Piloting Tips for WO3, NTSC and PAL

[Lance]

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the Official unofficial piloting guide to WO3 regular edition. please post your tips here. please do not post questions or comments on this thread, but start a separate thread for discussion, otherwise the tips will get so spread out it'll be hard to find them amongst the discussion, whereas finding both the tips and the separate discussion of the one you're interested in will be easy. i hope. ;)
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[Lance]

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this is a copy of FoxZero's [Jason Hebbert's] recounting of his method for winning the Prototype 1 Challenge from, well.. a long time ago. i didn't realise it had been so long, but only Al Sartwell has been able to touch his times in Vector class, though others have improved their times. his racetime of 2 years ago is an amazing 1:11.94 while his lap record is 34.30. Al has now gotten 34.27 and 1:11.70. close. really close.
here with no edits is the text of Foxzero's explanation of the process he went through to win:

Posted: 07 Apr 2002 17:53

okay, so everybody wants to know how i did my times, and i know you wont believe them till i explain it, so grab your pen and paper kids, and pay attention

first of all you have to understand how i fly, i have ethics for myself that must not be broken. this pretty much applies to all the wipeout series.

1. never use airbrakes. this doesnt mean i dont correct a turn, it just means i do it until its right.
2. never use autopilot. NEVER.
3. never let go of the accelerator. NEVER.

just fyi lance, i did a total of 6 sessions of wipeout, one per day except friday and today, with anywhere between 10 to 60 race restarts per session.

now that you know that, ill explain the times. when i first started on vector the strategy was simply hyperthrust at slow parts. my idea of 'slow part' was anywhere that the controller wasnt shaking from top speed. so i hyperthrusted part of the way up the hill. i went through the pit on both the first and second lap so i could get extra hyperthrust, and i would boost to the finish line on every lap through the pit. i also scraped a lot, because i noticed it was way easier to scrape on purpose and get away with it on vector. i dont do much vector racing. but i sure fooled you guys, cuz i got the 1st place time

of course, then my time was beaten. so i went back at it again. this time i noticed that thrusting off of the second jump caused some wicked speed to be built up before the last turn on the pit, which could be kept up by the blue pad on the left. so i beat my time.

but then i wanted to go faster. so i did some more racing. i noticed that another slow part was just before the second jump, so i beat my time agin by hyperthrusting almost the entire way through there. i think at this point i was at 15:00.

BUT THAT WASNT ENOUGH, i had to go faster. then perhaps accidentally, i got rammed by one of the starting ships and had a eureka moment. so every time i started a race i would get in front of one of the other ships and as they accelerated it would push me forward and shave seconds off of my approach up the hill. this is what gave me the 14:00 time.

once again, that wasnt enough. i had to be the first to get 13:00, damnit! at first i tried ramming into other ships on my way up the hill, but this caused more hyperthrust to be lost ESPECIALY if you ended up flying THROUGH their ship instead of bouncing off of it, which sucked. also the ship weapons were pissing me off, i found if i didnt get a cloak or shield before id dive into the S turns after the first jump i was pretty much f*cked as the Ai seemingly had a big beef with me getting very fast times.

..and thats when i found it. i was trying to get away from the stupid AI at the top of the hill, and i had a hypothesis, so i tried jetting off of the top of the end of the first jump. WOAH.
this caused me to be HURTLED down the S turns at nearly non-negotiable speeds. i did this on both the first and second lap. now, i knew a time of 12:00 was possible, given the calculated total of the best possible times, but i figured there was no chance in hell anyone would have enough hyperthrust to get it, so i said 13:00 was possible. imagine my surprise when the times said 1:11!!!!!!!!! but yes folks. thats how its done.

great effort everyone who participated! hopefully we can race again sometime soon

[Dimension]

*In advance, let me apologise for having to seperate my post, it's nearly 20'000 characters in total and the forum only allows 10'000, so here is the first lot of this project to do my bit for WOZ in 3 parts: General Notes, Ship Choices & Track Guide intro, Terminal Pt.1 & Terminal Pt.2. Also apologies for any typos, too much to proof read :|*

Hi all, hope all is well in the lands of wherever your lands are. Now, After much delegation as to whether or not I should give anything back to the community or just leach off the ever wise super pilots some more, I came to the conclusion that it would be only sporting of me to spill the beans on some piloting techniques, as used by myself in the ever charismatic, dull coloured and minimalist slobberknoker of a leg-humpingly stylish bitchslap that is: Wip3out (PAL)

.01 General Notes

Now when I refer to flying styles you may have heard me speak of my own style as "Heavy", "Heavy Handed", "Brutal" or on occasion "****ing Insane", though in all probability my style's probably not that different to most styles, though many pilots are known to do things such as release the accelerator for cornering, save hyper thrust for special places/occasions and just generally like tracks with slow, flowing corners (Porta Kora) or that are more adapt to nimble, easy to handle ships (Manor Top, P-Mar Project.) The markings of a HEAVY style:

.01 Never release the accelerator!
.02 Sharp 90°+ corners: Aim for just outside the apex on approach, brake hard in the direction to turn, to throw the back out for just a split second's worth of breaking, then hammer it and thrash the hyperthrust!
.03 Thrust hard off all jumps, regardless of the difficulty of landing/turning as a result.
.04 At all costs, keep the nose off the ground! This style's all about massive straight line speed and minimum time cornering and accelerating, bottoming out is highly detremental 95% of the time (5% because it can, on occasion be used as a useful cornering aid (mentioned later.))
.05 For some more technical corners (e.g. the Mega Mall Descending Helix & the Terminal Ascending Helix) it would be a wise idea to learn of the weighting of your ship in relation to your controller setup as this style often involves heading towards the corner at the most extreme outside and turning sharply in to get your nose into the inside of the corner to assist in throwing the tail out at 70°+ in a hurry (so you don't have to break before getting to the start of the corner, it's all about maintaining top speed & minimum braking again!)

There are other things such as slightly heavy handed pitching, but where I use this in race, it will be mentioned in a corresponding track guide (if and when such a thing exists.)

.02 Ship Choices

As you may expect, such an attention to maximum speed and acceleration with little regard for turning leaves little need for nimble and light craft, as a result my choices are biased towards the big boys of the league:

Qirex Quantax Design Model (6?) (A.K.A. Mighty Q, Brick Bullet, Purple Brick, That Fat Ass Russian Brick & The 8/12 Wee!)
Great stats for this style with 4+4 for speed and accel respectively, the upshot of such balances motor stats being that this ship has both the massive top end speed to hit the corners flying and the awe inspiring get up and go you need to hit the next one similarly, in this respect of stop/start speed thrills the Icaras can't hold a torch as the method of H-Thrusting away is limited to energy, after that's all gone, the Puce Dragster just cruises compared to the Mighty Q.

Icaras Sun God XVI (A.K.A. Puce Dragster & The 5/8 Wee!)
Extreme stat-age (Stats at extremes) with 5+2 for speed and accel respectively, the upshot of such an unbalanced equation being that this ship gets around its acceleration troubles by using all out skin lashing, testicle smushing speed on those funny "not bent bits" between corners; when it gets going, in the right surroundings, you'd be hard pushed to Quake-ify this Mo-Fo, the deciding factor that gives it the little it needs to outdo the Qirex's marginally inferior top speed and 9 times out of 10 puts it on the next tier up to the Qirex, sadly this is the only way in which the Icaras is on top as it even suffers from poor shield energy to leave it treading on thin ice in any situation in which it's shield may take a beating as no energy means no H-Thrust!

