[EN] 1. How to submit a speedrun + Different timing methods

Submitting a speedrun is easy, it only requires a few steps :

**1.** Go to https://speedrun.com/trackmania and select a TrackMania game.

**2.** Go to the **Leaderboards** and select the category you have speedrunned, then click on **Submit Run**.

**3.** A form like this should appear : 
https://i.ibb.co/BNTr019/Submission-page-Trackmania-Stadium.png

**A) Category :** Make sure it is the category you have speedrunned.

**B) Player :** Leave the box blank.

**C) You are :** Click on **Player 1**.

**D) Time without loads (RTA w/o loads, for TrackMania² games only) :** This timing method doesn't take into account loading times between tracks, fill the boxes ONLY if you used the TrackMania Load Remover whose tutorial is just below.

https://youtu.be/cnRjG95OElw

**E) Time with loads (RTA) :** The total time elapsed from the start to the end of a speedrun, including the time spent in the menu and the loading times.

**F) In-game Time (IGT) :** The sum of your finish times on all the tracks you played. It can be calculated manually with the InGame Time Calculator ( https://www.speedrun.com/tmturbo/resources ) or directly during a speedrun with the Manual Game Time component in Livesplit. **If you restart a track, don't forget to take into account the time spent driving on the track before the restart by analysing your video frame by frame in a video editing software.**

**G) Maniaplanet (for TrackMania² games only) :** the Maniaplanet version of the game at the time of your speedrun. MP4 by default. For any speedrun done before 20th May 2017, click on MP3.

**H) Platform :** PC, XB1, PS4, DS or Wii depending on the TrackMania game.

**I) Date :** Fill with the date of your speedrun.

**J) Video link :** Share the Youtube or Twitch link corresponding to the video proof of your speedrun. For Twitch links, send stream highlights and not stream broadcasts because stream broadcasts are temporary.

**K) splits i/o :** Splits.io allows you to easily share your splits times to other runners. Upload a splits file on https://splits.io and share the ID corresponding to the file (ex : **4x5i** for https://splits.io/4x5i ).

**L) Description :** Comment your speedrun, give your track times for IGT speedruns, ask questions to moderators,...

[EN] 2. Livesplit timer : Description + Settings

The most popular speedrun timer is without any doubt Livesplit, a program developed by  [wooferzfg](https://speedrun.com/wooferzfg) and [CryZe107](https://speedrun.com/CryZe).
Numerous Livesplit tutorials are available on Youtube like the one from Linkus7 (see below), these tutorials are complementary to this guide. This guide is sufficient to speedrun TrackMania games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2cfeN9xHjM

Here is how to download and how to properly setup Livesplit for any speedrun :

•**Step 1 :** Download Livesplit : http://livesplit.org/downloads .  The normal version (1.7.7 as of January 2020) will be enough.

•**Step 2 :** Download the FocusedHotkeys and the PBChance components for Livesplit : http://bit.ly/2TbAvNn .

•**Step 3 :** Extract and put the **Livesplit.FocusedHotkeys.dll** and the **PBChance.dll** files in the **Components** sub-folder**.

https://i.ibb.co/k5Sf57j/Livesplit-Folder.png

•**Step 4 :** Click on the **Livesplit.exe** file to run Livesplit. You should see on your screen a small white timer with a black background.

https://image.ibb.co/jqD3DG/Speedrun_guide_Livesplit_timer_small.png

Do a right click on the timer, the following menu should appear :

https://image.ibb.co/cBnr0w/Speedrun_guide_Livesplit_menu.png

Put your cursor over **Compare Against** and click on **Personal Best** and **Game Time**. If you want to do real time speedruns (RTA, menu and loading times included) click on **Real Time** instead.

**Livesplit settings :**

Do a right click on Livesplit's main window, then click on **Settings**, the following menu should appear :

https://i.ibb.co/dLNRcSQ/Livesplit-settings.png

**Hotkeys :** Assign keys to basic Livesplit functions. The recommanded keys are shown on the screenshot above.

•**Start/Split :** Start your speedrun or do a split. Not used on TrackMania² games when the TrackMania Autosplitter is active.

