Chengi's Track Attack Pack (kr_CTAP) v7.0 [updated 09/23/2021]

Chengi's Track Attack Pack (kr_CTAP) v7.0 [updated 09/23/2021] v7a

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Introducing C.T.A.P! (Pronounced see-tap, or si-tappu) A collection of levels I've put together for your SRB2 kart racing pleasure!


NOTE: On account of current obligations, I am becoming increasingly more preoccupied with other work to continue making frequent patches for C.T.A.P. They will likely still happen, but expect there to be long periods of time without any updates. Apologies in advance.


CURRENT ZONES:​
PRISM CUP:



Obsidian Oasis Zone (Race)

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Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Laps: 3








What was once a lush, radiant spring becomes murky, dilapidated wreckage in the midst of a storm. A multitude of different-colored geodes light up the path as the player drives through.




Shuffle Square Zone (Race)
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Difficulty: ★★★★☆
Laps: 4





Venture fourth into the upbeat urban environment that is Shuffle Square. This city has a rhythm that keeps its residents hopping around to the beat of the music -- pretty soon, you'll be in the groove, too!


Vermilion Vessel Zone (Race)​
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Difficulty: ★★★★☆
Laps: 3



Board Dr. Eggman's treacherous vessel for the race of a lifetime! The constant turbulence from the ventilation system might make you feel as light as a feather, so drive cautiously or you might just end up falling into the sky below! ...Although I bet if you were skilled enough you could use those fans to show off.


Avant Acropolis Zone (Race)



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Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Laps: 3


The successor to Avant Garden, making its long-awaited return in the form of Avant Acropolis Zone! A gigantic kingdom soars throughout the heavens above. With gigantic flowers and pristine gardens, this floating wonder is a dream come true.


765 Stadium Zone (Race)



ACTUALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

If you upload footage of this track to youtube, you might want to swap out the audio if you don't want a content claim from Columbia Music Entertainment.


(warning: painfully anime)
"oh god chengi what have you done what is this music i can't understand what they're saying but this track slaps" -- average certified testimonial

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Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Laps: 3


The final frontier. No Items. Idols Only. 765 Stadium...

Are you READY?

(don't worry there are actually items I promise)



TERRA CUP:
Sketchberry Spring Zone (Race)

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Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Laps: 4

Step into the colorful vista that is Sketchberry Spring. If you don't already have a smile on your face from the charming visuals and upbeat soundtrack, you'll have one after you have some good-old-fashioned summer fun hopping across the various rivers scattered throughout the course.

BONUS:
Avant Garden Classic (Race)
The original version of Avant Garden.
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Laps: 3
WARNING: TECHNICALLY UNSUPPORTED. Included in v7 because Mr. Logan was polite enough to optimize it for software (thank you, by the way). Anything that happens to you as a result of the old map design I have no intention of fixing for the time being. Exists only as a reason to take a trip down memory lane. Please play at your own risk!​
Click to expand...

CURRENT VERSION CHANGE NOTES: v7.0
​
GENERAL:

  • Significant balance changes to prevent jank and frontrunning.
  • A lot less Zippers -- though still there where absolutely necessary. (Shuffle's jump)
  • Zippers no longer center you.

OBSIDIAN OASIS ZONE:

  • Added zippers to prevent path split cheesing over the lilypad section.
  • Added better signage before the tunnel entrance, lined the sides with a grass midtexture to help readability.
  • Springs before the jump have been brought back.
  • Gap has been added to prevent mowing the first cut.
  • Adjusted ending of the final spring jump, should now be harder to cheese.
SHUFFLE SQUARE ZONE:

  • Slope before the midway window jump has been adjusted.
  • Adjusted offroad to be stronger before the first cut.
  • Adjusted killplane height before the midway window jump to prevent step-up/down messing with the jump with grow.
  • Ramps should have stronger offroad/glue.
  • Fixed GBJ after double springpad before the final turn.
  • No more cheesing the first ramp cut. You take it right or you don't take it at all.
  • Slope physics removed in the hall after the first ramp cut.
VERMILION VESSEL ZONE:

  • Spring panels on cuts have been removed in favor of regular ramps.
  • Added stronger glue to the first cut.
  • Extended second cut's offroad exit so that it can't be mowed.
  • Added Fallback springs to help catch players who miss the spring panels.
  • Skybox is now the proper size.
AVANT ACROPOLIS ZONE:

  • Final cut has been walled off.
  • Final cut has been adjusted to require 90% the duration of an entire sneaker boost to be able to correctly take it.
  • Added some killplanes and death pit sectors to potential GBJ areas.
  • Added stronger glue to the mid-level ramp cut, made it more narrow, removed item boxes at the end of the cut.
  • Encore palette added.

