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Replay of The Tight Corners - The third lap is the one to focus on; it clocked in at 00:31.74. With a little work it'll hit :29s.
• Garage Settings:
1300 med tires/soft suspension
• Fast Lap to date:
00:31.31 by SLO_COPE
This track comes as somewhat of a surprise considering Mat has some unfinished business lingering on the tracks page. Okay so I know that wasn’t very subtle, but I’ve had a long night and I’m pretty tired, and it would take more brain power than I can muster right now to come up with a creative way to say stop being a slacker and finish those tracks lol.
The name pretty much says it all - "The Tight Corners" is a very compact track with acute or
tight corners, and how well you run this track is directly proportional to your ability to hold your line in the turns. The blacktop road leads you to believe you’d be better off choosing shallow tires, however, I’m guessing Mat set the texture type to default, and thus medium cut tires are the way to go. There’s not an overabundance of models, save for a healthy supply of trees, which is fine. He does seem to have an abnormal affection for cones, but we won’t spend time trying to figure out what that’s all about. Besides, that’s a topic for a completely different kind of forum lol. The fact that he limited the model types is probably for the best anyway. I mean let’s face it; on a track like this, if you’re looking at all the eye-popping scenery, you’re probably losing the race lol.
The Tight Corners is light-years away from any of his previous tracks. I don’t mean that as a negative—not at all. If anything I applaud Mat for spreading his wings and trying something different. It’s abundantly clear he knows how to design and construct tracks, nice tracks with interesting and dare I say, ‘compelling’ layouts. I do have a few observations, however.
For starters, the old adage, "
Less is sometimes more" comes into play where the road signs and barriers are concerned. I know Phin suggested that they should have been set to complex, which is certainly one way to go, however, I would have suggested he drop the three signs shown
here altogether, modify the weight so that the barriers fly harmlessly (but still somewhat realistically) out of the way. He then could have created some sort of mediocre hazard so that racers could either take a chance and go for the slight shortcut or play it safe. Make it through successfully and reap the rewards of a more advantageous position. Miss it and you’ll lose a little time, and maybe sacrifice your position to those taking the conventional route. I'm not a big fan of man-made cuts, but if a track maker insists on using them, my preference is that they force the racer to either take a risk (even if it's slight) that could mean the difference between winning and losing. As is the signs are the hazard . . . partly because of the excessive weight he assigned to the ‘Road Closed’ sign shown
here. If you crash through the barriers, it falls to the ground as a stand-alone model. It can topple your truck, spin it around, and do a variety of undesirable things that will surely drive your blood pressure to new heights. As for the grandstands, and I know they’re stock, but the non-visible portions of these models stick out and disrupt the lives of racers. SLO_Jumper was in therapy for 6 months due to this sort of thing, so trust me; I know what I’m talking about lol. Seriously, nowadays racers expect for models to have realistic collision properties, and they tailor their driving to that end. For example, because the grandstand at checkpoint 5 extends beyond its
visible boundaries, you can’t approach the start/finish line from an extreme left-hand position, which would allow for a much sharper turn thru it, better setting up the approach to cp 1. Conversely, I love how he shaved off the edges at
cp 4 and right at the end of the lap just before you trip the
start/finish cp. Those things may seem trivial, but I assure you, when it comes to shaving hundreths of a second off your lap times, they make a difference.
As for the texture type, I love the look of it, and you’re right – no seams, no misalignments, at least I couldn’t find any. You seem to be onto something with this texture generator gizmo lol. For a more realistic feel, however, setting the texture type to cement would’ve been preferable because shallow tires would allow for better traction.
My last observation has to do with the omitted portion of the track. Personally, I think adding a checkpoint to force racers to complete the 360º turn (as shown
here) before making the mad dash to the finish would have been a heck of a lot of fun. But that’s just my take on it, one of several I would have raised if this track had been submitted for beta testing. Which brings me to this: you’re a darn good track maker, Mat. The Beta Testing Room certainly doesn’t claim that any track passing through there will be problem-free or the very best it could ever possibly be. But catching small blemishes and brainstorming often time helps the author generate ideas to incorporate into his/her project . . . and sometimes that makes all the difference in the world.
Overall I like this track, and the speed and intensity will appeal to quite a few racers. As for the Copey Rating, this one churned out a very respectable
8 out of 10 possible points. However, with a few modifications here and there, Mat-Allum's "The Tight Corners" would’ve easily been a rock-solid 10!
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