Basically a dedicated Record Attack-like experience for speedrunning the game as a continuous chunk rather than ILs. Has several quality of life features.
Benefits include:
* An unambiguous real-time bar across the bottom of the screen, always displaying the current time, ticking up until you reach the ending.
* Disable the console (pausing is still allowed, but the timer will still increment).
* Automatically skip intermissions as if you're holding down the spin button.
* Show centiseconds on HUD automatically, like record attack.
* "Live Event Backups" - a category of run fit for major events like GDQ, where recovery from crashes or chokes makes for better entertainment. Essentially a modified SP savefile, down to using the same basic functions, but has its own filename and tweaked internal layout.
* "spmarathon_start" MainCfg block parameter and "marathonnext" mapheader parameter, allowing for a customised flow (makes this fit for purpose for an eventual SUGOI port).
* Disabling inter-level custom cutscenes by default with a menu option to toggle this (won't show up if the mod doesn't *have* any custom cutscenes), although either way ending cutscenes (vanilla or custom) remain intact since is time is called before them.
* Won't show up if you have a mod that consists of only one level (determined by spmarathon_start's nextlevel; this won't trip if you manually set its marathonnext).
* Unconditional gratitude on the evaluation screen, instead of a negging "Try again..." if you didn't get all the emeralds (which you may not have been aiming for).
* Gorgeous new menu (no new assets required, unless you wanna give it a header later).
Changes which were required for the above but affect other areas of the game include:
* "useBlackRock" MainCFG block parameter, which can be used to disable the presence of the Black Rock or Egg Rock in both the Evaluation screen and the Marathon Run menu (for total conversions with different stories).
* Disabling Continues in NiGHTS mode, to match the most common singleplayer experience post 2.2.4's release (is reverted if useContinues is set to true).
* Hiding the exitmove "powerup" outside of multiplayer. (Okay, this isn't really related, I just saw this bug in action a lot while doing test runs and got annoyed enough to fix it here.)
* The ability to use V_DrawPromptBack (in hardcode only at the moment, but) to draw in terms of pixels rather than rows of text, by providing negative instead of positive inputs).
* A refactoring of redundant game saves smattered across the ending, credits, and evaluation - in addition to saving the game slightly earlier.
* Minor m_menu.c touchups and refactorings here and there.
Built using feedback from the official server's #speedruns channel, among other places.
* Fixed an unused variable warning in lua_skinlib.c.
- fixed post-level cutscenes playing when you get game over in MP (still kinda on-topic)
Also with apologies to MI:
- golden egg statue mode for tutorial, since the grey doesn't contrast enough with the blue and lime green
- fixed closed captions for replaced player sounds being incorrect
- fixed closed captions overlapping tutorial text
OLD SPECIAL STAGES:
* Spheres in old special stages instead of rings!
* Individual timers in old special stages instead of a global one!
* Old special stages use a variant of the NiGHTS HUD now!
* Special stage damage in old special stages loses 5 seconds of time instead of 10 rings/spheres!
* All damage gained through old special stages is converted to special stage damage! As a consequence, the special spikeball has no need to be special anymore.
* Made emerald gaining function be based on special stage number rather than gained emeralds!
* Consistency with...
NiGHTS SPECIAL STAGES:
* Spheres now flash in bonus time. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/400761370800422922/452590553100713984/srb20032.gif
* Sphere and ring mapthingnums are now less fucked up in 'em. (Rings are 300, same as usual, while Spheres are now 1706 replacing NiGHTS Wings.)
SPECIAL STAGES IN GENERAL:
* useNightsSS is now dead. Each individual special stage is now assessed for NiGHTS-mode behaviour based on maptol & TOL_NIGHTS.
* CRAWLA HONCHO\n CAN NOW BE\n SUPER CRAWLA HONCHO end tally modification now also includes a mini-tutorial on turning super. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/400761370800422922/452844894113759233/srb20036.gif
* SONIC GOT A CHAOS EMERALD? https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/400761370800422922/452623869497573386/srb20034.gif
NiGHTS NON-SPECIAL STAGES:
* Colour Chips and Star Chips! Replaces Spheres and Rings of NiGHTS Special Stages.
* Colour Chips turn yellow in bonus time.
* Ideya!
* Its own "drowning" music!
* All of the object types for Dream Hill.
* GIF: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/400761370800422922/452844894113759233/srb20036.gif
RANDOM BS:
* Turn super with the spin button instead of the jump button!
* Followmobj now correctly set with P_SetTarget instead of pointer assignment.
* Emerald hunt uses new sprites!
* Made unlock noise different from emblem gain noise! (It's the CRAWLA HONCHO CAN NOW TURN yadda yadda sound from S3K now.)
* cv_powerupdisplay. Never, First-person only (default), Always.
* New monitor stuff.
* Fixed hitmessages.
* Some CTF stuff.
* Aaaaugh it's a lot I hate myself I need to work on my coursework.
* I'll figure out what I did here in the merge request when that's done.
* Make TIME part of HUD count down in a bunch of circumstances where it was otherwise some other seperate thing.
* Make race countdown happen in a bunch of appropriate circumstances.
* Refactor race countdown.
* Remove a lot of useless stuff from H&S/Tag UI.
* Make co-op/competition/race end-of-act countdown use the race countdown and bigger HUD font.
* Remove useless PLAYING/SPECTATE text from lives element.
* Merge lap counter into lives element.
* Move some other text around.
* Serious refactor of - and internal exposure of - what has become S_StartCaption().
* Renaming of a few existing captions.
* The prevention of access to - or writing over - sfx_None's stuff in SOC or Lua.
* The new Lua wrapper function S_StartMusicCaption(string, tics, optional player), which essentially allows custom music captions to be created. (This is best used for stuff like final lap music in SRB2 Kart or bonus time in a thokker-like game, not a comprehensive Now Playing expy. That'd be a different kettle of fish.)
Also, updated all the lock-on stuff to use P_IsLocalPlayer instead of rolling my own.