Renamed, and stickied this thread for the time being to encourage even more participation in the MotS speed run!

The thing is, I COULD get my MotS CD out and help because I know exactly where it is.

But I was terrible at it. Like, to say I was pretty good at JK, I was ****ing awful at MotS. I just couldn't ever get the hang of it.

Unlike JK, MotS actually required the use of force powers to complete the game. JK could be beaten without assigning any force stars at all. MotS automatically assigns some of your stars because you need those force powers to get past certain puzzles.

Okay, I've decided to leave the end of level 2 alone for now and move on to looking at level 3. Not many tricks here. Once again I'll use RoyHess's run as a base and list improvements since this is the simplest way to describe a route.

Here's RoyHess's run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mABmaZpSyDc

The first and biggest possible improvement to his run is right at the start; instead of dropping into the pipe you start on, taking the elevator down at the end of it, then running and force jumping up to the big square elevator elevator at 0:15, it's a full 10 seconds faster to drop off the starting pipe into the pipe below, then run out of the other end of that pipe and jump across to the elevator. You can even do this without taking fall damage - it depends on where you land.

A well-aimed rail shot at 0:20 can blast the enemy trooper out of the way and save a second.

With better luck and execution, you can get back through the big door before it closes to skip having to open it again at 0:33.

The second-largest timesaver on this level is force-rail-jumping up to the top of the elevator at 0:44 without waiting around for it to start moving.

I was kind of hoping to find a way to skip having to call the elevator down again at 0:38, but I don't think there is one. I tried leaving a projection on the edge of it in the hope that it would stick on the ceiling when the lift starts rising and block it, but it turns out lifts pass straight through projections. I guess you could get lucky with a force push and get an enemy there instead, but they would walk or slide off and even if they somehow didn't, they would die too quickly for it to be helpful.

It is possible to wait (before going and cutting the wire) in the room with the two switches that call the lift and open the big door, and then press them both at once when the elevator reaches the top, run and cut the wire and make it back to the elevator just as it begins to rise. I'm fairly sure, however, that this works out slower than calling the elevator after you return from cutting the wire. Either way you have to wait around for the elevator to travel (all the way up if you call it before cutting the wire, and all the way down if you call it after). The tradeoff is just between the time you spend waiting in the control room for the elevator to start rising if you decide to call it before cutting the wire, and the time you lose having to go into the room a second time to call the elevator if you call it after cutting the wire. Since I figure the first is a bigger length of time, I figure we should call the elevator after cutting the wire. (Of course, if for some reason we were to decide not to use the force-rail-jump up the elevator shaft, the balance changes and it'd be much faster to call the elevator before cutting the wire. I see not reason at this stage not to use that jump, though.)

When grabbing the red key, it would save a little time to also hit the switch to swap targets from the base to the asteroid. There's a delay after switching targets before you can fire the weapon, and you can see that RoyHess loses a couple of seconds at the end of his run because of this. Switching the targets on the first trip into the firing room means the delay won't hurt our time.

By the way, as well as the wire you can cut to permanantly open the door to the firing room, there's also a (quicker to access) switch in the room RoyHess is in at 0:25 which opens the door, but if you use that one then the door closes when you approach it (the plot idea behind this being that the imperials go and flip the switch back after you leave the room, I think). I was hoping to try and find a way to circumvent this, but failed. There are basically three approaches I looked at: avoid the trigger, hit the trigger but get through the door in time, or block the door. Avoiding the trigger isn't possible; it fills the entire height and width of the pipe. Getting through the door in time isn't possible either, even with diagonal running and 4 stars in speed and you dropping in through the hole in the roof of the pipe near the door. Finally, it's fairly easy to time closing the door so that a stormtrooper there gets caught under the door, but they get immediately pushed down into the slot in the floor that the door drops into and so the door isn't held high enough open for you to be able to fit underneath. Even if you could get through the door, unless you did it by bypassing the trigger to close it entirely, you'd probably just get permanently trapped in the firing room. I think this is another idea to give up on.

We can save some more time over RoyHess's run by skipping the unnecessary detour he takes for health and shields at 0:52.

If we need shields for level 4, we can always take a second to grab the Armor pickup behind the lift at 1:05.

After increasing the weapon to full power, I'm kind of torn on whether the fastest route back to the firing room is the one RoyHess uses, or to lower the forcefield, run into the pipe, forcejump out of the pipe, drop into the pipe below and enter the firing room. (RoyHess's route is much easier, though). Whoever does the level should time both possibilities.

