Just did some quick tests. The short summary is its 8% to roll Temujin 130 skill with auto and also 8% to roll 140 skill on manual. It takes 50 extra seconds to assign all the points manually, which is the same as an early season where you Train 3 times.

So its probably not worth doing if the timer starts on "select Mongol Conquest". But definitely most of that 50 seconds saved if the timer-start changes. Then, actually way more annoying since a lot of early starts end up resetting still (no princess, bad rate, sickness, no trades)

The counter arguments I have to consider:

• if manually setting the stats is a better strategy, then it should count against your time vs the auto distribution option?

• current rule encourages just taking any decent starting roll and going with it. The added small reset time discourages over-optimizing the stats which will likely just get reset anyway early.

i land more in favor of the current rule but no problem if we change it, worst case is you get a more reliable start than the runs already up

I've updated the rules to reflect start press as timing start. It is much easier for timing and also consistent, I believe that's how all the runs are already timed.

Yeah I've been using start press the last few weeks since I asked. Very obvious first frame. It's also how we don't have to go back and re-time everyone else if we chose differently.

Will clarify in the rules sometime soon.

I've been playing and then moderating using "Start press" as the timer beginning point, and that seems like its been the case from the beginning. But the rules actual say "take control" which isn't clear between take control by that "start" press or take control of the actual golfer on hole 1 (about 2.5 seconds later).

Should we change the rules to say explicitly "press start"?

Yeah the any% (championship%) is pretty long for a run. Laps are I think kind of easy to theoretically get perfect, since you just hold boost to max speed even through turns, as long as the other drivers don't wreck you.

I honestly never tried the other modes, even though I saw big20 did one of the time trials. I remember that most people's times were pretty clustered together.

That 16th was a rollercoaster!

It's not a glitch or manip, and OB (and sand) are always bad for the speedrun. Water is almost always bad, but a few strategic plays are pretty high-risk and still take good execution just to save a second or so. A category that requires resets for regular mistakes and only takes away a couple small strategy choices wouldn't add much.

My timer did a little hiccup at the end, you can see it took at least a half second to update from .90 to .91. I was assuming scoreboard fully appearing as end time, not knowing if first frame of fade In was too soon to stop. But for me the whole thing happened in 2:46.xx so I just went with that.