This game is very difficult - some ideas on how to make it easier

[UltraBlackLinux]

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like I cannot compete with the enemy at all. I'm mostly stuck in 8th place. I can rarely push forward, and when I do the physics set me right back where I've come from.
The items seem to do almost nothing. There does appear to be some kind of stun lock system in place, but it stuns for such a short amount of time it's almost negligible. Many other items just knock the enemy forward, which doesn't make sense to me as an item.
The acceleration of the player ship also seems very slow. Enemy AI accelerates so quickly at the start, but the player ship does that only very slowly.
Enemy AI also doesn't seem to be affected by the same kind of corner drift the player gets to experience. They all follow one path with each ship's position and path set in stone. They don't make mistakes and they are completely unaffected by most types of collision (One example I found is on the first map. There is a jump, that if you take it, makes your ship bounce up and down on impact. Enemy ships are just much faster at accelerating after that drop and if an enemy drops onto you, they just push you back and slow you down again)
Some other thing I've noticed is that the player ship is so much faster in single races compared to championships. I think the additional player speed makes the ship even harder to control and even more likely to collide with the hyper punishing walls.

So my suggestions would be:

• Configurable enemy speed
• Enemies being affected by collisions
• Enemies making mistakes and drifting the same way the player does - maybe just inject some randomness into their movement, just so they don't drive perfectly anymore

[mickski56]

"The acceleration of the player ship also seems very slow. Enemy AI accelerates so quickly at the start, but the player ship does that only very slowly."
It's by design, there's a technique to get a boosted start. Basically have the thrust level just touching the second bar from the right as you hear go and you'll get a boosted start.

"There is a jump, that if you take it, makes your ship bounce up and down on impact"
Again more technique you have to land/fly/glide the ship a bit basically nose up on landing minimises the bouncing.

As per the original psx game Don't collide with anything. The collisions are brutal at slowing you down. Wall collisions have been noted as an area that should have a couple of less brutal options.
Rockets and missiles defiantly slow the opposition down. Mostly they stop nearly dead right in front of you leading to a collision. Another area noted for improvement. But a faithful reproduction of the original psx game.

[d-a-v]

more insight there