Completing a track in Trackmania

[FranckDernoncourt]

To complete a track in Trackmania Nations Forever, the car must first go through all checkpoints in any order, then go through the finish block. Is this true for all games of the Trackmania series that have been published so far (see list below)? If not, which games do not have this rule?

Thanks!

The list of all TM games that I've found, please let me know if it's incorrect / missing some:

[jui]

I have not played every TM game, but i am pretty sure its true for every TM game.

[TMarc]

At least for the PC games it is like this. Since I don't know the DS and Wii games, I can't tell if it is exactly the same there.

A track needs at least start + finish + checkpoint, or a multilap + checkpoint before it can be validated.
Additional rules apply for the number of start and of finish blocks, depending if you are using multilap block or not.

[Omnixor]

it's either 1 start + 0 or more CPs + 1 or more finishes, or 1 multilap + 1 or more CPs + 0 or more finishes.

[TMarc]

it's either 1 start + 0 or more CPs + 1 or more finishes, or 1 multilap + 1 or more CPs + 0 or more finishes.

It's not correct. 1 checkpoint is always necessary.

[Mandark]

it's either 1 start + 0 or more CPs + 1 or more finishes, or 1 multilap + 1 or more CPs + 0 or more finishes.

It's not correct. 1 checkpoint is always necessary.

When you have a multilap start, yes it is necessary to have at least 1 CP, but when there is a normal start, you can have a track without any CP

[TMarc]

yeah right, I just checked to be 100% sure

[Xymph]

it's either 1 start + 0 or more CPs + 1 or more finishes, or 1 multilap + 1 or more CPs + 0 or more finishes.

It's not correct. 1 checkpoint is always necessary.

The finish block is also a CP block, it produces both callbacks in the dedicated server [the multi-lap start produces only a PlayerCheckpoint callback at each passing]. So in that sense, TMarc is also correct, but wrt. creating a track, Omnixor's statement is more accurate.

It's always been a major problem that a separate CP block is not required on non-lapping tracks, as that makes it much harder to determine (e.g. via Dedimania) whether a player's online run was cheated.