Unreal3 + Wipeout=?

[El Scumbago]

First things first; this isn't a WIP, merely a suggestion from a person who's more than eager to learn UT's editor but has no serious experience of it yet.

Now, the idea; Hoverboard racing. Given the players' and bots' ability to deploy and ride one on the fly, and the flexible nature of the game's engine, I believe this is quite possible and 99% fun if made. To get into more detail:

Let's assume we have a map that features a "highway" of sorts, meaning the players can't move outside its borders. Using a "force ride" script, one can probably force both bots and players to stay on their Hoverboards for the duration of the race. An activator at the end of the "road" will stop the race once a player (or 3 players) cross the finishing line (which will be the activator). Rather simple for someone who knows his way around scripts.
To force the bots to race instead of fight, one could use a script that reduces their aggresiveness to zero and place an invisible activator at the end of the track that the bots "think" they must reach (kinda like a flag).

That's pretty much the whole concept. Assuming someone would be interested to give this a shot, here's some more stuff I thought of, which may add some flavor to the whole idea;
Boost areas along the track. These exist already, so no sweat.
Shortcuts. Tricky ones, think of NFS and Wipeout.
Slightly faster Hoverboards. They're nice as they are, but some more speed would be in order.
Jump points along the track. Wrong landing would lead to loss of speed, naturally.
Obstacles. Both natural and artificial (like time-slowing zones, similar to those of Deimos and Gateway).

That's all about it atm. Until I get to understand the editor properly, I'd be happy to see modders interested in such an idea. What's your opinion?

[_freespace_]

Sounds really cool, but I'd be more interested in seeing a Viper race. Controlling them feels much better to me than hoverboarding.

[El Scumbago]

I partially agree with you, but vehicular racing has some small disadvantages. I'll take Vipers for example;
1. They need lots of space to move around. A racing track would be too big => fps killer.
2. They take damage. Could be scripted not to, but it would complicate things.
3. They fire upon enemies (and self destruct). More scripting.
4. They can't use the current boost areas. Even more scripting.
5. Them and the bots are different entities, which I think isn't the case with Hoverboards.

However, if Hoverboard racing becomes reality, a modder could use it as a base to build more complex races. Remeber Unwheel? The racing mod for UT2k4?

[_freespace_]

Good point. Hoverboard racing would be a lot easier to make. Screen motion blur would also be a nice addition to this mod.

[Widz]

el scumbago , you can scale the rendering in UT3 using zones afaik. therefore it wouldnt kill fps

[Tez]

To make a longer more complex race, you could even incorporate capturing a flag. Like this:

Each racer would have a node or something that would 'cap' a flag. These would all be fairly close together at one end of the map. At the other end would be a flag for each player. The players would all start at their node, race to the flag and back. When they cap, the flag is reset. You could set a number of flags to cap for the win, so it could be like a race with laps. You would have to either allow flag pick-ups on the hoverboard, or allow players to get off their boards. I kind of like the idea of being allowed to walk and just have the impact hammer as a weapon. Then you could make certain obstacles in the map or shortcuts that require being on foot and maybe making a hammer jump. You could also allow players to try and knock each other off the board with the hammer. This gametype would be awesome... I would certainly play it.

[sdmaze]

I don't want to get ahead of my friend. Becouse we are working on such a thing though we want to replace the hoverboard with another. we are working on importing models < such as gloves and boots>.
but if you want to know a bit more about it what type it is that is google (Air Gear) Or (Jet set Radio Future) for the idea we are going for.

[Warhead]

I would think that a wipeout esk mod would be quite cool. For such large maps, could you not add portals in certain spaces to keep them from rendering? you could also tone down the detail along the tracks since you dont get very close to them anyway.

[haldolium]

I personaly would be more interested in a WipeOut TC, but your idea sounds fun though. Should definatly be possible to create.

[spin]

A hoverboard/vehicle racing mod would be a nice little project..will watch how this developes (have a few modding skills to offer myself )

[El Scumbago]

I'm glad to see such positive feedback to such a simple idea. But then, simplicity's where fun is, right?
Widz: I'm afraid I can't understand much of what you said, save for scaling down the rendering process. Thing is, I've only modded for the TES series (Morrowind & Oblivion) where things are pretty straightforward, AKA drag and drop items into the gamespace and lift/vertex paint the terrain.
sdmaze: Can you provide a link for your site/thread if you have one?

Btw, anyone aware of simple, totally noob tutorials for the UT editor?

[sdmaze]

sdmaze: Can you provide a link for your site/thread if you have one?

well Air gear is A tv show and japan comic, tv show opeing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YieEuQ1ezqQ
JSRF is a old game out on Xbox (first one) here is a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_KK1WqM4dg please bare with the long intro. once the music starts and the logo moves you get the idea fairly fast of what the games was. like

it has some diehard fans and is extremly fun

(edits to post video links)

[ElementOfInertia]

i wish we could add flip tricks and kick flips etc. That'd be sweet to do on the fly.