Search the Community

Server: Citadel When: Wednesday nights! 9:00pm uk time but there's no reason people can't gather sooner or pop along later. What: Impromptu races, chilling and showing off your car designs, cruising (not frowned upon in San Paro) Watch the vid for an idea. See you there! Find out the start time in your time zone: https://teamup.com/kss2qvh49z1zvmfjaj Join the Discord server and keep up to date with events or help out: http://discord.gg/9GEMNQPdbN Financial meeting locations: Waterfront meeting locations: Thanks to Androy for these. Back in the Day: 2018:

Introduction What do you do when all lights are out, the districts are almost empty or you're simple fed up with doing missions? Well, some of us race, and with APB being a game with so much freedom it gives you the option race just about anywhere. I've played the game for a few years and I've noticed that racing has kind of faded away. It could be because people don't draw any joy from it, or they've simply never been introduced to it. But I don't want racing in APB to die. I think it deserves a little recognition by the developers and perhaps we can have something introduced down the line after more important updates. APB for me is a game that introduces the player to a lot of emotions, negative, positive. Those feelings of choking up, heart pounding, hysteria and amusement from random events happening. It really is something I sought to chase, and everytime I race in APB, those bursts of emotional highs come rushing through me. I've been in races with as much as 20 people at once, and it never felt like winning mattered. Just being there next to that many players laughing and having fun was really enjoyable. I've heard stories of massive races being told, and stories of people racing for pink slips "the car itself", and the winner would take them all. When I explained I had never experience this the teller reacted almost out of pity, that I had missed out. The common denominator of these stories were passion. APB doesn't have to be a game with a reputation of a gloomy community, I think implemented racing could be one small step in the right direction. Table of contents Part 1: How to Race 1.1 Acquainting 1.2 Race tracks 1.3 Making up tracks Part 2: Current health of Racing 2.1 What to expect when racing 2.2 Certain bugs Part 3: What I would like implemented 3.1 Structure 3.2 Custom Tracks 3.3 Custom Tracks public library 3.4 Rated Race Tracks Part 4: Conclusion and additional notes Part 5: Credits How to Race 1.1 Acquainting Finding new people to race with or simply setting up your first race can be a long process, it consists of a lot of trial and error. You have to either find a small community of people that race or continuously ask in chat till someone seems interested. Sometimes those people just wanna do one or two races, and some of them have a short attention span so learning the track results in them giving up. However, there's a sneaky way to find people that will be interested in racing. Asking people to see their cars, showing your cars and talking about the cars in APB can quickly flush out the people you wanna find. When you finally start racing don't talk to the ones you're racing with privately, rather talk in district chat. When you're talking in district chat people tend to ask about it or simply want to join. Think of it as commercializing the fact that you are racing, like a meme, commercials familiarises people with it and it's in the back of their mind till they eventually decide "It might be fun". 1.2 Race tracks APB has so much freedom, every corner becomes a potential track. Some race tracks are more known than others for many reasons, when something becomes too complicated it's forgotten, and when something is just outright dull and plain it's ignored. That's why it's important to find which types of races you like and which cars that go along with it. The best kind of race track is one which allows for a variety of cars to participate. Vegas RWD and 4x4 has their intensive acceleration but suffer when you have to turn. Jericho is fast with much benefits for being a good all round car, but nonetheless has its weaknesses. Bishada allows for control with great handling but doesn't have the best speed. Growl is a generalists favourite for being good at everything, but doesn't stand out. Micro/Vaquero are nimble, quick and handles the best, but highly lacks top speed. Finding a track were these can race equally together is highly rewarding. 1.3 Making up tracks The start is important and needs to be equal. Racers start next to each other, so there needs to either be a straight that's long enough to gain some speed after a good launch, or two opposite corners right after each other that allows the outer car to catch up on the second turn. During the race, if you have the time to look behind because you're racing a long sprint the track might be dull, remember that racing should require you to have full concentration on the objective the whole time. Lots of turns can be fun at times, but be careful of making it tiresome. Areas that elevate are a good way to create risk and reward, a good example would be financials second story parking lot above the highway entrance. There are two wood pathways that makes a race intense, drive a little to carelessly and you're out of the race. When making long races, or races that have a lot of laps needed to be taken around the same course could incentivize it going through gas stations, not all of us have a co-pilot with a blow torch. Lastly try being creative, two people can race the same car and therefore you can add exchange zones. The pilot swaps seats with the co-pilot before leaving the exchange zone. Perhaps joker laps, have a little area racers need to race around at some point during a long race, and they would themselves have to decide when's the right moment. Current health of Racing 2.1 What to expect when racing This game is far from perfect, and I believe many would agree the quirks and imperfections make the game what it is. Therefore 'shit happens', honestly these fucking cars suddenly turning when I drive by, some random curb is like a spring loaded launch device causing barrel rolls, etcetera. These things are so rage inducing but equally hilarious when it doesn't happen to you. This is something that needs to remain in the equation, the environment and randomness that APB manages to throw at you makes it so exciting similarly to other open-world games. 2.2 Certain bugs There are a handful of areas around the maps of APB that just ruins races and general gameplay, car randomly explodes, corners that make you crash even if you didn't hit the corner seen, objects getting stuck inside the car and sometimes make you explode. I wouldn't say no to a little less buggy experience when racing. What I would like implemented 3.1 Structure This part will be divided up sections of most important Yellow, moderately important Orange, not so important Red. This is mainly to push forward the ideas I would like to see implemented first. 3.2 Custom Tracks A feature with personal markers you can set to path a way which is saved as you go. With these markers you can create a path from start to finish. Once the Racing track has been made by the player, they can store it to a personal library of Racing tracks. In this library they can view all their saved Race tracks, with an option of setting up the race. When setting up the race the player can choose between "Start race", "Place wager", "Invite players", "Laps" and "Disband race". Display current race on the map and with blue and purple waypoints on the minimap. Blue for current waypoint, and purple for next. 3.3 Custom Tracks public library A library of public race tracks created by different players. Players can try these tracks and vote on them if they liked it and add one of try three difficulties: Easy, Moderate and Hard. When searching for race tracks in the public library you'll have options such as Search by name, Search by Creator, Popularity, Upvotes and Difficulty. The players can then try the race for themselves and invite others to it. As an addition they can also save the race track to their favourites. 3.4 Rated Race Tracks The 50 most upvoted race tracks yields rewards for the racers, assuming racing will have its own standing separated from the two factions Criminal and Enforcer, the players earn standing with racing contacts with rewards such as customizable and non customizable cars, symbols, clothes, etcetera. Race rewards will be determined on a few factors. Track duration (how long the race is in distance, not how much time to take to finish it) Track difficulty Number of Opponents you're racing against Time (Less time is more) Credits Thank you, Intake - For providing stories of Races you experienced and also for giving suggestions along with testing races. /profile/926-intake/ Thank you, Voljiin and Focxzeh for helping me get the photos!

