Racing

Racing


Racing is a simple throw-and-catch type task for the most part. Holding spacebar or holding down mouse left click ranges the throw, you want the range to stop at the dog who needs food. It's very simple to master.

See image below.



Over time, during races, Dogs let out faint breaths. These breaths indicate the dog is low exhaustion. That would be the best time to throw it a treat as it can get into Heavy Breathing, a more noticeable effect as the dog will breathe louder and the cloud will be much thicker and bigger next to their mouth. If timed right a tad after a dog has received Heavy breathing, throwing a treat at it will trigger a perfect throw, giving a dog a treat when they really need it.

Heavy breathing can turn into Sweats. Your dog will sweat and noticeably slow down until it is given a treat. However, many times sweating happens is 1+ more fatigue your dog will receive after the race, along with their exhaustion rising. It is also good to note newer dogs are more likely to pant very quickly during races, while well-trained dogs don't as often, giving you more time to wait or throw a treat at them.

Treat stops are also a thing, and they restock your treat bars. It’s best to choose a sponsor that offers more treat spots due to 5 dog races, your 6 treat limit will become overwhelming and not enough slots, and things will fall into chaos especially on races with limited treat stops. Upon reaching a treat stop you should receive a notice that looks like this:



Qualifying Races
Each time you progress to the next league, you must enter a qualifying race for a fee. The fee depends on how many employees you have, how many dogs you have, and the initial cost. Having a funding sponsor will marginally cut costs and save you some money. To win a qualifying race, you must win first place. You start off in League 1, and have to work yourself up to League 7. Each League has a certain amount of dues you need to pay per month, these dues rise according to how many employees and how many dogs you have.

Rapport
Rapport is a feature in Dog Sled Saga, this is essentially showing how often a dog has raced with another dog within the past month. It's viewable on the dog's profile. The higher the rapport with said dog, the better each of them do on the race, and all the more of a chance their booster will activate.

The first dog rapport gains after 3 races, and the second after another six or seventh. If a dog does not race with the others within a month from their last race, their rapport will go down one.

Dog Positions
There are three types of dog positions that must be filled for each race; Lead, Middle, and Wheel. Naturally, a dog, regardless of breed, can take place in Middle, Lead, or Wheel, but depending on the personality you can tell whether they are right for the job. Having the right dogs in the right positions boosts their performance. Obedient dogs can excel in Lead or Middle. Steady dogs can excel in Middle or Wheel. Strong dogs can excel in Lead or Wheel.

There's currently no way to determine what your dog will specialize in, this can be a problem if you want natural middle dogs, you either have to hope they're naturals or if not you can still train them to do well in middle if they are "able," not "struggled", to do so in that position.

Faults and Boosts
When your dog is new it is more likely to give a fault rather than a boost. If your dog is well-fed during the race and happiness is on Good or Great, it will most likely produce a boost rather than a fault. The more well-trained your dog is there more often it will do a boost. Boosts include team support, speed boosts of all other dogs, or just said dog using their boost/skill. They usually glow from a light yellowish turning to white for a split second and then glowing a bright yellow effect with usually yellow sparkles trailing behind until their boost has faded.



However, boosts can also appear like this:

Foliage and Wind
Foliage can sometimes get in your way, such as a tree when you throw a treat. When you happen to pass a tree, the treat will bump it and fall, however, on smaller trees if you manage to throw treats over them and still manage to get it to your dog you'll get a fan photo taken of them during the race.

Other foliage like rocks are dealt with other ways, you will normally have to double click left or double press spacebar to jump over in time, if you fail to do it in time this could result in losing your place in a race. Before approaching a rock you will receive a warning that looks like this:



Wind typically looks like just white swirls in the sky blowing around, the wind will make your throwing range a little off and takes longer to aim and is more "rough".

Snow quality, obstacles, weather, and more.
When you go to view a race there'll be an info box that looks like this: Weather can be a lot of different things:
 * Clear

All of these can be on their own (daytime) or combined with "night" and a moon symbol.
 * Snowy
 * Foggy
 * Windy
 * Sunny

Wind count is important as well. If you have a low treat sponsor and dogs that are untrained wind can screw you over easily if you mess up.

Snow Quality is VERY important, though. Snow quality usually isn't too much of a problem for well-trained dogs but new dogs will have a hard time in anything above low/barely any. However, most times there'll be AT LEAST decent snow and it can be hard to get a "low/barely" so you may just have to train your dogs in bad quality snow (which will be hard, but doable as long as you have enough treat slots)

Restocks are important as well, depending on how much it says it's how many restocks will be available, if you're taking an untrained dog out on a bad snow quality race you NEED to have at least sufficient restocks but if the race must be done you may get lucky and survive through it with first place, barely.

Foliage and obstructions are rocks/trees and it will always have a count, and will show the number of exactly how many rocks and trees there are.

Length is obvious, how long the race will be.

Challenge is how hard the race will be, likely depicted upon restocks, snow quality, wind, and foliage/obstructions.

And, team size is, well, how many dogs you need for the race.

At the top of the board will be showing where you're at and where you're going, it usually doesn't matter and is random stuff. At the top of the board is also how much money you'll gain from the race.