Wipeout Boost/Weapon Pads explained

[gyrobot]

Throughout the series, despite the immense amount of lore given for nearly everything about wipeout, we never understood how weapon pads and boosters worked? Did they provide the ship with a temporary reserve of power to transmute into booster power and weapons to blow our enemies away? So a couple of people at 4chan brainstormed the theory and some finally came to this conclusion: The ships already have them onboard, they simply aren't activated unless under certain circumstance.

http://i.imgur.com/xLeGfVH.jpg


>Just had a realization about WipEout boost pads
>They're actually just light pads placed above specifically places short range transmitters in the racing tracks
>When a ship passes over said transmitters, sensors located under the ship detect the signals emitted by them
>When detected by the sensors, these signals make the sensors activate the additional boosters installed in the ships (which can only be activated when the ship's sensors pass over a transmitter and gets the signal to activate them), effectively boosting the vehicle

The theory behind the boostpads and weapon pads is our ships already come equipped with an onboard plasma cannon, minaturized small arms and missles and before the fall of the F9000, super weapons. However they were inactivate unless they drive over the weapon pads, there they sent a transmission to the weapon systems onboard which then the race regulators quickly choose a weapon for the pilot. In the later Series due to the backlash from weapon use they would allow ships to activate their onboard shield recharger in exchange for not using a weapon.

Likewise the boostpads operate under a similar function: when it receives a transmission to activate the secondary engine it would proper the ship at faster speeds when it receives the transmission.

Hopefully this explained one of the many unanswered lore questions that is an important part of the series.

[AdHoc]

Haha, love how far WipEout fans’ imagination can go :D

Never thought about it, makes total sense.

[dontmindlosing]

Could this also help explain why barrel rolls give a boost as well? Barrel rolls activate the secondary boosters too.

[gyrobot]

Barrel rolls requires the the pilot to disengage the antigrav transmitter that would allow the craft to spin. As a result the transmitter signal is activated for a brief period as shield banks must transmit power to quickly reboot the Anti Gravity stablizer.

[dontmindlosing]

...good enough for me. These things all seems more plausible now. Thanks! :)

[chalovak]

This scheme doesn't explain the infinite amount of rockets or whatever weapon you've picked up.)
Cause you can't fit 100 of rockets in one ship, right?

[dontmindlosing]

I think it's based on tech they stole from Batman's Arkham Knight batmobile.

[gyrobot]

This scheme doesn't explain the infinite amount of rockets or whatever weapon you've picked up.)
Cause you can't fit 100 of rockets in one ship, right?

Minaturized munitions. Quake disrupters, plasma cannons and leech beams is already mounted. They just need the authorization from the race announcer and they can be used

[T-301]

Funny thing, gyrobot; I was the one who made that post and image in the thread! I just didn't post it here because I thought you guys had already figured that out long before I did...
In the last panel, though, I replaced "sensor activates secondary boosters as long as the signal continues" with "sensor unlocks secondary boosters for a set time after detection".
I had reached the conclusion that the boosters were already on board because whenever you went over a boost pad in WipEout HD, extra boost trails would light up behind the ships, indicating there they were always there. Same goes for the weapons, due to all the official art and ingame models that feature ships with the weapons underneath them, only requiring a signal to be activated by going over a weapon pad.
As for barrel rolls, I think there is an additional sensor in the ship that only activates when it registers the ship doing a successful 360° roll in its longitudinal axis (by enhancing the anti-grav generators on opposite directions as to make it actually roll), and then detects the initial direction it was pointing at (the ground) upon landing, activating the boosters if the circumstances are met.