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[1210phil1210]

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[Crendgrim]

Hi and welcome to STK

Ok, so I (nearly) finished the game.

Congratulations
But with having all challenges done the game just starts

Well, the challenges for the mine track (<--THIS IS LIKE GOD HARD) aren't done yet.

Admittedly is the Old Mine the most challenging track in STK.

Love that you can race with 20 other karts (Would love to see this increase to 25~30 ish just for lolz )

The problem about more than 20 karts is that most tracks don't have start points for them. But try a 20-kart-race on Tux Math Class - that is fun

Negatives:
AI karts can't be pushed off-course no matter what you do (except weapons)

Well, they can, but it's very hard. Especially if you drive a kart like Adiumy and against a large one like Mozilla or Gooey.

AI karts abuse the speed boost that is normally very hard to get when trailing a kart
AI karts turn perfectly, even when very fast

The AI is good, what's IMO a sign for a good game.
I don't know about the AI on lower difficulty levels (always playing on hard), so it may be that they should get easier there.

I don't like the idea how you have to unlock challenges to play tracks, I think there should be something like career mode. Like, maybe, if one can't complete mine track with Expert IA, winning 5 times with easy IA would also unlock the challenge?

A career mode is planned for STK 0.8 or 0.9, IIRC.

RESET is very annoying, you fall of the track once...and BAM your a huge distance away and pretty much already lost the race, even if it was at the beginning of a 3 lap race

Keep practicing. Catching up after a reset isn't that hard after all. However, if there are many karts, overtaking can be hardly possible.
I'd like to see the reset time limit lowered a bit, though.


Crend

[KroArtem]

Love that you can race with 20 other karts (Would love to see this increase to 25~30 ish just for lolz

Little tip: if you want to play more than with 20 karts, find stk_config.xml in your /supertuxkart/data/ directory ( don't know path in windows) and change <karts max-number="20"/> to <karts max-number="120"/> (for example). But be aware it'll slow down stk a lot and you can have problems with tracks as they don't have enough space for such big amount of karts. (Though, Coyote Canyon has enough space for 120 karts, I've checked this )

[Arthur]

I tried Shifting Sands once with 160 karts I think it was. It wasn't too bad; in fact it was almost like my netbook with just a few karts.

[Kinsu]

I tried Shifting Sands once with 160 karts I think it was. It wasn't too bad; in fact it was almost like my netbook with just a few karts.

Did the last karts have to run one lap more than the first ones ?

[Arthur]

No, Shifting Sands is so wide the ones at the back (such as me) was inside the pyramid.
I just tried with Oliver's Math Class, and yeah I started almost one lap behind, I think. Still managed to win the 3 lap race (or four, if you like).

[Auria]

Hi,

thanks for the nice feedback

AI karts can't be pushed off-course no matter what you do (except weapons)

This is planned in the future, there will be more physics improvements and this point should be addressed, possibly in 0.8

AI karts abuse the speed boost that is normally very hard to get when trailing a kart
AI karts turn perfectly, even when very fast

Yes, this is a known issue; we would still like to get a better AI

I don't like the idea how you have to unlock challenges to play tracks, I think there should be something like career mode. Like, maybe, if one can't complete mine track with Expert IA, winning 5 times with easy IA would also unlock the challenge?

Well, good thing, career mode is also planned And when I code it I intend to provide several levels of difficulty, so it will be more interesting for everyone

RESET is very annoying, you fall of the track once...and BAM your a huge distance away and pretty much already lost the race, even if it was at the beginning of a 3 lap race

Well this is very hard to tweak, since if we make rescue much faster, staying on track will not be such a good advantage anymore maybe we can tweak that a bit

[hiker]

Love that you can race with 20 other karts (Would love to see this increase to 25~30 ish just for lolz )

The problem about more than 20 karts is that most tracks don't have start points for them. But try a 20-kart-race on Tux Math Class - that is fun

This is technically not true anymore: we have an algorithm in place now that determines the start positions, so you can use more than 20, though there is a chance that karts might start on an item.

Negatives:
AI karts can't be pushed off-course no matter what you do (except weapons)

Well, they can, but it's very hard. Especially if you drive a kart like Adiumy and against a large one like Mozilla or Gooey.

The AI can just react very fast, so I think it just counter-steering very quickly. But in 0.8 I'll work on the physics, and will address collisions as well.

AI karts abuse the speed boost that is normally very hard to get when trailing a kart
AI karts turn perfectly, even when very fast

The AI is good, what's IMO a sign for a good game.
I don't know about the AI on lower difficulty levels (always playing on hard), so it may be that they should get easier there.

It's not abusing it as in cheating, it's just that the AI tends to drive similar paths (unless the karts are close and they try to overtake).
...

RESET is very annoying, you fall of the track once...and BAM your a huge distance away and pretty much already lost the race, even if it was at the beginning of a 3 lap race

Keep practicing. Catching up after a reset isn't that hard after all. However, if there are many karts, overtaking can be hardly possible.
I'd like to see the reset time limit lowered a bit, though.

Feel free to play with data/stk_config.xml, and change the values:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

<!-- Rescue: time: How long it takes the kart to be raised.
         height: how height the kart will be raised before it is
         dropped back onto the track.
         vert rescue offset: used to raise karts a bit higher before
         releasing them on the ground after a rescue. Used to avoid
         resetting karts into the track. Not sure if this is still
         necessary. -->
    <rescue vert-offset="0.0" time="2" height="2"/>


Just let us know which value you find better. I actually had the same feeling when playing Mario Kart. I just looked at some videos, and it appears to be a bit over 2 seconds when being hit by a shell before you can drive again. And when being hit and thrown into a hole, it takes about 6 seconds before you can drive again. So I think we are not that bad.

