar, or a hopper, or anything. Just a rocket. So of course this became the new strategy, and it's I believe the biggest single timesaver in the whole run, though Typical has found far more of those than me, so he gets the prize for most total time saved by shortcuts.
But yeah. This made the segment a hell of a lot shorter, and more manageable since we didn't have to wait 1.5 minutes between attempts for Alyx to talk. It's still very hard.
Getting past the zombies isn't too hard, though occasionally the zombies would block the doorway and stop me getting through altogether. But the main difficulty was getting past the hoppers. You may not realise this, but when you go past a hopper very fast, they fling themselves towards you. So when you're in a corridor full of them and you jump past every one of them while being shot at by turrets, it's very easy to die.
After many many tries I managed it though, and so got the 11 seconds I was aiming for. Also, the clipping on the walls after the hoppers is awful and so easy to get caught on. It made a number off 11 second runs into 12 or 13 second ones.
Ep1_c17_05
Phase 1 time: 4:59
Our time: 4:08
Segment 1 [Inexistence] [2:26]:
This segment was annoying. This map overall was annoying. When you're trying to rely on a number (up to 4) npc's moving through a map as quickly as you can, when the npc intelligence isn't too good, you're going to have trouble.
There's not that much to say about this segment really. It was difficult, but very forgiving since I could make mistakes while taking the citizens to the train station, as they were slow enough anyway it made no difference. Killing some combine was hard, but overall it was fine. I enjoyed the mortar jump, that was very fun to do.
Segment 2 [Inexistence] [1:42]:
This segment was even worse than the previous one. To begin with, fighting the armoured car. I had to use fast rocketing to its fullest potential here, and I was constantly on 0 rockets so the next one would be a fast rocket. Many runs were stopped just at this point because it was quite hard to manage, but after many days of working on it, it kind of blended together till I barely noticed this part anymore.
Now, you notice that I kill one of the citizens here. Through a lot of the running, I didn't do this, and I obviously lost time for it, since it's quicker for one citizen to arrive at the safe area and then I can run off, rather than wait for both of them to do it. Typical found a way of killing them reliably with hoppers, so that made it much easier.
The killing both citizens part, I found. I was killing one at that point, and Barney would usually get lost pretty early on, so when the citizen was safe I'd have to run back and lead Barney with me. Then one run I accidently killed both of the citizens with the hopper, and I realised that Barney still moved towards me. So I kept going, still not believing that he'd finish the map, but he did and it all went great. I got a time of 1:47 with that. Then I steadily improved it, thought I couldn't improve it, then improved it by another 2 seconds and got it down to 1:42, but it looked terrible. So I kept running, over and over, and then I got another 1:42 and it looked nice, so it was all good.
Ep1_c17_06
Segment 1 [TYPICAL] [1:02]:
This was my last segment in the run and where I found a little trick which looks really fishy. Anyway I set up the teleports which make Alyx open the doors faster. I punt a suitcase to where I need it later and set off as soon as Alyx lets down the barrier. I try to turn the valve to spawn the strider and get rid of Alyx as soon as possible and wall climb up the wall with the suitcase I punted over earlier to cut off most of the map. I then use a bit of random diagonal clipping on the side of the container to boost myself up slightly so I can get over the corridor and activate the trigger which makes the strider killable.
Segment 2 [Foxtreme] [0:35]:
The last segment. I started running actively over the last three maps, mostly because I hadn't a computer that could run EP1 smoothly until then.
The goal of it is simple: kill the strider and hit a trigger in front of the console to make Alyx switch on the train. First problem: The strider lasts seven hits in hard mode. Second problem: he randomly hides behind the container. Third problem: like the rest of the run, we want the strider to die as fast as possible
So after many tries, I ended up with this segment. I did 5 fast rockets. After firing those 5 rockets, the next rocket I picked up was too close to another one, so I had to pick up 2 at the same time, fast rocketing one, and forcing reload. But no time was lost because of it, since I managed to reload and fire that very last rocket while hitting Alyx's trigger. Die, bitch. I mean the strider.
So there you go. Every segment discussed in detail. It's been a lot of fun, I'm very happy with the time we got and think it's improvable by maybe 30 seconds or so. I think sub-35 minutes is possible, but I highly doubt it's worth it. It'd probably take longer than it took us to do this run, just to improve our run by that little bit. I'd love someone else to run it and beat us. I know our run isn't perfect, but it's damn well optimised, but I just love seeing the game beaten fast, I don't care if I did it or someone else did.
Best time with scripts: Hard mode 0:27:39 by Maciej Maselewski, done in 70 segments appended to one file on 2008-02-11
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Author's comments:
Although it seems like you could squeeze through the still-opening tram door just fine, it's impossible. There's an invisible wall which disappears after some frames, after the steps have fully extended. Wallstrafing then jumping out of the tram is a few frames faster than just running. After talking to a Barney clone, I jump out of the room in a particular angle because of how the left corridor wall is placed. The next bhing sequence is harder than it looks. The 180 turn is what makes it hard, it has to be done really smoothly. Notice how I'm pixels away from touching a wall in nearly all phases of the turn and I still loose a lot of speed (don't let the fact that I actually did touch the cabinet while grabbing the vest fool you, you don't loose any noticable speed from touching something at this angle). The U turn while grabbing my gear is also the reason why I don't start accelerating while Barney's clone is still talking, it's impossible to nail the turn at higher speeds without stopping completely. I planned on getting out of the elevator in a straight line, but I couldn't get it faster than/as fast as this attempt. You can't hear or see the glock pick-up because there's a segment split there. Bla bla bla. In the underground part I use one of the barrels to boost myself through the corridor. I couldn't find a way to do it any faster without positioning anything due to crappy placement of everything in there. At the part where you see g-man it's possible to start accelerating before the gates open and bh right under them. I didn't take advantage of that because: a) it doesn't save enough time to even consider an extra segment, b) I won't try to fit it into an already hard segment, c) maybe I'm just lazy and looking for an excuse not to waste 10 more hours on encoding the damn video, not to mention the time wasted to complete such segment. The rest of this chapter is pretty boring so either fast forward or watch me rape some scientists.
Bh, murder some boxes, shoot the box thingie, bh to the door, do one of the hardest bhing sequences in the game, press switch, blabla, bh some more, stop bhing, start bhing. Now, here's one of my favourite tricks in the run. In order to get the hound to turn around quicker, I take a step to the left after it sees me, which is good because I have to push the little box to the left anyway. If I would leave the box in its original position the hound would fail to jump up on the box, it would fall in front of it instead. After getting up on the big box it's easy to get on the ladder with a single jump, without using the cranes. Everything up until the explosive box is self explanatory. As for the box itself, it's used to get rid of a kill trigger at the spinning wheels or whatever they are. The trigger disappears when the box explodes. The explosion is why I pushed the box on the right side, it can still damage you (pretty hard).
I grab some explosives from the truck at the surface. When falling into the canals there's a trigger forcing you to grab the ladder and it's big enough to make you do it at least twice. What can I say about the canals... Well, there's some bhing... Oh and I used a slope to "surf" faster at the underwater valve part. As for the first two marines: there's an invisible box surrounding them, they can't be damaged until they start turning around. After killing the first one, I don't rush to the door immediately because you can't turn off weapon auto switching in 1.0.0.1 (he drops a weapon, get it?). I kill the scientist to skip his speech and the door behind me opens up instantly. In order to force the marine to get out of my way I have to position myself behind a wall for a sec so that he can't see me, that's why I grab the medkits so slow. A couple of seconds later you can see the first reason why I got those explosives from the truck. After some corridors I use two grenades to scare off the marines. The next freight yard is another reason for the truck explosives. Here, basically you have to kill all the guys before destroying the wooden stakes, or else they'll hide away from you (and if you won't kill them, the big door won't open). I fight the last guy the way I do because I have to control my health at this point. After triggering the scientist, I bh to the point where you have to fire some air canisters. I take advantage of a sloped spot on the broken door to get up on the wagon. Flip some switches, kill marines, trigger Rosenberg outside the wagon, gather supplies while the doc is speaking, kill some marines while standing at the wagon door in order to trigger Rosenberg for the last time asap. From this point there's not much to this chapter. I throw grenades at Rosenberg a couple of times to either skip his speech or to make him not stop while making a 90 degree turn. Also, at the first staircase it's important that the guy gets hit by the nade's splash damage a while after he starts running again. If you fail to do so, he'll run into the room and you won't be able to make him follow you until some seconds have passed. Also it's necessary to "use" him at least three times while he's still on the staircase, not just once, or else he won't follow.
In the tunnels, it's possible to "surf" down the sloped walls. Wallstrafing there is a little bit tricky due to some points where you'll just get stuck. It's not a problem anymore when you learn where those points are (not random). At the point where I get out of the water, I show myself at the surface and then dive again before going out. I do it to get rid of the headcrab waiting on solid ground. At the waterfalls you might think that at one point I jumped in mid air. That is kind of true because the wall extent under me is invisible. Before entering the area with the control panel, I hit the sloped wall and crouch jump so that I fall a little bit sooner than doing a regular bhop (the speed at this point doesn't matter). The kill trigger at the room with the falling ceiling disappears nearly a full second after the stones have hit the ground, that's why I start jumping so late. On my way to the teleporter I kill most slaves, preventing unavoidable damage. I only take advantage of being damaged once to get a nice boost. At the lab I scare off the doc with a nade so that he ends up near the switch before finishing his speech. It's possible to start accelerating and bh under the door before the elevator but I didn't take advantage of that for the same reasons why I didn't do the same in the first chapter.
