Version 2.3

Manual

• The Ring Racers Online Manual is now available! Check it out here, or find the "Online Manual" section under Extras. This exhaustive reference guide contains everything you could possibly want to know about how to get ahead.

Gameplay

• Fixed the "Minimum Input Delay" option adding significant extra delay, even in situations where it should have been inactive. This improves input and handling responsiveness in all game modes.
  • The specifics are hard to explain, so here's the short version: unless you turned Minimum Input Delay down to 0 in your Profile Options, you've been playing on up to double the intended delay. Yes, even online. Networking sucks! Thanks to Diggle and JugadorXEI for their help during initial investigation of these issues.
• Fixed "gentleman" input delay (the delay applied to netgame hosts for fairness reasons) being unnecessarily strong.
  • Same root cause as the above. This effect was relatively small if anyone in your lobby had a good connection, but could sometimes be dramatic in small coast-to-coast games.
• Braking while drifting no longer cancels Insta-Whip charge.
• When tricking, diagonal inputs are no longer ignored.
  • This was an input-safety feature from 2.0/2.1 that allowed players some time to correct sloppy inputs, but it causes more problems than it solves now that tricking requires a button press.
• Slightly increased the analog stick distance required to input a trick.
  • This change is intended to be small, and will mostly affect controllers with strange behavior near their deadzone.
• If you collide with players or walls over 30 times within a few seconds, you'll automatically respawn.
  • This should never trigger during standard play, but should "un-stick" you quicker if you're caught in a narrow spot or tight scenery and bouncing like crazy.
• You can now press Spindash to execute a trick without fastfalling—press the button again to fastfall. This allows players to trick without releasing the accelerator, if they prefer. - !15

Items

• Shrink cooldown increased from 20 seconds to 60.
• Making contact with Shrink laser trails inflicts slightly less Shrink time.
• Increased Shrink laser "near miss" range, allowing you to graze further into the edge of a laser trail without punishment.
  • In rooms that couldn't stabilize long distance gaps, Shrink was affecting really large portions of the race—sometimes more than the racers!
• Reduced the intensity of Shrink's darkness effect in dimly lit areas.
  • Shrink is meant to disrupt the leading racers, but not by blinding them. This effect was far too strong in certain portions of the game, like underwater sections.
• Bubble Shield can no longer appear at the start of races.
  • When players were closely packed from POSITION, this could set several players far back on the first turn, before appropriate counterplay was available.
• Flame Shield and Garden Top can no longer appear at the end of races.
  • Power items are meant to be attractive targets, but power items that allow an "anytime" Tripwire pass affected position play disproportionately, punishing mid-pack players towards the end of races.

CPUs

• Lower-level bots can now misjudge Lightning Shield / Bubble Shield distances, like players do (and like they already do with Insta-Whip).
  • Before, a CPU racer with a Bubble Shield would often hold it until able to score a guaranteed hit. They'll still do this at Lv.MAX, but they should typically be more "human-like" in Relaxed and Intense GP.

Maps

• Updated a texture in Melty Manor.
• Fixed an issue in Las Vegas where respawning players could get on a Rideroid, leaving them unable to interact with objects afterward.

Accessibility

• "Reduce Effects" now prevents the Item Roulette and Casino Roulette from flashing when confirmed.
• "Reduce Effects" now stops item icons from flickering when deployed or dragged—instead, they'll be transparent.
• "Reduce Effects" now prevents the lamps in the POSITION! HUD from flickering.
• "Reduce Effects" now slows the color changing of the Position Number on the HUD.
• Pressing Spindash, Brake, or tricking with Accelerate will no longer disable Kickstart Accelerate. - !20