So I thought I'd share my YouTube vids here when they get released. You can watch my events live at http://twitch.tv/witchqueen or the videos at http://www.youtube.com/witchqcustoms Here is a selection for now: Formula W Race (from back in the day): Thumper Truck (random dynamic event): Chipp's Car Club (every wednesday): Pay2Grief (every Friday): USC - The Ultimate Shooting Championship (Some Saturdays):

Intro As promised, i`m going to talk about cars, ( Took me a while to defeat my laziness to write this. ) I remember from Q&A there were talking about new car in the works, so one thing came to my mind, well more like a problem. Right now we have around 22 available for purchase cars ingame, with only 5 are used by people on average basis. Even in past cars that were not in " top tiers " came absolute rather...quick. There is not point for veterans to buy them, nor there is any reason for a newbie either. Since its rather easy to buy better options from marketplace or ask for a clan design car if you are part of more or less " set up clan ". So, when amount of cars will increase even more, previous stuff becomes even useless. Speaking of which...whos even gonna buy kits for them in armas? Here is a tier list of cars of " worth " currently. ( In my opinion ) S tier - Patriot Vegas( Including 4x4 ), Patriot V20 Jericho, Bishada Rapier, IO Growl S2. ( Speed, its all about getting from point A to point B ) A tier - Nulander Pioneer, Seiyo Espacio ( Can be made into tanks ) B tier - Packer Vaquero ( Solely for 4x4 and size combo that helps to get in weird places in order to utilize spawn and in past radar mods ) C tier - Charge Mikro, Packer Ceresco, Charge Cisco, Han Veo, Sungnyemun Moirai. ( They are one tier up then cars below solely because newbies tend to buy it. ) D tier - Nulander Kurai, Patriot T-25, Dolton Broadwing, ( Can be somewhat useful for newbies, but rarely picked anyway. ) F tier - Balkan Ravan, Balkan Varzuga, Macchina Calabria 127, Charge Sentinel, Dolton Fresno, Dolton Montane ( Basically there is zero reason to buy this cars even for new player. ) Idea/Suggestion To give actual " worth " for cars below tier S and A is implementing " upgrade " mechanic. And here we have 2 routes. Route A - Think of old race games like NFS Underground or recent GTA 5. While you could buy direct upgrades to suspension, transmission, engine and etc. Im not sure how realistic this would be in terms of engine architecture in APB and synergy to " mod " system. Well, i decide to write about this anyway, just in case. Also, you would probably say " Wait, if we can for example increase engine power for +20, it means " tiers " will not go away, since you can do same stuff with " good " cars and the gap will not go away ", I would say you have a good point, but in my idea you can upgrade only " bad " cars. At least for now. Route B - Its a bit more weird. Lets make an example, Vegas and Vegas 4x4. So my idea would be a similar system, like you take a car and bring it to NPC who with a fee will upgrade it into new version. Price of conversion would depend on how many slots original car had, basically if it has 1 slot or even 0 you would pay more. So, basically idea is to give said " unpopular or inferior " cars something that they lack to become somewhat viable. For example I would take two cars, Han Veo and Nulander Kurai. ( Why? Because they have great armas kits ) Right now they are basically a trap, if you played more then a day, you would know that buying their kits are waste of g1c and cars themselves are waste of ingame cash too. So, in my idea you bring these cars to a NPC in social car area and exchange your car+cash for an upgraded version, basically we can have a " new " car that uses same models and kits as old one( Hello vegas 4x4 ). So Nulander Kurai for example could be a bit lowered and given more power, while Han Veo would be also given more competitive speed( not exactly same as for example S tier cars, but in between of A and S tiers, ) and possible a 4x4 as well for better acceleration all around. ( I know that " Coywolf " version of Han Veo should be already " buffed " by lets be honest its same old junk Han Veo and its still useless ) TL:DR - idea itself it so " revive " out of meta cars and give them ability to be used. You can be rather creative with " upgraded " versions, heck nobody said there could be only 1 version for each car, it could be multiple. Plus side of profits, its easier to do this and sell kits for existing cars, even add more in future for them, then develop a whole new one. Extra As bonus, it would be nice to see racing modes as well. ( Specially if you make more cars viable ) Could be under of " Joker " brand as well to reword small portions of JTs, for those people who despise FCs ( Or specially Baylan...). In years of playing I saw multiple times people trying to orgonize races in freeroam or doing challanges for drift, drag,, So why not make it official? Plus extra reason to " showoff " your cars there...basically extra motivation to have a " fancy " kit, *wink*.