There's one tricky part I'd like to explain. After triggering the barney-fights-some-slaves scene, I throw two grenades at the door. What do I achieve with this? Well, the second grenade pushes the first one through the door, getting rid of the marines on the other side (cheers, slynk ;)). At the next bhing sequence I stop jumping after grabbing the medkit to give some time to the guy blocking my way to change his position so that I won't get stuck on him while jumping through the window. When I get to the room with the power charging stations, I shoot an invisible Barney clone to skip his speech and make his corpse disappear instantly, it blocks your way if you fail to do so or if you do it to late.
Not much to note here. When turning the valve you don't have to kill the hound with lightning fast mouse movements. The valve will stop turning after you stop using it for a full second or so, so I left this not-so-fast attempt be. If it isn't already obvious how I activate the last portal: if you're close enough, you can press switches through walls in half-life games. The devs did a shitty job putting an invisible wall there, preventing you to do so.
It would be appropriate to thank all the people who contributed the not-so-obvious tricks for blue shit and HL in general, the people who pointed out flaws in my run, the people who wanted to see a decent blue shit run and the people who run this wonderful site. I can't remember any names right now, but you all know who you are. I'll end these comments with a list of scripts that were used to achieve this run.
//WAIT alias w wait
//BUNNYHOPPING alias +bhop "+jump;w;-jump;w;+jump;w;-jump;w;+jump;w;-jump;w;+jump;w;-jump;w;+jump" alias -bhop -jump
//OBJECT BOOSTING alias usetrick "+use;w;w;w;w;w;w;-use;+jump;w;-jump"
//OPTIMAL OBJECT PUSH TO THE RIGHT OR LEFT alias usetrick100 "-forward;-moveright;-moveleft;+moveright;+use;w;w;w;w;w;-use;-moveright" alias usetrick200 "-forward;-moveright;-moveleft;+moveleft;+use;w;w;w;w;w;-use;-moveleft"
// TRIPLE USE alias tripleuse "+use;w;-use;w;w;w;+use;w;-use;w;w;w;+use;w;-use"
// ASSAULT RIFLE BOOST alias arboost "sensitivity 0;cl_pitchspeed 22500;+lookdown;+duck;w;+attack2;w;-lookdown;cl_pitchspeed 225;force_centerview;sensitivity 15;-attack2;w;w;w;+jump;w;-jump;-duck"
Hard mode with scripts: 0:23:09 by Blake Piepho, done in ? segments. Demos require Opposing Force v6.1.0.6 installed.
Author's comments:
You may notice my title screen covers up the first few seconds of the run and then fades out. This is because when I played OF it starts out completely black and then fades out so I had to run blindly from the first room to the double doors. Since this doesn't show up in the demo I tried to simulate the blackout effect as best I could.
At 1:05 I made the decision to skip the knife, this is because I only would have needed it for quickly destroying four boxes in the sewage drain off system before the orb creature. I was able to destroy these with 2 satchels and getting the extra satchel I needed takes less time than getting the knife. At 1:14 I go right through the electric field. Xeen was the first to find out that this was possible. I concluded how it worked was that there is a kill trigger that goes off about twice a second where the electric field is. The time can vary between kill triggers and sometimes it will almost skip a beat, this is when I made it through.
At 1:27 I needed to avoid the alien slave hit so I'd have 20 armor for the acid part coming up soon. At 1:31 I jammed myself a corner smaller than 90 degrees to avoid taking fall damage. At 1:40 you must trigger a rather long sequence in order to get the door at the top to open, so I'm just waiting on the door for the next 50+ seconds. I took an extra second to grab a battery for the acid part coming up. At 3:14, after I blow up the explosive box, I needed to wait for the cool looking robot to get the hell out of the room; takes about 35 seconds. The acid part occurs at 4:02, here I jump into the acid which does something like 2-3 damage every .03 seconds, when you have armor though this is reduced and rounded down to 1 armor damage and no health loss about every .03 seconds. The acid level was quite low where I landed and I duck immediately after jumping out of it so I'm no longer touching it and I lose only 17 armor. I would take about 5 more seconds to wait for the acid to completely go away.
