An Informative Guide to Ballistics

An Informative Guide to Ballistics:
by DeadSignal (http://www.twitch.tv/csenc) // last updated 10:36 AM 5/20/2014


If you are reading this, then chances are that you might have stumbled across me playing this game on my stream.
Since it only makes sense to explain things so people can actually understand what is going on, feel free to read ahead.




## 1- Introduction

Ballistics is a futuristic racing video game released in 2001 by publisher Xicat Interactive (for the Windows release): it has been developed by Grin.
It is also the first game to run on the Diesel game engine, which is also used in renowned titles such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 and Payday 2.

Critical reaction was generally favourable, with reviewers being impressed by the beauty of the graphics and the thrilling depiction of speed. They were however, slightly disappointed with the shallow nature of the gameplay. A newer version of the arcade game was released in 2003, incorporating motion simulator technology into the arcade cabinet.



## 2- Gameplay basics

Basically, gameplay takes place on race tracks that are in tube form. They contain obstacles that you will have to weave around (mainly noticeable due to their red color, though there are a few subtle ones colored in faint purple) in order to maintain the speed you'll need in order to win.

On the bottom-left corner, there is a heat gauge that fills up (think of it as health) upon colliding with obstacles or other racers: if it becomes completely full, then the craft explodes and the race is over.
Fortunately though, your craft has an onboard cooler that can be activated at any time in order to reduce heat levels. It does slow you down however: as such, it can work as a convenient brake from time to time (further explained in section 3).

At the bottom center of the HUD, there is a speedometer. Its displayed value can be expressed either in mph or kph - I personally prefer the latter.
The maximum speed value depends on the difficulty level you're playing on: on ballistic difficulty it's at roughly 3200 kph (4500 kph with superbooster activated), which is twice as fast as rookie difficulty.

Next to the speedometer, there are two more gauges: at the left is the accelerometer, it's only there for aesthetics based on your speed and might as well be ignored.
At the right is the boost gauge. This is THE staple element of the Ballistics experience, so you'll want to keep it as full as possible throughout the entirety of the race.

There are two types of pads that are spread out across the tracks in order to assist you: boost pads, and cooler pads.
Although their function is rather self-explanatory, it is worth noting that the amount of boost/cooling provided depends on your speed upon traveling over them: the slower you are while doing so, the more boost/cooler will be provided.

On any difficulty level above rookie, being on the inside of a track curve results in your craft detaching from the track, thus wasting valuable seconds due to having to reattach.
The area displayed by the HUD in the center usually points towards the outside of a curve: however, that is not always beneficial due to how certain obstacle patterns are laid out.

There are three types of powerups: however, the only one worth noting is the superbooster which increases your acceleration and top speed by a significant amount for 10 seconds.
Collecting powerups requires you to briefly detach from the track, therefore it is a matter of using your best judgement from there.



## 3- As a speedrunner, what are my objectives?

Considering the fact that simply outperforming the AI opponents isn't much of a challenge, here are the main aspects I focus on during my speedruns.

- Avoiding obstacles.
Pretty self-explanatory.

- Optimal gauge management.
As mentioned previously, the longer you're able to stay on a pad, the more you will be able to get out of it. As such, keeping the boost gauge from emptying itself is crucial in order to cut precious seconds from your final time.
For instance, whenever I see that my boost is running low, I activate the cooler to slow down right before crossing the next boost pad. This allows the boost gauge to replenish itself by significantly more than if I were to keep going at full speed, thus allowing me to maintain it for much longer than I'd be able to in that case.



## 4- Advanced tricks, glitches/exploits & more...

Depending on the angle and speed at which you hit a boost pad, you may encounter a glitch that replenishes your boost far beyond the gauge's maximum value.
If encountered, it is a valuable asset in securing a new record.

There is also a technique that can assist your gauge management nearly as effectively, I will call it obstacle surrendering.
It essentially revolves around purposely colliding with an obstacle that is close to a boost pad, for the purpose of being able to stay on it for much longer in order to max your boost gauge.

Due to the imperfect nature of certain obstacles' clipping and hit detection, there is a rather uncommon glitch that causes you to fall off the track going out of bounds at a speed of -2,147,483,647 (32-bit integer minimum value). This is followed by an instant race victory, which is not saved into the highscores.
Here are two videos demonstrating said glitch:
-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MktWsjDQxY0
-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i2avaQ1eR0



It seems that I have covered essentially everything... if you have any questions feel free to ask them while I'm streaming.
Here's another relevant paste worth reading: http://pastebin.com/dUPpquQa