// keeping this route since it might be useful for 100% category even if it's outdated
! Progress so far:
"restore the state" means to load the cinematic while being on the same map where it takes place
#Route
The Bricks
— Leave Rowdys right away — Skip the first fight and Bricks Intro Optionally keep a save right after exiting Rowdy's, that will be an easy way later on to trigger battleskip. — Leave Whackmaster after the first tutorial begins — Skip KConrads cutscene — Visit Deanamo — Skip "Meeting Grumpos" (Quit and load the cinematic save, unload will happen after the elevator") — Get the helmet — Go back to Grumpos (Skipping the cinematic is not much faster than a normal way) — Talk to The Doorlord otherwise he will disappear after you exit the tunnels, softlocking the game — Speedstrafe over the fence to enter the tunnels — Get a Stargent Laserblade from the wall — Pick up a Batt on the way to the boss (to sell later for 500 cr) — Skip Stone Sentinel using the cinematic — Skip "Meeting Detta" (Quit and load the cinematic save, unload will happen after the elevator") — Sell a Batt to Ghalla (to get enough money to buy a battery and tickets) — Skip "K'Conrad Speaks Again" (Quit and load the cinematic save, unload will happen after the elevator") — Go to Tours and buy a battery from Bloomgold — Go back to Rowdy's. Get the camera and PAL-18. [warping to Rowdy's with Anachronox Intro saves around 30s] — Back to Tours, buy tickets and travel to Sender. *Make sure to use anyone other than Boots to buy the tickets
Sender Station
— Save the game (keep it) — Skip "What's the Plan, Stan?" — Go to Vend'O'Mart and hack the terminal. (To unlock the cutscene ("Disguises") for warping). — Get back to the space station (load the saved game) — Clip out of bounds, then clip into the corridor leading to the Brain Train using the The Stone Sentinel cinematic * Meeting Detta is the easiest to use — Skip The Brain Bouncer cutscene — Make sure the cinematic is unloaded, otherwise reset the game — Talk to the Brain Bouncer
Brain Train
Sunder
— Clip out of bounds, use PAL18 Wakes to clip inbounds, navigate your way to the shuttle — At the end of "Sunder Breaks" mash F4 (to save and load during the beginning of "Lost in Space"). Warp with "Disguises".
- if missed you can recover by using Lost in Space from the cinematics menu
Sender Station
— Take a shuttle to Hephaestus
Hephaestus
— Pickup Annulet of Alertness on the way. — Get to the front entrance of the Tower. — Save, play PAL18 Wakes, load the save, wait till the end of the cinematic, save, load. Talk to Grumpos That will pull Grumpos from the elevator shaft to the first floor of the tower, make PAL active and warp Boots here as well.
Sender Station
— Warp with "Disguises" — Go to the Routubes — Pick up a yellow bug — Clip out of bounds and reach the trigger leading to the next level — Save before exiting the level since it is very likely that the cinematic will unload right after the map transition — Pick up a grey bug — Get to the Red Light District — Talk to floater to get a cobalt crawler [Will make Bane attacks AOE] — Complete the "Ring" quest and skip "Stiletto Dance"(will unload together with "Disguises" after warping) — Warp with "Disguises" — Complete the PAL's section, get back to the Lounge of Commerce, skip Universe Troubles, warp with Disguises — Get back to the lounge, take PAL and Rho, talk to Grumpos. — Take a shuttle to Hephaestus
Hephaestus
— Pickup a bivice and a red bug near the entrance to hotel. — Use the second entrance — Skip "Caught Trespassing" — Talk to the abbot
Levant
— Activate battleskip if it isn't active already — Activate bridge, power and the gates — Skip level 2 — On level 3 collect a cobalt crawler and a Bouge Bangle — Skip Magmatos fight, then warp with "Braving the Levant". Get back to the upper level of Tower. — Talk to the abbot — Skip "Grand Mysterium" (Quit and load the cinematic save, unload will happen together with "Disguises" after warping) — Warp with "Disguises"
Sender Station
— Take PAL and leave the Lounge — Sell Annulet of Alertness and buy 3 Standard Sender Shields — Take a shuttle to Limbus
Villain Ship
