Don't we need to allow a restart for DLC Mission Pack runs considering runners having worse load issues?

I didn't think of that but yes that would probably be a good idea.

The number of allowed restarts might be a bit low I'd make it 10 times for full game runs and 3 times for INF AP999 segments just to be safe if there ever is another runner with worse loads issues.

Other than that everything looks good to me.

And do you have the same issue on online missions?

It does and I even think the issue is worsened when there's several players

So the loading gets slower and slower every time you proceed to the next mission. Hmm it is so complicated to solve.

While it does get worse over time it does not get noticeably worse than PS5 until you've started a good amount of missions (at-least more than the DLC mission packs in my case), in my opinion allowing restarting the game and cutting the time restarts take is the best compromise.

Perhaps It's easier to modify PlayStation times to be equivalent to 'Time without Loads'.

It certainly would be as fair as possible, however runs would take an enormous amount of work to be verified

Based on what I understand about the load time issue it is a constant and consistent degradation, so long as you're using the same computer with the same OS and settings and using the same route within the run the game will always exhibit the issue in the same way, though changing any variable might change how the issue behave to some degree leading to different runners having different need to restart the game each runner can find out at which point it's advantageous to restart the game.

Based on that I propose that quitting be done right after the savedata has been updated on the mission completed screen (which can be done through Alt-F4 on PC, the game even has a popup asking you if you really want to quit if you do that), and that the runner indicates after which mission he has restarted the game in the submission text and also probably a limit as to how often you can restart so no one decides to restart the game after every mission, this also has clear and easy points to measure the time that needs to be cut (the instant the save logo fades out and the instant the hangar menu fades in after relaunching the game)

Allowing the runner to change equipment and / or start a mission only to restart before completing it will lead to more moderation work due to having to account for very variable amount of time to cut and worse cutting points to measure how much time needs to be cut

This time you confirmed that the dialog skipping works on the PC version as well, so I think we can go without accepting the voice file deletion.

That's fair.

Load time means the time during you are waiting for a mission to start, right?

Yes

Can't we remove the time for restarting the game from the run?

That's an option, if you're fine with it then I'm fine with it.

If it's the option we're using then the only issue left is the point at which I can quit the game to restart it.

Thanks for the information, though it still wasn't working for me at first I figured out that you need to set the "Radio Audio Speaker" option to "Front LR", any other option prevents the glitch from activating altogether

For some reason PlayStation players seem to be able to skip some dialog using ingame emotes, I gave it a bunch of tries but nothing happens on the PC version for whatever reason, this is kind of a problem considering it's already a few minutes I cannot save within the first fourth of the game (and very likely much more over the course of the game), is there any more complete explanation of how this glitch is performed? so that i can check whether I'm simply missing something or the PC version simply cannot perform that glitch at all.

However PC has a trick to answer that technically, if you remove the voice banks from the game folder the game will basically act as if the dialog instantly ends, this is obviously very fast but so much so that the PlayStation cannot reasonably be put in the same category anymore (we're talking a dozen second to several minutes of time save on almost every mission ), I'd like for that to be a separate category at the very least

Another thing entirely is that due to PC having various weird issues load times progressively get longer which is resolved by restarting the game, which is obviously a time loss, I'd like to know a few things regarding what would be allowed regarding mitigating that.

First is at which point am I allowed to quit the game to restart it, can I reset as soon as the mission complete banner pops up or do I have to wait for the game to go back to the menus?

Second is whether I'm allowed to have multiple instances of the game (I'd also need to check whether this is even possible to begin with but I think it is) running at once to reduce time loss from having to reboot the game every time? and if so when am I allowed to switch from one instance to the other?

Third is whether I am allowed to modify the game to not have intro logos anymore (nothing else would be modified except the absence of logos), which results in a restart being about 4 seconds instead of 18 (considering I'm thinking I'll need to restart every12-20 missions that is a significantly lessened impact.

There's not really a generally accepted fastest language and from the little I've tried the difference is too minimal to be worth caring about

Not to mention verifying exactly how much time difference there is would be extremely difficult as the script triggers seems slightly random in duration or based on something resembling a frame rule, I guess you could extract the audio lines and manually compare them but that would still be quite an undertaking.

I get the idea behind this but deleting existing already verified runs is idiotic at best and denying more casual runners the ability to participate meaningfully isn't much better, just because someone can't get anywhere near the top doesn't mean they have nothing to bring to the game. I also get not wanting to add more mods because you don't know how trustworthy they are, however you have this nifty thing called verifiers that have very limited powers and can be easily overruled by mods / supermods, why not, instead of going with the nuclear option, have a set of verifiers that are pretty much just there to handle the "bad" runs and require approval by actual mods for runs that meet your "standards", I get not wanting to appear like your moderation standards vary depending on how fast the run is but I don't think any but the smallest leaderboard actually give the same amount of attention to top tier runs and bottom of the leaderboard runs and I don't think any runner is under the impression that they are given the same attention either.

