Let’s talk augments.
You’ve bred yourself a good horse and now it’s time to optimize its success on the race track.
This is where augments come in to play.
Let’s start with the basics and then we can dive in a little deeper.
So what are augments?
Augments are basically boosts or enhancements that when attached optimize your horses performance.
Currently they come in two forms – passive and situational.
A passive augment is a boost that triggers no matter what, such as an increase in speed at a particular time in a race or throughout a whole race.
A situational augment is a boost that requires a trigger to be activated, such as a more extreme increase in speed if your horse falls 20m behind.
(There has been talk of a third type of augment called “progressive” which would require compounding triggers over multiple races but they do not yet exist – watch this space)
So how do you obtain augments and how do you attach them?
Upon being born a new horse will arrive with some basic augments attached but higher quality augments can be obtained through various means such as;
Won in game, purchased or traded from other players or purchased directly from Zed Champions in the form of augment packs.
How do you attach an augment?
To attach an augment, first select the horse in your stable that you wish to work with.
Then click on “my current kit”, here you will find your 3 augment slots.
These are CPU, RAM and Hydraulic.
Select the augment slot you wish to change and your suite of augment options will pop up.
From there you can view your options, select a new augment and click save to lock it in.
Now you know the basics, next is where the strategy comes in to play.
Every horse in Zed Champions is unique and every augment will react with each horse differently, so through trial and error/ fine tuning, your job is to find the right augment set for your horse.
If you’re wondering where to start my first suggestion would be to watch a couple of your horses races.
Look for visual clues.
Where does it perform well, where is it lacking ability?
Are your situational augments triggering often? (Look to flames for confirmation)
Another suggestion would be to consider your horses genetics.
Every bloodline (Nakamoto/Szabo/Finney/Buterin) has inherent traits that should be factored in.
(See chart below)
If your horse is purebred consider what that bloodlines natural strengths and weaknesses are.
Or, if you’ve mixed bloodlines, consider what you have created in conjunction with the visual clues.
Below are some comments from Ryan (a member of the official Zed Champions team) touching on this subject.
Once you have your augments selected and attached it’s time for testing and fine tuning.
So how can you tell if you have selected the right augments?
On top of the obvious indicator, ie your horse is now finishing in a higher position, you can check the horses odds for each race or it’s race times to see if it’s improving.
If both are coming down then you are on the right track!
Zed Champions have also leaked an upcoming new feature which is a post-race analysis screen.
As you can see below it will display which augments were used, when they were used and how the performance compared to the average race of the horse.
Valuable information that will be super helpful when fine tuning a horses augments.
Knowledge is key with your augment selections.
Know your horse.
As mentioned; visuals, bloodline, genetics, odds and race times are all important data points that can guide you in the right direction.
As your horses career progresses it’s star rated stats will also be revealed.
As this happens you have another reference point that can really help you dial in those augment choices.
Another thing to bear in mind with augments is that like a game of chess one move may work against some players but not so much against others.
If a set of augments is becoming popular it may be less effective as many players in a race have the same strategy.
This could become especially important as a horse reaches the heights of where its natural ability can take it, where competition is fierce.
Augments that carried a horse high up the leaderboard might no longer be enough and either the perfect combination needs to be found or it has been found and it’s time for the horse to retire.
So what combinations of augments can you try?
Do you add augments that enhance a horses strengths or do you compensate its weakness?
Do you layer augments to trigger each other such as an early speed boost followed by a boost that triggers when overtaking other horses?
Do you risk a situational augment that may not trigger at all?
Perhaps a combination of passive and situational?
There is a lot of strategy to consider and to be honest it all depends on the horse and what the other players in each race might have chosen.
I would dive deeper in to augment selections and which augments compliment each other best but during beta we have been using test augments so the information will become irrelevant quite quickly.
The team have said that these beta augments are just 10% of what we can expect so I imagine in season zero and beyond the arsenal of available augments is going to be far more in depth than what we have now.
That said, below are some shots of the augments that have been on offer during beta testing.
Once we have a more complete range of augments and I get a grasp on how to use them I’ll circle back with a deeper dive in to strategy and what works well.
For now though I hope this article has been helpful.
Lastly don’t forget that augments for a horses next race lock 30mins prior to start time so make sure you make any changes well ahead of schedule!
Good luck on the track guys.
I hope to see you there.
For questions feel free to shoot me a DM on X CLICK HERE