Silo Dark LTK 8:31 by Eric Liikala
- Achieved: 28 April 2020
- Posted: 28 April 2020 at 10:31 pm EDT
- System: NTSC-J
- Points when achieved: Unknown
- Rank: 9th (89 points)
Player's comments:
GG! This was long overdue. ~110 hours, ~30 runs to the crate hall. I have now finally filled in all my N/As. :)
The difficulty of Silo DLTK is honestly way overrated, just that you need absurd luck to get the grenades in time, the rest is easy. I agree with Bozon that Train is harder, but I would still rank Silo as #2. If you had grenades every run, I don't think Silo would even be top 5. That said, I would only get a double grenade run about once an hour, and that's only the first half of the level.
I spent a lot of time researching the level and couldn't find anything too substantial. I opted to go for a classic 3-grenade run with a mish-mash of strategies from all the other runs. The only major new thing I did was a much more consistent start, replacing the awful door block strategy.
Another note is that because of guard cycles, the speedrun part of the level doesn't start until over 5 minutes in, and assuming you don't spend much time in the crate hall and also rush the ending, sub 8 is very possible. In particular, a run with an early third grenade means you can speed up the kills in the crate hall and likely get a strong untied. I had four such runs during my grind, but they all died unfortunately.
Here is a very clean run for studying, aside from the fact that I choked the ending. It includes my faster second room strategy that I didn't get to use on my completion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDlNW_2A9xg
Here is a run where I died to the very last guard. This run also shows your time constraint in the crate hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5ytKHgRk1I
Here is one of the untied pace deaths I had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZvPLqK5wUc
Some notes regarding this run's strategies:
-For the start, shoot the first guard without being seen. This will cause the other two guards to chase after you, but not continuously, allowing you to kill them all one at a time.
-Crate guards can either shoot, stall and shoot, kneel and shoot, or pull a grenade, so just fire at a rhythm to play out an animation.
-When luring guards on the right side in the first room, their pathing causes them to get stuck on the stairs. Sometimes they will make it down early however.
-For the second room, going up the stairs activates the left catwalk guard who is dormant until you reach a certain height, while I also load the cloner. This idea is used in both my fast and backup second room strategies.
-Prime at 4:04 and open the door at 4:02. This allows the patrolling guard to open the door. Shoot along the bridge to alert all guards. Make sure you throw high enough to kill the catwalk guard, and peek the corner after the stairs to load the two cloners.
-After the third room, shoot the guard at the back to lure both cloners, and then fire into the corner of the stairs at around 3:15 to lure the patrolling guard. Don't reverse the order or you'll have to deal with clones as well. This is the last cycle you need to make and you can go as fast as you want from this point.
-The final grenade throw is not guaranteed to kill all 11 guards if they don't approach close enough. Have fun.
General notes for preparing for the level:
-Practice every section until you can do everything consistently. Most of the level is easy to perform, you just need the luck.
-The challenge of the level comes from clutching a lucky run, as opposed to superb execution. Train definitely requires far more skill.
-A good percentage of your grind hours will likely go into research and practice.
-Learn about noise control in every place you'll be firing from as it is critical to avoid creating chaos. A few steps outside of correct positions can lead to disaster.
-Mistakes tend to snowball very quickly, so you need to learn how to improvise for many runs.
-Take ideas from runs, but don't simply copy and paste. Because of the sensitivity of everything, you will have to develop your own groove and timings.
-There are lots of stupid ways you can get trolled and the game will keep finding new ones. You've been warned.
-Your run is not guaranteed until you're in the exit lift. Never assume otherwise. I personally had four deaths past Ouromov.
-For speedrunning, it doesn't matter what strategies you use really because you're capped until near the end. Use whatever you find easiest, and then grind out a fast ending.
I expect to see more players completing this level. The world record can at least get to 7:50 with superb luck and a risky ending, and I would like to see someone go for it. I would have considered pushing for lower but Silo has screwed me over so many times during this horrible grind that I personally don't have any plans to revisit this dumb level ever again. I should have had this done 40 hours in.
On a positive note however, I really do like how I tied Bozon here. He will always be the DLTK master and I'm very grateful for all the help over the years. :)
See also: