Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:I found, that 8 seems the maximum seat for a race game type. I only have 8 laptop actually though. So it quite matches too.
More is possible using a dedicated server, the 8 limit only exists in the in-game server creation UI (and in most cases it's a good limit).
Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:We also ran the LAN game on 8 connected laptop, was quite good. But I didn't really tested with 8 real players yet.
The refurbished laptop I used was given to our LUG by a local company. The hardware is Thoshiba protege z20t
https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/lapto ... rtege-z20t which still gave quite good performance on STK out of of the box.
The game performance is quite track-dependent. The two most demanding tracks are Cocoa Temple (Temple Cacao) and Black Forest (Forêt-Noire), and you really need to test them before letting them be played. Based on the laptop's specs, I'd expect it to really struggle to deliver smooth gameplay on those tracks in a 8-players LAN even at low settings.
Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:Our feeling was that the game was quite slow from player perspective and push to SuperTux difficulty level to have decent speed feeling. My mileage will vary, I will have more real feedback after organizing a real event.
If you have not played old 0.6 or 0.7 versions, you don't know what slow means. On a more serious note, if you're concerned about the kart feeling slow, then yes avoid Novice. But I still really recommend Intermediate for kids discovering the game. Players not used to racing games will crash often enough in Intermediate.
I also suppose that you played without any use of drifting, which considerably affects the feel of the game. New players usually ignore it (and still crash), but it's ubiquitous at a higher level.
If at all possible, have some sort of pre-event test to gauge player strength and put players of similar strength against each other during the event. You could also organize something on the fly to use the results of a first few races to determine who will play against whom in subsequent races. It's not very complicated in principle, but it brings its own challenges (including communicating how it works to the players).
You used the word "tournament" once in your first post, but it's unclear what you mean by that. The best format strongly depends on how many players you expect to participate and how many games in total you want them to play. It's important to limit lopsided matchups between stronger and weaker drivers as much as possible to ensure the participants and spectators have fun.
Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:We also collected some gamepad from console on different branding. They behave differently. The buttons get assigned somewhat randomly. I didn't figured yet how it works, nor if I could save buttons layout and start the game with that specific layout. Or I could also label the pad with a number and assign it to a pre-configured laptop with the same number in my game kit.
The input ("Commandes") options should allow to set the gamepads as you wish. After configuration is done and saved, the game will keep a peripheral profile and it should work without issue after a game or computer restart.
You could also consider letting players use the keyboard to play if they feel more comfortable with it. Using a keyboard is really not limiting to play STK well.
Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:Kart driving didn't seem to be difficult to drive on the track I tested. I mostly only run the first few track in the "create server" lobby on the first page.
I assure you that if you let players play the tracks I recommended to exclude, you will get players crashing on the walls or falling out of the track a lot.
Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:Can I exclude track from been displayed? I didn't hack the config yet. Nor I try some dedicated server setting. The local "Create Server" menu was quite enough.
Using the server config file and starting a STK server instance offers more options, which can be useful, such as forcing tracks to be played with the default lap number.
The simplest way to exclude a track is to remove/rename the tracks you want to exclude from one of the instances (preferably the one with the server). It then won't show up in the track voting screen. The game doesn't currently have a way to set in server-config tracks to be played/excluded.
Sylvain-AGU3L {l Wrote}:Can I have player ranking system?
The only currently supported way to get an in-game ranking would be to use a GP. You can set a server to be in GP-mode and how many races should be played in the GP. However you can't switch players while the GP is going on, so you'd likely want some form of selection before putting players in a group that will play a full-Grand Prix together.
Otherwise, you need some external spreadsheet to input results into and to get rankings from.