Our ReVolt Pub

Racing around POD Super Speedway is getting a bit old, even if it has the most challenging AI for my POD cars at the moment. I wanted to create a new track to race on, and I've been wanting to build one where you're racing through a city full of sky scrapers. Its a 2x lego extreme and track layout is based on the track Scale Force.

Click to Download

PRM files originally by rickyD and LaserBeams.

The type of tracks i like, nice.

That looks nice, hope you are gonna release it

I think I've fixed up the AI as good as I'm going to get it for now, but since its designed for my version of POD cars you won't be able to appreciate it unless you're driving the track with POD cars...

You can download the track here:
Click to Download

If anyone cares to (since it seems most people don't), you can install a new instance of Re-Volt and clear the cars folder, then download this zip file and unzip its contents into the cars folder. That'll give you 17 cars that the track above was designed for.

Click to download the cars

If you decide to do this, I'd really like to know how you fare against the AI and what car(s) you used.

Well I was kind of hoping for more than one download and a little feedback, but I guess it'll just be fun for me and, er, one other person. Maybe people will notice it more after I submit it to RVZT.

Yeah, I'm sure more will notice it on RVZT. But I DLed it anyways. Will comment later.

Also, if anyone cares to investigate, there seems to be a curious AI phenomenon happening right before the boosts before the finish line. The AI comes down fast through the tunnel, jogs to the right and then makes a wide left turn, travels uphill a little bit, makes a sharp left, travels uphill some more, and about 2/3 of the way up that final hill on the starting straight, the AI will, at the same point, always either start to wobble uncontrollably or just plain steer into the wall. I've been trying to fix this for a while and I can't explain why they do this. They drive straight up the slope until they reach that point and then just go out of control. There's no invisible walls or anything...

If anyone can give me an explanation or a solution as to why this is happening, that would be awesome. This seems to happen with all cars, even slow ones, and I can't figure out any reason for it. Its really baffling me.

If you just sit there and watch the beginning of the straight just last the final turn in the track with MAKEITGOOD mode, you'll see what I'm talking about.

You mean that?



Your track is very good, and has a very good flow. I like it

Aeon, look at Track Zone 16. The front part does not go all the way
down to the road surface (leaving a little gap between Zones 15 and 16).
Lower it just into the road, that should fix it.
The AI cars hit that gap between Zones and start to Repo, but recover
and hit the wall.

Great, I'm glad you noticed that. That fixes everything. Thanks.

Now if I could just get the cars to consistently turn at the corners, instead of going straight into the wall, they'd be perfect.

Aside from that, I realized that all of my buildings were facing the same direction (its that darn SimCity influence!), so I went and rotated some of them a bit. I also added a new notable building and attempted to merge another building or two to create some new looks, hoping to give the player a few more visual cues as to where they're at.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Has anyone tried it with the POD cars?

You could try insert the turn sign i made. Maybe that one might fit to this track .

I don't think they suit this track because it already has turn signs built in, but maybe some others.

Gah, I don't get it. Why does the AI do this? I know the cars are going really fast and might have difficulty with corners, but these guys aren't even trying to turn. Look at the wheels of the car in this picture. The car has a steer rate of 100 which is nearly instantanious, and a turning radius of 30 degrees, which is more than enough to be visible. But the wheels are just plain facing straight into the wall, ignoring the AI line completely.



Its really infuriating. Why are they doing this?

After some experimenting I'm concluding that this has something to do with the AI somehow expecting to end up outside of the AI lines (the space between the green and blue nodes), at which point they kind of "shut off". I fixed the situation above by extending the AI line to about 3x the width of the track on the outside of the turn, and now they drive it properly.

Perhaps the AI determines its next move by where it calculates it will be in a moment based on its current speed. If its calculated destination results in somewhere outside the AI lines, then the AI reacts funny.

Oh man, I went and "padded" all of the turns with extra wide AI line borders, and it just improved the AI with those POD cars dramatically. I just had 5 cars in one race all beat me best lap time ever for this track. In fact, the fastest lap I've seen the AI run was 13 (scratch, 19) seconds faster than my record. I think you can call that improvement.

Have you updated the download yet? And can you release the cars so they don't have to overwrite the originals?

I haven't updated the download yet, but I will in a bit if people want to try it. The cars are supposed to be used in a separate install so that you play with ONLY the POD cars. Then they don't interfere with anything.

The reason why is that all of my POD cars have their stats calculated using the same routine with a few customizable parameters so that they're all fairly balanced. They will drive differently than other Re-Volt cars.

Gotcha

wow
from the pics it looks nice
i have been busy caring my new tarantulas and my BRAND new baby bearded dragon

Okay, the latest version of the track is available for download (same link as first post), all cleaned up and ready to go. You can also download the latest version of the cars set, which has some AI-enhancing improvements and the cars in general are more inclined to go straight, which helps to keep the AI from wobbling.

If you race this track with only those cars, 12 cars on 3 laps, I dare you to try and finish in 1st place. With any car.

Alright, I like the track and the cars. Very fun, I can't seem to get better than 4th, but I'm still not used to my new steering wheel.(I've used Keyboard for years.) My only issue, is that all the cars I raced seem to get stuck to the walls. Once you touch them, the car won't leave unless you steer hard enough to run into the opposite wall. And I always viewed cars like this just bouncing off the walls. Otherwise, very nice.

That's a bit of an odd complaint, but I'll see if there's some parameters I can tweak to make them more "bouncy". Incidentally I've been using keyboard for months and I can't place better than 3rd. My record is 2:24 for 3 laps.