I don't have any other thoughts on level 3. Will look at level 4 now.

Okay, looked at level 4. This has got to be the most linear level I've ever seen in a Jedi Knight game. As such, I don't have anything exciting to contribute here.

There are still several possible improvements to RoyHess's run though. The run is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pItNYCXFPI

One possible improvement is to hit the wire at 0:13 without killing the stormtrooper in front of it first. This is possible with a carefully set-up saber swing.

The next improvement is upon entering the round room with the water at 1:27. It's pretty hard to run around the catwalks easily because there are stormtroopers on them who will block you and he curvature of the room makes it difficult to jump over them without slowing down. A quicker and easier solution is to force jump straight over to the other side of the room.

The screw-ups hitting the underwater wires are pretty ugly and we should be able to eliminate any missed swings at them entirely. It's just a matter of practising the timing and positioning.

It's possible to take a much more aggressive and direct approach than RoyHess does to the final stretch of the level, from 1:51 onwards. The 100 health left over from the Revive in the secret area means you can survive a lot of impacts, so you can eliminate several jumps/falls from RoyHess's route by just falling a longer distance in one go.

The biggest mistake in RoyHess's run, though, is waiting so long to jump onto the airboat at the end. Note the sloped area from which RoyHess jumps to the airboat. You can use that slope to ramp-jump up onto the airboat almost immediately after calling it down, and then instantly force jump into the level end trigger. Probably as much as 8 seconds lost by waiting so long here.

By the way, it turns out that actually the Kyle and Mara levels aren't completely independent of each other; your shields carry over from level 4 to level 5. Nothing else carries over though, and getting both secrets on level 4 won't give Mara an extra force star.

Okay, I've started looking at level 5. First discovery: the scripting of the peaceful enemies inside the palace is totally broken. Firstly, there are enemies that always start hostile stood together in groups with enemies that are meant to start peaceful. Second, peaceful enemies seem to randomly turn hostile without being attacked for no obvious reason. Thirdly, and most ****ed up: once an enemy has been turned hostile, they remain hostile until you restart the game. You can save in front of a peaceful enemy, then reload the save over and over and they'll always be peaceful. Now shoot them once to turn them hostile and reload that same save. They'll be hostile whenever you reload. If you quit the game and restart it, then load the same save, the enemies will be peaceful again.

In light of this, I suggest that when we get to this level we do every attempt from a fresh load of the game. Which will be a massive pain in the arse.

Holy crap, it's been so long since I played MotS, and I believe I never actually completed it legitimately.

-Now that I've conquered Jedi Knight, maybe I should give MotS a try. Did anyone ever make an epic enhancement pack for it?

JKE works, for the most part, with MoTS.

Cabbage: I haven't looked at level 5, but there's actually an AI attribute that can cause otherwise passive enemies to attack even if you don't shoot them. I'm not quite sure how it works offhand, but I remember that at full, they attack like any enemy (not passive), and at max they only attack if hit. So there's probably something to do with being in range of them and what you're doing.

Massassi is doing Jedi Knight stuff again!

Cabbage and Random, great job on the runs, good luck with the Mots stuff. I don't know if I have my Mots disk and, do be blunt, I never got past halfway through.

People who want to help out but have lost their copy of MotS should be aware that it's available for a couple of quid on Steam. Also, not having finished the game before needn't be an obstacle. I haven't either - when I was a kid I got to the final level and got stuck. Regardless, I've forgotten almost everything since then. When we're having to rescrutinise every level in this kind of detail anyway, prior knowledge of the levels isn't very important.

Cool Matty - interesting that it's a sliding scale and not just a simple toggling between a peaceful and hostile state triggered by fixed actions. If you can easily find anything else out, that'd be interesting, although I'm not sure yet whether it actually matters to us whether the peaceful enemies are peaceful or not.

Cabbage/RandomEngy: I just want to say... Wowzers! Your JK speed-run was not only amazing but incredibly good fun to watch and listen to. At the risk of sounding like a broken record on these boards, the most memorable moments of your runs that induced flash-backs of the halcyon days for me were lvl 4's "explode over the rising water puzzle" and lvl 8's "explode to the roof" - the latter was simply astonishing; I sat and watched that with my jaw on the floor, wondering "whoa - does that really work? Is that possible!?!"

We all know that JK is/was one of the "fastest moving" games for players (I could never cope with the blinding speed of MP! I'd always do more damage to myself than other players so on the rather off-chance of picking up either a rail-det or conc-rifle, it was a kamikaze event waiting to happen...) but the pair of you made this look so easy.

