1.) Constant switch drifting to charge drift boosts.
2.) Hitting simultaneous boost pads at once/drifting to hit multiple in a row. Each pad seemingly adds speed, not sure if there is a capacity, haven't tested.
3.) Aerial drifting so long as you start your drift before becoming airborne.
-There might be "ramps" just in bounds enough to ramp off of for potential time saves. (I clipped one last night and remember at least one other "ramp.")
It'd be interesting to figure out for sure if being in the air or being on the ground has a material speed difference.
Are you 100% sure as of now that switch-drifting is pretty much always worth it?
Any differences between the characters at all?
I haven't checked but grounded and aerial movement speed seem very similar if not the exact same, it's just rather important to initiate or hold a drift off of a jump or ledge to continue charging a drift boost. If you're already in the air you can't initiate a drift, thus losing a boost and or a timing for one as most of the runs I performed had consistently opportunistic boost timings from constantly chaining them. I hardly ever had to hold a boost charge for an optimal usage, I just let them all rip as I get them.
I'm fairly certain switch drifting is optimal as the more you do it, the more boosts you get. From my time with the Sonic kart racers I've learned that boost means everything.
Haven't touched another character though looking at the ultimates, it's clear to me that the strawberry dash would be optimal in full grand prix runs due to it giving a boost. It appears to be the only ultimate to do that.
I've only played the game on Steam but I wonder if any platform or regional versions of the game might change anything?
The car types also might have varying stats, but from what I can tell the characters are all the same. I can do some tests with the Steam version, testing 3 characters all in each type of car on the same track to see if there's any difference in distance after X amount of time.
Not sure what other versions of the game would have different though I know for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed there were many differences among the many ports including track collision and entirely new characters. I imagine at most the tracks might be more simplified on simpler consoles.
Confirmed, you can switch drift just before hitting 2 boost pads to swing your rear end to catch a third on the multiple pads in a line for even more speed, though it's a bit more difficult to do. Optimal runs will hit 3 pads as many times as possible but double pads are fine for now.
Katie had been using her brake on a track and I hadn't used it on a single run up to that point. I'm still not convinced it's worth doing and have opted to just feather my accelerator in turns that I need more grip/control for tighter turns.
