Course Builder

Basics

The Course Builder allows you to create your own courses for RoboRacer.

To load a course, enter the course name and press load.
You can load any public course.

Similarly, save a course by entering the name and pressing save. You can only save over your own courses.

After saving a new course, you will need to reload the page in order to have the course show up on the create-game menu.

Course Status

*Private - Only the course designer will be able to create games on the course, or load the course in the builder. Games created on private courses are not viewable by players who are not in the game.
*Development - Other players can load the course and create games on the course.
*Review - The designer is seeking comments and suggestions from the [[CRC]] or other players.
*Stable - No further changes are planned.

CP Order

For most courses, this box should be left blank. For advanced designs, a string can be entered here to control how the Checkpoints are ordered in new games.
The syntax is a list of items separated by either "=" or "<". Items separated by "=" can come in any order. Items selected by "<" will have the left item come before the right item.
Items can be either the number of a checkpoint (they are numbered the same as teleporters - from top-left in reading order), or another string inside ()'s.

For example:

(3=4<1=2)=((5<6)=7<(8=9))<(10<(11=12)=(13<14))

This creates 3 big groups. The first group consists of 1..4, the second of 5..9, and the third of 10..14.
The first 2 groups have to be tagged before the third, but could be tagged 1..4 followed by 5..9, or 5..9 followed by 1..4.
Within the group 1..4, 3 and 4 will always be the first two CPs in some order, followed by 1 and 2 (also in some order).
Within the group 5..9, you'll have 5, 6, and 7 (either 5,6,7 or 7,5,6) before either (8,9) or (9,8).
Within the group 10..14, you'll have either 10,11,12,13,14 or 10,12,11,13,14 or 10,13,14,11,12 or 10,13,14,12,11.

Design Tips

Here are some general tips to consider when designing a course.

*Stay focused. Choose a general theme for your course rather than trying to load it full of every different element possible.
*One technique that can work well is to have several similar CP areas with slight differences.
*Slow down the leader. The forcefields on CP's are designed to slow down the leader so that the trailing bots have a chance to catch up. If they get repaired too early, it may cause a runaway-leader problem where a bot that gets into the lead just gets further and further ahead of the pack - leading to uninteresting games.