Hi, I'm interested in running SWRC but I've run into an issue. In ISlide's segmented run he mentions double-loading levels to allow skips such as skipping The Strength of Brothers entirely. I've looked around here but I haven't found any information on the topic.
TL;DR: How do you double-load a level?
first you need to be sure the action "quickload" and "quicksave" are bound to keys. You can change the binding from the game menu, or by modifying the "User.ini" file.
Then "doubleloading" merely consists in pressing the keys "quicksave", then "quickload" during a loading screen
(be sured to hit "quicksave" before "quickload", or you'll be undesirely loading a previous save, which can kill a run)
This will save the level as it is, but before the game script hits a trigger called "levelstart". So when reloading the quicksave all script blocks conditioned by "levelstart" will be ignored.
The trick is used on the levels:
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Into The Hive : so 62 can slice a terminal instead of 40
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The Strength Of Brothers : to keep the ending trigger activated even though the mission's objectives are not complete
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Canyons Of Death : to move a bit quicker at the beginning
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(To Own The Skies) : only for a special strat involving knocking the 2nd floor door down, do not use in a "normal" route
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Unwelcome Visitors : despawns all enemies
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Alone : allows to plant a bomb before killing the heavy trandoshan
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Attack Of The Clones : allows to move during the briefing
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From The Shadows : allows to grappleglitch and go OOB and finish the level
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The Wookie Resistance : allows ro hit the end trigger without waiting for the wookie to open the trapdoor
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Saving Ammo : allows to plant the final bomb without conditions
there was already a thread for this: Abusing Loading Screens https://www.speedrun.com/swrc/thread/sea7c
A few other things about it:
The levelstart trigger is actually triggered by the player spawning in the level. We don't know exactly how it works, but basically because you reload the level before it finished loading the last time, any actions triggered by the levelstart don't happen once the level reloads. My best guess is that the game waits until the level finishes loading before doing them. When you reload the level the game forgets about these actions it was supposed to do. It's not quite as simple as just any action triggered by the levelstart doesn't happen. It just skips some of them that happen right as the level loads, not necessarily any delayed ones. This can be seen in the wookie resistance. If you qs/ql too early, it doesn't work, as there is a delay.
Also, for levels that have a briefing screen, you can save and load these by very quickly pressing right and enter to navigate to the start button before it is visible, then qs/ql.
Finally, to avoid reloading the game to an earlier save, just qs right before the level end.
This trick only works on the PC version of the game btw. The Xbox version lacks a quicksave feature