the previous WR had some issues with it that left me quite unsatisfied -- including segmentation, no audio in the start -> SFT portion, a few inefficiencies in individual levels, and of course, an unbearably slow and restart laden parasite city.

this record, set just a day after the last (after a 5 year interval between my first two attempts) retains key parts of the prior run, and makes some improvements -- including an even faster SFT (and nearly perfect Thread itself, preserving both brons), a sub-bomb hamburger hill, faster executions in later levels (such as Mykophobia), small efficiency gains across the board, and of course, a vastly improved parasite city.

3h or 3h15 is the probable absolute near-TAS floor for this game, and I think even 3h30 or 3h40 is perhaps at the edge of reason unless vastly new strategies are discovered and practiced...though the SFT rush and rhino drops are tough to beat. most of the big gains in this run have been made at this point. any improvement from here - if anyone chooses to run this game, which I can't say I recommend given its length - will be in much smaller increments, on the order of a few minutes at a time, and predominantly at the mercy of mechanics/quirks such as AI pathfinding, rhino missile passthrough and hitbox priority, and even unit spawn orientation.