Shortcuts

A shortcut is an occurance where the player clearly establishes a way to skip parts of a track in TrackMania in order to have a lower finishing time.

Background info

Shortcuts in TrackMania have a special meaing to the TrackMania Community. Their presense can be viewed as both evidence of bad track design and ditto checkpoints placement, but also as an unexpected twist of creativity from the person who created the track.

The way they are viewed are heavily depending on the track types where they make an appearence. When there are shortcuts in race tracks, they are viewed as negligance by the mapper to correctly and strategicly map their course or place checkpoints so the player can cheat and cut off a significant part of the track so he/she can finish first.

In puzzle tracks, small mini tracks or time addict tracks, players generally think finding shortcuts is a positive thing. In these tracks, finding shortcuts is seen as a challenge and they are taken with much satisfaction if the result is to blow away the competition with a very sharp finishing time.

Because skilled speedracing and maneuvering at great velocity is not such a priority in these track types, players can concentrate on their skills to avoid as much as track time possible while respecting checkpoints and thus reaching the finish at all costs in as little as time possible.