[ral] [tpk] [stg] Rally Sunstone

[Aeon]

This fictional rally is based in the Oregon Desert in Oregon, USA. There is a place where you can go to gather semi-precious stones called Oregon Sunstones, and if you use Google Maps to search for "Sunstone Area", that's what you'll find. This rally is based on the dirt roads found within the Sunstone Area. The Oregon Desert is mostly sand and sagebrush with some subtle hills and small rocky ravines. I wanted to make tracks based on something a little different. Every year the seasonal rains wash away the top soil. There are a few sunstone mines in the area, and the Spectrum mine is included in this pack. The track "cow road" is based on my experience while navigating the area with a friend. Sometimes the longer route suggested by Google Maps really is the better option. "Go this way, it's shorter."

8 different maps
24 stages
3 legs of 8 stages each
1.5 months of build time

Based on feedback from previous tracks, I've tried to make it clear where height changes are happening. Jumps and high points will be marked by sand covering the road surface, and on some tracks dips will be highlighted by a muddy bottom. Most of the height change on these tracks are either dramatic or too subtle to matter. There are some tight sections, but at least most of the things you'll crash into are soft bushes. I find the technical sections with stones obstructing the path to be the most interesting.

Again, the car of preference is the Yankee. Exciting, slippery and reaching scary high speeds - just what a rally car should be. Tracks have been populated with AI driver race times ranging from AI 100 to AI 65. This gives you something to complete against for best times. I'll let you guess which driver scores are actually mine. I cannot currently beat the AI 100. You're welcome to try.

Each leg starts with a shakedown track. The scores on these tracks obviously don't count, it's just to get you warmed up, but they have AI race times regardless.

Since most of the tracks have many possible layouts, I've also included a second zip file that contains all of the empty track maps. If you'd like to modify the empty track maps to add your own routes to the pack, feel free to post any additions below.

Enjoy. Try not to kill pedestrians.

[DarylM]

Hello and thank you for sharing. We will try to avoid pedestrians

[Hormous]

Thank you for this new rally! Overall I think this one is your best rally so far, it looks smoother than the others, and I also appreciate a lot your work on making very clear when the hmap changes. I feel that this one can be considered one of the toughest rallies in GR, I found particularly difficult to avoid all those hedges while trying to keep the speed high , but probably the hardest stages are the "Grasslnds".

At the beginning I found quite frustrating to run on these stages, I was thinking they were too tight and difficult, but probably it was only because the times you setted are actually quite good, very hard to challenge. I am trying to beat them with other cars, but it's definitely a tough challenge since I can beat them only with perfect runs.

[Kikwik]

First thing first, I find it clever to set AI records for those rally stages, as it gives the player the incentive to beat them and see where we are in the rankings. (also I imagine the time you put to make each one of them ) But wow they are tough to beat ! I alway stuck my car into the bushes. But it's part of the challenge offered by those stages.

There a sense of uniqueness in the landscape with how you used those hedges as bushes ; there's no other rally stages that are similar to what we have there. And having a small story about it is always intersting so thanks for this, and thanks for all your work you put in each of your releases.

[Aeon]

I've played through all these stages many times, but the only one I consistently cannot score on is Rabbit 3. I also found Cow Road 2 to be very difficult. The 5-second gap between my position and 1st place on many tracks is a bit disheartening.

I have successfully scored first place on Hogback 1-2 and 1-5 and Dudeck. I'm 0.06 seconds behind on Hogback 3 But I have a number of 2nd place positions also.

I'm glad you like the AI challenge, the unique landscape, the hmap changes, and the difficulty. It's too bad there isn't much of a market for rally stages anymore.

[Kikwik]

A market ? You mean, interest in rally stages ? From players or from creators ?

From creators it takes a long time, and efforts to create a whole rally with different stages, at the same level as real world tracks but multiplied by the number of stages which can go to dozens, and it's not so obvious to recreate a good layout from real life as it's quite impossible in the limits of GR. For real world tracks you already have the layout ; for rally stages you have to create one from scratch and makes it realistic enough to make it believable.

From players I can't tell but I can only imagine this ; it's more simple to get few laps around a short circuit than doing a whole serie of stages, even well made. There's more dedication to have from the player perspective to play them.

But it's rewarding and quite a unique experience. I discovered them only from few days ago, when Hormous released his WRC car pack, and some are simply stunning and fun, and stressful... like true rally must be. The only thing missing is times to race against and thanks to you and your dedication to create AI lines and makes AI run and set different scores on each stages it's possible. And also to sort better our tracks in GR, for example having the possibility to explore one folder inside another folder. Would be so practical, especially for rally stages.

Also GR2 is coming so we let the pedal off especially in the creation department, and not many people still play GR and it's understandable considering it's age and gameplay, though it's still love by some like us for its great qualities.

I tried Rabbit 3 and I scored after few tries the 4th place. For the few seconds remaining it's really difficult as one mistake screw your whole stage. I was happy to score 1st in the first Devil Dust stage, and the more I play them, the more I think about roguelike games where one mistake can be deadly, and you have to restart over but with more understanding about what you do and more chances to overcome the obstacles. I had modified settings though, so maybe that 's why I've been able to be in ranks

I may race them for the next days, so we can share our times here or on another thread. It may even be an idea for a thread when people share their times and compete in rally stages, would revive a little the flame ?

(Sorry for the wall of text )

[Aeon]

I posted all of my best times for the Gudauri rally after I finally placed first on all the tracks. Might be a while before I can do that here. Would be nice if people posted high scores, but I have yet to see anyone do that. Perhaps it would be more annoying to bump a thread posting a high score than it’s worth.

I also thought that it might be fun to have competitions building AI lines for tracks, then seeing which cars score best using the provided AI lines. Building AI routes for these tracks presents its own interesting challenges. For example, in Eagle 3 you need to slow down before the second jump in order to make the turn. How do you convince the AI to do this? that’s part of the challenge. Similarly many of the obstacles in Dudeck and Cow Road were difficult for the AI to manage.

[Aeon]

Just in case anyone is interested in challenging my times:

1-0 Shakedown - (My best: 19.01 4th) - I've tried and tried and just can't beat the best times
1-1 Dust Devil - (My best: 40.92 1st)
1-2 Hogback - (My best: 28.08 1st)
1-3 Spectrum - (My best: 34.68 1st) - this took a long time
1-4 Rabbit - (My best: 39.53 2nd)
1-5 Hogback - (My best: 25.20 1st)
1-6 Dudeck - (My best: 36.53 1st)
1-7 Eagle - (My best: 32.85 2nd)
2-0 Shakedown - (My best: 17.63 4th)
2-1 Eagle - (My best: 37.42 1st)
2-2 Rabbit - (My best: 44.42 4th)
2-3 Grassland - (My best: 42.19 4th)
2-4 Spectrum - (My best: 44.75 3rd)
2-5 Hogback - (My best: 37.42 2nd)
2-6 Dust Devil - (My best: 41.83 4th)
2-7 Cow Road - (My best: 48.79 2nd)
3-0 Shakedown - (My best: 16.89 2nd)
3-1 Cow Road - (My best: 53.51 4th)
3-2 Rabbit - (My best: 50.82 6th) - probably the most difficult track, I can't even get close
3-3 Grassland - (My best: 46.88 4th)
3-4 Hogback - (My best: 44.83 1st)
3-5 Spectrum - (My best: 39.02 1st)
3-6 Eagle - (My best: 44.71 3rd)
3-7 Dust Devil - (My best: 34.14 1st)

If anyone wants to compete in a Yankee, feel free to post your best times here.