No Lava Tube Skip

No Lava Tube Skip, also known as No LTS, is a speedrun category in Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. As the category name implies, Lava Tube Skip is not allowed.

Rules

Currently listed category rules are as follows:

Objective

• Beat the game as fast as possible.
• Lava Tube Skip (LTS) is banned.
• No additional restrictions on glitches, skips, etc.

Timing

• Start
  • http://www.speedrun.com/jak1/guide/j1t2s

End

• Upon starting the ending cutscene and beating the game.
  • At the time of writing, this typically refers to collecting the light eco at the final boss.
• Note: When submitting runs, please do not include milliseconds in your time. That slot exists solely for Dead Man's Gorge submissions.
• Debug mode is not allowed.

Notable Strategies & Techniques

Skips

• Geyser Rock - First Power Cell Cutscene Skip (optional)
• Rock Village - Blue Sage Cutscene Skip
• Rock Village - Boulder Skip
• Lost Precursor City - LPC Elevator Skip
• Lost Precursor City - Puzzle Skip
• Lost Precursor City - Piggyback Skip
• Mountain Pass - Klaww Skip (First Phase Skip and Lava Walk optional)
• Volcanic Crater - Red Sage Cutscene Skip
• Lava Tube - Keira Cutscene Skip
• Gol and Maia's Citadel - Citadel Skip

Other

• Boosted Uppercut
• Extended Uppercut
• Lost Precursor City - Silo Clip
• Boggy Swamp - Backwards Boggy
• Mountain Pass - Backwards Cell (Cave Hops or Tree Hops optional)

Tips

The tips listed below are intended for beginner speedrunners.

Geyser Rock

• The first power cell cutscene skip is optional and not recommended for beginner runners. It only saves roughly 1 or 2 seconds and is only used by top runners who are trying to save as much time as possible.
• For newer runners, do not reset in Geyser over minor mistakes. You won't spend any time in other sections of the game and you'll only get good at Geyser movement. Leave Geyser and try to complete full runs.

Sandover Village

• There is no reason you should be resetting in Sandover Village. No major mistakes can happen here unless you are severely under the required orb count.

Forbidden Jungle

• A bad fish time is not always a reason to reset. The fishing mini game happens very early in the run. A bad fish time can easily be made up for with time save later in the run.

Misty Island

• There is an moment in the Balloon Lurker rotation cycle that allows Jak to optimally destroy them. If a runner arrives to the Balloon Lurker portion of the level too late, this optimal moment in the cycle will have passed and the runner will lose time. Newer runners should die to the lurker shark after collecting the orbs from the first orb vent by the bridge. This will reset the Balloon Lurker cycle to allow the player to destroy them optimally.

• If you mess up the boosted uppercut when trying to get the power cell on the stone pillar at the end, try again. If you mess up too many times, it's probably best to reset.

Sentinel Beach

• This level only has one checkpoint and spawn point at the very beginning. Because of this, an unintentional death will lose a significant amount of time. Depending on your personal best time, you should reset the run if you accidentally die here.

• A delayed "Chase the Seagulls" trigger is nothing to reset over for newer runners. This is only a few seconds of time loss at most.

Fire Canyon

• In Fire Canyon, there are surfaces with hotcoals and lava material properties. If Jak is on the zoomer and hovers above a surface that has the lava material assigned to it, the heat meter will begin to go up much faster. Try to avoid these lava areas by jumping over them to maximize heat reduction.

Rock Village

• Doing Blue Sage Cutscene Skip in No LTS does not entirely skip the cutscene. The cutscene can still p[lay if the camera gets too close to the Blue Sage's hut. When making your way to Lost Precursor City, it is important to keep your camera positioned to the left of Jak to avoid hitting the cutscene trigger.

Precursor Basin

• Failing one of the ring missions late into it will result in a significant time loss. If you fail one of the rings missions, a reset is likely the best option.

Boggy Swamp

• The Backwards Boggy route is recommended for all runners to learn and is the most difficult part of the No LTS category for most runners.
• After shooting the first tether with yellow eco during backward boggy, pass back through the cave area with the rats to pick up the checkpoint there. Now if you die on accident, you will respawn at this checkpoint which is much closer to the first out of bounds.

Mountain Pass

• Skipping Klaww is necessary and easy for all runners. For new runners, the idle deload method is suggested.
• Cave Hops and/or Tree Hops are optional and only utilized by top runners. Instead, you can backtrack on foot to collect the power cell. If you struggle with high jumping up to the power cell, you can use this visual guide to assist.

Volcanic Crater

• Try not to die too many times in Volcanic Crater. This increases the chance of the game crashing on traditional hardware (PS2).

Spider Cave

• The boosted uppercut used to get the power cell on top of the Precursor Robot in the robot room is one of the hardest boosted uppercuts to execute properly in the No LTS category. This is due to Jak being powered by blue eco during the process. A method that can make the trick easier is to zoom walk a little bit off the ledge and then do the boosted uppercut.

• A backup method to the robot room boosted uppercut can be found here.

Snowy Mountain

• You'll hate the ice physics at first, but you'll learn to use it to your advantage. See Ice Momentum.
• Gondola Skip will be something you'll need to practice. If you miss Gondola Skip in a run, don't backtrack to get Flut Flut to try again. Instead, take the gondola down like normal or do the on foot method of Gondola Skip.

Lava Tube

• Citadel Hops is not recommended for new runners. This is only ever used if you're going for a world record time or close to it. Just finish Lava Tube as normal, do Keira Cutscene Skip, then enter the Citadel.

Gol and Maia's Citadel

• Citadel Skip is required here. It saves too much time. If you're on console, make sure to do a version check to see if your copy of the game has Citadel Skip or not.
• During the final boss fight, you can abuse a camera trick to spawn infinite amounts of health. By picking up the green eco and pressing Triangle during the beginning of the boss fight phases, the camera will shoot to the bottom of the level. Pressing Triangle again will bring the camera back up and spawn another green eco blob.