User blog:Redberry Crumble/Speedrunning guide? Is that a thing?

Heeeey people!

This unlikely guide was requested by none other than Dr. Grumble (Dr.G to his friends and wikia administrators) - potentially the leading SM2 speedrunner. The pleasure, of course, is all ours. This guide will cover all 20 of the main story missions and will come out in 4 parts (5 missions in each) as fast as I can manage. After that, it will be revised and compiled into one actual page (you know, like normal people do).

[START OF GUIDE, PT1]

Mission 1: Prologue

1. The blasted disc will, in fact, not appear if you don’t run away from the place where it appears. So, as soon as you can, run midway to the exit door, then (after the disc appears) back.

2. The first pirate you encounter will be standing with his back to you, at which point the game will request you to subdue him. Here’s a general tip - whenever you need to subdue someone in a non-lethal fashion (assuming they are either facing the other way or are sleeping), in the interests of saving time it is best to approach them running (not crouched) and crouch right when you are within “grabbing range”. In my experience this works almost always, even with the heaviest and noisiest of armors (at least when approaching from the back).

3. Two more pirates are encountered after you get some ammo, the second one will be next to the room where the Bountyman Raidgun can be found. You actually need to take the Raidgun since the game will not let you progress otherwise (the door to the hangars will remain closed), so make a beeline to the room while shooting the second pirate). It is then best to disregard the third pirate and run straight to the ladder northwest.

4. The Ava part is simple - just run-and-gun to Gavin, revive him and spend the next 15-20 seconds bitterly regretting reviving him since he is so old and slow and doesn’t know what speedrunning is apparently.

5. After the 10 years it takes Gavin to open the door, he and Ava will reach the hangar and you will be controlling Burton again. At this point you (Burton) and Ava will be required to fight off a pirate ambush while Gavin once again demonstrates his prolific hacking skills. Now, perhaps the logical thing for a speedrunner to do here would be staying right by the forcefield and getting to the ship as fast as possible after it is down. This will not work, because the mission will not end while Ava is away from the Gecko, and she will engage the pirates anyway. So, the best thing to do here is to run away from the ship and help Ava fight off the pirates (you will face between 2 and 3 groups of 2 pirates each). Another reason to do this is that she can get wounded in combat, which will add even more precious time.

6. After Gavin, who was quite old enough even in the first game, lowers the forcefield, run to the closest point on the southeastern side of the ship (the shortest route would be to the western side, which, as it turns out, is too far from the mission’s endpoint).

Mission 2: New Century Raid

NOTE: The rewards on this mission are unimportant, so the only two pirates you actually need to kill are the raid leader and the unlucky bastard who happened to have the key in the house in the center of town.

1. Run into the town, then west and north, up to the basement entrance. Position yourself by the window just past the basement entrance and let off 1-2 shotgun blasts to attract the attention of both pirates inside the house (revolver is not loud enough to attract the one in the far room).

2. Go straight through the basement into the house and kill the pirate with the key, who by this time should have made it to the basement entrance looking for you. You will have to kill the second pirate to not get shot in the back during the dialogue upon exiting the house. Take the key.

3. Run straight to the sheriff’s office, into the prison and cap the raid leader.

4. Boom, mission complete. Easiest speedrun ever.

NOTE: As stated below, rewards are unimportant for this mission, but if I had to pick one - I’d take the Falcon MP to have a marginally powerful and silent sidearm, just in case. Your primary weapon for the next several missions will be found on Mission 3.

Mission 3: Into the Hills

NOTE: this is an important mission since you will need to get the maximum tier of reward. However, this won’t be a problem, since the secondary objective is to kill the three HVTs who are all positioned right next to the three main objectives. And dying is obviously not an option.

NOTE: the route outlined below is optimal, you will lose a minimum of 15 seconds if it is changed.

1. Run northeast, straight to the first munitions dump. If the two pirates (one of them is an HVT) notice you before you make it to the dump - shoot both of them, then set fire to the munitions; if they don’t - do the same in reverse. Take care not to shoot on the way between dump 1 and dump 2 (and, for that matter, dump 2 and dump 3) - if you aggro the HVTs, they might leave their designated places and thus add time.

2. Proceed east, then northeast - the second HVT should still be on patrol and directly beside the second munitions dump. Cap HVT, torch munitions.

3. Proceed west to the third munitions dump and the HVT beside it. You know the drill.

4. Short run to the landing zone (northeast) and you’re good.

NOTE: take the AMR-5 - this rifle can actually take you pretty far into the game, you will most likely be using it until Mission 7.

Mission 4: The Chief Engineer

NOTE: your only objective here is to get the engineer. And don’t forget to pack your pipe bombs (and your shiny new rifle)!

NOTE: CONSERVE HEALTH AND AMMUNITION

1. Run northwest, then north across the bridge to the demolition charge.

2. Head southeast to the manhole.

3. Shoot and kill the pirate in the sewer as soon as you see him (then, by the time you make it to his body, he will have exploded already, or the explosion will damage your directional shield, but not your health).

