2014 KTeams Race Tournament

With some of this year's duel tournments coming to an end it's time for a change of pace. Literally. Now that most players have been eliminated, here is something fun you can do casually while waiting for the next tournment! There is no schedule, no waiting for other players to show up, and no drama about pings.

The Kteams race mode has a number of standard routes on popular duel and teamplay maps. I thought it would be interesting to get a complete list of the world records for these races. Turns out such a list didn't exist. So I made one. Now the fun part. Lets put these records to the test!

This tournment has two aspects. First and foremost, it is about finding the best overall racers. Alternatively, I (bogojoker) personally want to see new world records, so there will be bonus prizes if new world records are made! I am opting out of prizes.


Prizes

First Place: $100
Second Place: $50
Third Place: $25

Bonuses:
New World Record: $??? (To Be Determined)

Prize payment will be distributed via Paypal.


Tournament Duration

The tournment runs from now until end of day Sunday, July 13th, 2014.

That gives you 4 weeks to leisurely work through the 9 different races to get great times and a reasonable chance at breaking the world record times.


Scoreboard

Scoreboard
World Records

Both spreadsheets will be updated as players submit their times.

Scores are dynamic based on the world record time. A player's score for a particular race is compared to the world record for that race.



Add the player's per-race score up for all 9 races and you get the player's total combined score.


Races

1. dm6 - Race #1 (GA -> RA)
2. dm6 - Race #2 (MH -> RA -> GL -> RA) no weapons
3. dm2 - Race #1 (High RL -> Path -> RA/MH) no weapons
4. dm3 - Race #1 (Pent MH -> RA)
5. dm3 - Race #2 (RL -> Hill -> RA) no weapons
6. dm3 - Race #3 (RL -> YA -> Quad -> SNG MH -> RA)
7. dm4 - Race #1 (YA -> Quad spawn) no weapons
8. dm4 - Race #2 (YA -> SSG -> Mega) no weapons
9. dm4 - Race #3 (YA -> SSG -> LG -> Quad -> YA-tele) no weapons

NOTE: dm2 - Race #2 is not included. Most ktx servers have the big lava pit open so the race cannot be run as intended.


Rules

- Don't cheat (to be determined by admin, ask if you questions).
- Use public KTeams/ktx servers so your times can be verified and the ktx version if needed.
- Submit your times to admin at any time. Post here, or email. Include the server (for verification), your quakeworld alias, and times broken down per race.
- New World Records MUST have a qwd demo. Record the demo during the countdown, and stop the demo at the end. One round only.


Admin

bogojoker

(Edited 2014-06-15, 16:55)

Here are some racing tips:

To get a KTeams server in race mode:
- /race - to switch to race mode (/race again to turn off the mode)
- /ready - to enter the race lineup
- /break - to leave the race lineup
- /kill - to quickly restart the race if you messed up (great to bind to a key)
- /race_route_switch - to change the race route on the current map (must leave lineup first)
- /race_show_top_tiimes - to view the top times for the current race on the current server

To record a demo:
- /record demoname - to start the recording
- /stop - to end the recording
- it is easy to bind this to a key and start the recording during the countdown
- be careful you don't record over a record!

The world record demos are all posted at the above link if you want to see the existing world record routes for inspiration.

What you mean is KTX. KTeams is one thing, KTeams Pro another and KTeams eXtreme what's being used by the majority today, however there still exists KTeams Pro servers afaik.

I'd have called it a contest rather than a tournament, when it comes to best times.

Anyway, good luck in this tournament! Are those races already added by default on any server having the race mode?

Oops. Whatever, to me its all KTeams. Thanks for the correction though =)



Good point. This list will live on, and can change after this month. So contest may have been a better way to phrase it.



Yes, these races are all default, bullt-into ktx. They will already be on any public ktx server out there.

You should be aware that times will be heavily influenced by bugs and consistent inaccuracies. This is especially relevant for these short courses.

Just meant that people might interpret it as "oh ok so not a KTX server then"...

In my experience, I have not found that to be true. For very very small adjustments (0.01), yes there is a luck factor. But for 0.1 times, it is very consistent.

my suggestion:

/hud_keys_show 1

and make sure your demo is recorded in qwd format

Why do u need this?

sh_speed is more useful.

For an individual player with stable ping, his times may not vary much more than +/- 0.010s, but that can still be quite significant. However the main problem is that, between different players, the times can vary 5-6 times more than that. I never did manage to figure out why some players always got superior straight-line times to others. Unstable connections also can have quit an unpredictable effect on times too.

I'm not saying this contest has no merit, but these are some things to be aware of as a competitor.

hud_keys_show 1 will show keypressing sequence. sh_speed is good idea too. It will give you general overview on what you can improve by looking at numbers presented in somebody else demo and how he/she is doing particular route.

I also suggest watching demos in slow motion (/set_demo_speed 50) to find room for improvement.

