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I've been thinking. When life gives you lemon, don't make lemonade! Wait, wrong script.
This thread will be about giving as much tips for this gamemode as possible. The tips are separated in four categories : Basic tips for new players, Gameplay-related tips, for everything that revolves around your behavior in races and arenas, Upgrade-related tips, for the upgrades (duh), and map-related tips, for anything that can help you in specific maps.
Basic tips
- WASD (or ZQSD for azerty keyboard users) to move, space to handbrake, alt to tuse horn, F for flashlight and shift to turbo by default.
- You can only use a car function if you have bought the corresponding upgrades. You need the supercharger for the turbo, the headlights for the... well... and the hand brake for... I guess you can see a pattern here.
- To buy upgrades, press F2 and click on the upgrade you want on the right column. The left column is the upgrades you already have, click on an upgrade on that column to sell it.
- To queue/unqueue in a race, press F3.
- There is a way to get your car in most map lobbies. Just get in a garage looking zone and press F3. You'll spawn in your car instead of queuing/unqueuing. Some maps unfortunately do not feature those. Be careful, there currently is a bug where being in your car while in a lobby on an arena map at the moment the rounds start will instakill you. Suicide and respawn before the countdown ends!
- In a race, the money you get per race is calculated like so : 100*([number of players]-[your position]+1) On arena, the formula is 100*([numbers of players that died before you]+[numbers of players that you killed). VIP players also gain 25% additional money.
- By upgrading to VIP, you can get the aforementioned additional money but also car skins, missiles, the ion cannon, the toy cannon (it repels players instead of hurting them) and horns.
- Make sure you're not dead when the race starts. Else, you will not be in.
- Sometimes there is simply too many people on and the track or the arena can't handle it. If you get the message "Because we could not fit you into the last race, you have been placed at the front of the line for the next race", that's either because of this, because you were dead at the end of the countdown, or because of the aforementioned bug.
- Are you completely stuck or otherwise want to respawn? Type "@kill" in the chat to suicide (you can also open the console and type "kill")
Gameplay related tips
- If you just prestiged or you're new to this game, don't queue in the race early! Being at the back will avoid situations where you start just in front of a maxed out car that will wreck you few seconds after the start. Caution, if the server is full, it can end up with not being able to join the race because the starting line is already filled up.
- For the same reasons, don't boost right after the countdown if your car is weak!
- Your car keeps spinning out? tap your arrow keys instead of holding them, it should help.
- Your car suddenly behaves like it's on ice and start spinning out for no reason? that's because a wheel has sunk in the ground. Use the handbrake to get back to normal.
- If you're a newbie and you hear the jalopy sound from the back instead of the standard jeep sound, do what you can to allow the incoming player to overtake you easily. That means that player has got the V8 monster engine or V10 haul ass engine, thus a very fast player that will not hesitate to throw you off the tracks if you block his path (and in some cases he wouldn't even have the choice anyway because of handling problems)
- Know your chassis. The brown car means a weak car, the blue car with an orange lambda (λ) symbol at the back means an iron chassis, thus a middle tier car. If it's blue/grayish with no lambda symbol, it's a steel car, thus a strong car. If the car does not match any of those descriptions, it's a VIP car. If the car does not look like a standard HL2 jeep and instead looks like a proper racing buggy, then it's a bandito car, a car only available to veteran players, those who are on prestige 10.
- Caution, boosting in downward slopes can spin you out! Same with boosting in turns.
- A fast player is targeting you in arena? try to evade using your boost.
- A car generally takes more damage if rammed from the side. This can also apply to the rear to a lesser extent, but be careful about rear spikes.
Upgrade related tips
- Getting the 5k steering is a good idea. The 10k steering can cause the wheels to sink in the grounds and increase spinning, but not much. It could be a good idea to get it if you really can't stand the 5k one. Anything higher is a bad idea because your car wil turn into a spinmobile.
- The three most important upgrades if you want a fast car are the engines, the radiators and the braking system upgrades. The engine raises your max speed, which often means the difference in a race. The radiator upgrade is also very important because boosting more often is also a huge asset during either arena or race. Last but not least, the braking system upgrades raise the roll speed which is the speed at which your wheels can possibly go, as in downhill or boosting. Make sure you have those maxed out early, because a good boost cooldown means nothing if said boost raises your car's speed by 1mph because of a lack of roll speed.
- The gearbox tuning allows you to trade horsepower for speed, or the opposite. You should get it after the V8 engine and set the gearbox to Ultra High config. However, buy some horsepower upgrades before, else your car will accelerate like a snail.
- Car battery upgrades will allow your car to take more punishment by having more health. Structure reinforcement upgrades will allow the car to absorb shocks better, as in losing less HP, or depending on the shock and if there is enough armor, not taking damage at all.
- Be careful when buying the turbo duration-related upgrades. If your turbo is too long, you won't be able to negotiate turns properly and you will slam into everything. You can go ahead and buy the quad exhaust sidepipes in drag and endurance though.
- the NOS upgrade are useless for newbies.
- The handbrake is a must. Buy it ASAP!
- Second supercharger and onward have absolutely no effect. Buy them only if you want to prestige.
- The headlights are important in dark maps. Buy them when you end up in a map like Black (the perfect example), Death race (there is a dark part) or Downhill (why is this map so dark, seriously?).
- Prestiging is a good idea, no matter what. Be careful though, it will reset your car and reset your money back to 10k$, and you also need every upgrades installed on the car (excluding mines and VIP items) before you can do it.
Map related tips
- There is a small bug in downhill v2 where NOT accelerating in any slope slowly accelerate you to no limit. you can easily gain a lot of speed there. Be careful about spinning out though.
- Still in downhill v2, if you have a fast car don't throw yourself in the end at full speed, you could kill yourself on the wall.
- In Black, DON'T drive in the middle at the start of the race! There is a killer
whalewall awaiting you there. - In Death Race in the dark part, it's the opposite! Drive in the middle or you will fall in a pit.
- In Flash Tron, there is a point where your car will accelerate like crazy, risking to spin out. That's where the brake (the true brake, not the handbrake) comes into play!
Now for something important. If you want something added in the list, or you believe something is wrong, say it in the thread and it will be taken into account in the first post.
Enjoy racing!