Fixes

• When the game saves, rather than writing to temp files and moving them to their destination, the game will move the old data to a backup file and write a new one.
  • This should hopefully mitigate against save corruption, and provide a backup if it does happen.
• The game will no longer try to save gamedata and profiles in the event of a non-signal crash fatal errors.
  • It was never actually safe to do this, and we are reducing the risk of memory allocation failures causing file corruption as we try to track down the game data corruption problem.
• Fixed an issue where the Free Play roulette would sometimes be used in Attack modes.
  • Rest in peace, Bubble Shield Angel Arrow.
• Fixed an issue where staff ghosts would play back incorrectly when drifting.
• Fixed the "gamestochat" and "allowguests" cvars not being available for dedicated servers.
  • "gamestochat" can be very useful for unattended servers, since the game requirement makes kick/ban evasion time-consuming and annoying—but only if they're actually allowed to use it!
• Fixed certain passwords having no effect when cheats were disabled.
• Fixed a technical issue where ACS wouldn't interact correctly with dynamic objects while playing online.
• Fixed an issue where a large total accumulated PWRLV can cause the calculation of average PWRLV to erroneously wrap around. - !19
• ACS scripts which run too many instructions will terminate early instead of executing indefinitely. - !22
• Corrected old text in the message displayed when loading a gameplay-altering mod. - !16
• Fixed Instawhip charge VFX being positioned incorrectly in reverse gravity. - !14
• Fixed a major performance issue with Instawhip charge VFX. - !14
• Restored Orenzo
• Fixed palette indexing issues in RHI Software which led to incorrect display colors on drivers with less precise FPU operations. - Johnny on Flame, no MR
• Potentially fixed shader integer uniform implicit coercion causing issues on some Mesa GL versions on Linux. - Johnny on Flame, no MR
• The gravity cheat cvar no longer crashes the game when altered from the debug menu. - !21

Contributors

These community contributors assisted with this release. Thank you!

• Alam Arias
• Callmore
• Lactozilla
• Logan Arias
• Johnny on Flame
• JugadorXEI
• katsy

v2.2

Since we released Ring Racers version 2.1, we've been hard at work collecting and addressing feedback for this follow-up. This update includes a modest amount of new content, some new accessibility options, and a large swath of balance adjustments and bug fixes.

Key to this update is the new Auto Ring accessibility feature: if you are struggling with managing Rings to keep your kart's momentum, you may find this feature helpful. However, like the distinction between Automatic and Manual Transmission in other racing games, you should learn to use Rings effectively to maximize your potential!

Auto Ring

• Added the "Auto Ring" accessibility toggle for profiles.
  • Your Follower will automatically use a couple rings for you, when you happen to be in ideal scenarios to use them.
  • Just like "Auto Roulette", this is not ideal for advanced play. However, we hope this option can help reduce mental load for newer players, and even be a teaching tool.

