Excellent spot! I've just tested this with some of my videos and it does work.

Regarding the 'buffer' though, from what I've seen it looks like rounding up does the job just fine. What would be the need to potentially add 1 second on top of this?

One thing that I have noticed is that if you load a game from a save state, the AI acts differently to if it was played in a single segment. Certain events won't get triggered (like a certain enemy army moving to a certain location) etc. I haven't looked too much into strategic uses for these, but it would be an argument in favour of having an outside timer.

1. There is a chance that if it thinks you've been defeated, it will end the timer. However, if the cutscene happens anyway I'd say it's unlikely. This is definitely worth a test though.

2. There are also things to take into account like lag on loading times and general frame rate drops if you want to go without the in-game timer. Many of my old runs were done on an old, weak computer, so some do contain noticeable lag (take Allies Mission 9 for example). I reckon the in-game timer is the best option we have available as it removes any sense of ambiguity.

I agree with Charlie about the times not being changed. If we aren't going to change all of them though, we should at least change the old ones back. If you need some help I can do the IL ones (It'll just be a case of copying the 'In-game time' into the 'Real time without loads' time).

As for co-op speedruns, I'm not sure if we really need them here. The runs which have been added were all 6 years ago by players who probably don't know about the website. It doesn't look like anyone has done any (or is particularly interested in) co-op speedruns for a while, so I don't think it's worth adding them.

But if we decide to put co-op times in, I think they would need to be separate categories; there isn't really enough room for a tidy way of having them alongside each difficulty in the IL sections, especially here 'http://www.speedrun.com/cncra3/individual_levels'.

I noticed that there has been some changes recently and I have a few questions.

1. Timing changes I saw that the 'Real time without loads' has been filled in on some of the old runs but not all of them. Is this a work in progress, so the others will be updated as well?

2. Co-op speedruns Some co-op speedruns have been included for some IL sections, e.g. https://www.speedrun.com/run/2ywno4py . As far as I was aware (and as I mentioned in some posts above) it was single player only. Co-op and single player times are not comparable as they work completely differently. What are we going to do about this?

If I were to create this in a 'Miscellaneous' section (separate to 'Full-game Categories' and 'Individual Levels'), how would I create it?

Is this even possible here?

I think there is a chance that it could bring more players in.

The thing that brought this up was that people didn't believe me when I said it was even possible to beat a team of 3 brutals. Speedrunning it will be a challenge that very few players will even be able to complete (unless they use a strategy like my own which is not overly difficult to pull off).

The strategy that I currently have may not be optimal but it works. At the moment I am on 5:34 but there is plenty of room for improvement.

I have come up with an idea for a 'miscellaneous' category in which a single player has to beat 3 brutal AI opponents on the same team as fast as possible.

The rules are as follows:

1. You must play on the last official patch (1.12)
2. You can play on any official map.
3. You can choose the AI opponents
4. You can play as any faction
5. You must select 10000 starting credits with bonus crates disabled
6. Time is taken from the end-game summary
7. All opponents must be on the same team
8. All opponents must be set to brutal difficulty

Feel free to share your thoughts on this. Would you like to see this category created?

Well I did manage to skip the final cutscene in Soviets 2 by dying as I was victorious whilst doing a co-op speedrun with c9q9md. No matter how much I tried to do it again though, I couldn't manage it (it could well be frame perfect). Maybe a setup leading up to a final command could make this consistent, but I don't think it will really be viable because it would most likely lead to you being defeated 99% of the time, thus sacrificing a potential good run.

CnCbug has found a new glitch which allows you to skip any cutscene where an image appears in place of the mini map (maybe full screen ones too, I will test it out when I get time, or someone else can if they like)

The way this is done is by deleting the 'Movies' folder from the game's data. It will search for a file but as there is nothing at the required location it will skip the cutscene altogether, except camera pans.

An example can be found here:

My question is, as this does involve modifying the game before starting the speedrun, should it be allowed? If so, should it be any% or its own category?

So we can fill in some of the times on the IL leaderboards, I think everyone should post all of their best IL times that they have got in full campaign speedruns. They will be exactly the same as the IL category so their times will count.

Post the full video with a time in the description of when the level starts.

@crazycharlieh and Cipher3333 etc

One thing I have noticed, the hard test time that was uploaded shows up on the main speedrun.com page but none of my IL times show up there. Is there any reason why?

Btw, I do have a couple more IL times but my upload speed is shocking so I will have to plan time to upload them.

If possible, we should pin a set of rules at the top of the forum or on the main leaderboard screen so people don't have to search through this.

Some thoughts:

Full campaign any% single player:

1. Timer starts on 1st mission start and ends on the final victorious screen.
2. All glitches are allowed.
3. Single segment.
4. Must play with the AI as your co-commander

IL any% single player:

1. Real time and in-game time are the same, taken from the end game summary.
2. All glitches allowed.
3. Single segment.
4. Must play with the AI as your co-commander

If you feel like there is anything else to add, please feel free to input.

"Add rules to Individual Levels leaderboard " From what I can think of, these should not vary.

"Yeah all full runs will be calculated in real time.

Cornford, if you could go ahead and add the list a made a couple of posts ago, Michael can fill that out with his times."

+1.

Also I just got a new record that I would like to post

"On the 'Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire' board each category has drop downs for difficulty and RTA/IGT"

I think a drop down for difficulty is a good idea. I would be for giving it a test run to see how it gets on. What do the rest of you think?

This would leave the following categories: Easy (Maybe medium) Hard IL

One thing we haven't discussed is co-op campaign, that could be in another drop down.