This boring tram ride is necessary for the next 2 to levels to load in sequence and can't be skipped. At 6:21 I started a triggered sequence which eventually results in the glass breaking, the only way to advance. I grabbed exactly 3 more armor after the lift to be at 6 armor for an up coming grenade jump, which saves something like 40 seconds. Another triggered sequence is triggered at 7:11, the time, not the.. nm. It takes about 30 seconds for the wall to open up. At 7:42 I jump several times while ducking through a small passage to try and keep my speed. The angle of entry is quite sharp so I can't be at full speed when I enter; the red light in the middle makes this even trickier because you must not run into it. This duck jumping through vent trick is done again right afterwards, here it is easy to see how much faster this is than crawling. I crawl through the next short vent at 8:01 because in order to speed jump through it would require doing an extra jump, making a U-turn, and this would ultimately be slower than wall strafing it. Wall strafe: holding forward and strafing against a wall, makes you move 22% faster. At 8:06 I speed jump through another vent, it's too dark to see in the video but this vent is fairly long. At 8:17 I use a button through a wall to start up the fire ball machine; blows up the explosive box I moved and causes many other explosive boxes to explode, making a hole in the ground. I fall though this hole and land on a slope just right as to have it send me off with some extra speed.
At 8:33 I get some speed off a ramp, taking 5 damage, I couldn't afford to take much more. At 8:47 I do a grenade jump off a ladder. The ladder allows you get twice the height of regular jumping if you dual vector up it, so this helps the grenade jump go a bit higher. The boost you get from an explosive is proportional to how much health (not health and armor) you lose. Having 6 armor made me take 71 health damage, which is about the minimum for making the jump. At 9:03 I do a small grenade jump to get over the garbage bin barrier. The jump from the filling cabinet to the vent is not easy since you must duck right away to avoid hitting ceiling and then curve around the upright filling cabinet with the greatly reduced air control from ducking. If you couldn't figure it out, I trigger an event at 9:16 so the door will blow up at 9:28, why can't they blow up the next door like this too? You have to wait on the guy in the funny glasses to finish his dialog before he'll do anything. I stand in just the right place so he'll run all the way towards the door almost. Then I go and collect every item possible while he's torching the door. At 10:10 I make the elevator door close early, you can't do this until the funny glasses guy gets to his spot. Then I kill him for his dessert eagle.
At 10:20 I throw a grenade on the ground so all the aliens that will soon spawn behind me will take cover and not obliterate me. I grab a battery at 10:32 so I'll take 20 less health damage from the grenade jump just ahead. With 30 armor I take about the minimum health loss needed. At 10:39 I trigger this dude's dialog to start and throw a grenade behind him to make him run towards the door I'll be picking him up at later. Those two black opps at 10:47 weren't trained too well... at 10:52 I can't grab the dude yet because he's still on his dialog, you can't hear it because I saved after is started. So I throw another grenade at him so he'll run further to where I want him. Then grab him once he's done talking. At 11:08 a triggered event begins, eventually the guy sucking on an unlit cigarette stands up and I grab him asap. For whatever reason my satchel weapon was bugged but I could fix it if I held it out for long enough, I have to do this again later. That poor hornet alien sure was bamboozled.
Starting at 12:15 is one of my favorite parts. I drop a satchel by these two dudes then grab the one with the particularly useful weapon. Then I mortar jump in just the right spot so a black opp will see the mortar through a very small gap between two crates and run somewhere else so she won't kill me later on. I use the lever and detonate the satchel at the same time. This kills the dude who didn't have such a cool weapon, if I didn't kill him like this, when I kill the cool weapon dude he would have killed me. I bludgeon my ally over the head with a pipe wrench because I really want his high recoil gun and I don't think he knows how to fully utilize its capabilities. Up ahead are some nice hallways for the recoil boosting. I use a script to fully take advantage of the m249's boosting capabilities; this can be found in the script section at the end. Without such a script the run would have been maybe 30 seconds longer. At 12:42 I throw a grenade against a curved wall so it will go around the wall and find it's way onto the ground, resting, so a black opp behind a little bunker will take cover and not kill me when I jump through the window.
At 13:05 I touch the ground of this particular platform asap so it will trigger the displacer gun to fall. I have to wait for the displacer to actually be on the ground before I pick it up. At 13:33 I get exactly 30 armor for an up coming mortar jump. I throw the grenade at 13:48 so the scientist will run all the way to his trigger spot. At 14:01 I get to a spot that will trigger the wall to break up open in a few seconds. At 14:20 I fix the bug with the satchel weapon by holding out for long enough. Note the usefulness of dual vectoring on ladders at 15:00. At 15:27 I have to wait a second for a hurt trigger to go away.
I make use of the displacer's secondary at 15:54. I use it at the very start of the new level, it takes you to a small sublevel. Here I save the game, load, then take the portal out of the sublevel. If you load while in a sublevel then take a portal out you will be defaulted to set spot on the map, about the center of the level. If you don't save and load in a sublevel you will go back a spot usually pretty close to where to you used the displacer initially, this varies for each level. This particular displacer shortcut at 15:54 saves about 30 seconds. At 16:30 I use the displacer right before hitting the ground a specific spot. If you displace from this particular spot close to the ground, after going through the portal in the sublevel you will be placed in the vent above from where you displaced. This is about 2 minutes faster than doing the skipped levels as they were intended. This shortcut is still possible without the displacer but is considerably more complicated and takes about 20 seconds longer plus health loss.
