I'm not familiar with the speedrunning history of this game. My apologies if this has already been discussed.

In The Exchange, if you deal the same amount of damage to the helicopter that appears immediately after the mission begins as you would to destroy the helicopter that appears at the end of the mission (over 299 damage in Operative), the helicopter will be destroyed by the time Bond reaches Drake and Mayhew's meeting, completing the mission.

I confirmed this in the Japanese version for the PS2, but I think it may be the same in other versions.

And while this was confirmed using a hack, is it possible in normal gameplay or TAS? Sorry, I don't have the skills to verify this.

Can you share a video of this? Are you saying you could (with hacks) destroy the helicopter at the very beginning of the mission and it would count?

Sorry for the late reply. As shown in this video, there are two numbers that are added when you hit a helicopter with a bullet, and if one of them exceeds the threshold (in this video I entered 299.1), the helicopter will just emit smoke at that point, but will be destroyed as you proceed with the mission.

Wow! That's really cool. Thanks for sharing that. I'm not sure if it would save time in a speedrun, but it's still something fun to mess around with.

One of the guards in the first area has a sniper. Does that do more damage against the chopper, or does it only care about the number of hits?

Damage to helicopters varies depending on the gun.

Covert Sniper Rifle: 30

White SG5 Commando: 2.75

Black Wolfram PP7: 3.5

Black Wolfram PP7 (silenced): 3

Gold Wolfram PP7: 5

Gold Wolfram PP7 (silenced): 4.5

Black Wolfram P2K: 5

Black Wolfram P2K (silenced): 4.5

Gold Wolfram P2K: 7

Gold Wolfram P2K (silenced): 6

Thanks! I found the one of the memory addresses on the GameCube version (0x81525804), but it has some interesting differences.

First, I wasn't able to find any memory addresses for the damage the helicopter takes in the first part of the map. I wonder if what you've found here is PS2-only. The address I've found is only for the helicopter's health in the 4th map where you're on the gondola. I'll have to get PCSX2 sometime soon and test it out there, too.

Second, if I change the value of 0x81525804 to 300 or more, it only takes effect when the helicopter is on-screen after the cutscene when you're on the gondola with Zoe. It doesn't end the mission at the start of the map like in your video.

Would you consider downloading Dolphin and checking if this works on the GameCube version, too? I want to make sure that I'm not missing something in case it's possible there, too. Still, it's fun seeing little version differences like this in Nightfire. We don't know of many PS2-specific glitches because nobody really speedruns that version. New discoveries are always appreciated!

Nightfire was only released for the PS2 in Japan, so it's not easy for me to get the GameCube version, but I'll look into it.

The reason you couldn't find the address on the first map could of course be because it was specific to the PS2, but one thing that bothered me is that guns have effective ranges: for example, the Wolfram is 50m, the Commando is 450m, and the Covert Sniper is 1200m (at least in the PS2 version). If you don't know this, it will be difficult to find the address, so please check that point. Anyway, thank you for your cooperation.

Like everyone else, I don't think this glitch is useful for speedrunning, but I'll add some information anyway.

(Assuming PS2, "Operative" difficulty)

Damage dealt to the helicopter on the 1st map does not carry over to the 4th map. The helicopter's accumulated damage always starts at 0 on the 4th map.

If you deal more than 299 damage to the helicopter on the 1st map, a destroyed helicopter flag will be set, and that flag will be carried over to the 4th map (this is a guess, as I haven't found the flag's address).

In other words, if you don't set the helicopter destruction flag on the 1st map, it will take three "AT-420 Sentinel" bullets to destroy the helicopter on the 4th map, regardless of the damage you dealt on the 1st map. (The Sentinel deals 100 damage.)

I was testing some ideas, and I think if you start with the Gold P2K and shoot all your bullets at the helicopter, it'll deal just enough damage to cross 300. It would be crazy hard, but it should save time. It could be useful in an individual level run, potentially.

One other thing, and this is totally unrelated, but could you look into something else that is thought to be PS2-exclusive? A couple of people have said there is a way to run at full speed during the party section in The Exchange, but nobody has gotten a video of it or figured out how to trigger it. The only thing I know is that both people that said it happened to them were playing on PS2. If that was possible to replicate, then PS2 would be the fastest version for that individual level speedrun, which would be really interesting.

As you may already know, in this game, when the frame rate drops, the movement distance per frame increases. Normally, this is offset by the frame rate drop, so speed doesn't change much, but for some reason, The Exchange's party moves faster.

This can easily happen if you use an emulator to lower the CPU clock, but otherwise, the frame rate rarely drops with that party, and it only drops temporarily if you fire a laser or stunner in a crowded area. I don't know of a way to consistently lower the frame rate. If the position or number of party members changes under some conditions, the stability of the frame rate should also change.

That makes sense. But the impression I got from the people that mentioned the glitch was that they were moving at full speed as if they were on any other map. That's why I was thinking it must be a flag not being set properly, or something that can happen during the loading screen before the party that would prevent the game from slowing the player down there.

The flag that causes the slow movement speed is the same as the flags that prevent him from holding guns and from jumping, so if there was a malfunction with the flag, all three phenomena would occur simultaneously. Therefore, I thought the probability of a flag malfunction was low.

If the game's units are meters, when Bond can run, his distance traveled per frame is 0.1m at a frame rate of 60fps and 0.2m at 30fps. His speed is 6m/s in both cases.

In The Exchange Party, Bond's distance traveled per frame is 0.0675m at 60fps and approximately 0.1643m at 30fps. His speeds are 4.05m/s and 4.93m/s.

4.93m/s is 82% of his full speed (6m/s), so it's possible that some people saw it the same way. Of course, I'm not ruling out the possibility that an unknown glitch exists that allows him to run at 6m/s!

That makes sense. I appreciate you confirming that about the flag that sets Bond's speed. With that in mind, I'd be surprised if they were really moving at full speed unless there's a glitch we don't know about yet.