Routing and Strategy

From: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/eliminator_boat_duel_nes.html

100% Route Starts Here

Seasick Sidney 1 - Just hold A.  You can literally win this race by holding the button down.  Collect any nitros that are thrown your way with your terrible bathtub of a boat.  I generally spend $40,000 on an acceleration upgrade after this race.

Seasick Sidney 2 - Introduction to overheads.  Collect the 1 set of nitros and be sure to grab the $ powerup in this level as well to get over $80,000 and put it ALL into handling after this race.  I generally do NOT try to put damage on Seasick Sidney as you do not want him to spend excessive time in drydock repairing and he is unlikely to upgrade beyond that anyway.

Seasick Sidney 3 - This is your first kill mission.  If Seasick Sidney is feeling compliant he will not purchase the 1 unit of handling that he can afford, occasionally he will.  This is a little rough because your boat isn't anywhere near top shape itself yet.  First off use that handling to deny Seasick Sidney any nitros and pray to RNGesus for extra logs, then finish the 2nd leg of the race (chase) only slightly ahead of him.  When the screen transitions to the 3rd leg of the race (overhead swamp) immediately start putting damage on him over and over again.  You should have enough nitros to just chain them together, and a couple alligator heads are available if he gets loose, but you want to get it before that if possible.

Best time on Seasick Sidney 1:42.

Aquarius Rex 1 - There are two ways to route this and I have about equal results with both so I will cover both.  Route A is to actually go for the assassination in the swamp and thereby end this race early for a time save.  However, it's a relatively small time save and it makes the next two races more difficult.  Route B is to hit him exactly 13 times so that he ends the race as weak as possible, and beyond that finish the race quickly.

Aquarius Rex 2 - Route A will have him coming back with a rebuilt boat that requires 13 or more hits to weaken.  You have a lot of work to do if you're doing this route to get him back to minimum stats and it makes the race take longer.  Get those hits in as best you can and then finish the race quickly.  Route B is much faster here, if he barely upgrades you just basically fly through this race as fast as possible.  If he puts a few upgrades back on, you want to strip them off with 5+N hits (rather easy on the overhead ocean leg) and then quickly finish the race.  Both routes are trying to set up a quick kill in Aquarius Rex 3, but the latter has a faster time of it at the expense of skipping the kill in Aquarius Rex 1.

Aquarius Rex 3The routes converge here, route B will likely have more nitros and accomplish the quick kill more easily, but route A will get here first.  Both options are viable.  Obviously since I've been talking about setting up for a quick kill here, that's what we're doing.

Best split for Aquarius Rex is 2:56

Vicious Vicky 1 - This is kind of uninteresting because there isn't enough time to sink her.  She seems to start out pretty aggressively so I will take damage opportunities if they arise, but I won't slow down significantly for them because we aren't killing Vicious Vicky at all.

Vicious Vicky 2 - Drag race.  Don't lose.

Vicious Vicky 3 - I usually go for speed here.  I haven't found anything to do damage-wise that won't cost more time than it saves.  There are a lot of nitros in the overhead river leg so you can use them to finish way early.

Vicious Vicky best segment is 2:39

Any% route starts here

Surfer Bob 1 - Starts with a nice ocean section.  In any% if I don't win off the line I reset immediately because I want to come into the first turn in a position to scoop the nitro and start applying deeps.  In 100% it's obviously much easier to damage him in this race.  The over ocean section is great for pounding out damage.  I do not go for a kill here, because I would not likely get it until the very end of the race anyway and that would screw me on the quick kill in Surfer Bob 2.  The race only has 3 legs and my objective is to get him as close to MinBoat as possible.  This is much easier coming from 100% obviously.

Surfer Bob 2 - Kill kill kill!  You want to soften him up in the previous race and then attack his minboat ferociously in the first ocean section, coming from 100% this should be set up close to perfectly, any% you take what you can get.  This race has 5 legs and I don't even want to know what the last 2 of them are.  You can finish him on the 3rd leg for a serious time save.

Surfer Bob 3 - He comes back with RebuiltBoat, stronger than MinBoat, but this race is long enough that you can kill him again for another timesave.  You want to kill him again as quickly as possible.  In 100% I once was able to do it at the very end of the 2nd leg, in any% my earliest kill is the middle of the 3rd - these are the exception rather than the rule, and the beginning of the 4th leg is still a good time save.

Best time on Surfer Bob split is 2:53 from 100% and 3:19 from any% (due to having a much better boat in the former).

Weird Willy 1 - At this point any% and 100% are more or less completely converged.  You only get 3 legs here, but the second one is a nice long swamp section that let's you really apply some damage.  Similarly to Surfer Bob 1 you don't want to kill him here because the time save would be minimal, and hurt the next race's quick kill significantly.  Like before you're trying to get him to MinBoat, which should be 13 hits + any upgrades he takes in drydock.

Weird Willy 2 - Weird Willy goes into drydock for days before this race, but we're going to obliterate him anyway in this race.  Do not let this race get to the 3rd leg.  You've got a big ocean section and a hell of an opportunity to finish him off for a great time save.

