Thanks sYn - I appreciate that. I had no idea how the RNG works, so your 3-frame comment is intriguing. And I did watch that TAS. That was amazing.

It would be cool to see the battlefield sections of the game involved in the run somehow. That would create so many new variables for the runs. Maybe a No Defections or Surrenders category would result in at least a few battles? :)

Hi everyone - I'm a longtime casual fan of Gemfire (SNES) and I'm super-excited to have found the runs posted on here. I've dabbled in emulated speedrunning of the game but I'm nowhere close to the times y'all have completed!

Anyhow, I just got done watching JacoboTheChocobo's (utterly insane) 7:26 any% WR. I noticed he was attempting defections with some characters that I had previously considered less likely to succeed - probably just based on my rudimentary understanding of the defection mechanics. How do you experts determine who is worth attempting to use for defections? I had looked through some old GameFAQs forum posts that were data-diving into the defection logic and it seems pretty unclear as to how defection success is calculated in the game.

I mean, my years of casual playing have taught me that Raith and Pender basically can't wait to jump ship to another team, but what factors play into something like getting Early Kelvin (shout out to the awesome Terms/Tips guide from sYn for that term I just learned)? Thanks!