AI Manipulations

AI Manipulations (shortened to sometimes just "manips" or "enemy manips") are actions taken that achieve and force desirable enemy behavior. This is often done to cut out randomness (aka "RNG") from a run and make certain things much safer and more predictable. While some manips lose time in theory, they often make areas way more consistent and thus extremely viable and vital to runs.

Some examples of AI Manips are **Shot Manips**, **Position Manips**, **Aim Manips**, and **Camera Manips**.

### Shot Manips

Shot manips are the use of shooting one or more pistol bullets in specific spots to trigger desirable enemy behavior. Some examples of these include the Library Manip, Green Hallway Manip, Lab Licker Manip, Kennel Licker Shot Manip, and Mr X Shot Manip. For example, the Library Manip consists of shooting near the bench outside of the library in RPD2 to make the zombie near the bookcases (who can or cannot be there, due to RNG) to not aggro to you and instead stare at the wall, making the library much safer as a result.

Most of these shots do not actually hit the enemies they are trying to manipulate. There are some rare instances of shooting enemies making them despawn or move into desirable spots, such as the shot done for the Library Jack Licker in the Leon runs or shooting at a licker jumped in front of you to avoid the grab.

Video Examples (coming soon)

### Aim Manips

Aim manips are the use of aiming to trigger desirable enemy behavior. Some examples of these include the Licker Aim Manips, Mr X Aim Manip, and the G Adult Aim Buffer Manip. While not as common as other manips, they have their niche viability.

(Video of Licker Aim Manips. Aiming while walking backwards or just walkingbackwards makes lickers jump in front of you and is easily exploited to avoid what would otherwise be damage or a grab).

(Vide of Mr X Aim Manip. Aiming at Mr. X from the correct position makes him go for a long sweeping punch, which is much easier to avoid the hitbox of than his regular punches, which require quickturn dodges otherwise and is slower).

(Video of G Adult Aim Buffer Manip. This is a very minor glitch, but for some reason, aiming while going down ledges still count as aiming in the game. Aiming at G Adults from a distance while you are both looking at each other makes them spit babies, which is a free pass animation. Combining the two here is the fastest and most efficient way and greatly increases your chances of getting good RNG, but does not guarantee it unfortunately).

Video Examples (coming soon)

### Position Manips

Position manips are the use of positioning and movement to trigger desirable enemy behavior. Some examples of these include the (examples)

Video Examples (coming soon)

### Camera Manips

Camera manips are the use of looking in certain directions to trigger desirable enemy behavior. These are most relevant for enemies like the lickers, which will do different attacks based on whether or not you see them or when and for how long you see them.

An oversimplified way of looking at lickers (and more specifically the STARS office licker) is:

* if they are on the ground, looking at them almost always prevents their sprinting, which is a state of high aggression and will often times get you hit if you do not dodge it. Even if you do dodge, they can still be highly aggressive and go for another hit right after. Looking at him does prevent this bad animation, but the downside is that you are more likely to instead get a lick (applies to ceiling too on rare occasion), slash, jumping slash (very easy to avoid without dodging), a rare jumping grab (often avoided without dodging), or no attacks. A no hit is most desirable and fairly common in this scenario, especially in Labs.
* If they are on the ceiling, not looking at them is more desirable. if you look at them while on the ceiling, they will often go for an ambush grab if running away from them, which is where the licker jumps in front of you, then goes for a jumping grab. In some positions, looking at lickers on the ceilings can even get you licked if they aren't moving. Not looking in this position instead makes them often times sprint, lose aggro to you. Rarely they will go for a ceiling attack, but that can be easily avoided by standing still or quickturn dodging.

Camera manips also manipulate other enemies as well, like the G Adults, and in theory could also manipulate zombies (eleanor library manip for example) and ivys, but there is no significant and concrete use beyond lickers. It could be argued that camera manips might be considered 'soft manips' in general, due to how none of them seem 100% guaranteed to work, but that may be due to human error.

Much is still not known about many manips and there are likely more left to be discovered, but their potential for saving time and eliminating RNG is massive.