How Speed is Calculated

Thanks to the folks working on the OpenSWE1R project for the pod and upgrade statistics ( https://github.com/OpenSWE1R/openswe1r/wiki ). Stock pod statistics taken from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wZHRtJj4cwPrnzPsaRHf1QMlhBLRIODayRAvwrhS3AI/edit?usp=sharing

Given these resources, screen recording, and frame-by-frame analysis, I was able to reverse-engineer how the game calculates speed. Some users may find this useful for optimizing runs, especially for upgrade runs.

Speed | Boost | Accel. | Pod 490 | 200 | 3.00 | Anakin Skywalker 479 | 195 | 1.70 | Teemto Pagalies 600 | 185 | 3.20 | Sebulba 520 | 300 | 4.00 | Ratts Tyerell 517 | 360 | 4.00 | Aldar Beedo 480 | 350 | 3.75 | Mawhonic 485 | 210 | 1.00 | Ark "Bumpy" Roose 480 | 180 | 1.90 | Wan Sandage 540 | 315 | 2.30 | Mars Guo 500 | 190 | 2.50 | Ebe Endocott 505 | 230 | 3.00 | Dud Bolt 510 | 310 | 3.30 | Gasgano 495 | 303 | 1.75 | Clegg Holdfast 480 | 360 | 3.75 | Elan Mak 480 | 280 | 1.00 | Neva Kee 485 | 275 | 2.10 | Bozzie Baranta 590 | 390 | 2.85 | Boles Roor 475 | 240 | 1.80 | Ody Mandrell 490 | 250 | 2.85 | Fud Sang 575 | 400 | 3.00 | Ben Quadinaros 475 | 200 | 1.95 | Slide Paramita 485 | 240 | 1.75 | Toy Dampner 480 | 300 | 1.80 | Bullseye Navior

lower acceleration is better

Each pod has a base speed, a boost modifier, and an acceleration value. The podracer will continuously (asymptotically) approach, but never reach, its maximum speed at a rate determined by its acceleration value. (Lower acceleration values are better.) The formula is as follows:

currentspeed = basespeed x (1 - accel / (time x 1.5 + accel)) (time is in seconds)

It should be noted that turning, sliding, tilting, and gently hitting walls do not affect speed. However, losing speed in any way (not counting hills or terrain, which will be covered later) can ruin your time.

Because the pod never truly reaches top speed, the pod will continue to slowly accelerate throughout the race. This means that if you brake or die you will never recover the speed you would have had. This has a few ramifications:

Do what you can to never brake. When flying pods with poor acceleration, like Beedo and Boles Roor, braking and dying can ruin your speed. An upgraded pod with good acceleration (such as Bullseye) will minimize the speed loss due to braking, dying, etc, but never nullify it. Boosting improves your pod's acceleration value. So if you need to brake, save as much boost as you can to accelerate back up to speed. (The reason this works is covered in the boosting section below.) Shortcuts that require braking may end up being slower in the long run because of lost speed. Especially for pods with bad acceleration. (Consider the shortcuts on Sunken City, Bumpy's Breakers, Grabvine Gateway, Fire Mountain Rally, Abyss (the end turn at the second stay-on-top section), and Ando Prime Centrum.) The fastest possible lap time on a time attack would be on the 5th lap, after 4 laps of continuous acceleration.

Speed Upgrades: Each level of speed upgrade increases the pod's base speed by 40, TO A MAXIMUM OF 650.

+Speed | Part +40 | Plug-3 +80 | Plug-5 +120 | Plug-8 +160 | Block 5 +200 | Block 6

There are two very important take-aways here:

1. When fully upgraded, all pods have the same top speed (not counting boost).
2. Not all pods benefit from the highest speed upgrades. The three fastest pods (Sebulba, Boles Roor, and Ben Quadrinaros) only benefit from a Plug-5. For example, Ben with a Plug-5 has a speed of 575 + 80 = 655, which is capped down to 650. Mars Guo benefits from nothing more than a Plug-8, and a few benefit from nothing more than a Block 5. There are a few note-worthy cases: Bullseye Navior: Speed with Block 5 is 640. He gets 1.6% faster with a Block 6. Toy Dampner: Speed with a Block 5 is 645. A Block 6 raises his speed only 5 points, which is less than 1% faster. Aldar Beedo: Speed with a Plug-8 is 637, which is only 2% slower than he is with a Block 5. Ebe Endocott: Needs a Block 5. Boles Roor: Plug-5. Ben Quadrinaros: Plug-5.

