Pacifist mission completions

[Maple]

Since I intend to leave again at the end of the month, I wanted to complete one final project here. Back in 2017, when Ryder's missions were first introduced, I submitted speedruns of those two missions, for a bit of fun. (Raid had not been introduced yet)

 

Now, over 7 years later, I am back with a slightly more interesting concept, that also falls under the speedrun category due to requiring fast movement to succeed: completing the four combat missions without killing any NPCs. The reason is twofold:

• I think it's a fun and interesting challenge, albeit difficult;
• the mission AI has had no improvements whatsoever in the past 7+ years - they are still just as clunky and unfun to engage with as they were back then, so I wanted to just avoid engaging with them as much as possible. Thus, you will see a particular movement tech being used extensively in the first three missions to achieve this goal.

 

By 'combat mission' I am referring to missions which include NPCs that can attack you. Thus, the four missions in question are:

• Ryder's Steal the Jetpack;
• Ryder's Steal the Ammo Packs;
• Ryder's Raid;
• OG Loc's Steal the Disk.

 

Well, we're off to a great start then, seeing that Steal the Ammo Packs requires killing the gangster in the final sequence of the mission. Therefore, that mission can't be completed in 0 kills, but we can handwave it off by saying that it's technically Ryder who kills him, not us, since the mission switches us to Ryder's POV to kill him. And even then, we can still allow it, since the mission forces us to get that kill, and so a pacifist completion of Steal the Ammo Packs involves 1 kill.

 

One final mention is that these were all completed without any health regen skin bonuses. I don't know if that bonus even works in missions, but if it does, it would seriously trivialize this challenge.

 

With that out of the way, here are the completions, as well as my thoughts on them in this challenge.

 

1. Steal the Disk - Difficulty: Easy

Video: 

 

This is the easiest of these four missions, as there are very few NPCs, you are not in their line of sight for too long, and they shoot relatively slowly. A recurring theme in these completions is going to be the use of sliding because, with Hitman skill (50+ hours left on your Weapons license (please revert this stupid change, guys, nobody likes it)), in addition to moving at sprint speed indoors, you can also shoot while moving. This allows you to take out the cameras without stopping. Additionally, you may notice that I make no noise despite moving at full speed. I'm sure this trick must have already been discovered in these 7 years, but the script only checks for you holding ALT to treat you as 'moving quietly,' and it doesn't actually care about what you do aside from that (you can also make noise while in the interior cutscene that shows you the camera placements if you try to move!). Thus, you can slide while holding ALT to get through this much faster than usual.

 

Not much else to say, simple enough mission, as long as you don't get the somewhat rare bug where the first camera can spot you in the doorway, despite you being behind it.

 

Completion time: 5:50

 

2. Steal the Jetpack - Difficulty: Medium

Video: 

 

On paper, this seems harder than it really is, and I also thought that. But it turns out that I was doing basically this exact strat all the way back in 2017 in my speedrun of it, minus the vent entrance, which really surprised current me. There's only ever two NPCs shooting at you at most, aside from the entrance, but if you enter through the vent, they cannot actually shoot you until you jump out of it, giving you a bit of extra leeway.

 

I took a very pointless risk at the end, flying directly towards the oil refinery rather than going around a bit, and didn't get punished for it. There is a cop waiting on the cliff next to the road that can easily kill you if you're unlucky, but he only got one shot off on me this run.

 

This was also about 20 seconds faster than my 2017 run.

 

Completion time: 7:38

 

3. Raid - Difficulty: Hard

Video: 

 

More sliding, woohoo! This was the first mission I completed with 0 kills, when I decided to try it on a whim about a month and a half ago (OG Loc's mission chain was still broken back then so I couldn't play Steal the Disk). I saw that it was just barely doable if you got lucky, and that's what inspired me to actually try this challenge. Throughout the weeks I've been improving my route through the building both for this and for general fast completions, and I think this is the most consistent one. For a general completion, the only ones you need to kill usually are these five enemies, and on the way back you can take it slowly and kill the others if you are low on health.

 

Still, this is quite harder than Steal the Jetpack, as you are attacked by a lot more NPCs at once, and it's very easy to die before even reaching the doors on the way back. Also, the NPCs can shoot through those doors! Fun!

 

I hope this video and strategy helps some of you complete this mission faster than you normally would - I'm sure some people didn't even know you can complete it without killing all the enemies.

 

Completion time: 6:31

 

4. Steal the Ammo Packs - Difficulty: Hard+ ?

Video: 

 

Here it is: the mission that actually terrified me when it comes to this challenge. A surprise, then, that this was only my second attempt at completing it as a pacifist. You can see in the video that I am left a bit puzzled at the end of the mission. This is for two reasons: one, I did not expect to actually complete it that soon; two, it was only after the mission that I realized I had to kill that final gangster - I was in such a rush to get that kill before I died that I completely forgot about it. But, like I said at the start of this post, that kill is required to finish the mission, so there is nothing more I can do.

 

At the end of all this, I'm still a bit torn on how much harder this really is compared to Raid; it requires a very awkward flythrough and good landing on the construction site, and there are so many enemies that can shoot you at once, and they also fire at you while you're in the helicopter. But at the same time, if you know what you're doing, overall you don't stay in their line of fire for as long as you do in Raid - from the moment I jump out of the Maverick to the moment I throw the last satchel, only 16 seconds pass, compared to ~33 seconds in Raid. However, you can still get shot during the two seconds it takes to line up the shot as Ryder, and you have about four NPCs firing towards you, as opposed to just one in an average completion (there's a single NPC on the lower floors of the building for some reason, and I bet nobody goes out of their way to kill him unless they are on 1HP).

 

I'm going to say this is still harder, as I think I got lucky with their firing intervals. On my first attempt I got killed much faster and also had somewhat sloppy movement. Either way, it's possible. And, like I said, could be much easier if you have health regen bonus on your skin, and if said bonus works in missions.

 

Completion time: 2:39

 

Final comments

 

It's been decent being back these past two months, there's been some ups and some downs. I'm a bit upset I probably won't get to see whether my feedback about the recent quests will be considered, but maybe I will lurk around on the forum to check. Maybe I'll be back in another 7 years, if this server still exists.

 

If you are curious about how sliding works, here is a video by tduva which explains everything you need to know and more.

 

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them down below and I will do my best to reply.

 

Trans Rights Are Human Rights

Edited March 30 by Maple

[Den222]

Nice post and very helpful indeed. Thanks for creating it! Loved your rating too!😎

[TLG MissYou]

nice post bro !