Speedrun mode
Built into the game, on every copy. Turn it on in Settings → Speedrun and the game cuts the waiting, times you two ways and keeps the proof.
What it turns on
- Skips: the opening, comms, boss intros, loading holds and (if you want) tutorials
- Run timer: real time and game time, splits, golds and sum of best
- LiveSplit: auto-split over its server, with optional sub-splits, and a splits file the game writes for you
- Faster menus: buffered card picks, reveals at 3× and a short confirm
- Overlays: an input display and frame data (dash charges, i-frames, cooldowns, the boss's phase)
- Locked 60: every frame is exactly 1/60 s, so no computer plays faster than another
Categories
| Any% | A new campaign to any ending |
|---|---|
| All Bosses | An ending with no boss left alive in any sector you cleared |
| By faction | Any%, timed per starting faction |
| Co-op Any% | A local co-op campaign to any ending |
| Gauntlet Ladder | Sixteen bosses back to back, one split each |
| Boss time attack | Any boss in the simulator, on a seed fixed per boss |
| Daily and weekly | The daily challenge and the weekly race: one sector, the same for everyone |
A typed seed adds Seeded to the category and Locked 60 adds Locked 60, so a known route never beats a random one. Bests and golds are kept per category.
Timing
Real time runs through everything. Game time takes out every loading screen, so a faster computer doesn't win runs. You get one split per sector cleared, then the ending; sub-splits add each sector's launch, first boss kill and first cache. A segment faster than your best turns GOLD.
The game plays the same at 30, 60 or 144 fps: the dash, its recharge and every gun's fire rate are frame-rate independent, and tests fly the same ship at all three to prove it.
Practice and restarts
Hold Backspace (D-pad down on a controller) for a second to throw an attempt away and start again at once. Practice drops you at any depth from 1 to 6 with a ship that fits it, and lets you restart a sector on the same seed. Run history keeps your attempts, finishes and where your runs die.
Daily, weekly and a friend's code
Title → Challenges has the races everyone flies on the same terms:
- Daily: one sector a day, with the same seed, ship and rules for every pilot and a twist such as twice the swarm. Gold, silver and bronze each pay once a day.
- Weekly sector: one recipe from Monday to Monday (UTC), with harsher twists than the daily. Gold also pays a pilot title.
- Codes: every challenge has a short code. Copy it, send it to a friend, and they fly the exact same run with Fly code from clipboard. The share card at the end of a campaign sector carries one too.
- Boards and ghosts: each challenge has its own board, for this computer and for your Steam friends. The three best runs come back as ghosts to race against, and every run is saved as a replay you can watch or send.
Proof
Record your run; the game makes the video checkable. A watermark under the timer shows the version, category, seed and options in effect. Every run is saved as a signed run file with its splits, the ship at each one, every sector's seed and a fingerprint of every offer you were shown, so two runs on the same seed can be compared.
Going for a time? Read the speedrunner tech in flight school, and share your runs on Discord.