Iwad:      doom2.wad
Pwad:      doghouse.wad
Map:       MAP32
Skill:     4
Category:  UV Max
Exe:       dsda-doom 0.29.4 -complevel 9
Date:	   July 6, 2026

Time:      46:42.97

Author:    Hobop7614

The map has kind of been nagging at me since I last maxed it. While I wouldn't call my previous run "bad", it had one large-sized mistake and a couple of medium-sized ones which weren't great. The main thing that irked me was the "large" one since it messed up the routing, but also in general there were a couple of routing decisions that I kept mulling over. This run started with me testing some of those old routing decisions vs new alternatives but along the way I also found some unrelated routing improvements that would end up saving even more time. Right now I'm pretty happy with the route. There's one part near the end where I have to backtrack a bit to clean up the revs/pinkies with the bfg which is kind of ugly imo but I tested out some alternatives and doing it this way does indeed seem to be the fastest. 

Anyway I'm still not really happy with the actual run itself - it has two "medium-sized" mistakes: I fell when trying to grab the rocket launcher (loses ~20 sec), I was a bit slow doing the green race which forced me to wait for ~15 sec, and in general there are plenty of slower/sloppier parts. I should have at the very least been able to get sub 46 but sub 45 is also doable. Maybe one day I'll go back and actually get the "perfect" run but for now I'm uploading this to get it out of my mind.

I won't describe every single little change in the route but the main ones are:
1. I take the left path first in Castle Collins. Shoutout to Vytaan's playthrough of the map for showing me that that one button exists.
2. I don't complete the "water" puzzle in Mike's Mesa and instead just walk through the lava. I thought about doing this the last time but I kind of just assumed it wouldn't be possible and never tried it - kind of stupid. This saves a bit of time in the water area and avoids the platforming bit entirely. I try to nukage rhythm the lava so that I only take 40 damage not 60. This change does make Mike's Mesa a lot more dangerous since you need a certain amount of health to survive.
3. Instead of doing the blue card album immediately after getting the blue card I instead do one of the Tony Town albums in order to get the 15 albums required for Peter. 
4. Near the start of Mount Hackett I do a jump to get to the platforming area without opening the gate first. I already knew this was possible the last time but I never spent much time to find a setup that's both fast and consistent.
5. I activate the lift near the lava box during my first visit to Mount Hackett instead of the second. I also did this during my first max but in the text file I said that it was probably slower, but this time I actually did some testing and that doesn't seem to be the case. I tested three routes:
	- Route 1 - early elevator        			17:24
	- Route 2 - no early elevator     			17:34 
	- Route 3 - no BFG (i.e. doing cacos etc. with RL)  	17:45
so you see it's not exactly a massive difference but it does seem to be fastest.
6. I do the "album on the mountain with the imps nearby" after doing the start of the red-blue race bit instead of immediately after grabbing the plasma.
7. I do the conveyor area in Tony Town in a specific way that close to guarantees that all of them die without you having to double check.

There are a couple of other more "concrete" time saves available which I didn't use in this run:
1. It's better to go through the lava immediately after getting the shotgun instead of after the "water" area. Though you have to keep note of the pinky that could block you in the lava so look out for him. (I thought of this one after I had already recorded this demo)
2. You can do the entire crusher maze without having to wait for the crusher to lower. In fact I could have done that during this demo since I was fast enough.
3. It's possible to skip activating the third "rock" pillar in Castle Collins by doing a weird sr50-but-not-really jump with only the blue pillar x 3 and red x 2 I wasn't able to get it consistently though. Alternatively it would be possible to do it with 2 x red and 1 x rock with no blue. You can also not activate anything outside of the rock pillar but once you activate it you very quickly turn around and climb the pillar while it's still ascending - this seems very precise though. Don't know which option would be the fastest.
4. At the start of Peter's Space Station you can go left instead of right, activate the lift and only kill the revenant after you grab the SSG. Surviving this seems like a coin flip though if you're trying to go fast and I've died plenty of times trying it which isn't fun since it's 10 min into the run.

Of course there are plenty of seconds to spare here and there e.g. I spent close to 15 seconds trying to shoot that one switch in Mount Hackett lol but that's not really a routing thing. As I said sub 45 is doable.

Also somewhat unrelated to the demo but there's a small chance that one of the three Mount Hackett chaingunners that appear at the top never teleports in because his teleport closet has a weird triangle attached to it that doesn't elevate along with the rest of the closet. So if the chaingunner happens to be standing in that triangle corner as you press the button he'll get stuck and never teleport in. Luckily, this seems to be a lot rarer than I would have expected but it did happen during one run which wasn't fun.