I think I see the problem, the rules should probably clarify that you have to show you getting the "no hit" star on every level, which ideally should be done after the run (since some runs start with a fresh save or are single levels that's very easy to use as a guideline) The main issues I'm seeing right now -NG+ full game category lacks a clause to make verification simple / prevent cheating without having the runner manually show the star every level Ideally you'd start from a custom provided save that's NG+without any star and have the runner show it's like that every reset, more burden on the runner sure but still a lesser problem than any alternative. -Same rules apply to classic which doesn't feature anything like the star and as such would have to be very arbitrary However that might just be a byproduct of the leaderboard editing system having stupid limitations (if you make a variable it either applies to all or only one, so if you need the same variable in some categories it's a pain in the ass).

As for anything involving subtleties I'm fairly sure keeping it to what the game considers "no hit" (finishing the level with a full health bar regardless of anything that happened) is gonna be the preferred solution.

The rules are the way they are because -games tracks ending a level with full health on it's own -manually tracking that makes the moderation workload far greater -due to some perks defining an arbitrary 'no-hit" beyond what the game define as no hit is a lot of work in itself -The more complex those arbitrary rules become the worse the workload will be -anything beyond the current definition is just a very frustrating run that almost no one is gonna touch, having an empty category is pointless

You can submit it under singleplayer for now and I'll take care of creating the new category and editing the run to put it there.

Hi, I'm a bit late to the party,

I had known the PC version can do this kind of things on occasion, as well as the console version in some more specific and rare cases (mostly just zeroed out timer)., and it can also happen to the final timer. That's part of why I chose to go with having to show IGT every single level, to gauge how often it happens, to gauge what kind of errors can happen and to prevent having to deny a run because I can't tell what time it actually got (the final timer just adds every single end of level time together).

I would prefer keeping IGT because it remains mostly fair across platforms and the board isn't big enough to really justify separating platforms right now. One compromise that would still keep the benefits of IGT without risk of inaccuracy would be manually removing loads, it's more work for the mods so I'd have to ask the other how they feel about it (it doesn't bother me too much personally since I've already done it several time to check for potential IGT errors and it doesn't take much more than a couple minutes per run with the right tools), the one big issue is that all current runs would have to be re-timed and that's a somewhat bigger amount of work (I don't see any good justification for simply deprecating the board and starting fresh as one can apply the manual re-timing process to any actual run). Switching to RTA and keeping every platform on one board is another option but it is definitely unfair to a degree, as PC basically gives you a free 20 second advantage (maybe more) and the PS1 version is an automatic loss of several minutes and the top end of the leaderboard is definitely in a place where the former is a big deal.

I would guess Neutron Blast allows you to either kill projectiles that aren't normally destructible or maybe cause more damage to special aliens / bosses.

Unless the rules states that you need only the game audio there's no reason for the mods to reject your runs if they have extra audio.

However I wouldn't advise you to have anything that can be heard / seen in the uploaded run, shows / movies / music / podcasts / random videos might get you a copyright strike (potentially a community guideline / ToS strike as well if it's questionable enough) and potentially might get your run invalidated as well (muted segments / removed videos / game audio being covered by the other thing you're listening to). You should instead make a virtual audio cable setup so that only you can listen to that secondary audio, if you're very lazy a phone, tablet, secondary computer or whatever else on the side works too as long as it's not loud enough to be picked up by a microphone if you do use one.

Edit: Here's an example of why you only want your game audio on a run upload Notice how it's not on the boards despite it being submitted? https://www.speedrun.com/acecombat3

Pretty much what the title says, while trying to route a specific level in a game I run (in short have to destroy 10 targets spread across a large area, no obstacle and no required order) and recalling some Trackmania video talking about it I realized that what would save me a lot of testing and headaches would be a way to bruteforce one of those problems, and since I'm likely not the first one to encounter such a problem I figured someone around here would have encountered a similar issue and would have a solution and / or maybe inspire someone to make a tool for such cases. Even better would be a solver that allows me to pretty much just feed it the map and spit me the shortest path.

tl;dr how2bruteforce traveling salesman problems for dummies

Both are very good for different reasons.

Depends on many things, but unless it's provably behaving different from a legit version as far as speedrunning goes I don't see why anyone should care.

Filled it, seemed to touch on some stuff I don't usually see mentioned, interested to see what comes out of it.

Because IGT isn't necessarily consistent, rarely has good accuracy besides racing games, some don't include menus, some include loads, some actually can just straight up overflow / underflow / bug out, weird rare cases of IGT not going at the same speed depending on configuration and potential for manipulation The pause buffer abuse issue is also a concern though somewhat lesser

Some more recent games using disguised load screen in gameplay will also still cause the runs to give an unfair advantage to people with fast loads.