ModNation Racers General Discussion

[thirteen23]

I was able to break a few of my personal time trial records without too much effort on some easier tracks.  It might be worth mentioning that I haven't played in over a month btw.

If I'm interpreting this topic correctly, we're implying that the optimum way to get around a track is +2 drift and +2 speed.  A problem I ran into was on some of the tougher tracks you would have to race with nearly impossible precision to take advantage of these settings.(I was actually over-turning a lot)

....does that sound right?

[Kuningaskotka]

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thirteen23 wrote:

If I'm interpreting this topic correctly, we're implying that the optimum way to get around a track is +2 drift and +2 speed.  A problem I ran into was on some of the tougher tracks you would have to race with nearly impossible precision to take advantage of these settings.(I was actually over-turning a lot)

....does that sound right?

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Earl may have another opinion but imo there is no one best handling setting for all tracks. Actually I think +2 drift is pretty horrible in general, it's just difficult to control and easily makes you lose speed. But it might be up to personal taste.

This experiment has little application to in-game because nearly all tracks force you to boost at some point and thus +2 speed is always best for hot lapping.

The only scenario where handling affects top speed is if you are using +2 acceleration +2 handling. We weren't able to reach top speed with these settings. But +2 handling together with +2 speed in hot lap often gives good results.

[OnePieceAnime]

Interesting, but it really depends on the room and the racer for this to be applicable.

Seeing gameplay videos of players who are almost always drifting (snaking) and boosting almost constantly,
that would point to 2+ still being the fastest setting. Chances are plus drift would be terrible on a track like Sinkhole.
I am probably wrong though.

[blackjet2000]

On the curious part: you can reach top speed in all ways, therefore you need to try all the kind of drifts, turns and so on.

Such i am curious to see how to reach top hil by running on hill, disleveled terrains (bumps or what Angelg said), continuos turns without losing speed, landings without boost pads and how many spins can affect it. (i confirmed in Crazy Crate on the start if you spin correctly you'll get much faster than normal air even without boosting).

So, still, i can see few people using +2 acceleration and still being fast as a hot lapper but that's surely depends on which kind of track as well because most of the people tends to boost on a start of the turns or the end of it, straight line and after landing.

Still, i can't mostly confirm it can be a new way to hold your boost, i may try today to race with different setting aside +1 speed (which requires to use a little of boost)

[WhiteF8ng]

Indeed a interesting find. However, human error will always be the deciding factor. There's quite a bit of other variables even in a closed environment. But still interesting...

[earlizd1]

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Kuningaskotka wrote:

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thirteen23 wrote:

If I'm interpreting this topic correctly, we're implying that the optimum way to get around a track is +2 drift and +2 speed.  A problem I ran into was on some of the tougher tracks you would have to race with nearly impossible precision to take advantage of these settings.(I was actually over-turning a lot)

....does that sound right?

---

Earl may have another opinion but imo there is no one best handling setting for all tracks. Actually I think +2 drift is pretty horrible in general, it's just difficult to control and easily makes you lose speed. But it might be up to personal taste.

This experiment has little application to in-game because nearly all tracks force you to boost at some point and thus +2 speed is always best for hot lapping.

The only scenario where handling affects top speed is if you are using +2 acceleration +2 handling. We weren't able to reach top speed with these settings. But +2 handling together with +2 speed in hot lap often gives good results.

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its more about player preference and understanding of the mechanics (kuni is terrible with +drift )

both drift and handling has their downsides but i have mastered both

+2drift lets you counter-drift for a very long time without any slow down what so ever but the moment you turn in the direction of your drift you lose speed and the curve of the neutral stick drift is very steep which makes you kinda have to take sharp turns with neutral stick and as wide  as possible.

+2handling fishtails when counter steering making you lose speed after a moment. the neutral stick drift is very wide and there is minimal speed loss for turning in.

so it really means     +2drift = massive boost building potential with hash penalties for errors in driving

                               +2handling = slower boost accumulation and very forgiving because there are no instant slow downs

drift and handling can't be driven in the same manner so there is no "best" setting

hope that helps clear things up a bit

[blackjet2000]

I'll simple give feedback on my experience with using drift settings, it's been long time without it

[AngelG_No55_FTW]

With +2 handling countersteering in a drift equals loss of speed, but do quick taps of the left stick in the opposite direction of the drift have the same effect?

Additinally, I have conducted a bit of experimentation on WHALE racing coastline and concluded that I can't use +2 drift - even by using a different driving technique according to what earl described in his post I can't even come close to the lap times I get with +1 handling (I'm talking 3 seconds difference here. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.)

[Kuningaskotka]

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AngelG_No55_FTW wrote:

With +2 handling countersteering in a drift equals loss of speed, but do quick taps of the left stick in the opposite direction of the drift have the same effect?

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I'm pretty sure they do. I've used that technique to slow down before a tough corner LONG before we did this experiment.

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AngelG_No55_FTW wrote:
Additinally, I have conducted a bit of experimentation on WHALE racing coastline and concluded that I can't use +2 drift - even by using a different driving technique according to what earl described in his post I can't even come close to the lap times I get with +1 handling (I'm talking 3 seconds difference here. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.)

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If the track has lots of easy corners I suspect +2 drift will be worse no matter what. But mostly it's just learning a new technique.

[flathletics102]

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AngelG_No55_FTW wrote:

These results are quite surprising, but there's no rest for the MNR Science Team! I've come up with more speed tests:

• What puts the player directly at top speed (apart from the glitch)
• How some types of terrain slow karts down (there's a kind of snow with trails that seems noticeably slower than tarmac and most other terrain, apart from some kinds of terrain that are obviously slower, seen in places like Village Run and Terraced Drop)

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Great job keeping MNR Science alive guys! lol, very interesting stuff. And i would also be interested to know how the terrain slows karts as well if somone figured this out.