(Reposting here from Discord for visibility) Hello everyone,
We will be making a change to the way we do the timing for all Unrailed! speedrun categories. The new timing will be the moment you see the gameplay screen(first frame after the map generation screen). The end timing will remain the same(placement of last rail). This allows for the reset button to be used in certain categories where it was previously disallowed due to timing differences. This change also mitigates some minor timing differences that could happen due to the platform being played on or personal device performance.
For all already submitted runs, including both current leaderboard runs and submitted but unverified runs, the mods will be doing the retiming ourselves. For un-submitted runs, if it’s already recorded we would appreciate if you could check the timing according to this new rule and write it in a comment as it would speed up the process. For any other runs please start using this new timing.
The process of retiming every run may take a long time so we would appreciate your patience in getting this done. If you really need a specific run verified you can DM me(deyskil#1940) on discord or any other mod. If you have any other questions, also feel free to ping me on discord.
Thanks, Unrailed Modding Team
There's two main reasons. One reason is to keep timing consistent between categories, since Endless doesn't have an in-game timer.
The other reason is that the in-game timer is based on when the front end of your train reaches the station, not when you finish meaningful inputs(putting rails down). This also makes it so the in-game timer is based partially on how you set up your rails, since the train will take more time on curves even if the distance is the same or even less, so it's preferable that we have the current timing system to prevent that. One other possible thing is if two times have the same second value we can check which one is actually faster more easily.
Of course, this is all arbitrary regardless so if enough people preferred in-game timer we could change it to that, but for now this seems good.