General Techniques
Choosing the right character
At the highest level of Test Runs competition, only a select few characters are viable to acheive top scoring runs.
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Frameboosts
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Kiss the rails / wallrides
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Quickturns
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Race Position Manipulation (RPM)
RPM (Race Position Manipulation) is an exploit that allows the player to take otherwise restricted shortcuts in order to update their position in a race without having to clear all of the ‘required’ checkpoints.
It begins by the player ‘chunning’. (traversing outside of the race bounds in which the game is actively tracking your position in a race)
Once achieving this chun state, your position in a race will be halted ‘frozen’ to the checkpoint that the game had last tracked you in before chunning.
This allows the player to traverse freely throughout the level without being traced by the race’s checkpoints.
If the player re-enters the skipped checkpoint, on either side of the plane, the race position resumes and is now ‘fixed’ to continue tracking the player as normal.
Try to imagine that the game is using a radar to constantly track the player, but the moment that the player steps off the path, the game can’t see the player anymore so it assumes that your current position is where it tracked you last. The next step of RPM is to use it to skip a large portion of a race. To do this, the player needs to deathwarp in order to refresh their position. The game will then follow by updating the player’s current position to the checkpoint in which the deathwarp spawns the player into.
It is important to remember that once chunned, no other race checkpoints are active, thereby the player can traverse in any which path to reach a deathwarp, as long as the skipped checkpoint is never re-entered.
Once all of the steps are executed correctly, the player can simply proceed normally to the ending checkpoint to finish a race.
In every race, the lap count is always stored in memory. That is to say that if the player should purposely travel a full lap around a level backwards, the game will remember that such reverse progress has been achieved, and will require the player to ‘undo’ the backwards lap in order to return to the current lap.
When referring to a Jet Dash race, the current lap (although never being visualized in-game) will be referred to as lap 0. If the player traverses behind the starting checkpoint, they have entered lap -1. (a lap behind)
The player must remember that once attempting to execute RPM while a lap behind, the exploit will still function as in theory, but the position would be updated on lap -1 rather than on the current lap, disallowing any progress to be made on lap 0.
b) RPM works in every race in the game. The only requirement needed for the exploit to function is for a ‘void out’ plane to exist in the level.
If we consider Dogenzaka Hill Jet Dash as an example, a level that only has one void out plane in which respawns the player near the start of the level, the RPM exploit is still working as in theory: a checkpoint was skipped, then a deathwarp was reached to update the player’s position.
The only difference being that the respawn location (near the start of the level) is highly unfavorable in terms of serving as a shortcut to save any time in the race.
Once achieving this chun state, your position in a race will be halted ‘frozen’ to the checkpoint that the game had last tracked you in before chunning.
This allows the player to traverse freely throughout the level without being traced by the race’s checkpoints.
If the player re-enters the skipped checkpoint, on either side of the plane, the race position resumes and is now ‘fixed’ to continue tracking the player as normal.
Try to imagine that the game is using a radar to constantly track the player, but the moment that the player steps off the path, the game can’t see the player anymore so it assumes that your current position is where it tracked you last. The next step of RPM is to use it to skip a large portion of a race. To do this, the player needs to deathwarp in order to refresh their position. The game will then follow by updating the player’s current position to the checkpoint in which the deathwarp spawns the player into.
It is important to remember that once chunned, no other race checkpoints are active, thereby the player can traverse in any which path to reach a deathwarp, as long as the skipped checkpoint is never re-entered.
Once all of the steps are executed correctly, the player can simply proceed normally to the ending checkpoint to finish a race.
Peculiarities
a) Although the game cannot track your checkpoint position while chunned, the player’s direction in a race (wrong way) and lap count will continue to be traced.In every race, the lap count is always stored in memory. That is to say that if the player should purposely travel a full lap around a level backwards, the game will remember that such reverse progress has been achieved, and will require the player to ‘undo’ the backwards lap in order to return to the current lap.
When referring to a Jet Dash race, the current lap (although never being visualized in-game) will be referred to as lap 0. If the player traverses behind the starting checkpoint, they have entered lap -1. (a lap behind)
The player must remember that once attempting to execute RPM while a lap behind, the exploit will still function as in theory, but the position would be updated on lap -1 rather than on the current lap, disallowing any progress to be made on lap 0.
b) RPM works in every race in the game. The only requirement needed for the exploit to function is for a ‘void out’ plane to exist in the level.
If we consider Dogenzaka Hill Jet Dash as an example, a level that only has one void out plane in which respawns the player near the start of the level, the RPM exploit is still working as in theory: a checkpoint was skipped, then a deathwarp was reached to update the player’s position.
The only difference being that the respawn location (near the start of the level) is highly unfavorable in terms of serving as a shortcut to save any time in the race.