General GB4 Speedrun Advices, Reducing Loading Times & The Guiding Missile Build

In This Guide, I'll try my best to explain, what you should do before starting speedrunning the game. How to to setup the game, so that the loading times, are as low as possible and showing off the fundamentals of my Guiding Missle Build, which leads to very fast stage clears. As well as giving some internal thoughts.

General Advises

There are some things you should do before starting speedrunning GB4, not because it is "mandatory" per se, but it will lead to a lower time overall.

Here's a Checklist:

• Finished the Game and Lvl Up! After you finish GB4, you get the abillity to enhance your Gundam Parts to Lvl50. If your Parts, especially your Weapons, aren't of the highest Lvl, your run will take longer by default.
• Lvl up your Builders Rank (BR) to 99! After every Mission you get EXP, that takes time/waste it. If you get a Lvl up it will take/waste additionally time. If you are Lvl99 BR, you don't get anymore Exp, so your faster by default.
• Enable Autoskip! Go to Cofig -> Sound - Language - Demo and choose the bottom option "Event Skip" und turn it to "on". That's the ingame Build Autoskip function, that save time and make skippen Events way more cosinstent that a Human is able to.
• Enable Autosell! Go to Cofig -> Game (active on default) -> Scroll down till you see "Corfirmation Dialog" make sure to put "High Rarity Parts" and "AUTO-SELL FUNCTION" to "No". This will sell all Parts you choose to sell automatically. The Autosell Fuction it self can be setup only in the "Mission:Result" Screen. There you can press the left analog Stick, or "R" on KnM to setup what you want to be automatically sold after every Mission. I recommend selling almost everything. Since you have a Parts limit of 1500 per Bodypart, if it's reached you cannot play a Mission. Potentally kill'n a Run.
• Edit (3th of Mai 2025): Camera Distance (seeing more of the battlefield! I highly recommend going into Config -> Game -> Player Mode - Distance and put it to 100. The camera (your pov) will be set way further behind your Gundam, leading to a better overview over the battlefield, so you have an easy-er time beating all the enemies.
• Playing and Learning! A little cheesy, but it really helps to know, when which enemy is coming and where there are spawning. That counts especially on maps that are a less open and having more obsticals. Edit (6th of June 2025): Knowing the spawn of enemies is, in my opinion, the most important part of the speedrun! And makes the difference between a gold split and a failed run.

Reducing Loading times and making the game run "faster/smoother"

Here it's getting a little unfortunately. In my opinion the game is run best on Pc. That has two main reasons.

1. Reducing loading times is tight to Hardware! That should be obviously, but to make my point. I can spare around 5 seconds within the Start of the first Mission, by turning down the Graphics of GB4 from High to Low. If you speedrun GB4 you will have to deal, with a lot of Loading time and transition. All are reduced by reducing the ingame Graphics.

Disclaimer: This is in no way intended to be a dissrespect or attack against TOS_Johnny_Squid, i like the work he is putting into the game!

To make this Point more valide. TOS_Johnny_Squid is playing the game on Switch, he starts his first loading screen in his MainQuest+ run (3rd Place) at 4/5 seconds and can move at around 37/38 seconds into the run. In my (current) WR run i start the first loading screen at around the same time as he did and i'm able to move at around 16second into the run. I am 20seconds faster, than he is, by default. I've saved 20second within the first 16seconds of the speedrun, because of the hardware I'm using.

If you want a faster speedrun, play always on low graphic settings, even with the same Hardware (my first comparison) I save time over the course of the run. I spare approximately between 4:48 and 5:24 Minutes. By turning down the Graphics.

2. Faster/Smoother I don't have hardfacts to proof this one! But it feels like, if you play with a higher FPS setting the game and it's menus are playing faster and smoother. Removing some of the inputlag after a transition and events. Therefore i recommend, if you are able, to set the FPS counter to the highest amount/unlimited. (Edit 6th of June 2025): Offline Mode. And**** I don't have hardfacts to proof this one as well! But unfortunately Bandai removed the option of offline play in the menu. But you can always block GundamBreaker4 with your firewall. Not only you don't have to fear to randomly disconnect from the server, which leads to a time lost, and eventually in a dead run (speaking of experience), i also think you load a little faster. What would make sense, because you don't have to connect to the server.

The Guiding Missile Build!

We are talking about the M68 Pardus 3-Tube Short-Range Guided Missile Launcher (Left/Right). These are the Main Weapon of the Gundam I use and in my opinion the best and fastest way to clear out Non Giant Boss/Master Grade enemies under one condition. You need Cooldown Reduction (CDR). What i do is equip 8 M68's and choose for my ability cartridges 2 with "Cooldown Reduction: When Part is lost +X%", one with "Cooldown Reduction: When Enemy is defeated +X%" one that enhance my long range weapon and one with "Hp: Capacity. The CDR ones are crucial and you will look out for "Cooldown Reduction: When Part is lost +X%" and "Cooldown Reduction: When Enemy is defeated +X%" on your Gundam Parts as well. So that every time you shoot your M68 Missiles the CDR is completely refilled and you can shoot again and again. Ever time this Skill is on Cooldown and you can't use it again, it's a time lost.

The only enemies you can't really hurt, or far less, with the M68 Missiles are Giant Bosses/Master Grades. For those i recommend having 2 "Atomic Bazooka", that will deal damage to mutiple Parts at the same time. And the Radiator Shield (Gundam:GP02A) , that gives you the EX SKill: Atomic Bazooka, which you wanna use on bosses every time your out of charges on your normal Bazookas.

Internal Thoughts

I think GB4 Speedrunning it still in it's beginning days, the times of my runs are definitely not final and i think the MainQuest+ (Standard/Normal) Run can be done in sub 1:40. (Edit 6th of June 2025, i already achieved it and it goes probably even faster) I also think if the devs of GB4 give us more QoL features the speedrun would be even faster. Like giving us the option to deactivated events entirely, like the Gundam starting animation, enemys spawning cutscene (gunpla boxes) (Edit 6th of June 2025, spawning cutscenes got removed, which makes the run faster) and story cutscenes. And maybe we get some new Parts and Weapons this year that help us be faster.

Greetings,

Oogie