PRCLore:Rat Skip
Rat Skip is an alleged glitch in which a Rat can successfully be used to Boost Jump. Many have claimed it to be pseudoscientific in nature, likening it to the ongoing search for UFOs and cryptids, while others perpetuate the legend through repeated claims of evidence.
Etymology
Rat Skip is vaguely worded, often resulting in it being mistakenly interpreted to mean that a Rat is being skipped. In fact, Rat Skip refers to a Rat being utilized to skip another part of the game.
History
Origin
Rat Skip's origins can be traced back to Version 2 of the Oblivion 100% Completion Speedrun. During the Map Exploration split, Ben was attempting to navigate the Ayleid Ruin Wenyandawik in order to get one of the 10 required Ayleid Statues. In the second zone, which requires a tricky Boost Jump off of a bad slope along the edge of the wall, a decent amount of time was being lost due to repeatedly failing the jump. A Rat had spawned nearby and was killed during this process, which resulted in Max insisting that a Rat corpse would allow Ben to perform the jump with ease. An argument ensued about the validity of the claim, with Ben showing Max that the Rat corpse had no collision and just happened to be on top of a sloped part of the ground. Max refused to back down, going as far as to say "We call this Rat Skip." to socially pressure Ben into attempting the glitch to fulfill the implication of the gameplay commentary. "We call this Rat Skip." is a parody of Speedrunner culture's tendency to uniquely name every little optimization that gets discovered for runs, in addition to sardonically imitating the dry and awkward tone of speedrun commentary that is commonly seen at family-friendly livestream events such as Awesome Games Done Quick.
Pseudo Rat Skip
On January 23rd, 2021, MeemawHustlin discovered a new Saddle location that saved approximately four seconds in every official speedrun category for Oblivion, most notably providing one the few significant improvements to Any% in months. This new Saddle location was the stool by the fire pit in the goblin cave area of the Tutorial. When Saddling this stool save into the final sewer cell, the player is placed out of bounds near the end of the tunnel. By swimming SE and slightly downward, the player is Void Warped directly to the final sewer grate at the end of the Tutorial, skipping the entire walk to the end of the sewer. Within three hours after MeemawHustlin posted a [video https://www.twitch.tv/videos/884702527] about the new strategy, speedrunner sandyX achieved a [new world record https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHAIsKAE7MQ] in the Any% category.
MeemawHustlin quickly realized that the save file thumbnail for this stool save had a Rat corpse in it, leading him to dub the new strategy "Rat Skip" and insist that the community start calling it that as well. He excitedly reported his findings to Max, claiming to have finally solved Rat Skip. While Max was initially amused by the events that had transpired, he quickly doubled down and said "That isn't Rat Skip."
Utility
Criticism
Rat Skip is often the subject of criticism due to its lack of clear purpose. While promoters of Rat Skip argue that it could potentially be a more consistent strategy than a normal Boost Jump, no data has surfaced to back up this claim. Many say that Rat Skip in actuality would actually take longer to set up the proper Rat positioning, resulting in a net time loss. Rat Skip's most adamant detractors cite the enemy spawn RNG as the main reason to discount this strategy since it is not guaranteed that a Rat will always spawn in the room. Rat Skip's complicated and highly political history has lead many researchers to avoid investigating or verifying these timing data considerations altogether for fear of social alienation.
Alternatives
Although nothing has been confirmed, many objectors to Rat Skip have cited Saddling and the Duplication glitch as ways that Rat Skip could be obsoleted. Saddling could theoretically place the player at the exact location of the statue, but would result in the player being the "wrong" version of their character. This means that extra time would need to be spent setting up a Saddle save with the most recent version of the character prior to entering Wenyandawik. Some method of duplicating Ayleid Statues that would also allow for no longer needing to get the Wenyandawik statue at all, negating Rat Skip's original purpose.
Die hard Rat Skippers assert that the glitch is multi-purpose, possibly allowing for further Boost Jumping potential in many other problematic areas of the game.