Neat, I hadn't spotted that shortcut! I bet there are several in the extra 16 tracks that I haven't seen yet, since they are much more complex than the base 16. My current record was made with the slower car anyway, so it was already obsolete and waiting to be replaced.

Lake is such a weird track to include as a demo anyway, since it's not even in the main championship. It is pretty fun though.

Considering the Gog version is the de facto standard, I don't see why we should disallow parts of it. I think the point that everyone would use the same car is moot, as that is how things would end up anyway if we were able to determine which one out of the base 8 is the best.

I have a few extra controllers lying around, I will gladly send you one if you want. Can't let you just stop, now that I started playing again That's very kind of you. I'd pay you once we can start working again. It is something I'm wanting to get anyway. I've gotten back into speedrunning because of the lockdown but quickly realised I am woefully equipped, and I had to keep myself from spending money on non-essential stuff. I was actually looking around the internet shops for a gamepad around the start of April, then decided against it!

Yes, I figured out by accident how to use analog controls. Ah damn, that means I'm out of POD running until this pandemic ends and I can start having an income again. Trying to get a tidy line around corners with digital controls is very hard, especially with the Shark that slips so easily.

Also, ive seen this run (), and thought it was really neat, but Im not sure if I should allow something like that for future runs. This seems fine to me. I had actually noticed that on Beltane it was possible to go OOB by riding the walls, but never thought of doing it there.

Yeah, I was using manual gears. It helped me shave off a couple of tenths. I think I just need to get better. Unless, I was wondering, are you by chance using analog controls? I always assumed the game only had digital inputs, but it's not like I have an analog stick to try. The config doesn't specify if joystick or wheel are actually analog.

Now should it be the base 8 cars; 16? The cars that Splaysh found are from some of the extras that Ubisoft released. For some reason not all of them are included in the GOG version of POD Gold, but some are, like the Jaero. So I would say make a category for only the base 8, and one for any officially released car? Also, I dont agree with your "evidently" statement, since it is evidently not evident Yeah well, it became evident when I beat by 1.5s on the first flying lap a record I had spent 50+ laps getting.

That said, Splaysh's lap on Bank is fantastic, I can't find the last 5 tenths that I need to match it and it's driving me mad.

No, I don't think that's necessary at all. Evidently the differences were there even on the other cars, just more subtle, while it does appear that the BTH cars are a bit overpowered. Besides, now that we have the times from the old leaderboards it wouldn't make sense to restrict ourselves to cars that have no hope of beating them.

Maybe for the full game runs it would be a good idea to separate POD Gold and BTH categories, but for ILs I'd happily leave them open as they are.

Wow, I guess that proves that cars aren't just cosmetic. I tried out the Shark and it's levels above the stock ones. I only had played around with the ones in the main game, I didn't even remember there were these extra from the expansion. I knew that site with all the records existed, but I couldn't find it. I'm glad to see it's on archive.org. It's a great resource to find out the best setups for each track.

Oh well, I guess all of my records are instantly obsolete now.

I didn't think you were passive-aggressive, that's just how I type! I'm not great at conveying emotions via text and I have an unhealthy love for punctuation :D

I don't agree with your idea of what is a fast lap, but as long as the rules are clear and equal for everyone that's perfectly fine. I will make my first objective, then, to beat my irregular times so they can be replaced with proper versions.

There's one thing that I have been doing on 3LAP that I didn't explicitly say: I always start with the accelerator pressed. The timer starts when you cross the S/F line the first time, but you have free control before that. If a track starts uphill you could let yourself roll a bit backwards to get more speed, and as far as I can tell, even though I haven't actually tried, you could just turn around, drive going the wrong way for a while and then turn back, making it so even the first lap is a full flying lap. I never did it because it would mean having to setup every new run instead of restarting it instantly, but it would definitely be the way to get the fastest times possible. I was completely against it, but as I was typing this paragraph I started realising a good case for it being acceptable can be made. What do you think?

Now, about your runs, I have accepted them, BUT, for future reference, could you please do "Time Attack" in "FREE RUN" mode and "3 Laps" in the "3 LAPS" mode, just so it is easier to differentiate between them and doesn't confuse future viewers/runners?

