DPG C1 Aliens Route Thoughts (ISoT vs. ISoT Skip)

In the new route, with basically perfect gameplay, the latest you can soar to mv after wf1 is about 7:41pm (assuming you are uninverted --  also assuming you succeed at item recovery). Soar to wf -> soar to mv is about 87m igt uninverted. soar to wf -> enter wft is about 13m igt uninverted (so enter wft -> soar to mv is about 87 - 13 = 74m igt uninverted). So if it turns night asap when you enter wf1, you'll soar to mv at 7:14pm which is about 27m igt earlier than perfect gameplay, so this is probably about what you'd want to aim for in a run (since perfect gameplay is very unrealistic, since it means basically perfect hookshot aiming and such, 3:33 aliens, etc.)

TLDR of above is that you want it to turn night 1 (while you're uninverted) in the first room of wf1, though technically night 1 could happen earlier and it'd be theoretically possible to make it to aliens.

Why do I feel the need to say this? Because there were two concepts for managing aliens igt in the new route: 1) do 2 ISoTs and skip the SoDT and 2) do one SoDT and skip the two ISoTs. Initially option 1) was looking like it'd be the more viable option since you don't need to do room key without inverting (nor do you have to worry about postman in an uninverted igt segment), but unless you have a bad run it won't turn night until way after you enter woodfall temple unless you do an SoDT... but the point of the route was to skip the SoDT so you miss out on the timesave of the SoDT skip route (close to ~13s timesave is associated with the SoDT skip route compared to the pre-dpg c1 route -- accounting for ~2s to to equips, but assuming you get the night transition anyway). This means that in practice, the "SoDT skip" route would actually have to SoDT to night 1 anyway, so most of the timesave of this route is lost. If you want it to turn night at the start of wf1 anyway, then at least you still save around 13 - 12.5 + 3 = 3.5s overall since you skip the 3s transition, but the main thing I'm trying to communicate is that the sodt skip route isn't as good as we hoped.

The only way to make igt work with optimal gameplay is option 2), which skips inverting entirely, so you have to do room key uninverted (rku) and then (optimally) play SoDT to night 1 to time aliens (as stated above, I think playing SoDT at the start of wf1 is realistic for a good run, though theoretically you could do it about 27m igt earlier).

TLDR of above is that you need to SoDT to night 1 in the so-called "SoDT skip" route (I'm renaming this to the "ISoT route") anyway, so the ISoT skip route is even faster (both route options would likely SoDT at the start of wf1 to time aliens). This means that ISoT route saves about 26s over the ISoT route (because 2 extra ISoTs, 13s each) -- actually more like 24s or 25s since it will likely need hd1 after rk, which loses maybe 1-2s?

What are some issues with the ISoT Skip route?

The first issue is that you need to play well to do rku. Not much can be done about this outside of playing well and doing hd1 after rk. If you make mistakes, a backup could be to soar to clock town, then get kafei + rk, then hd1, then nct bombers, then bomb shop + wct bomber + postman, then you can get cucco bomber before midnight meeting (to minimize the number of extra loading zones).

The second issue is that postman will be during an uninverted igt segment. The simplest fix to this is to do postman Night 2 (after tf ice recoil, enter clock town through wct and get postman HP right before SCT owl statue). However, a potentially faster fix is to keep postman on Day 1 and to try postman until about 5:45pm igt and if you fail to get the HP just soar to wf and you'll be able to make it into wft right before it turns night which should time aliens well, then you can get the postman HP on night 2 as a backup. In this case, you skip having to SoDT. It is worth noting that I think realistically you'll only have about 2 attempts at postman HP before it turns 5:45pm. Soaring out of business scrub grotto and doing swamp gossips later saves about 30m igt, so in theory you could do 4 postman attempts and then soar out of the grotto if you get 4th try.

TLDR you need to be good enough to do rku, but doing postman day 1 can sometimes skip the SoDT. For example, if you got 2nd try postman, it'd be basically the same speed as 1st try postman since you'd be able to skip the SoDT anyway (I think, maybe it's possible that you have 3 tries instead of 2, I didn't test that thoroughly, but I anticipate that 2 tries is correct on average -- the general concept still holds).