General Controls and Strategies
Guides
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General Controls and Strategies
Updated 3 years ago by Gamedraco

Podracer Engine Status Screen: In the bottom left corner, you will see a status screen for the left and right engines that is divided into the front, middle, and back for each engine surrounded by thin line that shows the engine temp. At rest, the temp line is blue, and as the temp shoots up from boosting and/or going over lava it will go from blue to orange to finally glowing orange when you are about to catch fire. As you take damage, your engines will start making thicker and thicker smoke and smoke trails, and the color status will change from green at full health to yellow at moderate health, orange at marginal health, red at low health, flashing red at very low health, and finally flashing red with flashing “Warning,” which means that you will blow up for certain if you do not use repair immediately. When the engine is in the red and especially flashing red and flashing red “Warning” health, you will start veering in the direction of the most heavily damaged engine. Repair usually engages around yellow orange in engine health, and automatically with engine fires regardless of engine health. An engine fire on an already heavily damaged engine can even make you blow up before having a chance to engage the repair function.

Tilt Controls: You can turn your podracer on its side left and right to fit through tight gaps. Tilting will also affect your ability to turn as you will get degraded turning, and especially against the direction of the tilt. In the Oovoo IV anti-gravity tubes however, tilting results in an extremely hard to control spin that is even harder to get out of, and especially at lower framerates.

Push Down/Pull Up: If you push down, you will have slightly decreased turning ability and is also the only way to engage the booster. If you pull up, you will go slightly slower, descend slower down drops, and have slightly increased turning ability. You can push down to engage boost and then later pull up while in boost mode too.

Repair/Taunting: Ideally you should not have to use the repair function, and it only triggers when the damage gets great and/or an engine fire happens. Holding down on the repair function in those situations will have you in repair mode until the situation is solved or you let go of it. While under repair, the engine getting repaired dials back in power resulting in veering in the direction of the engine getting repaired. This results in progressive drop in speed until the repair is done or letting go of repair. Tapping repair twice makes you taunt, and if you use Sebulba, activates his flame jet.

Map cycles: There are several maps you can use in Episode One Racer: Broad Scatter-Plot Point, Narrow Scatter-Plot Point, Track Progression, Racer Positioning, and No Map.

Podracer Views: Your default view has a narrow view of the whole pod. There is also an engine view, front view, and far view of the whole pod, with the far view giving you the widest view around your pod. All of these you can look behind with, and the default and far view share the same back view.

Slide: By holding down on the slide, you will maintain momentum turning much better than without it. You will be holding down on the slide most of the time in this game.

Boost Controls: To engage in boost, you have to accelerate to where the light on top turns green. Once it is green, push down to engage boost mode. When the light on top turns yellow, it means you can now boost. Tap the accelerator to engage boost and the light will turn red, meaning you are now in boost mode. In boost mode, your turning ability will drop sharply, and you will go significantly faster for a limited period of time indicated by the engine temp gauge showing a steady increase in temp. You will know when your boost time is running out when you see the “Temp Warning” sign flashing, and a repeating chime along with starting to see smoke. (When this starts, you have used half of your booster.) If you continue boosting past the Temp Warming, a second more urgent “Overheat” warning will start flashing, and a much faster and sharper chime will sound and thicker smoke. This means you have used 80% of your booster, and that your engines will certainly catch fire in no more than a few seconds of further use. If you hold the boost all the way through the Overheat warning, you will have your engine catch fire, and be forced to use the repair function to fix the damage with a massive drop in speed. You can exit boosting anytime during the cycle by letting go of the accelerator and/or tapping on the brakes. Tapping the brakes though saps out of boost speed momentum.

Boosting Strategies: The key thing to clocking the fastest runs is how you strategize your boosting. One of the most important skills is to know the heating and cooling rates of your pod. Ideally you should be boosting right up to the point of engine fire and killing it just a fraction of a second before the engine catches fire. This only comes out of long practice that turns into strong gut intuition. When it comes to killing the boost, tapping the brakes is much more reliable than letting go of the accelerator since you might accidentally reactivate the boost again if you just let go of the accelerator, but the payoff in not using the brakes is getting higher speeds out of boost. You can further save an enormous amount of damage from boosting over jumps with long drops by killing the boost just a fraction of a second before landing too.

Emergency Repair Strategies: Ideally you should have to not use the repair function, but depending on the track and/or podracer, you may take enough damage to trigger it. The safest place to repair is on the straights, but that is also the place for boosting making for a hard choice when doing speedruns. It is best to use the repair function as an impromptu brake in a place you know have to slow down in or before a place on the track that you know you will be taking some serious hits in. If you manage to take enough damage to go flashing red, repair immediately until it stops flashing at the bare minimum. However with an engine fire and/or taking enough damage to trigger the flashing red with “Warning”, it is best to use repair immediately as it will only get worse until you blow up for certain if you do not use repair. In the absolute worst case of running double or more flashing reds with a Warning, it is best to deliberately crash your pod to reset your pod to a clean bill of health, and especially if your pod as a slow repair rate.