Thank you both for the numrous hours of effort and gameplay that must have gone into this - you can add +1 soul onto the list of people that enjoyed these vids (Cabbage: your MotS run with the TIE bomber actually made me lol!). To quote an oft-watched film... "Impressive. Most impressive!"

I remember in the palace levels you can trigger some AI to fight you, or not, depending on how heavy handed you are with collateral damage.

Okay, level 5.

The route of RoyHess's run is pretty solid. Here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt7fwqOUXEs

The only route improvements I found were:

* In the area at 1:35 with the Gamorreans and the civilians, there is a civilian who walks towards the door switch when you approach. There are two possible sequences here:
- If he reaches the switch, a short timer starts after which the door opens
- If he dies, then when you approach the door a long timer starts after which the door opens

The second option is substantially slower than just letting the civilian approach the switch normally. However, you can speed the process up and shave a second by getting behind the civilian and pushing him (by running into him, not the force power which you don't have) towards the switch.

In the room at 2:32, you can Thermal Detonator-jump up to the door instead of hitting the switch to make the steps come out of the wall. We should have enough shields to do this if we make sure to finish level 4 with high shields.

The switch at 2:40 has two effects. It lowers the counterweight you see at 2:45, and also opens the big door back in the room at 2:28, which leads to the room RoyHess reaches at 2:55. You're not meant to be able to get back to the big door; the door at 2:30 is only openable from one side. However, if you leave all the enemies there alive on your first pass, often one will block the door as it drops, causing it to reopen and giving you a big enough time window to return through the door before it closes, skipping riding the counterweight and saving several seconds.

Besides that, nothing to add. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Just looked at level 6. It's basically just a big town full of civilians and buildings stashed with goodies, like level 5 of DF2. Here's RoyHess's run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR2EA4Y0HLA

The obvious mistake is running up the ramp in the hangar with Mar's ship instead of force jumping up at 0:35.

There are also a few marginal decisions to be made about routes from Wrench to Hangar and from Bar to exit, but they can wait.

Also, one thing whoever runs this level should try to exploit is that the scripting of the buttons controlling the airboat at the end is pretty broken. Basically, once the button to ram it into the door has been pressed, the level ends as soon as the airboat reaches its destination. This doesn't have to be the door; if you press the first button again, to lower the airboat to the ground, the level will end when the airboat reaches the ground. If you press the first button immediately after the second, you can end the level about 0.8s earlier.

I just got the game running the other day and spent a little bit of time getting my controls/settings figured out. Have not really started investigating yet. Was wondering what powers you were picking for the Kyle levels... 4 speed and jump, but what else?

Do you even need to be in the room to push those buttons? Seems like you could jump up and look down to hit them.

Currently I'm thinking we should only take Speed and Jump. As far as I can tell, all other powers are useless. Even if we had unlimited mana, the only two powers that I can imagine being useful are Persuasion (for obvious reasons) and Healing (to maybe allow some longer falls at the end of level 4). I believe the mana costs of those powers are too high for us to be able to fit them in anywhere, though. I'm not 100% certain of this so you may want to check my working.



You mean the buttons at the very end of level 6? You can't hit them just by jumping outside the window, but you can hit them whilst crouching on the window frame.

Okay, the level 7 post:

Pretty fun level. Here's RoyHess's run for reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-e4toRRwKs

At 0:08, instead of going through the grate, it's faster to continue on into the courtyard, force jump onto the top of the doorframe, and from there run backwards and concussion-force-jump up onto the ledge RoyHess reaches at 0:18.

At 0:33 it's faster to go into the room on the left and out of the window than to carry on along the corridor and down the stairs.

If we save a little mana by scrapping using Force Pull on the first Trandoshan with a Concussion Rifle and kill him instead (with charged bowcaster maybe) then in the room at 0:43 there's no need to activate the airboat at all; instead we can get up to the ledge with two force jumps.

With luck, you can run past the Gran and Trandy at 1:03 without getting hit - no need to kill them.

It's quicker to force jump into the window to get the blue key than to go up the stairs. It's a little tricky because you need to clear the enemy stood in the window first.

Survival is a big issue on this level, even on Easy. It's pretty much guaranteed we'll end this level on under 100 shields. It's probably worth grabbing on-the-way shields on level 6 (there are at least 60) to make this level a little less painful.

