Beat Star Control 2 on September 8th, 2155 - SPOILERS

[Phantom 2502]

Hi guys,

I first saw Bisqwit's 35 min speed fun, and made comments on it at the time. 35 mins in real time TAS was pretty awesome, however even at the time I had the game beat by September 26th, 2155. He had it done September 27th, 2155, as I commented long ago in the comments of his YouTube video. However he did have stuff in his route that I didn't like not going to homeworlds to get the Ultron and deliver it etc. However I had stuff he didn't like using the Melnorme for fuel instead of going back to Sol. Some of these differences can reflect that he was going for real time speed run, and I with this was aiming for in game time speed run.

I decided recently, after watching some speed runs and also seeing this wiki page: http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Gameplay_Challenges that the best in game time was September 27th, 2155 by Bisqwit and that this date I could easily beat.

I set out to beat it. I first beat it with Fwiffo to take it down to September 15th, 2155. Then decided to try and take it down more by selling Fwiffo for max turning jets and do all fights with 4 Pkunks. With hardship I was successful and was able to get the time down to September 8th, 2155. Looking at my run, I theorize with better RNG in getting Supox to come out day 1 in right area of their territory and getting some Utwig in Zeta Hyades instead of hyperspace, you could bring this down to September 6th, 2155, however without finding a more optimal route(which I don't think exists, I tried testing this out as best possible, but could be proven wrong). September 6th will probably be the ultimate minimum for this game. At least on the 3DO. Since DosBox has different screen geometry in game days may pass more slowly or more quickly on it, however it seemed quite similar when I compared my run to Bisqwit's DosBox run (more on this phenomenon below).