For instance in the dm6 race #1, I know a 667 rocket jump at the start is perfect, but it can cause you to be too fast for the rj over gl (you need to reload!). Having 1200+ speed when going over gl is what it takes to get below 3.250. Having 1190 won't cut it. 1250 is possible. In dm2 race #1 and dm3 race #2 every turn matters. Watching in slow motion is kind of fun to see where you might be able to shave off a bit of time.

Fun stuff

It is now one week into the tournament.

3 world records have been improved! A couple with some very impressive times that I thought would not be obtained. I still think there is room for improvement on many of the races, so I look forward to what may come in the rest of the contest.

That said, there are not many contestants right now. I know of only a couple, and only one has handed me times for all the races. I was hoping for more.

There really is no barrier to entry, and for most players you can run a few races while waiting for an opponent. At this point, rookies are just as likely to win prizes as experienced players. Not only that, it provides an outlet to learn and improve on your movement.

If you are on the fence about joining, what can I do to convince you to take part?

dirtbox has nagged me to have a go but it's hard to improve on your times JJ. I have a new job and want to put some time into coding a mod too so altogether it's hard to get into it. I've seen how much room there still is for people to enter and really do hope it picks up. There are still about 3 weeks left so there's plenty of time

/excuse

It seems people all want to be perfectionists. And because they can't spend hours and hours on it, they don't do it at all. I think that is the wrong way to think about it. Whether I made the time limit 4 weeks or an entire year, it seems getting people to just race at all is the challenge.

This can just as well be about beating your own personal records. Maybe you can see yourself improve after a month or a year (if you're a rookie) of playing.

I tried out some racing after you announced this and while I could get close to the server records on certain routes, when looking up your matrix there was quite some additional time to shave off. I found it interesting though as you suddenly get very aware of how long some of the common routes on popular maps takes (rl to hill to ra on dm3 for example). Makes it possible to improve in-game decision making if taking it into consideration.

Does anyone know why the servers I have tried are not saving my times? Switching map and back didn't fix it.

Is it quakeworld.co.uk servers? I know what's wrong there, just need to track down fro to fix it... :<

It is now two weeks into the tournament (1/2 done).

2 world records have been improved this week, including a world record changing hands.

Checking public servers for common racers I was able to include a few racers times in the spreadsheet that have completed all or nearly all races. Still eager to see more contestants though. There is plenty of time.

There is a #qwrace IRC channel for discussion, questions, or if you want to submit times easier.

1 week left!

This week (3rd) was the most active week in the contest so far!

* 3 world records were improved in the original 9 routes, and 1 new race altogether will be tracked
* For fun the dm2 #2 race previously excluded is being treated as a bonus. It already has some great times with the record trading between serp and bogo
* Kudos to cream for improving on 5 of his records in one night, 7 total this week, and briefly passing serp to lead in 1st place

I'll still exclude dm2 race 2 from the final scores in the contest, but once the contest officially ends I'll open it up for scoring so that the maximum score is a nice round 1000 instead of 900.

Finally, if you have been racing please send me your times as soon as possible. You don't want to accidentally miss the deadline.

The last week of the tournament had some fun action:

- serp and bogojoker fought each other for the dm2#2 bonus race world record. Back and forth, each held the record 3 times each in this heated battle.
- one other world record dropped, and by a pretty significant amount
- serp, cream, and VY all put in a lot of time improving their scores, and sparking a lot of fun discussion as well

Results are in. The winners are (out of a total possible 900 points):



1st - serp (856.32)
2nd - cream (842.54)
3rd - VY (742.49)

For those interested in the results, check out the world record demos here.

I will continue to keep the spreadsheet updated if people ever want to race in the future and see how they stack up. Cheers.

Thanks for the tourney! Congrats to BogoJoker, serp and cream.

You're the best racer Joker!

VY created awesome short videos from each of the records! Check em out:

dm2 race 1
dm2 race 2
dm3 race 1
dm3 race 2
dm3 race 3
dm4 race 1
dm4 race 2
dm4 race 3
dm6 race 1
dm6 race 2

Really nice, I hope I can play some qw after summer, that makes me want to race !

Is there some way to set routes via client when logged into a server? That would be a really awesome feature.

There actually is! Believe it or not. :p

After entering race mode with /race, you can do:

/race_route_clear to clear the current race route
/race_set_start sets the starting point, angles, etc
/race_set_finish positions the end point
/race_set_checkpoint can be used repeatedly to add checkpoints, in order

Also you can do /race_del_checkpoint to delete the last checkpoint you set down in case you messed up.

Unfortunately there's no way to save new routes that you create. The current routes are actually hard-coded into the server code. I always thought it'd be nicer if they were loaded from "route files" or something, but...

Also, any high scores that you set after altering a route will be discarded after you change routes or exit race mode, so it's not possible to cheat on the "real" routes.

hf

top5 usa CREAM