•**Reset :** Reset your timer to start another speedrun attempt.

•**Undo Split :** Cancel the previous split to go back to the previous segment.

•**Skip Split :** Go directly to the next segment by skipping a split.

•**Pause :** **Not used for TrackMania speedruns** but it might become handy for other games.

•**Switch Comparison (Previous/Next) :** Switch between live comparisons (PB, Best Segments, Average Segments, current WR, a friend's PB…). Useful if you want to compare yourself with other runners.

•**Toggle Global Hotkeys :** Activate / Deactivate Global Hotkeys (see below).

**How to remember the recommanded keyboard shortcuts :**

**1, 2, 3 and 7 :** main TrackMania cameras
**4 :** left → start of the speedrun (**Start/Split**)
**6 :** right → end of the speedrun (**Reset**)
**5 :** center → middle of the speedrun (**Pause**)
**8 :** top → go up one segment (**Undo split**)
**2 :** bottom → go down one segment (**Skip split**)
**/ and * :** "/" on the left → **previous comparison**, asterisk on the right → **next comparison**

The other settings are:

•**Global Hotkeys :** Use the Livesplit hotkeys on any program without having to click on the Livesplit timer. **Leave the box empty.** The **FocusedHotkeys** component activates Livesplit hotkeys on specific programs.

•**Double Tap Prevention :** Prevents from using the same hotkey twice in a fraction of a second. Click on the box.

•**Hotkey Delay :** Leave it at 0.

•**Simple Sum of Best Calculation :** Leave it empty, the role of this feature is unknown.

•**Warn on Reset if Better Times :** Fill the box, if you beat your best times on some segments but you have to reset your speedrun, Livesplit will ask you if you want to save these times.

•**Race Viewer :** Set it to SpeedRunsLive and read the page of the guide dedicated to SpeedRunsLive.

•**Active Comparisons :** Fill all the boxes except the "None" box, this will allow you to use some comparisons in your layout with your PB, your best/worst segments…

•**OBS Plugin :** Not needed.

[EN] 3. TrackMania Splits : Description + Settings

Livesplit uses splits file to keep track of your progress on your speedrun. RastaBobby made splits file for every speedrun category of every TrackMania game and below you'll find a complete description of some of his TrackMania splits files.
It is recommended to download these files along with other useful layout files : https://bit.ly/tmspeedruns .

To open a splits file on Livesplit, do a right click on Livesplit's main window, put your cursor over **Open Splits** and click on **From File...** then look for the splits file which corresponds to the game category you want to speedrun.

To have access to the splits settings, do a right click and click on **Edit Splits**, the following menu should appear with 3 different sub-windows.

https://i.ibb.co/GCzYTfD/Livesplits-Edit-splits-1.png
https://i.ibb.co/P1MxK4F/Livesplits-Edit-splits-2.png
https://i.ibb.co/4VdnM2Q/Livesplits-Edit-splits-3.png


•**Game Name :** The game you are speedrunning.

•**Run Category :** The category you want to speedrun.

•**Start Timer at :** Fill with the start time of the timer. **Must be 0.00 for any TrackMania game.**

•**Attempts :** Your attempts counter (unfinished attempts are included).

•**Load remover and auto splitting options are available (for TrackMania² games only) :** Watch the TrackMania Autosplitter & Load Remover tutorial here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnRjG95OElw .

•**Insert Above/Below :** Add a segment above/below the selected segment, it is used when you create your own splits files.

•**Remove Segment :** Remove the selected segment.

•**Move Up / Move Down :** Move the selected segment up or down.

•**Add Comparison :** Create a new comparison by manually adding the segment times you want to compare to.

•**Import Comparison :** Import someone's splits file to compare to his PB during your speedrun. I encourage you to directly share your splits file on https://splits.io . You'll have to right click on Livesplit, then click on **Share**, choose **Splits.io** on the pop-up window, click again on **Share** and finally paste the Splits.io link in your speedrun submission.

•**Other... :**
•**Clear History :** Clear all your past speedruns in the splits file memory. Your best segment times will be kept.
•**Clear Times :** Clear all the recorded segment times (Game Time and Real Time).
•**Clean Sum Of Best :** Delete your sum of best.


