Here's some of the stuff I discovered recently that will most certainly be useful in any%. I'll update this post as I find more. Thanks to user, alpaca and fox for their contributions.
See the video descriptions for how to perform the glitches. All of these can be performed in software rendering mode. Haven't extensively tested hardware rendering mode.
Zod colony clear glitch. Despawns all devils except for xenofex. Requires 3 fire aura scrolls or similar.
Quest NPC hire glitch. Requires a fire aura scroll or similar, or cast a spell like remove fear and talk to a hired follower at the exact same time, then choose target and die with the dialogue up, no scroll needed.
Item dupe glitch. Requires a fire aura scroll or similar. Might work at other chests but avlee was convenient in the run.
Not the clearest explanation but figured I'd document this somewhere.
Alpaca found a way to use the "zeroth" character to drink stat boost potions which overwrites quest bits with the current time. Performing the glitch itself is quite easy. You need a party targeting spell set as the quick spell on the first character and the other three unconcious/dead/etc. Now hit S to cast and click on the first character at the same time. You need to get the character menu open with the spell cursor, then click the first character to cast, then immediately hold right click for a second or two. Now you can select the inventory tab and grab a potion, then click on the right side of the screen to use it. The potion comes from the first character's inventory but using it on the invisible paperdoll applies it to the "zeroth" character, overwriting quest bits.
Have a look at my run to see this technique in action.
Quest bits are stored at address 0xACD59D, 64 bytes. See quests.txt in events.lod for bit indices. Potions that line up with bits: might boost, personality boost, speed boost (and maybe more). You might want to play around with the glitch with cheat engine open to see how exactly the potions affect quest bits.
The high bit comes first like so, 12th byte:
bit, bit index
0x80 96
0x40 97
0x20 98
0x10 99
0x08 100
0x04 101
0x02 102
0x01 103
Important bits:
bit index, byte, bit, description
105, 14th byte, 0x80, slayed xenofex
114, 15th byte, 0x40, did proving grounds
119, 15th byte, 0x02, killed tolberti
236, 30th byte, 0x10, lost it bit for overthruster
Wow crazy stuff ! Great achievement. There is still some RNG to be worked out and some minor moves tricks to be used (I remember pressing SHIFT to fasten the rotation of my party). I'm pretty sure sub7 is achievable
Yeah I guess. Wasted a lot of time on grabbing items to sell and then I didn't even need to, so ideally don't bother with items at all. I did use the shift trick though, not sure if that even works in 7?
Problem is that the route is just so inconsistent. You could lose at any of these points: Emerald island alchemy shop, no potions. Emerald island magic shop, no scrolls. Bracada, not enough gold. Bracada magic shop, no potions. End of the run, even if you get this far it doesn't always work.
You could get the two white potions in the fly scroll chest which would save some time flying around (and gold) but good luck with that.
An attempt to explain this again since people keep asking.
Using a potion on the zeroth slot writes the expiry time (current time + duration) to memory preceding the first character's data. Some potions happen to write where the game stores your quest status flags.
0xACCE64 Current time, 8 bytes. Incremented once per frame (60 hz).
0xACD59D Quest bits, 64 bytes. See quests.txt in events.lod to see what's what.
Potions write to these addresses. There are more but only these two are relevant.
0xACD5A8 Personality boost
0xACD5B8 Speed boost
The goal of the run is to wait until certain bits in the time are set and then using potions to overwrite the quest bits. These are the necessary bits to achieve the ending. The light/dark side bits have to be zero or you won't be able to talk to judge Grey.
Bit Byte Address Value Description
99 13 0xACD5A9 0x20 Chose light side
100 13 0xACD5A9 0x10 Chose dark side
105 14 0xACD5AA 0x80 Slayed Xenofex
119 15 0xACD5AB 0x02 Killed Tolberti
145 19 0xACD5AF 0x80 Book shop membership (this is here for illustration only)
236 30 0xACD5BA 0x10 "Lost it" bit for overthruster
Combining all the bits and aligning them gets us the expiry time we need:
0x02900000
Adjusting for potion duration we get the time to drink:
0x028F1400
Which is may 5th 1168 11:00 am. Then depending on the personality boost potion power it has to be offset a little. This is to ensure the light/dark side bits are zero.
Power:
8 +0 min, 0 rests
12 +5 min, 1 rests
16 +15 min, 3 rests
20 +20 min, 4 rests
24 +30 min, 6 rests
28 +40 min, 8 rests
32 +45 min, 9 rests
Other details
The reason you have to buy the book shop membership is that without it the game thinks a potion is already active and won't write the expiry time. There are other bits that would work for the run but this is by far the fastest.
You respawn on Emerald Island because one of the potions zeroes the bit that's set when you complete it. This is unavoidable.
Use cheat engine to see what's going on.
Adding the lastest finding here for documentation:
With the new Follower Hiring glitch in Emerald, the time of the day is not relevant anymore for the potions. In the old route this was only required because of the alignment check at the Judge's house.
In the new route, we can drink the potion whenever, as long as it is 5th of May, 1168.
