As far as I can tell, each player gets to make four actions before the race but for example, I'm not even sure if the same action can be taken multiple times (see page 6 of the SFS scenario).
It can be.
Every successful check allows the PCs to pick one improvement
from the list below to apply to the vehicle’s statistics; these
bonuses are cumulative
I don't see any restriction on taking the same action but if so, it seems rather silly that the speed can be increased by 120 feet (i.e. "vehicle’s base speed increases by 5 feet" taken 24 times)
While possible, unless you have 6 ysoki engineers with skill focus engineering all of the party making the check to increase the speed by that much is fairly unlikely.
Has anyone who has run this scenario, or who has played in it, give any suggestions on how to make this an interesting race? What limitations were imposed on the race, what would you make different to make it more interesting?
1. Speed it up. It can run long. If you're on roll 20 use macros
2. Visuals. Having a track and pictures for the track and cars helps a lot.
3. If someone diplomances another racer onto your side, they get to run that racer. That's one less person who has nothing to roll.
Investigating the race course beforehand could impart speed bonuses at certain points. Tweaking the engine could improve its performance for certain corners or the long straights. Allow only forward facing energy weapons maybe. Lots of possibilities but first I want to understand how the race is meant to be run.
There's enough options to this part already I wouldn't want to add more mechanics for the players to pick from.
Encourage them to add one gun per PC other than the pilot so everyone gets to roll to attack each round.
Make sure the players know the objective is to win the race. It's fairly common to get the mistaken impression you only have to beat Ratrod. Related, one of my players got super fixated on sabotaging Ratrod's racer even after I told him how hard it would be to gain access without any of the pit crew catching him and he'd get tossed out of the competition if he got caught even once. He got caught so I had him maintain the distance tracker during the race. Basically I had note cards with the names of all the racers and little miniature ships on them and had him add up and record the distance each had travelled each round, repositioning the cards as necessary to keep them in order by placement. I intended to have a scaled down strip map of the track with distance markers to advance the racers along but I didn't get around to it.
The NPC racer with the supercharged engine blew up right out the gate. For PCs, I'm pretty sure using the supercharger right away is the worst possible strategy. Blowing up early virtually guarantees a loss while activating it later will reduce the amount of distance you might have to cover at half speed. NPC racers also tend to target the front runner so the lead you gambled for will erode even if you don't blow up. The most important thing is to consistently pass your piloting checks while having a decent base speed.
You can slightly increase the number of people rolling dice during the race by letting a copilot use Aid Another on the piloting checks.
I always encourage the players to take 10 on the checks to improve the vehicle to speed the game along. If they know they'll get a certain number of successes, they can plan out the improvements they want to make to the racer more easily. And I try to encourage saboteurs to wait until the last round to attempt it, so they don't miss out on a bunch of actions if they get kicked out!