SSX (2012)

Basics

Boost

Boosting along the ground is almost always faster than being airborne. You can't boost in the air; stay grounded as much as possible.

Your main goal in each stage is to get a full boost meter in the least intrusive way possible so you have the maximum potential speed through the course. Performing tricks fills your boost meter; If you fill your boost bar completely you'll gain "Tricky" state and infinite boost for as long as you keep Tricky.

Tricky will eventually dissipate if you stop doing tricks for a substantial period of time, so plan when and where to gain and lose Tricky so you waste the least amount of time getting it back.

Tricky Management

You can move from regular Tricky to "Super Tricky" by doing a few more tricks. Doing so refreshes Tricky state, giving you a fresh timer for your infinite boost. Tricky caps out at "Super Tricky" and can't be filled any further though, only maintained or fully lost from that point on. Move from Tricky to Super Tricky when doing otherwise would mean losing Tricky altogether.

Plan your routes to let Tricky expire just before unskippable jumps. That way there isn't any wasted time renewing it by going out of your way for a different jump or rail, as you have to take the jump either way. You'll always get a small portion of the boost bar back for immediate use after Tricky expires, use that to link to your next Tricky.

Remember: you don't have to fill the bar all the way to Tricky every time, as long as you aren't going to run entirely out of boost. It can be beneficial to simply gain a portion of the boost bar in order to fill it to Tricky at a more strategic time later. The same goes for Super Tricky.

Extending Super Tricky

As long as you're still doing tricks periodically you can extend the duration of Super Tricky indefinitely, though doing so usually means going slower overall than letting Tricky expire fully and renewing it with one large trick (due to time taken out for multiple consecutive jumps).

Importantly, you can't lose Tricky while still actively doing a trick. This leads to two major ways of extending Tricky through difficult sections or through patches of course that would otherwise be prohibitive to regain Tricky in:

Board Presses
By holding X/Square or B/Circle while traveling on the ground you can perform a nose or tail press with your board that counts as a trick and can significantly extend the time it takes for Tricky to expire (though it will still eventually expire if you do nothing else). This is a great way of extending Tricky state through flat portions of ground or eeking out an extra second or two to tide you over until the next convenient jump. Beware however as doing a board press will slow your speed by ~20km or more and make it harder to turn, so don't extend Tricky through board presses alone for entire runs. Two quick presses of the same board press in a row will count as a duplicate trick and is a quick way to intentionally dismiss Tricky state as long as your Tricky bar is already in the process of expiring (flashing). This can be a good way to force Tricky to expire before unskippable jumps when the route otherwise does not naturally allow you to.

Rail Grinds
In some sections it can be convenient to hop on a long section of rail or grindable terrain to extend the length of Tricky. No matter the level of Tricky you have it will be maintained as long as you continue to grind, allowing you to boost freely through the entire rail section. You also get a significant point score for doing tricks on the rail which often refreshes Tricky at the point you exit the rail, letting you carry Tricky even further with you. Be aware though that the average boosting rail speeds cap slightly lower than land speeds, usually ~150km. (Hopping on a rail can increase your speed if you find yourself boostless, as the speed you travel on a rail with no boost is usually higher than the speed of having no boost on snow.)

Note: There are three easy to overlook chevrons on each side of the Tricky meter that fill up to denote when your combo is about to expire. Use this to help more accurately estimate when Tricky is expiring as you go.

Keeping Speed

Hold forward on the stick whenever possible to give your rider a significant speed boost (~25km); they'll tuck in and pull their arms down making them faster but also slightly harder to turn. Maintain this position whenever possible.

Do whatever you can to avoid being sent airborne: seek the lines that will let you maintain your forward lean and not lose it to minor bumps or jumps. It can be worth your time to ride up on slopes and walls parallel to you in order to skip over smaller bumps and ramps so you can maintain boost.

Never actively jump off of a ramp if you don't need to, it will only give you more hangtime. Learn which ramps you can gain enough boost from by simply doing tricks while falling from them instead.

If you cannot skip a ramp but don't need additional boost from it, do your best to bunny hop over it. You usually can't hop over entire ramps, but you can minimize air time by timing your jump so you clear the tip of the ramp at the apex of your bunny hop. This will minimize time spent on unwanted ramps even further.

