Ratchet: Deadlocked NG+ No Load Cancel Speedrun in 33:58.65 [Segmented]

This is a segmented speedrun of Ratchet: Deadlocked NG+ No Load Cancel; it will not count towards any real-time rankings. All segments were performed between 2024-03-24 and 2024-05-24. The first segmented speedrun of this category back in 2020 was, for the time, a terrific and boundary pushing showcase of optimal RTA strats, consolidating all of our knowledge about the category in one place. The 36:55 it set seemed impossible to reach, three minutes ahead of the WR at the time - at the time of premiere the current WR is now 37:36 with plenty of potential to beat the 36 in the near future. Looking back on that segmented, it's very rough around the edges and the difference in commitment between each of the runners combined with my rushed attitude towards getting it done meant there was plenty of untapped timesave. It also did not aim for accuracy, whether that be in planet unlocks, bot respawn offsets or weapon switching for upcoming levels. Every segment existed in a vacuum rather than pretending to be a continuous run. The goal of this segmented was to rectify that issue, striving for as much accuracy as possible, and treating every level seriously enough until it represented a clean and above-RTA standard showcase of strats. Thanks to the development of RaCMAN and its IGT function for this game, levels can now be grinded to far deeper optimisation than when we created the old segmented. There's still a few nitpicks, but the impact of those inaccuracies is far less severe than any of the ones in the old segmented. Another minor goal of this run was using act tuning, a health-reducing boss strat which has been technically known about for years but only had proper methods found for all four Exterminators last year. The setup for all of the tunes takes far more time than it's worth, so nobody has bothered to use them in real-time runs yet. This run may act as a blueprint for whenever runners begin to use act tunes in real-time, and it also spices up strats that have been set in stone for several years now as a bonus. During the creation of the run I accidentally stumbled upon an infinite ravager glitch, giving the bots permanent access to the ravager d-pad option on that particular file. As I was already nearly done with the run, I didn't want to go back and redo segments which might've benefitted from it (there's only a few), so I've left that to a future segmented or whatever. There's an equal amount of HUD colours as there are bot skins and planets (counting DZI as regular Dreadzone), so to add some fun to the visuals of the run I switched between them for every planet, prioritising bot skins with the planet they're associated with in the flavour text if they had one and the HUD on planet vibes. Overall, I'm happy with the end result of this project. Four IL WRs and several first RTA second barriers is proof enough to myself that I took this project as seriously as I wanted at the beginning. There's definitely still points of improvement particularly in the lategame, but reaching 33 was something I truly did not expect going into this (the initial goal time was a 34) and ending exactly 3 minutes better than the old segmented is mad symbolic and shit. Keeping the whole thing under wraps and trying to build the whole thing solo was difficult, but big thanks to Mucke, fpnas and isaki for reviving the old DL Segmented server where I was able to update them on the progress and for watching me go ballistic talking to myself for the past two months. Thanks to Foas and FeaR both of whom I was able to talk about the project with in some way, and special thanks to doesthisusername who is still in that server but probably doesn't know it. His IL groundwork in 2017 still made influences in this run, seven years on. Thanks for reading and/or watching. Deeper explanations of each segment: https://pastebin.com/ZHmsxKFp "If you had invented fire, [...] are you strong enough to stop making fire and go back to hell? Forty-eight months later, go back to hell and try to make something new again?"