Any% PDKR (Underflow)

Items:

Morphing Ball
Bombs
Hi-Jump Boots
Speed Booster
Varia Suit
Gravity Suit
Energy Tank - Terminator
Energy Tank - Hi-Jump Boots
Energy Tank - Kraid
Missile Pack - Awakening
Missile Pack - Moat
Super Missile Pack - Early
Super Missile Pack - Wrecked Ship (Left)
Super Missile Pack - Aqueduct
Power Bomb Pack - Red Brinstar Elevator (Lower)
Power Bomb Pack - Red Brinstar Elevator (Upper)
Power Bomb Pack - Crateria



Outline:

Same as 14% Ice up to Red Brinstar Elevator, except with Charge Beam skipped
Grab both Power Bomb packs in the area
Up the elevator and continues same as 14% Ice until after Gravity Suit
After reaching premoat after Wrecked Ship, head left for the Crateria Power Bomb pack (IBJ up to it)
Back down Red Brinstar, heading down to Norfair
Hi-Jump Boots + Energy Tank then Speed Booster
Refill ammo for Botwoon
Back up to Maridia
Supers at Aqueduct (avoid the Missile)
Botwoon
Refill ammo for Draygon
Full halfie
Draygon
- bust doors/turrets prior with Supers (10/15 -> 10/10)
- shinespark Draygon to start fight (might as well, it's free damage)
- apply permagoo on first mucus cycle (uses PB)
- camp left side, dodging swoops until right side aggro occurs
- perform CF for underflow on correct frame
- underflow mis/sups
- kill Draygon (ammo, sparks - have free shinespark from CF interruption which will do more damage due to permagoo)
- jump up to ledge to escape (sparks are irrelevant at this point due to permagoo still present)
- visit save station to save and reload to remove permagoo
Back down to tube, going through Botwoon pipes and down mountain area to get there
Kraid, Varia Suit, Energy Tank
Head down to Lower Norfair
Ridley (Super duper)
Head all the way to G4, taking same route as KPDR would (have to spark at mountain to reach vertical door)
Tourian
- PB Metroids (similar strats to 14% Speed)
- Baby skip using spare PB to clear moss
- Refill energy (explained below)
- MB1 (bust Zebetites with Supers)
- MB2 (60 Supers)
- MB3
Escape



Simplified outline:

Morph
Missile
Bombs
Supers
Charge SKIPPED
PBs (Red Brin lower)
PBs (Red Brin upper)
Missile (moat)
Phantoon
Supers (left)
Gravity
PBs (ship)
Energy Tank (HJB)
HJB
Speed
Refill ammo
Supers (Aqueduct)
Botwoon
Refill ammo
Draygon (underflow)
Save and reload to remove permagoo
Kraid
Varia
Energy Tank (Kraid)
Ridley
Metroids (PB'd)
Baby skip w/ PB
Refill energy
Mother Brain



Comments:

After having the thought that a decent time for 14% Chargeless should be a sub 50 of some sort, it made me think about whether simply doing 14% Chargeless but adding items such as HJB and Speed could make it a viable Any% route, as it would allow for skipping the elevator CF entirely, skipping gravitation jumps, performing sparks such as full halfie, fast pillars, and those in the escape, allow access to the speedway in Norfair, et cetera. The route has some unique properties as an Any% route, such as completely skipping all beams including Ice and obtaining more Supers and PBs than Missiles.

However, there are many flaws with this route that appear to, for better or worse, not make it viable for obtaining a record time.

Detours - Having to venture off the path for a 3rd Super pack, a 3rd PB pack, and Norfair items if you want to count those consumes a lot of time. The reason for the 3rd Super pack is because otherwise, Draygon would be a much larger headache. By being able to bust the two doors and three turrets with Supers, you can end at 10/10/1X ammo, which allows you to immediately attempt permagoo on the first mucus cycle given, instead of having to farm at all from Draygon, or from enemies prior to Draygon such as Mochtroids, both of which are bad ideas, especially if you're in need of a Super for the CF. However, the detour for the 3rd Super pack and 3rd PB pack add up to over a minute combined. The Norfair detour takes roughly 3 minutes, but is obviously necessary when you look at just the benefits of having Speed, and would technically exist anyway if the alternative chosen would be to elevator CF, which is slower as evidenced by the low% route. I'm not sure how to equate the Norfair detour, but I don't really need to to understand the end result.

Farming - Although it might not be an enormous time loss, having to farm before and after Botwoon due to requiring enough ammo to beat him and CF later doesn't help.

Underflow - Executing this glitch adds at least half a minute to the Draygon fight, if not much more depending on Draygon's cooperation and your execution. On infohud, a good fight for me had me leaving the room around the 90 second mark, when a good Any% fight takes half that time and obviously will have much less variance than attempting a circus performance in the middle of the ocean.

Permagoo - Related to the above, having to perform this was the main reason that Sniq felt this route wouldn't work before I started running through it on infohud, because the only way known to remove this (without dying) is to save and reload, adding yet another ~half-minute loss to the route. It also makes it not possible to reverse full halfie, because the spark wouldn't even make it the entire distance of the Colosseum, and you'd still be afflicted afterward anyway.

Baby Skip - Because you would go from Ridley directly to Tourian, without any ability to mitigate damage directly (no Plasma), and because Metroids would have to be PB'd, and drop basically nothing when doing so, and because there are no beams present, requiring usage of a PB to clear the moss, the skip ends up saving only a few seconds compared to the 20s minimum that it normally saves.

For reference, I played through the entire route on infohud, trying to give every room a solid enough time (without going full-on godsplice), and ended up with a mid 29 IGT at the ship, and even though about half a minute could've probably been saved from Phantoon and Draygon combined, and probably another 1-2 minutes from further execution, there'd still be no way to reach the low 26 IGT that Twocat's 2015 godsplice of PRKD obtained, which reflected a ~39:5X realtime. Not only that, but because of the lag caused by the PB usage at certain parts, and the post-underflow reload not counting towards the IGT either, the IGT should be an even worse indication of the route's realtime in reality. I would guess that a mid 29 IGT with this route would equate to a 44 real time of some sort, perhaps higher.

Just to mention it at some point, the reason for not obtaining SJ is because I don't think it would save time because of having to collect it while permagoo'd, and there are a few rooms where it doesn't save the time that it otherwise could, like the "plowerhouses" in LN. It would only save a little bit in rooms such as Colosseum and Amphitheater, and not much elsewhere as far as I could tell. Even the mountain area on the way to G4; SJing up to that door instead of shinesparking would only save around a second and around 55 energy, so even with how early Draygon is handled, it's just not as viable of an item as it might seem.

If nothing else, hopefully this helps relieve some of you from the concern than an underflow route would eventually take over Any%, as presently, based on my analysis, it does not seem possible for that to happen. Perhaps there are options I did not consider here, but I'm not sure how anything would yield enough of an improvement to the route unless we were able to execute a route more similar to Sniq's Any%.

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Changelog

9/27/17 - Twocat pointed out that either Aqueduct or Crab Supers would make more sense than the WS (Right) pack originally listed. Aqueduct is likely the faster of the two assuming proper avoidance of the Missile pack so it is now listed.