Guides/Speedrun

*Guide by **TooLazy***

This guide will touch on the general tips and then a strategy for each category currently on speedrun.com. This will, of course, have a lot of spoilers.

The idea behind speedrunning is to start a game from the title screen and reach the end (usually denoted by the end credits showing up on screen) as fast as possible with nothing but the game, the controller and your fingers.

## Rules

First of all, the rules. This guide uses the rules from speedrun.com.

### Game Rules

Game rules apply to all speedruns.

1. You must use version 1.5.1 unmodded (This includes GadgetCore itself).
2. You must show character creation (Can't start by retrying after a death).
3. You must be in Ironman mode.
4. You can use any Class, Race, Uniform, and Augment.
5. You can use "Quit without saving" to return to ship and other game glitches.
6. It is forbidden to interact with the Questbot's Quests or with the Ship Droids.
7. It is forbidden to enter build mode.
8. Time starts as soon as you see the ship.

### Category Rules

Category rules apply only when doing a specific speedrun. There are 4 categories representing the 4 allegiances.

1. Must pick the category allegiance.
2. Time stops when you reach allegiance level 10.
3. Any ending is allowed.

## Tips

Ship
Before going to speedrun you should consider changing your ship layout so that you are quicker to move around. It would be advisable to have your spawn location teleporter, computer and door next to each other. If you find yourself dashing past the edges, for example with Beats of Boizu, consider placing multiple at the edges!
Portals
Make sure you have enough portals for every planet. You don’t want to get a good pace just to realize you need to re-route through another planet. If you do have Gadget Core installed you have the option to give yourself some portals with /giveportals. Make sure to turn Gadgetcore off before starting your speedrun though!
Character Creation
Realistically you character only needs to do up to three things: Surviving, dealing damage and moving through worlds quickly. See what is necessary for which storyline beforehand. I do advise experimenting with the races, uniforms and augments to see what works best for you.
Races
Ironclad, Savior and Bunyip. Savior has the highest damage potential and gives a a little extra stamina. However, if you have trouble staying alive try Bunyip! Ironclad is only when there's no need for high damage.
Uniforms
Soldier, Dirtmage, Monster Trainer. Use soldier if you're confident about keeping up your health and need that extra bit of damage. Monster trainer should really only be used if you decide to switch a part or choice. For example, you might want to experiment with fighting the Destroyer instead of Lenny.
Augments
Rogue Bandana, Beats by Boizu. If you catch yourself spamming dashes or jumps often, Rogue Bandana is the easiest. However, if you use a bit more energy to time your jumps and dashes Beats by Boizu has more potential.
Teleporting
It is important to use your time properly. While teleporting you will get a quick period where you can't move. However, you can still input the code for GOLD-15's and swap them around to activate its exploit. Or, you can use potions to heal yourself.
Quitting
Sometimes going to the end of a planet isn't worth it, know when it's faster to quit the game and rejoin! However, be careful when doing so in the byfrost. If you accidentally get frozen using this will give you the permanent cold debuff.
Restarting
Don't be afraid to restart your speedrun! Roguelands isn't that complicated to speedrun. If you don't find what you need on your first trip to a planet, there's no detriment to restarting.
Exploiting
From the game's perspective, there is literally no difference between an exploit and normal behaviour. A lot of speedruns will use three Bugs: GOLD-15 Projectile Transfer, Chip ID Conversion and Duplication. So, here's what you need to know about them.
Speedtech
There are two ways to move faster than simply dashing or jumping: Superjump and lance Hyperdash. The second one is a lot easier to make consistant. The first one has three inputs: a dash, jump and another dash. To get a superjump you must jump at the last frame of the jump and dash again at the next frame. This is quite hard to do, as it more or less requires two frameperfect inputs. However, the hyperdash only requires you to attack and dash at the same time. For this you need the lance and be standing on the ground. Doing this together will give you a 'Hyperdash'.
## Exploits

* GOLD-15 Droids are gained by inputting the code: LLKKLLKKJJ, with Y to reset if you make a mistake. The shooting ability is transferred to the droid you replace it with, so make sure you make 4 droids. That way, you double the speed of 'activating' your droids and never run into the problem of having the standard droid there (you will be missing out on Dex!). Quiting will return the droids to its normal function.
* Both Chip ID conversion and duplication use the same mechanic. You open your inventory at the same time you enter combat mode. This will allow you to drag items from your inventory (not from your hotbar!) to your chip slots. To duplicate an item first put in the item you want to duplicate, then replace it with a stack from something worthless, like credits. This will give you the duplicated item back but with the same stack as your trash.

The only chip conversions that we'll be using are:

Tasty Herb -> Atlanta's Eye
Zephyr Emblem -> Dex X
Optionally, Creature Eyeball -> Trickster
To get them simply open your inventory and enter combat mode at the same time, just like with duplication. Then, put in an item that shares the ID with a chip and there's that. For example, putting a Tasty Herb in your chip bar will give you an Atlanta's Eye chip.

