I completely agree. but my english isn't that good and I didn't find better words for this.
Any recomendations?
I thought of opening a thread asking this too, they could be a bit clearer yes :D It's nice to see speedrunning happen in this game, and to be honest i had this idea too but as i don't do much of this stuff myself i didn't really get around to doing anything :D If theres anything you need help with here, i have some experience in LFS from my years of gaming :D
Maybe the category names could be clearer, as they both are very similar at the moment and it can cause a bit of an issue trying to identify which one you want to do. It could be worth using what many people use on gta speedruns, like "any%" and "legit%" or "glitchless%". maybe legit% sounds a bit better as it's a simpler word :p
I want to suggest "any%" and "legit% or glitchless%" like this:
any% - anything goes, cuts, false start "glitch" from start of the first mission to the final mission finish
legit% - no cuts (LFS has an online stat tracking system called LFSW to track hotlaps, individual combo world records etc, I want to suggest to use their hotlap validity check that is present in the hotlapping mode inside the game to judge whether a car is out of bounds or not thus invalidating the lap) and no false starts etc, finishing each mission legit from the start of first mission to last one's finish
I'd also like to point out that at the moment the categories rely on PC performance too as loading screens start to appear after demo missions but unfortunately i've no clue about how to make the timing stop during loading times. Maybe someone more experienced on the subject can see this and hopefully help, but at the moment real-time runs seem to be the only way. :p
As for the hotlap validity checking for legit%, there's no way of implementing that hotlap check for training missions but i think it can be moderated afterwards by analysing the runs as it's possible to see a lot from the cockpit view alone. I can offer my help here too as ive done several hotlaps into LFS's LFSW system, but it works very simple and it's easy to learn in the LFS' own hotlap mode, basically more than 2 wheels on grass, major collisions etc. invalidate the laps in that system.
Lots of good ideas here.
I'll start by changing the current "Glitchess" category to "Any%".
About the timing of the loading screens, you are right. I know there's a way to develop auto splitting addons for LiveSplit (I use one of these for TrackMania speedruns), but I've never developed one and I have no time for that right now as it would mean learning about the addon system, developing, testing, mantaining, etc. Maybe around summer when I finish my classes and work schedule goes back to normal, but I can't promise anything.
"Legit%" sounds interesting. This will work as a community and moderators can't decide anything by themselves, so if people want "Legit%", so be it. Looks like it would simply be "Glitchless" but adding an extra "No shortcuts" rule. You mention training doesn't have the shortcut detection system, so yeah, we'll need to moderate it manually.
I currently only thought about training categories, I prefer not to include single laps and similar because lfsworld already tracks these hotlaps and training is the only thing similar to a single player speedrunnable campaing that I found in LFS.
We still only have one moderator but I hope this changes soon, I'll look into adding at least 1 more.
There's a few shortcuts in most of the tracks that save time when cutting the course so it'd be wise to have a separate category for "cleaner" runs, but current categories look fine as is imo :p Would be really interesting to see demo runs as those missions have more variance than S1/S2 as training missions aren't really LFS' developers main concern, maybe it could become an easy to run category considering the demo content is free :p
LFS does have it's insim system that apparently could be used for such thing, i'm not really that familiar with it but all sorts of programs can be coded for LFS to read information when the process is running, so a tracker to detect time spent incar instead of the menus might not be a far-fetched idea. That could balance the boards out and it could work as a good excuse for me to start learning coding languages but i've been quite busy with my life as well so I can't pick much of extra projects yet. :D
That reminds me i could do another run on glitchless, if there's any possibility of relying on HLVC as one validation factor my run would be invalid, i cut the course in the XRG rallyx :D
I expect Demo runs to be the most popular just because it is free. I imagine it'll eventually become the category with the most run, although I personally find S1 the most fun (Because I love the FXO).
Even if we somehow made HLVC work in training and it invalidates that test, it doesn't really mattter in Glitchless category, cutting is allowed both in Glitchless and Any%.
Should I create the new "Legit%" category now? You talking about HLVC and cutting makes me believe you want that category up already haha
It's fine for me, no need to do anything extra unless theres more people that might want to have "clean" runs, currently this game section is quite empty so that could be something for the future :p After all speedrunning isn't the same as hotlapping or competition racing so cutting shouldnt be taken as harshly maybe :p
Just wanted to let you know I started developing an AutoSplitter for the game. But I don't have too much experience and I can't really make it work as I'd like to.
If anyone has ideas or more experience and would like to contribute, all the relevant info is here:
https://www.speedrun.com/streaming_recording_equipment/thread/uxx0y
Update:
AutoSplitter is up and running. I've tested it alone so I might have missed something, I'll update and adjust if any bug is found, but overall I think it works just fine.
Please feel free to use it and tell me if you find any mistake, let's get those times down now that menu and load times are ignored :)
