14% Speed
 World Record Holder:
Zoast
WORLD RECORD RECORDING
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Category Details
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14% Speed is one of the thirteen in-bounds low% categories that are currently humanly possible. A total of 14 items are picked up during the entire run and focuses on using the Speed Booster and Gravity Suit for level progression.
Prerequisites
To finish this run, you need to know how to:
- Mockball
- Shinespark
- Infinite bomb jump
- Continuous walljump and/or horizontal bomb jump over the moat
- Gravity jump (entering Lower Norfair - although lava spark is faster if you can pull it off)
- Zebetite skip with Speed Booster only
Collected Items
- Morphing Ball
- Bombs
- Charge Beam (for bosses)
- Speed Booster (for Zebetite skip and breaking the pre-Botwoon pipes)
- Varia Suit (to survive MB2's rainbow beam)
- Gravity Suit (to traverse Maridia and enter Lower Norfair)
- 3 Energy Tanks (Various - explained below) (to survive MB2's rainbow beam)
- 2 Missile Packs (Awakening and Moat) (to open red doors and defeat MB1)
- 2 Super Missile Packs (Early and Wrecked Ship (Left)) (to open green doors and defeat MB1)
- 1 Power Bomb Pack (Red Brinstar Elevator (Lower)) (to open orange doors)
PKRD vs PRKD
Although recent records of this category have used the PKRD route, namespoofer's TAS of this category uses the PRKD route, which stands to gain slightly more time in comparison (roughly 12 seconds) due to having Speed Booster for Kraid's Lair, but demands slightly stronger execution out of the player.
In the PRKD route, the player is expected to be able to perform the "lava spark" to enter Lower Norfair, as a gravitation jump - due to lacking Varia Suit - would consume more than double the amount it normally would in a PKRD route due to the lava and heat damage stacking.
The optimal tanks for both PKRD and PRKD are Terminator, Ridley, and Botwoon. With this tank order, the player would be expected to traverse Lower Norfair and dispatch Ridley with only one Energy Tank, and escape Norfair afterward with only two Energy Tanks. For reference, lava sparking consumes around 80 energy, whereas gravitation jumping with Varia Suit equipped consumes around 50 energy.
A safer alternative to the above for PKRD is to acquire Kraid's tank instead of one of the latter two tanks, and a safer alternative to the above for PRKD is to acquire the Hi-Jump Boots tank instead of one of the latter two tanks. In PKRD's case, acquiring Kraid's tank would also serve as a means to refill Power Bombs, due to the Beetoms in the room. In PRKD's case, acquiring the Hi-Jump Boots tank would cause the player to lose about half of the time that the route itself is expected to save over PKRD; however, it would make Lower Norfair quite a bit safer, and would also make gravitation jumping into Lower Norfair more of an option.
Metroids
Metroids require three Power Bombs to be destroyed. As a result of being destroyed by Power Bombs, they will only drop one item at most when they explode. Power Bombs have a ~12% chance to drop from Metroids, so it is possible to have many runs completed without having a useful Power Bomb drop occur. For information on how to efficiently dispatch the Metroids, check the bottom of this page.
When you run out of Power Bombs to destroy Metroids with and cannot progress further, you must leave Tourian to obtain more. There are a few different ways you can go about doing this.
Gunship - Samus's Gunship will completely refill energy and ammo. Visiting the Gunship is considered the best option if you are missing 4 or 5 Power Bombs and/or are missing Super Missiles, since it is crucial that you are full on them before clearing out all the Metroids.
Kago hives - The Kago hives to the right of the Brinstar elevator contain ten bugs, and each have an ~8% chance to drop a Power Bomb. From ten bugs, there is a ~37.7% chance to receive one Power Bomb, a ~3.5% chance to receive two Power Bombs, and a ~0.5% chance to receive three Power Bombs. Shinesparking near the hives can speed up the process as an echo will travel through the hive, striking it many times.