At 16:37 I do a mortar jump with the 30 armor I had setup earlier, this only saves 2-3 seconds but was the best way I could use the extra, free health, I would acquire throughout the run. At 16:41 I trigger the door to open to get out of that sewage room, it takes 12 seconds, just enough time to get the 20 health and 20 armor, not all 30 because I'll only want 16 for a mortar jump eventually. That orb creature I bypass at 17:05 obviously has never played goalie. Not sure why Gearbox made him so easy to bypass, you don't even have to do any tricky jumps. I don't get more of boost from the m249 at 17:10 because that gap in the catwalk is placed exactly where I would want to land and skipping it a jump sooner would be too much of a boost. The two hits I take at 17:25 were intentional so I'd have 16 armor for a mortar boost. At 17:46, the very start of a new level, I do another displacer shortcut just like the first one I did. This saves about 20 seconds and costs about 10 for getting the extra cells. At 18:52 I do another displacer trick of this sort, saves about 25 seconds.
Starting at 18:57 is one of my favorite parts. I get as much of a boost as I can from the m249 so I land right before the water where I do a mortar jump, getting a little extra speed from landing on the slope as well. Water slows you down considerably in OF. Then I do some more m249 boosting; get enough speed to ramp slide a slight slope, the smaller the slope the greater your speed needs to be. Then clip this very sketchy brushing problem next to the side of the rock which acts a ramp. No fall damage is suffered. At 19:09 I trigger the black helicopter to start moving. You pretty much have to wait for it to get past a certain point before you can continue or else is will obliterate you. I grab these two health kits while waiting on the helicopter. At 19:20, had I arrived at this spot .1 seconds sooner I would have been owned by the helicopter. The hits I take from the black opps at 19:40 and 19:51 are intentional so I'll be at 16 armor for an up coming mortar jump. At 20:12 I arrive before the hanging crate lets you by, this is the only way to advance; you can't arrive there one crate sooner, not even close. The mortar I fire at 20:15 is so a black opp above will take cover and not shoot me, same for the mortar I fire at 20:20. At 20:21 I had just enough speed to ramp slide that ramp, thus taking no fall damage.
At 20:34 you may notice I'm not trying to go very fast. This is because you have to wait a bit before you can pass through a certain trigger area, or else the trigger will not go off. I set off the trigger at 20:40, had I arrived there .1 seconds sooner the trigger wouldn't have gone off and the final boss, the big green octopus rhino, would never appear. I shoot his eyes pretty much as soon they vulnerable on both the left and right sides all four times, I also shoot the little compartment with the glowing, pink sprite pretty much as soon as it's vulnerable all four times.
The G-man takes so long to say so little and I get quite bored, sorry for the night vision toggling, but this speech isn't very good. I'll paraphrase if you don't want to watch- I've been busy cleaning up this mess; I like you but my employers think you'll leak what happened so we're going to detain you. Hope you enjoyed the run.
Listing of major scripts used:
//useful aliases alias w wait alias ww "w;w;w;w;w;w;w;w;w;w" //m249 boosting //at 60 fps yawspeed should be value below, at least that's what worked for my machine cl_yawspeed 21500 alias +M "fps_max 60;-forward;-moveleft;-moveright;-back;w;m_pitch 0;force_centerview;+left;w;-left;+attack" alias -M "-attack;+left;w;-left;m_pitch .022;fps_max 100;alias -Mswitch -M2" //grenade jump straight up alias nj "+use;-forward;-moveleft;-moveright;+lookdown;w;-attack;-lookdown;-use;w;force_centerview;w;w;w;w;w;w;w;w;+duck;+jump;w;-jump;use weapon_m249;ww;-duck" //running mortar jump to go mostly upwards, adjust pitchdown to change angle (health loss will change as well) alias mjup "+duck;sensitivity 0;cl_pitchdown 85;+lookdown;w;+attack2;w;-lookdown;force_centerview;sensitivity 12;cl_pitchdown 89.999;-attack2;w;w;w;+jump;w;-jump;use weapon_m249;ww;-duck;" //bhop alias +bhop "+jump;wait;-jump;wait;+jump;wait;-jump;wait;+jump;wait;-jump;wait;+jump;wait;-jump;wait;+jump" alias -bhop "-jump"
Boot Camp with scripts: 0:09:36 by Mikael 'Zhouy' Mårtensson, done in 8 segments.
