Eternal Engine

Eternal engine is the last mech stage of hero story. Times were traditionally determined by making different platform cycles, but since 2018, we have a skip that cuts out most of the level and saves a minute and 30 seconds over a competent skipless run. since the old skip route is somewhat easier and potentially useful in certain niche scenarios, you can also find information about it here.

## **Beginning to checkpoint 1 or Bofa**

The start of the stage is one of the trickiest parts to master. You must destroy both beetles in the first room to open the door. The simplest way to do this is to hold right as you load in. As soon as you gain control, briefly tap the action button, this targets the beetle on the left. Then angle 4 o'clock and briefly tap the action button again. This should target the second beetle. It's important to not curve your homing missile into the second beetle After destroying both beetles, the door will not open fast enough for you to run straight through it. You can either briefly slow down with some neutral stick, or attempt to do a quick turnaround.

After passing through the first door, immediately target and destroy the robots down the hallway as you run down. Your main goal here is to take out the carpet bombing robot. making it through the next two doors while maintaining full speed is very precise, but doable with a perfect racing line and perfect beetle targeting. it is recommended that you use the patterns on the floor as a visual cue for turning, and do a short hop to slow you down just enough to allow the second door to open. this hop isn't necessary if you find the perfect racing line, but is the simplest approach at first.

As you pass through the first door, start targeting the two beetles at the end. They can be tricky to target because there is a lot of clutter that you might target instead, so practice finding the right angles to hold. Just like the beetles at the start, you don't want to chain these guys in a combo. releasing a shot before targeting the next one will kill them both quicker. all you need is a quick release and repress of the B button in between lock-ons. If you kill these beetles soon enough, and are properly positioned, it is possible to walk directly through the door without slowing down, but this is precise, you should do a very short hop in front of this door or briefly stick neutral if you don't want to bonk into it.

The next room has a spring, two pulleys and a bombing robot. If you go to the right side of the boxes with the spring, and jump into the side of it, you will clip the spring, saving time. As you go up the pulley, keep in mind that if you didn't do the start cleanly, the bombing beetle might obstruct your path to the next pulley. If you think this robot might be in your way, it doesn't hurt to shoot it down. While ascending the second pulley, you can target the bomb carrying robot and use that as a timing cue for when it's safe to jump off of the pulley, as well as clear it from being an obstacle. At this point of the stage, the routes diverge, with the modern route saving 42 seconds over the old route, which already saves roughly 50 seconds over no skips, making this the largest cut in a hero story run.

## Bofa da boxes

Found in the summer of 2018, this is the largest skip ever to be used in hero story, and it's discovery is widely considered the mark of the "modern" era of this game, but enough trivia, here's how to hit it.

Setup your position by taking an outside line around the left exploding tube dispenser Aim very slightly left of the boxes. if you graze the wall and your angle is shallow enough, you will slide against the wall without losing speed. The goal is to hit this shallow slide on the wall right before you jump for the trick, this ensures that you are touching the left wall during the clip. right before you hit the boxes, tap jump and shoot ideally 2 frames later. this tiny input gap is important for normalizing your shot's angle.

*TOO LATE*, You will stop in front of the boxes because you hit them before breaking them

*TOO EARLY,* You will collide with the bottom of the black box before you are underneath it, and it will block you.

*BAD ANGLE,* You will end up underneath the black box but remain in bounds

*JUST RIGHT,* You will and up under the black box while skimming the left wall, you will land from your tap jump, and the black box will land on you, The game will not calculate your collision with the back wall and your momentum will carry you through the back wall and out of bounds.

Hooray, you busted bofa da boxes, now you fly straight to the goal, oh and there's going to be a 180 degree camera flip in the middle that you need to react perfectly to or else you'll be stuck spinning around the camera locus. The goal ring location will be straight back and will be recognizable as a large vertical green tube with funny matrix patterns. If you line up near the left face of this tube and drop straight down, an invisible floor will catch you, you can walk off left, turn right and hover to reach the goal reliably.