In MotS, certain force powers, like sight, are neccessary to beat the game. Unlike in JK, where it is possible to complete the game without assigning any force stars at all, in MotS, you need certain force powers to overcome certain obstacles/puzzles. Force stars are automatically assigned for these powers, however.

I was watching that previous playthrough... it's pretty obvious that most levels in MotS are a lot more linear than they are in JK. Could make finding shortcuts hard, if not impossible, for some levels.

Yeah, I know this - I just meant they're useless for Kyle in missions 1-4.

By the way, why does Kyle get forced to take a star in Persuasion for level 3? I'm not aware of any puzzle there that requires it; am I doing something in an unintended way without realising it?

Yeah, I'm getting the feeling so far the MotS is significantly more linear than JK; I hugely prefer JK's level design. I don't think that a level being (intended to be) more linear necessarily means there are fewer skips and shortcuts, though. The two biggest skips so far - level 8 of JK and level 1 of MotS - are on highly linear levels. I would say that the main factor is the amount of open space, rather than the level of linearity.

I don't remember exactly, but can't you also use a force power to pull switches from afar? That could possibly be useful.

If I recall correctly from my childhood, there is one puzzle where you have to use Force Pull to pull a switch on the other side of a window, but it doesn't work on any other switches in the game (which is kind of stupid).

I don't think MotS was too linear, it was just... bad. Most of the people who worked on JK quit right after it was released, so the people who worked on MotS really had no idea what they were doing.

That's in the pirates hideout I believe.

Okay, the level 8 post. As usual, here's RoyHess's run to use as a basis for a route:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8nw2cDOOlo

Straight off there's a little time to be saved by moving to the front right of the cell so you can get a line of sight on the key earlier to pull it.

After starting to open the door to the cell with the prybar, a second can be saved by running and starting opening the door to the cell with the sewer entrance, then returning for the prybar. The doors take long enough to open that this works out quicker.

Killing the Rancor takes either:
* 3 secondary attacks
* 2 secondary attacks and 2 primary attacks
* 1 secondary attack and 8 primary attacks, or
* 8 primary attacks

The fastest method of killing it I could come up with is to hit it with two flurries of three forward-primary attacks, then finish it with a secondary. If you run straight into it and crouch you'll take a hit and lose a lot of health but end up safely between its legs where you can't be eaten.

At 1:44 he should've force jumped up the stairs.

The trick at the end (which RoyHess himself came up with, I believe) can be improved by diagonal running from within the building on the right hand side and jumping directly into the exit trigger without landing in the water first.

K, I looked at level 9. Here's RoyHess's run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rePDcRWXX8

Note the descending platform with the X-Wing on when you first enter the hanger. If you're quick, you can get under it before it reaches the ground, skipping pulling the lever to open the hangar doors and raising the platform again. 12 seconds saved.

There's probably about two seconds to be saved by jumping over the eleavtor at 0:44 to avoid triggering it. This means that after starting the evacuation sequence, you can drop straight back down to the bottom floor without having to move the elevator out of the way first.

Should force jump up the elevator shaft at 1:03.

There's no need to cut the first support beam at 1:08, just cutting the last one is enough to let you through.

Finally, something for you guys to apply your minds to. Below the elevator RoyHess takes up at 1:43 is, if I'm not getting confused, the pipe he enters later at 2:25. If we could get under the elevator somehow, it would skip a massive chunk of the map. However, the elevator pulls away so fast when you step on it I don't seem to be able to trigger it and get off. Can anyone figure out a way to do so?

I'll look at the elevator in a moment, although it might just require some creativity

Could you fire a rail det or something and time it so it detonates just as you step on to blow you back?

Maybe. Would need pretty insane timing though. Someone should give this a try.

Only switches that are levers

Okay Cabbage, I looked at that elevator, and that thing IS fast. Like, intentionally, "WE DON'T WANT THEM GETTING OFF" fast.

Even with rail det ejection, I doubt you could pull it off.

Here's some other creative things I tried:

1. Triggering it using the astromech. No dice.
2. Using the astromech to block. No dice. (Can't get in elevator shaft to trigger it without pushing him out of the door frame)
3. Inching your way in and out. It goes so fast, that it'll actually push you in when it starts.
4. Tried shooting the grate and jumping in (where you would exit under the elevator). Couldn't pull it off.
5. In fact, I couldn't even slice it. From the cog it seemed it should be slicable from both sides, but I guess not.
6. I even did it using slowmode (cheat: gospeedgo 1), and couldn't hop on/off the elevator. I have no idea how to do the rail det trick, but even with near frame-perfect execution on walking in/out of the elevator, with force speed, you do not have enough speed.
7. Using some coordinate jumping, apparently the elevator door closes when you go up anyway, giving a highly likely possibility that even if you did get back off the elevator, you'd be stuck.

