Great news ! I found a way to skip the entire From The Shadows lvl

We knew already that we could move during the loading screens. Little we knew we could quicksave too.

You have to keybind the quicksave and hit the key as soon as the loading screen appears. Then reload, and try to stay on the platform while an invisible force pushes you.

Now the question is : can this be used anywhere else ?

EDIT : it works also on Critical Strike, so you can skip the time of standing frozen while the squad grapples down

same for Canyons Of Death

and Belly Of The Beast

and the cutscene before The Prosecutor (but that's silly, because you can't skip it if you do this)

also Lockdown

Behind Enemy Lines if you quicksave at the end of the loading screen

...And now this : (enjoy!)

Hey. I'm new to speedrunning this game, but I've been practicing a fair bit, mostly geonosis. But anyways, I decided to try this out, and I found something combining grapple glitch plus this. Forgive my poor execution. My computer can't handle the game plus capturing very well.

oh yeah, there is no need for setting 07 at his sniper post ? that's really good indeed, thank you.

PS: to embed a youtube video just paste its normal or short URL

Both of those videos are awesome new skips, well done

and it's not over

A way to skip 'new chapter' load screens. You have to click on the 'continue' button before it exists. For that, press a directionnal arrow (that will have the game think the cursor is on the button) and then 'enter' ; then quicksave/quickload. This video displays all the effects I could cause with it.

Also, nothing gamebreaking, just a little thing that might be nice to know is that during the loading screen you can also change your weapons and do squad command (and visor mode, but I don't think that really has a use). Nothing too fantastic, but can give you an extra second or two to reload, switch weapons or do other commands at the beginning of some levels. This seems to be able to be done on any level, including ones with start buttons, by doing the arrow->enter trick then pressing the command button you want. Squad commands (and visor mode) can also be used on levels with briefings or you can't move for a bit(such as Lockdown). Switching weapons doesn't seem to work though. These don't explicitly gain time, but just make managing you inventory and squad slightly faster sometimes.

So that I know of, the actions you can do while the loading screen is up is: movement, quicksave/load, squad commands, switching grenades/weapons and visor mode.

I've been looking into why QS/QL in the loading screen causes such strange things to happen, and why it's so inconsistent between levels. Sometimes certain triggers aren't triggered, while others that are only meant to happen later in the level are triggered right at the start. While I don't know exactly why, I did some tests on custom levels and have found (some) conditions for the triggers. Any event that is triggered by the "levelstart" event will not be triggered normally. But if there is a scripted trigger that is triggered by the "levelstart", then right after is waiting for another event, it will get triggered immediately at the beginning of the level.

For example, in Strength of Brothers, the level end trigger is disabled by a scripted trigger that is waiting for the "levelstart" event, so by doing the QS/QL trick, the teleporter is never disabled and you can use it at the beginning. Also, in the same level, the sounds for the advisor during the rappel sequence is never triggered. This scripted trigger is waiting for the levelstart and then waits for a different event. However, it plays a sound between them, so it is never triggered.

On the other hand, if you do the QS/QL trick at the beginning of the very first level, you can hear some dialog that is supposed to take place later in the level. This is because the scripted trigger waits for another event right after the "levelstart" event. For some reason it skips both and immediately starts playing the dialog.

With all that being said, there are still some cases where things don't follow these rules, including the rappel sequence in the first level which "should" not ever trigger.

I don't know how useful this information may be, as what is and is not triggered can generally be seen by just playing the level. But if something is found to trigger unexpectedly or doesn't ever trigger when doing the trick, it should be pretty easy to then go and see what other things are affected.

So you checked every level for potentially useful effects?

I haven't had time to do that. Just a few so far, and I haven't found anything useful outside of what has already been found. The closest I have is that I think a 0.1s timer is skipped at the beginning of Behind Enemy Lines, but I'm not totally sure.

The main thing is that I can see what levels don't have anything.

EDIT: =====

Nevermind. Using QS/QL for The Wookie Resistance causes the endlevel teleporter to be active at the beginning of the level so you don't have to wait for the Wookie to open the doors, which can save about 20s.

I think I've actually figured out exactly what happens. I'm going to do some more testing to confirm, and then post my findings.

EDIT2: =====

I created a test level with 5 different scripted triggers.

This is right after starting the level without QS/QL:

This is after waiting 3s without QS/QL:

This is right after starting the level with QS:QL:

This is after waiting 3s without QS/QL:

What this means is that any scripted trigger that doesn't have a wait for level start action as it's first action triggers normally regardless of the QS/QL. If it does have a wait for level start action as it's first action, then both the action after the levelstart event is skipped. I could guess at the mechanics of why this happens, but I'm pretty sure that this is the case all the time. The reason that only some times the effect is noticeable is that most actions in the game are dialog, screen effects and things like that. It somewhat comes down to luck as to whether the developer put an important action right after the wait for levelstart action.