"That just sounds awful man, I gotta tell you. You seem pissed off that people aren't at your level. Well no, we're not. Not even close. And we may never be. So there. "

No, I don't believe this one bit. When I started playing I wasn't a very good player, but practice and watching good players helped me improve a lot. One huge advantage that you will all have is that I have already created strategies for a lot of these missions, you will just have to learn them. They will probably be difficult first time if you go on hard, you may need some practice (I do as well) to pull them off but once you get the hang of it you will be able to get very consistent. You also have other speedrunners with which you can share hints and tips.

I have seen some major improvements for players online that are determined to get better. If you are committed to speedrunning then the same will happen to you.

"Regardless, if we do want to give the community the shot in the arm that it needs, we'll need to start looking for new players somewhere, anywhere. Michael, you're more in with the community at large than any of us are, have you got any ideas?"

There are a number of things you can do:

1. Post your stream here: http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=914763 and ask to have your stream put on the front page. Then whenever you go live it will display on the front page on the right here: http://www.gamereplays.org/redalert3/.

2. Whenever you get a good run (WR/PB or something you are proud of) post it in the videos section here : http://www.gamereplays.org/redalert3/videos.php?game=6 with a link to the leaderboard in the description and any twitch/youtube etc channels you have.

3. When you stream, go online on RA3 and post in the chat that you are streaming a campaign speedrun. Don't spam, it will just annoy people. (NOTE: The main servers have been taken down by Gamespy but Revora have created a solution for which you will have to download the client: http://cnc-online.net/)

These will raise awareness of the speedrunning community and hopefully get more people involved. Speedrunning on easy will show that it doesn't require a steep learning curve to play, and hard will provide a challenge for more veteran players. Playing on hard will attract more viewers (which is our objective), but if you want to start off on easy it will be helpful as well.

Thoughts? Additional ideas?

"As far as it is at the moment I do understand that Easy, Medium and Hard can be viewed as different runs/categories since the strategies are different but from what I understand the secondary and primary missions objects remain the same?"

Different difficulties do sometimes have different objectives though. For example, Stalingrad and Odessa need all transports alive at the end while also there are more units attacking them. On the lower difficulties it would be possible to win even if you do lose some even though there are less units attacking them.

One thing I don't want is to have my times up on hard and no one to even challenge me for the top spot. The main reason people have been giving for not getting into speedrunning before is that they wouldn't have a chance of competing with my times. Having a bit of competition for my times was really the main reason I am even contemplating this tbh.

"If on a harder difficulty all that is changed is hit point values/ammo drops/AI difficulty or something similar which does not add content then I would suggest that it is a not different category despite the fact that it may require a different strategy and set of skills, the objectives and outcomes of the run are still the same. "

This is not actually correct. There are more enemies, defenses, attacks, shorter timers on triggers etc on harder difficulties. These do make a huge difference on strategies. I haven't played easy but I have watched some of the runs posted and this is where I've made the comparisons. Watch mine and their videos side by side and you will see what I mean.

These are linked: "I think one short term solution for the moment is to add the difficulty of the run on to the leaderboard but I don't think it invalidates the existing Easy or Hard difficulty runs."

"Anyway, there is no reason easy, medium and hard runs can't all co-exist peacefully, though there is the risk that there will become simply far too many catagories. Hard IL's, easy IL's, easy full runs, Hard fully runs and so on. "

Do you mean that you would combine different difficulty runs in the same list? I don't like the idea because, referring to my first point, they aren't comparable.

On the other hand, I do also feel like an individual category for each difficulty per level is pushing it a bit too much. An easy way to filter this would be to only have easy and hard but there would still be a lot.

"Imagine this. A novice player decides that they want to speedrun RA3. They won't be able to even beat hard difficulty, let alone be able to speedrun it. "

The thing about the campaign is, after running it over and over again, patterns emerge. Once you've noticed these you can get consistent in what previously seemed an impossible task (it's just like speedrunning any other game). Some good examples of patterns I've found:

-Geneva, triggered chronosphered units are always in the same location so you can place a unit where it would spawn and instantly kill it.

• Gibraltar, there are a lot of units at the start and initially ran past them to complete it as fast as possible. Then I found that most of the time as soon as my mcv spawned there were too many units to cope with. I started looking at unit locations and what triggers them to move around and found a consistent path (watch the video on my youtube) which is not even difficult to execute.
• Mount Rushmore, the video shows it all, very few commands and very difficult to fail.

I could explain these in more depth but this post would be way too long, that can come later...

On top of that I have already created strong strategies for almost every mission and I could create guides or a hints and tips section to help even novice speedrunners master the levels.

Paraphrasing, but basically what I'm saying is that everyone else until now has speedran the game in the way we do it and it seems to work fine. The earliest runs we have go back to over 2 years ago.

It is nice to see you both starting to speedrun, but don't you think it would be a better idea to join the already made community instead of starting a niche for those that want do play it on easy?

The aim of the speedrun is what the community agree the aim should be, be it easy or hard. Even like I explained in the GR thread, MiningKid, someone completely seperate to gamereplays also ran the game in the exact same way we do, individual levels on hard.

It looks like all of you here have not been speedrunning RA3 for long, so it would be a shame to see you go off into your own small community.

My advice would be to watch my videos to get some hints and tips and then start running on hard. I will be available if you have any questions, just send me a message on gamereplays.org.

Hi. As you may have already seen, I have responded to the post made on gamereplays here: http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=961236&st=0&gopid=9766819&#entry9766819.

Rules we play by:

1. Glitches are allowed (Although I have found only 1 use for them in an optimal run which h I haven't actually timed yet - Allies mission 1)
2. Must be completed on Hard difficulty.
3. Single segment.
4. The time achieved is the time displayed on the end game summary

If I've missed any out I'll post an updated list.

NOTE: I won't run this unless it is on hard btw.