Bugs

TrackMania Nations Forever is notorious for featuring various bugs that players managed to master over the years. The bugs in question range from really small (e.g. the bugfin), to truly gamebreaking (e.g. the landingbug). Numerous bugs (e.g. the superbug) are known to be extremely complex, and are still being analysed by the intelligence from the TAS community, with assistance of other experienced players (mainly the Brain team).

Big part of playing TrackMania is getting hold of all of the bugs and using them for your advantage. Moreover, there are separate map styles that concentrate on utilising these bugs and use them more as a feature. As the famous content creator [https://www.youtube.com/@Jixaw. Jigsaw] once said - "Skill is when luck appear usually" [sic].

Below is a list of all currently known bugs in TrackMania Nations Forever.

BugFin
The bugfin (shortened to bf, rarely called gatebug) is one of the most celebrated bugs in the game. It has been known since the game's initial release, with the bug discovery being credited to the French player Louis_9.

Bugfin is known for its wide usage in various map styles, such as LoL, roof and even Nadeo.

To an untrained eye, bugfin is nothing but a misplaced hitbox for a finish trigger, and even today many players think of it as a completely random error.

Origin
In 2019, a player who wishes to remain anonymous reached out to Nadeo via e-mail to ask whether bugfin was, in fact, an intentional addition to the game. Hylis, who was at the time replying to support e-mails, answered with a cryptic message reading ",007332". This was shared in many TrackMania channels (both official and not), but nobody was quite sure what it meant. After a few days, most have given up on trying to decipher the message's meaning and blamed it on Hylis' exhaustion.

However, one community member, afaaz (of team Brain), was obsessed with the idea that Hylis was not simply smashing his keyboard. According to afaaz himself, he decided to look for that number in the game's source code. Surprisingly, there was more than a dozen matches.

Afterwards, afaaz would go on to discover that typing ",007332" in the third alpha version build of TrackMania Nations Forever makes the debug menu appear. Inside that menu, many options were to be found, but the one that stood out most was, undoubtedly, "Xavier". Upon going into it, the player is presented with a blue text on a red background, reading "ce débile detruit le bloc" [sic], and a clickable image of a middle-aged man, presumably the namesake of the page itself. Clicking on the image starts a download of a now-deleted video in .bik format (originally hosted on the Nadeo CDN), which depicts a man (possibly Xavier) modeling a bunch of blocks for TrackMania Nations Forever. A minute in, the video cuts to a closeup shot, in which Xavier is seen modifying the trigger positions for the finish and checkpoint blocks. He is also heard mumbling some French words, later figured out to be "...ils me regardent...". The value for which Xavier shifted the trigger position is exactly 0.7332 on each block.

After analysing the video, Brain members once again reached out to Hylis, asking for more details. He, unfortunately, decided to stay quiet. The video file was removed from the Nadeo servers shortly after the second attempt to contact Hylis. Fate of Xavier is still largely unclear, and is a subject of many creepy stories in the TrackMania community.

LandingBug
The landingbug is the most infuriating and problematic bug in TrackMania Nations Forever. It occurs on pretty much any map that has any sort of landing. This bug was discovered on the first day after the game's release by Trabadia on A01-Race. As he said in his own words: "what?? bug..". In a later interview he mentioned that he was completely disoriented and shocked.

The way the landingbug works is that once you land on any surface, there is a 54.68498% (55% rounded up) chance that your car will lose 60% of its speed. Additionaly, the car may suddenly turn in any direction including backwards.

Players have built maps that utilise this bug in this exact way in order to get the fastest time possible. Contrary to this, however, there are also maps that you cannot finish if you obtain a landingbug; for example  [PF Ph/\ntom Fake ].

Trivia
For some reason, Nadeo thought that the landingbug was a nice feature, - worth showcasing to people. Hence why they built E03-Endurance - just to show the potential of this anomaly. Many players criticised them for the map, dumbfounded by the gruesome bug. However, Nadeo also found a large group of fans and supporters that liked it, which led to the first major division of the game's community in the early days.

EdgeBug
TBA

NoseBug
TBA

RandsteinBug
TBA

Grass Slide
The grass slide (shortened to GS, sometimes also called the bugslide) is one of the most famous, popular, and beloved bugs in TrackMania. It is also one of the earliest found bugs in the game, with its discovery dating all the way back to 2006. It is not known which player slid on the grass first, but their legacy lives on nonetheless.

The exact reasons why the grass slide works are unknown, but it is believed that this bug is very much intentional, since Nadeo never patched it out despite its destructive nature. That is also proved by its usage in official campaign maps of TrackMania Nations Forever and later titles in the franchise.

Performing a grass slide is a relatively simple task involving several steps of varying difficulty:


 * 1) Buy a mechanical keyboard for €150+
 * 2) Launch the game with the keyboard connected
 * 3) Press the forwards key, the backwards key and one or both of the direction keys
 * 4) The car should have performed the bug. If it did not, make sure to retrace your steps to see if you missed something.

It is currently unknown whether the grass slide is doable on controller, as members of the Brain team are seemingly unable to afford a controller to test it out.

