ThailandI do think timing should start the moment your dwarves are in the map. This is the way other games generally do it. Configuring settings pre-game is not normally included in speedruns. And including the time taken to generate the map is really strange to me; and also the reason I never felt motivated to speedrun, this because my PC takes a while to generate maps.
As for what in-game things to allow or disallow - I don't see any reason to disallow anything. Really it should be anything goes, as long as it is a fresh map, and you only stick to in-game options. I've never tried macros for instance, but if that was a legitimate feature the devs included for regular play, then by all means I think it should be permitted in speedruns too (as long as the macro was created during the run, and not beforehand, of course). Same goes for embark profiles, or anything else.
Currently there is only one full-game run on the board. (There were two others, but they don't seem to have VODs) I reckon there would be more interest in speedrunning the game if the rules weren't overly complicated, and allowed a wider range of strategies that could lead to shorter times than 8-9 hours.
I definitely think it should be RTA. No resets seems like a harsh restriction, and doesn't feel in the spirit of Any%.
Yeah, it's kinda dumb, and dev-intended cheat codes are normally not allowed in speedruns.
Yikes, the current ruleset seems a bit of a convoluted mess at the moment. This is going to discourage runners from playing.
I definitely agree with not allowing third party speed-hacks, that kind of defeats the point of speedrunning and is not really what this website is about.
Leaderboard shouldn't be ranked by LRT time if there isn't an autosplitter available. Better stick to RTA until there is one.
There is only one category, fixed at 'Normal/Default' settings with stringent requirements on the options. Considering that this takes several hours to complete, I think it would be better to simplify things and have a straightforward 'Any%' category which requires beating the campaign with whatever options the runner wishes.
I assume you are talking just about individual levels (IL)? Full game runs should be RTA, because time spent between missions matters too, and people could also just reload individual missions indefinitely until they get good IGT times displayed for each.
No. I could make one if it becomes more active in future, but I don't think we're at that stage yet.
No idea really, I guess there are some copies on Amazon.
Is there a reason for:
- All difficulty settings must be set to default
- The run must be done in a world created using Basic options.
Seems a little restrictive to me for a speedrun.
Also, wouldn't it make more sense to begin timer when actually embarking on the map? Since waiting for world generation is very hardware dependent, and at that point you haven't yet chosen whether to 'start dwarf fortress' or 'start adventure mode', etc, so technically no game has really begun.
To clarify my earlier comment, I am very much in favour of the settings being shown explicitly at the start of the video, worldgen included. My question only pertains to the timer; I'm asking why the timer itself would start before worldgen, and not when you actually launch Fortress Mode.
It just surprised me because normally in speedrunning, timer starts when you start the relevant campaign etc, not when configuring settings before starting a game.
On a slightly related note, I'm surprised to learn that timing rules start before world gen. I hadn't realised this before. Is there a reason for this? Since the buttons to choose 'Start Fortress Mode' or 'Start Adventure Mode' appear after world has been generated, so technically you haven't even initiated a 'game' as such until you have elected to start Fortress Mode.
The main issue of course being that World Gen is very hardware-dependent. For instance in Factorio and Rimworld speedrunning timing starts after map generation, the moment your colonists are actually on the map.
I had that issue too, you have to look around in profile settings to manually switch on forum notifications.
Out of interest, what precisely is the grey area, here? Is it that using such profiles obscures the choice of settings from viewers and run-verifiers? If so, I guess I agree with that. Perhaps it could be required to show the creation of the profiles and world settings etc at some point in the full video? E.g. at the start of the video you show all the setting creation, and then you can proceed to attempt Fun% say 20 times in a row, each attempt using the world and profiles you made earlier? This would exclude all the tedious setup from the actual run, which makes sense to me.
This would be similar to how it's done in Factorio speedrunning (https://www.speedrun.com/factorio?h=Any&x=ndxjper2); there you can use pre-made profiles for maps and settings etc, but you have to paste the full 'map exchange string' in your submission (a long string that stores all the info). So the run videos just start from the moment the map is loaded and the game actually starts.
Of course, that was just my interpretation, and would need the moderators to confirm. I would hope that embark profiles are fine too, because out of principle I think that any regular in-game settings should be allowed in speedrunning.
From the way it was written, I assumed 'stock' meant no mods and no file editing. So in-game settings are fine.
It seems the 'Individual levels' and 'Full game' leaderboards are set the wrong way round. 'Full game' has the individual levels as tabs, whilst 'Individual levels' has the full campaigns, lol.
I checked GBC out of curiosity, there's only quick game and custom game lol. But I guess 'quick game' still qualifies, so makes sense to leave the platform up.
Doesn't one of the side missions take 10 in-game years though? :/
And if you want them to be separated into distinct leaderboards under two tabs, you need to also tick "Use as sub-category" for the variable.
