Engineering a (weekend long) 'speedrun'...

ZeroGravitas

The Destroyer
So, it's not something that I've really followed, and certainly have not tried myself. However, I was impressed with Yamayamauchima's speed-running play-through, posted yesterday, where he captured numerous records for fastest boss times, completing the progression arc in under 4 hours!: reddit comments | original twitch video | all official Terraria speedrun records.

Obviously there is scant little time, during such a high-paced dash, for building fancy devices, but I was gratified that an amount of 'engineering' was still involved, namely:
  • An artificial Hallowed biome - for easily farming drops for powerful hollow arrows.
  • Hell bridge and other simple, contextual boss fighting platforms.
  • Speedy jungle house - for biome specific Witchdoctor sold leaf wings.
  • Infinite housing trick - to get all NPCs quickly with minimal build time, also keeps them close and available to help with boss fights and invasions, something we had a thread about back here.
  • Nurse house - for quick healing during fights, doubling as shield from Moonlord attacks.
gv6qeSm.jpg

Low quality (sorry) screenshot from the record breaking run video.

So, what I'm wondering is, firstly, are there any super-simple builds/tricks that he missed, that might speed up even the fastest run? This seems unlikely, given the time constraints, especially since even heart statues are no longer really worth wiring up to aid in boss fights (with a single input trigger now, down from 6, pre-1.3 patch). Maybe a slightly tweaked (micro)base layout might help keep the nurse in place and with accessing the correct NPCs, though?

Secondly, with greater appeal to the likes of us mere mortals: What rough-and-ready building tricks, super quick grinders/arenas, or other mechanics would help the average, fairly experienced Terraria player blast through the game from world gen to all-boss completion in, say, just one manic weekend?

I'm thinking there might just be time to make a simple critter statue farm, for easy money (dependent on statue finds), hollow out one quick hardmode cavern grinder (with explosives), which would make farming up various drops for pre-decided strategies more reliable. Also, a no-frills version of @DicemanX's cannonball arena, thrown up atop a nice, naturally spawn-blocking dessert area would seem like a good bet... What else??? (Please elaborate!)
 
Hehe, I'm totally not this type of player. Upon launch of 1.3 we started a new expert world. Last weekend we beat the golem. We haven't yet seen a martian invasion or beaten fishron or the cultists or anything else afterwards. There is no racing to get stuff done. The world is wired and organized, there are machines, arenas and grinders dotting the landscape. Mine cart tracks, asphalt and teleporters are plentiful. The underworld has a special liquid and loot friendly bridge. About 2/3rds of the ash block and hellstone have been removed, (huge pools of lava remain in their place.) Items are abundant and stored in a massive chest room, many of the chests are overflowing with blocks and common drops. New characters can get fully equipped up to our progression level after rummaging around for a few minutes.

Once 1.3.1 hits we may start more aggressively pursuing end game content but there is no similar sense of urgency over here...
 
I know this wasn't the main topic, but in my opinion credit for the infinite housing bug belongs to Xylia, who discovered it accidentally. And arguably to me, who helped figure out what was going on. It does look like it's been refined since then however.

Of course it's also possible it's been discovered more than once independently. But @Xylia was the first to find it that I know of.

For what it's worth I like to call it the Crooked House bug, after a Heinlein story.

Edit: Right you are. Looks like an independent discovery then. The oldest reference I could find (other than Xylia's bug report) was August, but I see now it does go back further.
 
