August 1, 2026 - Leaderboard Reformatting Complete

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. It's me, ItsUnkn0wn!

I am proud to say that the leaderboard reformatting process has been completed, and all runs have been moved to their designated new category.

By default, runs were put into the No Major Glitches subcategory (when applicable) Runs in No Major Glitches are also valid in Any%, so if you would like your run to be featured there as well, don't hesitate to submit a duplicate of your run in the other category!

Have a great day!

Unfortunately, the process of transferring old runs to their new categories is taking longer than expected.

You may submit new runs in any category now, but due to the heavy workload, moderation may not verify new runs until the transfer is finished.

Runs out 785:

May 18th - 185/785 (23.6% Complete)

May 20th - 270/785 (34.4% Complete)

As of now, the leaderboard reformat is nearing completion. You may continue to see a lack of runs on the leaderboards as the transfer process is manual, and there are nearly 800 runs.

Archiving: 100% Complete

Category Creation: 100% Complete

Run Transfering: 5.1% Complete

Overall Completion: 43.06% Complete

Preface

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to you all! This is a very important announcement so I ask that you take the time to read through this thread.

In the past months, Ace Combat 7 leaderboard moderators have been working on facilitating new types of speedruns by reorganizing the SRC leaderboards.

Fellow moderator Spizzo and I have been hard at work preparing things in the background.

Category Structure

Approximately 3 months ago, a month-long vote was held to determine the structure of the reformatted leaderboards. This was a large element holding us back from reformatting the leaderboards.

With that done, Spizzo had taken up re-writing the rules. This was another major hurdle.

Rule Re-write

As of this week, the new rules have been drafted and presented to the Ace Combat speedrunning discord server. You can join that server here to get involved with this or any future changes: https://discord.com/invite/VVmuafyQHR

If no major concerns are brought up by Friday, May 15th, 2026, I will proceed with the reformatting process.

Reformatting

The current plan is as follows:

1. Archive all current categories

2. Rebuild the leaderboards from the ground up

3. Manually move all runs from archived categories to active categories.

This means that for a period of time, you will be unable to view or submit runs

This process does the following;

a. Prevent runs from being mistakenly deleted

b. Preserves current categories in an archived state

c. Prevents editing mistakes via human error.

This should take me just this weekend, from Friday May 15th to Monday May 18th, 2026. If there are any delays, I will note them within this thread.

Good morning, evening, or night, wherever you are.

As of 4pm EST today, voting on the category restructure has closed.

Summary:

Structure B won with a 55.6% v. 44.4% split

Damageless Gun Maniac has been approved with a 66.7% v. 33.3% split

You can view the full results here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E9xUFmDvAchyGIFE8LCj_uQG1n998I75HKFkjC0WSP0/edit?usp=drivesdk

For those who are unaware, on December 15th, 2025, one of the two leaderboard moderators stepped down from moderation. This, alongside the other moderator's lack of availability (we understand people have lives), prompted two Verifiers, Spizzo and I to step up.

As of February 6th, 2026, Spizzo and I have officially been promoted to Moderator on the Ace Combat 7 SRC leaderboards and have taken up the effort of reformatting the leaderboards, something that has been planned for almost a year but hasn't come to fruition. We would like to propose a set of SRC leaderboard reformats to be taken into consideration and voted upon.

Attached below is a document created by Spizzo detailing the changes we are proposing. Attached alongside the document is a Google Form that will be used for the vote. We are going to keep this vote open up until March 8th, 2026 to allow as many people to have their voice heard while moving forward at a reasonable pace.

I would like to end off this message by saying that these proposals are not exhaustive. We are always open to new ideas!

Thank you for taking the time to read this message, the document, and vote!

Proposals Document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sUTdTEsFJvoc8dqLrTz_bgqz83AxMTbn/view Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdyKllcAb05rRH8de9D1H_Zgolxk8_pG1XoYM4r_Y1ELFHk7g/viewform

This news post is here to draw attention to a temporary measure the community has decided to take in regard to “Pause Buffered Runs”. The following temporary notice has been added to the Game Rules:

“Temporary Notice: Any runs containing “pause buffering” will neither be accepted or rejected until deliberations about a potential leaderboard reorganization are complete, the outcome of those decisions will determine the validity of future pause buffered runs.”

To those that don't know, a “Pause Buffered Run” in AC7 uses constant pausing and unpausing throughout the run to take advantage of an effect pausing has on the game’s In-Game Time (IGT), resulting in mission completions with lower IGT than otherwise possible. The technique requires constant pausing and unpausing, making runs that contain it almost unwatchable. By every account so far, the technique is not fun to use, and less fun to watch. They are also probably an abuse of our leaderboards being ranked by IGT; While pause buffered runs have a technically faster IGT, they are significantly slower in Real Game Time, no longer resembling speedruns at all.

