so i found my copy of the game and i'm a bit more interested in making my tas now, as well as learn the game because of course i will need to.
In what i have done of my old tas, when i go do the sand puzzle, i get 30 coins per circles (i assumed i will need them to upgrade my vehicles asap), but when i do it on console i get 10.
anyone know why? is there something about "oh this is a good circle", is it rng or is my emulator rom bugged?
In my experience, I've always gotten the same amount of coins from the circle (which I think was 10, haven't played the game in a while), so it's probably an issue with the emulator.
About the upgrades in general: I haven't really put much thought into routing vehicle upgrades, so I get the basic race bodywork for each vehicle after finishing Dino Domain (= 75c), and I've always managed to get those 75 without ever getting coins from the sand puzzle. You could probably get one of the basic speed upgrades (50c per vehicle, I think) before finishing DD with the help of the sand puzzle, without sacrificing much time. Since you have to wait for the ice balloon to thaw out anyway (assuming you go ice balloon -> drawing balloon), you could probably do it 2 or 3 times and still catch the ice balloon before that (and doing it more wouldn't really matter much; the sacrifice would be well worth it). I'll try this out (and upgrade the car) next time I do a run.
alright so... i dont get it
i just tested doing the sand puzzle on desmume 0.9.11, and got 10 coins so i told myself "ok, must be a 0.9.9 bug" then i went and did the puzzle on 0.9.9 and got 10 coins and now in confusion i load a save state from my tas, do the puzzle manually and get 30 coins
there is something going on here
In that case I have absolutely no idea what's going on at all. I did quickly test from a new file (going there as soon as possible, not having completed Car Challenge) on the DeSmuME version I have, 0.9.9, and got 10. I'm starting to wonder if it's not actually an issue with the emulator; I'm completely unfamiliar with the TASing process, but is it possible to somehow use the inputs in your 0.9.9 TAS in 0.9.11 and see if you get 30 there? If whatever affected it can be replicated on console (not that it'll be easy to figure it out, though), I guess it'd be safe to put in a TAS, which would be pretty big (assuming you get 30 from subsequent circles as well).
With the recent discovery of new shortcuts (shoutout to Mykel), it has become clear that non-shortcut runs should have their own formal leaderboards, as none previously existed. These have now been created - due to limitations on SRC, every Plane track has a non-shortcut leaderboard, but please igno
