Hello, I have a few questions about rules for running this game as well as the possibility of adding any categories.

#1 - How should we record it? I have both a physical copy + FCEUX, but cannot easily set up a capture card in my home right now. Just curious on what method of recording would be acceptable for uploading runs?

#2 - Is there a possibility of getting a few more categories? I was thinking something along the lines of 'all historical scenarios', or 'highest war patrol rank.'

i dont know much about this but i use OBS or the videos from my twitch stream. GL on the runs!

Thanks Amune! Hope you do well on yours as well. Plan to do a few runs this weekend, and seeing as how some are emulated runs I'm gonna go with that setup for now, using OBS like you suggested. Right now, FCEUX and OBS is a lot easier for me to setup than trying to capture my NES.

Gotta say, recording has been going really well. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested, but I did just record a session where I went through the entire game, Torpedo/Target Practice, All Convoy Actions, and War Patrol Max Rank, at difficulty 9 for all. Took 1:06:42, so it is a long video, but a marathon run is totally doable.

Sank quite a few times on the Grayback scenario, and had to start the War Patrol over as well, so plenty of room to improve.

Hey, sorry for the delay.

If you want to run on console, even pointing a phone camera at the screen is good enough, as long as the video is clear enough to see the gameplay. The most common low-cost option for capturing the console output is a GV-USB2, which can take in Composite or S-Video signals.

On your posted runs done in emulator, it looks like it's in widescreen. What settings did you do for this? I tried just stretching the fceux window before starting the game and only got a black screen on the sides instead of filling in the background color. Admittedly I'm more up-to-date on the SNES emulator world than NES. But just FYI since it sounds like you're new to speedrunning, it's common practice to use the original ROM and unmodified emulators -- I know some games have "widescreen patches" that people have made for roms that non-standard emulators can display a true 16:9 picture. https://www.retrorgb.com/widescreen-169-snes-emulation.html

For other categories, I'm fairly open to suggestions; the two you posted sound good.

I didn't change any default settings on FCEUX, except that I run it borderless windowed, and I have a dual monitor setup so I can have some notes to refer to on other monitor.

If I run it fullscreen it causes issues, but I think I can change the aspect ratio to 'TV' setting, and it stretches out the center a bit so there's not so much wasted space.

Is that sort of what you mean? I do want to display videos as best as possible.

I think I figured out what you were talking about. Fixed the aspect ratio a bit, so it's more of a fullscreen view on the capture, rather than a scaled-down size. Experimented with settings in FCEUX and OBS, seems that OBS needed the screen grab altered a bit more. The extra space is still visible to me, while playing, but for viewers it crops out the extra waste.

Also, sorry if I'm a bit over-enthusiastic. Don't mean to bug anyone with excitement. Just never expected to actually be competitive in anything speedrunning, and already getting into a charity stream next weekend to run all the convoy actions in the game.

During recording sessions to fix ratio, recorded a time better than one submitted for Torp/Gun practice, but I didn't wanna get too annoying filling out way too many submissions in a short period of time.

Yep, the videos look fine, I just wanted to make sure this wasn't either a modded emulator or a modded rom.

Good luck with your runs!

Note to other runners: You can use Controller 2 to rapidly swivel the binoculars on the surface, letting you switch between targets much faster." THANK YOU!

I know I wrote it, "on the surface," but it works for periscope as well. The red flags appear on binocs if you are on surface, but once submerged becomes periscope 'knobs.' It won't change if you surface or submerge on that screen, but will change if you return from the menu screen. Not much of an effect other than appearance.

Up or Down on Controller 2 will change deck gun 'deflection.' Basically...imagine aiming up or down more, to 'lob' the shell higher or closer to surface. You can sort of see this in the graphics. If you fire a shell, and you see a 'splash' in front of your target, you need to fire a shot to go further back. If the 'splash' is behind the target, you need to aim lower.

If you hold 'B' on controller 1, and press 'A' on controller 2, you can 'blow emergency tanks' and you may resurface after taking damage. For the purposes of speedrunning, however, I doubt this maneuver is very useful. If you've taken a depth charge, you are likely to be surfacing straight into a collision anyways.

You can also hold the 'A' button on controller 2, press 'B' on controller 1, and release bilge to 'fool' destroyers. I've never actually seen this work. If you can use the periscope, you are at 44ft deep or above that. To avoid destroyer sonar, you would need to be about 300 ft below or lower, and you would likely be blind to the whole map, unless enemies are making noise. Based on needing to be 44ft or above, you are unlikely to ever dive fast enough to avoid destroyer sonar, and have this technique work.

But...maybe this info could be useful for anyone playing. This is coming straight from instruction manual, but I haven't been testing these extra maneuvers since they're not really helpful for getting done fast. During War Patrol I'd always suggest taking out escorts as fast as possible with torpedoes, then surface and use deck guns on remainder of convoy.