.03 Track Guides

LAB - Left Air Brake
RAB - Right Air Brake
HT - Hyper Thrust
PF - Pitch Forwards
PB - Pitch Back
SP - Stop Pitching
TP - Turbo Pad(s)

As you may know if you've recently gunned for a top 3 spot in Phantom class TT, I don't race every single W3O track and of the ones I do, one in particular is rarely and the other is not very often. The tracks I race are:

.01 Porta Kora (Not Very Often) - It's easy, requires but half a brain to negotiate half decently and makes for a good track to open a session with. Easy going and finger invigoratingly right hand biased, Neggy slipping out to the hand anyone?
.02 Mega Mall - Absolutely amazing track, one of my favourites of all in WipEout's vivid history; oodles of speed through the earlier sections, some fantastic rhythm later on and a massive straight for the H-Thrustingly challenged (Bash it! Bash it!!!) One hell of a bum rush.
.03 Hi-Fumii (Rarely) - A very difficult one for a heavy style, the first corner on the first lap being particularly agravating on a regular basis, but the atmosphere and constant "on your toes" approach to a track design used here I find difficult to resist and the deceptive corner in the thinned out tunnel section is one of those "Just... one more... try... gotta... get it... right! *rubs eyes and takes the opportunity to breath*"
.04 Terminal - My favourite track, too much to say for this passage, more in the later passages.
*▼Pronunciation keys wur did as best as possible▼*

[Dimension]

.04 Terminal (as raced in an Icaras) TT LR - 0:25.12 (Me) RR - 2:11.40 (Me)
terminal ('tз:min'l) a. 1. at, forming an end 2. pert. to, forming a terminus 3. (of disease) ending in death -n. 4. terminal part or structure 5. extremity 6. point where current enters, leaves electrical device (eg battery) 7. Device permitting operation of computer at some distance from it -terminal velocity 1. constant maximum velocity reached by body falling under gravity through fluid, esp. atmosphere 2. velocity of missile or projectile when it reaches target 3. maximum velocity attained by rocket etc. flying in parabolic flight path 4. maximum velocity that aircraft can attain

Odd isn't it? How the last track of WipEout on PS1 (not just of W3O) and the final time we'd see categorically Wipey physics happens to have a definition of at, forming an end. Anyway, enough crap, on with the juicy stuff...! Terminal, to me feels like something of a "modular" circuit, the corners come in short bursts or one at a time and there are plenty of straights to crank up the G forces and speed; as a result, it's a lot faster than the shape and corner tightness would suggest at first glance. One thing this means is that it's very easy to lose control of your ship at any time in this track, not only when losing your line in the middle of a string of bends as with most other circuits, but when approaching the corner modules too, as there are a good 4 corners with the potential to be hit by the full force of a straight's worth of acceleration: fantastic! One thing that this brings to light that you very rarely find elsewhere is that you face a degree of split judgement: when blatting down the pitlane soaking up the blue rays, cemented into the left hand extreme, you know if you're going to leave the brake well alone on this next corner, that you've got to get it perfectly right, there is no room for error as the turning circle of your ship is perfectly measured to be able to just clip the apex and slide out to the exit wall... or on the other hand you could just give the old brake a quick tap and you'd be on your way without worry... it's a matter of guts, no matter how many times you take the 2 derring-do right angles (the other two corners from straights are the Helix and a flip-flop,) you'll always look at it and say "Oh, but i've got 3 PLs *sweat and quiver* I dunno if I should..." nd no matter how much you believe the "No matter, I can always just start again; i've got unlimited tries" philosophy, I guarantee, this one will test your nerve, welcome to the joys of Terminal, here's my flight plan, sit back, enjoy the flight and hold tight, we'll be returning to the start line in less than 26 seconds!

