Left or right?

[rejj]

You're taking a quiet drive through the city at night when you find yourself at a fork in the road:
http://www.flapdoodle.org/rejj/shots/w3se/stanza_inter_fork.jpg
Do you go left or right?

I think right is faster, but I may be quite wrong.

[NiktheGreek]

I often take the left route.

[xEik]

Right.
That tunnel can be handled at any speed without turning at all. It just requires tilting the ship sideways and a lot of practice. Scraping should be avoided in those chicanes since the boost will probably make you crash before you can tilt to the other side.

Links are preferred to directly putting images. Those with slow connections like having the choice of seeing them or not.

PRACTICE LEADS TO PERFECTION !

[Roger]

I always take the right route. No politics involved :wink:


Heh, reminds me of a song (Ride across the river) by Dire Straits. A line goes:
"...right becomes wrong, and left becomes right"

(the song is from 1985, so they can't possibly be referring to this fork in the road :P )

[Lance]

.
a-straight down the middle

b-to another race course

xEik: tilt the ship without turning? what controller or psychedelic subtance are you using?

[xEik]

I mean that, although I tap on the D-pad, the ship doesn't deviate from its straight raceline. It only tilts to one side or the other.

This is antigravity, man! ;)

No psychedelic substance for me. Ever. Although I can enjoy good psychedelic Trance music.

[Task]

To the right, of course. Experimentation will show you that it's the faster way to go.
Not only is there less turning (in amount, not in number of turns) but it's a shorter distance. To top it all off, you come out the end better positioned for the next turn.
You're probably wondering about the "less turning" thing. I haven't been able to manage it, but you _can_ shoot down the middle with the nose up. I think it might take tiny nose adjustments left and right to do it, but I have it on good authority that it's possible.
As it is, I can shoot the stanza chicane fairly quickly, and it's been so long since I turned left that I can't drive that path.
However, in the end I usually make the same choice Lance does: another track. It's just so far from being my favourite venue. YMMV.

[jmoid]

Almost always right, although I go left occasionally for a bit of excitement. The sharp turn at the end of the left route kind of spoils it. I have a soft spot for Stanza as it was the track on the Wip3out demo disc in the UK.

[Lance]

.
i'd like to put a soft spot IN stanza.
actually, there ain't nuthin in stanza that a bunch of sunlight wouldn't cure

xEik: when i tap the dpad, the ship turns as well as leans, that's suspended-in-air anti-gravity racing. just like ailerons on an aircraft. bernoulli style
.

[xEik]

Then you tap for too long. ;)

There might be some slight turning. But you must keep an overall straight trajectory while avoiding the inside part of the chicane by leaning the ship sideways.

If you turn your ship in every one of those little turns you loose too much time.

[Vasudeva]

I always take the right path.

On most speeds with most craft you won't lose speed because, as Task and others have explained, you can just slightly steer. Icaras on phantom will need the airbrakes although I've once pulled the stunt of going through the tunnel without touching them (and without touching the walls :)).

Peace,
V.

[FoxZero]

right....





left... right... left... right... left... right... left... right... left... right...

what? sorry, got caught up in the screen shot

[rejj]

However, in the end I usually make the same choice Lance does: another track. It's just so far from being my favourite venue. YMMV.


I think that Stanza Inter has perhaps the worst pitlane entry of all the tracks, but the rest of the track is great. Ah well.

Have you guys ever held a poll here to see which track is people's favourite? If not, perhaps it is time... :)

[Hybrid Divide]

If I'm not mistaken, it was Manor Top.

[infoxicated]

That's correct - was over two years ago now, granted, but it was Manortop :)

[zargz]

right!
2the left the uphills slow u down and the exit is a bitch -
if u dont push the nose down u often crash in the sealing
2the right it's flat and u can almost make a straight line thru the s'es!
nb Almost! (^_^)

[AmishRobot]

xEik: tilt the ship without turning? what controller or psychedelic subtance are you using?

