Stevie
Well-known member
- Location
- Ireland
INTRO
For a long while now, the racing scene has been really quiet. There are a few events popping up here and there but it never leads to more RP after the event. The event happens and everybody forgets about racing until someone else organises it. There are a few changes I’d like to see introduced to further enhance the racing roleplay on the server, and make it a bit easier to access.
ACCESSIBILITY
Currently the most prominent way racing is organised is through events, the word gets out everybody turns up and it’s great, however organising racing outside of events sucks. Racing pretty much doesn’t exist as nobody can be bothered to get things setup. It’s a lengthy process from stocking up on USB’s, creating the track and testing it, finding racers and so on. I know for a fact people are up for racing but the creation process from the start to actually racing can take literally hours and nobody wants to do that.
My idea of improving accessibility to new and existing players on the server can be:
- Include a public browser where people can share their already made tracks.
- Remove creator USB’s and allow creation of tracks with the normal racing USB (don’t consume after creation).
- Make the recipe for Laptops cheaper and more affordable for new players. It’s essentially a phone but you’re paying another 60k on top of that for the access to the racing app. The laptop only has one purpose and it doesn’t quite make sense for it to be sold in a shop. This should be distributed by the people doing the racing however it’s hard to do so as the price tag is so steep to stock up on the item. Think of it as a laptop with a pre-installed VPN by the racing group that needs the USB as a key to bypass it.
- If you have anything to add please do.
QUALITY OF RACING
We all know being careful while racing isn’t always consistent. Server lag, freezes are unavoidable and crashing into spawning NPCs isn’t exactly fun. Another big issue is what we call the ‘bubble’ in racing, ‘I didn’t hit you in my eyes’ etc. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if we didn’t have to repair after the smallest of crashes or the engine randomly starting to smoke when driving over bumps. Majority of cars can last for 15-20 minutes with fuel fully juiced. This leaves no space for a police chase afterwards should there be one as everyone is low on fuel at that point and nearly smoking.
My idea of improving the above:
- Implement the option to toggle ghosting/phasing through the racing cars. You will still hit into players that are not in your session but phase through the players that you are racing against. This can address a lot of the issues mentioned above and have various implementations. Phasing through NPCs can also be considered, however the downside of having to phase through NPCs is that if you split away from the race, you will phase through them but the police won’t, giving you an advantage. There can be a proximity area around the racing line where if you split away from the track, after 15 seconds of being out of distance, the phasing will be automatically turned off. Toggle is there for preference and IMO it’s my favourite and best option.
- Increase the amount of fuel a car can take to extend the race duration + RP followed by it afterwards. Controversial take but this would help with extending the length of racing without having to refuel + the opportunity for a chase with the cops after the race to last longer. If people don’t like the idea of having extra fuel that’s okay.
- Increase the cars durability, that can be either done by doubling the current value on all cars or add a 3 crash system where you need to take 3 major hits for your car to fully break down. This can be indicated by stalls when after a crash you accelerate your car goes slow for a second or two. On the last stall your car starts smoking indicating it’s about to break down.
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
- Global ping when a race is created. The option to make the race public or private is already there. It would be great when the race is made public, people receive a ping on their phone alerting them of a race being created. This could be toggled on or off through settings on the phone or app depending which option would be easiest. People would still need a laptop to access the app to see where the start of the race is. Ideally a new app could be added that only the criminals have access to but that's a long stretch and it's not a make it or break it kind of feature.
- Allow the preview of the track, based on the checkpoints generate a map to show the outline of the race. If this is not possible, it would also be great if we could attach a hand-made picture to a specific track to show what the track looks like.
- With the public browser being a thing for available tracks to race, it would be great to show the fastest lap-times achieved on that track by a given racer. It would give people something to compete for while introducing underground time trials and an extra activity to grind for.
- Car classes/tiers have been introduced a while back. We have had people including me and various others make them however they are not entirely accurate. It would be great if we had public access to see which class the car belongs to. This could be shared by the devs to help with the uncertainty of which car belongs to what class. If this has any other downsides I’m not thinking of, scrap the idea.
- Adding a visual design to the checkpoint. On the edges of the checkpoint, add a prop that only displays for the racers that shows you the visual boundaries of the checkpoint. This can help in some mapped areas that are not always clear with the GPS to show how the track flows and the visual cues of the checkpoint can help with that. It would be a great QOL addition to also show a unique checkpoint at the start and end of the race, like flags on each side for example.
If you have any other ideas of what else could be implemented or altered feel free to contribute.
Thanks,
Stevie.
Edit 1: Added extras to general improvements.
