Drift Boost (and other things)

Here's some of the things I've learned digging into this game recently. If you have any updates or corrections please let me know... I don't know how collaborative editing works here. 



## Caddy Strats: 



There is a bonus car called the "Caddy Car" that is unlockable in the very first race. It has good handling, extremely good (maximum!) top speed, but very poor acceleration and "no" grip. Given that we won't be hitting anything, the lack of acceleration isn't of great concern. It does present some issues, but even without any mitigation it's still much faster than using the RT Solvalou. The caddy car is won by winning a race in mirror mode, done by driving backwards at the start and hitting a wall. This can be won on any track, but we do this on RR Novice as it also happens to be by far the shortest race. This car can be used reliably until the extreme courses, or for all trophies with very high level play.



## Drift Modes: 



There are 3 different drift modes in the game, two of them making the game feel similar to the earlier PS1 RR games. In short, the "RR64" mode is by far the fastest, and it's also the default. Revolution could be used in theory, it does the drift boost, but it can't be as easily abused. 



## Drift boost: 



I also refer to this as "4 6", "3 6", or "2 6". The game seems to store the engine revs as a value of some form when entering a drift, and when exiting it will try to achieve that engine speed in whatever gear the car is in, ignoring the actual speed of the car (wheel speed). The car does not lose engine speed when upshifting in a drift like it does normally. This is most helpful for getting the caddy car up to speed initially, but can also be used to boost it above it's normal, unassisted "top speed". It can also be used to mitigate any speed lost by drifing sections that could otherwise be done without drifting, i.e. tight chicanes that are normally very difficult to not hit the wall.



The car will still lose speed during the actual drift, and will lose more speed in lower gears; "1 6" is almost never optimal outside of emergency recovery situations. Upshifting outside of the drift is always a huge speed penalty, so late upshifts will be obvious. The car will still boost, albeit slightly less, if you collide with anything during the drift. This means that sometimes you will intentionally hit a wall that you can not avoid at speed while drifting, and try to get the car to boost on exit to mitigate the penalty. Ditto for traffic, but that tends to be improvised.



The top speed difference with the caddy car is significant. In X class it can't reach 170mph on it's own, but it can and will hit 230+ with boosting. This puts it's top speed similar to the Ultra 64, and it seems to share the same gear ratios as that car. This makes sense given that they have the same top speed stat, and means that the "acceleration" stat in the game is more akin to engine power, with top speed being more akin to transmission gearing.



Optimal use takes practice, both for timing as well as routing.  



## Renegade:



Renegade uses a slightly different physics set from the rest of the tracks for some reason. It will hold the car on the "rail" regardless of speed or where the drift was started. It also feels like the drifts will end differently than other tracks, but this may be a result of how the car moves in relation to the track being different. Renegade will always feel different from the other tracks. 



## Controllers:



This is mentioned in the guide up right now, but you're better using anything other than an OEM style N64 stick. D-pad is better, any gamecube style stick is better. The steering input needed in this game doesn't cooperate well with the OEM style stick at all, IMO. 



Thumb stick, transmission

- Gamecube-style control stick replacements compliment this game well. The smoothness and speed of a modern stick over the original helps with "twitch" reaction time moments and prevents thumb fatigue.

- Manual transmission gives a higher top speed than automatic.

Name	Autor
Drift Boost (and other things)	qxc86 1 year ago
Thumb stick, transmission	aleckermit 2 years ago