Module .01
Module 1 is the 360° Ascending Helix and lining up for the rooftop straight.
*Laps 2-5* Corner 1, Difficulty**** On approach to this corner, I advise an approach on the outside of the track, as far out as you can manage, throwing the ship hard in towards the corner just before the corner starts to turn, you'll have to measure it quite carefully, but just far enough so that you nose would hit the apex if the first apex were 5 feet further down the line. Once you're almost level with the start of the bend left, LAB hard to throw the back end out far enough to be ~80° to the left of the straight and start pitching up slowly, gently; from there, it's a matter of occasional LAB tapping to stay as close as possible to the inside. Once you get further towards the top of the helix, you may be slipping somewhat, PF should assist you in regaining the line before the corner closes up, it will also help you get your nose down to track height when approaching the straight. Once you reach the climax of the Helix, your nose should be staring down the barrel of the rooftop straight, SP; once your right hand drift has about finished, a HT tap of about 1-1.5 seconds in two taps once you're clear of the left wall apex will send you towards the next corner in good stead.
*Lap 1* On lap 1, the fact that the corner is that much closer to the startline means that even with a boost start, you'll hit it pretty nice approaching from about the middle of the straight. It's always worthy of note that this corner is infinitely easier on the first lap of the race as the speed you carry from 2-5 (Sometimes in excess of 190MPH) often has to be shaven off while you're turning towards the inside of the corner on approach by use of the LAB even before your ship really gets to the point where it's necessary to turn hard, this takes some time to master.

Module .02
Module 2 is the rooftop straight, the 90° right, the flip-flop, the right hand 160° downhill, the 70° left and lining up for the back straight.
On hitting the straight, things start to get interesting again, you have to line up your nose to be on the extreme left by about halfway down the straight, then to be heading straight and narrow the rest of the way.

Corner 2, Difficulty**** Next is the first of the two afforementioned derring-do right angles, you're hitting this at full speed and to brake hard here will leave the next mini straight easier, but strikingly slower; if you brake hard during this first bend, your speed could drop as low as 120-130MPH but if you keep your fingers off the brakes you can maintain 150-170MPH until the big downhill's braking point, V.Important numbers, 30MPH over that distance can win you 1/3 of a second! So to maximise speed through this module, you have to take this right angle at full speed, without touching your airbrake! An intimidating proposition i'm sure, your heart will probably be in your throat the first few times you do it (it even gets me still on the odd occasion.) So here's how it's done: With all of the speed from your HT at the start of the straight having now worn off for the most part, you should hit this at the Icaras' top speed of a staggering 170MPH. Now then, once you're in position on the far left of the straight, you'll hit a turbo pad after halfway down, the point at which you should turn, to get the icaras' slow ass in gear is just a little further on than that, it's hard for me to spot pointers at the speed you have to go at to take this corner, but rest assured it's a good distance before the corner itself, if you turn hard at about the time when you hit the pad, you'll hit the apex wall hard, but use that as a guideline and find out your own perfect turning spot. Once you get into the corner, you can use a brief tap on you RAB, though you'll suffer a 5-10MPH penalty and you may struggle more with the next corner.

Corner 3, Difficulty*** Once well and truly though the right angle and clocking still 150-170, if you made the right angle without the help of the RAB, you can hold at maximum lock for the next corner, the speed will take you on the perfect angle to get through the flip-flop (which is really very handy,) though once you're through the gap, you'll have to swiftly throw the weight the other way and light use your LAB to correct yourself, now heading down the inside towards the next right. This procedure is not as easy as it sounds though as while doing that you, have to PF in anticipation of the next corner, so you're working away with all three controls at once for a split second, chancy!

