Building an online racing game for ANT+ Powermeters - feature requests?

[arthare]

Hey guys, I'm a cyclist/triathlete and thought a games-oriented forum might be a better fit for this post than the free-for-all on ST...

Anyway, I'm building a free PC app that links to ANT-compatible powermeters/trainers and lets you virtually race. I want to try to make as accurate a reproduction of road racing as I can, but I face a challenge in that I've never actually done a cycling road race and it's getting onto winter time in Canada, so I won't have an opportunity for a while. I find the tactics of road racing very interesting though, which is why I want to capture it in a game to make trainer time more interesting.

I made a video demoing the ANT integration and multiplayer capabilities on the weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eHsh77i0L8. The graphics are improved now, but are still very 90s. I've got a website, but it's pretty sparse at the moment.

Screenshot from testing on Oct 22 (note that I'm using 999W for a fake wattage so I don't have to hop on my bike each test. Check the video for a real powermeter demo)

Currently implemented features:
-3D road/hills
-Multiplayer
-ANT powermeter integration
-Hills, aerodynamics, and rolling resistance simulated
-GPX loading (which means you can ride any route found on strava)

Targeted features:
-Wind simulation
-Drafting simulation
-Lane changes (will probably be via keyboard or automatic, since people won't have steering sensors)
-Randomly-generated scenery to spice things up a bit

Less-likely targeted features:
-64+ simultaneous players
-King-of-mountain or intermediate sprint points

Dream features (probably won't happen unless lots of people contribute to the source code)
-Integration with non-ANT things like trainerroad virtual power, computrainers, etc.
-Online stats tracking, team features, "grand tours" of multiple races
-"Ride along" with a tour happening at the same time, so you can see the live position of the peleton and riders in the game.

Anyway, what would you need to see in a game like this? What would make it really interesting? Teams? Scenarios like chasing a breakaway? What does the tacx multiplayer unit do? Is their software any good?

 

[Tigerion]

I don't know if it would be possible at all but having the ability to race against the pros woudl be cool. Some of them have power output published or even just average speeds over course.
Ideally with the ability to set a % of the speed and/or distance that you could build up to.

Would give you something to do if other people aren't online at the same time. Sort of like your ride-along dream feature but not live.

 

[arthare]

That could be cool - It might come 'for free' with another feature I'm thinking of, where you can race against a recorded version of yourself. So if I had a couple pro rides stored for each map, you could also race against them. One thing that'd be odd is that the pro's recording would essentially have been in response to events occurring at their race - responding to attacks or getting a draft, and obviously those events won't also happen in the virtual race. So the virtual pro might do odd/unnecessary surges, which'd make them fairly unpredictable to race against.

The game itself is progressing fairly well. Since my first post (which was extremely early in the project), I've added roads with curves, split-screen multiplayer, 3d bikes and riders, smarter AI, and better drafting behaviour. Here's the most recent video of gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKHuVVr-5JQ

 

[gospina]

Any update on this game? looking for something just like this