Piloting Tips for the original. thE WipEout

[Lance]

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we don't have records tables for WO1, but fans of this version may still appreciate knowing all the techniques, so please post yours here in this thread. please do not post questions or comments in this thread, but start a separate one for discussion; that will keep the tips concentrated for easy readability and search while finding the separate discussion of the one you're interested in should be easy.
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We have record for WipEout now! Yeehaaaaaaa!

[username]

when turning a sharp corner, take your finger off of the gas (X button) for a split-second and tap/feather the airbrakes. i only use this technique on wipeout 1 as on the other in the seriese tapping the thrust has very little effect.

[whipitout]

Dont hit the sides they stop you dead unlike all the other wipeouts.

[Medusa]

1. Use the Feisar or AG systems to unlock the whole game (win championship race on Venom to unlock Rapier, win champ. race on Rapier to unlock Firestar).
2. Focus on one track at a time and race it until you know where all speed pads and weapon pads are, and what the best race line is on each class. THEN, to lower your times, NEVER race unless you get the turbo start, whether you are on single race or time trial. Find out which ships are particularly suited to a track if you have the time/patience to handle the Qirex/Auricom.
3. Watch as you race to see at what points in the track your speed drops below max. These are the places where you should be employing your turbos. Link up all of the speed pads on the track that you can, the only time you can usually afford to miss them is when you are on a turbo (or racing Silverstream). Never use a turbo if you are going to end up bouncing a lot (unless you are on single race and going for record race time...you may get more turbos that race).
4. Finishing a race with a turbo may seem like a great finish but you are wasting the tail end of your turbo, try to use it elsewhere on the track where you get its full impact.
5. DON'T BOUNCE!!! Once your ship bounces more than once you've wasted a LOT of time. Learn to control the bouncing by race line or nose up/down.

That's all my tips for now.

[RJ O'Connell]

Here's a problem I ran across during Championship Mode - it seems as if the AI pilots (during a Single Race) have insane blocking ability around the speedup pads. (I've wasted at least 7-8 seconds in one race trying to get the hell around Ana at Arridos once)

If you feel this happening and you don't have any weapons on board, just find a different line. Better lo lose 1 second not taking that speed-up pad rather than 5-6 running into the back of seven Andrea de Caesarii and being held up for two miles.

[Medusa]

You can usually tell if the ship will try to block you, since it slows a bit and hovers back and forth. Pull a feint to the side you won't end up going on, then pull back to the correct side and breeze on by the sucker, as it moves to where you faked direction, and you hit the speed pad, losing a fraction of the time you would if skipping the pad altogether. Timing is everything, after all you are trying to "trick" a computer:D

[ahurst]

Flying with as little airbrake use as possible is my number one tip. Faster ships, which require airbrakes to corner, have a slight edge on Altima VII, but for everything else, flying the A.G. Systems and aiming to never use the airbrakes will give you the fastest lap times.

The best all-round ship for the championship has to be the A.G. Systems.
With this ship virtually every corner on every track may be taken without using the airbrakes at all. The one exception is Silverstream where the hairpin requires a drag on the airbrake, in addition to an excellent line, to pull you round; and the corner and switchbacks following the double speedup-arrow sets are very difficult to get without a dab of brake.
Everywhere else: only use airbrakes to correct small errors in your course, and then only if the outcome will be better than correcting through steering (consider side-slip, reduction of speed, trajectory to racing line)

This may be stating the obvious, but:
Flying fast without airbrakes requires taking the concept of 'racing line' to the extreme, by means of excellent timing. Set up as wide as possible for every corner, make the closest approach to the apex and keep watching it as you pass. Then aim for the widest exit, without having to overcorrect to set up for the next corner.
Bear in mind that all control inputs slow you down; but also that this fact is occasionally useful.

Your direction control has two axes - use them both! All tracks have changes in elevation, and following these by raising or lowering the nose maintains the best attitude, and can gain (or maintain) a great deal of speed - try to think of flying a jet aircraft at a constant altitude of 1 foot, rather than steering a Formula-1 (Indy!?) car. As with cornering (in the horizontal plane), smooth out the changes in direction by preparing early, finding an apex, and not overcorrecting - the racing line has a vertical component as well as a horizontal one.
Soak up the jumps by nosing-down before you hit the lip, and nosing-up well before you land.