Corners 4&5, Difficulty*****+* Warning: You are now entering the vicinity of "Heavy Gravity!" That's right, the 160° descending right-handed is infamously prone to making your ship fall out of the sky like a rock when you go near your airbrakes if you haven't already made like a sniffer dog and slammed your nose to the ground! Also, if you're in the air, you'll be running the risk of falling prey to the advanced anti-shortcutting technology in place on this corner: a wall. Now, approaching from the inside of the corner, you will swiftly begin to descend, once you are into the corner far enough to make sure that you will not leave the track more than the slightest of amounts (you should be able to tell before you've really begun to descend very sharply,) you should quickly swap and PB hard. As you're now pulling back to avoid bottoming out down here, but are not halfway to the moon, you can concentrate on the essense of the corner itself, a corner which you cannot take without using your RAB (unless you bottom out,) the difficulty is using it in the right place, I tend to brake about a third of the way into the corner, just as the steepness increases, using a second if necessary, but not braking so hard that I run the risk of backing into the outside of the corner. Once you're levelling out again and hopefull still somewhere near the right-middle, turning left to approach the apex of the left hander, if you got corner 4 right, 5 should be a breeze, nothing to worry about!

And contratulations to anyone who'se pulled off Module 2 without a wall-hit or bottom out, you've just perfect-ed one of the most exhilerating, break neck quick and nerve jangling series of bends video gaming has ever seen; fun no?

*edit 22/12/05 13:42* Changed the section on hyperthrusting away from the top of the helix as I realised I'd somewhat overexaggerated, yah.. just a little:redface:

[Dimension]

Module .03
Module 3 is the back straight, the large flip flop, a 90° bend right and the 180° penultimate corner.
Coming out of Corner 5, use whatever HT you deem necessary in the first half of the strait to accelerate, passing over the TP on the left; drift over to the right of the track; PF a little over the positive incline, then PB as you approach the flip flop, sticking to the right until you reach the TP. By the end of this straight expect to be clocking close to 180MPH.

Corners 6&7, Difficulty*** At the flip flop's left hander, turn towards the corner just before slamming your LAB to throw the back out and bring you onto the crest of the mini-incline, swing back to the right and PF, using your RAB to get around that one, try to stick to the right as the V.Short straight that follows is followed by another left hand 90°.

Corner 8, Difficulty*** Once out of Corner 7, instead of pitching forwards, you should PB as Corner 8 is dug into the ground and followed by a small hill, if you took the exit of 7 right and are on the right, the steer in, then LAB technique will work wonders, once the back is round, HT away and try to get into the middle of the track as the next one's a doozy!

Corner 9, Difficulty**** Yeah, many things to avoid with this one, there's bottoming out, topping out and the very nature of the corner feels like threading a needle if you're slightly off centre approaching. You'll, as I mentioned, have to hit this one from the centre, but steer in just as the corner begins to go round. In terms of pitch, this one's a toughy, you have to pitch back as there's a massive trench in the middle of this corner, but that slows down your turning circle, which becomed a massive problem as you exit the corner, careful balance is necessary, not too much, but enough not to bottom out as the speed you're going will slam you into the roof as you bounce back up from that nasty little trap. You should use your RAB twice in this corner, once on entry and a second time when most of the way through, don't try to do it all in one braking opportunity or to brake, then drive around as the fact that you're PBing makes that impossible. Once you get through the corner, you might find yourself best suited to get into the middle of the track as there's a TP, just don't get too far to the right.

Module .04
Module 4 is the pitlane/secondary straight, the 90°right final corner and the main straight.
And so to the last, very little left to do from here, but what there is, is important to get right! Why you shouldn't hit the TP too solidly is because the pit entrance is very difficult to get in at top speed from the far right. You need to approach from the middle and dive in as early as possible, keeping as close to the left of the pit as you can, ready for the final corner...

