(Written May 7th 2018, is currently updated)

This guide is an attempt at sharing all of my knowledge on this route/game. It will be incredibly detailed and I'll mark minor optimizations from major concepts appropriately.

First things first, settings: they're all up to your preference except for Fullscreen. For some reason, if you play in full screen you gain control of your cursor slightly earlier after sleeping until morning, and over the run it stacks up to a significant amount (I estimate at least 5 seconds, probably more). Also, you might want to change your system date to any of the other four weekdays if you're trying to do runs on Friday/Saturday/Sunday - there's in-game events that lower your odds of completing a run if you play on the weekend.

Another general thing to learn about is sprinting patterns. In most cases it's best to just sprint until you run out, fully recharge, sprint again; but some areas are consistent enough that you can memorize different, slightly faster patterns and pull them off consistently. Those will be noted throughout the guide.

Also, jumping up slopes is faster than walking up slopes, but sprinting speed beats both. In the same vein, walking down slopes is faster than jumping down slopes, but sprinting speed beats both. Keep this in mind as you refine your movement throughout.

For the rest of this guide, you can refer to my PB/WR (as of time of writing this guide) for a video explanation of things.

--- Section 1: Pink Gordo --- Immediately upon spawning, turn right and vac up the carrots as you start sprinting forwards and out of the ranch. Vac up the two pink slimes on your way and get rid of them whenever you can (plenty of opportunities to do so, don't stress about doing it early if you don't like it). In the first area, proceed to clean up the carrots on the left, the pogofruit tree nearby, then turn back for the second group of carrots and proceed onwards. Make sure to recharge your sprint meter while harvesting so that you can sprint towards the next area without losing time. Vac up the pogofruits from the tree on the right (spawns vary from 0 to 3), sprint forward to the next group of carrots and collect those and then collect the group of pogofruits nearby. Now you'll need to make some quick maths decisions: you need 30 fruits to pop the Pink Gordo, there's an extra bunch of carrots for a small detour in a corner of the same area you're in, and there's a pogofruit tree on the Pink Gordo island. The extra carrots are never necessary unless you're really short on both carrots and pogofruits, but they're worth your time if you have something like 17 carrots and 7 pogofruits as your run is very unlikely to survive otherwise. Otherwise, just head straight to the Gordo island, if you have 30 total food before reaching him you're in luck, if you don't just use the tree next to him to get there. Feed the gordo and try to empty your inventory completely while you're at it, make sure to actually pick up the Slime Key. (OPTIMIZATION: Start throwing food from as far as possible to save some seconds, practice your sprinting on the bridge as you try to feed him from there a little because different heights at various points of the bridge as well as different trajectories of items you launch depending on if you're sprinting or not sprinting can all make a difference.) (OPTIMIZATION: There's a few different patterns of sprinting that work out for this beginning section, you don't necessarily need to learn one but it's easier to learn a good pattern than to try to avoid bad ones while playing instinctively. Watch various runs to see how people get through this section if you're interested in cutting your losses here.)

--- Section 2: Moss Blanket Harvesting --- Your goal for this section is to reach the teleporter in the Moss Blanket with your inventory containing exactly the following: x5 Boom Slime, x5 (or more) Honey Plort, x1 Mint Mango, x2 (or more) Cuberry. Getting to the Moss Blanket is for the largest part very simple sprinting patterns. Pick up the cuberries that are literally on your way, enter the Moss Blanket, and head to the area further up leading up to the teleporter. In this area, your goal is to get the items mentioned above as quickly as you can and leave. So, let's go one by one:

