FreeGameDev

Hello, folks.

I intend to roll out a server with spectate mode disabled, exclusively for racing.

It came to my attention that some karts have exceedingly small hitboxes, which could lead to exploits and unintended shortcuts, among other things. As such, they shouldn't be available on this server to not affect its records.

As such, what medium and heavy sized karts should be banned from this server? What should be the criteria? Is there something other than the kart's width that should be taken into account?

Perhaps I should just run it on another database instead?


Cheers,
fodoman

If your concern is the hitboxes, I think the simplest option is to remove all non-official karts, then if you have the time, allow any you can confirm are fine.

I would like to know if the devs are aware of this issue, if someone could gain an unfair advantage by using a small hitbox online.

First of all, I like to state that there are a lot of very creative karts available as mods. One of them being Tarantula (spider on a plank, very low). Another one, FurCorn (slim woodblock as kart), is very popular for the AI it looks like, because the AI is better with slim karts than with wider ones. Wide karts get stuck more easily. But does this effect really come into play in online races? Probably that little that it's barely noticeable. These races depend much more on skill and a random factor (items) is also there always! If an exploit happens, the track has to be updated, I think. I don't think, banning karts is necessary.

If you have live-spectate set to false, clients will just have to use those karts you have on a server (or in the worst case their hitboxes will be as for tux)
If you have live-spectate set to true, all hitboxes are the same as for tux
I don't actually know many tracks which could have cuts based on the width/height. I know only Yeskindo Noormimiz which has a 6-second cut for Emule and Saras (incl. Pepper) and that could be used by a heavy thin Pegasus Mk.2 kart, but I guess there aren't many such tracks (Also there was Escape Room which needed small height karts to something but i think that thing is not intended/valid anymore)