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The Crafts
The Basic Craft is perfect for general use.
Although it doesn't have the top speed by
far, it's one of the better crafts for
jumps, fuel efficiency and handling.
The CX Craft uses very little gas and has the highest top speed of all the vehicles.
However, the turning is very slippery as the thrusters aren't very powerful, and it also accelerates slowly.
This is the worst craft to use on stairs.
The Bi-Turbo Craft accelerates rapidly, and can turn on a dime.
The trouble is that it uses a huge amount of fuel so when you stop at the pit, fill up at least half-way (on a long course, fill up 75%).
The EON Craft is ideal for war, as it has
rapid acceleration, good brakes and
fantastic handling.
| Hovercrafts |
Type |
Acceleration |
Speed |
Jumping |
Turning |
Fuel Use |
| Basic |
Average |
Medium |
Medium |
Medium |
High |
High |
| Bi-turbo |
Fast |
Slow |
Fast |
Poor |
High |
Pathetic |
| CX |
Fast |
Poor |
Fast |
Good |
None existent |
Excellent |
| EON |
Average |
Average |
Medium |
High |
Ace |
Average |
'Installing' Tracks
Using the Tracks section of HoverRace.com you will find plenty of tracks to download.
But how do you 'install' these to work with HoverRace?
You will need a program to open the ZIP files that the tracks are kept in. After downloading a track, try opening
the ZIP file. If a program opens showing "<trackname>.trk", then you do have the capability to
make the track work with HoverRace.
If it asks for you to open it by choosing which program you want to use,
then cancel that screen, and goto www.winzip.com and download and install winzip.
Now you are ready to 'install' the track. If the ZIP file is not open, open it now. Click the EXTRACT button
from the selection above. In the "Extract to" field, put in the location you installed HoverRace to
(usually c:\Program Files\HoverRace) and add "\Tracks" on to the end. Click OK and the file will extract.
Now close Winzip.
If successfully completed, you will now be able to select the track in HoverRace.
If you are joining a game you will need to rejoin the IMR before you can do so.
Turning Corners Quickly
The hovercraft tends to over steer a lot.
To make up for this, when you go around a sharp corner, you should take your hand off the thrust, turn the way you want to go, and then put the thrust back on.
When You Get Hit
When you get hit, you don't stop, your momentum carries you.
You'll go further if you don't use thrust after you start spinning.
If there's a jump ahead, jump.
Climbing Stairs
This is one of the more tricky parts of the game.
If you are going full thrust, make sure you clear the top of the stairs and do not bounce back.
A safer way is to stop in front of them, jump and use thrust.
The last tactic usually saves time in the long run.
Boosters
The HoverRace manual isn't very complete, and it doesn't tell you what the other
power ups besides missiles do. Here's a small list:
Nitro Can - This comes in a blue can with a lightning bolt on the side. When you use it, it boosts your speed.
You can pick up four of these.
Mines - To get one run over one, there's no other way.
Refuelling Quickly
On most 5 lap tracks, it's not necessary to refill your whole tank.
Learn how much your craft guzzles on each lap of each track, and only refill it part-way.
Make sure you have at least enough for another lap, that way if you think you need more, you can stop again.
If the fuel zone is a bit out of the way, you can save time by refilling it a bit more than usual to make sure you don't have to stop again for a while.
If you only need a little bit and the pit is in drive through fashion, slow down a bit and just coast through. That way you don't have to get as much speed back when you're done.
Launching Missiles
Probably the hardest part of HoverRace is actually hitting things with your
missiles. You'd usually expect the missile
to go out to the center of the screen, but since it's third person, it goes in the direction you're facing.
There is a very good chance that the person you're aiming at will move after you fire the
missile. The best thing to do is to drive straight, look at the direction he's moving, and then shoot when he's almost lined up.
Anticipate where he might go otherwise, and shoot there.
Never shoot directly at an opponent, it almost never works; your target pretty much has to glide into the rocket.
The Alley 2
Save fuel! On the speed pads, take your hand off the thrust.
