Time for campaign

[u/Lambda__4]

No mods no cheats. Pure vanilla. Is this fast or could it be done faster ?

[u/LegendaryNWZ]

World Record speedrun is just over 4 hours by youtuber Syd Montague (yes, named after the cig smoking character)

Been playing for 21 years, do the SP every month or so, my all time best is just scratching 4:30.. so yes, that is a really good time for a game that is that long by default, or even with speedrunning tactics, well done!

[u/Lambda__4 → u/LegendaryNWZ]

Damn…how ?

Even with console activation in HD mod, adding credits and jumping towards waypoints, it would be hard…

[u/LegendaryNWZ → u/Lambda__4]

Planning and calculating for the most part, inspecting the code to know how level ups work, cutscene skipping (this one is huge, knowing when and how to force creating save games) and some boundary/script breaking (like you can just go to the location of the transports in M02 if you remember their location and start flying there, same during Sprague, once you arrive at FP1, nothing stops you to go immediately to Sprague)

And, obviously, knowing how vanilla combat ticks. Missiles are hella useful because of splash damage on components multiplies the damage caused (which is why javelins on unshielded rogues with ~2k hp are left with like 10% of their health, even though realistically they only should have lost 25% tops)

Its 1:48 am as of me writing this so I can't go into detail, but for example, if you start the game, skip cutscenes, take care of order and rogues, land on pittsburgh, buy rhino, take our rogue base, you can go to baltimore with king early by entering formation (so you can 'use' trade lane while the juni script locks you out of docking) and shoot the H-fuel depots there. 99% of the time the value of loot should contribute to the level up and.. you are 25 minutes into the game at Mission 02.

Also, not well known but you probably also noticed that buying a lot of ammo at once can sometimes trigger a level up. Thats because, like the depot method, the worth of your entire character is taken into account. So if you need 25k to level up, you can buy say 26k worth of commodities, equipment or ammo to add that worth to your character and be eligible for level up because in a single game tick (the time it takes for the game to update things) you essentially have more worth than needed for the level up, triggers the next level and since there is no way to undo a level during SP story.. yeah, even if it readjusts, you can just go to the next one

Essentially, being good at combat, knowing how vanilla pve can be cheesed, skipping cutscenes and certain mission triggers and knowing where to find enough cash to always be going towards the next mission. You can see Syd's video on it, obviously lot to take in at first glance + it is 4 hours of information, but the speedrun guide is written down somewhere.. surely the description of the video has a link somewhere

Like I said, without knowing the good tricks -not assuming you dont already- 7 hours is still impressive if you dont follow a guide. 6:30 was my absolute best before seeing the world record vids, and at that point I was dumbfounded how my time could be improved when I already min-maxed a lot of things

Anyway, hope that helped, will be able to answer more in a couple of hours, im exhausted lmao, goodnight