Pro Cradle SA/00A Tip / Interesting Pattern

[Icy]

While on my Cradle grind, I was noticing my pace to the hut was a lot slower than on my Agent 0:34 most of the time, and I quickly noticed that killing the guards is what's costing me. I was starting to consider to always skip the upper cutscene and only play lower cutscene runs since that means one less guard at the ramps. Curiously, I was looking at runs to see what cutscene other people had and noticed something very interesting:

Out of the 57 Cradle SA/00A 0:34s on the ranks only 7 were with the upper cutscene!

Almost 90% of all Cradle SA and 00A WRs use the lower cutscene, which certainly does make the run easier, but I was shocked at how significant of a difference it seems to make! The only 7 runs which use the upper cutscene are Grav's SA, Irie's SA, Sakuya's 00A, Boss's 00A, Ace's 00A, Grav's 00A, and Haydos' 00A.

With this clear pattern and logical reasoning behind it, I would suggest to start skipping upper cutscene runs and only play out lower cutscene runs!

Hopefully this tip will make everyone's grind much easier for getting nice Cradle SA and 00A times!

[Wouter Jansen]

Nice tip!

#8 Marc's SA

[Icy]

Additionally, LTK is 12/21 for lower cutscene, which makes sense as it's not as affected by the cutscene differences, and Agent is 34/52, which also makes sense by the same reasoning.

Nice tip!

#8 Marc's SA

Ahh missed that one, thanks.

[Alka Maass]

When I played cradle ltk I always found the lower cutscene to be easier to live so I mainly only played on that cutscene

[Darkstar]

One thing I learned from my Cradle 0:33 proof-of-concept video was that 0:34 endings are a bit tighter than I thought. Even with the time saved using Henrik's strat I was just barely able to get a 0:33 out of it, and I had to really work for it. The decimal ended up being .95 and that was with clean strafing out of the hut with lots of lookdown and a perfect ending. I did get backed twice at the beginning running towards the ramp, but I don't think that wasted any time since I still got to the hut long before Trev activated the console.

I know that was on an emulator, but still. I've duped 0:35 on Agent three times now using a USB N64 controller while playing in real-time, and each time I was so sure it was finally a damn 0:34, but nope. So either the IGT or Bond's movement speed is a bit different on emulator (played on both Project64 and Bizhawk), or 0:34 endings are just really high decimals.

So yeah, getting to the hut as quickly as possible so you can rush in and kill Trev the moment he becomes vulnerable is probably a good idea. My run does show that you can lose ~0.6 seconds or so and still make it to the hut in time; however, on SA and especially 00A you will also lose some time killing the first dual ZMG guy due to decreased weapon damage and weaker autoaim.

[Irie]

Yeah not a bad idea to skip, especially for 00 but if you can kill the extra guard well then I'd just play out all runs till I actually lose pace. My SA 34 was upper cutscene and 00 was lower, so definitely a thought. SA ain't so bad but 00 is a pain in the ass and anything to make it easier is good. Cool info though I feel like I was curious about these stats when I went for the sweep