feeuzz22 - Hey, yeah, thanks for linking that. I did watch it a number of times, it's helpful to see how others control the two. I should really stop being lazy and spend more time studying existing ST TASes, like going through frame by frame, I have a lot to learn. I only just recently figured out that you can load a state, enter the input for P1, then load that same state again, and input P2, and P1 will automatically perform the input you just entered. Previously I thought you had to enter P1 input, save that in a higher-up state, then load the lower state and enter P2.
tensor - This is great, thanks for finally posting and letting us know about your efforts to create another ring attack TAS. I'm excited to see it, but I found your description a little hard to follow, it makes me wish you had posted something like this
http://tinypic.com/r/359wjl0/8 so I could get a better idea of your route until the .gmv is posted.
As far as specific route stuff your Act 1 I can't comment because I don't understand, but there's one thing I'd like to mention about shield selection for the end of the act, that might be important. Early in Act 2, there's a burning zip line that breaks half way down if you ride it, causing you to fall and miss a few rings near the end of the line. While it's in no way necessary to have the lightning shield at the beginning of Act 2 to get them, I think it might help speed up the process, as IIRC in my Knuckles run, I was able to just 6-tap spin dash off the ledge where the zipline is on (much quicker than riding it), and still collect all of the rings via the lightning shield's pull.
Of course that's assuming Sonic can even make it to the zipline without losing his shield to the puddle underneath the first giant ring. I haven't tested it yet, so who knows, and besides, with good control of Tails it might also be faster even without the lightning shield or render the difference of having it vs not pretty insignificant. But anyway, I guess basically my point is just a friendly reminder it's important to keep in mind the needs of the next act in terms of shields when focusing on Act 1 route selection. Hopefully it's helpful...
marzojr - Wow, that sounds so complicated! Maybe in time I will learn to understand it better. Thanks for explaining all that for everyone.