For a long while now, the racing scene has been really quiet. There are a few events popping up here and there but it never leads to more RP after the event. The event happens and everybody forgets about racing until someone else organises it. There are a few changes I’d like to see introduced to further enhance the racing roleplay on the server, and make it a bit easier to access.
ACCESSIBILITY
Currently the most prominent way racing is organised is through events, the word gets out everybody turns up and it’s great, however organising racing outside of events sucks. Racing pretty much doesn’t exist as nobody can be bothered to get things setup. It’s a lengthy process from stocking up on USB’s, creating the track and testing it, finding racers and so on. I know for a fact people are up for racing but the creation process from the start to actually racing can take literally hours and nobody wants to do that.
My idea of improving accessibility to new and existing players on the server can be:
- Include a public browser where people can share their already made tracks.
- Remove creator USB’s and allow creation of tracks with the normal racing USB (don’t consume after creation).
- Make the recipe for Laptops cheaper and more affordable for new players. It’s essentially a phone but you’re paying another 60k on top of that for the access to the racing app. The laptop only has one purpose and it doesn’t quite make sense for it to be sold in a shop. This should be distributed by the people doing the racing however it’s hard to do so as the price tag is so steep to stock up on the item. Think of it as a laptop with a pre-installed VPN by the racing group that needs the USB as a key to bypass it.
- If you have anything to add please do.
QUALITY OF RACING
We all know being careful while racing isn’t always consistent. Server lag, freezes are unavoidable and crashing into spawning NPCs isn’t exactly fun. Another big issue is what we call the ‘bubble’ in racing, ‘I didn’t hit you in my eyes’ etc. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if we didn’t have to repair after the smallest of crashes or the engine randomly starting to smoke when driving over bumps. Majority of cars can last for 15-20 minutes with fuel fully juiced. This leaves no space for a police chase afterwards should there be one as everyone is low on fuel at that point and nearly smoking.
My idea of improving the above:
- Implement the option to toggle ghosting/phasing through the racing cars. You will still hit into players that are not in your session but phase through the players that you are racing against. This can address a lot of the issues mentioned above and have various implementations. Phasing through NPCs can also be considered, however the downside of having to phase through NPCs is that if you split away from the race, you will phase through them but the police won’t, giving you an advantage. There can be a proximity area around the racing line where if you split away from the track, after 15 seconds of being out of distance, the phasing will be automatically turned off. Toggle is there for preference and IMO it’s my favourite and best option.
- Increase the amount of fuel a car can take to extend the race duration + RP followed by it afterwards. Controversial take but this would help with extending the length of racing without having to refuel + the opportunity for a chase with the cops after the race to last longer. If people don’t like the idea of having extra fuel that’s okay.
- Increase the cars durability, that can be either done by doubling the current value on all cars or add a 3 crash system where you need to take 3 major hits for your car to fully break down. This can be indicated by stalls when after a crash you accelerate your car goes slow for a second or two. On the last stall your car starts smoking indicating it’s about to break down.
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
- Global ping when a race is created. The option to make the race public or private is already there. It would be great when the race is made public, people receive a ping on their phone alerting them of a race being created. This could be toggled on or off through settings on the phone or app depending which option would be easiest. People would still need a laptop to access the app to see where the start of the race is. Ideally a new app could be added that only the criminals have access to but that's a long stretch and it's not a make it or break it kind of feature.
- Allow the preview of the track, based on the checkpoints generate a map to show the outline of the race. If this is not possible, it would also be great if we could attach a hand-made picture to a specific track to show what the track looks like.
- With the public browser being a thing for available tracks to race, it would be great to show the fastest lap-times achieved on that track by a given racer. It would give people something to compete for while introducing underground time trials and an extra activity to grind for.
- Car classes/tiers have been introduced a while back. We have had people including me and various others make them however they are not entirely accurate. It would be great if we had public access to see which class the car belongs to. This could be shared by the devs to help with the uncertainty of which car belongs to what class. If this has any other downsides I’m not thinking of, scrap the idea.
- Adding a visual design to the checkpoint. On the edges of the checkpoint, add a prop that only displays for the racers that shows you the visual boundaries of the checkpoint. This can help in some mapped areas that are not always clear with the GPS to show how the track flows and the visual cues of the checkpoint can help with that. It would be a great QOL addition to also show a unique checkpoint at the start and end of the race, like flags on each side for example.
If you have any other ideas of what else could be implemented or altered feel free to contribute.
Thanks,
Stevie.
Edit 1: Added extras to general improvements.
Last edited:
. You could also make it last only the first 30-60 seconds in the race just to give people the chance to settle in, that could also be an option.