• Honey Plort: By far the most complex item to get. Sometimes you'll have honey slimes feeding on the very first group of Mint Mangos and that will be all you need, if that doesn't happen (or at least not to the extent you'd hope for), you'll have to vac up some mangos and head forwards. You can pray for enough honey slimes to spawn in the second section after walking through that empty tree trunk bridge, which would save you time but usually won't get you more than 2 plorts (and often straight up 0 plorts), or you can take a small detour to the mango tree nearby in the first area, which is much more consistently swarmed by honey slimes. If you're not going for a really insane time, the consistency of that tree will probably come in handy for you and you should head there when you're short on plorts.
• Boom Slime: They'll pop up at various points after you walk through the tree trunk. Unfortunately you won't always get five but you will very often get five. The run I linked above gets pretty much the usual boom spawns, sometimes you have to take detours to vac some up from the water on the right or the area right before the teleporter but ideally you won't have to.
• Mint Mango: Ideally you just grab multiple from the very first spawn location and throw them out to honey slimes while keeping one last mango in your inventory, but if you run out, there's more places in the second section where you can pick up extra mangos. Either way this is really simple.
• Cuberry: Ideally you'll have two from the ones you picked up on your way to the Moss Blanket, but sometimes you'll only have 0-1 which is completely fine - there are cuberries in the water on the left right before the teleporter (the run I linked picks them up). Warp home with your harvest!

--- Section 3: Farming --- As soon as you return home, turn to your left and plant a Mint Mango. Throw out the boom slimes on the wall nearby, then get rid of the Hen Hen and the Pink Slime nearby as you have to wait a few seconds anyway (Slimes won't eat immediately after being thrown out). Feed one plort to each slime to make five Boom Honey Largos (if you snipe them accurately they will eat instantly, so try to be precise because they can misbehave and not notice a plort right next to them otherwise), head to the area behind your hut to pick up EXACTLY ONE of the three pogofruits lying down there, throw the slime and the hen hen in the vast sea, enter your hut. If you did the first two sections very fast, you'll only have one mail to read on Day 1, another on Day 2, and another on Day 3. If you were slower, you'll have two mails on Day 1 and one on Day 3. Either way, it's possible to skip reading a couple of mails throughout the game but I honestly can't recommend it - it's a minor optimization that is likely to make you lose runs due to getting confused on which mails you can skip and which ones you can't, or at least losing any time you'd make up due to having to think about what you're reading. I also haven't learned the details of that little time save myself so uh, I guess you should join the discord and ask people who actually know if you want to save this half second. Otherwise, just read every mail that ever gets to your inbox. Regardless of your preferred method of mail handling, Sleep Until Morning twice to wake up on 6 AM of Day 3. Head out to see that your Largos have been feeding off the Mangos that have spawned through the days and dropped a large amount of plorts on the ground. 4 of your Largos are no longer necessary, throw them to the slime sea while you harvest plorts. One of them you'll still need for later, throw him across your ranch to the area around the default corral you get at the start. Fill your two inventory slots with Honey and Boom plorts, sell them all, head back to the Mango area to pick up the remaining plorts, plant your single Pogofruit while you're in that area, and pick up any Mint Mangos left on the ground now that your inventory doesn't have to carry Pogofruits anymore. (After you fully clean up the ground, your inventory should be Cuberry/Mint Mango/Honey Plort/Boom Plort) Sell the rest of your plorts, then check your total money. You need 2410 for your run to live, 3060 for the luxury of the 200 energy upgrade (saves some minor seconds over 150 energy but it's no big deal if you miss out), and any small extra bits to pay for stuff like Remove Crops helps. If your Largos didn't produce many plorts due to AI/randomness being stupid and/or if the market prices were low, it's possible for your run to die here, but it's not a common occurrence. If your run is alive and well, continue onwards: get the Jetpack, Dash Boots, Power Core and Tank Booster upgrades for your vacpack, then head to the two farms right behind the vacpack upgrade machine thingy and plant Cuberries in both. There's one last Pink Slime to get rid of in this area, if he's nice he'll hop towards you and you'll get rid of him quickly, sometimes you'll have to look for him in places a little out of your way to make sure he doesn't mess with your remaining Largo and make Tarr (which is run ending if it happens) but it's somewhat of a rare occurrence. With your four farms set up, you're good to go. Sleep until Day 5 for them to make more fruit, head out and collect AT LEAST 25 Cuberries + AT LEAST 25 Mint Mangos (use Remove Crops + replant the crop to pick up the fruits quicker if you need to, the ones still up on the trees take some time to vac up but doing this makes them drop to the ground immediately). Sometimes Mangos just won't cooperate and you won't reach 25, another RNG run killer, so you just kind of have to pray for the best.