## Routes

### The Galactic Fleet

In this storylines you will have to fight a boss and go through quite a few planets. For the boss fight we will use the GOLD-15 droids/exploit + Atlanta's eye. Since Atlanta's eye scales with Dex, we try to build around that. One such build would be:

Class: Gunner (Vit+Dex)
Race: Savior
Uniform: Dirtmage
Augment: Beats by Boizu
* As soon as you spawn, enter the portal and hope that there is a Tyrannog. While you search for it, get the GOLD-15 droids and equip them. Harvesting one bugspot and one tree will be helpful for the chip ID conversion. This is quite hard to multitask, so you can alternatively enter the code for 2-3 droids and do the rest at the start of the level. If you do find a Tyrannog quickly kill it and quit. Although it says 'quit without saving' it will save. Rejoin and talk to Atlas, place the aethercrystal and talk to Atlas again. You'll have to remember what you have to do since you don't have time to look at what he's saying.
* Next you'll have to rush through the ancient ruins. Together with the Tyrannog spawn, this is what can kill or make a run. Not encountering a flamethyst will make you run to the Molten Crag which is, of course, a lot slower. Make sure you arrive at the town since you won't level up otherwise. Make sure to activate your speed and optionally your trickster. Return back once again.
* This time, quickly rush through the Hollow Caverns searching for the Celestial Slug while getting at least one orichalcum and planetstone (if you didn't already get to collect that from the Desolate Canyon) just one Magicite is enough to quit and rejoin.
* Enter the Byfrost to collect some zephyr, quit and rejoin once again. While sprinting to Atlas make sure you have everything you need to start duplicating, meaning your planetstone, orichalcum, flamethysts, zephyr and trash in your inventory and not in your hotbar. At this point you should have at least 200 scrap and 200 credits to easily make 4 stacks of 100. If you don't you'll have to be a bit more careful with how you split the stacks to duplicate the items. You need 100 planetstone, 50 Orichalcum, 20 Flamethysts and 50 Zephyr. Make sure the first three materials are all on one stack each, or it will block you from giving them to Atlas.
* We would rather fight Lenny than the Destroyer, so make sure to choose the third option. Now, run to your Emblem station and craft 5 Zephyr emblems. Use the Chip conversion exploit to get 5 Zephyr X's and get one Atlanta's Eye (Trickster is redundant from this point). This should easily boost you to over 130 Dex!
* All that is left to do is get a good angle with Atlanta's Eye and kill Lenny! Make sure you have your GOLD-15's 'charged' up though, since we quit just before this.

### The Starlight Rebellion

Since we also need to fight a boss for the Starlight Rebellion we will be using a similar build. It has largely the same strategy altogether. The Starlight Rebellion storylines mostly has us running around and as such is relatively largely influenced by good or bad NPC spawns.

* Get GOLD-15's, enter the hollow caverns to level up a little bit and get 10 orichalcum and some Tasty Herbs. Quit and talk to Roland, then Effie.
* Enter the Deep Jungle to get the treaty and immediately leave, talk to Effie and then Roland.
* Enter the Byfrost to get both some Zephyr and talk to Brocollius Seizer. Make sure you don't quit while you have the frost effect and return.
* Enter the Desolate Canyon to collect the Ruined Clue from the clutches of Dragonbolt's dead body and return to talk to Roland and then Effie.
* The easiest option is the first, meaning you'll have to fight Effie. Duplicate your Zephyr and fill your chips with Dex X's and one Atlanta's Eye. You might be extremely low level at this point since you didn't actually need to kill anything. If you think you won't be able to kill Effie with your current Dex or health you can fight Caius fairly easy, since you immediately have a setup to kill him with Atlanta's Eye. Just make sure you are have your droids ready.

### Gray Enigma

Once again, the build for The Galactic Fleet is useful here. In the Gray Enigma storyline you need to first get level 25 (or about 9190 experience) and get 50 monster claws. There are many different ways to get both of these but this is the fastest method I have found.

* First, get your trusty GOLD-15's. This time, I advise getting them before entering the world because the Plaguebeast will immediately chase you. Run around the planet to touch 8 Plague Hives. Besides killing the boss and a few creatures we want to do two more things: we need 1 Monster Claw and 1 Tasty Herb. You can get Monster Claws from the Plague Casters, but we'll need to rely on the abundant chests for a Tasty Herb. You need to be just over level 17 (3190) before exiting the planet.
* Next, we'll convert the Tasty Herb to an Atlanta's Eye and enter the Demon's Rift to fight Caius this will give us our last 6000 exp for a total of 9190. We don't have quite enough Dexterity to kill him before he gets to attack but he will die quickly. Quit immediately after collecting the experience.
* When you rejoin go to Zeig and duplicate the monster claws. Talk to him 3 times and go back to enter the Hollow Caverns. It's time to hope you get lucky. Use the GOLD-15 exploit while search for a Gruu. When you find him, quickly kill him using Atlanta's Eye and quit once again. Talk to Zeig before rushing to the Desolate Canyon and talk to Ringabolt. Talk to him and as soon as you see the level up effect quit.
* Finally, talk to Zeig for the last time and choose the middle option. Enter Mech City and you're done! There's no boss at the end of this option.

### The Church of Faust

This category is perhaps the most competitive and will likely fail if you get unlucky at just one point. You won't have to worry about doing damage in this storyline and there are a lot of different good builds. All you do is run around so that's what you're building for.

Uniform: Explorer (Gives back stamina and mana)
Augment: Beats by Boizu
Combat Chip: Swiftness (activating before the boost is gone will not extend the length, but it will consume mana)
Class/Race: Potentially anything with a lance for lance speedtech.
* Talk to Odin and enter the hollow caverns. Hope you encounter a glitterbug and kill it. This will give you some dust and enough cash to duplicate. Talk With Faust and give him the ashen dust. Return to the ship and talk to Odin once again. Now, talk to Dune Dredger Winston in Ancient Ruins. Quit and once again, rush through the Hollow Caverns to talk to Faust. Choose the second option and, just like with Gray Enigma, there will be nothing there but a free badge.

## Submitting

* To submit a run you first need to have a video proving you really got such a time. This is commenly done in one of two ways: streaming on twitch or recording with OBS.
* LiveSplit is a really useful tool. You can quickly see what your next step should be if you forget and it allows you to easily compare different strategies.
* Finally, to submit a run you simply go to speedrun.com, make an account (if you don't already have one) and click the 'Submit run' button. You will need to have a link to either a youtube video or twitch VOD. Then you're done!