Acid Cliffs ultra (and shortcut) was patched by v1.4, so there really should be different leaderboards for different versions. I do think adding those categories would be good for leaderboard purposes but there's a lot of tracks to do it with.

So I was looking through the leaderboards when I thought of a couple of questions:

1. I know Dolphin is allowed and must be stated if used. Obviously cheats and savestates during the run are not allowed, but are savestates prior to gaining control during countdown allowed in time trial runs (i.e. in the opening camera to the track)? All this would do is cut out the restart time but would make no difference during the countdown and time trial itself.

2. Is there any sort of indication as to if unintended shortcuts and ultras are allowed. As a member of the Track Breakers, we found at least 70 tracks have ultras in this pack, and I don't know if doing any of them are allowed, as some are very very easy.

Any clarification/answer would be appreciated, thanks!

Learned that Sonic may not be optimal here, I have some ideas now...

The only difference between this and 32 tracks TT's is just unlocking all of the tracks. I'm not sure this is worth a category.

One thing that seems strange to me is the definition of an ultra shortcut in this game. According to the rules, if the shortcut saves over 20 seconds, it is considered an ultra. However, the amount of track cut off doesn't seem to be a factor in deciding category.

The reason I bring this up is because 20 seconds is a different amount depending on the track. Astral Babylon is so short that lap 4 is regularly under 20 seconds.

The shortcut linked below saves about 8 seconds due to set-up time and skips well over 50% of the level but is not considered an ultra. The Crimson Crater shortcut saves about 9 seconds and skips about 17% of the track but is not considered an ultra. The Aquatic Capital Shortcut linked below saves around 11 seconds and skips about 20% of the level, but I am not sure if it is considered an ultra. All of these shortcuts are under 20 seconds.

Basically, my question is: how is an ultra truly defined? Is it by percentage of track cut off, and if so, what percentage? Is it by how much time it saves, and if so, how much time does it need to save? Would one method be better than the other?

Astral Babylon Shortcut: Crimson Crater Shortcut: Aquatic Capital Shortcut:

I've always been better at smaller cuts in this game, and I think that no ultras is such a fun category because of all of the shortcuts involved. I would love for this to happen.

Combining would result in cups ending up being very Dolphin Dasher dominant (no off-road) or very Magikruiser dominant (lots of off-road). Most would probably be Dolphin Dasher dominant because it's a lot faster on normal road, so combining might ruin the point of Magikruiser categories.

Normally I would think that adding extra categories for each specific vehicle wouldn't be a good idea, but I think Magikruiser category would be cool. It has a different niche from most of the other bikes.