General Gameplay

• Fixed a regression from SRB2Kart that was preventing control when exiting a drift.
  • This could cause your steering to "stick" when releasing miniturbos, or produce some unusual "strafe-like" countersteering when exiting a partial drift. If you've felt any handling downgrades when playing Ring Racers, please give this update a shot!
• Improved general handling at high speeds, especially for heavyweights.
  • The core math behind handling has been largely unchanged since SRB2Kart—but you get pretty fast in Ring Racers, even on simple courses. The new values should help heavyweights take tight corners at speed, but otherwise won't affect much until you start combining boosts, helping you stay in control with power items.
• Slightly reduced the power of upward slopes, making them easier to climb.
  • This is a small tweak, but allows you to retain more speed in sustained upward climbs.
• Tricks are now input with direction + A, allowing you to slightly adjust your angle on the way up.
  • The pure directional input caused some input-overlap issues; players would sometimes prepare to countersteer, unaware they were about to hit a trick panel, then end up flying sideways as the input system suddenly changed. The new input method requires a distinct button press, which should almost completely eliminate accidental tricks—and allows you more room to adjust from bad entry angles. Fair warning, this might take a race or three to get used to.
• Forward tricks allow you to steer slightly while in flight, like back and side tricks.
• Improved handling when releasing blue or rainbow miniturbos with Voltage (the "charge" you get from completing a trick).
  • This is mainly aimed at heavyweight players; with their quick MT charges and low handling, a sudden burst of linear speed could often be more frustrating than exciting. This state now grants you massive countersteering ability, letting you quickly adjust your angle to make use of the speed.
• Fastfall bounces now nudge you towards where you're looking.
  • Fastfall bounce creates some interesting airtime tradeoffs and routing choices, but in the situations where you'd use it on instinct—to correct for mistakes—the uncontrollable bounce often sent you to your death anyway. This makes it easier to manage your landing if you're at an unusual angle or speed, improving its utility as a recovery tool.
• You no longer instantly fastfall if you slide off a ledge while brakedrifting.
  • This was already fixed for slide-off E-Brake, a similar situation, but brakedrifting slipped through. This should prevent unwanted fastfalls in tight cornering situations.
• E-brake now brings you to a stop quicker.
  • A more responsive E-Brake means quicker Spindashes, quicker Ring Shooter, and better overall maneuverability in crazy terrain. This should improve recovery options when you're out of Rings or in a rough spot.
• Spindashing while invincible will no longer reduce your rings below 0.
  • Spindash isn't meant to be a first-line recovery option, but if you're beat up enough to need it, there's no need to put you in a deeper grave.
• Spindash speed increased by ~25% in Race only.
  • Spindash was always intended to be a little stronger, but shortly before release, we tweaked it so that overcharging would no longer grant extra power—making a "perfect" release much more lenient. However, this lost an entire "stage" of charge, making it slower overall. This buff brings it more in line with the original intent, and should make it easier to use in a variety of situations.
• You now start races with 10 rings (was 5).
  • This change is almost entirely for POSITION and the first item set. For new players, this should reduce the likelihood you get Stung before you can get your bearings. For experts, while heavyweights still have the greatest incentive to cause problems on purpose—and have more chances to do it!—lightweights risk a lot less when trying to disrupt ambitious starts or sneak through the pack. Don't be afraid to get a little rowdy!

Items

• Ballhog now explodes on contact with walls, instead of bouncing.
  • Ballhog is pretty chaotic. New players are often afraid to use it, since the punishment for a bad ricochet can be pretty severe. On the other hand, random spam can make long curves a nightmare, and a well-placed shotgun can totally shut down a tight corner with little counterplay. We'd like to do a lot more work with this item, but for the time being, this should reduce its lockdown potential while making it more usable for novices.
• Invincibility's duration has been reduced to 7-17 seconds (was 10-20).
• Invincibility bonus activation duration scales slower: players need to be farther away to receive extra time.
• Invincibility hits inflict a lower tumble, with fewer bounces, and don't knock the victim's item away.
  • We'd like strong items to each have their own niche, but Invincibility was doing double duty as a strong overtake item and a strong attack item. This made it pretty prevalent in mixed-skill lobbies, creating a sort of "black hole" effect at mid-pack—plus, CPU racers and their agile handling use it really, really well. You can still earn bonus duration by landing hits, so go crack some karts!
• Shrink's "grow lasers" now grant less Grow time on players who are already powered up.
  • Shrink's effect can usually be dodged by adept players, so its direct benefit to the user is an important part of its balance. However, unscaled Grow duration made it super prone to variance: sometimes a track's layout and the pack's position dumps 20 lasers in the same location, and rolling through that spot gave you enough Grow time to steamroll the race. With this change, your Grow access should roughly scale to how many overtakes you need.
• Fastfalling with Bubble Shield ("bubblebounce") no longer extends Grow and Invincibility.
• During "tripwire lockout" (a brief period after being bounced off a tripwire), bubblebounce bounces lower.
• Bubblebounce now pops Bubble Shield in 1st place.
  • You knew it was coming. Bubblebounce is a rulebreaking movement option, allowing players to redirect their momentum and take all sorts of strange routes, but its incredible flexibility makes it course-dependent and challenging to tune. These changes are meant to bring Bubble Shield's movement capabilities in line with its offense and defense capabilities. It's still a compelling overtake tool, especially for players with good map knowledge and creativity, but doesn't allow you unlimited chances to hop over tripwire, and doesn't allow frontrunners to outpace their opposition. You get one bounce: make it count!
• Flame Shield's final "overheat" boost travels faster, and briefly allows you to pass through tripwire.
  • Even though overheat wasn't intended to be very strong, spending the final boost sometimes felt more like a formality than an opportunity. Most people expect item-based boost mechanics to pass tripwire, too.
• Reduced rebound velocity when running into Drop Targets at high speeds, or while under the effect of boosts.
• Drop Targets can now be Insta-Whipped to knock them away.
  • Frontrunners have every mechanic in the game working against them, so the 1st place item pool is meant to be strong—but they're meant to have tradeoffs, too. Drop Target trades direct damage for the ability to disrupt invincible opponents, making it a stellar trap at shortcut exits, but it was a little too good at impeding regular play.

