This game has several useful glitches that help with speedrunning. Perhaps the most useful and certainly the most fun glitch is Banana Flight. SMAC games included the banana as a joke option that can be purchased in game. The banana really does not do anything normally. It bounced around a lot, it can alert guards, but they cant actually hurt anyone. I heard that the creators of the game joked that they hoped that one day characters could slip on bananas in the game, but that has not been implemented. However, the banana has a odd reaction with the shield weapon.

The shield weapon is purchasable in game (for a significant amount of in game money, so you can't do this until you have done a few missions) that reflects bullets and other objects that hit it. This applies to items you throw as well, or is at least supposed to. If you throw a grenade while your shield is up it works as intended and your grenade bounces backwards (possibly resulting in you blowing yourself up). The banana, however, for whatever reason goes through the shield, and, ** if you are in the air, gives you a push upwards.** By throwing bananas repeatedly you can gain enough height to counteract the in game gravity, and since this game allows you to change your movement direction while in the air this allows you to basically fly wherever you want.

In the Any% run you can't really afford the Shield, the banana item, and the grenade ammo that throwing bananas consumes until part way through the game. The first mission it would be useful on is High Stakes, and unfortunately you just can't afford them at this point. I have not attempted a 100% or All missions run, but its possible in there that some routing could make it possible to get the necessary stuff before high stakes. The next mission that flight is really useful for is Twin Punks, and by that point you have plenty of money. I generally purchase the shield, the banana, 2 Rifle ammo crates, and as many grenades as I can afford at this point, which generally lasts me to the end of the game (although you can get close on the grenade ammo on the last mission if things go wrong somewhere).

Anyway, I will conclude with some tips about using banana flight well that I have learned through experimentation.

1. Aim at high things. Bananas tend to give you more height when you aim at taller objects (buildings and such) and generally they do the best if you aim at things that are currently higher up than you are.

2. If you need lots of height fast, stay still while throwing the bananas. This tends to give you a lot more height and can rocket you upwards. This is particularly useful on some missions as you can rocket yourself to extreme heights and snipe/throw grenades at assassination targets a long way away from you without ever entering the normal mission area or having to deal with any of their guards. You can also do this to give yourself enough height so that you can then fly over other guards who might normally spot you flying around.

3. Bananas can rocket you downward as well... so be careful. If you aim at something lower than yourself your character will angle their shield downward... if its then hit by a banana you sometimes are rocketed downward, watch out for this.

4. Bananas alert Guards, so try to avoid throwing them direct at them if you care about staying hidden. On some missions if you alert the guards you can be faced with a torrent of gunfire coming at you as you fly around, and it can be difficult to avoid it all.

5. Make sure you jump first... you have to be in the air for bananas to give you a height boost.

6. Bananas can affect you when they fall down. This will mostly happen if you throw banana's pretty much straight up while not moving to gain height rapidly, but if a banana begins its fall after gravity asserts its hold and hits your shield it will push you down some, and does a pretty good job at cancelling out any more height gain you will get from throwing bananas until it slides past your shield. This is just good to keep in mind and basically means you should try targeting things a bit away from yourself to avoid this.

That about wraps up my guide on banana flight. Hopefully this will be useful to anyone else that might want to get into this game.