Corner 10, Difficulty**** And what a final corner it is, the second of our derring-do 90° right handers and this time you're hitting it at not a staggering 170MPH, but an almighty 180MPH+! Yes, this is the ultimate test of your race faring guts and it can go so wrong so easily, turn too early and there's little chance of making it past the cold, unyielding inside edge, turn too late and the exit wall's got you, get too close to the left approach barrier and turbo scraping will be the end of you, but chicken out and use your RAB and that new PB could go out of the window (like the playstation might just do if you cock it up lol.) Basically it's another matter of knowing the ship's weighting and understanding the nature of its turning circle at full speed, this is a very possible corner, it's just extremely testing! If you do not wish to take the chance, a simple turn in and RAB will work, the same goes for corner 2, we will all take the corner with an airbrake at one time or another, so it's no biggy, just try not to get it programmed in there heh. This is a harsh end to the course, but a great reminder of the emotional ride that just one lap of terminal is: it's fast, twisty and majestic when done right, but long, blocky and full of walls when done wrong, from here the simple task of shooting down the straight, blowing a significant portion of your shield early in the straight to clock up to and around 200MPH, if you're going 210, you've hammered it for too long and the wall will soon be your new best friend (or it's lap 5, obviously.)

So there it is folks, Terminal... sliced, diced and ready to be tucked into, it's how we do things in the home of W3O, hope you get something out of this passage, it sure helped me analyse my style and Terminal's bends more efficiently; that sub 25s lap may just be possible after all, Wip3 On! :)

Dim, signing off.

[Dimension]

So I sat down today, fixed my broken Neggy (my fault :clap ,) then several races in set a new race record at MM, sometime later backing it up with a new lap record at MM, moral of the story: b0rk your Neggy, then fix it, it might suddenly work better! So anyway, I figure as a commemorative way to freeze myself to death with a trip to the library, I'd continue this track guide thingy with one for Mega Mall, hope you appreciate this, bastards :p MM ghosts pending (lost my Dex software again lmao)

.02 Mega Mall (as raced in an Icaras) TT LR - 0:29.76 (Me) RR - 2:34.36 (Me)
Mega Mall is a fantastic track in all the right ways for me: regular journeys beyond 200Mph, lots of pitching opportunities and of course the infamous helix down :) Gonna be a bit difficult describing this one in sections, but I’ll try and break it up according to moments when you don’t have to do anything for half a second or so. So here’s another essay of tips and techniques incoming, sit back and enjoy and hopefully you too will be capable of a sub 30 second lap in the not too distant future.

Lap .01 Beginnings
Corners 1-3, the long C section 1, a 70° one to the right and a second C section towards the tunnels. Difficulty***+*+**
On lap one, in order to take the first corner comfortably, you should drift over to the right somewhat, though not too far, just onto the right hand side of the track and then slam the ship into the corner at maximum lock, you should swing into the inside of the corner about halfway through if you get your timing right and approach from the right area of the corner, once you’re almost all over the inside, you should be reaching the point where you need to swing back right, that is almost as soon as you see the right apex, swing back the other way, using your RAB just enough so that your back end doesn’t swing into the left wall, this is where pulling to the right front the start line comes into account as if you aren’t close enough to the left wall to swing back to the right properly, you will have to airbrake too hard and probably crash into the left barrier; from here, you should be lined up nicely, maximum lock to the left, be warned though that PFing won’t do much if you’re too close to the right wall (other than mean you hit the outside earlier, obviously,) though it can sometimes help to ever so slightly tap your LAB to align yourself with the left-hand TP, not as much for the speed, but for the line, from here it’s the same as laps 2-5.

Laps .02 to .05 Beginnings
Corners 1-3, the long C section 1, a 70° one to the right and a second C section towards the tunnels. Difficulty***+*+**
OK, so you’ll be approaching corner one with some crazy numbers by the thrust bar, anywhere up to 220Mph to be exact; understandably, a lot of that has to be shaven off, but to begin with, you should approach from the far right and swing back in before you get there, you should already be on your way gently left by the time your ship as crossed the Start/Finish line, just so that your ship is already turning slightly (it becomes easier to turn the ship further into the corner if it‘s already slanted over,) then once you’ve hit the apex near the very start of the corner you’ll have to LAB once, just a bit to get your nose pointed back in the right kind of direction (use it around about the TP,) then a second time as you get further through the corner at full lock to line you up in the middle-left heading towards corner 2; if you’re not round about the middle-left, you’ll either brake too hard here and hit the outside with your ship’s fat arse or just make like a dart and score a treble twenty on the right hand apex. If you’re in the right place, the braking for this corner is dead easy, just use your RAB to line yourself up with where the track goes, though preferably more pointing to the left to stay with the left apex before you and to not shave off too much speed from over-braking. Take the corner to the left with max lock, by now most of that 200Mph speed should have been worked off without a crash, again if you need to LAB just a little, trying to line up with the left hand side of the track, but anywhere in the left-middle area of the track is good, though it seem the upcoming roof is more likely to catch you if you’re too central off the jump.

