So I've started routing and practicing the vanilla any% run and the first major problem you come across is how to get Huey's mission to spawn to get the story to proceed. Pykn runs into this problem in his runs and tries a few things. I watched his videos and then spent most of tonight experimenting with different configurations. Here's what I've learned so far.
TL;DR = To get Huey to spawn you need to complete 3/4 of missions 7-10 AND deploy in free roam/motherbase at least twice. (My current theory, not confirmed).
- Before I explain why I think the above is true, it's important to know that the way the missions become available isn't exactly linear. They spawn in the following order
Prologue Mission 1 Mission 2 Missions 3-5 Mission 6 Missions 7-10 Mission 11¤ Mission 12¤
The prologue and missions 1-2 are forced and cannot be avoided. After mission 2 you are given missions 3-5 all at once. Once you've completed two of those three missions, mission 6 opens up. Once you complete mission 6, missions 7-10 all open up.
To get Huey to spawn, you need to complete 3/4 of missions 7-10 and deploy in free roam at least twice (more on that below).
At first I thought you just had to complete 8 missions. But if you complete 1-8, Huey will not spawn. Whereas if you complete 1-4, 6-8, 10, he will.
It makes sense that the game calculates progress based on a percentage of the missions it opens up at once. When it opens up 3-5, it requires 2/3 to open up the honey bee mission for you to proceed. Similarly, it requires 3/4 of 7-10 to open up Huey.
- Deploying at least twice. I'm still testing this but this is more or less what I've figured out:
- Dropping into Afghanistan and menu'ing out is NOT count as a deployment by the game.
- Stopping by Motherbase and interacting/cutscene IS considered a deployment.
- Going back and redoing a previous mission IS NOT counted as a deployment. [Still testing]
- Dropping into Afghanistan and triggering a side-op (entering the blue circle on the map) and then choppering out DOES count. [Still testing this but pretty sure about this.]
- Getting Quiet to show up. Both Quiet and Huey are announced by Ocelot via radio. If you have completed Mission 6 but NOT completed 3/4 of 7-10 AND you deploy 2+ times, instead of radioing you to tell you that Huey is available, Ocelot will radio you and tell you about a Sniper. You can then go to the ruins and get Quiet.
It's still unclear if Quiet is even worth getting in any of these full game runs, but it's still useful to know.
THINGS TO STILL TEST:
- Does extracting animals still count as a deployment? My guess is yes. Anything the game considers save-worthy (checkpoint, animal, etc.) is a deployment.
- Does completing Quiet's mission + 3 deployments immediately grant access to Huey? [This is actually how I got notified of Huey in my first playthrough]. This could potentially be huge because you create a new route of:
Prologue Missions 1-4 Mission 6 3 Deployments Get Quiet Get Huey
Allowing you to skip missions 7-10 entirely. This would be a massive time save.
- And of course, I still need to test when exactly Quiet becomes available. Judging by Huey's mechanic, I'm guessing it's completion of Mission 6 plus 3 deployments. But I'm not sure yet. I have tested it with 1-4, 6, 8, and 10 completed and I got her announcement. Quiet's mission is pretty short and much safer than missions 7 and 8, so it may be worth replacing one of those missions with her if possible.
Please feel free to add anything you find. I'll keep updating as I learn more over the coming days.
soo these deployments ... do they have to be after mission 6?
if not we could do :
prologue mission 1 mission 2 mission 3 (snipe the dude takes 1 min start to finish) deploy and destory com equipment for mission 4 start mission 4 (auto finishes in 30 sec) mission 6 mission 7 mission 8 mission 10
what counts as a deployment? if i deploy to a area and then walk over to the mission start marker, is that enough to count? or do ihave to trigger a save by extracting an animal or something for it to count?
maybe we could combine the "free roam" deployments with the approach to the mission start marker, that way we could start the mission from the ground while also getting a deployment done.
<<THINGS TO STILL TEST:
- Does extracting animals still count as a deployment? My guess is yes. Anything the game considers save-worthy (checkpoint, animal, etc.) is a deployment. >>
If this is right, you should also try with plants, blueprint, destroying something in an outpost (even if i doubt it would be worth it time wise) Plants happen to always be near your landing zone.
so if this works that way the start would be something like:
do missions 1-3
free roam by LZ for mission 4 -> extract plant/animal/whatever-> start mission 4 from ground
do mission 6
free roam by LZ for mission 7 -> extract plant/animal/whatever-> start mission 7 from ground
return to acc (is this needed? or can we maybe walk directly to the next mission? depends on map and how "deplyments" are counted)
free roam by LZ for mission 8 -> extract plant/animal/whatever-> start mission 8 from ground
do mission 10
do mission 11 (is this needed? or can you skip quiet completely? does the progeress even without quiet?)
do mission 12
Dekuking: Yes, I think that may end up being the fastest route. Especially because Side Op 1 spawns right next to the comm equipment, so it's easy to run through it to get to the station.
I'm pretty sure starting a mission in deployment does NOT count as a deployment. As far as I can tell, the game sees missions as one thing and then free-roam activities (side-ops/animals/etc) as another. Not positive about this though.
Also, you CAN and probably SHOULD skip Quiet, see Pykn's run to see how. Right now, the only way I can see Quiet being worth it at all in any run is if Mission 45 turns out to be WAY shorter than Mission 46 for any% second ending. OR if it turns out she becomes incredibly useful for some missions. Because just based on my loose timing last night, picking her up adds at least 6+ minutes game time. (2 minutes to get to her, 2 minutes to beat her, then about 2 minutes of forced cutscenes/dialog/chopper if you decide to keep her).
Breezer: these are good ideas, I'll try and test them today.
