MZM Any% Hard Ridley Missile Comparisons

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Jakoliath

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Published on May 2, 2023 9:28:43 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exV720Nr9iI

Duration: 2:52

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Quick TAS'd comparison to find what missiles are best to grab and skip in any% hard. Thanks to Destructor, mikefood, CScottyW, and samthedigital for inspiring me to time these in hopes of optimizing any% hard a bit.

***NOTE: For the comparison I gave myself super missiles before I would normally have them, to prevent any RNG in the first sidehopper room making the times less comparable.*** In an actual run you're going to lose some time in that room for ammo and/or health conservation reasons. It's more than possible you will have the missiles to quickly take care of the bugs/sidehoppers in the way before going down to grab the missiles with a solid coccoon fight and some luck with quick farms (+ jumpy jumpy missiles).

The first comparison is early hi-jump (optimal), the second comparison is late hi-jump. Late hi-jump loses about a second in any% normal, and another ~2.3-2.8 seconds in hard mode (rough best case scenario). It is also worth mentioning that sidehopper room is signficantly harder to do fast (getting out after the missile) without hi-jump.

We want to grab 4 missile packs by the time we re-enter pillar room. Our options are Jumpy Jumpy (first room after elevator), sidehopper room, pillar room, alpha supers room, and ball cannon room. For each of these comparisons, 1 missile is skipped. These are:

Left: Skip ball cannon room
Center: Skip Jumpy Jumpy
Right: Skip sidehopper room

Time from elevator to re-enter pillar room (seconds)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early Hi-Jump, skip ball cannon: 79.41
Early Hi-Jump, skip Jumpy Jumpy: 82.01
Early Hi-Jump, skip sidehopper: 83.76
Late Hi-Jump, skip ball cannon: 82.04
Late Hi-Jump, skip Jumpy Jumpy: 84.30
Late Hi-Jump, skip sidehopper: 86.53

Other missile optimizations not shown:
* Skipping missiles behind bombs saves some time; they cost about 10 sec to grab
* By grabbing hive room connector and norfair east missiles, you will have 30/2 ammo for Ridley (early hi-jump)
* 32 missiles is the magic number to get through Chozodia and have enough missiles left at the end (8 missiles) to quickly move the robot to set up escape spark
* For your last missile pack, you have 2 convenient choices: acid falls on the way out of Kraid, or the brinstar ball cannon. Acid falls missile is roughly 1.4 seconds faster to grab over the ball cannon.
* For your last super pack, the one by FUNgineer jump is about a second faster than the one in the lava, but it's difficult for a human to save that much time.