When you hit a pad, you do not need the thrusters to steer either.
As soon as you hit the first pad, start turning right.
Either right before or right after you hit the second, jump.
Steer to the right to avoid the water pit, face the wall and use your thrusters to speed around the turn and jump over the next pit.
When you get to the part near the coast, start slowing down half- way through.
When you get near the yellow striped wall, turn a little left, tap the thrust, and jump.
Then turn right and put full thrust on, this will set you up nicely for the next part.
When going through "the place where you absolutely
do NOT want to hit the wall", make sure you don't enter at a sideways angle (this usually happens when going up the waterfall).
If you cannot straighten out before you enter, stop and adjust your rotation, you'll save more time than if you hit the wall at full thrust.
If you happen to start bouncing off the walls, you can either a.) try to regain control on the ground, b.) jump and try to regain control (this helps me at least), and as a last resort, c.) stop and regain control.
During this part, beware of missiles!
Glossary
Node - Red dot representing a vertex, or a point.
Section - Section of your track, like a room
Anchor - Curved blue piece around a node showing where it is attached to a wall
Feature - Object inside of the room similar in design to a section
Object - These include starting positions,
power ups and sector effectors (an object that gives a property to a section, i.e. speed zones)
HoverCad Tip 1 : Making a room
First, click on the Selection Tool (looks like a box).
Click on the work area to begin. Draw in a square shape, making sure that you close it by attaching the last node to the first.
If all went well, you should now have a box coloured
grey (this means it's selected). There are many properties to change, including the wall, ceiling and floor textures, and the floor and ceiling height.
Whenever you make a section, make sure that the anchors are facing inward, and not on the outside.
It's a good idea to change the floor level to 2 and the ceiling height to 6 so you can have your track dip downward later when you want it to.
When you want to add another room on, attach its nodes to at least two of the nodes from your first section.
HoverCad Tip 2 : Putting in objects
Before you can go and test your track, you need to put in a few things.
Click on the Object Tool (looks like a dot with a line through it).
Put in a starting position. Make sure it's facing the right way (you can set the angle with 0 degrees facing left).
Then you need a background (you can get them
here!). Now you're ready to compile it!
Choose Compile from the File menu and Save it as whatever you want in the Tracks directory.
The filename should include your
Registration ID in brackets at the end (i.e. RiverLoop[1-310])
-- (you did register, didn't you?).
HoverCad Tip 3 : Inserting a feature
Click on the Feature Tool (looks like a box with a red box inside of it).
Make it like a section, but inside your first room.
It should turn yellow. It is exactly like a room, except the floor height is how high off the ground it is, and the ceiling height is how high the top is.
Creating a good track
Avoid stretched textures -- These deformations are caused by rooms that are too tall. Make your room smaller!
Use the fuel label for fuel stops -- The fuel label should not be used as a generic red texture Put arrows up -- A track should not be arrowless.
This way, if you get spun around, you won't get lost.
Avoid one-way overhangs -- Remember, each wall that joins two rooms has two sides.
On the side of the wall with the overhang, don't specify a wall texture.
Put fronts on roofs -- If you put a ceiling on a room, make sure it is lower than the rooms without ceilings.
Don't overuse stairs -- If you need to have stairs, space them out so it doesn't slow the racers to a snail's pace.
Avoid platform jumping -- Platforms (like stairs but they hang in midair) can wreck the game with over three or so people. This is HoverRace, not Mario Bros.
Don't advertise or write messages in your backgrounds -- It's ugly, don't do it.
Refrain from creating backgrounds by scribbling with the
spray paint too -- That's also ugly, don't do that either.
Make your track smaller -- If the whole track is closed in (doesn't show the background), just use a blank pcx for the background.
Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com) saves in PCX.
The format for a HoverRace background is 2048x256x128.
Test your track with all crafts -- I didn't with RiverLoop and then later found out the Bi-Turbo can get stuck.
Fill up faster -- You can make more efficient fuel stations by putting more fuel sources in one area.
This is useful for those drive-through fuel stations.
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