FreeGameDev

Hi !
I'm new on this forum.
I installed STK 0.7.3 friday and played with pleasure.

I've seen that on the website :

Anybody can help to improve SuperTuxKart.

After looking the last news ; I thinked that before trying to create a track or helping elsewhere ; I could give some ideas that I had simply playing, to improve the game (if the developers like one ).
So : -That the last have 0 and not 1 in Grand-Prix (Yes, very complicated for programmers )
-Do the order of the Grand-Prix understandable. I mean that we have yet 1-3-2-5-4 ; it's strange
-That IA gets more nitro and objects. I mean, IA seems to follow a line without trying to gets nitro or objects, even when they are near... And game will be less easy.
-Grand-prix challenges with 7 (or 9/11 ^^) IA karts in place of 3. With 3 it's not very interesting. :/

I've understood that the challenge-system will totally change ; so I will wait the 0.8 before other commenting about it.

And of course, new tracks ! More challenges ! Several karts for each character (some can be shared) when the physics will can do a difference ! etc ^^

Thanks for reading, have a nice day

Hi,

thanks for the feedback

Anybody can help to improve SuperTuxKart.

-That the last have 0 and not 1 in Grand-Prix (Yes, very complicated for programmers )
[/quote]

Maybe, I don't have any strong opinion on this one. Other opinions?#

-Do the order of the Grand-Prix understandable. I mean that we have yet 1-3-2-5-4 ; it's strange

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean

-That IA gets more nitro and objects. I mean, IA seems to follow a line without trying to gets nitro or objects, even when they are near... And game will be less easy.

Totally agreed, a better AI is something we would like. Unfortunately our time is limited and so far no one has worked on AI (*except two students that did work for their AI class but their code is a little slow and their AI is still a little stupid so for now we're not using their work)

-Grand-prix challenges with 7 (or 9/11 ^^) IA karts in place of 3. With 3 it's not very interesting. :/

When you start from the menu then you get the choose the number of AIs. In challenges, yes this could be interesting. The main issue here is that less powerful computers are not able to handle too many karts, not sure what to do for this, if we raise the number of AIs we will probably lose some people with slower GPUs/computers

And of course, new tracks ! More challenges ! Several karts for each character (some can be shared) when the physics will can do a difference ! etc ^^

Maybe, not sure, that would be a lot of work

-Do the order of the Grand-Prix understandable. I mean that we have yet 1-3-2-5-4 ; it's strange

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean

With the order I unlock them, it's 1-3-2-5 (and 4 cannot be on the picture )
Not very important, but it's weird.

The main issue here is that less powerful computers are not able to handle too many karts

I agree ; on my own computer ; which have now a few years ; with 19 karts it is unplayable, too jerky.
But even with 11 it's fluid so I imagine that with 7 it must run on most computers.

Maybe, not sure, that would be a lot of work

Let dream !


Other observations that i forgot yesterday : -At start, there are a lot of collisions between/with AI karts. And more there are, worse it is.
-Half of the race is played in the earlier beginning. If you are first, you can keep your rank easily, when you are in the last, you can play well it is very hard on most tracks I tested.
-The parachute seems to be more efficient on a slow kart than on a fast. Isn't it weird ?

Oh yes now I see! I created a ticket for the GP issue : https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/super ... ticket/601

And yeah we could improve the AI to make races more interesting (slow down if player is too far behind, speed up if player too far ahead; or maybe just just make the AI smarter in a way that it is faster without cheating)

Auria {l Wrote}:Oh yes now I see! I created a ticket for the GP issue : https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/super ... ticket/601

And yeah we could improve the AI to make races more interesting (slow down if player is too far behind, speed up if player too far ahead; or maybe just just make the AI smarter in a way that it is faster without cheating)

AI should not cheat, but there should be a notion of handicap. Does that exist in SuperTuxKart? (I mean like the last one is faster than the first one and so on)
I know that Mario Kart uses this a lot, I remember once playing MarioKart (64 I guess) with someone that had deactivated the handicap, and it was totally different, once having some distance between me and him, I could never reach him anymore.

MCMic {l Wrote}:

Auria {l Wrote}:Oh yes now I see! I created a ticket for the GP issue : https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/super ... ticket/601

And yeah we could improve the AI to make races more interesting (slow down if player is too far behind, speed up if player too far ahead; or maybe just just make the AI smarter in a way that it is faster without cheating)

AI should not cheat, but there should be a notion of handicap. Does that exist in SuperTuxKart? (I mean like the last one is faster than the first one and so on)
I know that Mario Kart uses this a lot, I remember once playing MarioKart (64 I guess) with someone that had deactivated the handicap, and it was totally different, once having some distance between me and him, I could never reach him anymore.

nope, at this time STK is totally "fair", no handicap whatsoever

Wow, I was kind of sure there was one.
But it's true that once we're some time ahead, we can often finish the race without problem

Is handicap a feature that you intent to implement some day?

MCMic {l Wrote}:Wow, I was kind of sure there was one.
But it's true that once we're some time ahead, we can often finish the race without problem

Is handicap a feature that you intent to implement some day?

yes I guess that would be a desirable feature, we just need to tweak it well so that it doesn't feel too artifical

Auria {l Wrote}:yes I guess that would be a desirable feature, we just need to tweak it well so that it doesn't feel too artifical

just have the AI in front lose a tire.....

ctdabomb {l Wrote}:

Auria {l Wrote}:yes I guess that would be a desirable feature, we just need to tweak it well so that it doesn't feel too artifical

just have the AI in front lose a tire.....

Handicap is not ony for AIs, it works also for players.

The problem is also that when you are in the middle, you always have some cake or bowling ball, and lose a lot of time... When you are first with a correct advance, you only have occasionally the big purple ball.
Playing with objects and intelligence of IA, that could already be improved.

Good point.

Auria, is there also no handicap about objects? That is also a good way of helping the last karts, giving them better objects than the karts in the front of the race.

MCMic {l Wrote}:Good point.

Auria, is there also no handicap about objects? That is also a good way of helping the last karts, giving them better objects than the karts in the front of the race.

there is an object handicap for the player at least..... don't know if that is for the AI though

There is, and it's for all karts. So for example if you're in front you will get fewer zippers than someone farther behind etc.

Arthur {l Wrote}:There is, and it's for all karts. So for example if you're in front you will get fewer zippers than someone farther behind etc.

Ok great, that's why I did not notice there was no speed handicap, because object handicap might already does a good part of the job.