up to rootmars1
Wow! 5440 frames saved in total so far! I gave player 1 2 F because I had that planned from the start (player 2 had more L too) and I didn't see any disadvantages with player 1 getting the F. Most of the aliens are skipped by scrolling the screen at the right time, the ones that are fought cannot be skipped. When fighting the hoop shooting bots, I use F twice on each bot, getting 10 hits for each bots and using L to finish them off. I had to use one grenade on the last bot in order to destroy it fast enough for player 2 to get the R before it disappeared. Getting R is right, it helps destroy the next bot and the "door" a lot faster.
In the next part, I re-obtain L from the alien spider for player 2. The first giant alien spider and the bot after can be skipped by screen scrolling at the right time. Although the bot has the satellite, it also has 800 hp and I think L is better to have because I can have it going into rootmars1.
As for rootmars1, I plan on manipulating L from the energy balls. X2poet was able to get 3 L before rootmars1 died, but since I have 18 F, I think I'll only be able to get 2 L from rootmars1 because I'll destroy it faster. Though I believe 1 L for each player is enough because I can use the L trick and the fact that the bots have a lot less health when you spawn them while out of the metal slug.