--- Section 4: Two Gordos, First Three Gate Plorts --- Your goal this section is to pop the Phosphor and Honey Gordos while bringing the Phosphor, Tabby, and Rock plorts to the Ancient Gate. Run out of your ranch with 25+ of both Cuberry and Mint Mango in your inventory. Head straight to the Phosphor Gordo (sprinting patterns can save you some good time here, make sure you're not wasting time recharging energy you won't need because after you drop down to the cave you'll automatically be recharging as you feed the Gordo). Feed him with the Cuberries until he pops, fully empty your inventory of Cuberries in this cave (you'll want to feed one to the Slimes that pop out to get Phosphor Plorts anyway), break the crates the Gordo will drop and pick up any Carrot or Heart Beet you find inside (super super likely that you'll get one of them). Your inventory out of the cave should be Mint Mango (25+) / Phosphor Plort (1+) / Phosphor Slime (1) / Heart Beet or Carrot (1+). Use the Phosphor Slime to slime jump (see the tutorials for slime jumping if you don't know how to do this) up the wall and get back on track. Drop down to the area with Chickens and Tabby Slimes and whatnot - the one right before the Tabby Gordo and the bridges to the Moss Blanket. Here you'll be praying for a Rock Slime spawn, it's very frequent that you'll get at least one but not guaranteed (another RNG runkiller). Assuming the Rock Slime does spawn, feed him the Heart Beet or Carrot in your inventory. If you didn't find any, you can still salvage it by getting a Pink Plort from a slime nearby and feeding that to the Rock Slime to make a Pink Rock Largo, and feeding it with either Mangos in your inventory or Chickens you pick up nearby. Tabby Plorts are very likely to be around without you having to do anything given the giant number of Tabby Slimes and Chickens around, pick one up before leaving the area (if you have to, pick up a chicken and feed it to a Tabby Slime to get that plort, but hopefully the game works with you). Head out with your inventory being Mint Mango (25+) / Phosphort Plort (1+) / Tabby Plort (1+) / Rock Plort (1+). (MINOR NOTE: You can get a Tabby Plort in the Moss Blanket too if the Tabby Slimes here are being really, really uncoopeative, but make that decision quick and commit to it or you'll just be losing time trying to figure out what to do.) Head to the Moss Blanket again, this time go right after the entrance to reach the Ancient Gate. Put your three Plorts in their place (you'll get the hang of sniping them from a distance quickly enough), run across all the way to the Honey Gordo and feed him with the 25 Mint Mangos (pick up any slime along the way to Slime Jump up his platform without having to wait for your Jetpack to recharge). Once you collect his Slime Key, you can use the Emergency Return function to warp back to your ranch instantly.

--- Section 5: More Farming --- As soon as you respawn home, get your last Vacpack upgrades (NOTE: this is the only big thing I forget about doing in the video, you'll see me doing this at a later point. It's obviously not a runkiller given that the run survived and WR'd, but it's strictly better to get your upgrades NOW). Tank Booster II is required, grab Power Core II as well if you have the money. Then, harvest the Cuberries on the ground (don't bother removing crops and replanting, no need), do the same for the Mint Mangos, REMOVE CROPS for your Pogofruit plant and plant Mint Mangos in their place instead - vac up all the Pogofruits on the ground, they should be somewhere in the 30-40 range. (This is the only mandatory Remove Crops of the run.) Enter your hut and Sleep Until Morning one more time, then finish up harvesting Cuberries and Mint Mangos and say hi to your dear Honey Boom Largo friend again (watch the video for a practical explanation of how to do this part, really really easy sequence). You want to be heading out with 106 total fruits at least between Cuberries, Pogofruits, and Mint Mangos (you can make up smaller numbers with some luck from crates, but that's obviously not recommended and unsafe - still, you'll have to go for it if you're short on fruits).