I understand what you're saying and generally I do try to get fastest laps when going for free runs, but the thing is that sometimes fastest laps just happen when going for 3LAP runs, beating the time I had previously set, unintentionally. That is why some of my single lap records are like that. I didn't think there would be a problem seeing as that's often how it's done in games like this anyway, for example in MK64. If you check their single lap records (https://mkwrs.com/mk64/) you'll see they're all the second lap of 3LAP runs. Of course, for MK64 runners there's the technical difference that they NEED to do them that way, for the 3-mushroom strategies; I just didn't expect it to be an issue. I completely agree that getting records in free run mode would be the best way to showcase them, especially since they also contain sector time information, but how should we deal with laps that are actually faster, however still fully legitimate, but scored in a different mode? Additionally, I know that your fastest lap in Roc beats mine, but you set it in your Hard difficulty championship run. To me, that is still a legitimate record that could be trimmed from the full run and submitted.

Also, I've realized that showing the vehicle chosen and it's stats on video, while time attacking, might be really annoying, therefore, next time, while time attacking, could you please put, on your run's description, the name of your vehicle and what are it's stats? I have no idea if I could replicate your runs reliably (judging by your "3 Laps" run, I'm assuming you used Saber with 100/0/80/20/100. Could you please confirm it?). I will update the rules on "Time Attack" to reinforce this.

I'm sorry, when I was submitting I knew I had to add some additional information, but I had a brainfart and couldn't figure out what that was. Yes, I play everything with 100/0/80/20/100. I will remember to add that in the next submissions.

It's my intention to post another thread with strategies, ideas and info about things like best lines to avoid the bumps that slow you most etc., including discussion about what would be the best settings. I've seen you preferred a 50/50 split between grip and handling, but after trying it I found out I prefer having stiffer steering (Handling 20) but less oversteer (Grip 80). It might be a matter or preference, or one of the two might just be overall faster, but we don't have enough data to draw definite conclusions.

Thank you again, I started submitting some times.

I figured out that the reason some of my records hadn't been saved by the game was not because I played time attack on different difficulties, but because there's a small oversight in the game's programming: times and ghosts are saved only when you press "OK" on the screen at the end of a 3-lap run. If you instead choose "CONTINUE" to have another go, they aren't discarded, but neither saved. However, if after that you choose to restart an attempt by pressing Esc and going back to the menu, they do get discarded. It's not a huge problem for me as I had recorded everything, but I did end up with some discrepancies in the records between videos and what the game had saved. I'm glad I found out this early so I know not to repeat that mistake.

As for the cars, they are indeed only cosmetic, but I realised I don't know if the AI, which is forced to used the cars loaded, is independent of their default settings. If it weren't, it would affect the run. In my championship attempts I had one of the AI cars as a Jaero (which I believe has the fastest default settings: 100/0/80/20/100) and didn't notice it being generally the fastest, but I was also playing on Easy so the relevance may have been negligible. I am almost ready to do a proper full run on Easy so for that difficulty I will restore the 8 default ones; after that I will work on Normal and Hard difficulty trying to mix them up a bit in my early attempts, and maybe figure this out.

Thank you! I noticed you added difficulty levels, but it appears that in time attack it doesn't matter: even though it will save three different sets of records, depending on the difficulty selected, you will always drive as if you were playing on hard. For example, this is my FLAP on Beltane: It was played on easy but you can clearly see I am hitting speeds that would not be possible on that difficulty level. As such, I believe that the only way to time single laps for easy and normal would be on race mode, which isn't the best, but still possible. Could you also add the 3LAP category? I find it much more challenging, therefore interesting, because you need to pull three consistent laps in a row. I find single lap records more like something that eventually happens when trying for good 3-laps. For now I'm submitting only Veitland because I'm not that happy anymore with my previous times, since I achieved those a few days ago and I feel my skill has improved in the meantime. Edit: nevermind, I tried submitting but I can only input integer values for the seconds. There might be an extra setting in the configuration to enable decimal places. There's not much point in rounding up laptimes.

I also have a rule clarification to ask: by default cars do you mean only the base 8 initially loaded in the game, or any of the 16 that are installed in the game? Apparently the engine can only load 8 cars at the same time, so if you want more you need to swap them out. I consider all of them as "default" but I'm not sure if you do. It's not like it matters much anyway since they're just cosmetic, and what matters is the manual setup.

Are you thinking of setting up IL tables for the individual tracks? I used to run this game 7 years ago and picked it back up seeing as it's here, and to learn the tracks I'm doing time attacks. It would be fun to submit those times as well. The game has a good time attack mode, allowing for both FLAP and 3LAP times.