It's a button that when held, registers an input on every other frame, such that you can attain the fastest possible firing rate allowed by the system. Leaderboards will ban this feature if the original system did not have this, as it allows for inhuman, TAS-like reflexes that nobody playing on legitimate hardware could possibly emulate.

Oh no XD the point I was making with an "Activating Gravity Well" category is that just like a "1000000 points" category, it's just some random task that has no bearing on the extent to which you've completed the game. Though the gravity well is the red light in the center of all the mission lights, it actually has nothing to do with missions, and is therefore simply just a side-mission. This being said, the main category is best reverted back to what it was originally (all missions).

Although, I do have two additional comments concerning the language of the rules. The 3 missions category you put up, I think, is best to be called "1 Promotion" because it is actually possible to get a promotion if you clear the "Science Mission" twice (because it lights up 9 of the 18 blue lights in the center when completed).

Additionally, I want to talk about the "All Missions" category, too. It's actually better if we rename it to "Fleet Admiral" or something, as that is the highest rank in the game (and the rules would define it as lighting up all 9 yellow lights in the center). You don't need to beat all the missions available in the game to achieve this rank. This is probably the best direction to go for a main category because even the official synopsis says, "Do you have what it takes to become a Fleet Admiral and save the Galaxy?"

The only person who's spent a lot of time on this game would be mike89, and if he hasn't made a tutorial, tough luck finding someone who has :P I will try to start learning and running this game in the next couple months, and maybe I could help you out then.

I was thinking a good misc category to add would be "1 Promotion" (lighting up an additional yellow light at the center of the table), and maybe that could even replace the 1000000 points category.

Tbh, I think score thresholds like that are maybe too arbitrary of categories, as they don't necessarily indicate any degree of progression made in the game. A similarly arbitrary category would be something like "Activate Gravity Well".

That's really all I have, let me know what you all think!

I'm aware that extra balls are awarded much more frequently and the bumpers are easier to upgrade in the Full Tilt version (there's probably others too). As far as accepting alongside the Windows version, I'm not quite sure what the mods think of that. But until then, I would just go ahead and submit whatever you've got, and the categories can always be adjusted at a later date if a problem arises.

Personally, not a fan of that 8 or 9 phase or points categories. Although, the 10 phase category was featured in a Best of NES: Big 20 race, and because of that 10 phase probably has more sense still being there than the others do. Something like... I guess slightly more sensible to add would be beating the first bonus stage (stage 3), kinda like what the galaga leaderboard has (although tbh that leaderboard is pretty disorganized as is).

18 and 23 phases are where the game loops, so they're really the only "full-game" categories that make sense to have. Every other point is just arbitrary and should go under misc. I could see it happening already, but this isn't worth having another gigantic pointless argument about, guys.

Well we do know that for the Genesis/SNES versions, there could be categories added for completing Puzzle mode, and after clearing 999 levels in normal mode (at that point there is an ending to the game). In the Namco Anthology 2 version, when clearing 999 levels in any of the default modes, the game will end and tell you how to unlock "Godhand" mode, and only if you beat Godhand will the credits play for that version. So there's a couple categories that can be added in the future.

Before we knew all this information we just established a "High Score" category, which is a speedrun to the highest default score in the game (it's 100,000 points for both SNES/Gens and Namco Anthology 2), so that's what your time of 1:26 is for.

If you'd like we could go ahead and add those other aforementioned categories, and probably make highscore a miscellaneous category.

If you guys end up adding extra categories, you might want to structure the board differently to eliminate some clutter with the tabs (as the multiple rows of tabs already makes it look a bit cluttered) for example, adding Genesis and the different Arcade platforms would be main tabs, and the courses subcategories. Just a suggestion, would make it look pretty nice! :)

It may be possible to use paper airplanes in a manner which the TAS does, in order to inflict multiple critical hits on the second boss, although I would assume it'd be quite difficult to pull off. I know the WR loses some time there so that is a good place for some time gain.

Great! Feel free to post a progress run, and we can give you some pointers if necessary :)

Glad to hear from ya Hotsauce, can't wait to see what you can bring to the leaderboard! :)

1. That's exactly what's happening there, even though RK doesn't even carry out his lever-grabbing animation. From what I understand, RK is also able to trigger levers simply by falling on them (I don't believe there's any other levers in the game where you can do this).

2. You have to push the explosive box a slight bit to the left (the visual cue I use is aligning the rightmost board on the front box face above the leftmost metal bar on the trapdoor). Then you need to face Sketch back to the right, jump, and just before landing do a standard air attack, and you should clip through the trap door. It's not incredibly precise, but getting it down through muscle memory helps quite a bit.

Hope this helped! :D

Yeah I would like that run to be added as the 2-player WR, and I agree, it looks like it's 6:40 by about half a second.

No no Aquablake I wasn't talking about you. I was telling Spikestuff to chill out.

Hey, I noticed that under 2-player submission, there is not a box to add in an actual second player, which would certainly be a good idea to have :D

Also, the WR 2-player run on SDA supposedly gets a whopping 6:39 by Mike Uyama and Joe Stanski: http://speeddemosarchive.com/AlteredBeast.html

The reason I say "supposedly" is because I'm not exactly sure when time starts and ends, as it is not stated in the rules. Any clarification on this would be great :)

I was following this thread from the beginning, I agree 100% with what Spikestuff is saying (every current category is pretty arbitrary tbh), but dude you really need to calm down. Your patience wore thin waaaaay too quickly with these mods who don't look like they speak the best English (there were several misunderstandings throughout). The mods probably would have been more receptive if in your second post you EXPLAINED why your idea was better and didn't immediately start calling them stupid and being unnecessarily aggressive.

Something like "well, games that don't have any clearly defined ending, like this one, typically have categories that 'end' at the point where no more new game material is introduced afterwards. I feel the current categories of 10 phases for both PAL and US are too arbitrary because there's no clearly defined event that happens at phase 10 for there to warrant a category for it. Phase 18 for US and phase 23 for PAL makes more sense because this is when the respective games loop, and the best definition at where the game theoretically 'ends'." would have been better.

Only until AquaBlake asked why he had to change the categories did you actually sort of explain this, but in the most insensitive of ways. I mean, in the end you got what you wanted. I just hate to see shit go down like this when it could be so easily avoided...

I say either make the change but have the timing be consistent among all ILs, or simply don't save the game after completing a 152 IL.

I'm not too crazy about that idea, as it doesn't really add anything extra to doing the campaigns. The same exact strategies would be used as if they were done individually, so I don't really see the point.

Now, a miscellaneous category that I have been toying with the idea of adding is all galactic conquests (would be sub-categorized into the EaW and FoC conquests). The reason why I say all in one category is because some can actually be beaten in ~1 minute. Also, any rules would be allowed for them, would be cool to see which of the many options available is best for each one.

I'm actually going to change the rules to the time ending to when the screen either fades to black or returns to the main menu, because I've come to realize that there's a couple frames between collecting the last kelp seed and when the level actually ends.

Arrow keys. There's a ton more control over Freddi that way.

Correct. I just typed in those rules, as I must've forgotten to add them earlier. Also, I'm not thinking about adding a separate IL category for no junior helper, as you're already given unlimited lives when you do levels in replay mode.