— Skip Villain Ship Intro. Go out of bounds (Bricks Intro for example). Go on top of the actual bay room, there are several, the highest one is the one you need. Clip inbounds with "Stone Sentinel" from the ceiling. It will unload somewhere, save more, probably after exiting bay. — Press the button in the bay area to open the door — Reach the room with a red cross on the floor. — Warp from here one floor upwards using The Stone Sentinel cinematic. — Enter the combination Left 1, Right 1, Right 2, no change, Left 2 and save right after. Wait till the cinematic unloads then load the game and proceed through the green door. — Right before the fight with Rictus restart the game to reset the battleskip. — Pick up an elementor. Equip party with Standard Sender Shieldcells. Add 1 more cobalt crawler to Boots's elementor, assemble the other 2 elementors with bugs available. [during the fight careful with bivice, it can crash the game, probably because of keyboard input] — Use Boots's elementor to attack only in phase 1, in phase 2 use it only to heal (you can probably afford one attack though)
- Using strong AOE attacks is very dangerous in the second phase of the fight since if you'd manage to destroy the holograms the game is very likely to crash
Krapton Prison
— Get Beef Bracers and equip Boots with them
Whitendon
— Skip "Votowne Action News" — Take a photo — Get a Stargent HandCannon — Take the other 2 photos — Report to Burgomaster — Sleep in the tavern — VOTOWNE ACTION NEWS WILL UNLOAD RIGHT AFTER COMMITEON INTRO UNLESS YOU RESET EARLIER ^^^ this can ruin a run since the Commiteon intro does not appear in the cinematics list, nor autosave is being made. So if you'd miss that one you'll have to watch Boots's Flashback again + Commiteon Intro ofc.
Commiteon
65712
Abandoned base
— Get the cobalt crawler
Ballotine
— Skip "PAL-18 Dreams" (Quit and load the cinematic save, unload will happen after the elevator") — Ballotine PAL (you can reach the valve from above)
White Caves
— Collect Supershot and a cobalt crawler. — Right before the Wimpa fight equip Boots with a Beef Bracer, Bouge Bangle, Stargent Handcannon, and learn Supershot. Mystech won't do much since we don't have any shield with output more than 128. Spam normal attack, when Wimpa starts moving around cast Aerial Trigger (once should be enough).
Whitendon 2
— Report to Burgomaster
Votowne
— Get a DoubleUp Bracer at Republic Inn (floor 3) — Skip Fatima's Flashback, then warp with Disguises — Take a shuttle to Limbus
Limbus
— Unlock "Landing on Limbus". Restart, activate battleskip, restore the state. — Unlock "Prisoners of Limbus", restart, restore the state, save, restart, load the game (since no good place to unload the cutscene) — Unlock "The Dome". Restart, restore the state. — Warp to Rowdy's with "Anachronox Intro"
Rowdys
— Warp back to Sender with "Disguises" during the cutscene. You'll need to progress in dialogue while Disguises plays.
Sender
— Talk to someone, then get to the space station and take a shuttle to Anachronox — Buy tickets to OneGate
OneGate
— Buy a Detta Shieldcell from Parvenute
Detta Fortress
Grounds
— Hold "back" right after assembling the parties and pressing accept
Basement
— Warp as Boots to skip the door
- The cinematic will either unload shortly after warp or after toggling the bridge by PAL — Unlock the left console with PAL, lower the bridge, enter A C K M: Astro Cordica Kepler Mojo — Leave the level
Fortress
— PAL: unlock the console, open the door security level 1 — Boots: use control panel, enter Q A E: Quasar Astro Eternal. Unlock security level 2 — Pal: unlock the generator panel, take a corridor to the right, use control panel — Stiletto: use transport pods, unlock the pods for Boots — Boots: use the pods < the only thing that matters here
Upper Fortress
— Boots: activate the airlock, unlock the chamber door, activate platform — Stiletto: unlock the workshop door — PAL: reach the workshop control panel, unlock security level 4 — Boots: activate the airlock — Boots: buy 6 Turboalert Wristpinchers — PAL: activate airlock 2 — All groups enter airlock 2 — Gather everyone near the big door — Reset the game to get rid of battleskip — Equip Stiletto with a DoubleUp Bracer, TurboAlert Wristpincher, Detta Shieldcell and a Bane Elementor. Boost the Bane elementor as much as possible. Equip Boots with Beef Bracers, TurboAlert Wristpincher. Equip the rest of the party (except Grumpos) with TurboAlert Wristpinchers. — The first phase: 1 bane attack by Stiletto + 1 normal by Boots. The second: wait till both characters have their bouge bar filled and then use Aerial Trigger (first) and Pain Pirouette during a single turn. That should make around 35k damage, ending the battle.
Echo Gate
— Makes sense to let Boots move in first since his element is ice and no one's got anything to resist it — Stiletto spams Bane elementor, others move in
- the move point for spheres is always the last one in the menu
#Segment commentary
##The Bricks The walls that block you off from entering the Junkyard and Tours seem to replace the real map transfer triggers, meaning that even if you can bypass the wall there is no way to enter those 2 maps early.
- Talking to Grumpos for the first time unlocks the Junkyard and a part of Casinox Area.
- Talking to K'Conrad the second time unlocks Tours (to be able to do that you need to get Grumpos to join you, which will trigger the event where Fatima updates the quest log and says to talk to the Doorlord, and then the Doorlord triggers K'Conrad to talk to you for the second time. So you need all that just to be able to access Tours.
The Doorlord disappears once you finish the Mystech Tunnels. In theory you could skip Grumpos quest, because he joins you in the second part of the tunnels anyway but the problem is that the quest that gets Grumpos to join is required for Doorlord to update the quest log and finishing the Tunnels despawns him, so that order will softlock the game. That's why getting Grumpos to join normally is required to be able to advance further.
Eddie does nothing it seems, there's no point in Junkyard, since it is possible to enter the tunnels right from the beginning without doing any quests.
##Votowne — Hephaestus
There is a way to skip everything from Votowne (first visit) to arriving at Sender Station after Hive. The way to do it is to warp to Sender somewhere after the "Sunder Breaks" cinematic. What you need here is Rho to join you which happens right in the beginning of "Lost in Space" to be able to access the shuttle later on. However sequence breaking like that leads to some consequences regarding Votowne. But! That's not all!. Then we go to Hephaestus and talk to hidden Grumpos which skips completely the investigation section in the Monastery. And currently this is the most optimal way to ensure that Votowne gets ready for the second state (when you arrive there after Villain's Ship). The best indicators of that are: unlocked elementor, the Grumpos's table has the things on in the Lounge of Commerce or you can just warp to Votowne and see if the additional npcs got spawned here. (Again all that happens much earlier than you actually get to Votowne the second time).
Even though Votowne changed the state and the dialogue in Republic Inn is available (resting is supposed to lead to Fatima's cinematic) it won't work until you legitimately arrive here through the cinematic from Whitendon. The fact that you finish the investigation quest and play elementor intro before doing Rho's quest on Sender Station means that you will get warped to the Lounge afterwards. Since there's no one else at lounge except Boots and Grumpos, Fatima won't let you out and the only way to escape it seems to warp with any cinematic ("Disguises" seems to be the most suitable). From that point you need to do Rho's quest solely with Boots.
There might be a way to do this differently, without having to go to Hephaestus twice, but I found that the route in the run is the most optimal one and backtracking doesn't waste too much time regarding the other routes. Doing things the opposite way (Rho's quest first) will make Grumpos to disappear when completed, denying access to Hephaestus (since you need him in party to get there). There is a way to avoid that by making a save before doing Rho's quest, do the quest until PAL's solo mission (the museum quest) and unlock "PAL Solo Enters" cinematic. Then warp with Boots, PAL and Grumpos there from the save made prior to the quest (right after arriving to Votowne the first time). Completing the PAL's quest with a whole party ensures that Grumpos won't become inactive (disappear) during the cutscene.
However that breaks Votowne for some reason, it remains in it's 0 state, softlocking the game in later stages.
The fight with Magmatos is optional, skipping will complete the quest. However you'll have to get back to the monastery somehow. Warping with "Braving the Levant" is one of the options.
