>>713467129
This
Damage as a whole is a skill check for track completion. Smashing walls is penalized comparatively very little in F-Zero, because of how likely it is. Crashing instead mostly takes away speed in the form of taking away potential boosts, and can strategically be almost as valuable as a boost, if it means you can take a better line overall, but slam into a hairpin edge.
Boosts are also reigned in by the risk of crashing after using them, and by being both vulnerable because of your low health, but also because without boosts your mobility is pretty predictable. Elimination is a risk that only really crops up as a result of either overboosting, or struggling to not crash. It's basically impossible to eliminate a player that manages their health well, and eliminating the AI is mostly possible because of their nerfed health, and very smooth, predictable driving. Tapping a player that has boosted their entire meter away, though, is easy.
It DOES have a place in single player, where eliminating a high placed AI can be worth losing a few places, because getting 0 points on a race is basically impossible to recover from. However, since the Mario Kart rival system doesn't really exist with the same strength in F-Zero, this is only very situationally useful, as it's usually completely possible to win a grand prix even if you never come in first, and never eliminate anyone, just because of how much more variance there is in placements. Sometimes it'll come up, but it's rare, and almost always, if you can eliminate them, you could have just beaten them.
