Recently we have validated runs where the player uses the Self-Destruct function to mitigate Drone spawns, so it is worth going over validity of this. There are two major reasons why this is allowed:
- We allow saves and loads
- Self-Destruct is a feature of the game There are other ways that the player could purposefully die, such as dropping shields and afterburning into an asteroid or enemy ship, so banning the Self-Destruct feature doesn't solve any problem unless we ban purposeful deaths and then we would have to judge player intent any time they die. A no saves category could be a valid alternative if people want to compete in a "harder" category.
There are a few points to be aware of, though. Loads must be of mid-run saves. Ideally this means having no saves in the game folder when starting a run (will be evidenced when saving for the first time). Loading a prepared save could give advantages, like better faction relations, so is obviously not allowed. Of course, the timer must remain running while navigating to load a save. Choosing to die to load means taking on the time loss for potential time save. Possible game state manipulation is currently a grey area. We have found that not all game state variables are cleaned up when a New Game starts, and possibly on Loads, which leads to a possibility of triggering a flag, dying and then loading to skip a segment. Currently no examples of this are known, but if one is found the best solution will probably be to make a new category for runs that are essentially 100% (currently we technically complete all the missions) and runs that can utilize any skips.
Any further input is welcome, but I think this sufficiently outlines the legality of Self-Destruct usage in runs.
My perspective on this one is: we allow the player to accidentally die and reload, or to reload after a crash. So I don't see any reason not to allow this.
As with any other reload, as long as the save was made in-run, it's fine. And in this case, the save is typically made about 3 seconds before the self-destruct, so it's easy enough to verify.
I'm not sure I see the point in an "immortal %" category. If self-destruct is banned then we'll just flip the ship around, dock, and launch again. It's slower, but not by much.
I would like to see something like "start with no save files" or "only saves created in the run can be loaded" added to the rules, because I currently see nothing rule-breaking with creating a new character, immediately loading an existing save at Perry, and killing the drone in less than 5 minutes. I don't think anyone would verify that.
I added the "only saves made during the run can be loaded" rule. That should be sufficient for now, baring a major exploit being discovered.
I think that is sufficient, doesn't matter if there are other saves in file unless we have evidence that existing saves that have not been loaded also seed variables at the start of a new game.
I have thought about seed variables (for RNG) but at this point I haven't looked into what these may be. Policing seed variables could be extremely difficult depending what they actually are and we may just straight up allow them in Any%.
And it's about time you do a sub-2 run, Sandovali. It's practically free at this point.