CPUs

• CPU rubberbanding relaxes towards the end of the race.
  • CPU racers are tuned to fight hard and keep you on your toes—but losing a point of Lap Bonus and losing the entire race are very different things, especially if you're trying to bank some rings at the finish line.
• CPU racers require more speed to cross Tripwire, and to hydroplane over water, when rubberbanding.
  • From player clips, instances of CPU racers being able to cross Tripwire were mostly due to combining mechanics that human players can also perform. But, we decided that it doesn't hurt to bias towards the player when their difficulty level is high enough to possibly be recieving help.
• Fixed an oversight that caused CPU ringboost to last longer than intended on many maps.
  • CPU parameters sometimes change based on the course layout, to try and keep their overall challenge consistent. While this was working well for most things, it was busted for ringboost—situations that were meant to nerf CPUs were actually leaving their ringboost exactly the same. This affected Rivals more than usual, in part because they're so likely to snipe the Ring Boxes you leave behind.
• Fixed an oversight that could significantly increase CPU ringboost speed.
  • _This was a regression during the development of Ring Box, where ring mechanics changed considerably. This should reduc...

v2.1

This is a minor patch to clean up some of the most pervasive launch issues. We've prioritized the biggest problems and the simplest solutions, to make sure everyone can get back to racing quickly---but we've still got plenty on the to-do list.

Tutorial

TL;DR: If you're overwhelmed by the Tutorial, you can get racing much quicker.

• You can now exit to the full game after completing the "Rings", "Brakes", or "Drifting" instead of just at "Springs".
  • This allows for you to start the game proper at your own pace if you feel confident to take on races.
• The "Tutorial Challenge" trial race is now available in every Tutorial stage, instead of only at the start, and is more clearly marked.
  • As you progress through the tutorial, players get a chance to try the challenge at the start of each level.
• The "Tutorial Challenge" will now use the character selected in your profile, rather than the character you entered the stage with.
• Dramatically reduced CPU difficulty during the "Tutorial Challenge" trial race.
  • The new difficulty should roughly match the difficulty of the average Grand Prix run. If you can beat them, you can hold your own in single-player.

Unlocks

TL;DR: Important things unlock faster, and we've added passwords to skip certain categories of unlock entirely.

