More stat for car

[wilmaster734]

What about the new stat variations for the cars. In the game, there would now be B, C and D versions of the light, medium and heavy car. To keep things as simple and balanced as possible, we could simply reverse the weight and speed for the heavy car, for example, which would correspond to version A of the heavy car. With my idea, there would be 3 types of car (it's possible to add others, but it's more complicated to balance everything out), each with 4 versions (A,B,C,D for example). Version A would correspond to the current version. Am I clear? So there would be (3x4) 12 different car states. In my opinion, this change would create more strategy in the game. If possible, we'd have to add other karts (characters) to the game so that there are other cars that use these variations, and maybe change the car type (heavy-B, light-C, etc.) of certain karts (characters) that are already in the game. I'd like to work on this (as soon as possible if the idea is accepted). I could test my changes with other people and ask for their opinions. I'm a programmer. If you want I could send (write) more details. What do you think? Any comments? Who agrees with me?

[Polo10]

Hi there!
I'm really pleased that a coder is interested in STK and wants to contribute to improve it. Many thanks to you!
I don't know anything about coding so I can't help you with that, sorry. But I hope that @tempanaon93 or @QuertyChouksie or even Benau will see your message and be able to reply.
Have a nice day !

[QwertyChouskie]

The problem with this type of change is that there's a high likelihood that everyone just ends up using a single character/kart because it's objectively best. You see this e.g. in Mario Kart Wii where Funky Kong on a certain bike is the best character/kart combo, so pretty much everyone at a high level uses that setup. I'm sure it's not impossible to balance things well, but if even Nintendo struggles to do so, IMHO that's a pretty big warning that the path ahead would be very tough.

Honestly there are a number of other gameplay changes that would be easier to properly implement, and make a more noticeable improvement to the overall experience. https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/issues/2487 is a good example.

[kimden]

I would rather prefer having something between light and medium and between medium and heavy karts, or making kart classes a little bit closer as currently the game has major issues with 85% of players picking heavies in racing, and lights in soccer (which means only 4 karts are used in both, which is kinda bad)

Whatever new ideas are used, I agree that they shouldn't end up in only one kart being used.

[wilmaster734]

I haven't finished yet, but here's a first version of what I've done. I realized that I couldn't simply swap 2 stats. What I did was to calculate, for example, the difference of maximum speed between the 3 types of car and I created other types of car. For example, a car between light and medium and a car between medium and heavy. I also added heavier and lighter cars. If the current car system is balanced, what I've done should be balanced if I haven't made a mistake in my calculations. Here's the XML file with the car types. In all, there are 19 car types (17 + 2 not yet finished that may be removed). So far, from what I've tested, everything seems to be balanced and I haven't noticed any anomalies (including with the bots) but I did make a few small errors. I've made some changes and I'm going to test it again. Was I clear in my explanations? If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate.

I'd also like to say that this change (car types) is the easiest thing I could do in the code. It's ultra-simple to change. I just have to make sure I don't make any mistakes in my calculations if I want to make sure everything is balanced correctly.

[Bird]

Balancing is 100% possible, but it would take some time and would probably need to go through a phase of one kart dominating. On the other hand, the the tracks in STK are quite diverse, so some favour another kart type over the other.

In the end, speedrunners would get a couple of more headaches if there would be more kart types. For online races... wasn't it like you had your pick to be somewhat prepared for everything, because some really messy track choices can happen?

Wilmaster, I've tested some of your karts. I think the current boundaries of "light" and "heavy" shouldn't be exceeded, because that would only increase differences in kart strengh on specific tracks.

Anything between "light" and "heavy" should make the choice more interesting. I'd also experiment more with altering stat distributions, as the current one are quite linear. For example giving one kart slightly more nitro but disadvantages in another area, acceleration for example.

If the differences to the existing kart types are small, racing should stay closely together. Hopefully more kart types will be further explored, as it would give STK more depth.

[Alayan]

I haven't finished yet, but here's a first version of what I've done. I realized that I couldn't simply swap 2 stats. What I did was to calculate, for example, the difference of maximum speed between the 3 types of car and I created other types of car. For example, a car between light and medium and a car between medium and heavy. I also added heavier and lighter cars. If the current car system is balanced, what I've done should be balanced if I haven't made a mistake in my calculations.

Intermediate types would be somewhat balanced, but karts going below and above the current maximum would be imbalanced as their specific advantages would be emphasized.

I also think there is something nice in having a big enough difference between any two kart classes that you can "feel it" when switching from one to the other.

I would rather prefer having something between light and medium and between medium and heavy karts, or making kart classes a little bit closer as currently the game has major issues with 85% of players picking heavies in racing, and lights in soccer (which means only 4 karts are used in both, which is kinda bad)

Whatever new ideas are used, I agree that they shouldn't end up in only one kart being used.

I have been thinking about this recently.

I think that keeping an around 10% top speed difference between light and heavy is good to make them feel different.

My main balancing ideas linked to kart classes :
- In general, make it more difficult to take curves. Even the heavy kart of STK 1.X feels incredibly reactive compared to other games, and while I like the feeling of control we get in STK, it should be trickier.
- Change the max skidding radius. Skidding in relatively straight lines ("snaking") is a standard technique and it should stay so. But in these situations, it's better to have a bad turn radius because it allows to go straighter while skidding. This helps heavies. Light karts should be able to take just as efficient "snaking" trajectories than heavies.
- Revisit nitro efficiency. This is an underrated bonus for lighter karts, but it's almost too easy to have "too much" nitro sometimes.
- Splitting the medium class in two or eventually three classes, but it would be neat to make it more interesting than just interpolations between light and heavy. I think something like 4 or 5 different classes would be good for STK 2.0, more variety but with multiple karts per class and not an endless clutter of adjustable parameters.

Secondary values could also take some light tweaking, but while this should in general improve balance for normal racing, some things may not be achievable without adding new parameters.

As for soccer... I think that the only way to really make multiple kart types viable there is to create specialization. Light karts will always be more maneuverable, so mediums or heavy need to fill another niche, helping their team without having to go directly after the ball.

[wilmaster734]

I've decided to make only two new cars between the light and medium (light-medium) and the medium and heavy (medium-medium). Now I'm working on other things like the new teams and arena game mode. I've created an arena game mode for 4 teams with 4 variants (teams-points, all players-points-teams, players-points (I'm going to replace this variants with something more interesting) and last team standing). These game modes are playable locally and on the network (need modification for the other 2 teams (green, orange) on the network). I'm also working on a tag-zombie game mode (playable locally and on the network). If anyone is interested in helping me, here's my git repo (fork) ( + organization). https://github.com/SuperTuxKartIRC/stk-code. The branch that contains all my work and is up to date is remaster. If everything is ok and accepted by other developers like Benau, I'll merge my work into the real stk repo.

[Bird]

medium-medium feels good. Gave it a test on a 2-lap Zen Garden time trial and the best time had only one second difference compared to medium and heavy. I think light-medium is too good compared to light. It needs some more disadvantages. A slower start maybe?