I made this map "Daytona," and said somewhere that I made it as a test to see if accelerating and decelerating (or at least steering toward and away from the lower body for a higher speed) would have a better score than finding a stable orbit... I didn't really touch it on purpose, but seems the best score people found was actually just getting into a stable orbit! MX's run was pretty remarkable in that way, they never rotated the ship, with just slight corrections over the whole run.
The lesson I took from it is to be careful on these "track" type maps which I keep feeling drawn to trying to make... Because this record-holding run seems to be nearly the most boring gameplay possible in this engine unfortunately hahaha
My problem is I keep trying to make a "line" that the ship flows through somewhat easily, but that always seems to turn into a stable line which you can set up and forget about, at least for half a "lap" or so! Trying to take notes from the new maps for later...
3 Comments
jaykrown@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
It is still a good first map for sure. Indeed MX's calm skill showed how getting the best score was more about keeping a chill vibe keeping momentum rather than any crazy constant maneuvering. They still had to maneuver at key moments, although not many. Still great to see, thanks for posting about it. I look forward to seeing what other maps you create! And remember, whenever someone logged in plays on your map for the first time you get 20 pax as a reward.
Derg@programming.dev · 2 pts · 2d
I'm still messing with mapmake sometimes, or at least trying to think about ideas! But I'll be honest, in these types of games I almost never was the person to make the maps... It's definitely fun to be on the ground floor actively trying to figure out what's good and not though! Here's hoping more people make more maps, now that there's more competition!
But that is a good point, it's not quite as though they could set up a stable orbit and let it fly, though I guess that run might be possible. In my runs I'm kind of ideally thinking of planets/bodies as "steering points," because they really are where you want to change your direction, accelerate, decelerate... But if you're passing by a planet very closely, a tiny change in direction going in can result in a large change in direction leaving. Maybe that's why so many small adjustments had to be made over the run, because of the tight stable path by the left/right planets? Who knows... Extra pax though, score!
Derg@programming.dev · 2 pts · 2d
One of the things I actually do like about Daytona though, is that the ship starts with just a little less velocity than you'd like at the start. With the current mapmake, the ship always starts pointing the direction it has velocity in (obviously may change at one point, but I'm trying to hold back from bombarding you all with feature requests that are probably on your list when it's still early). My rule of thumb I think is that I like maps where the ship is already facing the direction that I want to start thrusting in at the very start, at least for competitive maps