A path designation, such as 1-2-2-3-2, tells you how many star phrases you should accumulate before activating. In the case of the 1-2-2-3-2 example, this means that:
- you will accumulate 1 phrase worth of SP, and then you will activate sometime before the end of the next phrase
- you will then accumulate 2 phrases of star power and activate sometime before the end of the 4th phrase
- you will then accumulate 2 phrases of star power and activate sometime before the end of the 6th phrase
- you will then accumulate 3 phrases of star power and activate sometime before the end of the 9th phrase
- you will then accumulate 2 phrases of star power and activate sometime before the end of the song
If a designation is preceded by a "C" (e.g. C2), this means that the activation is compressed, meaning that:
- you probably need to selectively whammy during the star phrases to get the "right" amount of star power
- you need to activate your star power right after the end of the relevant phrase so that your star power will end just before the start of another SP phrase.
If a designation is preceded by a "S" (e.g. S1), it means that this number of SP phrases is skipped, because the optimal activation "paves over" at least a portion those star phrases. This means that you can't collect the 0.25 bar of SP for completing each of those phrases. For example, if a chart had the path designation "1-2-S1-3", it would mean that the song has 7 SP phrases, but you don't collect the 0.25 SP for the 4th phrase because the 2nd activation covers at least part of that phrase.
Finally, if a designation is preceded by "ES" (e.g. ES1), it means that this is a phrase at the end of the song that gets wasted because you don't end up with enough SP to create an activation. ES stands for end skipped.