--- Section 6: Super Largo Odyssey --- Now you'll have to carry your Largo all the way to the Ancient Gate (the point of this is to have his plorts there without having said plorts occupy any inventory space, if you're wondering.) We have to do some tricky movement to get to the Quarry without using a Slime Key, it's really simple but it's definitely something that requires practice. A lot of movement with slippery rocks and you'll just have to go out and practice this yourself, especially since you'll have to know it well enough to do it with a Largo blocking most of your field of view. Anyway, the trickiest part of this is definitely collecting the Rad Plort quickly and without causing disasters. My run is once again a better visual explanation for this segment than words can ever be, put your Largo in a 'safe' area and hope he doesn't wander around too much while you pick up one of the veggies on the ground and feed it to a Rad Slime to pick up his plort. The Rad Slimes that spawn in that place in the linked video aren't always present, sometimes you have to go for a quick and unpleasant backtrack or detour to get that plort. Another place that works out most of the time, but definitely not all the time. Either way, if your run still lives, carry on with your Largo all the way to the Ancient Gate - use your Slime Key from the Honey Gordo to open the gate between Quarry and Ancient Gate. Shoot the Rad Plort in its place, and feed the poor Largo at last. Collect the Honey Plort and also shoot it in its place, do it for the Boom Plort as well and the Ancient Gate is finally open.

--- Section 7: Last Two Gordos --- This entire section is really simple and best learnt by simply watching the video and mimicking what I do. Navigate the Ancient Ruins and reach the Quantum Gordo, feed it 50 fruits + feed fruits to five (or more, if you can afford it) of the Quantum Slimes that spawn when you pop it. If you're short on fruits, the crates from this Gordo will hopefully save your run by giving you the extra fruits you need (they have chances of giving Phase Lemons which count double since you can get 2 Quantum Plorts for 1 Lemon). Head to the Glass Desert teleporter. Use the Slime Key from the Quantum Gordo you just popped to access it, and activate it with five Quantum Plorts. If you have more in your inventory you can afford trickier shots from further away to save time, since if you miss them it's no big deal, but take it safe if you only have five. In the Glass Desert, it's really just proper sprint management - copy what I do in my video for a proper display of how to handle your energy for the first half, but I do mess up the rest due to accidental jetpack so don't copy the second half lol. Anyway, fly over to the Dervish Gordo, feed it your last 50 fruits, get its key, sprint all the way to the last Slime Gate you'll be opening, on the left of the big central area of the Desert. Use the door opening animation time to recharge your energy fully, then sprint down to head to the ending section (a really easy way to memorize this route is to just stick to the wall on your right until you enter the tunnel). There's a pretty tough section where you can either use your jetpack or do a really awkward slime jump to push yourself up - while jetpack usage is really easy, it's also kinda slow if you're pushing your time really far. Look at 14:50 on the video in this run -> https://www.speedrun.com/slime_rancher/run/yjkv1dgm for a demonstration of the slime jump, it will take some practice to get down. Otherwise, be a lazy slob like me and just manage your energy so that you have enough to just use your jetpack to clear the gap. Once you're through that room, simply get to the ending section of the Glass Desert and activate the ending trigger - sprint management here is again not too far from "just sprint until you run out", but you don't have to recharge too long if you're near the ending. Proper management here will come really quick if you pay attention during runs.

--- Section 8: Ending --- Once the ending trigger is activated, Emergency Return to your home again and immediately re-enter your house. You won't be able to access credits until you read a certain amount of mails from Casey, and those come at a rate of one every 24 hours of in game time, so just Read Starmail -> Sleep -> Repeat for a while. You'll be able to tell what starmail is the last one you need to read before you can read credits because the credits-triggering mail will have a notification pop up earlier on throughout the sleep cycle - for all previous mails you'll sleep a full cycle without a notification popping up, and when the clock hits 6:00 AM you'll get a notification on screen. For the last mail you need the notification will show on screen much earlier, so when you see that happening you will know to quit out and trigger credits. Congrats on your run!