### The backup

Okay, you missed the skip, what's the fastest way to back it up? hit the checkpoint and die through the nearest airlock. For some reason involving the load order of the boxes, this is thought to make bofa easier to hit. respawn and destroy the bomb robot as you wait for the door to open, walk down-left until you're lined up with the fluorescent light under the floor, then angle straight down and flick directly up to execute a quick turnaround, as soon as that animation ends, tap jump and shoot the boxes. This time your angle has a wider margin of error and the timing should be easier.

It's important to note that the right side works too, but left is faster to reach from a respawn. The right side also works for the initial attempt, but it is less widely used and doesn't have a well studied, consistently competitive method to hit the goal ring as of the time of writing.

### The Clock Method to always snipe the goal ring

This is an advanced method for approaching and hitting the goal ring quickly and reliably. The method starts right after you break out of bounds. Hold forward and fall for 2 seconds, then hover. You ideally want to drop to a specific height, but dropping to a bit higher and adjusting down is fine. Adjust your altitude to line the ring indicator up with the gap in the first wall as you pass it. Do a clean camera change with hopefully no bad angle, use some neutral stick if you have to and find a visual cue for your timing, preferably somewhere on tail's mech to something on the wall you are passing Wait 1 second from the camera change, adjust angle from down to 5 and 3/5ths O'clock (or a nudge from straight down) hold for one second, then back to straight down. This sets you up to line up in a consistent way to aim slightly behind the goal ring's position in the stage (our left) Use the textures popping in and out as a measuring tool, assuming your height is the same they will work in a predictable way.

Now the final part is tricky but very doable, you'll need to watch the timer just to match your internal rhythm with the seconds passing. Better to trust the timer rather than yourself because human time perception can vary, especially under pressure, so it is best to normalize it on something external and accurate, such as the in game timer. It's Important to count over at least 4 or 5 seconds to fully lock yourself in during every ending attempt, not just while you are learning. You can do this from 1:05 to 1:10 IGT to be consistent.

Towards the end, usually around 1:14 on a good pace, wait for a dark grey shape to show up in the top right, as soon as you see it, simultaneously release your hover and turn smoothly from straight down to straight right over the course of 1 full second. Assuming your lineup was good you will hit the center of the goal ring, This technique leaves considerable margin for error and is very possible to hit even under pressure because it's so methodical. This makes it ideal for full game runs because nerves are typically high on a pace right after egg golem, and with some work this method can be even safer than slower methods. A strong run with this method can get about 1:16.3- 1:17.0 depending on your start.

It is important to note that this method only works in a first try clipout scenario, if you needed to backup from a respawn, you will end up more to the right at the end that what you'd expect from a first try, and your visual cues will all be slightly off because of differences in camera behavior that occurs after a death and respawn. If you still plan to try and snipe the goal ring from a respawn, one tip is to course correct much later if at all. Another tip is that you should play this scenario a bit safer and plan to hover more at the end, and don't be surprised if you are so far to the right at the ending that you run into the invisible floor.

Here's a video of an example run using the clock method

## **Checkpoint 1 to checkpoint 2 for other routes**

This part of the stage is possibly more tricky than the start, and also more dangerous. To pass through the first door in this section, jump at an angle towards the door's opening as soon as the door is activated. Jumping retains more speed than sharp turns. it is also possible to take a wider turn through this door, but it isn't really any faster. Do whichever suits you best. The next room is simple, stay to the left of the lasers ahead, and be aware of your fins, don't let them clip into the lasers. after passing the lasers, try to angle yourself right to where the door opens, you might be able to pass through this door without a short hop, but it's precise. shoot the bomb carrying enemy and prepare for the infamous chao box room.

**Chao box room**

That's damned right, this room deserves a section of it's own, because there are many different strats for it ranging from easy but kind of slow, to mech movement gods only, also, this is probably the most movement intensive part of the stage. There are boxes in the room, one of them is a chao box, all of them are in the way of the switch. There are also some dynamite packs that you do not want to trigger or else death may occur. The switch you need to activate in the room sometimes doesn't like to cooperate. If you want to break all of the boxes without hitting the dynamite, you can shoot through the door before entering the room. Just send in several shots and you should be good. When the chao box is broken, for some reason, this sets your speed to 0. this isn't that bad, because you need to wait for the door to open anyway, but it isn't the optimal way to pass through the door. Let's look at some possible scenarios when you go through that door.