SKETCHBERRY SPRING ZONE:


  • Zippers are gone.
  • Ramps have been added to waterskip exits to fix invincigrow shenanigans.
  • Killplane has been added to the waterfall section to prevent cheese.
  • Added a quick cut before the final waterskip.
  • Encore palette added.

Special thanks to Mr. Logan, SoupBowler, Eldog, and roy for getting a lot of this stuff to work.​
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Reactions: nst211, Fredfellow, Ohipa and 4 others
Author
Chengi
Downloads
6,855
Views
17,162
Extension type
pk3
File size
14.4 MB
MD5 Hash
29d0cdd0e2f0c8cafd492c7c389464c0
First release
Last update
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Latest updates

  1. Version 7.0a - "The Revival of AVANT GARDEN CLASSIC"

    EDIT: v7A patches a couple quick things for Sketchberry/Obsidian. Re-grab the newest version if...

  2. Chengi's Track Attack Pack [updated 3/23/2021]

    Version 6.0: "I WANNA RETIRE" Edition has been released. Incredibly hefty changelog ahead, so...
Read more…

Latest reviews

Pippu
All of these maps are beautiful, and frankly this pack contains a lot of my favorite aesthetics I've seen in the entire game, but every map has some egregious problems that really stop me from connecting with it.

-

Avant Acropolis has become infamous for it's cut balance encouraging sandbagging. It has many cuts that you can take back to back, many of these cuts are individually already incredibly powerful but when chained together it really shoehorns a very unsportsmanlike playstyle since you're better off hitting your brakes to get a power item or triple shoe than ever daring to frontrun. Even with the most skilled players I have never once witnessed a successful frontrun. The map is beautiful and the lines are nice, but the cuts just tear it all apart.

-

The final cut on 765 often is the deciding factor in a race's results, due to it being fairly strong and right next to the finish line which means after taking it there is not a large window for someone to retaliate. This makes it incredibly frustrating to deal with when you are the one person who doesn't have sneakers and everyone cuts infront of you at the end, turning your frontrun into a middling placement and there was nothing you could have practically done about it.

That being said, this map is incredible in modes like elim where the cut's proximity to the finish line is not a factor. It also might be my favorite looking map in the pack, the crowds and bright pink colors matched with the bubbly anime music are so overwhelmingly charming.
Definitely one of the more fun ones, and I would adore it that much more if that final cut was just walled off.

-

Vermillion Vessel's ramp jumps don't really work and often send you either into walls or pits, which were much more functional in older versions of the pack when they had red springs. I really like the layout and outside of that checkpoint bug the old versions were perfectly functional as is, if looking at the old version it is a personal favorite, but I don't like how dysfunctional the jumps in the newer versions are.

I really like the use of some of the fans, and they've definitely given me some very funny kart clips. I feel like a broken record saying this map looks really good, but it does. It may not be the most visually stunning in the pack itself but its still above and beyond what you typically expect to see in kart. Its definitely a great map even in it's current state but I just feel like some parts of it don't work well once the red springs were removed from them. I used to really enjoy taking them and now I don't.

-

Obsidian Oasis' cut is incredibly strong and is already worth bagging for, but immediately after there is a (difficult to see) second cut that you can take. The outcome unless there are wildly unbalanced skill levels is almost always determined by who sandbags sadly due to these cuts, despite them being early in the track. The map looks great, I like the lily-pads, the layout is simple in a good way, but the cuts make it turn sour.

-

Shuffle Square is definitely my favorite map in the pack, but it has some weird use of yellow springs and zippers that stunt the map's pacing, and there are spring items in the first cut that can launch you backwards wasting a ton of time for someone who's already trying to catch up. There are some walls invisible walls in the final section that are not very clear and if you bonk them its very punishing as well. As much of an aesthetic upgrade the new version is, I must say I prefer the functionality of the older version more. I don't think I need to even bother saying the map looks incredible.

-

Sketchberry is super cute but I don't actually have too much to say about it. It does have some nice QoL changes in these newer versions that have stopped a lot of my frustrations with this map. Its an incredible use of an aesthetic though. I will say the big super jump ramp often acts like a wall for some reason which is very frustrating when it happens, which is typically when you're using grow. Regardless its a well made map.

-

Overall
The visuals are top-class, and are seriously incredible. I could make this review 10 times longer if I gushed about the aesthetics but I don't think you'd want to read that.

The layouts are pretty good, and a lot of the maps are fairly functional. Lots of the maps feel great to drive on particularly in Record Attack.

But most of these maps are frustratingly unbalanced in netgames, and promote downright dirty playstyles that singlehandedly make the pack unfun to play on. Despite this being one of the track packs in kart that clearly have some of the highest amounts of effort put into it, I don't see it in more competitive environments as a result and I think that's a big shame.
This map pack easily has the potential to be a favorite of mine, but no matter how much I admire your uncanny ability to make incredible visuals and environments, the cut balance in particular ruins it for me. At the end of the day a fair balance is necessary to have fun races, and that is much more important than aesthetics.
Upvote 0
Diggle
- Obsidian Oasis -
Visuals: ★★★★★
Balance: ★☆☆☆☆

Obsidian Oasis is one of the prettiest maps in SRB2K custom courses as a whole. The texture work, atmosphere, music, everything works together really well to provide a gorgeous track to race through. Unfortunately, it is held back by its cuts, which is going to be a running theme throughout this review.

The first cut is immensely strong, saving 5-6 seconds over someone taking the regular route. On its own I would say this is already way too much but a case could be made for this being okay-ish since it's very early in the track (still, I'd love to see it nerfed). The fact that it's followed up by *another* cut almost immediately really amplifies the problem, though. In practice almost every race on Obisidian Oasis in a lobby where people are about equal skill will be won by someone getting triple or rocket sneakers and saving them for the final lap, where they can then take these double cuts to easily overtake anyone ahead of them. Really puts a damper on what is otherwise a beautiful track.

- Shuffle Square -
Visuals: ★★★★☆
Balance: ★★★★☆

Shuffle Square is my personal favorite of CTAP. An exciting race through a funky city, this track's a real banger. The layout is interesting and varied, there are a lot of cool alt routes (even if some are a bit useless). This track really makes for some cool, interesting races.

The cuts, while a little dubious with the first one being a little too weak and the one with the ramp after the window breaking feeling a little too strong, are not too overbearing. There are some invisible walls on the final stretch that can be annoying and I'm pretty sure the higher alt route on the far right of the last few turns is not actually reachable in the current version, but these aren't dealbreakers in the slightest (though it'd be nice to see them fixed). Great track.

- Vermillion Vessel -
Visuals: ★★★★★
Balance: ★★★☆☆

A map that is largely fine and inoffensive. It's fun to drive through and the wind gimmicks, despite sometimes being a little janky, are interesting and cool. It's also very pretty, something Chengi really excels at. The map layout is simple but works well.

There's an alt path near the end that seems entirely unused by pretty much the entire playerbase, and the "fan cuts" near the end have a 50/50 chance of either screwing you over or netting you a good lead. Both of these are a little unhealthy for gameplay, but again, they're not dealbreakers.

- Avant Acropolis -
Visuals: ★★★★★
Balance: ☆☆☆☆☆

Oh boy, the infamous Avant Acropolis. This is the track that spawned the term "chengi moment" in the community when referring to cuts that are completely busted. The track, while beautiful and an absolute vibe, suffers immensely from the power of its cuts.

One player with triple sneakers can shave a solid 10-11 seconds off a lap by taking the cuts. This simple fact sees the map SOC'd out of rotation on many servers: a guaranteed win off of a lucky item roll is just a pain. It encourages toxic, sandbaggy gameplay. I've seen (and partaken in) moments such as first place just stopping on the finish line entering the third lap because there is no chance of winning against a lucky pull, which is almost certainly going to happen... So they just wait and fall behind in the hopes of being the one getting the pull instead. The track is sandbag heaven - and one of the strongest cuts is right at the end to boot, so even if there's a close race, there is still an end cut to make sure that even on the off-chance there's a close race happening, that skillful win will almost certainly be stolen by some lucky player taking the end cut.

I think this track would be one of the best in the game if it had half of its cuts removed. Personally, I'd go with yeeting the red spring cut after the third item set and the end cut for starters. Also, when driving normally, the item sets are about 5-10 seconds apart, which is a very short distance from each other - I think it would be good to space them out a little.

- 765 Stadium -
Visuals: ★★★★★
Balance: ★★☆☆☆

As a bit of a weeb I wholeheartedly enjoy this track. The visuals are great and exciting, the music - while I'm not much of an idol person - is absolutely banging, and the layout, while simple, is fun and enjoyable. I would give this 5 stars out of 5 in both categories... if it weren't for the cut at the end.

Once again I would like to reiterate: end cuts are not good. They rob players of well-earned wins by letting a player that gets a lucky boost item near the end get a free win without any possible recourse from the one getting robbed. When an exciting race boils down to "who gets lucky at the end", it's incredibly deflating. Another issue here is that again, there's another cut *right before* the end cut that would be fine on its own, but because there's also an end cut, it means someone with triple sneakers is just gonna take both cuts and net an easy win. Like I said, it's an otherwise great track, but again there's just a small detail that puts a massive damper on the whole thing.

- Sketchberry Spring -
Visuals: ★★★★★
Balance: ★★★★☆

This track... all I can really say about it is that it's absolutely adorable. The track is a vibe and a half. I didn't particularly like earlier iterations of it, but you've really improved on it and as it stands it's probably your most well-rounded track. The only issue I can find is the lack of shortcuts, making it really hard for anyone to catch up. The only spot you can make any meaningful progress towards catching up is the offroad patch at the end. I've already listed my gripes with end cuts above but this specific cut saves very little time so I don't think it's problematic, I just think there should be some more cuts in earlier parts of the track. Good track overall.

- Avant Garden Classic -
Visuals: ★★★☆☆
Balance: ★★★☆☆

I know this track is listed as "unsupported", but I figure since you have it in regular rotation rather than hell, I review it just the same. The track, while not suffering from any overpowered cuts (from what I've noticed in my gameplay at least), does suffer from poor signage in certain areas. Particularly the first area is really messed up, and I've seen entire lobbies take the wrong turn there and end up in offroad or bonking a wall. There's also some major checkpoint issues in the last turn, but because it's at the very end of the track it doesn't actually impact gameplay - just looks kinda weird. The cut hidden in the bushes near the start can be very easily mowed and is hard to spot.

Visually, the map does show its age and you've really improved since then (especially when looking at the preview images of DRRR content, seriously, that stuff's gorgeous), but it still looks pretty dang good. I appreciate you bringing this back, and I think this track would be a really solid addition to the CTAP lineup with just a few small fixes to prevent confusion from new players.

- Overall -
CTAP is a track pack that promises gorgeous visuals with solid gameplay, but is bogged down by frustrating design choices that prove unhealthy for a competitive environment. Overpowered cuts rather than skillful driving and item play decide the race on a lot of the tracks, and this proves to be frustrating for a lot of the playerbase, to the point where some competitively-minded players would rather not play on some of these tracks at all. It's frustrating to see because I feel with just some small edits here and there, this pack would be an absolute must-have for any server hosting custom courses and truly shine as one of the best. This might be the pack with the best visuals overall, but in the end, I find that gameplay balance is more important than a pretty track.
Upvote 1
SoupBowler
765 Stadium - Very little knowledge on Idol Master, and while the layout itself is pretty beginner friendly I still like this map. Perhaps it's the insane visual polish, the crowds waving those light sticks as you leap over them, the start grid beaming the lights into your face and rumbling the screen, or maybe it's the funny cones... probably the cones. Only thing I may actively dislike would probably be the final shortcut ramp. I feel like just the one cut just before it is fine enough for comebacks without relying on a potentially last second steal.

Avant Acropolis - This place feels uplifting in a lot of ways. The use of midtextures for scenery detailing is super smart! The mix of blue, purple, and white is lovely to the eyes! This has really come a long way from the old Avant Garden! There's just two shortcuts I have some gripes with. The one that was given a zipper panel can be lawn mowered for free since you don't need to get up to speed when launching off of it. And there isn't much off road to mow here either (and NO, ADDING GLUE WOULD BE WORSE PLEASE NO I WANT TO LIVE). Then there's the final shortcut which is an end of lap cut that's decently strong. Cuts like these can cause some unfair last minute steals for some people. The map already has some good cuts so I don't think it would hurt just to let one or two go potentially.

Vermilion Vessel - I always loved this place the most aesthetically. I would think because my favorite color being blue would mean I would favor something like Obsidian more, but nope. This flying pink ship winds it for me! (that was a typo but I'm leaving it in for the pun). Layout wise, I both like the multiple paths but also feel like a few are under utilized in netplay a lot. Barely anyone ever goes to the final upper path near the end, and one of the final fan jumps can be lawn mowered pretty easily. Still, I really enjoy this course despite that.

Shuffle Square - I'm going to be brutally honest, especially since you've shown publicly before your personal feelings and frustrations with this map in particular over time. I actually think the previous version that was in hell is better than the new Shuffle Square. Here me out. Now the mobjscale, added 4th lap, less strobe-like textures, and even fixing the checkpoints is a lot of hard work that really helps this map a lot. But there are a few things that definitely seem like downgrades. I do not understand why the Zippers are needed, or if they even fix more than they break. The first shortcut was already susceptible to lawn mowering, and now it's even worse since the Zipper auto launches you over every time (but first it gets you stuck in the floor for a bit? and sends you into the wall). The shortcut slope also has physics turned on meaning if you don't have extra items on hand you'll drop to about 25 fracunits of speed at the top for the SPB to catch you with no counter. Also the exit's airtime plus getting stuck in the zipper could make this shortcut potentially slower than the main path and using strong items there instead. If you exit from the shortcut and land right on the second zipper below, you actually can get stuck inside of that for a few seconds too before it auto ejects you. I have no idea why the zippers are doing this since it's the first time I've ever seen it happen. As for the second zipper itself leading to the window, it auto snaps all players to its center. This means it always puts you in the same spot at the window every time you exit. This is a free trap spot. This is something I know you and the rest of JartCast have critiqued in the past to avoid doing so I'm confused why this was left as is? After that the two main routes now has yellow spring pads that lead down to the ground level. The top route shortcut was already faster so I don't see the need to make the main roads even slower, and whatever slopes you had at the bottom of these yellow springs are easily dodged by holding forward meaning you don't get a supposed slope speed increase upon landing (if that was the the idea here)? Finally, while the impassible fences near the end make sure people don't go off the road and onto the sidewalk, it also means it is easy to accidentally hit the impassible linedef when taking the red spring panels and turning. I feel like just using solid midtextures plus a death pit would've worked just fine and avoid this invisible bonk. The only zipper that adds a positive change to the map is the one at the end since it *might* be faster than sticking to the main road? It's still pretty wide out there, so I'm not sure. I know you wanted to shrink proof the map and prevent bad item shenanigans from ruining people's day, but you've inadvertently created different and more opportunities for that to happen. Honestly, if anyone else wants to play Shuffle Square again in normal rotation, I would suggest to them to stick to the previous version of CTAP (but that's just one map). If you're main concern was to baby proof the map to stop complaints about what made it broken, I'm sorry but this does the opposite.

Osidian Oasis - FOOD! WATER! ATMOSPHERE! You deliverd on all three! And my goodness did I miss having working checkpoints on this map too! The lighting and texture work is amazing! I like the funny glowing rocks and the waterfalls creating small water flows in the road. The new zipper here actually does a good job making sure everyone can make the jump unlike the springs from before. Just make sure you don't hit the zipper on the very far right or you'll hit the pole on the otherside. *flintstones bonk sfx* Also I've seen people get destroyed by the overlapping racers at the end in netgames past and I have to say, I love that kind of chaos.

Sketchberry Spring - A great environment theme with great textures and a decent layout. I personally feel like using wind on water skips feels a tad strange, but I'm use to it. Water skipping being a forced part of maps is something in general that tends to be a mixed bag especially after the speed nerf it got way back when. But I feel like the water skips flow pretty well in this map! Not much else to say here!

Overall I recommend this track pack. Some changes in V6.0 seem odd and actual present some drawbacks, but the whole package is still full of quality and effort. And I just wanted to say I understand how stressful and how hindering of productivity trying to update your maps for both V1 and V2, so if we never see an update again or only one for bug fixes, I would say outside of Shuffle Square this pack had an overall decent note to end on.
Upvote 1
Barki
There are some issues regarding strong end-of-level shortcuts, and at times poor readability / arguably redundant path splits, but daaaaaamn them visuals.
For the most part CTAP has gentle, beginner friendly layouts, and theming that knocks it out the park every time. All the custom texture-work looks great, which is backed up by superb sector art and perfectly chosen music.
These maps may be on the easier side, but even with a tendency towards harder maps I enjoy racing on them just for the experience alone. I still find myself voting for Avant Acropolis despite its game-breaking last shortcut, and 765 Stadium.. Despite all the anime....
Upvote 1
Eldog
Chengi's maps are easily some of the best looking in Kart, and for good reason. The smart combination of custom textures and a healthy amount of sectorwork add up to some really pretty levels.

Unfortunately, I find that for newer players, these levels are consistently difficult to sight read. This issue persists across pretty much every map except for Sketchberry Spring. The beauty comes at a cost, I suppose.
Upvote 1
MK.exe
Look what we have here. No seriously this looks fantastic

I know you hate the zone but its actually my favourite, Shuffle Square. But yeah everything looks great and they all play very well. Only issue I have is Avant Acropolis end shortcut being extremely powerful.
Upvote 1
D00D64
I would rate it a 5 but Chengi keeps wasting his time on things that aren't Shuffle Square Act 2. A very poor investment on his part.
Upvote 1
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