The following is the route I took:
1. Pluto, Mercury, Moon, Starbase => Feb 17, 2155 to Feb 20, 2155
2. Mars, Titan, Triton, 3 Jupiter moons with stuff on them, Starbase => Mar 6, 2155 to Mar 8, 2155 => Sell Cruiser, Eluder, Storage Bay, Ion Bolt Cannon. Buy max thrusters, max turning jets, 2 fuel tanks, 148 or more fuel, anything left on crew.
3. Sol to Alpha Pavonis => Mar 8, 2155 to Apr 6th, 2155 => Got Warp Pod
4. Alpha Pavonis to Beta Pegasi => Apr 6th, 2155 to Apr 9, 2155 => Look at rainbow world(Need credits for Melnorme fuel)
5. Beta Pegasi to QS Portal => Apr 9, 2155 to Apr 15, 2155 => wait here a few days, get sucked into protal the 17th.
6. QS-A to Arilou Homeworld => Apr 17, 2155 to Apr 23, 2155 => Get Quasispace Portal. Use the following for QS portal references (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/QuasiSpace)
7. Arilou Homeworld to QS-H => Apr 23, 2155 to Apr 30, 2155
8. QS-H to Gamma Scorpii => Apr 30, 2155 to May 5, 2155 => Get Mycon Egg Case (reload to not have Mycon in system)
9. Gamma Scorpii to Epsilon Scorpii => May 6, 2155 to May 7, 2155 => Talk to Mycon about Shattered Worlds to activate Syreen dialogue option.
10. QS-A to Arcturus via QS-J => May 9, 2155 to May 13, 2155 => Hyperwave Caster
11. QS-A to Betelgeuse via QS-F => May 15, 2155 to May 23, 2155 => Get Syreen Shuttle, call Melnorme using Caster in hyperspace on the way to Betelgeuse, reload as many times as possible to have Melnorme be almost ontop of Betelgeuse so that when you leave the system he will intercept you instantly. Sell rainbow world, buy max fuel from him.
12. Betelgeuse to Delta Vulpeculae => May 24, 2155 to May 30, 2155 => Taalo Device, reload as many times is needed to get Orz in system. Need to ally with Orz first before going to Delta Vulpeculae 2d.
13. QS-A to Gamma Krueger via QS-O => May 31, 2155 to Jun 7, 2155 => Clear Spindle, 4 Pkunk ships.
14. QS-A to Alpha Tauri via QS-L => Jun 8, 2155 to Jun 18, 2155 => Distract Ilwrath (using QS-L was 1/2 day shorter than QS-O on 3DO)
15. QS-A to Epsilon Camelopardalis via QS-K => Jun 19, 2155 to Jun 22, 2155 => Syreen Vault
16. Epsilon Camelopardalis to Betelgeuse => Jun 22, 2155 to Jun 29, 2155 => Syreen Plan
17. QS-A to Zeta Draconis => Jun 30, 2155 to Jul 9, 2155 => Send Thraddash to attack Kohr-Ah, Aqua Helix (reload as many times as needed to get Thraddash in Zeta Draconis)
18. QS-A to Zeta Persei via QS-P => Jul 11, 2155 to Jul 15, 2155 => Sell Egg Case for Rosy Sphere, Sell Hyperwave Caster for full fuel.
19. QS-A to Beta Orionis via QS-A => Jul 17, 2155 to Jul 23, 2155 => Talking Pet. (If done right you will be using the Quasi space portal device late on Jul 16, 2155, it will suck you up into QS then the natural portal will appear on the 17th and the game will auto suck you down to the natural portal in hyperspace. This is the fastest way to do this. If you come into QS after the natural portal appears you will have to waste 1 day driving out then back to the portal, if you use QS-E or QS-F that will waste 2 days more) Destroy 10 Umgah Drones using 2 Pkunk ships lost at most(This will be very very very hard, and hopefully get lucky with Fury regenerations, I needed 6) - Destroyed 4 with first Pkunk(4 regenerations), 5 with 2nd(2 regenerations), 1 with 3rd.
20. QS-A to Epsilon Scorpii via QS-H => Jul 25, 2155 to Aug 1, 2155 => Send Mycon to Organon
21. Epsilon Scorpii to Gamma Brahe => Aug 2, 2155 to Aug 3, 2155 => Sun Device (Didn't reload to have no Mycons, doing this may save 1/4 day more) - Killed all 5 Mycons with single Pkunk Fury(no regenerations) - easy fight, have Mycons eat their own plasmoids, and fire. Avoid asteroids and plasmoids!
22. QS-A to Supox Space via QS-D => Aug 5, 2155 to Aug 9, 2155 - Get Ultron (If you get out of QS near Supox space on Aug 7, 2155 you are on pace. Reload as many times as it takes to get Supox appear in hyperspace on Aug 8, and try and have it as right of their territory as possible, was not perfect here, someone could save 1 day more)
23. Supox Space to Zeta Hyades => Aug 9, 2155 to Aug 13, 2155 => Fix Ultron, Give Ultron to Utwig, retrieve Bomb. (Encountered Utwig on way to Zeta Hyades in hyperspace, could save 1/2 day more if could get Utwig to spawn in Zeta Hyades.) (Killed 5 Druuge Maulers with 2 Pkunk Furies, lost 1 Pkunk in battle. Had 4 regenerations - This fight is hard, but not overly hard. Try and get the Druuge to fire a few missed shots, come at him from the other way and kill him, as he zooms off backwards uncontrollably).
24. QS-A to Procyon via QS-O => Aug 14, 2155 to Aug 19, 2155 => Free Chmmr => Arrived on Procyon II on Aug 20, 2155 (just barely touched the 20th, getting here a few seconds sooner could save an entire day, since 14 day loss afterwards will always end you up at the beginning of the day)
25. Procyon to Starbase => Aug 20, 2155 to Sep 3, 2155 => Prepare for final battle
26. Sol to Delta Crateris via QS-C => Sep 3 to Sep 8, 2155 => Sa Matra/End Game

The above was done on my 3DO version of the game. The above may not be replicatable in UQM due to UQM Bug #945 which I reported long ago(unless this got fixed). SC2 in game time in hyperspace/quasispace was found to move more quickly in UQM vs 3DO and DosBox, since in game time change was based on screen geometry. That is why Bisqwit's speed run(using DosBox) could not be replicated in UQM exactly on in game date, also why I have time to get rainbow world, and mess around in Sol and still make it to the natural portal before it opens, while in UQM it is hard to get to the natural portal with the warp pod before it closes)
To my knowledge this has not been fixed in UQM, however it has been awhile since I've downloaded a newer version of UQM. This is easily testable, if you can do the trip from Sol to Alpha Pavonis from Mar 8, 2155 to Apr 6 2155 then this is fixed, if it takes several days longer, then this is not fixed in UQM.

Note: I have 2 pics for proof but max allowed pic size is 256KBs and my photos are 3MBs big, so would have to upload them someplace else. Either way the above should be able to be replayed by others and verified with hardship(in fights).

Either way, I am interested in comments. Does anybody else have any better routes I could have taken? Any better times already out there I don't know about? Anybody else try and beat the game with the lowest in game time, how was it, what routes did you take? etc?