It's not just scripted triggers as well. Anything else triggered by the level start will not do it's action, which includes dispatchers, which are just things that are triggered that can trigger other things. The reason why nothing spawns at the beginning of Unwelcome Visitors, and the trando that shoots the clone doesn't spawn is because all of the spawns are controlled by a dispatcher that is triggered by the levelstart. Dispatchers are sometimes used to just trigger a bunch of things that are supposed to happen at the beginning of a level.

I will continue to look through the levels for any thing that could be beneficial. The only thing that matters that I've found from this so far is the level end for The Wookie Resistance, but with this information I will make a list of all of the actions that are skipped by QS/QL.

I went through all of the Geonosis levels. These are all of the things that change because of the glitch that others may care about. There's lots of other things, but they're pretty much all visual effects, sounds or animations that don't affect the gameplay at all. A "-" before an item means that it actually saves time in the level. A "¤" means it could potentially save time, but not under normal circumstances, or depends on something else (such as a door that's unlocked that normally isn't, but a door before it is unlocked). Any others are just interesting things that happen in the level or explanations of things that look like they would save time, but don't (such as demo charges that don't destroy the objects. Once I have time I'll go through the rest of the levels and see what I can find.

Geo_01a Geo that pulls clone trooper not invincible Gunship animation not playing during rappel sequence Bacta dispenser active at start of level Demo charge on bunker available at level start Some random clone troopers and droids don't spawn + dialog Geo_01b 40 starts at full health (400) instead of 275 as normal

• Terminal to slice through shield available immediately, but slicing will stop after 40 intro. You can just stop/start 62 for almost no delay. Charge on fighters in hangar available at level start Geo_01c
• Sniper post available at level start 07 not invincible (apparently he's normally completely invincible for the whole level)
• Level end trigger available at level start

Geo_03a ¤ Jammer demo charge available at level start (can't actually reach until the shield is gone though) ¤ Start the level with 2 flashbangs if load the level from main menu

• Not put in briefing mode Geo_03c Demo charge of second barracade available at level start (but the barracade is set to be invulnerable, so charge doesn't destroy it, which is what triggers the caulk wall to be taken away) Geo_03d Squad markers for both demo point available at level start (Just the blue holo. Points can still be done by you. The demo charges were left active. Strange)

Geo_04a Demo markers enabled (but demo charges disabled) If only the developers had put the demo charge disable first... (that's what we have the rock jumps for, I guess) Geo_04b

• Skip the rappel sequence Geo_04c ¤ Door breach to level end activated More demo markers enabled (but demo charges disabled)
• Windows closed at level start (terminals still need to be sliced to activate second demo charge, so more tricky things are required to use this to save time) Geo_04d Demo charge enabled at start, but demo charge doesn't destroy rocks, a different trigger does

Geo_05a Nothing interesting Geo_05b ¤ Door breach after spider droid active, but door before it opens on spider droid death Geo_05c

• Skip briefing mode ¤ You actually have one less second before you die from taking too much time and the ship blowing up. The glitch skips a 1s timer in the countdown. ¤ Klaxon doesn't sound throughout the whole level

That's all in these levels, so apart from exploring the consequences of these things, there won't be any more things that the QS/QL glitch will help with that is specific to these levels.

Here's info from Assault Ship. Not much here that isn't already known. Seems like there was a different developer(s) that worked on these levels that didn't use the level start event too much.

RAS_01a

• Briefing mode isn't activated. If you don't press any keys you can move over the tube entrance then move forward immediately to save a few seconds. RAS_01b 07 attacked by invisible enemies Clone killed by invisible enemy RAS_01c
• Several slavers and clones not spawned at level start

RAS_02a Nothing interesting RAS_02b

• Demo charge at heavy trando enabled at level start RAS_02c 07 registered as squad member at level start RAS_02d 62 registered as squad member at level start and full health, but ai disabled RAS_02e ¤ Jammer demo charge available from level start

RAS_03a

• Skip briefing sequence RAS_03b ¤ Don't go into briefing mode in elevator RAS_03c Nothing interesting

RAS_04a,b,c,d Nothing interesting

great job Kram, I'm not home currently, so I can't look deeper into those things, but :

geo_03a (Infiltrate the Foundry)

• it's valuable to set a clone to posing a demo charge even though the forcefield is still on. So you don't lose time by having to order it from afar.
• you say you would start the level with 2 flashbangs ?? could that be a way to blind the geos escaping by the door right after the lift opens. (so to skip the door as i did in a Ghost Ship lvl)

geo_04a (Advance To The Coreship)

• it's quicker to jump over the rocks anyway

geo_04c (To Own The Skies)

• the demo markers are active ! you have to pose them yourself though. The 2nd one is indeed a timesave if we add "knocking the door down" to the route : begin the lvl with qsql, clear the path and enter the main room. With sonic nades, burst the droids on the upper floor, and try to knock the door down with a spare droid part. Then rush towards the demo marker, You have to burst the bomb to trigger the "endability" of the lvl, then just exit.

