Off-Road stat, top speeds and acceleration times (original research)

I've been messing around with Mario Kart DS a lot recently, and using DeSmuME, I've found out some interesting data about the game. Here's a brief summary, I'll post more detailed results soon. (For all speeds in "miles per hour", it is assumed that Mario's top speed on 150cc is exactly 60mph.)

Concerning top speeds:
- All karts have natural top speeds ranging from 58 to 62mph (on 150cc).
- Starmen increase your acceleration, as well as upping your top speed by 20%.
- Boosts (Mushrooms, rocket starts, mini-turbos, dash panels, etc.) up your top speed by 30%. Note that this does not stack with the Starman's 20%, if applicable.
- Lightning multiplies whatever your top speed currently is by 70%.
- 50cc and Battle modes multiply top speeds by 70%, and 100cc by 85%.
- Braking has a fixed max speed of 24mph, Bullet Bills are always 84mph, and cannons 112mph, regardless of engine class.
- The bars on the ground in SNES Choco Island 2 reduce your current speed to 52mph (x.7 or .85 if applicable) at most.
- The jump panels in the GBA courses do the same, but to 50mph (32mph for the steepest in Sky Garden).

Concerning off-road:
- Off-road multipliers (i.e. how much your top speed is multiplied by) are determined both by your kart and your driver. Karts with higher handling give better off-road than ones with low handling, and lighter characters fare better than heavier ones. Note that the weight stat of the KART does not factor in at all.
- There are four types of off-road areas in the game. Typically, thick grass/sand is the worst for your top speed, and ice/mud (Luigi's Mansion, Choco Island 2) is the best. Each type has a unique multiplier determined by your kart's Handling stat.
- Perhaps surprisingly, the snow in DK Pass and the water in Koopa Beach 2 do not count as off-road at all.

Various other notes:
- Turning without drifting while at max speed will ALWAYS reduce your speed to around 88%, regardless of your kart's handling stat. This stat only determines how sharply you can turn without drifting.
- Your weight stat is determined both by your character and kart selection. Furthermore, all Standard Karts have the same base weight.
- Shy Guy's kart has the exact same stats as Yoshi's, and Shy Guy weighs exactly the same as Yoshi. So, at least functionally, you're not missing anything by not being able to play as him.

WOW!!! Make this an FAQ and I'll definitely recommend your guide!!! =)

How did you figure all these out anyway? Are they really true?

I used DeSmuME so I could view the RAM data while playing. I own the game in physical form as well, though.

And yes, this is all completely true (the Shy Guy stats thing was partially verified by someone else at some point beforehand, it turns out). I chose 60mph to be Mario's top speed because the speed value in the RAM data = exactly 60*2*256, and 60 sounds about right compared to most of the other games in the series with speedometers.

Like I said, I have exact data for specific karts' top speeds, acceleration times, and off-road as well; I'll post those when I have more free time this afternoon.

I already tried to submit a guide on this recently, but it was rejected due to "oversaturation". I guess I do tend to be a bit long-winded in my descriptions, but I can't see how I could explain most of this without being at least somewhat wordy. Thanks for the support, though.

Here's a chart for Top Speeds (in mph, +/- 0.05 mph) and the times it takes for karts to reach 40mph (in seconds, +/- 0.01 s), both assuming you are in 150cc/Mirror mode.

Kart / Top Speed / Time to accelerate to 40mph
B Dasher / 59.7mph / 1.695s
Standard MR / 60.0mph / 1.602s
Shooting Star / 60.2mph / 1.543s
Poltergust 4000 / 60.6mph / 1.367s
Standard LG / 60.4mph / 1.412s
Streamliner / 60.1mph / 1.492s
Royale / 58.9mph / 1.708s
Standard PC / 59.2mph / 1.585s
Light Tripper / 59.4mph / 1.535s
Egg 1 / 59.8mph / 0.917s
Standard YS / 59.6mph / 0.948s
Cucumber / 59.3mph / 1.007s
Mushmellow / 59.0mph / 1.113s
Standard TD / 58.8mph / 1.155s
4-Wheel Cradle / 58.5mph / 1.235s
Rambi Rider / 60.5mph / 2.438s
Standard DK / 60.8mph / 2.323s
Wildlife / 61.0mph / 2.220s
Brute / 61.4mph / 2.093s
Standard WR / 61.2mph / 2.153s
Dragonfly / 60.9mph / 2.282s
Tyrant / 61.3mph / 2.842s
Standard BW / 61.6mph / 2.683s
Hurricane / 61.8mph / 2.587s
Power Flower / 59.7mph / 1.925s
Standard DS / 60.0mph / 1.825s
Light Dancer / 60.2mph / 1.757s
Banisher / 58.1mph / 0.812s
Standard DB / 58.4mph / 0.762s
Dry Bomber / 58.6mph / 0.735s
Gold Mantis / 60.6mph / 1.793s
Standard WL / 60.4mph / 1.868s
Zipper / 60.1mph / 1.993s
ROB-BLS / 61.8mph / 1.837s
Standard RB / 61.6mph / 1.915s
ROB-LGS / 61.3mph / 2.052s
"Standard SG" / 59.6mph / 0.948s

