Level/Speed Boost

The Level Boost, also called Speed Boost (and possibly Fast Boost or Flat Boost?) is a flying technique where one doesn't put the camera all the way to the ground during the dive, but rather levels it to a certain degree to increase speed or distance, but also height when done efficiently.

How to do it?
Difficulty:

While diving, angle the camera not fully to the ground but slightly more toward the horizon. It might be useful to give the camera a strong first input to the ground (until you start diving) and then level it out more horizontally ; especially when not used to getting the perfect camera angle straight away. This way you will always initiate the dive quickly and will see better if you flatten the camera too much for the rest of the dive (when the wayfarer isn't diving anymore for example).

You can then boost the same way as when dive boosting (camera to the sky with a forward motion, or moving towards the camera while pushing it to the ground).

Upon boosting you can also level the camera instead of having it fully to the sky/to the ground, to gain more distance forward than up (If you want to reach a specific platform, try to aim just a little over it. This is better done with a camera aiming at the sky when boosting).

A seen in the graphic above, there are many camera angles possible during the dive, and not all of them can give a boost (camera angles in degrees given arbitrarily below):


 * About 0 to 13° under the horizon (yellow on the graph): with a camera angle ever so slightly under the horizon line your wayfarer won't be in a diving position but will just fall slowly. If this happens, aim the camera more to the ground until you hear some wind and see the wayfarer diving. (note hearing wind and diving doesn't always means building up momentum, see next line).
 * Around 15° under the horizon (red color on the graph): with a camera angle very slightly more toward the ground your wayfarer can get into a diving position and therefore start diving fast, but without the ability to build momentum at all (= no boost) ! This should be avoided and if it happens to you that a few times by mistake you get no boost after diving, it means you should adjust your camera angle very slightly more toward the ground when diving next time. However, under rare situations this very precise camera angle can be something speedrunners aim for because of the strong forward speed it gives. Here is a speedrun example in which the dive starts this way (for speed) after entering OOB in Sunken City, and then the dive ends with a camera aiming slightly more down (closer to 25°, at 5:29 in the video) to allow two short level boosts before touching the ground in an automatic sliding part of Sunken City where you can't dive any further anyway (nor dropshoot either).
 * Level boost (green color on the graph): from about 17° under the horizon to completely down. These are the wide leveled camera angles you can consider to get a boost afterwards. While diving with a camera fully to the ground (and then boosting) is simply called a dive boost, it is after all the exact same technique!

A common place to practice this trick is at the end of pink desert, when trying to reach the top of the carpet/War Machine factory, starting from the big hills of sand surrounding it. Because of its distance, you cannot easily reach the top with a single dive boost (especially with a shorter scarf). You can instead level the camera not fully to the ground during the dive, and empty your scarf slowly (taking your time with flaps rather than pressing "jump" continuously and ending up loosing altitude faster at the end of the dive).

You can dive all the way down pretty far, while avoiding getting too close to the floor however. Boost by moving the camera up when near the factory shadow line. Aim the camera a little over the top of the shrine platform, and you should (if done correctly) easily reach it. See video under.



Why it works?
Usually a camera aiming more to the ground during a dive gives better boosts and faster charge (but you tend to also move more slowly if done on the ground: dropshoot). And while this is very true for DS and charged boosts, it's not the case for "air" boosts since diving with a camera completely to the ground makes you loose altitude faster, and the stronger boost you may have built during this time usually won't make up for the altitude lost ! Upon comparing Dive Boost and Level Boost it is in fact better to have a camera as levelled as possible during the dive in order to gain height, without getting into the red camera angle part from the above graph. It will also allow you to travel further distances. When Flyer Boosting on the other hand, because chirping at flyers prevent you from dropping in the air, if you chirp at them continuously it is a good idea to use a Dive Boost camera angle instead for a stronger boost! (see more info on the flyer boost page)

Common Mistakes

 * Killing the boost with a bad camera angle. If you adjust your camera angle too much at a horizontal angle during the dive, it is likely you will start using your momentum instead and end up with no boost left. Try aiming the camera a little more to the ground next time.

Further Tips

 * As explained above in "why does it works ?", diving with a camera placed more horizontally is better, not only to cover more horizontal distance, but also to reach a higher altitude after the boost. This is especially true since you can also charge longer in the air before touching the ground with a leveled camera angle. However it is tough to reach the most optimal horizontal camera angle that stills allow you to get a boost after (if that's what you aim for). Pay attention to keep it enough down or you won't get a boost at all (avoid the red diving camera angle from the above graph).
 * When practicing in Broken bridge, you can free every flyers and then try to endlessly fly with a combination of various diving camera angle to aim at the flyers, chirp to recharge your scarf and then boost: see Flyer Boosting.
 * To adjust the diving camera angle better, it's often best to give it soft inputs, and try to aim better at your target (leave the right stick of a controller in a neutral position most of the time during a dive, or press it sideways if you want to make a turn).


 * In order to boost in the same direction as you are diving towards, while keeping the camera to the ground, start to move the camera to the side before the end of the diving part, and move towards the camera while finishing to turn the camera around. This needs some practice to be done smoothly. It can be useful because emptying all your boost with a camera fully to the sky will make it slow to retrieve a diving position again later (very slow camera movements when not boosting, with a controller), while keeping the camera down allows for a faster transition.

Trivia
The level boost might be the favourite diving technique from glitched speedrunners, because it allows them to move fast, while still building rather strong boosts after, and it also gives the ability to turn the dives into dropshoots upon landing.

This is especially true in Pink desert or the Underground level. You can see an example in Pink Desert here (same speedrun as linked above for the SC example).

Quotes
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