One of the things I've noticed through both playing this game a lot and reviewing Angie's submitted runs is that our copies of the game have weapon upgrades in different locations.

Take for example my current Any% 'WR' (although 100% is a faster category apparently so I really should try and fix this soon lol) run, the most notable example is the first upgrade I collect, which is on a lone platform on the south western side of Glacia 1. Compare this with Angie's runs, where that same platform instead has a orange power orb.

I assumed this was a version difference between the Sega Saturn version and PS1 versions of the game, but having recently gotten a PS emulator running the games as well I've found that my version of that also has the weapon upgrade in that place.

This now poses the question, why are there different locations, and which set of locations is faster? I'd love to have the answer to this for future reference, and then maybe details on this can be added to Angie's great guide later

so, because there's like, only both of us running this game, it's quite hard to actually know why stuff happens.

but i have one theory: the golden orbs and the weapon upgrades share a spawn location, i used a save state in Virion, with a lvl 1 shot, and i could get up to lvl 3 shot because in both rounds 1 and 2, golden orbs got changed into weapon upgrades.

so i guess the game looks at your shot lvl and if it's above what it should be, it makes every weapon upgrade into a golden orb, if not, then it's a weapon upgrade.

this means almost every single golden orb location could be a weapon upgrade, and you can test this with solaria/aquar IV. if you get the upgrade in solaria r3, aquar IV r2(i think) has a golden orb on the "secret" path to the right. but if you don't take it, it becomes a weapon upgrade.

i've also tried (A LOT) to rip the game's files to try and get a map image to make it easier to route flags and hourglasses, but it's basically impossible, the ps1 version doesn't use tim files and i've even tried getting a pc and a sega saturn cd image to try it, but got nowhere as well...

people on r/speedrun and TAS videos couldn't help me either so i'm 100% stuck on this.

also also, i found out that a emulator that reads .cue files is .5~1 second slower than one that reads .bin files, because it has to load songs and a few extra textures so idk what to do or what emulator to run on

Ah that actually makes a lot of sense and would explain perfectly why there's a difference because I honestly never had any idea that the weapon upgrade in Solaria 3 even existed until reviewing your runs. if we assume this is the case then I would say there's an optimal routing for weapon upgrades as well, and knowing this I think the upgrade in Solaria 3 should just be skipped entirely as it's very time consuming to get, not only being very out of the way but also having to do this while your speed is at it's lowest cap. The Glacia upgrade for example is much faster to get requiring only some skilled ice stopping and a single platform.

The next step for this would be figuring out all weapon upgrade locations, because my understanding is that not every stage has them but I may be wrong about that. When we know that, and we can figure out how they influence each other we can route the fastest ones in.

I think any emulator is fine for the time being, a .5-1 second time loss doesn't matter so much in a game with so few runners, that will be something to worry about when runs are fully optimised and even then the unpredictability of the AI will lead to plenty of variance anyway, at this point in time I would be VERY impressed if any new WR or the like came down to a .5 second delay for loading sounds.

the thing is that .5 second delay on every loading screen adds up pretty quickly and you can lose i think up to a minute, i haven't done the math yet.

about the solaria upgrade, i agree, according to my splits it takes like 20 seconds to get it, which is a huge time loss.

i also found out that the rng is determined the moment a round starts, not on boot up, and it's deterministic, which i guess i confirmed that with my LOTAD from years ago.

and finally, you're right, not every planet has an upgrade, nimbus and circe being prime examples of that (and i already searched EVERY. SINGLE. TILE. for a hidden teleporter).

i think it's actually better to get the first upgrade on Aquar IV round 3, it spawns on a super easy place (top left of roundstart) and it doesn't require dealing with ice physics or bridges, although, skipping this upgrade could be faster, by getting up to lvl 3 on virion, lvl 5 could still be gotten on Nemean r1, and lvl 4 could be gotten on trepidaria r3, i'll do some research tonight and map out every single upgrade spawn i can find but i won't search every tile as i did with solaria, nimbus and circe because that would be insane.

so, i'm done with my research, and i found this out:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D8BxUbmlkEnt9ourj8FhaWfuwpJxS6qW8Ax_VgzfVyE/edit?usp=sharing

i appended everything to my google docs notes about the game because it got too big lol

I'll look forward to seeing your edit when you've finished your research!

The upgrade on Ferrinar r2 I think is especially worth looking at because it's very quick and very free to pick up because of the funny way the AI works for that stage, if you ignore flags and just go straight up to get it the AI will head to the flag in the top left section followed by the one to the right of it which just happens to be where you'll make a bridge to the upgrade. it seems the AI is programmed to try and keep a certain distance away from you because while you're doing this the AI will get confused and all but stop moving, giving you plenty of time to collect the upgrade and then go straight over to tag him without any fears about losing the stage. From my experience this is 100% consistent buuuut my sample size of tests for this isn't huge. You can see this one in action about 29 minutes into my Any% run as a clear example

Edit: looking at your research you can probably disregard this statement entirely if Virion 2 is that good for an upgrade then it's best to get level 3 from there. looking at your notes I suppose the optimal route would be:

• Lv2 Aquar IV r3
• Lv3 Virion r2
• Lv 4 Ferrinar r2 (is this available? Your notes say that Lv3 ends AND Lv 4 starts at Ferrinar which doesn't seem quite right) or trepidaria r3
• Lv 5 the Lair r1

I'll have to have a play around with this next time I get the chance

i'm done lol, and yeah, i've noticed that too, in fact, if you ignore Neenott, and just run arround the map, they will stay locked in that section, no matter where you go, and i do mean it, you can just stand still on the other side of the map for the time you want, they'll won't move from the section.

this is probably a bug on the pathfinding idk it is quite funny tho, the only way of getting them out of this section, is to tag them.

still i personally don't think ferrinar r2 is a good place for the lvl 4 upgrade, since it takes 4 bridges to reach it, AND right after ferrinar there's forge, with better upgrade spawns, specially forge r2...

also every bridge takes around a second to build so... the less you build the faster you'll go.

Edit: just saw your edit, and yeah, it was a mistake on my part the ferrinar thing lol.

but my point still stands... it would be better to lvl up on Forge, because it doesn't require any bridges, aside from that i 100% agree with your route.

aquar iv r3, virion r2, forge r1/2 (deppends on Lothar's movement) and lair r1

i'm super tired rn, because... let's just say my savestates folder is getting bigger and bigger for different tests and routes :v, but i should be able to run the game after tomorrow, hoping for a pb, sub 40 maybe?

edit: i couldn't resist and tested some routes in solaria, i think i've found the optimal one, i'll update my notes for new routes and optmizations