Having the windows closed in Own the Skies would help the hardcore run quite a bit. ThinksTheClown has a death on that part in his WR run, I think

To respond to few things:

Infiltrate the Foundry: You are correct in that you can post a squad member there faster using this method, but you have to post him by aiming your cursor at the back of the jammer by the tunnel, as the main part of it is still blocked by the shield. Stunning them sounds like a great idea! However, after quickly trying it out, the geo that runs through the door is set to be invulnerable during the sequence where it runs through the door, so the flashbangs don't have any effect on him.

To Own the Skies: If there is a consistent way of blowing the door down with the droid parts can be found it saves much time, but otherwise just makes it less risky and dangerous. It may save a second or two from the squad not having to fight enemies while walking to the terminals. Multisegmented and hardcore could definitely gain from it much more.

for To Own The Skies if you quicksave just before throwing a nade to the droids you can try it a couple of times. I guess you could knock the door down with a 20% chance. That would still be a gain compared to the normal route.

Welcome to the last installment of the quicksave/quicksave show. Prepare to be disappointed. There's a few little things, but for the most part, there wasn't anything I discovered on Kashyyyk that wasn't already known.

YYY_01b

• Skip the rappel sequence YYY_01c
• Skip a 0.1s timer (so much time saved...) YYY_01d
• Skip rappel sequence, so you can walk OOB and go directly to the level end. Some other spawns skipped, but it doesn't matter YYY_01e Nothing interesting

YYY_035a ¤ You start with 2 ECs, instead of 5 as normal, and there is nothing else on this level, so don't do it one this level YYY_035b ¤ The terminal behind the force field is enabled at the level start, but with OOB, it doesn't matter.

• Two battle droids in the initial part of the level don't spawn. YYY_035c
• Skip briefing sequence, then you can go OOB to the end room.

YYY_04a

• Skip briefing sequence. YYY_04b Nothing interesting YYY_04c Nothing interesting YYY_04e Nothing interesting YYY_04f ¤ Unfortunately nothing interesting. There are several things that are so close to making this level really short...

YYY_05a

• End level teleported enabled from level start. I don't think there's any way of getting past the barricade, but even still, we don't have to wait for the wookie to open the door. YYY_05b ¤ Skip a 0.1s timer at the beginning of the level. I suppose this saves time if load times aren't counted. YYY_05c Nothing interesting YYY_05d Demo charges on dispensers enabled at level start, but we can skip this section anyway.
• Demo charge on end level barricade enabled at level start. YYY_05e Nothing interesting YYY_05f Nothing interesting

YYY_06a Your wookie guide doesn't spawn YYY_06b,c,d

yyy_05b (Behind Enemy Lines)

• on some occasions I managed to skip the rappel sequence (seems like you have to qsql at the very end of the load screen) you can then jump directly into the pit and gain a bit of time.

could you develop your thoughts on A Bridge Too Far ?

Good catch on Behind Enemy Lines. You seem to be able to do the same thing on Hard Contact as well. In both cases there is a short timer (0.1s) before the briefing is activated, so it seems that it's not always just the second action that is skipped. I'll have to look at it more, but it's possible that one or two more things can still be found.

For A Bridge Too Far, they used a different method of triggering things at the level start, one I only saw in this level. If they used the normal method, you could jump on the side barriers and blow up the tank right at the level start, skipping the entire level. But it isn't so. And later in the level, it's almost possible to skip the spider droid fight, or least limit the amount of waiting around after it by destroying the barricades at the door like in Fate of the Resistance.

I might redo all of that testing, as I've done some more digging and have found the exact bit of code that controls the triggering of events. Any event that happens before the QS is fires normally, then and can make it print out a log of everything that gets fired before the QS, which are the events that are skipped. I'll write a script that can parse through the logs and give a readout of every event that is skipped.

Also the reason that you can skip the briefing on those levels if you wait before QSing, is because the game has the 0.1s timer before the briefing, which simply expires and the next one, the briefing, is skipped instead. Also, actions that are just waiting for things are treated slightly differently by the game.

I'll report back when I find something interesting.