Keep your board straight and parallel to any rails or terrain you grind whenever possible. You lose speed whenever your board becomes perpendicular to the rail as you grind, including when spinning (though it's not as bad as keeping entirely perpendicular). This means that unless you actively need extra points/boost from a rail you should simply keep your board straight and boost on ahead. Doing tricks has no effect on your speed however as long as you keep the board parallel, so feel free to do no-rotation board-slides at any time. (Avoid the Super Uber Y based slides however: see note at bottom of FAQ)

Be sparing with your wingsuit unless you're using it for a substantial skip or improved line. At the level of gear you normally have during an any% run the wingsuit's airspeed will be substantially lower than your boosting land speed. You might see old individual track attempts on Youtube that heavily utilize a high gear level wingsuit, but they're generally not representative of what is reasonable for lower level gear.

Tricks

All tricks are worth a certain amount of points based on how long you hold a trick, what type of trick you did, and whether you did any rotations or flips during the trick. The more points a trick is worth the more boost it earns you (or if in Tricky state, it helps stop Tricky from expiring).

Tricks aren't all worth the same amount however and there appears to be four different point categories tricks can be a part of. In ascending order of points per second gained they are:

• Basic one button tricks (i.e. Press X and hold)
• Two button grabs (i.e. Press X and move to holding Y)
• 'Difficult' two button grabs (X to B and vice versa, aka Mute/Stalefish)
• and character Signature Tricks (Hold the triggers and any grab button)

Two button grabs give roughly 1.5x the points, and thus 1.5x the boost but take that much longer to perform and finish safely. Signature Tricks give roughly 1.75-2x the points and take proportionally longer to successfully pull off. See http://www.merqurycity.com/ssxdeadlydescents/ssx_2012.txt for the exact numbers.

Usually this difference in trick points and timing is minor enough to not be a concern, but on occasion it can mean the difference between gaining Tricky off a jump and leaving your boost meter only very close to being full. Use the small differences in these tricks' scoring to better manage your Tricky state on the fly, and fill your Tricky bar that much quicker at the beginning of stages. When in doubt and attempting to gain boost, default to Mute or Stalefish for maximum potential gain.

Note: Flips earn you more points than spins as they're considered less safe/harder to land. You should be doing front flips most of the time regardless though as you should be holding up for the majority of the run, priming you for front flips on most jumps you take.

Trick Events

The scores the AI characters get are fixed to 2-3 possible scores for each opponent in a 4 person Trick It, and anywhere from 5-11 in 1v1 Trick Its, but which score they get each time you compete is semi-random. You can tell which score out of their potential score sets an AI is going to get on a run by watching which route they take to complete the course; resetting the race will re-pick their end score/route pattern for the run (though they could always get the same score/route over again). Plan your own needed route (or reset) appropriately.

Remember, you don't need to win an event with four participants to move on in an any% run: you only have to score third or better. You will have to fully win every 1 on 1 encounter however.

In competitions where it's hard to get enough score with the fastest route it can be beneficial to keep Tricky until the very end simply for the multiplier boost it can give and see if that is enough to squeak by. Otherwise you'll have to start adding extra jumps and rails to your route. If there are long rails at the beginning of a Trick event where you need a particularly high score it can be lucrative to spam multiple small grinds of about 50m each for pure multiplier before continuing down the course.

Gear

Shops

The items you see in the shops are all randomly generated and equal in level to the character you're browsing the shop with. The stock of items at a particular location won't change until you've moved your attention to a new location (you just have to select the drop, you don't have to compete in it or look at the shop there necessarily). Characters of the same level will see the same equipment for a location.

In theory improved equipment is more valuable the longer you expect to be using a character. This means any character with particularly long courses and/or Zoe make the best use of gear: as she makes an appearance once for the start of each region as well as having the first region all to herself (+the final race). However in practice the average expected difference in a purchased board's Speed and Boost stat compared to the character's base board is the biggest determining factor.

Equipment

Boards
As you'd expect, buying any board with substantially better Speed or Boost stats is desirable during your run. Which it should have more of can be determined on a character basis, but usually it doesn't matter as long as the board has higher overall stats than a character's default board. As a rule of thumb, each +10 in either Speed or Boost averages out to roughly one second saved per minute using the board. Speed is slightly more desirable than Boost, but this is a reasonable estimate when deciding whether it's worth risking the RNG to open the shop during your run.

It's not worth even looking at the shop's offering of boards until a character is level 3-4+, as any board below that will be strictly worse than your default board. Even then it may be time wasted if a substantial improvement isn't found. The type of event you attempt to purchase a board at affects the types of boards you'll see for sale. Trick It events lean towards Trick boards, Race It events lean towards Speed boards, Survive It events lean toward All-around boards, and Boost boards appear evenly throughout all events. This means if you have a choice, buying a board at a Race It event has the best chance of giving you a board worth buying, but you can get lucky with a board anywhere at any time as long as your character level is at least 3-4.

