Thanks to, I believe it was LegacyGr who brought it to everyone's attention(Though I could be misremembering), if you attempt to stairskate with a knife Jill gets shoved backward.
You can see this in action simply by standing still with Jill and right clicking. Jill will slowly move backwards.
That got me wondering about other things and I found that for Jill Grenades shove her to the left or right. Depending on camera angle and her direction she can be slowed down or, theoretically, barely sped up(This requires extensive testing I haven't done yet to prove).
Carlos is also shoved to the sides when you right-click while holding a grenade on him.
Does anyone have any thoughts or tips in regard to non-pistol/shotgun/etc stairskating?
I've done a fair bit of back and forth between Flash/Pistol stair skating. For a while I believed Flash/Grenade was faster, but after hundreds of Speedrun attempts, the numbers didn't back this up. They seemed pretty much the same, and most of my golds with stair splits were using a Pistol. But after reading this I decided to do a test.
I created a Trainer save right at the end of the Rocket Nemesis split, as R.P.D. is essentially 2 sets of stairs and a corner. I started the split timer during the cut scene to ensure accurate testing. I did 5 attempts with the Flash and 5 with the Pistol. No dodges, just running and skating.
Pistol:
53.83 53.79 53.79 53.84 53.71
Flash:
53.79 53.85 53.79 53.72 53.77
It's not a huge sample size and there is a corner involved, but it's enough for me to consider the two pretty much interchangeable. I altered the stair skate timing slightly on an attempt or two as a test, but did not record any meaningful difference (i.e. 4 vs 5 skates on the second set of stairs).
With regards to skating up stairs, I don't have any data on it, but I've gone back and forth a number of times between the Power Station and Lockpick splits during run attempts and they also seem pretty much the same. Fluctuation of a few tenths, but that's to be expected with the dodge, two doors and several corners.
I think the perception that Grenade/Flash is faster is due to the difference in camera angle. There's no zoom in effect like gun aiming so it just seems like Jill has a little more boost per skate, but I now think this is just perception.
I do find it easier to get out of the Murphy door before it closes by using the Flash, but other runners pull it off with a Pistol, so it's probably a timing issue on my part. In conclusion I'd say use whatever you feel most comfortable with.