Perhaps you recall me extolling the virtues of this particular right fork not long ago. I said then that if the right line is found, that tunnel can be taken in an almost straight line, with just a lttle bit of swaying from left to right. Xeik is correct. The tunnel is a bit tougher, but it has serious advantages.

[Lance]

.
i always go to the right. it's just that i rarely make it through unscathed. stanza inter is very challenging, which is good, but i still hate it. if it were a prototype track with no 'scenery', i would probably love it, but i just hate the ambience of it as it is now. it is at the absolute bottom of my list of preferred courses in WO3
.

[infoxicated]

Same here.

I think it's because I imagine the game to be like a spectator sport of the future, yet at Stanza Inter there's absolutely nowhere for spectators to be - it's just an urban city block and nothing more.

Actually, it's funny how the track with one of the best spectator areas, the pits at Mega Mall, is actually similar for most of the rest of the track - there's virtually nowhere for spectators to view the race.

[Roger]

I think it's because I imagine the game to be like a spectator sport of the future...

Don't you think the spectators are hooked up to a gazillion 3D-cameras mounted all over the place (trackside, on craft, on pilot's helmets, on blimps...)?

As a parallel, I've never seen a Formula 1 race "live" - the effort and cost of buying a ticket and travelling to the track (there are no F1 races in Finland) is too big. I'm quite content with watching the thing on TV.

But then again, I'm not that big a racing fan. If there were Ag-races around today, I still wouldn't go there to watch them... I'd be racing myself 8)

[rejj]

Wow, I'm the exact opposite - I love the scenery and the overall feel of Stanza Inter. I just like the feeling of racing through a futuristic city like that.

... but then, it's not like being a spectator on Mannor Top would be easy - you are racing across what are surely extremely tall skyscrapers.. :)

[Lance]

.
the part of the city that stanza inter occupies just looks abandoned, dim, and dead to me. it's like the city depended on one big industry that got killed off by better foreign competition and now the paper trash from more prosperous parts of the world blows through the empty streets.

or it would if the PSX could handle the extra animation load.

the only life left is in the mostly unoccupied monorail cars that come from someplace outside the city and go to another 'someplace else' while just using the city as a shortcut

mm... sorry about that; i've been writing a story on my lj lately, and just occasionally get hit by the desire to be literary. now if only the performance were there as well
.

[lunar]

that decaying part of the city is where I`d want to get off the monorail. Much more freedom than the theme parks, smoking areas and overpriced fast-food outlets around P-Mar. Stanza is just more romantic.

I love the intensity of racing on Stanza, though I have always taken the soft (left) option.

The screenshot clearly tells you which route to take. You go "inter" the right one.

[Lance]

.
or better yet, interr.
:D

__________

for freedom, i prefer wilderness instead of 'wild' city, but that is just personal taste of course
.

[lunar]

I admit the `wild and decaying city` is a romantic myth of the late 20th century, mostly perpetuated by French films, gangster and jazz movies, but the usual reality of such places is that you get hassled for money, chatted to by weirdo fantasists and abused by bored teenagers in bus shelters (a bit like certain forums but anyway.....). Sampa Run, with its permanent industrial rain, is presumably even more hateful to you than Stanza? At the moment its my favourite Wip3out track, for its great curves and moody atmosphere. :D

And working my way uncraftily round to topic again, I`d be interested to hear what people think about left or right on Sampa Run. I go right on that track as the hill seems slow and nasty.

[Lance]

.
i always go right on Sampa; that hill is way slow.

for some reason, even though SR is a bit dark, i don't dislike it as much as SI. probably because there are fewer buildings, and the bright/dark visual contrast is a bit higher. also there are certain parts of the track that are tricky but when you make it through them properly it results almost in a feeling of a flowing artwork, whereas at Stanza, when i make it through cleanly, it just seems a quirk of fate and a sigh of relief
.

