[MOD IDEA] Teladi Racetrack

[Vanguard3000]

After watching TBV's Xenon station-racing videos, it occurred to me today that someone should make a sort of floating racetrack to have some fun with. And then I realized that, since I'm learning to model in 3D, and to mod X3, that someone may as well be me.

Obviously, not for NPC use, but players could record themselves racing it, and post them on the forum here, along with their times.

THE STORY
-------------

A new underground sport is becoming more and more popular among younger sentients. Called "skimming," this sport involves flying a fast fighter - usually "hotrodded" for enhanced speed and manoeuvrability - dangerously close to stations, large transports, and even military capital craft, weaving through and around structural features of the hull, often with fatal results. Some skimming leagues have even been seen venturing into Xenon space, to "thread the needle" in the trenches of Xenon stations.

This practice is hazardous to racers, transport personnel, and others, and has been outlawed by almost all races of the Commonwealth.

To the Argon, it is a crime.

To the Paranid, it is a sin.

To the Teladi, it is a profit opportunity.

Scheduled to be constructed in an as-yet undisclosed sector, a new "Skimway" station will be put together from recycled ship, station, and asteroid mining debris, as well as custom-built track parts to give speed-demons to opportunity to race without danger to others.

Danger to themselves, however, is another matter altogether...


DESIGN
----------

The Teladi "Skimway" will be a station consisting of a massive ring- or ellipse-shaped track, twisted into a sort of moebius strip to effectively double the track length (allowing an inner and outer lap, and allowing racers to go around as many times as desired). It will feature loops, moving parts (think of flying through a Free Argon Trading Station), and obstacles made of old ship and station parts. The track may even fly through an asteroid or a scrapped capital ship's hull.

The station will also act as a sort of mini-shipyard/EQ dock, where players can buy some of the faster ships in the game (Kestrels, Jaguars, etc) as well as engine and rudder tunings, boost extensions, and so on.

The racing itself depends on you, since I would imaging scripting in a racing minigame would be practically impossible. You just sort of go to it, in whatever ship you like, and have fun.

My main concern is that a station this big may limit computer performance, especially if I were to make the obstacles look like detailed ship debris. Originally I had thought of making it fairly simple-looking, with the obstacles being cubes, bars, and so on.

Any comments or suggestions?

[Killjaeden]

do you think of an closed 'arena' (sort of) or on a giant open track?

me thinks an 'open' track (with glass around it) would be better because you can split those into different bodies placed into on scene, therefore you don't have to have LOD 0 loaded all the time.

The idea sounds fun
a good script may be needed for time-tracking

Maybe you could place objects with 1 hullpoint the get destroyed if one flys through it (would not work if your ship bumps of the object first) so you can have different checkpoints that a script can track interims

the script should also check the stats of the fighter (size, speed, acceleration, ...) to prevent cheated results

[dragondream]

I like this idea. I've been doing this type of thing since Reunion. Whenever I was a little bored of the Autopilot being on 90% of the time I would "stretch my legs" and do some stunting and racing round a Station. And maybe you should sprinkle some Xenon Fighters in the Race track or some hostile turrets placed along the way to spice it up a bit . If you made this I would definitely add it to my game.

[Killjaeden]

if you have a basic racetrack (or parts of it) you can assemble them how you want them to be

you could also do different setting

xenontrack with many moving boxes, some turrets, wires and that stuff

khaak with rotating arms-of-death and cool purple glow tunnels

i like this idea even more

[EmperorJon]

And every know an then, the fist of Xaar smashes down on your ship, saying 'yOu IZ SiNNEz!'

[Killjaeden]

lol even more possibilities:

with an advanced script you could even make a combat-race-track

destroy object xyz to open the gate and get access to the next part of the track...

[Vanguard3000]

do you think of an closed 'arena' (sort of) or on a giant open track?

...