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Author's comments:
Possible improvements:
- The jump into the nightvision room at 04:21 could've been done a little faster.
- The jump at 04:50 could've been done about 1 second faster, as you can jump over there just before the drill says "Go go go".
- At 06:13, it is possible to jump over the log instead of go under it.
- At 08:43, I was forced to wait an extra second before I could make the torch soldier follow me, since the game would just crash everytime I clicked "use" on him too early.
Note: The PC run has an extra 5 second penalty due to demo recording cutting out the start of every level.
Runs on the PC version.
PC version with scripts 0:14:27 by Michael Yanni, done in 47 segments.
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Author's comments:
Tricks/Glitches:
Peek-a-Portal:
Discovered by: Many people
Description: You can keep moving portals without actually changing the location of the portal you keep 'peeking' from.
How to execute: Place a portal (I'll call the blue portal) on a wall in an area that you can just walk through that portal. Come out to the other side and shoot that side's portal (the orange portal) to a distant location. Move quickly back to the other side (blue side) while the portal (orange) is traveling to hit the surface. Now, the blue side shows the new location. Most people prefer this method over the 'Portal Standing' method, because it is easier to execute.
When used: Escape 01, Escape 02
Portal Standing:
Discovered by: Many people
Description: You can stand in between portals and use them as a ledge to stand on, while still moving by shooting more portals.
How to execute: Basically, when you are in between 2 portals, and shoot the portal color of the opposite side you are on (say you are standing on the blue side, and then shoot an orange portal), you have to move toward the other side (orange side) right after it hits the wall, to be able to stay in between portals, and, to be able to shoot the next portal, be completely on that side (orange side to shoot the blue). Continue doing this, and you can stay in the portals. It works best if you are crouching, because when you shoot the next portal, the game tries to push you out of the portal you are standing in; although, it can be done standing up.
When used: Chamber 10, Chamber 15, Chamber 18, Chamber 19, Escape 00
Other notes: This is a variation of the 'Peek-a-Portal' method.
Accelerated Back Hop (ABH):
Discovered by: Hlook
Description: This allows you to move at a ridiculous speed. You gain a large amount of speed per jump.
How to execute: Jump forward, and while in mid air, spin around, hold crouch and press jump repeatedly (I use a program called AutoHotkey to press jump repeatedly). If you don't want to use the program, bind mwheeldown and mwheelup to +jump, and just keep scrolling. Make sure never to let go of crouch, and don't press forward or backward, or it won't work. You can also do this just completely backwards, without the first forward jump and spin. The amount of speed you gain is based on the initial jump and on how fast you can repeatedly jump.
When used: Many places throughout the speedrun
Portal Bumping:
Discovered by: nubSawace
Description: The second portal can be placed on a surface that is on the same plane as another surface, despite objects, walls, or anything else between them, but only up to 32 units away from the first portal.
How to execute: Place a portal (we'll use the blue portal for this one) on the side of a wall, floor or ceiling that has a portal-able surface on the same plane as this surface. There may be a thin wall, object, or any other obstacle between these surfaces (we'll use a wall for this example). Aim on the blue portal towards the edge that is facing the wall. You'll see the orange side of your crosshair light up (which means you are able to shoot an orange portal). Shoot the orange portal, and it'll come out on the other side of the wall. It's pretty simple to do. It just requires a place that you are able to do it at.
When used: Chamber 15, Chamber 16, Chamber 17, Chamber 19, Escape 01
Edge Glitch:
Discovered by: volt
Description: Using the edges of a portal, you can either end up on the other side of a location or see into the other location's area.
How to execute: Place a portal (blue) near an edge of the area you want to 'see' or end up in. I put quotes around 'see', because you don't actually see into the other room, but the game thinks you are, because you are able to shoot portals into that area. Place the other portal (orange) near an edge, either vertically or horizontally. Many places do not work, but I've found the horizontal ones work best on thinner walls. Move as close as you can to the edge of the orange portal. Depending on the situation, you'll either be able to move your crosshair around, and be able to aim at places you couldn't previously, because the game thinks you are aiming into the other area. Otherwise, you will come out into that area (usually if the edge that the blue portal is against is thin, like a door or glass).
When used: Chamber 18, Chamber 19, Escape 01
Other notes: I used the edge glitch on Chamber 18 to come up out of the floor in the next area, skipping the cube activated door. On Chamber 19, I use it in one of the side rooms to be able to aim into the room you normally need to travel down one of the tubes to end up in. After shooting a portal at that green box (but in the other room, I'm aiming it at the floor), I just back up into the portal at the wall and end up in the next room. On Escape 01, I use it to go through the glass in the last room you normally use the rocket to break the glass. It didn't allow me to fully make it all the way through the glass, so I shoot the one portal along the wall that is close to me to 'pop' me into the next room.
