Hi.

Ive been running Rolling Thunder arcade for fun since it was my favorite game as a kid back in the days.

When investigating to see what romset was used in previous runs posted here, i noticed the "ready/go" screen lock timer variations at the start of first level depending on romset and even variations between runs on one romset.

Further complicating things for run results is the level timer, as it also differs from romset to romset - the "glitchy start" romset has 180 seconds timer while the parent romset has 150 seconds. This will also have a big impact on runs, as more time is "wasted" at transition screens while the score is tallied with the time left. It will also have a huge impact on any full runs, as the 150 seconds timer for level 8 will be cutting it quite close, depending on your strategy.

Out of all the 3 arcade cabinets i saw, all had 150 seconds timer and select-able start stage so i think the parent rthunder romset in mame is the one that shipped with most "final" versions of arcade cabiners - the rest are either betas or bootlegs as far as i have researched.

Since the most stable and consistent romset is the rthunder parent romset in mame, I recomend we add this to the arcade emu run rules. ( romset rthunder with default dipswitches ).

Also we should set the run timer start and end as follows:

start - 1st stage screen is first displayed

end - level 5 end screen, when score tally with the time left ends.

Edit:

Switch and PS4 versions unfortunately use the "glitchy" start rom with 180 seconds. I doubt anyone would want to run and record footage of those versions on speedrun anyway.