**Real Time and Game Time sub-windows (image 1/3 and 2/3)**

If you use the TrackMania Auto Splitter & Load Remover, Real Time corresponds to RTA (Real Time WITH Loads) and Game Time corresponds to RTA w/o loads (Real Time WITHOUT Loads).

There are 5 columns, both sub-windows share the same **Icon** and **Segment Name** columns:

•**Icon :** Add an image to a segment.

•**Segment Name :** Name each segment of your run. For TrackMania games, it is generally the name of the corresponding track.

•**Split Time :** Segment by segment, you'll find the split times of your Personal Best speedrun (in RTA for "Real Time", in RTA w/o loads or IGT for "Game Time")

•**Segment Time :** List of the segment times of your Personal Best (in RTA for Real Time, in RTA w/o loads or IGT for Game Time).

•**Best Segment :** Displays your best segment time for each segment (in RTA for Real Time, in RTA w/o loads or IGT for Game Time)

**Additional Info Sub-window (image 3/3)**

•**Region :** Leave blank.

•**Platform :** Fill with your platform (PC/PS4/XB1/DS/Wii depending on the game).

•**Sub-categories and other variables (Difficulty, Flags, Maniaplanet,…) :** Fill with the value that corresponds to your speedrun.

•**Submit Run :** Submit a speedrun directly from Livesplit, it sometimes doesn't work.

•**Associate with speedrun.com :** The effects of this setting are unknown.

[EN] 4. Trackmania Livesplit Layout: Description + Settings

A layout file defines the appearance of the Livesplit main window thanks to many components. Most of the components are implemented by default in Livesplit but you can find other components on the Livesplit website or elsewhere on the Internet.

RastaBobby made two TrackMania layouts (a small and a large one) for each of the three timing methods (real time, real time without loads, in-game time) :  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Yg2d4YEI0ZG5XQ3XABA9JWPawopB3TuE

Here's how his large "TM RTA w/o loads (Full)" layout looks like during a speedrun : 

https://i.ibb.co/MyzGLLP/Livesplit-layout-action.png

This guide will give you a good overview of all the Livesplit components useful for TrackMania speedruns.

To have access to the components list, right click on Livesplit's main window and click on **Edit Layout.**
You'll land on the **Layout Editor** which looks like this : 

https://i.ibb.co/stxRFp3/Livesplit-layout-editor.png

 Click on **Layout settings** to configure your components: 

https://i.ibb.co/d5cZcf0/Livesplit-layout-settings.png

We will only give you a quick description of each component and we will let you test cool things with the layout editor.

•**Title:** Displays the game name with the category and eventually a sub-category or a variable (like the Maniaplanet version here).

•**Splits:** the default component used to display the segment names, the split times, etc...

•**Subsplits:** For a TrackMania² Stadium All Flags speedrun, the 5 splits are the 5 flags : White, Green, Blue, Red and Black. The sub-splits are the splits that corresponds to the tracks, they have less importance than "big" splits in the layout display.
I used Subsplits in this layout to support all my splits files.
I added 2 columns in the subsplits settings of my layout: 
1) "+/-" : Live comparison with your PB (the comparison depends on the default comparison in the "Compare Against" setting)
2) "Time" : your splits times in terms of **real time without loads** or **in-game time.**

•**Timer:** I added 2 timers in this layout, the top one is based on **real time with loads** and the bottom timer is based on **real time without loads.**

•**Previous Segment:** Displays the time you lost/won on your previous segment, it is based on a selected comparison.

•**Possible Time Save / Total Possible Time Save:** Displays the time you can save on the current segment / on all the upcoming segments, it depends on the default comparison you chose in the "Compare Against" setting.

•**Run Prediction / Current Pace / Predicted Time / Best Possible Time / Worst Possible Time:** Displays your predicted final time depending on your current split times and on the default comparison you chose in the "Compare Against" setting.

•**Sum of Best:** Displays your best possible time based on your best times on each segment of your speedrun. After dozens of attempts, the Sum of Best will be a good indicator of  your theoretical limit time.