Finally, you don't need a turbo start to win a race, just focus on smooth passing and flying your line, so you can avoid getting tangled up in weapon exchanges - these are always distracting, and reduce the chance of a quick lap.

You really do have to keep flying three basically perfect laps in order to win, but the possibility for improvement is almost endless. That's why we're still playing this game twelve years on!

Andy

[RJ O'Connell]

Ship Selection: Your best choice is AG Systems. Now, if you're a veteran of WipEout XL and haven't played the original, you may be wondering why I recommend it over the traditionally faster Auricom and Qirex. Their heavy handling is so much that the top speed they boast cannot compensate, especially with how technical these circuits in the F3600 seem to be. (A good example is the esses in Karbonis.) The only place you can set a top time with a heavyweight ship would be Altima VII, where me and Arnaud have a share of the #1 RT and LT times in both Auricom and Qirex machines. FEISAR isn't a bad choice for the icy hell known as SilverStream, but your best bet for almost all circuits would still be the AG Systems. You can take quite a few corners at full accel with no airbrake, certainly a lot more than the heavy ships. It also has the best thrust and - since there's no eliminations - you don't have to worry about the traditionally paper-thin shields lasting only two missiles' worth of fire!

Also, pilot selection is pretty much a decision of which one has the nicer-looking ship. I've yet to find anyone come forward and say that picking one pilot over the other will produce different results.

more to come...

[DawnFireDragoon]

i'm playing the hell out of the original game tonight and loving doing some time trials. korodera is proving more difficult than i remember!

i agree with you guys that ag-systems is the best ship overall. And just practice. practice. and more practice. the first game is so unforgiving with collisions that it makes you a good pilot.

[lunar]

I agree that AGS is fastest in most cases, but do not underestimate the power of Auricom ;) It is faster than AGS on a few track/class combinations. I don`t think anyone has yet unlocked its true power completely. To get speed in this game it`s so important to avoid smacking your undercarriage on the track surface which costs so much speed. So pitch control is vital at all times, just as vital as racing line. This is true of all ships, but avoiding bottoming out in the heavy ships, which are much more prone to it, is one of the keys to making them go quick. I think Qirex is only the fastest in one case: Altima Venom. Maybe Altima Rapier, but only in the hands of a Qirex Jedi, and even then I doubt it.

[DawnFireDragoon]

true, you really need jedi reflexes to use the qirex in this game. when i first got wipeout i actually liked it the best, i'd never played anything like it, picked a ship and tried to master it. i just couldn't do some of the tracks and switched to feisar, before settling with ag-systems.

i'm currently doing a bit of a monster play through with ag-systems but should perhaps try to use one of the heavier ships and see what new techniques i can learn.

[Go-T]

Cannot believe what I am reading! I am new to your forum but have been playing this game for about seventeen years and since the very beginning have used the Auricom ship. The Quirex is faster but it is almost impossible to make it go round corners at speed and the other two are too slow to be serious contenders.

[AG-wolf]

Qirex no "U" is definitely faster in a straight line than Auricom, but it loses too much speed in corners, regardless of whether you can keep it off the wall or not. It's unfortunately just not a viable contender.

[JABBERJAW]

except for venom altima :)

[touge_rider]

I'm amazed no-one has mentioned about the bossting start here either (I checked the similar thread to Wipeout 3 SE). 3rd bar from top is the sweet spot on ur thrust bar. Too low and you will accelerate normally, too high and you will stall and will take you longer to accelerate.

[JABBERJAW]

I have played Wipeout 1 a good amount lately, and have come to the conclusion that the Auricom is the fastest ship on every track. Pitch control off jumps/ bumps is vital though, or the bouncing will cause it to be slower than Ag on some tracks. You need to play significantly different than using the ag though, so it may take days to start " feeling it" with this ship.

On RAPIER speed