Goal today is to set up a save game file with missions 1-4, 6-8, 10 all completed with no deployments and then test exactly what qualifies as a deployment and what doesn't and confirm how many are required.
OK, did some more testing this today and I have good news. It's much simpler than I thought.
CURRENT THEORY: To spawn Huey you have to complete 3/4 of Missions 7-10 (meaning minimum 8 missions total) AND reach 12 total deployments.
What are deployments?
Basically anything:
- Any Mission, including the prologue
- Restarting any mission (through menu or otherwise)
- Any deployment in free-roam or motherbase
When you deploy via Chopper, you DO NOT have to do anything in free-roam to count the deployment, and you don't even have to touch the ground. The game counts it as a deployment the moment Snake opens the helicopter door.
What are NOT deployments?
- Restarting checkpoints
- Menu'ing out before Snake opens the helicopter door
- Free-roam after exfiltrating a mission on foot.
This is why sometimes runners instantly get access to Huey after they complete their 8th mission. If they restarted missions more than 3 times early on, then they have already reached 12 deployments. If you finish eight missions and haven't restarted once, then that means you've only had 9 total deployments and you have to redeploy 3 times to get Huey to spawn.
THE FASTEST WAY TO ACHIEVE 12 DEPLOYMENTS: Is to simply 'Restart Mission' on Mission 10 for however many times you need. If you reach Mission 10 and have not had to restart any of your missions yet, you should restart Mission 10 three separate times so that you have the requisite 12 deployments and Huey will spawn automatically when you complete Mission 10. I've tested this on two different save files now and it also lines up with Pykn's run.
IF you have fucked up your run and had to restart a couple missions, then you only have to restart on Mission 10 as many times as you need to reach 12. So let's say you had to restart missions twice in the beginning of your run, then that means you only have to restart mission 10 once to achieve the necessary 12 deployments. If you've really had a bad run and have restarted more than 3 times, then you don't have to restart mission 10 at all, Huey's side op will instantly spawn.
so if i walk from the end of mission 3 to the start of mission 4 without using the chopper (not sure if this is faster, but it isnt very far) would i have to restart one additional time, or would it count starting mission 4 from the field as a deployment?
if it counts someone is gonna have to time the travel time on horseback between the end of mission 3 and the start of mission 4... in pyks run he used return to acc and then deployed and that took in like ~1:25... so as long as as the travel time is <1:25 and it still counts as a deployment riding over is faster, if it doesnt coun probably not, since youd have to restart mission 10 one additional time.
we should also check the ending of mission -> start of next mission for all missions to find out if there are any routes that are faster then returing to acc
Sorry if this was already resolved but the Huey sideop is activated by completing 3/4 missions out of missions 7 to 10 as well as completion of the medical platform. The medical platform is also what activates quiet.
@dekuking: I haven't timed it, but in one of my test runs, I went to Mission 4 on horseback and it felt longer to me. That's not scientific, but my sense is it's faster to ACC to it.
@skippyy13: I don't think this is the determining factor as in one of my saves I have the Med platform but the first deployment doesn't give me Huey. But if I restart mission, THEN it gives me Huey. Similarly in Pykn's run, he has the Med platform but has to re-deploy 3+ times to get Huey to spawn.
I think the platforms come up based on total number of missions completed, whereas Huey requires a certain number of total deployments.
The medical platform is the location where quiet is stored after her mission and her mission activating is a pre-request for the Huey sideop. The mission will activate after the platform is finished and a type of loading screen, such as returning to the ACC is done.
I have done repeated testing on this and the current fastest method involves getting the invoice to the power station, starting mission 5, having the medical platform complete during mission 5 then using box fast travel to go to the powerstaion where the Huey sideop starts. The loading screen of where the mission fails from box travelling activates the Huey sideop.
This lets you skip travelling to Huey and skip quiet.
It is important to note that pykns current run on speedrun.com isn't his fastest time his fastest being closer to 3 hours.
Basicly the first mission you complete out of missions, 7,8,9 or 10 will activate the medical platform to be built. So the fastest of these mission must be completed first which is thought to be mission 10. The medical platform will always take a fixed amount of time to build regardless of the members on the base building team. After the first mission is complete 7 and 8 are completed. However there is then some time remaining before the platform is complete. In this time the best method seems to be to collect the box travel invoices at Serak Power Plant and Afghanistan Central Base Camp. The next step is to start mission 5 and move to its box transport point and wait for the platform to finish. Once it has finished you can then box transport to the powerplant and the mission failed screen will activate the Huey sideop. (Normally you cannot transport to the powerplant once the sideop has completed.)
Important note for mission 12: Probably a bug caused by quiet being skipped you wont be able to box transport from the powerplant to the Afghanistan Central Base Camp unless you close the game down completely during the mission and then go back on and continue. Don't know why this works but I think its something to do with quiet not loading in unless your in freeroam)
Interesting, I will test this out today.
I'm just still a bit skeptical because on Pykn's run, he gets the Quiet announcement AFTER the Huey announcement.
i dont think quiet ever gets "announced"... at least thats the way it was for me:
you get huey sideop and are forced to go through the bottleneck where quiet is and once you get to the ruins mission 11 starts... mission 11 never got annouced for be until it already had started
Once the medical platform is completed miller/revolver (forget which) will announce that there is a sniper named quiet about.
Yeah, he announces that and it usually happens before Huey announcement but not always. Not sure why.
Just tested. You are right Skippy. It is 3/4 of those missions + medical platform completion. Basically 18 minutes from the second you finish your 6th mission (Mission 10).
When you say close the game, you mean go to the title menu, or close the entire program?