Finally, here's a chart detailing the off-road multipliers of each kart / driver. Each kart has four different values, for four different types of off-road terrain (note that all of a character's karts have the same value), and each driver has an additional multiplier. To give an example, if Mario is driving the Dry Bomber over Type 3 terrain, then his top speed becomes 58.6 (kart top speed) * 0.90 (Dry Bones' karts' T3 multiplier) * 0.95 (Mario's driver multiplier) = ~50.1mph. For reference, the handling stat of each character's Standard Kart is given in the Kart Multipliers section, and the weight stat of each driver is given in the Driver Multipliers section.

KART MULTIPLIERS
Character / Handling / Type 1~4 Multipliers
Bowser / 2.75 / 0.20 / 0.38 / 0.60 / 0.84
DK / 3.33 / 0.22 / 0.40 / 0.62 / 0.85
Daisy / 3.92 / 0.24 / 0.43 / 0.64 / 0.86
Wario / 4.75 / 0.24 / 0.43 / 0.64 / 0.86
Peach / 4.75 / 0.27 / 0.46 / 0.67 / 0.88
Waluigi / 5.58 / 0.27 / 0.46 / 0.67 / 0.88
Mario / 5.58 / 0.30 / 0.50 / 0.70 / 0.90
Toad / 6.50 / 0.34 / 0.55 / 0.74 / 0.92
R.O.B. / 6.50 / 0.34 / 0.55 / 0.74 / 0.92
Luigi / 7.33 / 0.38 / 0.61 / 0.79 / 0.94
Yoshi / 8.42 / 0.43 / 0.68 / 0.84 / 0.95
Shy Guy / 8.42 / 0.43 / 0.68 / 0.84 / 0.95
Dry Bones / 9.67 / 0.48 / 0.75 / 0.90 / 0.96

DRIVER MULTIPLIERS
Driver / Weight / Multiplier
Bowser / +1.83 / 0.91
R.O.B. / +1.83 / 0.91
Wario / +1.17 / 0.92
DK / +0.92 / 0.93
Waluigi / +0.25 / 0.94
Mario / +0.00 / 0.95
Luigi / +0.00 / 0.95
Daisy / -0.67 / 0.96
Peach / -0.92 / 0.97
Yoshi / -1.25 / 0.98
Shy Guy / -1.25 / 0.98
Toad / -1.58 / 0.99
Dry Bones / -1.83 / 1.00

Before anyone asks, yes, Mario and Luigi are the same weight, and yes, apparently Wario's heavier than DK(!?!). Additionally, add a character's weight value above to a kart's weight stat while driving as Mario, and you have that same kart's weight stat while driving as that character.

This pretty much sums everything up, though I'm open to questions about anything.

EXCELLENT job!!! The next to do is to sticky this since it's an FAQ of a sort. =)

Question: How do the different colors of Shy Guy affect their stats? In my experience, most of them seem fairly similar, but a few (especially Pink) seem to seem more like other characters than Yoshi (Pink seems to act more like, surprise, Peach, and blue like, I think, Toad).

Also, sticky requested.

Overall, some of this I've got from experience (as in, what exactly slows you down, like ramps), but the character mattering is new to me, I was under the impression that character didn't affect anything at all. I never thought to look for weight...

Oh yes, about Wario weighing more than DK: It's a fat human versus a standard ape, given that an ape tends to weigh a bit less than humans on average.

Bump. Waiting for more stickies...

I already tried to submit a guide on this recently, but it was rejected due to "oversaturation".

This sort of nonsense is why I wish VideoGameGeek would take off and supersede GameFAQs. Let us choose what is or isn't "oversaturation" by a show of thumbs, instead of moderators making that choice for us and risking the information being lost forever if the contributor chooses not to spread the info elsewhere.

Apparently I misunderstood what "oversaturation" meant. Oversaturation is when there are too many guides for a game, and they suggest re-uploading a text file with a better description if it gets rejected, but clearly is superior to other guides already existing.

I may do that at some point, but this is pretty much all the information I had.

jdaster64 posted...
Apparently I misunderstood what "oversaturation" meant. Oversaturation is when there are too many guides for a game, and they suggest re-uploading a text file with a better description if it gets rejected, but clearly is superior to other guides already existing.

I may do that at some point, but this is pretty much all the information I had.

Here's an idea: rather than waiting for a FAQ or sticky request to be accepted (which seems kind of unlikely, imo) and risking letting this topic get archived, add this data to the collaborative FAQ. Unless I'm misunderstanding the purpose of this feature (I only noticed it existed recently), any user can add info to the collaborative FAQ and it will appear within a short period of time, remaining there until someone else edits it. You could add these statistics to the Supplemental Data section of this game's collaborative FAQ and it's probably more likely to be accepted than if you were to make a FAQ of it.