[Vasudeva]

I also like Sampa Run. It's the only darker track of WO3. I like the sense of being alone, in some sort of darker, subconscious twilight with the rain. I love it!

Stanza Inter is not the most pleasant track but it's okay. I like the city, and it doesn't really look dead to me, just cleaned up and yeah, perhaps a bit calm. But not in decay! Korodera, that was decay. Spilskinanke was in decay. But not Stanza Inter, imho.

V.

[Roger]

...I'd be interested to hear what people think about left or right on Sampa Run. I go right on that track as the hill seems slow and nasty.
Same here, the tunnel is fast and nasty :) .

[rhys]

To the left :D Its more fun, you can shoot off those red wall things and people crash into them every time :D

[Myke_AG_Sys™]

I can't believe no one has mentioned the Ultra Violet lighting in some of the tunnels at Sampa Run... come on, beautiful. Yeah, the dark and the rain... I do like it.

Anyway, Stanza Inter tunnel. RIGHT side, no questions asked.

[rejj]

Heh.
Sampa Run doesn't do much for me at all - to me it seems bland. :P Oh, and I always take the right fork on Sampa Run.

Another track that I really like the atmosphere of is Terminal. The track layout itself is good.. it has some challenging turns and some fast sections.. and the inside/outside contrast seems to work really well.

[Lance]

.
i like terminal.. a lOt.
i may possibly have mentioned this elsewhere :D
.

[lunar]

My feelings about Terminal are similar to Lance`s of Stanza. Sure its challenging but its my last choice... its not much fun. I was a bit disapointed with it when I first played thru wipeout 3. I expected the last track to be a little more outrageous, and to feel like a reward. I don`t think Terminal fulfils these expectations. LS103, fleshed out in a subterranean setting, would have been much better IMO. :) That would have been something really different.

[zargz]

To the left :D Its more fun, you can shoot off those red wall things and people crash into them every time :D

w(o,o)w what!!?? interactivity in wo3!!!??? (x_o)

[Synthetic Consciousness]

[Don't you think the spectators are hooked up to a gazillion 3D-cameras mounted all over the place (trackside, on craft, on pilot's helmets, on blimps...)?]

Probably. The intro cinema to Rollcage Stage II shows monitors in a few places. In one scene, you're looking in the viewpoint of a monitor. A car drives over another car and flies into the camera, resulting in a moment of snow before the scene change. And then again, wipEout XL had cameras hovering over the tracks in spots, whereas in wip3out, they're nowhere to be seen. Hmm... :-?

[red wall things]=Force Wall. Though "red wall thing" does sound more descriptive. 8) I now dub the Quake Disruptor the "thing that makes the track all wavy". :lol:

In Stanza Inter, I usually go left. The fastest way from Point A to Point B is--oh, nevermind...I just hate having to weave like a drunk butterfly, okay? :P On Sampa Run, I go right. That hill sucks. :evil:

[Vasudeva]

I go right at Sampa Run too.

Oh by the way, perhaps the track cameras in WO3 have been made with nano technology, they're pretty much invisible for the bare eye! (what a nice excuse ;)).

Peace,
V.

[NiktheGreek]

I go right at Sampa Run...

[zargz]

sampa - right! (^_^)b

[FoxZero]

i take right in sampa too, got a nice quick line to it, the left is very slow and sets you up poorly for the last turn

[Task]

It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out what you were all talking about, left or right on Sampa? Since when is there a track split on Sampa? So I flew through the track in my head, and after the "airbrake right, boost down the hill, wide left glide..." I remembered that the difficulty there was that pointy piece between the two sections of track when I'm going into the sunken tunnel on the right. I can't even remember what happens when you go left, I'd almost forgotten that there was even a possibility of going any other way.

I gotta get some more wiping in sometime soon. I can't believe I've been too busy to fly. 8 P

[RJ O'Connell]

Right's less risky and faster. Playing the game for 4 years (not fast though) I know that. :wink: