Race tracks with timers and leaderboards. (Basic needed mechanics already in game)

The idea is based/inspired by the new tutorial:
Source: https://youtu.be/H6Vf0ZaECHk?t=1038


Basic mechanics needed, such as the rings and the associated codes for the detection of ships going through them seems to be already existing (see above).
Timers and leaderboards should be fairly easy to manage, most bugs would probably stem from package loss due to peer-to-peer nature of Elite: Dangerous.

Basic Design:
Each track consists of an outpost (for player convenience) with pads large enough to allow all types of ships allowed on the track to land and to be outiftted.
The outpost can also be used to display the leaderboard of the track (in the menu), if possible a floating billboard near the station could also be used.

Near the outpost is a destinct ring with chequered flag textures incoperated to indicate its roll as start and finish.
The starting ring would also have its own IFF visible for the player in the contact menu to lock-on to (and to contact).

Starting a race would be either by the player contacting the starting ring and selecting and option to start a sepcified type of race and difficulty.
Or by accepting a mission in the station that gives an approriate time for the player to get into position at the rings,
the timer for the race could also be activated by simply flying through the starting ring.

The mission/race triggers would be seperate from player to player, to allow multible players to run a race track at the same time and to avoid players mission-blocking tracks.

To passively counteract griefing/sabotage of players*; instead of manually crafting every individual track several template tracks could be designed.
If the level design too does allow for it, hundreds of tracks could be placed while having about 10 destinct track designs.
Some tracks around special locations could be unique. To further challenge players there could be some deliberately, very difficult tracks.

*During the inital release and onward some players could try to sabotage others players, forcing them into private groups or solo.



Ring Size:
The ring sizes would be determined by the allowed ship size of the track, mainly the longest length.

  • Small - Longest Length of size class +10 meters.
  • Medium - Longest Length of size class +15 meters.
  • Large - Longest Length of size class +20 meters.
This is to allows players to "drift" through the rings while allowing a managable margin for error.


Location(s):
The tracks could technically be located anywhere within reason:

  • Near and around stations.
  • Asteroids belts in system space.
  • Asteroid belts around planets.
  • "Deep" space. (Basically just space)
  • In Orbit of stellar bodies
  • Places the community considers "landmarks", such as Hutton Orbital.
  • etc.


Track Design:
The track designs can be based on real race tracks.
Pictures for reference:
8178-sy-red-bull-air-race-rio-de-janeiro-2010-fsxzip-0-rj-10-areamapjpg.jpg

33306857_10156761169759218_8534057316587143168_o.jpg


nytrackmap.jpg

Red-Bull-Air-Race-Kazan-lap.jpg

race_map11.jpg


a2561eaa33eb3b7de168b07d76e4b1a3.jpg

Near each track should be an outpost that offers the races as missions and allows for outfitting.
The stations of more prominent tracks could also have shipyards.

The tracks can vary in size while some are more compact for races that focus more on maneuvering.
Longer "endurance" type race tracks that span 50km - 100km in length could also be an option.


Due to the nature of flight and movement in Elite, existing conceptions of race tracks can be modified to provide interesting challenges.
Such as very tight curves or changes in "elevation" in relation to previous rings, as well as obstacles between rings, such as asteroids or clearly artifical "race obstacles".

Or more abstract concepts such as this:
The rings are passed in sequence, the difficulty stems from the need for sharp turns needed to achieve fast lap times.
crudeconcept.png


*This is a crude concept of what a "Challenge Track" could look like.



Types of Races:
Races could be distributed as missions on their outposts, different types could be:

Races that are simply timing the time it takes the player to complete a track:
  • Single Lap Timed
  • 2 Laps Timed
  • 5 Laps Timed
  • 10 Laps Timed

Timed races would be put on a leaderboard displaying the number of laps and time and the player name.
Ship used could also be shown, ship names however might be difficult.
The Leaderboard would be across gamemodes, races can be accessed across gamemodes.

If possible some missions/races could restrict the use of Engineered ships/modules.

The above could also be offered as wing missions, these however would likely be prone to bugs due to peer-to-peer.
Causing the mission to not register checkpoints correctly for individual players or perhaps even freezing the timer/mission for all players in the wing.
These would most likely be due to connection issues. The Wing variants would not be on the leaderboard.


Races that have a time limit, the time limit would need to be determined in play testing with players of varying skills to adjust the difficutly.
These races could also offer rewards such as credits, reputation and for (to be determined by player behaviour) prestigious races: decals*.
Rewards could be scaled with the time left. The more time left, the greater the reward. The types of missions for time limit races could be:

  • Easy: A simple time limit most players in less than B rated ships can complete. (Small reward)
  • Medium: Players would "need" an A rated ship but can complete it with average skill. (25% to 30% increased reward to previous difficulty)
  • Hard: A rated ship "needed", the player needs good piloting skills. (25% to 30% increased reward to previous difficulty)
  • Extreme: Ship needs to be fitted and Engineered for racing, player needs to have very good piloting skills. (50% increased reward to previous difficulty and decal)
  • Record Breaker: Player needs to beat the top pilot on the tracks leaderboard (Only available at the top racing locations [Extrapolated from player behaviour]) (100% increased reward to previous difficulty and "Record Breaker" Decal)

For additonal difficulty the timer could reduce the time left if the player hits the rings itself i.e. crashing into it.
But the hit detection for such a feature might be unrealiable and prone to bugs.

*Decals could be generic or incoperate visual representations of prominent attributes within their respective race track as well as lettering i.e. name of the track.


Leaderboards:
Each race track could have its own leaderboard.
The leaderboards could either just show and rank the times or have tabs/options to sort specific ship designs.
Races with multiple labs would show the best average lap time and number of laps, each number of laps has its own category.
For instance there could be an overall leaderboard for ranking just the times but also an option to just show the best times pilots have flown in sidewinders or cobras etc.


Leaderboards should be the same in Open, Private and Solo game modes.


In conclusion:
Race tracks as described above can offer a large variety of (racing themed) content for players with a relatively low resource requirement for development.
It offers new gameplay and adds variety to the available competitive activities within the game, it is also marketable to Elite's players*.

Due to the large amount of content achieveable the above could also be released as its own (small) expansion.
If it were to be released with theme comabtible comsetics such as racing themed paint jobs, decals, bobble heads(?) and nameplates,
for purchase it could create additonal revenue given it would be properly advertised/hyped.

While not neccesarly needed to be as big as suggested; even smaller variants of the above can create a feature for Elite: Dangerous that is (currently) unique in its genre.



*https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Buckyball_Racing_Club - http://www.buckyballracing.org.uk



Opinions and/or adding ideas to this suggestion are welcome.
 
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Congratulations, you're officially the racing threads thread supervisor.

Also OP the idea is great and we all like to have it, as you can see above.
FD, plz take note.

It suspected the suggestion was made a few times but I am suprised at the number of threads.

Hopefully Frontier has something in the works.
 
They say new era has base building - I'd be amazed of that didn't include race tracks.

Then again fdev often amazes us :D
Oh for sure ... I would prepare to be amazed if I were you.

It's all great stuff @Tom2 and yeah, not the first time this has come up.

For a practical example of what's currently possible I would direct people's attention here:

cortes-base-circuit-challenge-an-elite-racers-standing-time-trial

This involves a fairly complex circuit around a planetary city. The race can be run in two forms - one a fairly loose version in which significant buildings form the major corner markers, and one (the "Elite" challenge) which requires people to go through all the road goates rather than just vaguely in the vicinity of them. The latter naturally limits the course to small ships, SLF's and SRV's. I think it's worth giving the above race a go - a) to get a feel for what's already possible in the game, and b) to then try and imagine if and how placeable gates would help to improve on it. For me the main thing that some kind of gate which can detect when you've flown through would bring is to make the life of the race organiser (who otherwise has to carefully check video of people's runs) easier. If an "active" series of gates could accurately time a run that would be awesome.
 
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