We found a consistent time on Terminal Skip yet? I'm thinking 8 seconds sharpish, though I think my pb did it just before 9.
I've been counting one-one thousand, two-one thousand.....and shooting off the singularity right as I say "eight wuh." It worked 4 straight times in testing, but of course not in my last actual run. I haven't really had an actual timer up while doing it so I can only refer to my subjective counting speed (your one-one thousand two-one thousand might be slower or faster than mine). Is it possible that this might be frame-perfect? It's a small window, whatever it is.
I do know for a fact it is not frame perfect. I've used about 3 different timings, it worked at 11s, 9s, and 8s. Weirdly not 10s though. I will have to do a little more testing, and see which of these is most consistent (going from a timer).
Did some pretty exhaustive testing with an actual timer today, and the only timing that worked was 9.7 seconds. Not 9.6, not 9.8, and certainly not anything else.
For the sake of clarity, I'm timing from the moment Shane says 'brother.' You, having different dialogue, will surely have different timing.
A few thoughts:
¤ The trigger for Shane's call is the arena being clear. Whether this is after the first sniper or the last (potentially three can spawn in during the fight if you're suuuuuper slow at clearing Akurans out), that's when it happens. Waiting for each sniper and taking them all out one at a time (there are never two present at once), then shooting off the Singularity is 100% consistent, but of course it's slow af.
¤ The game really REALLY wants the second wave to happen, but it's much less interested in spawning the third wave. The window to clear out the first wave without the second one spawning in is unbelievably tight. There's no way you can possibly do it without the Singularity. By contrast, eliminating the second wave before the third spawns in should be trivial (but certainly suboptimal).
¤ It appears that if an Akuran from the ground is in direct contact with the Singularity "ball," the game already considers him dead even before the Singularity detonates. (I have not tested to see if the same is true of the sniper, and I will update once I do, because if it is, we might get a consistent setup out of it.) I say this because I have used the Singularity and demonstrably killed every enemy in the area without getting the skip, but when I've gotten the skip in practice, I've noticed that the outermost Akuran is not in the "ball" when it detonates and is killed by the shockwave that comes out of it. Only when THAT happens is the area considered clear.
Therefore, PLACEMENT OF THIS SINGULARITY IS CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT. I do not believe the timing is nearly as important.
I'm not sure of how we can make it consistent, unless the sniper being killed by the Shockwave would work too. How the waves of Akurans come in on the ground is 100% random. If they're all over the place, and too far to the right (as we look at the arena), then if you place the Singularity more on that side it won't kill the sniper (and as I said, they're considered dead too quickly if they're within the Singularity ball before it detonates).
This is more complicated than we were making it some months ago, but I think we can work this out.
Aside: Is there anything in this game more annoying than Fetch's post-Singularity giggle after a missed skip? DansGame
I've been finding a sorta sweet spot timingwise, anywhere in the 9.2-9.3s range seems to work. Other than that, my positioning seems to be just on the green building. At least, it's most consistent under those circumstances for me.
Assuming your timing relates to the end of dialog, it's only gonna matter to you, ragazzo.
This will be nearly impossible to prove, but in some testing I'm doing tonight (got the run into a marathon) it's sure starting to seem that pinging with L3 before the singularity disqualifies the skip from happening. I'm getting it about 50/50 without the ping and not once with it, about 15-20 tries each way.