•**PB Chance:** Displays your live probability to beat your Personal Best, split after split. It is efficient after a few dozens of attempts.

•**Total Playtime and World Record :** Displays the time you spend speedrunning the actual category and it displays the current world record.

•**Graph :** Displays a graphic live comparison between your current run and your PB / best segments / average segments... depending once again on your default comparison.

•**Focused Hotkeys :** Enable Global Hotkeys on some specific programs to use your Livesplit hotkeys directly on these programs.

•**Hotkey Indicator :** A little bar which is red when Global Hotkeys are disables, it becomes green when Global Hotkeys are enabled.



•**Blank Space :** Visually separates the component in your layout.


**Other interesting components:**

•**Sound Effects :** Add short mp3 sounds for when you split, when you beat your PB, when you reset...

•**Detailed Timer:** The big timer is a split timer like the 2 timers I added in the "Timer" component, the small timer is however a segment timer which displays your current segment time.

•**Delta:** Displays a live comparison split after split between your current speedrun and a selected comparison (PB / Best Segments / Average segments...)

•**Scriptable autosplitter :** Use your own autosplitter with this component.

[EN] Strat Guide for StadiumA1

Warning: My investigations are no proofed science. It is very hard to analyze this game. So keep that in mind. Probabilities or explanations might be wrong or not complete. This guide just shows my current level of knowledge and expertise. If you want to share something that pushes this guide to a more complete one, please share it in the speedrun Discord. Thanks.

____________
StadiumA1
____________
Basic strat: 

Best known times are a 15"65 (by Nérédav, 31st dec 2009, and TMshock, 28th march 2020)
Link (Tmshock, video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzv3v3wa7BI
Link ( Nérédav, picture proof): https://www.video-games-records.com/#/en/trackmania-ds-game-g756/race-stadium-group-g2661/stadium-a1-chart-c46096/index

Estimated strat potential: 15“63, maybe „62

This is the basic strat that you all know. You drive over the booster, drop down, cross your fingers, try to manage the half-circle-corner, jump to the right, land, cross your fingers and drive through the finish. If you are riolu you also hope that you not fall through the ground before you finish your run :)

Since the author medal is a 16“17 here, a bit over half a second behind the best time (with this strat) you can even allow yourself to make a bad landing. And this is the key point of the track: The landings. There are TWO of them. One at the start and one at the end. When I played this track last year I got a perfect landing once around every 10th attempt. Sometimes once every 5th attempt. So let's say the probability for a perfect landing is 10-20%. But what is a perfect landing exactly? You'll know it when you have one and approach the half-circle-corner with speed that is way more than you have experienced before, and you think: „Hol up.“ Your car loses around 10-15 speed and then accelerates again.

10-20% … that ain't too bad. That is better than nothing. BUT … there is a second landing and it requires the same luck and approach. You land from a nose dive. A raw landing that mostly ends like a real car dropping from a house trying to land like a cat. You can calculate for yourself. It's bad. But if you are aiming for the author medal it's okay. You will have a solid run eventually. I think you can even have a bad landing at the end and still finish before the author medal.

But, you might want to go further than that. I have listed the rest of the strats right below. Enjoy!

PS: If you want to have it a bit easier tho, you might want to look at the booster strat since it is very easy to perform.


______________
Booster strat:

Best known times are a 15“58 (by DivisionX, 21st august 2020, and Tmshock, 5th april 2020)
Link (Tmshock, video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlcSlFTVIKI
Link (DivisionX, video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvsOdQlJ4Po&t=16s

You may have noticed that there are two boosters on this track. One is right at the start, the other one comes right after before the drop. I noticed on a self-made-track that when you take a booster in a diagonal line you accumulate more speed. I am not sure why that is, maybe it's the car weight, maybe the fact that the booster works from both sides, I don't know. But it is faster. The problem with Trackmania DS is that it is very hard to compare runs, so it is even hard to tell how diagonal or at what angle you should approach the booster or if it even makes sense to take the second booster the same way. What I can say is that the first booster-take defenitely makes you faster and it is easy to do. Where as you had below 300 speed with the basic strat you will now have slightly more than 300 speed with the basic strat when you enter the drop. DivisionX, in his run, took the second booster to accumulate more speed (the same way) although I am not sure if it is better. The reason why is because he takes a longer way and the speed you have gained is only benefiting you until you have to release for the half-circle-corner, so, only for the short road-piece. But maybe you gain 0.01, who knows :D I also saw that he lost 
One last thing for this strat: Since you have more speed from the booster you also jump further from the edge. This can result in different chances for a perfect landing, better or worse I'm not sure. If you want to have a better chance for a perfect landing though, you might want to try the next strat.