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credit for the infinite housing bug
Ooh, very interesting; I love tracking the 'entomology' of ideas. And a (classic) sci-fi literature reference too, very cool! I was not aware of that 1941 story about an (accidental) hypercube (aka 'Crooked') house. Although, given than our little NPC friends live in an almost 2D world, a regular cube would melt their conceptions of space, heh, more like Flatland. The novel synopsis reminded me quite a bit of David Hilbert's 1924 infinity hotel. However, Xylia's bug report is from late April 2015 (under 10 months ago) while the Crazy Terraria house tricks guide I referenced in the other thread was posted to Reddit (by a certain Marglyph) over 11 months ago, apparently. So probably yet another parallel (re)discovery, as you say (still, kudos). :)

Anyway, back to the thread at hand - what about building the basic staples of infrastructure. Still worth it for a weekend rush play-through?:
  • (Bombed out) hellevator(s)?
  • Minecart track to... dungeon, one coast? (It's pretty rapid and easy to lay, and pretty 'cheap'.)
  • Money statue farm worth the open ended (AFK over dinner) generating capacity (verses farming a couple bosses)?
  • Pirate or other simple invasion farm? Etc?
Also, any fairly substation shortcuts to be had from, say stealing into the jungle temple pre-hardmode, to loot it's super-traps? Or any other novel shortcuts?
 
Ooh, very interesting; I love tracking the 'entomology' of ideas. And a (classic) sci-fi literature reference too, very cool! I was not aware of that 1941 story about an (accidental) hypercube (aka 'Crooked') house. Although, given than our little NPC friends live in an almost 2D world, a regular cube would melt their conceptions of space, heh, more like Flatland. The novel synopsis reminded me quite a bit of David Hilbert's 1924 infinity hotel. However, Xylia's bug report is from late April 2015 (under 10 months ago) while the Crazy Terraria house tricks guide I referenced in the other thread was posted to Reddit (by a certain Marglyph) over 11 months ago, apparently. So probably yet another parallel (re)discovery, as you say (still, kudos). :)

Anyway, back to the thread at hand - what about building the basic staples of infrastructure. Still worth it for a weekend rush play-through?:
  • (Bombed out) hellevator(s)?
  • Minecart track to... dungeon, one coast? (It's pretty rapid and easy to lay, and pretty 'cheap'.)
  • Money statue farm worth the open ended (AFK over dinner) generating capacity (verses farming a couple bosses)?
  • Pirate or other simple invasion farm? Etc?
Also, any fairly substation shortcuts to be had from, say stealing into the jungle temple pre-hardmode, to loot it's super-traps? Or any other novel shortcuts?
  • Get ebonwood/shadewood armor for at least a little starting protection, then go straight for shadow/crimson armor -- no need to bother with in-between armors. Eater of worlds and brain of cthulhu aren't very hard, even with minimal preparation. I usually just tank them in the hole with the third orb/heart and use whatever I get from smashing the orbs/hearts.
  • A simple invasion/blood moon farm like you mentioned does seem like it would be useful for money, which could be used to buy bombs to quickly make the hellevator.
  • Raiding the temple pre-hardmode for traps wouldn't be nearly as much as the golem drops would be. Sun stone, eye of the golem, and picksaw are huge assets if you can get them early. Ghost walls paired with beenades and dark lance seem to work pretty well against him.
  • Make a plantera arena with bombs before starting hardmode so you don't have to contend with hardmode enemies while making it and thus you save a little time.
This is based on my usual strategy for advancing quickly in playthroughs, but I am by no means a speedrunner. Also I typically play on mobile, so the strategies could be slightly different.
 
The VideoGameBadger earlier posted up (via Reddit) a video of his world record breaking, sub 6 hour, all boss, expert speedrun:
He's using the same infinite house layout and a few other tricks. I've not combed all the way through the video, so there may be more to note.

One little one (here) is that he steals the Lihzahrd Altar
Lihzahrd_Altar.png
from the temple after Plantera, but before fighting Golem, by actuating one of the blocks beneath it (they can not be mined or hammered). Then he's able to fight Golem a little more easily, back home, with more space and easy access to nurse healing, etc.


He also bombs a bunch of holes down through the jungle, for easy access, searching for Plantera bulbs. See any other notable tricks in this speedrun?...
 
I haven't seen this run but I watch him on twitch whenever I get the chance, and one thing I think really helps is that he sets up his plantera arena pre-hardmode because it keeps his time in hardmode short and avoids all the hardmode jungle mobs while building it.
 
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