How to get a good time

GENERAL STUFF

The run is around 2:20. Optimally this time could get to 2:10 or even 2:00 with good play

You have to manually delete your save on your computer to play NG

Play this game with a controller. Please. Jetpack is unplayable with KB+M controls and precision shots do not matter as you will rely on an AoE gun for most of your combat.

Your upgrades carry over between replays. It took me until my second playthrough to have a sufficiently leveled up arsenal.

90% of cutscenes in this game can be skipped. There are around 2 hours of cutscenes, all of which are awful. You do the math

Lots of combat can simply be run past. Experiment for yourself where you feel comfortable sprinting/hurdling/hovering/flying past enemies

Cover is basically useless. Only use if you are about to die

Air combat consists mostly of figuring out where the hell the enemies are. Your radar has a weird system of showing enemies based off their location relative to a plane derived from your roll, pitch, and yaw but it’s basically useless in combat outside of finding a few straggling enemies. Just use the “find where the hell an enemy is” button (LB by default), and two forms of directional view (RB and D-Pad)

If you’re damaged in flight, land. You recover health much quicker on the ground

Do not spend money on anything besides Rocket Pack until it is fully upgraded. Level 3 Rocket Pack has unlimited homing rockets which is an almost mandatory upgrade for Protect the Ark, which I will cover later. It’s a billion times faster to shoot down things from your level 3 jetpack than it is to take over an allied or enemy fighter for combat use.

Disintegrator is your second priority in upgrades and in combat. Level 3 Disintegrator deals an incredible amount of damage that one-shots most enemies, has splash with a large AoE, has almost no reload time, and explodes its projectile when an enemy would be hurt by the explosion. This last ability is what makes Disintegrator so important for your arsenal. It’s your one-stop shop for dealing with jetpack enemies, Knights, and ground forces. Ammo is plentiful enough with this gun that you’ll rarely be searching for ammo crates for a refill.

As an alternative weapon, your two main options are Oppressor and Magnetar. The Oppressor is a perfectly fine backup weapon with good damage, ammo, and range. Magnetar is an incredibly powerful weapon with a great AoE attack whose only drawbacks are being a human weapon with no ammo pickups outside of weapon caches or ammo boxes and no AoE against airborne targets. I prefer Oppressor because of its plentiful ammo and level 3 has nice splash damage on kill but I haven’t fully tested Magnetar’s abilities yet. Disintegrator + Magnetar combo is very fast but you’re going to have to resort to punching after inevitably running out of ammo, and Disintegrator + Oppressor is slower but much safer.

Other weapons are the Liberator, Hypercoil, and Reclaimer. Liberator can’t hit anything except very large targets from extremely close, has low ammo pickups, and is outclasses in damage by every other weapon; Hypercoil has fantastic damage at the cost of being inaccurate, slow, and without ammo pickups, and Reclaimer would be a good weapon if it wasn’t for its low ammo and difficulty hitting targets. If used properly it could be an effective secondary but would be unlikely to compete with stronger options.

Melee attacks are OP as hell. You’re resistant to damage while in the melee cinematic and no enemy in the game takes more than 3 hits to kill, with most taking only one. For especially fast melee kills, shoot a single shot with Oppressor or Liberator to stun a Watcher then attack. You’ll bash the Watcher’s face in very quickly. Chaining this together allows you to survive most situations.

Grenades are your backup AoE weapon. Make sure to cook them as enemies are very good at diving out of their way.

The general strategy for every ground fight is to hover above cover, shoot jetpack enemies with you Disintegrator, shoot ground forces with the Disintegrator, look for ammo if you run out of shots for the Disintegrator, and survive with a combination of punches and secondary weapon fire if you run out of Disintegrator ammo and there are no refills near combat. Outside of a few set piece fights you will rarely run out of Disintegrator ammo as the game loves to send enemies with that gun after you.

Knights can be scary, but most of their damage is avoided if you constantly circle strafe. They go down easily with a fully leveled Disintegrator in around 6 shots. If your Disintegrator isn’t fully leveled, attack until you see a prompt then finish an easy quicktime for a kill. Most areas with Knights spawn a second one after the first one is killed; use the Knight’s dropped weapons for an almost instant kill.

Archons are bad enemies and the game should feel bad for using them so often. Shoot at the red joints on its legs with Jetpack strafes, Disintegrator, or whatever you have that deals high damage then do a quicktime event at the head to kill. You can finish the QTE with only one dodge and one grab but the timing is fairly tight.


MISSIONS

Prolouge: Just shoot a few planes and fly around with a jetpack. 5 minutes tops.

Crash Site: Just run to a gun, get the gun, get sprint, and just run past everything except 2 fights, the turret section and the closed doors. You can go so fast in this mission that the ground in the swamp doesn't load

The Village: Literally a walking simulator. This shouldn’t take more than 4 minutes.

Spare Parts: You get your hoverpack here. Just follow the waypoints, pick up the parts, and run/hover/hurdle past enemies.

Village Attacks: Outside of the Knight fights and the one village fight, this is the same type of stuff you did last mission. Don’t be afraid to use QTE on the Knight if you aren’t damaging enough.

Into the Void: Finally you get the Rocket Pack. Shoot the communication towers towards your right as you start flying, shoot the AA gun, do the first generator tower, fight a few ships, do the second generator tower, fight an Archon, fly down a hole, fight 2 Knights and a few jetpack enemies. Easy mission but there are some god-tier movement strategies possible with the generator towers, such as wailing into the tower like a banshee, flying directly towards the second control panel in each tower and bypassing a long vertical cover section, and flying out the exploding tower like a bat out of hell. Afterwards there's am Archeon fight and a long tunnel with a watcher fight at the end

Prophesized Ones: Basically an escort mission for the first half and a base defense for the second half. While you have to keep an eye on Atem, he has a ton of health and it regenerates. This is the level where I realized just how good Disintegrator is in dealing with jetpack enemies. The defense section operates on a timer. If you have rocket pack upgraded shoot down the transports for a huge time save

The Survivors: Talk to a guy, whose trigger often disappears for no discernible reason; take a nap, fight some drones, and fight some Watchers. Easy mission as long as you remember to skip the first ground force encounters by getting the checkpoint inside the structure.

Prison Escape: Clear out the AA guns, enter the base, blow shield cores, rescue prisoners, and fight 3 Knights. Disintegrator and Magnetar really shine in this mission, especially the Disintegrator as it can one-shot each shield core.

Breaking Camp: This one is basically a fetch quest defense mission. Defend the camp from air attacks, then ground attacks, get the Tesla Coil to charge the Ark, break the clamps, and take out 3 Archons to end the mission. No real strategies here outside of optimizing your movement between all the tasks.

Defend the Ark: This here is what kills this as a speedrun. A 22 minute escort autoscroller with 3 checkpoints and the very real possibility of you or the Ark dying to endless waves of enemies is the worst idea ever. After you slog through this hell you’re rewarded with a battleship fight. Shoot the AA guns on the bottom and the turrets that pop out of the ship then attack the cores to end this god-awful mission.

The Collector: A 2 minute boss fight. Shoot the sacks, shoot the things that drain acid, and then shoot the sacks again. Easy as hell fight but with some opportunities for a quick kill and optimized attack patterns.

The Revolt: You lose your jetpack and the motivation to finish this game all in one go. Escape from the prison with very little checkpoints, get your jetpack back, and defeat a swarm of enemies in the air. Just remember to play safe in the giant room inside the prison as there is only one checkpoint halfway down and a death here wastes tons of time. Mines also count as enemies in the air defense section.

The Tower of Return: This boss fight is a complete joke. He does almost no damage outside of the rare one-shot if you get to close. Attack his chest in 2 phases to trigger a QTE which destroys one of his heads. Do this twice to kill him.

PvtCb