Maybe you could place objects with 1 hullpoint the get destroyed if one flys through it (would not work if your ship bumps of the object first) so you can have different checkpoints that a script can track interims

the script should also check the stats of the fighter (size, speed, acceleration, ...) to prevent cheated results

I was thinking more of a basic band (the most basic style, without obstacles/loops, would look like the Halo from the popular game series of the same name). Making it int a Moebius loop would allow the racer to fly one lap on the inner edge, and one on the outer edge (In fact, mathematically, it is all one edge, but you get the point). With obstacles, like an abandoned ore mine, for example, the "inner lap" could take the racer through a tunnel bored through the asteroid, while the "outer lap" would send you twisting around the mine docking structure.

...And maybe you should sprinkle some Xenon Fighters in the Race track or some hostile turrets placed along the way to spice it up a bit...

I had originally considered the idea of making it a giant M2, with zero speed and manoeuvrability, so that I could add cannon turrets (like a very funky OWP). But if I made it a race that would be guaranteed to hate you (Xenon/Khaak), other ships would constantly be trying to shoot it down. Conversely, if it was a race the player was on good terms with, he'd never worry about the turrets firing upon him. This is why I chose to make it Teladi, since they're pretty much enemies to no one. I figure the obstacled could be in the form of tunnels, slalom areas, and rotating parts.

Another idea I had was to have the track also sell SQUASH mines, so the player could lay them personally, and try to shoot them down themselves. I'd love some suggestions on getting turrets or somesuch to work, though. Maybe Xenon lasertowers?

if you have a basic racetrack (or parts of it) you can assemble them how you want them to be

you could also do different setting

xenontrack with many moving boxes, some turrets, wires and that stuff

khaak with rotating arms-of-death and cool purple glow tunnels

I like your idea of splitting the track up into parts. This "modular construction" would make it easy to customize tracks. But would this take its toll on overall system performance?

And themed areas would be pretty cool as well. Like I say, I wanted to have bits of old ships and station debris (a loop-de-loop set around an old SPP?) as well as asteroid chunks, but a Xenon-themed leg would be an excellent use of captured enemy technology.

As for scripting: My overall idea really needs no scripts at all, since players would simply play and post their times here, along with videos and suchlike. I'm not sure of the limitations of the scripting engine, but if things like race times (along with disqualifications/penalties for leaving the track) could be done, that would certainly be something to add.

One thing I'd like some input on is the "where". I wanted to put it in independant or Teladi space, since it follows the story idea, and would make the track accessible to most players. Freedom's Reach seems like a good choice to me, since it seems to be empty aside from a Teladi trading dock (in my game, at least).

[Killjaeden]

But would this take its toll on overall system performance?

No actually it should improve performance because you don't have to have LOD0 of the hole track loaded.
But i think this shouldn't be noticeable at all (ok depends on the details of the track you build). But since you want to place them into the less-busy sectors anyway...

Basically you still have one station. You just split it into multiple objects (loaded seperately) that are combined into one single scene.

You can make different scenes (=tracks) with the same objects (if you make them modular).

As for scripting: My overall idea really needs no scripts at all, since players would simply play and post their times here, along with videos and suchlike. I'm not sure of the limitations of the scripting engine, but if things like race times (along with disqualifications/penalties for leaving the track) could be done, that would certainly be something to add.

You avoid complicated penaltie-calculation from leaving the track by making closed racetracks.

Like a tunnel but with glass around the track so you can still see trough but can't fly through. =)

Posting times is... not very pretty.
As i said you could make a 'sensor' object that has 1 hullpoint and if it collides with your ship a script could detect that.
Using a stopwatch to measure your times would be very inaccurate ("where should i start", delay, ...)

i'm not good at scripting but it should not be that complicated for an experienced/medium experienced scripter if you provide the objects he needs. Maybe someone is interested?

You start the script with a hotkey or by destroying an object that triggers the tracking-algorithm (that should be check every 0,5 seconds or better if you have destroyed the checkobject). The script removes your weapons (no waypoint-shooting allowed )

then you fly and on your way you destroy multiple 'waypoints'
after you reached the object that represents the goal the script stops time and gives you a message with your time and your shipstats. Players can make screens from those messages and can compare them.

[mark_a_condren]

This brings back memories, racing in Freedom's Reach for Credits in an Arrow. I can't remember which Xuniverse game it was from at the moment.