SuperBug
The superbug is the newest and the most unexplainable bug in TrackMania Nations Forever. It was first discovered in 2022 by the Portuguese player Pablo760 on a LoL server and is still to be replicated. The superbug makes the car go completely crazy, allowing the player to reach great speed in a fraction of time. Players were not able to find out more information about the bug due to its rarity.

Luckily, there is footage of the bug occurring - thanks to the server admin who shared his Server Run Recording (.srr) file on the TrackMania Discord server. The quality of the clip is admittedly poor due to the recording plugin on the server which operates on the single threaded XASECO controller.

UberBug
The uberbug is one of the biggest and most spectacular bugs in TrackMania Nations Forever. It was discovered relatively late after the game release - around 2010, although the person who discovered it first is unknown.

To perform a uberbug, or as some call it - a "megabug", a player has to: If these conditions are met, after performing the grass slide during landing and then holding it until crashing into a wall (or another obstacle), there is a chance that a uberbug will occur. It will launch the player with gargantuan speed into the air in the direction the car was pointing to upon crashing.
 * Have speed greater than 243 speed units
 * Land on a road with the car front pointing down (approximately -10 to -30 degrees)
 * Have the car angled enough to also perform the grass slide towards a wall (or some other obstacle)

Formulae
Thanks to the players from the Brain team, the formulae that game uses to compute the uberbug is now known. Previously it was believed that the game performs some form of a miscalculation/division by 0 or simply runs out of floating point operations memory. That myth recently got debunked and the formulae are described below:

If U(x) = S(x)/D(x), where S is a speed function and D(x) = $$d_0 * \Bigl(1-s_1\chi\Bigr)*...*\Bigl(1-s_l\chi\Bigr)$$''and numbers p1. . . pl are disjoint sets, then if S(x) is a polynomial of degree less than l, there occurs a formula:''

$$[x^n]U(x) = a_1\rho_1^n +. . . + a_l\rho_l^n,$$ for $$a_k=\frac{-\rho_k*S(1/\rho_k)}{D'(1/\rho_k)} = \frac {S(1/\rho_k)}{\rho_0\Pi j\neq k (1-\rho_j/\rho_k)}.$$

The uberbug allowed players to not only cut old maps using the bug, but also gave birth to new teams.

TomBug
TBA

CheckPointBug
The checkpointbug (also known as bugcp or bcp) is a variation of the finishbug (bugfin), except the trigger is intentionally misplaced on the checkpoint block instead of the finish block. It was discovered by Louis_9 on the same date as the bugfin, due to Louis accidentally placing a checkpoint block instead of the finish block for his new bug map.

Bugcp, similar to bugfin, is very popular with TrackMania players. Its usage has notably become a cliché in the cutting community of the game.

Just like the finishbug, checkpointbug was not an accident, and was added to TrackMania Nations Forever on purpose by a former Nadeo employee presumably named Xavier. The fate of the said employee is to this day shrouded in mystery.

Checkpoin

SpiderBug
TBA

Glitching through walls
TBA

AudioBug
The audiobug is one of the most bizarre bugs in TrackMania Nations Forever. It happens for seemingly no reason, with exceeding rarity.

As of the present day, the only map known to display the audiobug is 1 Player = 1 block (Episode III) , which has a sign afflicted with the bug - it will generate a searing static when approached.

Colour Booster Bug
The colour booster bug (sometimes spelled color booster bug) is a very useful bug discovered by the player Hakim. This bug happens when the player enters the controversial block known as "Colour Booster", and manages to turn around on it. After performing this manipulation, the booster changes its direction and is able to accelerate you in any direction wished. It is said that, besides the usual 100, 150 and 200 percentages, the Colour Booster can give the mighty 3000% Turbo under very precise yet unknown circumstances.

AutoBug
TBA

CarBug
The carbug is one of the most terrifying bugs in TrackMania Nations Forever. It was not found until very recently, and is considered a creepy story all by itself.

In essence, the carbug is when a car does a bug due to a flaw in the game's engine. That mistake by the developers causes the player's vehicle to become a terrible abomination. After encountering the carbug, many players were reportedly sent to mental institutions [ˌɪnstɪˈtjuːʃənz], as they slowly began to go insane after witnessing the distorted car. It is still unknown whether this bug is actually a feature, and was left in the code intentionally.

SpeedDrift
The SpeedDrift (short version : SD) occurs when the player does a very tiny drift at speeds exceeding 600km/h (166,667m.s−1) causing them to gain speed for seemingly unknown reason. After an indepth inquiry, team IQ+ discovered that, during a SpeedDrift to the left, back-left and front-right wheels lift for 10cm (3,93701 in) above the road level and thus grip on the Z-axis granting the car adherence and velocity, up to 36km/h/s (10m.s-2).

SpeedDerivation
The SpeedDerivation is the fourth dimensional variant of the SpeedDrift, conveniently shortenened S4D (portmanteau word with SD and 4D). This bug is, during the same left turn, allowing the back-left and front-right wheels lift for 10cm diagonally between the 3rd and 4th dimension (approx. 7.07cm in each direction), giving the car grip in the Z-axis and the W-axis granting even more speed than the SD, up to 42km/h/s. During a S4D, the back-left and front-right wheels will shift in the fourth dimension, and their size will appear to change, hinting the player that he is earning abnormal amounts of speed.