Acute Angle Glitch:
Discovered by: djcj
Description: It places you at the wrong coordinates for where the exit portal should be.
How to execute: You place a portal on the slanted walls in the turret room of Escape 01. Then you place a portal somewhere on the floor somewhere else on the map (it has to be on the floor for some reason). If you walk into the one on the slated wall, you will be teleported to another location in the map based on a distance it sends you from the location of the slant portal.
When used: Escape 01
Other notes: The only things I can figure out so far are these facts: (Note: cl_showpos will show you're position in the level) -The X distance the ground portal is away from the slant portal determines both the X distance (by some unknown calculation) AND the Z distance (also by some unknown calculation). -The X direction the top of the ground portal is facing determines which Y direction you will travel. If it is facing the positive X direction, you will travel to the correct Y position you normally would by using portals. If it is facing the -X direction, you will travel the Y in the opposite direction from the slant portal.
Note: The time per level is not exact, so that is why they do not add up to the total time. All the timings for the maps begin as soon as the level loads (including the first map).
Chamber 00-01:
Time: 2:09
Comments:
Chamber 02-03:
Time: 1:09
Comments: I could have gotten the gun a bit quicker, but the perfect shot and run-through to the door was perfect, so I used that for 03. 04 isn't even a chamber, because it's so short. I got the shot perfect and the run to the door well also.
Chamber 04-05:
Time: 1:05
Comments: Chamber 04 took me like two and a half hours. I had to keep getting the timing right and the orientation to grab the cube, put it through the portal and place it on the button. Then, the shot against the wall has so much variability, and so did the ABH down the hall. I didn't make it into the portal on the first jump after getting the cube, but placement and the ABH was perfect, so it should make up for the lost half a second. 05 wasn't as annoying, but it still was annoying. Tell me why they would make Oval portals that you need to take Cubes through and place on a Circle on the floor? The shapes get all crazy messed up. I got perfect placement on this one, but the ABH into the other room could have been better.
Chamber 06-07:
Time: 00:45
Comments: 06 was pretty cut and dry. I didn't ABH because you end up flying past where you have to jump. In this take, I got completely fluid jumping into the portal, the landing and into the elevator. I could have jumped 1 less time before turning into the floor portal. 07, I thought i would never get it that perfect. I seriously had so much difficultly landing on the elevator platform correctly. I was sort of amazing when I perfectly ABH'ed into the elevator. I don't think it's possible to improve that.
Chamber 08:
Time: 00:23
Comments: I could have saved like 3/10ths of a second on the first guardrail, but other than that, the jump was good, the landing was good, and entering the elevator was good.
Chamber 09:
Time: 00:25
Comments: I get hung up on the edge of the emancipation field for like .5 seconds, but I had a great portal setup under the door (the fastest I've seen), and good in-and-out into the next room. I get stuck sideways for a second, but it doesn't matter since I cannot go into the elevator yet anyway.
Chamber 10:
Time: 00:30
Comments: I could have shot the floor portal a bit farther, and the jump out of the portal could have been improved. The speed felt right for the peek shot, and the ending fling. So, this probably could have been a second faster with perfect floor portal exiting. Also, I didn't look up right away at the movable wall piece, which wasted a second for it to trigger.
Chamber 11-12:
Time: 00:57
Comments: 11 went extremely well. I got the timing for the jumps and everything I wanted. I even got the correct placement for the portal in the hallway after you press the button. I used a bit of my ninja skills to not have to run down that little hallway. I believe it was faster to do so. I could have saved about 2-3 seconds if I would have placed the orange portal in front of the gun platform, jumped and hit the button before it fully came up, and swam into the portal, while shooting the blue portal into the hallway. For Chamber 12, you'll see I don't ABH fast at the start, because I loaded from an autosave, so I had to try to get the speed again. The falls onto the floor and then shooting the portals after I hit the floor went great. The portal onto the moving wall-part could have been like 2/10ths faster, which I had gotten before, but not on this take. The cube toss was really lucky. I've gotten it before to stay on the button, but it fell off just as I ABHed through the door. Also, the ABH was great, except for not making the final step, which probably cost at least .5 of a second, but I probably couldn't do it any better than what I got.
Chamber 13:
Time: 00:23
Comments: This went pretty well. It could be faster due to floor portal placement and a quicker throw but everything else went decently well. It's about 9 seconds if you time it like you would for the challenges. The record for the challenge level is 7 seconds... but that's so perfect that I couldn't hope to achieve that.
Chamber 14:
Time: 00:18
Comments: If you are confused why I am able to walk through the door, the door on that level is broken. You are also able to walk back through it after it closes. I had to save as soon as the level loaded from chamber 13, because the autosave here is too far past the area to be able to launch yourself. It still became a problem, because you can't shoot a portal the second you load from a save, so I had to just keep walking forward and shoot as I went along. All and all, it's about a 4 second run if you were to time it compared to the challenge record. The current record is 3 seconds, but that is also quite difficult to do, so 4 was fine with me.