________________
Flow trick strat:

Best known time is a 15“55, current WR (by TMshock, 9th september 2020)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79FYVgIxxU0

Estimated strat potential including the previous booster strat: Sub 15“50

Hmmm, the flow trick, right? This famous stylish trick which many of us know from Trackmania Nations Forever and that we don't always know about why it is faster … Better alignment with the following road, weight transfer, earlier landing, etc. … What we know, though, is that it makes you faster and is easy to perform. You do a movement consisting of a left-right or right-left steering change, often minimalisticaly, and et voila: your car tilts down-forward. For Trackmania DS … let's say it works a little bit different. 
In Trackmania DS there are TWO differences I need to point out:

1. You can't airbrake.
2. Your car can move during air time. Only once though.

Probably, if the car had the ability to airbrake you would have it a lot easier because I feel like the blocks in this game are so terribly modelled that the down-falling of your car never alignes with the road-piece unless you get very lucky (perfect landing). To prevent that I tried multiple ways to land different, to somehow get your car in a position that fits more to the road piece. And I found something: Since you can move „once“ midair you can steer a bit to the left before you drop off so that the nose of your car shows 45° to the left while you fall. Moving to the right now during your time midair let's you perform a „countersteer“ which just means that you steer into the opposite direction: to the right. Your car will now land more towards the two left tires and a still a bit forward. I experienced that this position alignes more with the following road-block, even though it doesn't work 100% every time. Sometimes it works 50% of the time, sometimes 30% but sometimes I also get it 5 times in a row althought it's rare. So there must be something behind the position of your car in correlation with the shape of the block that you use to land. The chance to get a good landing is way higher know. There is no way of arguing around this fact.

At last (I will come to the second flow-trick in a minute) and this is not certain, you might lose less speed with the flow-trick. Although the TAS loses as much speed as I do during the landing, DivisionX in his run loses around 10 speed more. This is probably due to the alignement and TAS being perfect but I still wanted to point this out. The second flow-trick works the same, just the other way around (right-left instead of left-right) and it is a bit more blind a narrow, so a lot more difficult. But again, I am losing 10 speed less than DivisionX finishing with around 39X (X=0-9) speed and myself finishing with around 40X (X=0-9) speed. Even the TAS that is using an incredible landing on the black wall at the end doesn't have more speed than I have with the flow trick. We both finish with almost 410 speed.


_____________________
TAS strat (drifting?):

Best known time is a 15“48 (TAS by taechuK, 28th july 2020)
Link (time stamp 0:20): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr85vQM0Qas&t=29s

I don't know. Everytime I see a drift I think about Axatar's Dorifto-videos on YouTube. Drifting isn't actually so common in Trackmania DS since you have very a limited movement and angle. It also takes a bit of time to stop a drift manually. A drift, though, is performed like in any other Trackmania game (that I know xD). You lean into a corner and tap the brake button. The advantage of drifting is that you keep a more constant speed. Where as my speed goes rather up from the 280's into the 310's the TAS keeps his speed at around 300 the whole way through. It goes into the corner with around 336-337 speed, the drift slows it down to 319 and then keeps a constant 300 until it can accelerate again. I feel like this drifting is absolutely faster and I defenitely need to try this strat somewhere in the future. 

Last thing to the bonk that the TAS performes at the end by landing onto the black wall. With the flow-trick-landing I go from around 355 to high 29X speed until I accelerate. The TAS bonks with a speed of around 363 (due to more speed from the drifting) and slows down to 299 speed before accelerating. You can argue that I lost a little bit less speed and that the wall-hit is incredibly lucky and difficult to perform, so for humans not worth going for.