Alright, I changed the hardness of all the cars to 1 which makes them bounce somewhat further, if only on a hard hit. Some cars with triangular wheel configurations are still inclined to stick to the walls if they hit them at shallow angles, namely Blade. You'll have to tell me if you think this is too much or too little or not what you had in mind, because personally I don't hit the walls much on these wide tracks, and I haven't put much thought into how much the cars should bounce. And I don't race with a steering wheel, either.

Also, for anyone using the cars in a separate installation of Re-Volt, these are the Sounds that I've been using for them so that they don't sound like little turbocharged glow engines.

I updated the pictures for anyone who's interested.

Aeon, you should be "Postaholic" rather than "Methanolic" for reasons obvious.

1x double post
1x triple post
1x quadruple post

LOL

Well, I hope you got everyone's attention by doing that. You sure did mine (just didn't care to say anything at the time).

I tried the track, the latest version only... I love this track for what it does with the lego format... it's pretty unique, I have never seen anything like it.

The texturing looks so 1997-1998 it's not even funny, so I guess it fits the POD theme. I would prefer much higher res texturing for the buildings and more instances like streetlights or something to increase the atmosphere, but that is probably too much to ask for, and higher res textures probably couldn't be done without a hell of a lot of modification.

The racing line is smooth, but difficult, especially with my rear wheel drive cars that spin out a lot. It (dare I say) keeps me on my toes, which is a good thing, but it doesn't do it to such a degree that I would like to throw the nearest blunt object at my computer monitor which saves me some money...

Good job, keep it up.



Oh, I added your page to my links page, too.

Why does the track have a Farce Field with downward push covering the
entire track? That can make the track a little harder for both real and
cpu cars to drive.
I think a Speed Farce Fields would be better for the speed up things.
Also the overpassing lines do not need to be that far apart.
The AI split is not set right and the cars will only take the outside racing
line. The Turbo and bump racing lines will not work in this track.
Also it could use many more Ai nodes, many more on the turns.
Also on the last straightaway the nodes that lead to the finish line are
way too far apart. If a real or cpu car repos just before the finish
they will be repoed way back to the start of the straight.
I might place the main racing line much nearer the inside walls of the curves.
The strange effect of the building wall a little in front and to the left of the
starting line is caused by .prms overlapping, I would delete the inside
building (building1.prm, i think).

Why does the track have a Farce Field  with downward push covering the entire track?  That can make the track a little harder for both real and cpu cars to drive.

For starters because I wanted it that way. I put it there on purpose because it improves the way that my POD cars handle. Once again, this track is designed for those POD cars - don't complain about how things work with other cars. Having the farce field push all the cars down encourages them to stick to the track and keeps them on the ground, which is exactly what I want.

http://z3.invisionfree.com/Our_ReVolt_P ... topic=1046

I think a Speed Farce Fields would be better for the speed up things.

I experimented with several different ways of doing it using those cars and the way I'm using is the way that I decided I liked best.

Also the overpassing lines do not need to be that far apart.

The only place where they're far apart is at the very beginning so that the cars will spread out more. If you place them close together, the cars tend to crash into each other at the very beginning, I've observed.

The AI split is not set right and the cars will only take the outside racing line.

If you're referring to the one on the downhill slope, the inside route is only for cars that get knocked off track. I WANT cars to take the outside route because its generally faster.

The Turbo and bump racing lines will not work in this track.

Agreed, they're just relics left over from things I was experimenting with. They're not hurting anything.

Also it could use many more Ai nodes, many more on the turns.

I've tried it both ways and I believe the AI drives the corners just fine with the number of nodes I have. I have just enough nodes to keep the AI from hitting the inside corners, and having too many nodes tends to cause the AI to steer in too far and crash into the wall.

Also on the last straightaway the nodes that lead to the finish line are way too far apart. If a real or cpu car repos just before the finish they will be repoed way back to the start of the straight.

That's a fair point, I'd fix it if I hadn't already submitted it to RVZT. Maybe I can fix it and resubmit it before it gets listed.

I might place the main racing line much nearer the inside walls of the curves.

Considering the AI already beats me every single time, I'm not worried about it. I'd rather be safe with a fast AI than risk them getting a little too close and bouncing off the inside of the wall.

The strange effect of the building wall a little in front and to the left of the
starting line is caused by .prms overlapping, I would delete the inside building (building1.prm, i think).

I think you are not using the latest version. I fixed that in the last update, and they're not even prms anymore.

Thanks for giving absolutely no positive feedback. If you want to encourage people to stop creating things, that's a great way to do it. Constructive criticism is nice, but only if its balanced with something positive.

even though it looks so "1997-1998" it also has a future look
i think the racing line is very fun rt challenging
i personally think that the textures give the track it's personaliity. IMO, this track is one of the best i've downloaded
nice job

hilaire9 @ Dec 13 2008, 06:18 PM wrote: I think a Speed Farce Fields would be better for the speed up things.

So, why do you feel that changing the way boosts work would be better, and how would you do it?

Great track, I like the way CPU cars are driving with this overall downward push force. I think you've found a really good way to implement gameplay in RV tracks.

Fun one.
Thanks !

So does anyone like this style of track with the appropriate cars enough to think that I should work on more tracks like it, or am I pretty much on my own as the only one who will race them the way they're intended if I continue to make more?

I like theese kind of tracks better than other legos wich is just textured. When you start a track, you are going to finish it, and modify it, in so many ways. Theese lego tracks are really different from tracks that is just legos with some textures.
You add the instances wich gives the track a good looking. People like accessories, and theese tracks are full of them. You also know how to use RV Glue, much better than me.

Continue make tracks like this if you like to make tracks like this. I would be glad if you continue.