A rebirth of that idea seems like a lot af fun to me for when you just want a break from trading or fighting.

You could say the original track there went broke (cos its not part of the Xuniverse anymore) and the Teladi took over receivership of the facility and have remodelled and reopened it.

Sounds like a great idea, I wish you the best of luck with it.

MarCon

[dragondream]

I like the idea of having different sections you can add together. You could then connect them with a complex construction kit like you would connect a complex, but then set the distance between the complex nodes to a few meters to keep it from having major gaps in the race track...

Also, although your idea of having NPC racers is very nice, you would need a very wide racetrack to keep them from crashing into the sides on autopillok. I don't know if you can get around this by giving them "strict" commands using the script editor to go a certain course. In which case you can set the racetrack's turrets to hostile and put some enemy fighter because the NPC racers won't attack them.

[Killjaeden]

I like the idea of having different sections you can add together. You could then connect them with a complex construction kit like you would connect a complex, but then set the distance between the complex nodes to a few meters to keep it from having major gaps in the race track...

No this is not what i meant. The 'modules' would be invisible to the player.
(you can't say 'this is module 1, this 2 ,...')

Modules= different bodyfiles
the shipscene is a file where all needed bodyfiles are glued together to make the station.

if you see the hole track one looping or a 90°turn would be one module.
this makes it easier for the modder to create new tracks.

Also, although your idea of having NPC racers is very nice, you would need a very wide racetrack to keep them from crashing into the sides on autopillok. I don't know if you can get around this by giving them "strict" commands using the script editor to go a certain course. In which case you can set the racetrack's turrets to hostile and put some enemy fighter because the NPC racers won't attack them.

It's impossible to add AI-pilots to this track.

[jwigeland]

Maybe quite as cool-looking but easier to implement would be a series of jumpgates (with no green jump field, obviously) sprinkled around the asteroids in Freedom's Reach. Then, the "race" would be a mission script and as you pass each ring mission guidance highlights the next one you need to fly through. Once you pass through all of them it's mission complete, otherwise you fail - so this ends up being like a time trial.

The same gates could be used to make five different "courses" to correspond to the five difficulty levels (trivial, easy, average, hard, very hard). One could add a whole bunch of debris inbetween the roids so that in order to pass the course on "very hard" you would have to fly through stuff. And, it's easy to spawn hostiles as the mission could trigger that (they would vanish once the mission is completed / failed).

I like using Freedom's reach because in X3TC is says there are races held there (though I've never seen one LOL).

[Killjaeden]

Maybe quite as cool-looking but easier to implement would be a series of jumpgates (with no green jump field, obviously) sprinkled around the asteroids in Freedom's Reach. Then, the "race" would be a mission script and as you pass each ring mission guidance highlights the next one you need to fly through. Once you pass through all of them it's mission complete, otherwise you fail - so this ends up being like a time trial.

missionguidance-> MissionDirector Scripts...-> MD-Magic which is sort of ... difficult
solid 'hardware' solution sounds better to me
you can create nice tracks with moving obstacles with it.
No way to do that with gates+ debris.

in X3TC is says there are races held there

in X3R there where races (at least one mission for the player), with the same solution you explained...
and in freeplay an arrow and a starburst (race-m5) where buzzing around in that sector.

@Vanguard3000
if you release a mod i may build a track too that you could implement.

[Vanguard3000]

Basically you still have one station. You just split it into multiple objects (loaded seperately) that are combined into one single scene.

Of course! I should have thought of that. Curse my lack of experience!

While the "Jumpgate race" idea sounds pretty neat, it's not what I have in mind. It would be cool to see as a totally different mod, though.

So I guess I'm not very original in choosing Freedom's Reach... Now that I think of it, I do recall reading about racing in the entry on the universe map. Still, it seems like the best place for it.

[superbun]

I seem to remember there was a racing mission in X3:R, which just involved flying through a series of rings...

[Predator02]

I seem to remember there was a racing mission in X3:R, which just involved flying through a series of rings...

Well, there was one ring and the rest of the points were glowing dots. It was a hateful mission though, especially since it was required. It probably would of been better if there were rings at every point.