For years, there were only two runs on our leaderboards containing pause buffering, they were the 1st and 2nd place Individual Level (IL) runs for Mission 1: Charge Assault. The technique, while not against any written rules was so disliked that it never spread any further, until a few days ago. Pause buffering had pushed the Mission 1 IL past what is known to be possible without pause buffering, so the only way to compete for the Mission 1 world record was to use it. Recently a runner that had been away from the community for years returned and used pause buffering to obtain that world record; They checked the written rules for any sign that it had been banned but when they found nothing, they went for it. To be clear, they did nothing wrong, we knew the leaderboards were vulnerable to the spread of pause buffering but it was such a disliked technique that it was placed as a lower priority issue compared to other rule oversights that have needed attention because we believed no one would want to use it.

The run was verified as it did not break any written rules, but the community is now motivated to address the issue of pause buffering, along with a number of other issues. Because there are multiple issues with our current rules, as well as issues with how our leaderboards are structured in general, the community is currently working on one big wholistic solution to the remaining rule/structure oversights so we can rest easy knowing any loop holes have been patched, and then return our focus to breaking the game.

If you haven’t already joined the AC7 Speedrunning Community Discord Server (https://discord.gg/S7zApgwg), you should join so you can participate in our discussions surrounding future rule adjustments and witness new discoveries within the community as they happen. As stated towards the top of this post, any submitted runs containing pause buffering will be held in verification purgatory until we’ve agreed upon the needed rule adjustments and have implemented them; The validity of any paused buffered runs between now and then will be determined by those decisions.

Thank you.

Hey everyone.

Months ago someone in the AC7 Speedrunning Community Discord Server expressed interest in a rule change that would allow for a mid-run bathroom break. We discussed the issue as a community for a while but never arrived at a verdict. Recently a NG+ run was submitted that forced us to revisit the issue as it contained an extended break of just under 5 minutes between missions, and it’s verification would depend upon our decision regarding the proposed rule change. After a week of community debate on discord where multiple valid perspectives were raised, a compromise between those perspectives was found. On April 21st 2025, a 3 day vote was opened and the results were unanimous to adopt the change.

The proposed compromise was laid out in a document submitted to discord, here is what that document contained:

Under the current rules, mods are forced to reject any submitted run that contains an “extended pause” during a mission, or an “extended period of inactivity” between missions. The determination of whether runs contain extended pauses or inactivity is currently up to moderator discretion.

Under these rules, bathroom breaks would not be possible for certain categories as New Game runs cannot take advantage of the current method for bathroom breaks involving a period of AFK flight during missions 6,11 or 15. The community has expressed interest in a rule change that would allow for players to take a bathroom break between missions since not everyone is medically capable of going 4+ hours without one. We would also like to create a rule amendment which would no longer require the rejection of full game runs containing extended mid-mission pauses resulting from unforeseen circumstances.

During debate surrounding the proposed rule changes, the following concerns were raised:

1. We do not want to create loopholes that can be used to gain an advantage over other players.
2. We want to preserve the spirit of speedrunning by making breaks a non-competitive strategy.

So for the purpose of increasing inclusion while simultaneously maintaining the challenge and significance of performing World Records, we’ve opted to allow both between-mission inactivity and mid-mission extended pauses, but with penalty. Here are the following rule amendments:

1. Between-mission extended inactivity is now allowed within full game speedruns. It will be left to moderator discretion whether extended inactivity has occurred, but if deemed present, the entire duration of the cumulative inactivity from that between-mission section will be added to the run’s IGT as a penalty. “Between-mission section” includes the mission replay, mission results screen, next mission briefing, and hanger. Note that the game’s final cutscene (after exiting the space elevator in Mission 20) is not bound by this rule, it can be watched without penalty. Runs with more than 10 minutes of cumulative extended inactivity may be rejected at the moderator team’s discretion.

2. Extended mid-mission pauses are now allowed within full game speedruns. It is up to moderator discretion whether an extended mid-mission pause has occurred. If deemed present, the entire duration of the extended mid-mission pause/pauses from that mission will be multiplied by 2, and then added to the run’s IGT as a penalty; This results in a “double penalty”. Runs with more than 5 minutes of cumulative extended mid-mission pauses throughout the run may be rejected at the moderator team’s discretion. Note that the traditional method of taking breaks during unpaused AFK flight is not subject to penalization as the game is not paused; A break during AFK flight remains an acceptable and unpenalized strategy.

These amendments are intended to give those who could not normally perform a 4+ hour speedrun, a path to the AC7 leaderboard. Penalizing a run’s IGT (and thus its ranking) is the only way to keep extended inactivity and pauses from becoming a normal part of competitive AC7 speedruns. Runner’s are still expected to play with haste and are encouraged to not use extended inactivity or pauses unless necessary. Neither of these rule amendments apply to IL speedruns, those are still subject to rejection for the presence of extended mid-mission pauses. If your submitted run contains any extended pauses or breaks, please note where in the run they are present within the Run Description Box during submission; This will greatly increase the speed which mods can verify runs. Please reach out to the AC7 moderation team with any questions regarding AC7 Speedrunning rules.

{End of document}

The NG and NG+ Category rules have been updated to reflect the voted upon changes, please check them out as the wording has been refined (click rules, and then switch tabs to “Category”). To participate in any future votes/discussion concerning rule amendments, please join the Ace Combat Speedrunning Discord Server if you haven’t already (https://discord.gg/HRbXkrsQ). There are still important discussions about the future of AC7 speedrunning to be had in the near future.

Thanks for reading and take care.