Here's the first WIP:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1991697565/WIP.vbm
It goes until getting the bananas and is 1349 frames (22.48 seconds) ahead of the published run.
I would detail every little improvement (and plan to in the submission text), but there's a bigger issue at the moment:
I've discovered something very important. If you save & quit immediately after buying something from the shop, the rupees don't go down any further than they had got to before you S&Qed. This has led me to propose a new rupee route.
Current rupee route
220 rupees before shop
-20 manipulated along the way
-50 from chest in cave in forest
-50 from chest in swamp before dungeon 2
-50 from chest inside dungeon 2
-Either 50 from chest west of the swamp or 50 from chest east of the village
Buy shovel + one set of bombs, leave and re-enter shop, buy second set of bombs and steal bow.
300 rupees to get third ocarina song
-100 from chest before getting ocarina
-200 from chest at the start of dungeon 5
Proposed new rupee route
200 rupees before shop
-50 from chest in cave in forest
-50 from chest in swamp before dungeon 2
-50 from chest inside dungeon 2
-Either 50 from chest west of the swamp or 50 from chest east of the village
Buy shovel + one set of bombs (buy before the rupees finish going down for the shovel), save & quit (this stops the rupees from going down at all), buy next set of bombs and steal bow.
Left with roughly 130 rupees
Some time is wasted by S&Qing rather than exiting and re-entering the shop, but this time is more than made up for by skipping one of the rupee chests later on.
At least 300 rupees to get third ocarina song
-Either 100 rupee chest before getting ocarina + rest (roughly 70) manipulated along the way, OR 200 rupee chest in dungeon 5, which brings our total above 300, meaning we'll have some left over at the end of the game.
Both the 100 and 200 rupee chests are in our path anyway. The 200 rupee chest takes about 17 seconds to get, and the 100 rupee chest takes about 6 seconds to get. However, I'm unsure of how easy/possible it will be to manipulate as many as 70 rupees along the way. If it's possible, we'll skip the 200 rupee chest.
Advantages of new route
-One of the chests are skipped when collecting money for the third ocarina song. Will save either 17 or 6 seconds depending on which chest we skip.
Disadvantages of new route
-Time lost by S&Qing in the shop rather than exiting and re-entering. This is only a second or two so it should still end up in our favour anyway.
-If we skip the 200 rupee chest, while saving roughly 17 seconds in theory, it would require a lot more manipulation along the way. I imagine most of this can be done without losing much (if any) time, but a few frames here and there will likely have to be lost.
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If anyone can find any flaws in any of this, or can think of any better way to do it, please let me know. In the end, this won't even save that much - maybe 15 seconds. But every improvement is worth it.
The obvious best thing to do would be to get the 100 from the pre-ocarina chest and manipulate the rest along the way, but as I said above, I'm not sure how feasible this is.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Something else I just thought of which is possibly faster:
210 before shop
-Stuff from before
-10 manipulated along the way
Buy bombs THEN shovel. S&Q as soon as you get the shovel to keep 200 of the rupees. Enter shop again and buy 10 bombs, then steal the bow. Left with 190 rupees. Get 100 from pre-ocarina chest + manipulate 10 along the way.