Originally posted by CatadorDeLatasThat must have taken a long time! But I found very clever the way you made the grid on the maps to be able to build them properly. Even though only Mute City and White Land II were accurate (all the other tracks needed the grid to be 8 pixels higher to be accurate), that might explain why you didn't find all of the original tiles.
I think the maps didn't show the whole track, so I didn't know where the track would actually start. Horizontally it is clear where it has to be within one section (set of 16 tiles). Because you can only place the start/finsish checkpoint right in the middle of it. Vertically you can move it around, I just assumed that most tracks would also have the track in the middle of a section, this way it looks more "right" in the editor. I remember noticing that it could be wrong though. As far as I remember I moved one part of port town by 8 pixels to get the magnet stripes in their, I couldn't find the proper tiles without moving them.
Originally posted by CatadorDeLatasI don't know if this info is correctly because I haven't looked too much into it yet, but it looks like the game has 4 tables for all of the 4 difficulties, and each of these table I believe are divided into 3 sections: Main machines, purple machines and green machines.
The 3 sections part seems accurate. On lower difficulties green and purple cars are slower than the main cars, and I believe the green ones slower than the purple ones. I think it also depends how far down the grid you are, the purple and green cars seem to get worse or drive a different line when you are behind.
Originally posted by suFamiI feel like the cars from F-Zero 2 (Ace League) are all more balanced, but it has a negative effect to me, like they all kind of drive the same it feels like sometimes. No one car really stands out (maybe the Luna Bomber with it's top speed).
Yes, I think overall it is a little bit better balanced. Lunar Bomber is about the same as Fire Stingray, maybe a little bit worse, but also depends on the track. Blue Thunder and Green Amazone are both better than Blue Thunder and Golden Fox. For some reason Fire Scorpion is about the same as Wild Goose, not a improved version. It is slower than the Blue Thunder, has worse acceleration, worse grip, loses more speed when not on the accelerator... Just like the Fire Stingray seems be better in everything, the Fire Scorpion is worse in everything.
Grip is probably what has the biggest effect on making cars feel unique. Fire Stingray has shitloads of it which makes it feel much different from other cars. Lunar Bomber does not have that much grip, it feels the heaviest though with its high turning radius. In the original F-Zero weight feels more similar between the different cars.
Originally posted by suFamiYou're right, there's a lot about Fuzee that most people don't take to their advantage. Like you mentioned speed is one of them. Another is the setting on the cars' tendency to slide around corners (if set at 3 they can turn really sharp turns with no problems). Also see the info about Bits under Checkpoint Properties and Machine-Sppecific Checkpoint Properties in Catador's document.
I myself set the turning properties for AI cars to the best for each checkpoint. I just layed out the checkpoints in a way that they form a realistic racing line. It was much easier for me to make them follow the line I want. If you make them slide, they will just be carried to the outside of the turn, try to move shaprly towards the racing line, overshoot and having to sharply turn the other direction again. That's especially extreme in GP Legend. If there is a combination of a few very light right and left turns, they will just slightly get off the line in the first turn, by trying to get back in the middle and overshooting they get even more off the line for the second turn, and at some point they will hit the wall.
Originally posted by suFamiI never knew that the Golden Fox's brake is faster than acceleration after hitting a boost. Reminds me that the speedrunners do something called break boosting (even with Fire Stingray I believe).
Actually Golden Fox can also do that trick with the boosts you gain every lap. With Golden Fox it just works the other way around. Fire Singrays braking ist much stronger than the speed it loses naturally. The boost sets you to ~525 kph, and as soon as you dropped down to 478kph it will jump up to 525 again. So if you break at 500kph you will get to 525 faster and spend less time at the low speeds of 478 - 500kph. With the Golden Fox you can break from 525 to 500 to stay at the speed longer, then release the brake until you get to 525 again. You would have to brake much more frequently though, and the effect is much smaller than it is for Fire Stingray. With WIld Goose it works the same way as for Fire Stingray, but also not as effective. For Blue Falcon it does not work at all, since braking is just as strong as not braking.
The boost pad trick for Golden Fox works only when braking at the right speeds. The natural speed reduction is constant, while braking power depends on your current speed. At about 630kph both are the same, then you have to start braking.
Originally posted by suFamiWhat do you mean by starting furter down the grid?
You start in something like position 10. If you remove brown cars, it would be a good idea to give the player something that makes him busy. I understand why they implemented them into the game, they didn't want them to have an easy race as soon as you are in front, while struggling for the whole race just because you messed up in the beginning.
The wipeout games have a similar philosophy. They let you start at the back of the grid, so that you are busy overtaking for the whole race. Which is more fun than just driving ahead of the field for the most time of the race.
Rubberbanding is another way many racing games handle it. They are driving faster when they are behind and slower when they are in front, what feels more like being cheated on as a player though. The warp mechanic of the CPU cars is similar, but I think is even worse since it can instantly reset any gap you made.
Maybe you would have to stretch the grid at the start, though. Of course you can't display oll 9 cars in front of you, so you have to make the 5th car - the last one you can see - far back at the horizon, while others in front spawn as soon as you catch up.