Hello All,

I'm new to speedrunning and have been playing a game called Dyson Sphere Program (DSP).

A few streamers have been playing around with the idea of speedrunning DSP and completing the final mission as the goal. The fastest time so far (nonsegmented) is 11:01.

I'm wondering if in a run that is 10+ hours, would pausing the game, while live, for 2-3 short breaks, over 10+ hours, to stretch and get some nutrition, result in a speedrun becoming a segmented run?

One of the streamers is adamant that this can't happen and you must go non-stop without even short breaks for the full duration.

For obvious reasons, this is defiantly not healthy.

Thanks!

Well, as long as you pause the game but the timer keeps running (meaning the time for your pause is accounted for in your final time), I don't see why it can't be accepted as a complete speedrun.

This is really a question for the specific game's community.

Personally I think it is incredibly unhealthy and shouldn't be encouraged. Communities should (in my opinion) factor in short breaks, with a short pause in the timer, for health reasons. We are here to push the limits, absolutely, but nowadays we should be aware of the detrimental effects of sitting playing a game non-stop for multiple hours.

But it is for the specific game's community to decide. At the end of the day though, you shouldn't feel forced to NOT take breaks on a personal level. Who cares what a "world record" on this website says? If you can beat the game in X amount of times, while taking breaks and looking after yourself, and your time is faster than someone else's but it won't be accepted to the leaderboards here - well, I say that is healthier than forcing yourself not to take a break just because of someone else's rule.

As a guy who played RPGs for the most time in my life, I used to play for several hours, but I feel like speedrunning is far more strenuous because 1. If you're playing casually, you're relaxed. Speedrunning sometimes can be very stressful. 2. By playing eight or more hours in one day, people generally mean they take breaks to eat, hydrate, walk... It's not, generally, something literal.

I personally believe it's very unhealthy doing very long runs like that. I too have a few games I'd like to speedrun that take very long, but I never was able to get past the 5 and a half hour mark. That's a point where my brain just gets so tired of not relaxing and drinking water/walking/going to the bathroom that the run becomes a pain honestly.

Also, to reinforce what I'm saying, I remember Zelda Breath of the Wild community allows sleep breaks for the 100% category because they recognize it can be very damaging to your health to stay so long playing without breaks.

And, of course, the type of game you're running and your comfort conditions play a huge role here. I believe more actual-oriented games are harder to speedrun for too long than just mashing text in an RPG, but I believe any game is not meant to be speedran for more than 10 hours without a break.

I'm no authority, but I think the idea of a segmented run is that you are potentially retrying parts of a game to get a better time, and you're not including the time spent on these retries. This is not the same as pausing to take a break.

If it were up to me (and it's not) I'd default to using RTA in these runs and counting the breaks. I agree it's not the healthiest thing but there is an undeniable appeal to trying to finish one of these huge marathon games in one session, and routing the game so that you can take breaks while it's running offers a strategic element in and of itself.

I would say you record the entire run, including the breaks, and the real clock time and game time (from the pause menu) can be compared.

As a potential consumer of the speedrun video, I'm most interested in the gameplay strategy that led to the fastest game time, so I don't care if you take breaks. Be healthy.

Shameless plug; I made a LiveSplit autosplitter https://github.com/cnelson711/livesplit.autosplitter.dysonsphereprogram that can keep track of segment times if you're interested in training and getting accurate times for comparing strategies. I think it's almost ready for release... still probably some bugs.

I know this thread is kinda dead, however I would like to point out that DSP does not pause the IGT when you bring up the menu via the escape key. Also, if it's recorded in one whole run, then by definition it does not count as a segmented run. The only time the IGT pauses is when you go to the main menu, or close out of the game completely. Any runner complaining that someone is taking breaks, especially in a game like DSP or Factorio, should be disqualified for encouraging unhealthy practices. I routinely play games all day long multiple days a week, and have been since I was a single digit. The key is to take a break every few hours, and to alternate standing up and sitting down. Also, I have no idea why someone would be against taking breaks in a game were you frequently come to points where you're literally waiting for the game to catch up to you (construction drones building, waiting for hand crafting, waiting for resources early on, watching things to make sure you didn't make a mistake with sorters/buildings, waiting for a research so you can continue progress). There's only so much you can do in these instances, especially if you're waiting for a research to complete early on so you can build the factory for that particular item. There's literally no reason to not be taking small breaks occasionally with this game.