Freedom Planet/Carol

Some base knownledge required.

Some basic and potentially outdated stuff: https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Freedom_Planet/Mechanics_and_Bugs/Carol#Techniques
Levels (empty): https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Freedom_Planet/Strategies/Carol_Levels
Bosses (empty): https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Freedom_Planet/Strategies/Carol_Bosses

Movement

Default Keys:
Up = Up arrow
Down = Down arrow
Left = Left arrow
Right = Right arrow
Jump (A) = Z
Action (B) = X
Special (C) = C
Start = ESC

On Foot

Basic

• Up, looks up (camera scrolls up after holding for half a second, completely useless and locks everything except default action.)
• Down, ducks/crouches (camera scrolls down after holding for 2 seconds, useless and locks special and left/right keys.)
• Left, moves left (or back/forward)
• Right, moves right (or back/forward)
• Jump, jumps
• Action, attack (claw)
• Special, attack (wild kick)

While in midair:

• Up, nothing, sometimes physics glitching
• Down, prevents you from grabbing anything
• Jump, pounces

Advanced

While ducking/crouching, press jump to pounce.
While jumping, press jump again to pounce.
While moving any direction on ground, press down to roll, a better way to do this is to press down+forward quickly, as you don't let go of forward key.
While on pounce state or rolling, press action to do a wild claw attack. It deals a lot more damage, and has a multiplier based on your movement speed while hitting the target, not when you actually press the button.

In speedruns, (while on foot) you generally only want to do wild claws and wild kicks.
Wild Claws kill most enemies on one hit. All hits cause "hit lag", so you want to kill everything with the least amount of hits possible, or bypass them if you can as most enemies do not deal contact damage.
Wild kicks are mostly used for hovering enemies, using "hit lag" and the slowdown from it being wild kicks, you can stay in mid air longer dealing more damage if required. Do not use it if not necessary, mostly used to avoid damage to do certain skips or tricks.

Rolling is only used as a movement option while walking is slower or is required for certain boosts.
While you are rolling, you gain more speed on downslopes than if you were to walk down. While going upslope, you want to vary what you are doing based on how long the slope is, very short slopes you want to roll on, average slopes (example very first slope in relic maze) it doesn't matter if you walk or roll up. Anything longer than average slope you want to walk up or do delayed pounce jumping.

Delayed pounce jumping is used to go up upslopes, if you don't want to learn the timing for it you shouldn't run the game, the entire game is +40 minutes of perfectly timing different movement options, usually with a frame perfect option that gives a ridicilous speed advantage.
Example of perfect delayed pounce jump up an upslope in Final Dreadnought 2: Youtube Link (click)

On Bike

Basic

• Up, looks up (camera scrolls up after holding for half a second, completely useless and locks everything except default action.)
• Down, ducks/crouches (camera scrolls down after holding for 2 seconds, useless and locks special and left/right keys.)
• Left, moves left (or back/forward)
• Right, moves right (or back/forward)
• Jump, jumps
• Action, attack (claw)
• Special, boost (same damage as rolling, so not used as an attack, but rather for wasting energy, also allows for even more movement options explained in advanced>major cancer section)

While in midair:

• Up, nothing, sometimes physics glitching
• Down, prevents you from grabbing anything.
• Jump, double jump
• Special, attack (wild kick)

Advanced

The Minor Cancer

While ducking/crouching, press jump to dismount bike, also it's not consistent you can only do it on specific angled ground/slopes.
While boosting, press action to attack with wild claw instead of regular claw.
Don't leave the bike, it breaks from 1 to 3 hits, if you leave the bike go to start menu, press quit and then go delete your save.
After boosting, you can do a really delayed wild claw on bike by doing a double jump glitch. Cannot be explained, it's mostly based on timing.

The Major Cancer

Died while writing this...

More Things To Be Added, Also Random Useful Stuff

Adding something relevant once I'm done writing something actually relevant, or if someone else bothers to look that deep into how Carol functions and what you should be doing.

General things:

• If you have 0 speed while not on a bike, just smash jump to get a bunch of speed fast from pounces.
• Pouncing or rolling into down slopes will give you a lot of speed.
• You can launch yourself higher from upslopes while rolling.
• You generally only use wild claws as attack, and wild kicks to avoid damage/deal damage while being attacked.
• MANAGING YOUR ENERGY WHILE ON A BIKE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE ENTIRE RUN
• Never do wildkicks on bike unless you need to quickly waste your energy, or if you are doing skips that require avoiding damage.
• If you lose the bike you generally also lose your run (easily +5 minutes), on Jade Creek and Battle Glacier just reset.

This is just some short thing, will be adding to it overtime when I have time.