Cheers,
Joerg

[LinuxUser]

I tried Shifting Sands once with 160 karts I think it was. It wasn't too bad; in fact it was almost like my netbook with just a few karts.

What sort of framerate and graphics card? My framerates are around 20 (barely playable) with 20 karts. With 200, it was closer to 1! I've assumed that it is my CPU bottlenecking it as it would be around 100% (for the one core, so reading 25%), but it can't be if you are getting playable rates with that many karts.

[1210phil1210]

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[sireus]

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

sudo chmod a+w /path/to/stk_config.xml

(replace /path/to/ with the appropriate path). I assume you're on a unix OS ofc.

[1210phil1210]

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[Crendgrim]

Love that you can race with 20 other karts (Would love to see this increase to 25~30 ish just for lolz )

The problem about more than 20 karts is that most tracks don't have start points for them. But try a 20-kart-race on Tux Math Class - that is fun

This is technically not true anymore: we have an algorithm in place now that determines the start positions, so you can use more than 20, though there is a chance that karts might start on an item.

Great
And I thought Gnu starting on a nitro box on Shifting Sands (100 karts) and getting ~ 5 nitros before the game started was a track bug. Okay, even better

RESET is very annoying, you fall of the track once...and BAM your a huge distance away and pretty much already lost the race, even if it was at the beginning of a 3 lap race

Keep practicing. Catching up after a reset isn't that hard after all. However, if there are many karts, overtaking can be hardly possible.
I'd like to see the reset time limit lowered a bit, though.

Feel free to play with data/stk_config.xml, and change the values:
[...]

Just let us know which value you find better. I actually had the same feeling when playing Mario Kart. I just looked at some videos, and it appears to be a bit over 2 seconds when being hit by a shell before you can drive again. And when being hit and thrown into a hole, it takes about 6 seconds before you can drive again. So I think we are not that bad.

You cannot really compare driving in STK and in Mario Kart, for you have more opportunities to catch up in Mario Kart (IIRC; didn't play it for a very long time though). STK is more realistic and even 2 seconds can hurt. (Especially if you're pushed by another kart against the walls in Mathclass and then get reset. sigh. )


Crend

[hiker]

This is technically not true anymore: we have an algorithm in place now that determines the start positions, so you can use more than 20, though there is a chance that karts might start on an item.

Great
And I thought Gnu starting on a nitro box on Shifting Sands (100 karts) and getting ~ 5 nitros before the game started was a track bug. Okay, even better

Yes, that's why we limit the number of karts to 20. It would be a lot of work to also test if there is an item, and then skip the slot.

Note for the people playing with that many karts: in the scene.xml files of the tracks you can specify how the karts are started, e.g. how many karts in a row etc. Playing with those values should give you a more compact start position.

...

Just let us know which value you find better. I actually had the same feeling when playing Mario Kart. I just looked at some videos, and it appears to be a bit over 2 seconds when being hit by a shell before you can drive again. And when being hit and thrown into a hole, it takes about 6 seconds before you can drive again. So I think we are not that bad.

You cannot really compare driving in STK and in Mario Kart, for you have more opportunities to catch up in Mario Kart (IIRC; didn't play it for a very long time though). STK is more realistic and even 2 seconds can hurt. (Especially if you're pushed by another kart against the walls in Mathclass and then get reset. sigh. )

Hmm - I agree, though I am not sure about the reason for this Either the MK items are much better balanced (which I am nearly certain there are), or it's because the AI 'cheats' and drives a bit slower if it gets too far ahead (which is likely the case, too). Both should be improved in STK. Some 'negative cheating' (slowing down when too far ahead) would certainly help, and would not be too difficult to implement.

Re items: there are three items iirc that speed you up in MK Wii: the rocket (which many people complain about, but it certainly helps), and the star/mushroom. We have the zipper, which would be the star/mushroom equivalent (though no immunity). Nitro is available, but that's the same for all players, so it's not really an advantage to people behind. Should we perhaps reduce the amount of nitro usage if you are behind (i.e. the nitro will last longer?). Or any other ideas how to make catching up easier? Increase the duration of a zipper (perhaps again depending on position in race? Any other ideas? We already select the items depending on current race position, so being behind should give you more useful items anyway - but perhaps that's not enough.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Crendgrim]

I don't think we should now think too much about balancing while thinking at the same time about new weapons (there are many brainstorming threads around). IMO we first should implement the latter and then see how it affects the gameplay and act properly.


Crend

[Arthur]

I tried Shifting Sands once with 160 karts I think it was. It wasn't too bad; in fact it was almost like my netbook with just a few karts.

What sort of framerate and graphics card? My framerates are around 20 (barely playable) with 20 karts. With 200, it was closer to 1! I've assumed that it is my CPU bottlenecking it as it would be around 100% (for the one core, so reading 25%), but it can't be if you are getting playable rates with that many karts.

We're talking about 5-10 FPS, with an NVIDIA GeForce 250 GTS and a quad-core i5-750 at 2.67 GHz. Maybe not the newest or best, but I'm satisfied with it.

[LinuxUser]

I tried Shifting Sands once with 160 karts I think it was. It wasn't too bad; in fact it was almost like my netbook with just a few karts.

What sort of framerate and graphics card? My framerates are around 20 (barely playable) with 20 karts. With 200, it was closer to 1! I've assumed that it is my CPU bottlenecking it as it would be around 100% (for the one core, so reading 25%), but it can't be if you are getting playable rates with that many karts.

We're talking about 5-10 FPS, with an NVIDIA GeForce 250 GTS and a quad-core i5-750 at 2.67 GHz. Maybe not the newest or best, but I'm satisfied with it.

I've got a NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS, so mine is much worse! But I'm happy with it normally.