A recent run showcases a huge timesave from enabling the cyborg option for the Sa-Matra only:

Apparently this bug/feature has been known for a long time according to gamefaqs. Even with a very fast Sa-Matra fight it saves at least 40s, for most runs on the board probably more than 1.5min. Also one could use the cyborg for the other fights in the game to maybe get a time advantage (more on that below). I'd like to get some feedback from you guys regarding this topic how we should treat cyborg usage.

Some options for the leaderboard:

• Create a new category for any kind of Cyborg usage (resulting in e.g. Any% Cyborg & Any% no Cyborg)
• leave the runs in the Any% category but keep track of them with a variable (old runs getting Cyborg = off)
• Completely ban the cyborg usage (not a recommended option imo)

Some more information/thoughts about cyborg settings: The option is available in the ingame menu and has 3 settings, weak ("cyborg on" ingame), good ("cyborg on+" ingame) and awesome ("cyborg++" ingame). Any of these should trigger the Sa-Matra fight skip. The good and awesome cyborg accelerate combat by a lot (I might insert a showcase here). But the AI is limited in their combat abilities. I tested it on the (2x) Arilou vs (5x) Mycon fight in Beta Brahe and the (1x) Utwig fight vs the Sa-Matra guards (3x Ur-Quan & 3x Kohr-Ah). The Arilou only beat 1 Mycon each before dying. The Utwig beat 2-3 guards. A well practiced runner should not have too many troubles with these fights using only a single ship.

I could see the cyborg option appealing for new runners coming in. I know from casual streamers that ship combat is daunting at the beginning.

Even though this is a small leaderboard, I'd like to keep things orderly and deal with this now. Please share your thoughts on the topic as I'd like to involve the community in this decision.

I personally think that the option of creating a new sub-category for using Cyborg and not using Cyborg is the best option as the fights are the most interesting parts of the run for me personally, especially the Sa-Matra fight. I cannot deny that Any% should be the fastest completion without cheating, and technically Cyborg is the fastest, so I think splitting the category is the best choice as of now. I believe the default should still be no Cyborg because overall it just seems like a more interesting category and the category with many more runs as of now.

I agree with what Cads said, that Any% should always be the fastest completion without cheating. Skipping the final boss, as anticlimactic as it may be, is definitely the fastest method and is not cheating. I do understand that combat skill is an important part of the run and the viewing experience (check out this clip from my last stream :) ), so No-Cyborg being a separate category seems fair. However, this community is so small I worry that splitting the leaderboards wouldn't be a good idea. The visible variable option seems appealing, though.

On the topic of using the cyborg in normal fights too, I admit that I never really considered it in my runs until now. happycamper did the testing for the Mycon fight and seemed to conclude human piloting was necessary, but just now I did a little bit of testing on the other required fights of the run with 'cyborg++' on the ships I normally use for each fight. Here's my results:

3x Chmmr vs 5x Druuge: The Chmmr seem to be unable to win, or at least very rarely. Typically they go 1 for 1-- in one run, the first Druuge actually took out 2 Chmmrs and then 2/3rds of the 3rd's HP. Human piloting is likely 100% required for this fight.

3x Chmmr vs 10x Umgah: The AI beats the Umgah here consistently. However, if a Chmmr was lost to the Druuge fight, the AI will rarely make it through all 10 Umgah with only 2 Chmmrs, only managing to take out 7-8. Cyborg seems to be pretty useful here.

4x Utwig vx 3x Ur-Quan and 3x Kohr-Ah: The AI usually wins here, but sometimes even 4 Utwig is not enough. Considering the fact that this is the final fight in the run if you're using cyborg, I'm not sure if it's worth the risk. I also tested this fight with Chmmrs instead of Utwigs, and the Chmmrs went around 1 for 1.

Bonus: 1x Earthling vs 1x Weakened Ilwrath (tutorial): The AI usually wins here, but not always. Even so, sometimes it takes longer than just pressing manually fire twice and killing the thing. Cyborg is usable here, but doesn't really feel worth it especially when you have to turn it back off for the Mycon fight.

Ultimately, the cyborg trades player agency for speed. You may need 2-3x the amount of ships to win a fight or you risk the run just dying with no ability to play better and avoid death, so is the time spent getting the RUs (pre-endgame) and building/crewing the ship worth the time saved? I think more testing needs to be done. At some point I want to test the AI with Orz ships too, because I think we all know how strong the AI is with ranged projectile ships (Druuge, Ur-Quan, etc). If using cyborg in normal fights ends up being too much of a time-saver (currently unclear if it will) it may be necessary to split the leaderboard, idk.

When the game options allow for different game experiences, the usual answer is to separate those game options into different game categories. "Any%" usually refers to selecting the fastest options available; in this case, that would seem to be "allow the player to swap that game setting at will."

So, "no Cyborg AI" seems like a likely category to have. No Cyborg AI runs would also qualify as any% runs, of course, if the player would rather just compete at a disadvantage.

I'd say no because I had a nightmare of redoing star control 3 with lightning mode combat toggled on the whole time.

But seriously it's okay, I lean toward only doing the most interesting category personally though.

I thought 2 weeks was a fair time to wait to hear your opinions. So what I read out of your comments seems that most are fine with a subcategory for separating cyborg vs non-cyborg runs. I just implemented that moments ago calling the variable "Combat" with the sub-categories being called "cyborg" & "player".

Let me know if you have any more suggestions/feedback about the implementation.

Man I wish I knew about that bug! I would've used that first thing since the Sa-Matra fight was always a unfun slog. Cool to see new stuff is still being found for this run. Look forward to see how everyone tackles the future SC game.