Beetoms - There are two Beetoms hidden above the Space Pirate staircase, which guarantee Power Bombs. One Power Bomb is required to access their location, resulting in a net gain of one Power Bomb. You can reload the room as many times as necessary.
You can farm roughly seven Kago hives or four Beetom packs in the time it takes to visit the Gunship and return. This will vary from person to person depending on their level of execution.
If you only need 3 Power Bombs, it is more or less a toss-up between the options. Beetoms may be faster than the Gunship assuming you have a Power Bomb to access them and assuming you aren't in need of Super Missiles, which the other options will provide. The amount of Super Missiles you are lacking can determine how risky of an option Kagos are compared to the Gunship. Kagos can drop Super Missiles, but at the same ~8% rate as Power Bombs. Essentially, Kagos have the potential to save the most time, but also the potential to cost the most time. Depending on how far behind in time you are compared to your personal best, you may decide to gamble time on Kagos to try to pull ahead since there is always the chance that you receive many Power Bomb drops in a short time span from the hives.
If you only need 1 or 2 for whatever reason, then assuming you are not lacking Super Missiles, farming Kagos and Beetoms should certainly be more efficient than using the Gunship.
The information above is presented with the expectation that you are not refilling at the Gunship before entering Tourian for the first time. Since players typically escape Maridia with full Power Bombs, visiting the Gunship before Tourian is not necessary. Assuming the player is not extremely low on energy, having 5 Power Bombs to kill Metroids before entering Tourian should be all that matters.
Tutorials
Below are examples of how to efficiently clear the Metroid rooms through utilizing the Power Bomb's ability to both damage and aggro off-screen Metroids.
1 - Lay the first Power Bomb around the center of the first wire "X". The purpose of this Power Bomb is to strike the top Rinka that spawns, which will cause all Metroids in the room to take a Power Bomb hit. You will want to make sure that you don't shift the camera away from the Rinka's spawn point too early, or else it will not spawn. The second Power Bomb can be planted wherever, just make sure that wherever and whenever it is planted, it will strike the furthest left Metroid twice, since that Metroid will take the longest to reach you after being alerted. If you do not have a comfortable amount of energy with which to execute the strategy similarly to the video, you can choose to keep yourself on the first platform above the acid and plant the latter two Power Bombs there. Metroids will not deal damage to you when they are taking damage, so you are essentially safe from them during a Power Bomb explosion.
1 - "Acid bath" strategy that further abuses off-screen damage to be able to move closer to the second room's door. Due to the significant energy cost, it is not considered viable for runs. Additionally, it can cost more time than the above strategy if a Power Bomb does not drop, but can save a few seconds over the above strategy if one does drop.
2 - If you entered the room with 3 Power Bombs, the drops here will basically be irrelevant, so you will want to be able to exit the room the moment the Metroids explode. In the rare circumstance that both Metroids drop a Power Bomb, it would speed up Kago farming, so you may opt to wait until you have confirmed the drops before leaving the room. Having the Metroids attach to you isn't that big of a deal in this room compared to the first and third rooms, although if you prefer to exit the room the moment the Metroids explode, it may make the door harder to open with them on you.
3 - All you have to do in this room is make sure that, after planting the first Power Bomb, at least one Rinka near the door spawns before shifting the camera away. It is possible to unmorph and run away so quickly that neither of them spawn in time, so be careful about that. Letting the Metroids attach onto you so you can drag them further right is risky because there is obviously always the chance that none of them drop a Power Bomb, meaning you would be giving yourself a longer trip back to the left door, so the conservative plan for this room would be to plant the third Power Bomb around the same area as the second, so you would have roughly the same distance to cover regardless of outcomes.
4 - Since the Super Metroid skip won't be performed and you will need to refill your energy anyways, you are fine to take as much damage as you want in this room (so long as you do not die, obviously). The less energy the Super Metroid has to drain, the faster that sequence will be. Following this logic, you will want to skip the Metroid drops since assuming you have full Missiles and Super Missiles, you will receive energy.
