Out of Bounds

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By using Secret Worlds, you can leave the intended boundaries of the game. This allows for various skips and routes. Movement and Physics in "Aether" (key term for Out of Bounds) is a little different that it is for In Bounds.

Aether

Every room is contained inside of an invisible box, which is determined by the collision of the room. Inside of the box everything is just as usual, but the outside of the box is surrounded by Aether. The Aether has following properties:

  • You can not jump while inside of aether
  • You can stand in the aether and you slowly float upwards doing so
  • When morphed, you fall just like inside of the box

For any wallcrawl (movement oob) involving aether it is important to know the boundary of the box. If multiple rooms are loaded at once the boxes will intersect each other and aether will only be in the outside of the union of all boxes.

Aether Jumping

Whenever leaving ground the game still gives you a 3 frame window to jump. As this also applies when leaving aether, it can also be used to climb up any room oob by aether jumping up on any side of the box. This can also be used to jump out of the bottom of the box as soon as you pop up through slowly floating upwards in the bottom's aether.

To successfully perform an aether jump on a wall one has to exit the box and immediately jump to hit the 3 frame window. Missing the jump can cause you to fall all the way to the bottom. Because of that it's often preferred to diagonally aether jump up on the corner of the box so whenever you miss an aether jump you just land back in the aether. Knowing the rooms box and muscle memory is key to fast and successful aether jumping.

Collision

Each collision in Metroid Prime has an inside and outside. While the inside of each collision behaves just as expected the outside is a lot more sticky. Since you can't move on sticky surfaces it is prefered to move on standable spots, which are surfaces that behave just like inbounds collision. Those can be found on extended flat surfaces, edges between 2 sticky collisions, or the top of a vertical collision ( for example walls ). Knowing your standable spots is essential for wallcrawling fast.

Loading Rooms

There are many different ways to get a room loaded. Obviously when a room is not loaded it can not be entered, nor transitioned.

One way is to load the room by hitting an invisible box shaped trigger. There are also a few events, which can influence whether a room is loaded or not. When trying to load a room via load triggers it is key to know it's boundaries, which can be viewed in PWE.

There are also rooms which will load every connecting room in a set order.

The only way to manually load a room is by shooting the connecting door and getting close to it. To stand close enough it is not sufficient to stand on the door. One has to enter an area next to the door rather than above or below. One should be careful with this method as it will not dump any other rooms, which can occasionally cause a crash if too much stuff is loaded. Sometimes this can be avoided by making previous rooms invisible by opening the door connecting to it and closing it again.

When a room has finished loading it still stays invisible, but it can be tracked by different methods depending on the game:

  • In Prime, shooting against collision where the next room would be, and the shots make contact
  • In Echoes and Corruption, shooting behind the door and the shots unload immediately, then the room has loaded

Transitioning

The game always tries to keep track on which room you are or you are supposed to be as one can see on the map on the top right. This is done by docks placed on every single door in the game. The game will only load rooms which are directly connected with the room the game thinks you are shown on the map. So for any longer wallcrawl one has to make the game think you are in the right room. This process is called transitioning. Usually this is done by jumping on the according side of the door, but sometimes there are different setups have to be used especially on vertical doors.

It is important to know that rooms can behave differently when not transitioned into. Most notably the game will not reposition you when you morph next to a wall, which can be abused to obtain Infinite Speed, but also cause you to softlock on the sticky side of a wall.

Getting Back Inbounds

While you can do a lot OoB you probably want to get back inbounds some time.

Fall Through Ceiling

The simplest way to get back inbounds is by just jumping back into the room like from above for any room without a roof.

Door Warp

Another way is by letting the room load around you, so by being inside the room before it is even loaded. This is usually done by manually loading a room while waiting for it to load in the Aether behind the room. Once the room loads, touch the door to the active room so the room transitions to the loaded room.

Ceiling Warp

If the room is already loaded, but not transitioned into one can attempt a trick called the Ceiling Warp. Ceiling Warps can not be done everywhere. To perform a Ceiling Warp into a room, one has to have the map transitioned to a different room first. Then, one morphs on the top of some collision and unmorphs. In some cases, boosting can help to successfully ceiling warp into the room.

Infinite Boosting

Prime

To Infinite Boost into a room, one has to stand on some standable spot directly next to a wall and morph against it. Then, keep boosting and eventually unmorph to clip through. This might not work every time and the number of boosts required to clip through may change depending on angle and position. In many cases unmorphing is not required. It is also recommended to Infinite Boost into a room you are not transitioned into as it is significantly harder to Infinite Boost into a room you are transitioned into.

Echoes

There is a special case where one can Infinite Boost to get back inbounds in Echoes.

TODO: <info + video>

Terminal Fall Abuse

This method is only applicable in Echoes and Corruption, as Prime does not have any Terminal Fall triggers in any room. Triggering Terminal Fall respawns Samus at the default respawn point of the room. Both games behave differently when it comes to respawning.

Echoes

Every room with Terminal Fall has a default respawn point, so as long as one touches the Terminal Fall trigger, Samus will be placed back inbounds at that point.

Corruption

Unlike Echoes, rooms with Terminal Fall do not have a default respawn point. Instead, hitting Terminal Fall without touching a respawn trigger causes Samus to take damage from the Terminal Fall, and keep falling to the bottom of the Aether box. The only way to respawn back inbounds is to touch a repspawn trigger BEFORE triggering Terminal Fall. In some cases, the respawn triggers can be skipped, even while inbounds. This is known as Fall Respawn Skip.