In practice, you stand to save the most time by buying new boards for all three characters who specialize in the Trick stat (Kaori, Mac, and Ty) as well as Zoe for the sheer length she will use the upgraded board. This is because characters' signature boards each have stats that broadly follow the bonuses of the specific character. Since Kaori, Mac, and Ty all have the majority of their character bonuses in Tricks, their boards are likewise the most lacking in Speed and Boost stat. Mac in particular has only Trick bonus and none in Speed or Boost; however he also has the least total time in the run after reaching Level 4 of all the mentioned characters, so he can still be a gamble. Kaori, Ty, and Zoe all have long overall appearance time in the run, and are almost always worth buying for.

You may still find a board that is an overall time-save with the remaining five characters, but since they already have reasonable Speed and Boost to begin with it's riskier to go looking for a board that saves more than the time spent opening the shop.

Suits
It's usually not worth looking at suits, but they can offer benefits like increased boost or lengthened tricky time. Buy them if you find them, but they usually don't offer anything but cosmetic differences until character levels higher than you'll find most of the cast at when you finish your run. Usually better not to spend time looking at suits.

Special Equipment

Ice Axes
Despite what it might look like, turning with the aid of an ice axe does not slow you any more than turning without one would. Feel free to make use of them wherever needed in a run (Siberia).

Wingsuits
For the most part this is the only piece of special equipment you can argue you could get for every single character. You can start buying them from stores as soon as you finish Patagonia, so theoretically you can have access to them for every region except the Rockies.

Wingsuits are only as beneficial as the time they save, so it may not be necessary for every single character to purchase one (level 1 wingsuits can be like having no wingsuit at all in some cases). Research is still being done into when and where wingsuits save time over a land route, however so far there is no compelling evidence that it is worth the extra time to return to Patagonia for any character.

A wingsuit's use-meter refreshes upon touching solid ground, even if that ground isn't a normal part of the track. Abuse this to leapfrog from one outcrop to the next during skips to minimize slow "wingsuit depletion" fall times when you are fortunate enough to have one.

Headlamps
If you find yourself lost in the dark, prioritize a headlamp with high brightness and beam size (battery life should never be a problem). You shouldn't need to buy any headlamps in your run though.

All Other Equipment
The character specific special equipment should suffice for all other situations.

General Tips

Aerial Tutorial Skip

The trigger for completing the Aerial tutorial section is simply leaving the tutorial. Just pause and quit as soon as you see the HUD load in to skip it.

Ground Tutorial

The ability to gain boost isn't activated until you come to the second set of rails (even though this isn't the location where they tell you how to use boost). Don't bother doing anything but staying low and fast until then.

The ground tutorial is unique in that it's the only stage where Tricky never expires once obtained. Get it as soon as possible and do nothing but boost until the finish.

Goal Lines

The goal line is more accurately an enormous goal area that stretches far to the left and right of the visual line of flares, and and incredibly high distance above it (to accommodate wingsuit finishes). There are therefore goal lines in the game that are quicker to cross quite far to the left or right of the intended finish, or quite high above. Note though, that your character will still attempt to fall to the ground for a second or two before letting you proceed to the victory screen if you finish extremely high up, so it can be worthwhile to dive to the ground first if you're not that high in the air.

You are also allowed to cross a goal line while voiding out from leaving the bounds of the level as long as you do so before "Try Again" appears. This is useful for some more risky wingsuit skips in specific courses.

Wingsuit Nuances

If you fully pull up while in a depleted wingsuit you'll find you periodically go into a stall-out and plummet. However if you instead quickly tap down on the joystick you'll find you won't fully stall, and will retain significant lift control over even a fully depleted wingsuit. This can make the difference between landing on solid ground and falling into a crevasse.

Surprisingly you are allowed to re-open your wingsuit at any time after crashing with it, even after you've lost your board. This can save you from falling in a pit (or even get you across the finish line) if you find you've collided with terrain while flying but still have significant wingsuit gauge left. You'll still tumble and wipe out upon hitting the ground before getting your board back, but at least you can choose your landing.

Rewind Slowdown

If you tap the Rewind button, but do not hold it, the game slows down for about a second. This can be useful if you need a single moment of high precision at the cost of a small amount of real-time.

Skeleton/Louge Glitch

For whatever reason performing the rail grinding trick mapped to Y/Triangle while in Super Tricky noticeably lowers your speed, even while boosting. Presumably this is a minor bug, as no other grind tricks behave this way. Either way avoid using it.