Speedrunning

THIS PAGE IS Work in Progress (will continue later)

Since TPT will, for the foreseable future, not get added to speedrun.com, this wikipage will become the current hub for speedrun content. A Lot of info on old runs and rules can be found in JeremyX's post on the old (closed) Kongregate forums.

Speedrunning TPT can be done in a few different categories, depending on which gamestate the run starts at and which goal is to be reached. Some additional limitations can be place on a run, such as not using codes or not using bugs.

### Rules

Some general rules for these speedruns

* Since the early game can be done very fast and to try and keep runs similar, consistent, and somewhat fair, all runs have to start from HQ tier 0 either from a hard reset, or in New Game+ scenarios a fresh town tier.
* For short runs, recordings of the entire playthrough must be available. For longer runs, depending on the category, savefiles could be enough.
* Timing will use the ingame total playtime (Active) timer. To determine the length of a run, you must go to the stats and info building and scroll down to total playtime (Active), the very first frame of the video that shows the full timer will be valid.
* Both the developer website and Kongregate builds of TPT are valid.
* You are allowed to copy and paste entire blueprint builds into workshop. Except for categories that do not allow usage of the blueprint import bug.
* When uploading your video, if you do not show your kongregate name, it is recommended that you add your name in the description of whatever video sharing platform you are using, so identifying the original owner of the speedrun is easier.
* Use of promotional codes is allowed, except for categories specifically without codes.
* Using any boost from Bonus & resources is allowed, even the video if you can figure out how to get it to work.
* To qualify for a category, you must show that you completed the category. That means, for HQ tier related things, you must show in video tiering up your HQ. For Town Tier you MUST Town Tier and THEN check the time in the statistics building. For waves, you have to end up in the overflow waves. For Factory and Laboratory, you just need to show them maxed out.

### General strategy

For most speedruns, following the advice on the Strategies page will get you close to an optimal time. For slower categories, some key additional strategies are:

* Finding optimal balance between between sr-upgrades and offense upgrades when you dont have enough bp to max them. Damage/Critfactor upgrade ratio should usually be arround 4/1, but at low bp other ratios are optimal.
* Farming on the correct difficulty, which is usually hard. Runs at the start of a new HQtier could be better on normal difficulty, depending on the category and chosen strategies.
* Researching upgrades in the lab in the correct order: getting the upgrades for your farming blueprint early and always have enough research completed to reach the tierup-requirement before you achieve the wave-requirement.
* Finding the optimal timings when to get the WaveCompression researches. They are expensive and slow and will usually require extra grinding, but they will speed up future progress. An optimal timing will likely depend on the category of the run.
* Saving up gems to do 'gemboosted' runs at the start of each HQtier, since HQ-tierup's dont reset gemcount. In these runs you buy upgrades with gems to speed up the slowest part of each HQtier.
* Knowing exactly how much hp/dmg is needed to reach the tierup-wave-requirements. No time should be wasted on needless farming and no time should be wasted doing insane-difficulty runs that fall short of the wave-requirements.
* Optimal usage of resources gained from codes. Example: codes give more black cubes than needed to fill the entier stat-list. These extra black cubes should be converted to purple cubes and used for srf as soon as HQtier1 is reached.
* For categories that progress past WCIX, optimal usage of NBtrick will be required.

Some rought guide-times are provided below, to show how fast each category can be ran.

* From hardreset to HQtier5: 57m58s
* From hardreset to HQtier5 without import-bug: 2h59m
* From hardreset to HQtier5 without codes or import-bug: 6h42m

* From hardreset to Towntier (bpt100+ cubos5): 22h30m
* From hardreset to x16 unlock (100,000 TownCredits): +-180h