1. every box is broken, the chao key is exposed. Run straight to the switch, hop over the chao key, Quick turnaround, hop over the chao key again, move to the left where the door opens, and hop through the door at an angle that takes you straight through the next door. There is a decent risk of picking up the chao key here, which loses a lot of time in a full game run. (no penalty in an IL).

2. every box except for the one above the chao key was broken, the last remaining box blocks you from grabbing the chao key. This is pretty much what most runners want. you can jump onto the box, fall on the switch, Quick turnaround, hop back onto the box, and position yourself to hop through the door and run straight through the next door.

3. all boxes are still intact. You should jump over the box on the left, land on the switch, quick turnaround to the left and turn to the box on the left, shoot the box before running through it, then go through the door. This movement is tough, so you probably want to avoid this situation altogether.

Lets say you want to enter the room with more speed. You can't break the chao box because it will bring you to a full stop. after taking out the bomb enemy, you want to shoot a carefully placed shot through the door into the box on the left (requires a lot of practice). then do a short hop to avoid bonking on the door. You now have to go around the left side of the boxes, and run into the switch, quick turnaround and maneuver back around the boxes. this should set you up nicely to just go straight through the next two doors, but you still might need to short hop before leaving the chao box room. This movement is very tough, but earns you a lot of time, and is fully necessary if you are going for the legendary half cycle. This is even faster than the standard IL method, but really only recommended for the truly determined half cycle hunter (this cycle still hasn't been hit by the way)

**Post chao box room**

Now that you've escaped the nightmare that is chao box room, you must proceed over a narrow bridge with dynamite packs and a bomb enemy. You can quite easily shoot the bomb enemy without setting off the dynamite packs, assuming you don't have the laser upgrade. You can hop on the left rail and walk off to the opening in the door here.. The next room is simple, line up with the door's opening spot, and to a short hop right as you pass the last dynamite pack. Do not shoot anything.

Next, you must fall down to the platform below. The sooner you fall down there, the sooner the rocket starts activating, however, sometimes jumping right over the edge results in your camera getting stuck, if this happens, hover a bit before you land and hope it fixes itself. As soon as you enter the missile's activation range, it takes about 3.5 seconds to activate. There are several options here.

1. stand on the button and wait for the missile to fire, as soon as it fires off, hoverjump to the next platform.

2.count the time it takes for the missile to activate, and time it so that you run over the button and hoverjump as soon as the missile becomes active, This gives you more speed and makes the gap a lot easier to clear.

3. perform a Quick turnaround over the missile button right before it becomes active, also gives you more speed and makes that jump easier.

4. go full TAS and time a juke against the wall and run over the button as soon as it becomes active. This gives you basically fullspeed and makes crossing the gap free.

there's no shame in pause buffering this particular hover jump or using the closer platforms to make it easier. Otherwise, this gap can be a run killer for most people.

once you land on the moving platform, if it is going forward and you think it is about to turn, try to hoverjump off of it immediately, as you lose a lot of speed if the platform is moving backwards. If the platform is moving backwards, try to hoverjump off of the end of it.

If it is moving forwards and not about to change, run to the front and attempt to hop onto the far edge and hoverjump off, this gives you the most speed.

The important thing is to try and make it over the cages with your hoverjump.

**Falling weight room**

The standard strategy for this room is to short hop in front of the door, destroy the tank at the end of the room, hover over the weight's shadow to avoid triggering it, and drop on the switch *after* you reach the far wall. You can then jump and clip into the spring on your left. This is a fast and safe method of progressing here, and it is recommended for anyone going for first or second cycle.

The risky method (known as weight hop) involves skipping the deactivation switch, hovering right over the shadow to the spring, hovering towards the pully at the climax of your bounce (mainly to redirect your momentum), then jumping off of the weight as soon as you touch it and grabbing the pully. This saves .6 seconds over not using it, but it is risky and hard to pull off. This trick is only recommended if you think you might need it to make first cycle, or if you are hunting half cycle like some sort of maniac.