Cool Matty, thanks for mentioning the slowmo cheat, I'd forgotten it existed.

I did some tests with that and realised that the reason all our efforts were failing was that the game creates an invisible wall in the doorway sealing you in the moment you trigger the elevator.

I guess that would explain the adjoin calls in the cog (cog = scripts in JK/MOTS) for that elevator. >.>

There's an adjoin there (adjoins are surfaces where two sectors meet, such as a hallway to a room). Adjoins can be made impassible, which is what's occurring there. Should have looked more closely at the cog instead of testing it myself

Thanks for the technical info.

I looked at level 10. Here is RoyHess's run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up7RV4CnXKA

Possible improvements:
* You can (just!) jump from door to door across the red shaft at 0:40 if you diagonal run with force speed on, rather than rising slowly.
* You can use explosives to slide your corpse straight through the door from the secondary hangar to the main hangar and win the level instead of going around through the tunnel.

Just looked at level 11. Here's RoyHess's run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbRLpYKNuIg

Possible improvements:
* Force jump up the steps at 0:04
* Jump before dropping into the red gas at 0:13 to fall faster
* At 0:32, just jump into the water and then Force Jump up on the other side instead of bothering with the switches and platforms
* At the end of the level, if we have a sequencer we can spare and low enough health to die by crashing into the door (both seem likely) it'd be maybe just under a second faster to death-slide through the door instead of opening it.

This is brilliant.

I think people should donate to the child charity on the forums, if you can achieve a speed run under a set time. So there's a purpose

Okay, level 12. Here's RoyHess's run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzs2S9gsmo

Early on, there's a little time to be saved by avoiding the triggers that deactivate your active force powers. You see RoyHess hit two of these in the video, turning off his speed twice and forcing him to reactivate it. You can simply go around these triggers and avoid the issue.

The trickiest part of this level to figure out is how to kill Dark Mara. RoyHess does a pretty bad job of it. I disabled AI using the cheat and ran some tests. The following things will kill Dark Mara:
- 10 secondary lightsaber swings
- 32 primary lightsaber swings (includes swings done underwater, using either primary or secondary fire)
- 30 casts of level 4 Chain Lightning
- Several hundred level four Force Pushes into a wall at point blank (I cast it on her 65 times before I got bored, and then finished her with lightsaber alternate. It took 9 swings. So I guess we can estimate (with massive potential for innaccuracy) that it would take around 650 force pushes into a wall to finish her. Whatever the exact number, it'll be too many to be useful.
- Drowning her for several minutes (I left her in for 4 minutes and she still wasn't dead, although I could hear her taking damage)
- 20 saber throws
- About 175 primary punches (I didn't quite keep count)
- 56 seconds of continual primary punches
- 49 seconds of continual secondary punches
- Some even longer amount of time smacking with the Carbonite Gun (it does the same damage as a secondary punch but has a much slower attack rate)

Also, the water monsters won't attack her and none of your weapons (including sequencers) work.

Reviewing the information above, my first thought was that the best approach would be secondary saber swings supplemented by Chain Lightning. However, we don't have enough mana to get in the three casts of Chain Lightning needed to save us one saber swing. There is an alternative method, however, which does work out faster than just using lightsaber secondary fire, which is to use lightsaber secondary fire plus two saber throws. Saber throw has a tiny force power usage, and if you cast the throws right at the beginning of a secondary swing, it will barely delay the next swing at all. The net result is a couple of seconds saved over just using lightsaber alternate fire (for a total time from starting the first swing to Dark Mara dying of under 17 seconds).

Besides that I don't have much to add.

Oh by the way, in case anyone wants to have a look at level 14, I just realised that while there's no way to detonate any of your explosive weapons on levels 12 and 13, on level 14 you can set off sequencers and thermal detonators using Force Destruction. They do vastly reduced damage (like thermal detonators do about 2 shield damage), BUT there's no fire limit on manual mode sequencers - you can lay them as fast as you can mash the fire buttons. This means they may be usable for sequencer jumps on level 14, if that's helpful.

jesus, man, you know your ****.

Is it possible to setup mines and then set them off with destruct to kill dark mara?