Estimated strat potential: 15“4x low, maybe '3x high? This TAS was done in one afternoon and as I watched it in 0.25 speed I can see room for improvement. Maybe a mix of TAS and flow-trick will be the optimal-human-strat? Who knows.

 Defenitely big shout out to taechuK for doing this TAS and pushing the game, even for one afternoon. This track has potential and now my WR of 15“55 doesn't feel so fast anymore D:

[EN] Strat Guide for StadiumA2

Warning: My investigations are no proofed science. It is very hard to analyze this game. So keep that in mind. Probabilities or explanations might be wrong or not complete. This guide just shows my current level of knowledge and expertise. If you want to share something that pushes this guide to a more complete one, please share it in the speedrun Discord. Thanks.



StadiumA2

Basic Strat:

Best known time is a 17“89 (by Tmshock, 19th sep 2019)
Link (Tmshock, video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MnCfD2zN2M

Estimated strat potential: 17.6x

The author medal is a 19“01 here. That would be around one and a half second away from the potential limit I see on this track. That is still quite a lot. But many of you might feel this track is very risky because there is happening so much, so let me reassure you there is not … actually.

At the start you drive downwards and then you fullsteer to the right to the first checkpoint. If you just want to go for the author medal I would suggest to think simple and just do that. You can even release a bit since it is only about hundreds here. Personally I like to tap once before the transition and then fullsteer the corner when I got over that ground wave. That way I get the tighest line and the perfect checkpoint. 
Maybe you have tried to save airtime at the start but that is not a good idea because the car can't align with that slope block properly. Also when you have grip and drive over a slope your car's wheels will go up and you lose speed. Jumping to the right a bit doesn't make a difference either since you are maybe gaining speed but you lose the optimal line.

The dangerous part?
______________________

I can imagine that people fear what is coming next but don't be afraid. If you see the next part from a bird's eye view it is just a big right corner to the last checkpoint. Here we leave the road by going over the transition onto the checkpoint and we enter the big slope by going over the booster. The slope can be quite buggy. The TAS is just going upwards after the checkpoint which can work, too.
A link to the video (time stamp for the specific section, 0:56): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr85vQM0Qas

I would say what TAS does here is slower than what I do but you will feel more comfortable with it. I go a bit to the right to align my car better with the slope but I also enter a strict inside line. When you got a bug-free slope you will feel a lot of speed. When you have contact/grip with the slope so your car is fully stable you just start full steering to the right. Here comes the part that might seem scary. You can go for a very inside line since the wall in the middle that you might think you will touch you can actualy go through. Not completely though. Your car can even leave the platform quite much and still stay on the ground.

If you wanna go for the author medal you can go a bit more outside and play with your gas releases. It is just important to keep your high gear. You do that by keeping your speed above 310-ish. I would just recommend to feel the high gear instead. When you have the highest gear your car will permanently accelerate and it is very hard to steer. Release as much gas that is needed without leaving this gear. For a world record run you wanna go fully inside.

The last section after the checkpoint
_______________________________________

Here is where the TAS run gets its sick time. Due to your high speed you wanna steer early and release gas. This will take a bit of time to get used to but since you have to release gas anyway because you will fly off the track with too much speed (~360-370) I wouldn't worry about it too much. Start to try the corner with low speed and then work your way up by going riskier every attempt.
If you wanna go for the medal I would play it rather safe.
If you wanna go for world record you wanna risk it as much as possible so you can have the most range ans speed. The TAS run has 10 speed more than me on the slope leading down and a better exit corner.

Name	Autor
[EN] 1. How to submit a speedrun + Different timing methods	Rastats 4 years ago
[EN] 2. Livesplit timer : Description + Settings	Rastats 4 years ago
[EN] 3. TrackMania Splits : Description + Settings	Rastats 4 years ago
[EN] 4. Trackmania Livesplit Layout: Description + Settings	Rastats 4 years ago
[EN] Strat Guide for StadiumA1	Tmshock 3 years ago
[EN] Strat Guide for StadiumA2	Tmshock 3 years ago