Topic: Shipping Times & Costs

[Shanthi]

I now present...(drumroll)...Shipping Times & Costs Table.

I was working today to make it extra-smart and cool so that if you select a starting/ending track combination that has no route (i.e. Aqueduct->Australia), it would "build" a route for you by figuring out that you'd ship from Aqueduct->Santa Anita->Australia, or Aqueduct->England->Australia.  However, my brain is tired and the logic of trying to do that has utterly failed me, so that will have to wait for a revamp of this page.  (Besides, when have I ever created something new that didn't immediately require a revamp?  :roll: )

Anyway, enjoy.  

(Try not to go into too much shock, Jase  No one's forcing you to stable your horse in Australia.)

[Mintano]

Wowza!  :wink:

[Chris]

Very nice Shanthi  :lol:

[Nan]

Whoa, *very* cool. It'll be very helpful in planning ahead for races.

I'm just glad we have the option of shipping over land, too (to most places, that is ).

As far as travel times go, will there be a deadline for a horse to arrive at a certain track in time for a race? Like, if I'm shipping a horse from Aqueduct to race at Woodbine, and the race is on the 17th, would the horse have arrive there by the 16th in order to make it? (And, yeah, I know it's not that good an idea to ship a horse in at the last minute and make him race the next day. )

Just curious. This is certainly going to make things a lot more strategic and detailed.

[Shanthi]

Yes, horses will need to arrive at least 1 day before the race.

The factors that AREN'T shown on that page are how much energy & fitness your horse will lose by shipping.  ('Cause, you know, that'd be a bit too easy.  )

Air travel generally takes less time, but also takes more energy/fitness out of your horse.  Road travel, by contrast, is a bit easier physically/mentally on your horse, so they lose less energy/fitness.

You'll need to plan for the horse to have time to regain energy as well as train to regain fitness after arriving at a track.

Oh, and the justification for energy/fitness loss is:
Energy - the horse spends a lot of energy due to stress, fretting, disrupted diet, etc. from travel
Fitness - the horse spends a lot of time sitting around not moving

[spudly]

So do we have to nominate a home track. So that a horse travels from home to a track and return?? Or does a horse race one week at a track and then travel on to the next track and so on??

[Shanthi]

You will dsignate a track to live near.

Your horses will stay/live at a certain location until moved to a new location.  All new 2yos will start out at the farm until moved to a track.

The advantage to having your horse at a farm is that your horse will regain energy/natural energy quickly (compared to the track, anyway).  No training will be allowed when at your farm, though.

So would we have to write in our little description box where we're located?

[Shanthi]

No, you would select your location, which would be stored in the database.

(Though if your description says your stable is based in, say, NY, it'd keep with realism to pick a track in NY rather than on in England or CA. )

[TLawrence]

One, when is this going to be implemented?

Two, it strikes me...although feel free to disagree...as if this is going to hit the new player with only one horse a lot harder than it will the experienced/established stables. Might it be possible to nudge starting money up a little to compensate?

Don't get me wrong, this is way cool, but it's also another expense to worry about ;-).

[Shanthi]

Yeah, I'll probably be doing some analysis on some horses to see how much it would cost to actually race a horse through some of the campaigns our horses have done, to see if the current starting money will be sufficient.

All the shipping stuff will go into effect once the race revamp does, which is estimated as being 1/1/2010.

[Andrea]

We're also hoping to add in more Allowance class races, which will make campaigning a horse at one track much easier.  After all, most horses only move tracks when the racing season at that track closes.

[Cheq]

I have played a game with shipping costs, and it definately restricted movement of horses for players with less money, and there were only entry fees for geaded stakes races. So here I definately feel this will hit the smaller stables harder. Adding races will be a big help at keeping costs down. I have one question say Arlington is my home track. I ship my horse from Arlington to Churchill Downs. His next race is in Aqueduct is he shipped from Churchill Downs or is he shipped from my home track Arlington.

[Shanthi]

He is shipped from wherever he is.  If you race him at Churchill and don't ship him anywhere else, he'll stay at Churchill until you move him to Aqueduct.  If you move him back to your farm (for rest or something), then he will ship out from Arlington the next time you move him.

Horses stay in one place until they're moved somewhere...I probably could set it up so that they could "run away from home", but I think that'd be going a bit too far on the realism (or a bit too far into fantasyland, take your pick).

The only exception to this is that, upon retirement, horses will be shipped back to your farm automatically and at no cost.

[Cheq]

So I expect with training implemented there will be more time between races for horses. So when will we be able to choose to ship a horse from one track to the next, and if there is enough time between thr arrival date and the race will it reduce or eliminate the negative effects of shipping? As you can tell I know very little about horses :oops: