Once we get the swoop bike mounts implemented, I think there is a way we can actually do races, and have them be a lot like they are in KOTOR even.
The key is traps.
Recently, there was an event on the Arelith server where a genius set up a foot race that had people throwing down traps on the track. It was hella fun. I figure, why can’t we adapt that to make swoop racing a thing.
Basically, how it would work, You can do single timed races or race against each other.
Both types of races would be set in an area built up like an obstacle course where you would ride your mount around a track area. The track area would be littered with obstacles. Some obstacles might stop your forward momentum, but they don’t have to. I envision most obstacles being set just below the z axis where you can still see them, but they allow you to pass through them. (because in racing, you’re going so fast, you would blow through most objects, but as a result, bad things happen!). And in the space that obstacle occupies is a trap. It can be a damage trap to blow you up, a slow trap to slow you down, or some other effect that can be tied to the triggering of the trap. And there would be plenty of these such obstacle-traps throughout the race. You can probably even set up boosts like you get in KOTOR racing by making haste traps or putting speed increase effects on them!
If you’re racing against each other, thats all you need, other than a starting and finishing line. But if you’re doing a single timed race, then we could probably set a trap at the starting line that does nothing but start a timer. The timer would be set to expire after a certain time so it doesn’t go on forever. Then you would put a similar trap at the finish line that does nothing but stop the timer and record the result. Then you can access the time records of the track by speaking to an npc or accessing a terminal.
I may not know how to do the fancier trap scripting, but from what I’ve seen done before, I believe this is totally doable.