           Perdition's Gate
           Map 30: The Escape
     WAD Author: Wraith Corporation
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             pg30o019.lmp
             pg30o2114.lmp

Nomo in 0:19.77

    Kills   - 0%
    Items   - 0%
    Secrets - 100%

Recorded with: DSDA-Doom 0.28.2 -complevel 2
Skill level: Ultra-Violence with -nomonsters
Author: 4shockblast
WAD: pg-raw.wad
Category: Nomo
Time: 0:19.77
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2yZK8DqB0I

Comments: The 21.20 I got here in the demo pack was always sort of a white whale. It's tantalizingly close, but you only get like 4 seconds of movement to optimize here, and it's not like there's much on the way to help with it. No long enough walls for wallrunning, no doors or switches that you can optimize, just a few turns. Some ideas that I played around with and ultimately gave up on are:
  - try to wallrun the small hallway before the stairs, but there's just no way to make that useful; going to the wall will almost certainly lose most of the time you get from the wallrun, unless it's TAS optimal.
  - pick up RL and use it at the first half of the map; the problem is the RL is a bit on the right of the start door, so it's not that easy to pick up, and picking it up probably loses a frame or two at least, which is about what you can save with a boost.
  - I also tried rocket boost on the end wallrun to get a faster speed, but it doesn't really work out in non-TAS; SR50 angle has one rocket firing timing that doesn't lose time, but without a turn, I don't think you can get the blast placement to not cause some time loss. Even if that helped, it would probably not save enough time alone.

A vile jump over the exit barrier is something I had not considered until Billa asked if that's why I wanted a vile spawn here; it's a good thought, but I couldn't get the vile to climb the stairs from the start. Having one in the exit area, on the other hand, would take too long.

Anyway, as it turns out, all this time, I've been looking in the wrong place entirely. :^) I knew about the Romero and the vile jump along time ago; it was also a bit of a white whale, but I figured it would only be done in a D2ALL TAS with two AVJs. I guess I was super tunnel visioned into the vile jump because I don't remember considering looking around the room much for any other way to the window. That said, it's possible I did look and found the initial computer jumps; these are fairly trivial, but you run into problems pretty quickly after that. The jump to the window has very little room, and I couldn't find any way to do it directly from the computer.

Thankfully, the wall towards the window is south, so you can boost on it with .000000, but of course, such boosts cap out at 14.5 or so momentum normally. That said, I was able to use it with strafe50 facing perpendicular to the wall, which does build up enough speed somehow; eventually, I found this angle to set up the jump from the corner. It's a bit wonky because the windowsill is small, so it's easy to fall off on the other end (or sometimes you get bounced back from it), but it's not that bad and more or less consistent.

That solved, I had to figure out how to spawn a vile. The first two spawns are usefully early on, but the spawn in the middle of the start area is after that wave, so getting it to trigger would be quite difficult consistently because unless you get stuck arachs on both first spawns, RNG manipulation would be much harder with monsters around. At any rate, the second spawn is pretty consistent and close enough that I think it's just as fast, if not faster. There's nothing affecting the RNG at the start in this map, so it was a matter of weapon and shot choice to shift it enough before that spawn happens; two pistol shots and three SG shots ended up working fine. The BFG shot after the jump to the windowsill is just to manipulate the vile to go to the right spot.

That all didn't really solve all the problems, though. The AVJ from the window directly is possible, but it's super precise, and unfortunately, you can only get to the window from the computers on the right, and there's no view of the window from there. After failing the jump from the window for like 5-10 minutes in practice, I decided that was not worth it and looked at the jump to the other computers. That ended up seeming easier, but the jump is far from simple and usually fails. There's no corner to set up from either, and not much time for a precise setup, so I do the best I can, but usually I fail there.

Even then, the jump to the exit is not a guarantee, often because I'm stupid and can't even jump back to the window (which is easy enough to fail with the wrong angle) or mistime it. Then you actually have to hit the exit Romero; I jump to this alcove on the right of where the Romero actually is, but there's a wall that almost extends to the edge there, and it's very easy to get stuck there or bounced off.

Still, despite the difficulty, I wanted a clean run because 19 was a clear possibility now, and the tricks are quite cool IMO. You could basically say this run went from the most straightforward in the entirety of the WAD's nomos to the most trick-heavy.

I'll include a 21.14, which is the best I could do on the normal route; maybe one more tic is doable, or two, but I don't see a way much beyond that. On the other hand, you could probably get an 18 on this route if you RNG manip an earlier vile attack, but the earlier the attack, the harder the jump, because the vile can't see you in the right spot. Maybe TAS could jump directly into the main alcove? Couldn't get enough speed on that side, but not sure if it's possible.