Acceleration Upgrades: Each level of acceleration upgrade multiplies the pod's base acceleration by a fixed value. For example, Ben Quadrinaros has a base acceleration of 3.0. With a Mag-6, it becomes 3.0 x 0.3 = 0.9. (The game limits acceleration to values between 0.1 and 5.0, but no pod reaches these limits.)

Accel | Part x 0.86 | 44PCX x 0.72 | Dual32PCX x 0.58 | Quad32PCX x 0.44 | Quad44 x 0.30 | Mag-6

Because the pods never reach top speed, acceleration upgrades are certainly worth it on long runs or for slowly-accelerating pods, especially if you die a lot. For example, Aldar Beedo, with a top speed of 517, takes 30 seconds to reach 475 and 3 minutes to reach 510. With a Quad32 injector (level 3 upgrade), these times would be 18 seconds and 2 minutes, respectively.

Boosting: Boosting is weird. When you boost, your new top speed becomes your pod's base speed (with or without upgrades) plus the pod's boost speed. Speed upgrades do not change the boost modifier. For example, stock Ebe's boost speed is 500 + 190 = 690. Upgraded Ben's boost speed is 650 + 400 = 1050, which is the highest in the game. Bullseye's boost speed is 780 stock and 950 with upgrades.

Of course, when you boost you have to accelerate up to your new speed, and this is where it gets really weird. (I need to do more research to confirm what I say in this section, but my initial results seem to match this well.) Let's say you are flying stock Ebe (speed 500, boost 190) and are at 480 right now. You boost (new top speed = 690) for just a second, and then let off. When you let off the boost, your speed does not drop to your normal top speed of 500, instead it drops back down to about where you were before at 480.

The game seems to keep track of both your normal speed and your boost modifier separately, and adds them together in real time. So your speed while boosting is dictated by the following formula:

// boosting // currentspeed = basespeed x (1 - 0.5 / (time x 1.5 + 0.5)) + boost-speed x (1 - 0.5 / (time x 1.5 + 0.5)) //not boosting// currentspeed = basespeed x (1 - accel / (time x 1.5 + accel))

As you can see, the game keeps the boost speed separate from the basespeed. Also, it appears that the boost acceleration of all pods is a flat 0.5. And weirdly, boosting seems to apply this acceleration value to the pod's base acceleration. If this is correct (as it seems to be), then all pods accelerate at the same fast rate while boosting. This is critical for pods with bad acceleration.

Going down hills (or on certain fast terrain) increases the pod's speed in a manner similar to boosting, and even seems to modify the pod's base acceleration like boosting does. Going up hills or on slow terrain decreases speed momentarily. (I haven't yet thought of a way to test this rigorously.)

Boost Starts: The game doesn't seem to handle boosting and boost starts in the same way. Based on my preliminary results, a boost start applies the pod's normal acceleration to the pod's maximum boost speed (e.g. 690 for stock Ebe).

Appendix (other part upgrades):

Badly-damaged upgraded parts should always be better than the stock parts. (Let me know if you ever find an exception.) The game has a hard-coded minimum and maximum value for each of the upgrade categories. While all pods reach the maximum speed when fully upgraded, only a few pods reach the limit for the other categories. Here are ALL examples:

Traction: Wan Sandage and Neva Kee reach max with the level 4 upgrade. (Bullseye comes close with a level 5.) Turning: No pod reaches the limit. Acceleration: No pod reaches the limit. Speed: All pods reach the limit. (See above for details.) Airbrake: No pod reaches the limit. Cooling: Slide Paramita reaches max at level 5 (exactly). Repair Rate: Slide Paramita reaches max at level 4, and Bullseye at level 5 (exactly).

Please let me know if I got anything wrong. On a related note, if anyone can figure out how to remove the 650 speed cap, that would be awesome. Boles Roor with an upgraded base speed of 790 would be bonkers. :)