Ranked rules¶

A leaderboard run is a replay that verifies and satisfies these rules. The rules version is the replay's game_version: a build with a rules bug is withdrawn from the boards rather than frozen. The replay's recorder names the client and platform that recorded it, so a faulty client can be withdrawn the same way. crimson replay verify reports ranked, the board and every unranked_reasons entry from the run rules (src/crimson/replay/ranked.py); the leaderboard service applies the same checks to each upload, along with its signatures (leaderboard identity).

Boards and scores¶

A co-op pair ranks on its own boards, scored as the one-player ones: two players' scores do not compare with one player's, since XP is shared and two players double the Survival spawn countdown.

A two-player run ranks only when its upload carries both players' signatures, one from each key the replay records for its seats (seat_keys); the service enforces this at upload. crimson replay verify checks only the run rules, so it can report a two-player replay as ranked that the service still refuses without the second signature. How the two players sign one replay is in the network co-op spec.

Hardcore applies only to quests, so Survival has one board for each team. (The original leaks a saved Hardcore setting into Survival's milestone waves, original bug 38, which the ranked rules fix; a ranked Survival run also records it off.) Each quest level ranks on its own. Equal scores keep the earlier submission ahead. Accounts, uploads and names are in leaderboard identity. Rush, Typ-o and the Tutorial do not rank.

A custom quest ranks one player only: its board, and the clear that publishes it, are a single player's, so a two-player run of one is unranked (custom_quest_players).

Only a finished run ranks: a Survival run that ended in death (every player's, in co-op), or a completed quest. A quit or a failed quest does not.

Each board ranks human runs and bot runs apart, under these same rules. A run is a bot run when its replay declares a pilot or a moderator puts it there; see bots and moderation.

When the verifier changes¶

A run stays on the boards while the current verifier still plays it to its result. A change to the simulation or to what a replay may do is checked against every ranked run: its pull request's CI replays them all through the new build, as the service verifies an upload, and the deploy checks every stored run again before it goes live. A run that no longer verifies is retired with the reason (runs.retired, set by a migration in the same change): it leaves the boards and the game's scores, keeps its page, which says why, and its replay stays downloadable.

The ranked profile¶

A ranked run starts from the same profile whatever the player's save holds, so every setting that steers the RNG (settings that steer the RNG) is pinned:

• one player, or two on the co-op boards (players names any other count);
• the documented fixes on (preserve_bugs off; see original bugs);
• detail preset 5, violence on, friendly fire off;
• a save with no weapon used and the progress the run's own place in the game gives, so weapon and perk offers and the weapon-drop reroll draws match:
  • Survival: every quest completed in both difficulties;
  • a quest: the save that has just unlocked it, with the quests before it completed, so it plays with the weapons and perks the campaign has handed out by then;
  • a hardcore quest: the whole normal campaign completed, and the hardcore quests before it;
• no quest retries: every attempt plays as the first, at full difficulty;
• a fresh random seed for each attempt, which the client draws. A seed the service issued would stop neither humans nor bots from shopping for one (bots and moderation).

The run itself keeps the replay contract: a fixed float32 1/60 s step, float32 inputs that must be finite, commands at the tick boundary, and no draws for paused or menu frames (replay run start). Perk commands follow the paused perk screen (commands).

Controls and aim¶

Every tick of every player uses human controls: relative, static, dual action pad or point-click movement, with mouse, keyboard, joystick, relative mouse or dual action pad aim. Computer movement and aim (an autopilot and an aimbot) and the unknown aim scheme do not rank.

The original clamps the cursor to the screen, so the aim reaches only what the player can see, and Telekinetic, Pyrokinetic and point-click movement act at the aim point. Ranked runs fix the view at the native 1024x768 and check each player's aim against it:

• a mouse aim point, and each new point-click target, lies inside the 1024x768 view around the camera the previous tick left (centred on the player and clamped to the arena, with a 96-unit margin that covers screen shake and a capped multi-tick frame of movement without giving offscreen reach). In co-op the camera follows the living players, centred between them, the view both players share; while nobody lives it stays where it was;
• a dual action pad aim reaches at most 138 units, the stick's full reach at the default cv_padAimDistMul of 96;
• relative mouse aim and keyboard or joystick aim only turn, so they carry no point to bound.

A smaller view, such as a wide window letterboxed to 1024x576, always lies inside the 1024x768 one, so it ranks too.

Playing a ranked run¶

The Play Game menu's Ranked box starts Survival and quest runs from the ranked profile: it lists only those modes, keeps one player, draws a fresh seed, caps the view at 1024x768 and uses the default pad reach. It is off while player one uses computer controls. A ranked run plays on a detached copy of the canonical save, exactly as verification replays it, so it does not change the player's progress, and it leaves the regular quest retry count alone.