Hello~

So I currently have a 51:12, not quite a 50:xx:xx but close anyway. My times, for comparison: Bombs: 5:02 (-10) Varia: 10:24 (-11) Power Bombs: 17:22 (-26) Gravity: 22:57 (-47) Botwoon dead: 26:16 (or well thats when I leave the room) (-1:05) Ridley Tank: 37:28 (-4:15) Finish: 51:12 (-4:56)

Note that my early game up to powerbombs was REALLY good compared to my usual times (which are similar to yours!). I took 5 tanks, 20/10/5, no baby skip (I don't attempt it). My own major time saves are currently on Phantoon and Tourian assuming I don't drop any items or learn baby skip.

Answers to your questions:

1. Barely any time, not sure how much, and if I'm correct it wastes more health which you may need especially if skipping kraid etank. I'd say not worth, since it's easier to mess up baaad (falling into moat), unless you really like swag.
2. Yes, because you'd have to go into the pause menu twice (to turn beams off and then back on) which takes time, plus it may lag the game a little (not sure). If all particles hit that would do 1200 dmg, a plasma shot does 900. PLUS if you mess up the x factor, you won't be able to shoot until the particles are gone.
3. I think baby skip optimally saves about 25 seconds, not sure how many jumps that is. I'm personally saving baby skip for after sub 50, I don't feel its worth grinding down while I can still save time in other places, plus it'd suck to depend on it.

I have a question for you too: do you have a video of your run? It's hard to tell whether your time save is in movement, routing (do you pick up ice early or late etc.) or boss fights without that.

Buttt looking at your times compared to mine... As far as I can tell your early game is really good for a 56:xx. Your times up to powerbombs are similar to what I usually get, at 51:xx. After that you start losing time, perhaps because of boss fights? Learning x factors on Phantoon and Botwoon help a lot, they make the fights a lot more consistent and save ammo. You definitely don't want to spend more than 4 rounds on Phantoon, Botwoon is a similar story. But after that is where you lose much more time. It seems you spent a looooot of time on Draygon? What method do you use to kill her? Shinesparking into her is the go-to method for sure. Or maybe your routing is different after that? Not sure what happens, but you lose 3 minutes compared to me between Botwoon and Ridley etank.

Something to be aware of is that running low ammo/health may actually slow you down because of having to refill more (plus the chance of softlocking or dying to mother brain increases ofc). Running 15/10 is risky, and you can definitely still save those 7 seconds of picking up that extra missile pack elsewhere. Also, any reason why you're skipping Kraid etank instead of Ridley etank? Kraid etank helps with every bossfight after that and makes sure you dont have to farm before bowling or take sloaters refill etc. As said, I still take both tanks anyway (learning to skip Ridley etank now on bad runs).

Apart from the big timesaves on boss fights, Draygon in particular it seems, the most likely way to save time is in movement. Have a plan for every room. Try to make every jump as small as possible (learning ledgegrabs/downgrabs helps a lot). Make sure your walljumps are consistent so you don't fall down and have to try again. Sensei Kipp once told me that the difference between my (then) 1:07 pb and sub hour was 7 minutes of being mid-air, and that still applies now, while trying to improve my 51.

I feel playing with a controller would be fine as long as you keep that limited to moving/jumping/shooting. If you look at the controls in the game there's actually a controller view so ye.

The bonus glitch strats, however, should just stay on their original keys on keyboard imo. So playing on controller should mean going back and forth between the two. Otherwise it gets too easy.

You could say there's no way to control what people do if you set the rules like that. But honestly, if there is no way to control it, people could cheat regardless of the rules (even if you ban keymapping altogether, they could still do it without you knowing & while showing the "correct" inputs on keyboard.)

I'm getting a significantly bigger time save on level 2 (~8 seconds), are you slowing down somewhere for health management?

My time save on level 5 is a lot less though :/ you can only skip the silver key right?? How does that save 12 seconds haha, takes me like 6 seconds to walk there and back to where you fall down

Other than that I'm getting about equal timesaves Think im gonna get rekt by level 9 a lot now, that new jump and the possible extra damage because of bad RNG are horrible as well as the mashing lol

It's really weird that there's so many different ways to do the rapid and laser bonuses! Both keys gonna change so much. Works for me as well, just mash L. I'm also gonna reroute, just moderate ep 1 for now tho :>

I tested your inputs as well: Rapid:

• hold up YES
• hold numpad "-" YES
• hold 5 YES
• hold 7 YES
• hold ? NO ---- YES if i hold my "-", so same key as on numpad but next to the normal nmbr. keys, but for some reason you do have to hold it longer than the numpad key. this key is, oddly enough, not in the same position as your keyboard map thingy shows (it's next to 0 not next to p)
• hold O YES
• hold K YES
• 9 6 times YES
• alt gr like a billion times YES
• numpad 8 4 times YES

Laser:

• up 2 times YES
• hold F4 YES
• hold 9 YES
• hold T YES
• hold S YES
• hold { (it's ' on my keyboard but same position as on your map) YES

Both keys:

• L 12 times YES

Thanks for the research!

I agree to the points above. I'd say 2nd option, just beat the level and immediately exit out to menu and skip the first level of the next episode. Playing ep 1 level 1 every time would be a pain and this would keep the flow going a bit more I think.

I agree with banning save files, since just playing ep 1 lvl 1 an x amount of times is ridiculous lol. That just turns the game into a meme run.

Having two categories would be good. If I understand correctly, 'no level skip' would mean you CAN'T use the glitch for episode 2-4 runs, but any% would allow it? For episode 1 there would still only be one category I guess, cuz you cant (ab)use the glitch for it anyway, unless you start the game in a NG+ fashion with the glitch already 'enabled', but I assume thats not allowed.

Also (this is slightly off-topic but I guess it still fits since this is about rules): with regards to the random luck thingy, very very rarely you randomly (afaik) get both keys without getting them yourself, which would save a lot of time. Would that be allowed in a run?