You probably haven’t heard of throw-running before, which means you’re likely using your keyboard to move your character. Not only are you losing a fraction of a second every time you turn a corner, you’re also making combat way more difficult than it needs to be – especially when you can’t inflict harm, whether due to armor or shields, or due to the rules of the daily challenge.
Table of Contents
Throw-Running? What?
Throw-Running is when you are running while the throw menu is open. While on board a ship, you can open the throw menu by pressing the throw key, default is T. Normally, you use this menu to throw equipped weapons using the primary/secondary fire buttons like melee weapons to hurt people, or other objects to create distractions. This is a pretty useful feature, but not the purpose of the guide – we’re going to be doing something different with the throw menu. We’re going to run. But how? The movement keys just cancel the throw menu.
Auto-Running: The Objectively Correct Way to Run
While the game is unpaused, you can use the auto-run button (default is middle mouse click) to automatically path to the location of your cursor using the shortest route. Why do I say this is the objectively correct way to run? Because unlike using your movement buttons, your character instantly redirects their momentum to maintain top speed while turning around corners. It also calculates the perfect line to minimise distance travelled.
There’s a pretty big glaring flaw with auto-running though; it’s really hard to quickly switch between middle clicking ground and left/right clicking people to do combat. It’s a total mess of a control scheme, and even in combat slo-mo it’s a real challenge to wrangle when compared to the keyboard move + mouse combat. Your cursor needs to be in at least 2 different places at once! If you could just set up auto-run while the game was paused, you could have the best of both worlds, unfortunately, that just doesn’t work… unless
Throw Menu + Auto-Running = Throw-Running
Time is frozen while the throw menu is open, but the game is not paused. What’s the difference? Well, anything that takes 0 time to occur still happens: Guards will glitch dash, turrets and trackers will fire, dead guards will dump their items on the floor, and the camera will right itself after docking or exiting the cockpit. More importantly, most of your control inputs actually work, unlike when the game is paused – that’s why your character turns to face the cursor.
So yup, it’s time to start auto-running while time is stopped! When you hit the auto-run button, your character’s legs will turn, indicating they are now running to the desired location. Time is still frozen though, so you won’t start moving just yet. Now, you could exit the throw menu by hitting the throw button, or by using the pause button (default spacebar) to return to the pause menu and again to close it, and then you would begin to run where you desire.
However, there is a better way to start moving again: remember, all your control inputs work in the throw menu. Did you know you can slow down time to combat speed by holding the slo-mo button? (Default is ALT) Did you know the same button speeds time up to combat speed when held if time was passing slower than combat speed? That’s right, you can hold slo-mo while the throw menu is open to cause time to inch forward at a slow pace, then let it go to immediately return to frozen time.
Frame by Frame Combat
Now that you know about throw-running, you’re probably always travelling around ships by auto-running in the throw menu with the slo-mo button held down. It is very difficult to make precision errors like that, and it’s extremely easy to react to complications as they come. But how can we use throw-running to enhance our combat potential?
Rather than holding the slo-mo key in the throw menu, you could tap it instead, advancing time but a few microseconds each tap. This lets you advance time “one frame” at a time. With this, you can perfectly time weapon cooldowns, juke bullets at incredibly close range, and advance just that tiny bit closer so you can finally reach a guard with your concussion hammer or swapper. Since you can freely switch without losing time between the pause menu – where you can shoot at things and use items, and the throw menu, you can advance the game state by a frame, check your firing options, then switch back and advance another frame. Tedious work if you don’t have a feel for your ranges and cooldowns, but it makes your actions incredibly precise.
Just be aware that using an item from the pause menu, or activating one of the context options like “disable turret” or “steal keycard” on the right side of the screen will unpause the game. You need to immediately hit the pause button again after doing that. Activating context options in the throw menu (using the E prompt) does not pass any time, but generally the range on that is lower than it is in the pause menu.
Slipstreams & How to Cheat with Them
You’ll quickly notice that auto-running, slo-mo, and slipstreams don’t work right together at all. Perhaps the first time you tried throw-running with a slipstream on you just ran at your normal speed and your slipstream was completely wasted for zero effect. That’s a pretty normal experience. Something is probably bugged with slipstreams + auto-run, but fortunately we can work it to our advantage.
If your slipstream didn’t work, what happened is you clicked your auto-run while you had no slipstream on, then activated your slipstream. Even if you change your destination with auto-run under these conditions, your slipstream will still be worthless and you will run at normal speed. If you are in this situation, to run at fast speed you need to stop auto-running – either hit a move key or finish running to your destination by auto-running to your feet.
To use a slipstream properly, I recommend activating while you are standing still. For example, the moment you dock with the ship. Only after activating the slipstream, should you start auto-running.
The slo-mo key will advance time at combat speed, not 1/10th speed which is standard time for slipstream – as such it is extremely fast. But you should be running extremely fast too, so it’s the same in the end. Just be careful with your frame-by-frame advancements. I don’t recommend just fully unpausing, because for some reason the game goes at normal time while you’re auto-running instead of slipstream time, so you will rocket around the ship and crash into doors because they haven’t finished opening. (Doors can open while time is frozen, but it still takes a little bit of out-of-game time to finish doing so, you’ll need slo-mo to give them the IRL time to open)
As for how to cheat? Well, just like how if you don’t stop auto-running you keep running at normal speed instead of slipstream speed, it works the other way around too. So long as you never stop auto-running, your slipstream essentially lasts forever and you will keep running at superspeed. (Your item cooldown still goes back to normal though)
Here is a list of things that will cancel your auto-run and make you slow:
- Pressing any movement key
- Reaching your auto-run destination (set a new one before you get there)
- Crashing into a door or clipping into a wall (stick to slo-mo where you can)
- Interacting using the E key (use the pause context menu on the right of the screen instead, then immediately pause again)
- Glitching (swappers, sidewinders, and both ends of a visitor will end the fast run)
- Swinging a melee weapon (throw it instead if you really must)
- Picking up a body
- Entering the cockpit
If you need to do any of the above, immediately before or after it is a good time to hit the next charge of your rechargeable slipstream.
What About The No Harm Missions, Didn’t You Mention That?
Firstly, you’re just plain faster than if you were moving manually – every moment you shave off being in the enemy presence is a godsend. Taking the shortest path to the max steal keycard range before auto-running straight back is a lot better than trying to do it manually, I can tell you that.
More importantly, you can dodge bullets by quickly shifting your auto-run to being perpendicular to the firing guard the moment they do so, wait for the bullet to pass, then continue auto-running back to your destination. Like this you can dodge bullets from guards even in the same room. Just don’t be right next to them when they fire. Shotguns require much more distance though.
Even more importantly, with frame-by-frame movement, you can weave your way through a room while ensuring the guard’s line of fire doesn’t result in them killing each other when they shoot. After all, that’s a lot more important to take care of than dodging the bullets (unless you’re frail, of course). Worst comes to worst, you can realise you messed up and run back and take the bullet yourself.
Also, if you’re good at angles, you can fine tune your position to ensure the emergency shield doesn’t kill anyone with the rebound. If you’re really good at it, you can do it against shotguns in the same room without killing anyone.
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