Chamber 15:
Time: 00:36
Comments: Yeah... so, I don't think it was super obvious that this was super segmented. I had to split it into 6 parts, because of how ridiculous the stuff was. So for the SDA time, that added 3 seconds to this. It's about 24 seconds for challenge timing. I thought this route would save a bunch of time, but the segmentation wastes a bunch of seconds. The fastest is currently 20 seconds for the challenge time, so I wasted a lot of time with the initial portal bump and segmentation.
Chamber 16:
Time: 00:27
Comments: I could have made up some time at the second floor portal, just because I didn't move my hand down fast enough. I think I could have saved another half a second when throwing the turret into the other one. I could have walked into some of the floor portals, but if I needed to move forward, jumping forward is faster than walking, so I just would jump out of instinct. So, with these few errors, I probably could have saved a full second or two, but otherwise, it turned out well.
Chamber 17:
Time: 00:55
Comments: This turned out really well. The first area where you have to climb up the wall using the companion cube can be done at any pace, since I have to wait to block the orb from the first hallway. When you ABH up steps, you will practically glide up them, which I used in the second orb hallway. I could have used a different route which may have saved some time by forward jumping down the first hallway, instead of waiting and ABHing. I haven't tested if this was faster, though, but I believe it could have saved about 2 seconds. The companion cube placement onto the button could have been faster, but the rest of that end section turned out really well. I got a great throw into the furnace (after using the gliding concept to get to the cube on the button faster) and an awesome ABH into the elevator. All and all, it turned out to look pretty fluid and great time for the level.
Chamber 18:
Time: 00:52
Comments: This went AMAZINGLY well. I really can't spot many places for improvement in this one. I got all the shots and jumps I wanted.
Chamber 19:
Time: 00:37
Comments: It took me nearly 8 hours over the course of 3 days to complete. Well worth it, though. The time is amazing for this map, considering it's such a long map. I had to redo segment 1 because of a route change in segment 2. I also had a couple of route changes in segment 3. This was the first time I've had route changes while I was running the level. This map also has the 'broken elevator' glitch that is featured in Chamber 14 (you save before the door opens, and when you load, you can walk through the door before it opens). Some of the shots needed to be pixel perfect, such as in segment 2 and segment 3. I am very pleased at how this Chamber turned out. Not much room for improvement as far as I could see.
Escape 00:
Time: 00:30
Comments: This map is mostly based on really good timing. I know that sounds strange, but, in short, it means that some segments had to end where or when I needed them to. I could have ABHed faster on the first ABH, but it still turned out fine since it mattered more on the second ABH (so I could make it to be on the moving pump in time for the next segment). It just happened that if you stopped at that green metal girder, then when you made it into the room with all the pumps, you can clearly see the wall to portal at it. I think the last segment could have been a bit faster ABH-wise, but you couldn't have saved that much time to make it worth it.
Escape 01:
Time: 00:42
Comments: Lots of quick shooting tricks used in this one. I couldn't see too much room for improvement other than a few movement mistakes, but everything else worked out rather well. I used a new method for getting to the balcony in the turret door opening room, by using a peek-a-portal and fell from my last portal location.
Escape 02:
Time: 00:53 (when the last core is incinerated)
Comments: I used a different route to get to GLaDOS in the hallways, and it seems to save a few seconds compared to the other methods I've seen. I found an awesome way to go across that long bridge, if I wouldn't have used the route that involved shooting the portal beside the door. Other than that, everything else turned out great. The boss room you can do at your own leisure because you need to wait for GLaDOS to drop the first (last in this case) core.
PC version single-segment with scripts and large-skip glitches 0:13:06 by Maciej Maselewski.
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Author's comments:
Here are the glitches I used in my run (note that not all time saving glitches made it into the run for various reasons):
I'd like to thank all the sda people (who weren't thanked already) who contributed (or tried to) through the process of totally breaking the game. And you know what? I'm going to actually list all of them instead of leaving it like that. After all, this was a team effort. In no particular order: Spider-Waffle, Siyko, DJGrenola, Chomp, marinmo, CMiller, cell, LLCoolDave, flechette, Wells, lowerlogic, Takiata, tekknej, cell, Serious_Cacodemon, ZenicReverie, Fragalishus, Snabbdist, djcj, vintervargen, SnappyCrunch, Rob1n, axemblack, James Szklarz, o40, slYnki, Time, EchoLocation8, and Jaso. Thanks for your support. I'd also like to thank the whole sda crew and ex-members: DJGrenola and Radix.