• Playing Online can now also unlock when winning the "Tutorial Challenge" trial race.
  • We believe that the existing Online requirement is in the right spot that it needs to be (though see below!). However, players that are able to complete the optional challenge race have already proven themselves, and don't need any additional road-blocks for Online.
• Playing with Addons now unlocks at the same time as Playing Online.
  • We've been pretty cautious about add-ons---we've all heard horror stories from new SRB2Kart players getting overwhelmed by tough custom courses or complex gameplay mods. This time, though, we were a bit too cautious; changes to other parts of the game have reduced this risk a lot, and there's no need to treat everyone with kid gloves. If you've got the basics of racing, you're already ready to play it your way.
• Time Attack now unlocks after completing your first race, or when winning the "Tutorial Challenge" trial race (previously was a late-game unlock).
  • Time Attack is Gear 3 racing with tons of extra resources; it's the fastest that Ring Racers can get without a Drop Target involved, and it can be pretty unfriendly to new players. However, people were a little confused without a dedicated practice space, and Staff Ghosts can be great references for advanced handling techniques---so it's better to show it off early.
• Prison Break now unlocks after completing your first Bonus Stage (was 4).
  • Not a massive change, but we decided to lower it to bring it in-line with the new Time Attack requirement.
• Chao Keys are given every 5 matches (from 14), and you now start a save file with 10 (from 3). Existing save files will be granted 7 Chao Keys accordingly.
  • We want to encourage people to spend more on unlocking new things for participating, and Ring Racers will never mark your save file for doing so the easier way. We noticed that players weren’t using them as often as we’d like. Starting players at 10 Chao Keys should hopefully make the board less daunting on its first viewing, and generating them more often rewards players for playing the game however they like.
• New unlock passwords have been added.
• Almost all progression passwords are now included with the game - check PASSWORDS.txt for the "Tournament Mode" temporary-unlock password, category-unlock passwords for specific rewards, and quick ways to jump into online play.
  • We get it---some people want their favorite color early, some want to play a quick round with some friends, and some people just want to dive into the deep end and handle the consequences on their own. We wanted to keep the lid pretty tight at launch, and let all the secret-hunters experience the game at their own pace before handing out the keys: in the whirlwind of release, combined with some other issues, it ended up sending the wrong message. All of the progression-related changes, plus passwords as a safety valve, should make it much easier to quickly boot up and play with friends at your own pace. Sorry we missed the mark on this one!

Profiles

• Lite Steer is now disabled by default. Existing profiles will have it switched off when upgrading.
  • Lite Steer is an advanced input feature that allows digital inputs, like D-Pads and keyboards, to input shallow turns like an analog stick can. It's a valuable tool for advanced players, but it's missing feedback and conveyance at the moment, and players were unknowingly activating it with messy inputs or loose D-Pads. If your steering felt unresponsive or inconsistent, this might be why!
• Default gameplay Field of View raised to 100 (was 90). Existing profiles with 90 FOV will be raised to 100.
  • Most players who knew about this option have already changed it. Ring Racers is a busy game, and a little peripheral vision goes a long way, especially when orienting yourself on tight corners or searching for that elusive third switch.
• Added a default keybind (T) for "Open Chat". Profiles that have already bound Open Chat won't be affected.
  • Oops.

Gameplay

• Dramatically reduced the effect of CPU rubberbanding while using speed items and rings.
  • We'd like the AI to put up a good fight, but the way they combined power items and rubberband potential made them feel pretty capricious and unpredictable. We'll keep tuning this, but this should go a long way towards making them more consistent opponents---and easier to catch when they slingshot ahead.

Fixes

• Fixed objects becoming invisible on certain maps when draw distance was set to "Penultimate".
• Fixed a typo in the item toggle menu.
• Reduced the likelihood of the "check your clocks" error appearing when joining netgames.
  • This error should never appear if both the host and client have their time set correctly, but it's been made more lenient in 2.1.
• Fixed an issue where a debug print in certain maps was being displayed.
• Replaced the music in Darkvile Castle Act 2, per musician request.
• Fixed the Challenge Board glass areas in widescreen Legacy GL.
• Compilation when using CMake 3.16, the version packaged in Ubuntu 20.04 and Linux Mint 20.3, now works.
• Added cmake option SRB2_CONFIG_ENABLE_DISCORDRPC, defaulted on, to disable Discord RPC features. This is a stop-gap to fix issues with compilation on some Linux distros.

Online

• Dedicated servers can now access all cups, not just the first 7.
  • Spoiler window's over. Let's see what you've got!

Modding

• The Windows installer now includes the Ring Racers version of "Kartmaker", a set of tools and templates for creating your own custom racers easily. This is currently Windows only, but the adventurous types may find the source code at our Gitlab.

Special thanks to MelonadeM for helping provide us with the replacement track for Darkvile Castle Act 2, "Stage 70", an arrange of an original track by HertzDevil.

v2.0

This is Racing at the Next Level.

https://www.kartkrew.org/