Apparently Twitch messed that video up quite a bit. You can play the video if you start from around 9 minutes in, and the audio is badly descynced, and is missing occasionally. The video is fine though so you can at least see the route. Of course there are plenty of things that are out of date, so I will have to get this redone.

It is possible to do the entire run with 9 rations (and they were all needed because of the deep water), so getting all the rations in the truck after doing the rooftop is the fastest. The rations should be obtained all at once to minimize the amount of time in detour. Screen transitions take lots of time.

My run already skips the twinshot prisoner. I did a proper timing today, and the twinshot prisoner plus walkback is about 15 seconds slower than the building 2 floor 1 prisoner. By the way, in an any% both prisoners take roughly the same amount of time, with a very slight edge towards the building 2 one. The twinshot prisoner is easier because damage is not a concern, whereas building 2 damage needs to be minimized, which is easier if there is less building 2 to traverse. And that section is not very friendly.

I also timed both routes to the final building. Getting the compass costs about 45 seconds, but the desert route is faster by about 67 seconds, so that route is faster by around 22 seconds.

The only remaining question about the definition of 100% is the transmitter. I would like to have a consensus before accepting any runs, and submitted mine. Here is a list of some pros and cons.

Pros: The transmitter makes this category very different than any other. At least some of the extra difficulty is mitigated by having weapons. The alert music is finally played in full. The transmitter doesn't cause a huge amount of extra time for the run.

Cons: 100% is already unique by its own definition. I had been thinking of defining a glitchless run, but even that would have been different regardless of transmitter. The transmitter makes the run far more difficult, which could discourage newcomers. Risk of accidentally removing the transmitter when using a ration.

Because I have done plenty of research for this game for TASing, I am happy to answer any questions you have about game mechanics. If I don't know the answer, I will research it. The questions here may help in any future tutorials or guides, and possibly even to future strategies.

Research Todo List: How the guards' and camera's line of sight works, and when it is enabled. More info on the non-prisoner flag of digit 10, bit 5. More info on the unknown prisoner of digit 21 bit 3. Why the password screen is not loaded sometimes when chosen after dying. Why the snake sprite is messed up initially when loading a password that is rank 3. Why double input happens. Why the random pause happens.

We should definitely work together to make tutorials; one for safety/racing, and one for advanced techniques/speedrunning. I have the technical knowledge because of TASing, but my presentation of information is not that good. I could create a thread for tutorial planning, but I recently got on Discord (dunnius#4843). It is probably easier to plan tutorials in chat.

I will create another thread, 'Ask Me Any Game Mechanic Questions' which would be helpful for guide planning, and is basically a list of things for me to research if I don't know the answer. It could also be a start of a Q&A section. I have a few things I need to research anyway.

I also created an account on metalgearspeedrunners.

I added the following to the rules for the categories: "Timing starts at the fade in of the first jungle screen, and ends at the fade out on the final elevator. Use a countdown of -13.10 when pressing start on the title screen."

I also adjusted Master-88's runs to reflect the way we do timing, which was a difference of a few seconds. I also added a comment that it was adjusted.

I added the wiki page. I will have to add some notes to that. I also should probably redo my tutorial at some point. I think there are some minor things that are out of date, including the locations to do card switches. I went through all of the rooms and noted the amount of each screen's transition time, which caused some changes. I need to go back and clean up the room names, etc. I also need to get back into speedrunning this.

Here is my lua script, which was requested by Plywood. This has many features that are more useful for TASing that have been turned off through settings, but the info displayed can help with speedrunning, particularly the spawn timer. If you have any questions, let me know. I didn't document things because I didn't think others would be using it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2wr7szoktu832vv/Metal%20Gear.lua

Here is my 100% speedrun from a few years ago: https://www.bitchute.com/video/pZ3EWGBoIUFP/ (uploaded there because I don't want to deal with copyright claims from Konami again)

The part of my video for the fake Dr. Pettrovich starts at 23:40 and shows how it should be done. I guess the rules were not clear, so I added a clarification to it. Basically use the menu to cancel the pit immediately after the message (also switch to card 1) and then rescue the prisoner like any other, which will cause the rescued pose with no additional message. Leaving and reentering the room will still trigger the pit and message again, but the prisoner will be gone, which shows that the password was updated.

Now that I have thought about it, I think 100% should remove the requirement to keep the transmitter, and also allow zero quantity mines, remotes, explosives, and rations. It will make running this less annoying. That would make both of us redo our runs, which we want to do anyways. What are your thoughts about that?

The definition for 100% has never been decided. The basic definition is everything that counts in the password:

• All weapons (but not full ammo)
• All equipment
• All 25 prisoners rescued, including fake Dr. Pettrovich (menu to cancel the pit to rescue easily)
• All 10 bosses defeated
• Glitches are allowed

But there are a couple questions now that I look at this again:

1. Should 0 quantity mines, remotes, explosives, and rations be allowed at the end? Those items disappear in the menu when there are none left. I would say yes for the sake of less potential backtracking. All that would matter is that they were collected during the run.
2. Should the transmitter be a required item despite it being a bad item? My original idea was to add an extra challenge and make it different from the other categories, but it is somewhat obnoxious to run, and it removes the use of the silencer. There is also the risk of accidentally removing it when trying to use a ration. Also, the MSX version's 100% does not require it, so perhaps this should do the same. This is the one question that needs some discussion.

I made a run on console a few years ago that I never uploaded using the rules as they are written now because I wanted to have a decision on the definition first. I suppose I should upload it to show the route (and especially to show the Fake Dr. Pettrovich "rescue"), but not submit it until 100% is defined.

Sorry about that, I was busy this last week, and perhaps some of the other mods were too. I verified the run. Congrats!

After recovering the equipment after getting captured, there is an item put in the inventory that is a transmitter that will alert the enemies. It is the item that looks like a red button. Use it as if it were a ration to remove it from the inventory.

I installed openMSX 0.14.0 and tested this. I did not get the alert like that unless I had the bug item at the time.

I'm not familiar with the details of setting up openMSX; my focus is on TASing. If you are able to get on IRC, go to #openMSX on irc.freenode.net which is the channel for the development of openMSX. They can better answer what is happening with this interesting error. I am using 0.13.0, but I still think the BIOS and other settings are the culprit.

Interesting. It starts the alert during the screen transition out of the elevator just like the building 2 rooftop, which means that the cameras are not involved in the alert. I wonder if that floor operates correctly, being the only one that does the automatic alert. Also, are you able to end the alert on floor 2, or is it being treated as if it were the building 2 rooftop where the alert cannot be stopped?

The SHA1 of my rom is a52021f1b257c7c35d626d5d642134091c45e4f4

But I think I know why this is happening. You need to be using a different BIOS; C-BIOS isn't as accurate in emulating the MSX machine. If you are using the japanese rom, then you should use a Panasonic FS-A1WSX, and a different machine if you use the european rom.

I've never heard of an instant alert there. What emulator are you using? I'm not sure I am allowed to point to roms on the forums, but I can't imagine that you would have found a bad one.

Also, the MSX2 version has some tricks that cannot be done on the other versions, which also affects the route. Take a look at my TAS, and the author's comments. http://tasvideos.org/2974M.html I can also answer any questions about that here.

I created the categories because I intend to run it, using an emulator for now, but planning on getting an actual MSX2 at some point. I began planning a route that is somewhat close to the TAS, but it and my other projects had been interrupted because of family stuff last year. I guess it is time to get back on this.

I was going to comment about the alerts, but I wanted to do some research on that before posting. Here are the guards that will alert with single exclamation points on contact damage or being spotted. They will still do a double exclamation on a noisy weapon. Note that I researched this using the original MSX2 version.

Building 1 Floor 1: All of the guards on the west side except for the ones by the west elevator. (Including the ones in the trucks) The guards outside the east elevator.

Building 1 Floor 2: The guard who feels asleep. :D The entire west side (from outside roller room to outside Machine Gun Kid, including mines room)

Building 1 Floor 3: The guard in the area south of the gas room. (the MSX2 any% route benefits from having the camera disabled, which stays disabled after shooting the guard to end the alert.) The guard outside of card 2 which is done easily by taking contact damage, and also disables the cameras. The guards outside the cardboard box room The guards outside the silencer room.

Building 1 Basement: no guards

Building 1 Roof: The guards outside the suspension bridge (north end of course)

Between Building 1 and 2: The guards outside building 2

Building 2 Floor 1: All of the guards including the guards at the end of the deep water channel

Building 2 Floor 2: The guards outside the west elevator antidote room the guards in both sides of the divided room south of Arnold ammo room of the southwest area

Building 2 Roof: none

Building 2 Basement: none

Between Building 2 and Building 3: none

Building 3 all none

Double exclamation alerts can also be useful to save time, especially in cases where it can be canceled by going into an elevator (especially if headed that way) or out of buildings (and also going into the desert, the area before Coward Duck, or the Hind-D boss), or also by beating the silencer boss, Machine Gun Kid, the bulldozer, or Arnold. The other bosses don't have alerts possible when reaching them.

The other options is to kill enough guards to end the alert. The way that works is not completely clear to me yet, but it involves killing a set number guards which depends on location and possibly game progression, plus leaving the area, and maybe something else. I am still researching this.

A couple of potential improvements for the 100% run:

Get the hand gun and an ammo box on floor 3 to avoid having to backtrack for the silencer. It will also allow you to start shooting guards earlier without alerting, which is quicker than avoiding or punching them. This applies even more in building 2. You should ignore the ending game stats for the sake of speed and safety. In alerts, shooting guards means that you don't have to worry about contact or bullet damage, especially in the card 5 and antidote rooms.

In the area in floor 1 with the cameras (before getting captured), is it possible to use the cardboard box to get through the cameras quicker?

It would be faster to get the antenna before doing the roof instead of backtracking afterwards. I tested this for the TAS and before won. As for the prisoner on floor 1, it is probably fastest to do the rescue before going to building 3, but not a huge loss of time if it is done when getting the flashlight.

If you are able to do the pitfall zone without the flashlight, you can rescue Ellen after getting card 6 in the initial trip to the basement. This will avoid the backtrack for the flashlight later, as well backtracking into the basement (does not split floor 2). The only disadvantage is that you would have to get ammo in the southwest room of floor 2. Both routes have pluses and minuses, so you decide what you prefer.

You probably want to get less rockets since you had 9 remaining at the end. (The same will apply to rations, especially when you are able skip the ration after getting card 1)

I added 100% categories with the following rules:

• All weapons (okay if used up)
• All equipment (okay if used up)
• All codecs obtained
• All hostages/prisoners rescued, but not the fake/trap one
• All bosses defeated
• Any rank

Regarding the tank, if you take bullet damage and run into the tank, you can hit the tank with multiple mines very quickly and without waiting for the RNG. I think you have to do that multiple times, but since rank doesn't matter you can use a ration if needed. Also, you can use rations to damage boost on enemies if that makes handling alerts easier, as well as killing guards.

With All Bosses, I agree that they should be explicitly killed in the spirit of the game. Interesting side note: in the MSX2 version, beating the bulldozer causes the tank to be defeated.

With regards to rank, would we need another category for "100% Any Rank" (which would definitely be faster), or should rank not be considered at all for this since Big Boss cannot be done?

Game Time is still considered since it is part of the leaderboards. But do we really need it if Real Time is preferred?

Is this 100% intended to be Big Boss Rank also?