Skill Star
The Skill Star is a mechanic introduced in Rhythm Heaven Megamix. It is the indicator for a crucial moment in a game or remix, and generally players will want to obtain this for every game in their playthrough, as the game will reward them with a Badge for doing so.
Attributes
In almost every scenario, the Skill Star must be obtained by landing an Ace! (the rainbow circle on the timing display) on a specified input. The sole exception to this is Quiz Show, in which the Skill Star is toggled on and displayed if the player crosses a score threshold of 90 points.
Any input that is involved with the Skill Star (leading up to it, or being it) will have a weight on the overall score that is higher than normal. A notable example of this is The Snappy Trio, where the "insta-clap" can influence the score at the end heavily due to it being the Skill Star input.
There is an indicator on the bottom screen, at the top left, that shows whether the Skill Star has been collected or not. The indicator will start out as a large outline of the star. When the Skill Star is about to appear, the indicator will start pulsing. If the Skill Star is collected, the outline will be filled in with a yellow star. If the Skill Star is missed, the outline will shrink, indicating that the opportunity has passed and the player must restart the rhythm game to have another chance.
The Skill Star is disabled in Perfect Campaigns or Challenge Train courses, most likely to prevent distraction.
Tickflow
In the modding scene, the Skill Star has been notorious for being extremely hard to implement into custom games and custom remixes. This is due to the wide variety of factors that need to line up perfectly to trigger the Star properly. However, over time, knowledge on getting the Star to work has increased, and modders have managed to get Skill Stars working 100% of the time.
0x8F X - This assigns any inputs after this command to whatever value is specified. Values 0 through 6 are reserved for comments, but a value of 7 is always assigned to the Skill Star inputs.
0x92 X, Y - This assigns the score weight the values specified in 0x8F have. X is the value, Y is the weight. A higher weight will have a larger impact on the score.
0x98 X, Y - How many inputs are involved to get the Skill Star. X is always 1, Y is the combined number of inputs needed before the star AND for the star itself.
0xAE X - Spawns the visual star in its separated parts. The parts join together in X amount of ticks.