All that's left now is taking the pullies to the checkpoint. You can jump off of the second pully a bit sooner than you might think, if you do a full jump off of it at the right time while holding forward, you will clip on to the next platform with the checkpoint.

## **Checkpoint 2 to old EE skip location/ checkpoint 3**

**Dealing with the artificial chaos enemy**

The standard strategy for dealing with this enemy and opening the door is locking onto it, running up to it, and performing a propeller punch. This will kill it no matter what state it is in. This method is recommended for most runners because it is consistent.

**Chaos quick shot**

This is a way to kill the artificial chaos enemy without coming to a stop. as you enter the room (only works at fullspeed, so don't expect it to work if you bonk the door) run slightly to the right of the ememy, as you approach it, jump and turn to the left. during this jump, as you are facing the artificial chaos, shoot it in the face with a bullet. If you do it right, you will kill the enemy without losing much speed at all, and you will be facing the opening in the door in such a way that you can run right through it. This trick saves .6 seconds and is recommended if you think you might need it to make first cycle (if your checkpoint time is >1:06 ), and it is most certainly required if you are hunting half cycle.

The next room is simple, There is an artificial chaos, simply shoot it once with a lock on and it won't be able to hit you as you run past. then don't hit the lasers and do a small hop in front of the door. next is the platform cycle room.

**Platform cycle room**

at this point, you should quickly observe the platforms, are they rising or falling? can you reach them with a hover jump or not? You need to decide quickly. you can make it up to the ledge with a good hoverjump. it is advisable to pause buffer it. If you aren't comfortable with hoverjumps, you can hop on the boxes to the right or left, this is obviously slower.

The cycles themselves behave as such: your limits are whether or not you can make it on to the first platform, and whether or not you can make it out of the cycle. In between every normal cycle, there is a small window of opportunity where you can catch the platforms on the way down and make it across with pause buffered hoverjumps off of the railings of the platforms. These are the down cycles, or half cycles. you can also make it through these cycles by shooting a balloon to gain height and hover across, but that is slower than actually making the down cycle. During upcycles, you need to be careful, and make sure you can actually make it onto the cycle before attempting it, or else you could die.

There is a cycle that hasn't been reached yet, the down cycle before 1st cycle starts. considering how some runners have been too early to make it out of 1st cycle before chaos quick shot was discovered and weight hop was used, it seems that 1.2 seconds of timesave might be able to win you a down cycle, or a half cycle before 1st cycle. If this cycle is humanly possible, it will be very tough to get, will probably require all of the fastest strats mentioned on here, and could perhaps break the restricted record, but considering how we have a much faster skip, it may not happen ever.

## **Old Eternal Engine skip/ clipout methods**

Old Eternal engine skip is performed near the door past checkpoint 3. It still has some uses in certain 180 emblems routes as well as bingo. It works by abusing the mesh of a tank near a wall to clip out of bounds, while out of bounds, the player will be much higher than the goal of the stage, allowing the player to hover behind the goal ring and touch it from out of bounds. Done properly, this skip saves roughly 50 seconds over a robust restricted run.

### **Clipout methods**

1. Door clip: This method abuses the door opening next to the tank to force tails out of bounds. It is the recommended method. In order for this to work, the mech must be facing forward against the wall and slightly to the right, and it must partially clip through the wall at the same time the door opens fully, You must be holding forward and slightly right on the control stick to partially clip through the wall. Two things are needed for this method to work, angle of the mech, and timing of the partial clip through the wall. To time it right, hover directly from the platform after the cycling platforms into the corner, release as soon as you touch the wall.

2. Instant clip: This clipout basically involves mid jumping into the edge of the tank, holding the correct angle, and hoping it works. There have been setups for it that improve consistency, but they take a while to setup. While this method can end up being over a second faster than door clip, it is much harder to perform consistently. If the instant clip fails, and the door is also triggered, it is sometimes still possible to clip out using the door.

### **Out of bounds travel methods**

After clipping out of bounds, you will be much higher than the goal ring, and will need to travel roughly back and right. Once you gain confidence in navigating to it, it's faster to drop down earlier and curve slightly against the natural curve of the camera to have a straighter actual line.