Weird Willy 3 - Totally rewriting this strat as of 2015-01-20.  I originally played this race straight and just finished as quickly as possible but that's not optimal.  If you got the quick kill in Weird Willy 2, you're not going to sink Weird Willy 3 here - and if you do it would be at the very end of the race anyway which is unhelpful.  However, we do actually want to put some damage on in the overhead river section.  We're actually going to be setting up a Mangler Mike 3 quick kill all the way back here, because the damage does carry over between opponents.  You don't want to slow down dramatically to do so, nor do you want to burn all your nitros, but you do want to strip as many points off this boat as you can get away with without slowing down significantly.

Best time on Weird Willy split is 3:48.

Mangler Mike 1 - This is a scary race.  You get one river section, and it's not enough time to get satisfactory damage.  Play it similarly to Weird Willy 3.  Also be aware that he will come with 9 nitros to his name, and you're going to want to make damn sure you don't get run down at the end of the chase section, which is the final leg here.

Mangler Mike 2 - There is insultingly little to do here, but my new strat is to go for it anyway.  He also seems to get hugely upgraded before this race and we're going to try to get rid of as much of that as possible.  Your performance in the previous two races will help make that easier, but there's so little to work with.  You get one shockingly short overhead section (10 seconds?) between two long chase legs, and you want to use it to optimize damage as best you can.  The goal is a quick kill in Mangler Mike 3, but it's a very difficult setup and you're not going to get his boat perfectly softened for it.

Mangler Mike 3 - It's do or die time.  The last three races have been a constant struggle between the AI upgrading the boat and us trying to wear it back down again.  There is a lot of variance here - if you've done badly he's going to be nearly maxed out and the quick kill is more or less impossible.  But if you've done a great job keeping the damage up, he should finally be in a position to go down in the 3rd leg of this race.  Make it so.

Best time on Manger Mike is 4:25.

Veronica Alabaster 1 This bitch is cray, and is proof that distinct AI personalities were coded into this game.  Veronica Alabaster starts with 6 nitros and cannot stand when you are in front of her.  She will burn through them almost on the same frame that you take the lead a lot of the time.  Your primary function in this race is to get that number down to 0 as soon as possible.  Because she needs to be ahead she will pick up Nitros and use them to get more Nitros, especially in the chase sections.  Once you have her down to 0, it's time to start working on damage.  All you're really accomplishing here is draining her money, because you're not going to kill her in the first race - and even if you pound on her she's very likely to rebuild a fucking Maxboat in the drydock.

Veronica Alabaster 2 - Damage damage damage damage damage damage.  Guess what?  Damage.  Knock knock?  Who's there?  Fucking damage.  We are trying to turn what is probably close to MaxBoat into MinBoat by the end of this 6 leg race and it's not easy.  If she managed to max out her stats we're looking at attempting to get in 25 points of damage, which is a real challenge.  If she gets a hold of any nitros and starts going wild it's bad news, and the chase is on to get back ahead of her so you can start doing damage again.  It is possible to sink her here but you probably won't accomplish it until the end of the 6th and final leg, which makes it a huge waste because it ruins the quick kill in the next race.  The biggest time save of the entire run is in fact the next race and it works much better if she starts with MinBoat.  Leave her with a withered husk of a machine that barely floats, it's the only way to make her love you later.

Veronica Alabaster 3 - This is the quick kill.  If you went too far in your bloodlust on the last run, you'll be facing a RebuiltBoat which can take a lot more time to kill.  Leave it at minimum stats though and this can go fantastically well.  This is where sinking her finances in the first race may pay off in the form of MinBoat truly having barely any stats at all.  The race starts with a long chase section and you want to pray to RNGesus for alligators(?).  You can put her down right here, but if you have bad RNG the 3rd leg is a great ocean section for finishing the job.  This will save you minutes on the projected race time, and is easily the biggest single time save of the run.

Best time on Veronica Alabaster split is 5:27.

Disaster Don 1 - This fucker is unkillable, near as I can tell.  You can put damage on the boat, but I don't think it will ever take the last hit and sink.  A lot of the time he simply doesn't take the damage.  I switch modes entirely on this race and try to minimize my own damage and just get through the race quickly.  Nitros are sparse so save them for the end if you get in trouble.

Disaster Don 2 - Play safe.  Don't die.  I wish this was more exciting but again for as long as the race is he simply doesn't seem to take the damage that everyone else does.  Nitros are very sparse, horde them till the end.  The chase sections will make up any deficit if you get way behind in the overheads, but obviously try not to - this is still a speedrun.

Disaster Don 3 - Final race of the game, and it has one unique thing going on here - a double chase section as the last two legs of the race.  This really means that you have no excuse to lose.  Blast on the nitros as you end the second last leg and make sure you're out front.  The final chase section is very short, and all you have to do is maintain that lead, and nitro again.  Just know it's coming and be ready.

Best time on Disaster Don split is 12:11.  (I don't think there's a ton more to gain on it since there are no assassination strats possible.)

WRs as of 2015-01-20:

Any% - 30:30
100% - 37:37