Raceship spacetrack + concept art > good for multiplayer

[Nachtwolf]

I had this idea yesterday and I think it could be very interesting.

First I was thinking about some ships I would like to see in vegastrike and my mind wandering I had this idea for a sleek raceship with awesome performanace and little to no practical uses other than fun. That was inspired by the so called "highborn luxury yachts"

Then I got the idea of racing those in some kind of huge tube track, using inertia and everything to drift in a very dangerous manner in the fastest way possible. Flying like that would be very technical, dangerous and challenging

I think it was worth a go for some concept art in order to check on feasibility and maybe inspire someone. Unfortunately I would not have the time to pull this out myself.

The idea is to have a huge track with walls you could hit and damage yourself (aka normal walls with transparency or not), there would be a pit access to the track and it would be sheer fun to race through this in multiplayer. You would be able to deck in the pits in order to repair your ship (pitstop) and maybe refuel.

I think it would fill the role of an entertainment station and would definitely add something really interesting to the universe.

Hope you'll find this interesting and worth a try.

Cheers,
Vince



Vegastrike team is granted the rights to use these images.

[mortaneous]

I would imagine that space racing would be more like modern airplane or yacht racing than that... i.e. No walled track. Especially if you're thinking Highborn Luxury Yacht races. The course is delineated by buoys or large ring structures that must be flown around or through. Spectators could still be in stations positioned in interesting parts of the course, including the marker ring structures, if used. The added danger of a fully-enclosed track doesn't make sense, unless of course we suppose that creatures of this universe value their lives any less than...say current-day racers of various motorsports.
Also, the enclosure is unnecessary if you're purporting that it will force people to manipulate their inertia better... proper inertia management will yield faster times around the track, however it is delineated, even without physical enforcement so long as there are inner and outer bounds to the allowable course, possibly used to asses time penalties for deviating. (Again, much like the current implementation of yacht races and airplane races)

This, of course, would not rule out a luxury station with some sort of atmosphere-bound racing course that would require such a structure as you've drawn up. It's just not good for space vessel races.

[safemode]

star trek did space racing.

the only way i can see this being incorporated into VS would be to do some major editing of the AI such that this "mission" could be assignable, and the NPC's would do something remotely desirable. This more than likely would have to be it's own mod. A very fun mod even. Better than some lame stupid new Wing Commander game that will remain unmentioned.

[loki1950]

One of the "Star Wars" games had something similar as a training course with turrets you had to take out as well as finish in a certain time period to qualify to fly a particular class ship.

Enjoy the Choice

[safemode]

yea, but that would involve basically having a mod within vanilla VS that is used during this "race" game.

Best to just make it a full fledged mod so things can be costomized around the race theme. I'd really like to see this happen.

though not enough to actually code it

[charlieg]

I could see this being done in game. Big race events could be a major draw for money. It's not that much of a departure from VS itself to accomplish it - all you need is a way to contain a few ships and have them speed around the "track".

Of course, it would be advisable to do it initially as a separate mod but I wouldn't rule it out of getting integrated into the main game because it could add a lot of excitement to it - missions to prevent competitors taking part, or to make sure competitors make it to the race, or to even enter the race yourself and buy/mod-up your ship. Plus hostilities between some factions might get put on hold on race day...

[safemode]

you'd need a whole different AI to actually participate in the race ...as the goal would be to win the race, not react to faction levels and flat out fight eachother.

You'd need a different HUD to show place, maybe a map of the track rather than radar... etc

this is a different game, not a mission.

there is no reality where you could imagine that a mission like this would go on and no outside forces would interrupt.

[bgaskey]

Sadly, I think safemode etc are right. no place in the tumultuous vs universe. but a extremely light and quick interceptor that looks real cool certainly has merit