Citroën C4 Robot guide for various skill levels

So I made a guide and it turned out slightly longer than I had planned.

# Guide for new players

Don't worry about your time immediately. Instead, focus on learning the mechanics of the game and the track itself.

The most difficult part of the course for me initially was the corner at the tunnel exit. It is not very intuitive but you need to jump quite late and the robot will gravitate to the rail as though he has magnetic boots. If you can master this corner, it's a huge timesave and will help you immensely in achieving a sub 2:50 time.

## Boosting at the startline

Aim to press the gas as soon as the light turns green - this will give you a significant boost of acceleration.

## Switching

You can switch back and forth from car to robot (not transformer) at any point, but you need to allow some time and space in front of you for the animation to play out. The car has a higher top speed but the robot is more manoeuvrable.

## Grinding

The robot can grind on most railings, except for those in the tunnel and some other minor exceptions. Grinding is useful for making sharp turns, and for maintaining good speed as the robot. Just don't grind for too long or you will lose all your speed.

# Guide for Sub 3:40 Any%

Top speeds for reference

- Robot: 224kph (decays to ~190kph when coasting)
- Car without nitros: 279kph
- Car with nitros: 350kph (decays back to 279kph when nitros isn't used)

## The tunnel

On the straight before the obstacles, use nitros liberally.

*(For a faster but more difficult route, ignore this paragraph and see the sub 2:30 guide).*  Use the robot's jump ability to clear the closed-off lanes, each time switching back to the car and boosting the short distance before you need to switch back to the robot for the next jump. If you switch correctly, you should land in the path of the nitros in the middle of the lane. As far as I know, it's better to spend as little time as the robot as possible during this segment (i.e. switch to robot just before the barrier and switch back to the car as quick as possible each time).

Switch to the robot near the tunnel exit, picking up the red nitros and using the rail to make the turn.

## Watch your speed

Once you have a sub 2:50 time or thereabouts, it's good to keep doing runs of the circuit while paying attention to the speedometer and noticing which collisions/decisions are hurting your speed. For instance, following the sharp turn at tunnel exit, it's tempting to switch to the car immediately to build up speed, but if this means hitting a barrier, it's better to wait until the turn opens up.

## Nitros management

Make sure you're picking up nitros where you can. In particular, you should definitely aim to pick up every red (3X) nitro in your path. The exception to this is the very first one which is difficult to pick up cleanly with the car, so don't bother. If you really want to get it, I recommend just learning the timing for the boost-switch strategy (*see the sub 2:30 guide*).

### Why should you tap nitros instead of holding it?

- The car cannot exceed 350kph so it's wasteful to keep using nitros when you reach this speed.
- If the car's speed is greater than 279kph and you are not using nitros, its speed will decrease. The immediacy of this decrease is more punishing as you reach speeds closer to 350kph. At speeds at the lower end of the 279-350 range, there is about a second of delay before the speed decreases, so you should tap faster as your speed gets closer to 350.
- By saving nitros, you have more opportunity to use it elsewhere on the course.

### When should you NOT use tapping?

- At speeds below 279kph, I do not think tapping is necessary. 
- If you always tap, and you pick up a good portion of the nitros items, you will have excess nitros left over at the end of the run. If this happens, you should try to use it more on the straights to reach 350kph quickly.

Here are three key places you should be using nitros besides the highway:

# ![](/static/blob/oeog2l2n.png)![](/static/blob/5e14p1qe.png)![](/static/blob/qzp7ml1z.png)

## Fast Grinding

No, not like that. If you drive at high speeds, then switch to the robot and immediately grind on a rail, you can briefly maintain a speed higher than the robot's top speed, up to about 315kph.

A great place to use this strat is the first corner, just make sure that when switching back to the car you do so from close to the left-side barrier, to ensure you don't switch straight into a wall due to the higher speed.

# Guide for Sub 3:30 Any%

## The start - ‘boost-switching’

- As you know by this point, at the start of the race it’s possible to get a quick burst of acceleration with your car by holding the forward button from when the light turns green. 
- But if you get this right, you should get up to a speed of ~85-95kph in a fraction of a second (the higher end of this range is preferable but not necessary).

- ![](/static/blob/pzmw8lye.png)
- At this point, you should instantly switch to the robot, because the robot actually has faster acceleration at lower speeds than the car without nitros.
    - Note: switching at 96kph or above indicates that you haven’t done the boost/switch properly, and it will be slower than using the car. Most of the time 95kph is okay but the cutoff seems to be somewhere between 95 and 96.
- ![](/static/blob/yzrogxdz.png)
- Once you've picked up the first nitro (red seems to be worth getting over blue) and you're on the main highway, switch back to the car and use nitros immediately.

## The tunnel and tunnel exit

- In the lead up to the tunnel, picking up the red(3X) nitro is important. With that plus a little extra saved from the dirt section, you should be able to hold to 350kph then tap nitros until reaching the next red nitro on the left lane of the tunnel.
- Some runners make use of the robot's jumping ability in the tunnel to clear the closed off lanes, but it is actually faster (albeit substantially more difficult) to weave between the open lanes in the car. While doing this, tap nitro at a slow rate and grab the nitro items in your path. The blue ones can be hard to get, not a reset condition unless you have a really good time.
- The car's steering at top speed is egregiously bad (not a great Citroen C4 advertisement for those who want to drive at >300kph in a tunnel undergoing maintenance), so you must turn to avoid the closed off lanes way ahead of time. It is difficult to master but I’ve gotten better with practice. If you turn too early you will hit the divider wall or side railings and lose speed, but this is preferable to turning late and crashing into the closed off lane.
- If you are struggling with this try tapping nitro slower or practicing without nitro.
- Once you clear this obstacle course, aim the car at the red nitro at the tunnel exit, then switch to the robot so you can pick it up and make the turn. If you miss this nitro, don't worry too much, there are plenty around the corner.

## Braking

- Braking is quicker and stopping distance shorter if you use footbrake and handbrake simultaneously. I'm not aware of anyone using this in Any% but perhaps someone can find a use of it.

# **Guide for Robot Only**

- With robot only, the boost-switch strategy is still fine to use, since you are switching within the required time of 1 second.
- At its highest speeds, the robot will run for a short period, then ‘get tired’, and begin coasting. To reset the robot’s energy to run, you can do either of the following (credit to[ Nimputs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fXsrzedwI4)):
    - Hop on and off the grindable rails, thereby maintaining the robot's top speed of 220-224kph. Each time you hop onto a rail, do not grind for too long otherwise you will lose a lot of speed.
    - Where no grindable rail is available, you can use the robot's jump, incurring a minor temporary speed loss while in the air, to achieve the same effect. The main area without rails is the tunnel. 
    - Try to ensure the robot has reached max speed before grinding as you will not gain speed while grinding.

# 

NetflixAndBurn

Citroën C4 Robot

On the last day of GSPS 2023 (23-27.08) - polish speedrun marathon, Chottue (me) will do an Any% run of Citroën C4 Robot.

Livestream - https://www.twitch.tv/gramypomagamy

Schedule on Oengus - https://oengus.io/marathon/gsps2023/schedule

Schedule on Horaro -https://horaro.org/gsps/2023