Tunnel Jumps
Corner 4, spaced out between 2 small jumps. Difficulty*
Now here’s a dead fun bit, once on the left, you should PF ever so slightly to avoid the roof, just a split second tap is enough, if you’ve left your pitching alone to this point (if you‘ve been PFing through Corner 3 or approaching the corner, you should be able to make it across fine without doing anything.) Once you hit the turbo pad and you feel it fling you forwards, tap your HT just for a second to increase the boost dramatically; as soon as you’re accelerating forwards off the pads, PB hard to keep yourself from bottoming out, the PBing even before you’re got under the roof won’t matter if you’ve already PFed by the time you hit the pads (which is nice:)) so if you catch your pitching early enough you should be able to avoid bottoming out to maintain upwards of 200Mph, which you should be able to carry through the slight right hander, heading to the right hand side of the track, holding your pitch back the entire way through the tunnel; when you reach the second jump, HT off that too, the PB you’ve held should minimize the speed to lose front the inevitable bottom out and from 220-230Mph off the jump, you should drop only to 180Mph as you hit the uphill, line up to head towards the TP at the far end of the straight on the left.

The Cursed Helix
Straight 1 & Corner 5: the 540°(?) Helix. Difficulty***** Warning: “Heavy Gravity!”
Call me superstitious, but I have a firm belief that this corner is cursed, a curse that means a crash anywhere in the Helix on the first lap means your race will go down the shitter, guaranteed! It’s a rule that’s always held for me, I’ve never beaten a 2:40.00 following a crash on this corner, which is terrible considering my Personal Best at the moment of writing this is 2:34.36. Anyway, enough of my reasons for repeated restarts, this corner is, as I’m sure you’ll already know if you’ve raced MM, nerve wracking and just all out difficult: if your ship bottoms out, as there is an intense likelihood it will, (partly) due to the fact that it’s not a perfectly smooth helix (there are subtle changes, especially near the top,) your ship will bounce as if it were dragged down by insanely powerful gravity, gaining height with each subsequent bounce until it hits (probably) the outside wall; it’s v.unforgiving!

Now, the approach is easy enough, I tend to find that while on the straight, a little HT makes me feel better after the big speed taxation of the bottom out, I accelerate to ensure I’m hitting the far end doing 190-200Mph. The speed at that stage of course, is not most important, more is ensuring that your ship’s at the almost extreme left (if you‘re too far left, your upcoming LABing will drive your nose into the barrier) and that from the moment you land off the second jump, you are PFing like something possessed!

Continued in Pt. 2

[Dimension]