4. After you plant the demolition charge, don’t go too far away from it - let the shield take some damage, but cut distance.

5. Take the first exit you see.

6. Run straight towards the turret (northwest) and into the manhole.

7. Two pirates in the sewer, I usually had to kill one.

8. After exiting the sewer, head directly towards the bar (east). Midway between the manhole and the bar entrance, fire your rifle 1-2 times to aggro the pirates inside the bar. Head to the side entrance (while the pirates inside are checking the main one).

9. Enter through the side entrance and head to the back door, kill the shotgun-armed pirate by the bar before he fires. There’s an ammo box behind the bar which you will not use since it’s gonna add 3-5 seconds, hence the need to conserve ammunition. Exit through the back door. Enter the engineer’s lair.

10. And now for the hard part. The engineer has several pirates with him, which is further complicated by him shielding any allies who get close to him. Here’s a workaround.

11. If you didn’t loose any time up to this point, the engineer’s patrol route should have taken him out of the cover of the bar counter and behind the table north-northwest of the entrance. What you should do here is shoot once. After that the engineer usually takes cover behind the table, which turns out to be a big mistake for him, since at that moment you throw all your pipe bombs behind him, and take off his remaining health with your rifle. The nice thing is that the cover patterns of other pirates should have taken them out of range of the engineer’s shield generator and you - out of their lines of fire (not all of them, but most). And, if everything worked out up to this point, you can just subdue him right away, without killing anyone else. This has worked 3 out of 5 times for me. Subduing the engineer without killing anyone else shaves off A LOT of time.

NOTE: if the method above does not work and you have to take the enemies head-on - your first focus should still be the engineer, since the shield generator gives the enemy squad a significant tactical advantage. But still, the method above is definitely the fastest one.

NOTE: take the frag grenades - you will need them on the next mission.

Mission 5: The Lost Caravan

NOTE: do not forget to pack the grenades.

NOTE: it is not necessary to conserve ammo (there’s a box midway through level, right in your route).

1. Take out the first pirate you encounter, take out the next one with a loud weapon (rifle) to aggro the sniper. Run across the bridge.

2. The sniper will usually take the shot when you’re midway across the bridge - duck behind the railing, let the bullet pass, then continue running and head northwest after the bridge (the sniper will not have enough time to take another shot).

3. Your next focus is a small settlement to the west. Disregard the sleeping guard, head into the settlement, kill the guard with a keycard (by the barrel fire), take the keycard. Proceed north through the settlement (you will likely have to kill at least one more guard to get through safely). Kill anyone in your way and ready your grenades.

4. After the settlement you will head northeast through a ravine. Keep running, throw your grenade at the sniper positioned behind a barrel (at the end of the ravine) and take cover behind the barrel midway through the ravine. The sniper will fire once, after which, with any luck, the grenade will kill him and another pirate beside him. You should abandon cover as soon as the sniper takes the shot, or, in the interest of saving time, try letting the shield take the damage. In other words, don’t wait for the grenade to go off. Run to the forcefield and use the keycard to open it.

5. Proceed north to a well. There will be two guards in front, the closest one should be facing away at this time. Eliminate both guards and go into the well.

6. In the cave head east, ignore the first pirate (grenadier) and take out the second one (shotgunner) right away to avoid taking heavy damage (health should be conserved up to this point) and open up the shortest route.

7. Head to the ammo box, replenish ammunition.

8. You are now positioned by a cave with a large pirate, 2 (if memory serves) regular pirates, and a lot of explosive barrels and boxes. As soon as you have LOS on the big guy, throw all your grenades at him, then take cover behind a stone pillar in the middle of the cave and eliminate the adjacent pirate. If the grenades did not miss their mark, the big guy should have less than half of his health left, which is easily remedied with a full magazine from your lovely AMR-5. Take care not to get hit with explosions or too many stray rounds (by this point, every explosive item in the cave should be on fire). It is inadvisable to move too far away from the large pirate, since you will need his key to leave the room. Cap the big guy, take the key, leave the room through the southern door. Exit the cave.

9. After exiting the cave, disregard the grenadier pirate and immediately head south, take out the pirate in your way (shotgunner), head southeast to the caravan.

10. In order to finish the level you must, of course, demolish both barricades. The first one on your demolition list should be the southern one, then the northern one (again, optimized for least time).

11. Aaaand there you go!

NOTE: as for the reward, the R2 Storm is quite powerful, but also presents a risk to the player due to the ricochet effect (I personally used it only out of curiosity, never as a main weapon). The T2 is a bad choice (not powerful enough to justify picking it instead of something else), mines will be useless on a speedrun. Your best choice is the Marksman, since it will help out a lot on Mission 6. You can still go with the AMR-5, but there’s gonna be a tricky moment with some snipers.

[END OF PT1]

All power to Dr.G! Will release PT2 soon.