Hey guys! Just a quick thread on various things:

1. So I've been informed that there is going to be a few changes to the whole speedrunning thing in the next patch, some segments are going to lose a bit of time (some temporarily, some I dunno). Here's a small snippet of some incoming changes: a. Restarting and logging off will now pop up a confirmation dialog before you can actually restart. Theoretically this would lose a bit of time during the part where you actually need to restart, although I suppose you can use the time to get the confirmation box up, wait until the update box, then restart, so this is most likely moot - but we'll see how it goes... b. HAP skip runs won't be completely phased out, but they'll be impossible for the time being, as the search skip does not seem to be in the next patch. There are however plans to add a new keyword that won't be as easily stumbled upon. Because the main mechanic that enables this speedrun is one of the most sequence-breaking things, this explains my train of thought as to why it is in a miscellaneous category as opposed to a normal category. EDIT: Though, it's come to my attention that if you have DRM-free backups of the initial version with the HAP skip, you're (for now) allowed to submit runs with that build.

2. I want to implement a few more run categories - anyone has any ideas? I'm thinking of runs where we aren't allowed sequence breaks, though I have no idea when we should allow runners to hit up the next case. Should we allow them to flag whenever, or just flag only when they get the dispatch mail? ETC

3. Definitely looking for more mods to help mod this game. Preferably looking for people that have made runs and will prioritise those over other people. Zante - noticed you stepped down as a mod, would you like to be reinstated?

I am not a speedrunner by any means, but I got it in my head to maybe give this a go, and an 'All Cases' category is what I started trying to work out before realizing that it didn't exist. Not sure if it would just mean having them all in your case log or if it would mean needing to smash the close button on (almost) all of them. Like, it's not required in the game even in its own text but im here for thematic speedrunning apparently. all i know is dylan is a pal who spots you all the coin you need for hypnocure since there's a lot of time waiting for emails elsewhere to handle other important business.

then of course there's the question of who's gonna be the first to go for a 100% archive run

Definitely some ideas there. All Cases is an interesting one that we could look into.

Some ideas on my end - we probably don't necessarily need to find every single violation of the type, just enough to be able to trigger and close the case (and maybe actually close them for completion's sake - though we gotta look into whether the Sam ones at the very end [are there even?] can be closed). Of note though is that there are some cases in chapter 2 (the free-enforcing section) which you might not hit in a standard playthrough, due to Axxelerator being available after finding 2 - there's four in total, if my memory serves.

100% Archive is going to be a daunting one, currently made more so by the fact it doesn't seem to be possible. The devs are working on it though - hopefully if things go well within the next bugfix patch. Definitely not ruling that out as a category!

As far as I know the only case that can't be closed is mindcrash, since they don't give you a CHIME law to report with. (I'm pretty sure I've tried reporting the mindcrash toggle to no effect. Claims to the contrary are welcome). Things move on pretty promptly upon solving that case anyways. Samhammering does totally go to your case log, allowing them to be closed. Hyppi even proudly reminds you that this is some janky hack when you do so. Somehow didn't even occur to me that all cases would mean hunting down the ones that aren't actually handed to you, but totally makes sense. Good variety in types of ways to quickly access each of them, too, honestly.

The Mindcrash report was something I was alerted to a few days after launch, something I initially wasn't aware of either. Reporting the "Disable Scary Mindcrash Stuff Button" under Malicious Software should work.

For speedrunning's sake I sorta recommend disabling it first, but then press the back button (or alt+enter, or backspace) so you can jump back to the page; it's inaccessible otherwise.

I wanted to submit a non Any% (No HAP Skip) category to ESA so I tried doing an All Cases run myself, current (bad) PB:

My rulings are to get through the whole game while having all cases that you can have in your "Cases" tab closed; from what I can tell this is 15 if you include the hidden ones? I'm going by reading the "hypnospace-outlaw\data\misc\casefiles.ini" file, only other ones in there are a couple of debug cases and a few hidden ones near the end of the game that IIRC are only used to trigger emails. You can of course accidentally lock yourself out of getting all the cases if you go ahead too early, but that's speedrunning for you.

I properly routed and got a good run of All Cases now:

Two points:

1. I Alt+F4 when the video starts playing just after the Mindcrash, because doing this and opening the game again is faster and still advances you to 20XX. If this is allowed it could be used in the Any% categories too.
2. Due to the fact I already used a lot of what I assume are developer oversights/sequence breaks in All Cases before 20XX, in 20XX I just used the HAP skip to play Outlaw, although I still have to wait for Sam's emails to do those cases so just means I didn't have to wait for the extra emails.

EDIT: I submitted some Any% HAP Skip/No HAP Skip runs that use the Alt+F4 skip so if that needs to be discussed it can.

I watched this the other day when Mike posted it on Twitter - watched again just now too, and I'm personally happy with the use of HAP skip in this run. The cases were all closed, and that's the main thing - not as if we need those final e-mails, ahaha. If K3W3L's happy with those points too, I'll throw the category up, 'cause I'd like to see this on the board~ If they don't get a chance in a couple days, I'll do so anyway.

As for Alt+F4, it's common speedrunning practice to skip segments in this way, or by quitting to menu, so I'd be happy if it were applied to all the other categories from here on out. Would everyone else be content with that too?

On that note, I'm still trying to consider how No Sequence Breaks would work. I imagine it to be similar to All Cases, but I'm also uncertain about how the e-mails should be taken into account for that sort of category. Would it be preferred for NSB runs to keep the Y2K Mindcrash cutscene? I was playing around with it a bit before being swamped with schoolwork, but I'll have to revisit what I was routing when I can.

Alright, finally had time to look at all this, here's my thoughts:

All Cases: Sure, that's the goal of the run category after all so I wouldn't mind HAP skip. I've thrown up a placeholder category in the meantime, most of the details are there, but there's probably still a few salient points I'm missing, so hopefully Zante can take a look over and get any missing conditions figured out.

Nice run by the way!

Alt+F4: Sure, seems reasonable, will be allowing for all run categories (unless the Mindcrash sequence is not to be skipped - see below). Have finally managed to verify the two pending runs. Sorry for the delay, again!

No Sequence Breaks: My initial thought is that these should be kept in because ideally you don't really want to skip the essence of the story and all, so you can say it's more a category of speedrunning the game while going through all the kit and caboodle. Not finalising that yet though, maybe there's other factors I'm missing.

New category seems OK, will submit my run myself. Only thing I wanted to double-double check is that there were only 15 cases, but that is all I can see in the "data\misc\casefiles.ini" file as I said above.

Only thing I'll note is currently you can only downgrade your game on Steam, itch.io's version only let's you get the current version IIRC, although I asked the devs and they said they'd look into it. The command I used in Steam's console (if you want to note it down too) was "download_depot 844590 844591 2428060794436943001" which should be the oldest Windows 64bit version which I assume would be the most common.

Details for the rules look good! I only know of the 15 cases, so I'm gonna go ahead and verify this~