Now then, hehe, into the corner we go, before I start let me inform you that the speed this corner should be taken at is between 80-100Mph, oscillating back and forth between brake taps, if your sped shows much over 100Mph, you‘re going too fast to take the ideal line. OK, so: thankfully those lovely people at Psygnosis Leeds decided they would be nice and seem to have purposefully lined up the TP on the left with your braking point, so from your position on the far left, probably having stopped PFing by natural reaction as you got within sight of the edge of the world encroaching on your breathing space, brake hard left and throw your ship to maximum left lock, throwing your ship through ~80° so you should e looking straight forwards towards the right hand side of the pillar down the centre of the Helix, shaving off big speed, though sticking to the deck fairly cleanly even though you stopped pitching just before you got there; with the nose deep in the inside, follow the golden rule: keep your eyes on the white stripe! Try, above all else, to have your nose running along that at all times! To do this, I suggest you leave your steering alone, stay at max lock and use your LAB in adjusting blasts, you should need between 7 and 10 to complete the corner. The one point at which you should use your turning is the moment you feel yourself getting too far over the inside edge of the white line, let your lock slide just to compensate, rather than letting your ship drift wider before you next brake, though be ready to hit max lock again as soon as you’re clear of the inside, misjudge by half a second and you’re on a one way trip to the outside wall! The last use of your LAB should be as you see the TP on the left in the ditch, straighten up your steering and gun for it, PBing all the way! Once you hit the jump after the first TP, HT again, just enough to launch yourself forwards, it is imperative that you boost just a little off the jump, boost too hard and it will make your steering irreparably sluggish and you will not make the next turn, even when you’re out of the Helix it’s got surprises it seems! :)

The Pit Lane Curve
Straight 2 & Corner 6: The Pit Lane Curve. Difficulty****
OK, so that was hard, but gut wrenchingly fun, no? Now comes the aftermath… Coming off the big jump, you will bottom out, not too much off a problem, trust me! If you followed what I said before, you’ll be pretty good landing here at a good 170-180Mph and if you took the hint-styled left hand TP before the jump, you’ll be on the right side of the track, try not to get too close to the wall though, somewhere around the middle of the left hand “lane” is fine, now here’s one of my favourite sections WipE’out” racing history, if done right, this next little section can look jaw-dropping.

So as you gun it down the straight at your comfy 180Mph, PB. Yup, PB down the straight and cut back towards the left gradually, by some peculiar device found in only this one track, PBing will cause your ship to literally peel up off the track and quite comfortably soar over the outside edge leading into the pit lane, just don’t hit the wrong bit, there is indeed an embankment back there, which you can’t fly over or through, but the PBing will do enough to ensure that if you didn’t boost too hard off the jump, you’ll most always get through the pit lane entry woes; once in there and flying high, pitch forwards several times through the lane as you smoothly turn through, remembering to exit near the outside as the main track turns right a bit later, if you do this right, you should be at about the right height and staring down a TP on the right hand side clocking 170Mph.

Final Corners & Straight
Corners 7, 8 & 9 & Straight 3. Difficulty**+***+*
It’s all easy stuff from here. So, coming down the short straight after the pit, try to hit the pad just before crossing from right to left towards the inside of the sharp left hander and LAB as you reach the inside to assist in alleviating your braking needs, if you do it right, two quick blasts on your LAB should get you through fine and on the right of the track. Into the right hander, airbrake just once: not too hard, but not too soft, enough to shave off some speed, but not enough to cover the entire corner, then with your max lock, you should be able to cope with the rest with PF; where you exit this one deigns how you’ll take the last corner… If you’re on the left of the corner for the Tps, you’ll need to brake through Corner 9, if you’re too close to the left though (close enough to turbo scrape that is) you may need a little more quick smart work to pull away from the wall then get back towards the left to airbrake as you would otherwise; on the other hand, if you exited on the middle-right, you can smoothly flow through this one without much in the way of air braking, quick but costly on the way you take Corner 8. With either option it’s a little tough to hit the double pads on the left, but that shouldn’t be too much trouble as the straight is massive, plenty of straight to hammer your HT down, I tend to hit the far end TPs at 200-210 Mph, they pushing me up to ~220Mph, ready for a new lap.

So there it is, how to pull a sub-30 second stormer around MM; but on a serious note now, please remember folks, contrails are harmful to the environment: let’s try keeps things under a 5 second constant “230-170-60-235...120-210”Mph on the front straight, eh? :p Wip3 On! :)

Dim, signing off.