AC modders.. Can you help?

[Nobby76]

Hey guys. i have hit a bump and im hoping one or more of you might know the answer

As some of you know, its possible to make your own Special Events (its actually quite easy) more specifically we can make races. Some of you will also be aware of the modification you can do to the "earlyaccess.js" file that unlocks Race Mode so you can set what car, what track, how many laps, etc.
Not only does it let you do that, but it also lets you choose between Quickrace or Race weekend (thats important) quickrace is just "start at the back of the pack and try to come first" Race weekend is "practise session, qualifying session, race - start where ever you qualified) its race weekends im interested in. So thats the setup, heres the problem.

Ive made a new special event race recently, id like to make a race weekend special event. Im 99% sure i know how it works, im just missing the one vital bit of info....

The event is designated by this small chunk of info..

[SESSION_0]
NAME=Quick Race
TYPE=3
LAPS=5
DURATION_MINUTES=0
SPAWN_SET=START

The NAME is irrelevant it can be anything you want, Laps/duration are what controls when the session is over. In the case of a race when the Laps are done, in the case of a practise when the timer is done, Qualify, i guess could be done either using a timer or laps ( you have 10 minutes to qualify as high as you can Vs You only have 10 laps to qualify as high as you can)
THE MOST important part of that chunk of info is the "TYPE" that directly controls what kind of event it is. I know what most of the types are...
Type 3 = Quickrace
Type 4 = Hotlap
Type 6 = Drift
Type 7 = Drag

Now i pretty sure to do a race weekend you will need 3 sessions.
Session_0 would be TYPE = practise, duration = 10 minutes, start in the pits
Session_1 would be TYPE = qualify, duration = 10 minutes OR Laps = 10, Start in the pits
Session_2 would be TYPE = 3 (quickrace) Laps = 10 , start on start line (in the grid)

My big problem is... I dont know what "TYPE" practise or qualify are.. im hoping its as simple as type 1 is practise, type 2 is qualify
SOooooo, im hoping out of the guys that have messed with the special events or stuff like it. Have any of you figured out what the Type number is for practise or qualify ??
If we can get that cracked we can start making full on races. Things like.. Have a 5 lap practise then jump directly into a race, or miss out the practise all together, make it so its a 10 minute qualify then jump into a race, or make it a full on race weekend, with a little practise session, a qualifying session and then the race..

Can anyone else shed some light on this?

 

[Stephen Armstrong]

Okay you Inspired me to have a go, after a few hours this is what I got for you :
[EVENT]
NAME=Abarth 10 Laps @ Magione
DESCRIPTION=Full Race Weekend

[RACE_WEEKEND]
GUID=96

[SESSION_0]
NAME=Practice
TYPE=3
LAPS=5
DURATION_MINUTES=15
SPAWN_SET=PIT

[SESSION_1]
NAME=Qualifing
TYPE=3
LAPS=5
DURATION_MINUTES=15
SPAWN_SET=PIT

[SESSION_2]
NAME=Full Race
TYPE=3
LAPS=10
DURATION_MINUTES=0
SPAWN_SET=START

It still appears under Special event and the race laps are locked for 2 laps ??? so I loaded it up and i was in the pitlane with the AI cars behind me, the lollypop guy lifted his lollypop then the red lights came on like the start of the race and the AI pulled out of their pit boxes went maybe a 100 yards down pitlane and crashed into the pitwall and respawned back in the pitboxes. I think the waypoints for the AI in the pits are not in game yet and/or the practice sessions are not enabled yet hence the start lights coming on, thats all i got hope it helps.

 

[Stephen Armstrong]

After further testing it clear that practice is not enabled the game takes the practice session as the race all i did was move their spawn point for the RACE from the grid to the pit lane.

 

[Nobby76]

yes and i know exactly why. you used TYPE=3 for all three sessions. Type 3 is ONLY for quickrace.

Thats why i said i need to know what the TYPE is for practise and for qualify. That is the only bit of info im missing.

Also BOTH practice mode and qualifying are both already in the game. When you edit the "other" file which unlocks standard race mode you can choose between a single "quickrace" where you set up everything you need. Essencially the same as writing this ini file, but you do it from the game menu's like when you do a normal practise. you pick your car, the track, then the opponents and rather than a difficulty you pick a general AI strength ( which is what relates to the 4 different strengths in the "conditions" info) if you set the strength to 88% thats the equivalent to EASY, or 94,98,100 for medium, hard and alien)

Or instead of choosing quickrace there is also the menu for Race weekend. Which you set up exactly the same as a quickrace. but you have a practise and a qualifying session as well. When you first start you are in the practise session, if you pause then do "return to pits" it will then jump to qualifying.

So they are both in the game and you can use them. which means it must have a TYPE number for it.. im gonna copy some of your code for speed and make a few modifications to it and see what happens...

I will report back...


Oh while i remember, roughly half of the cars cannot be used in races YET. Simply the AI isnt implemented on them, they gave us a "taster" of the AI so they only applied it to some cars and most of those are used in the new special events. You can VERY quickly tell if a car has the AI or not. when the race starts they drive left n right like they are warming the tyres, then all of a sudden they all slam into the outer barriers, they basically cannot follow the racing line.
I know a couple of the lotus work, the type49 works and i think the 599 works as well. but a couple of the lotus, most of the ferrari and infact most of the super cars do not work yet. Only the ones that appear in the other 4 SE's so i think we have about 8 or 9 at our disposal SO FAR...

 

[Nobby76]

OK so ive done a little poking and found some things out..
TYPE=1 is practise mode
TYPE=2 is qualify mode
TYPE=3 is definitely Race mode.

Practise and Qualifying MUST be done in minutes NOT laps. It seems like when you type the minutes in, it locks to the nearest 5 minutes below it. So if you set you length to 7 minutes it will become 5 minutes in the game. If you set 22 minutes it will become 20 minutes in the game, for both practise and qualify.
Race still seems to be locking to a 2 lap race no matter what i set it as, ive tried 1, 4, 7, 18. when you pick the event it still says 2 laps. Unless you are JUST doing a quickrace (without the other sessions) then oyu can set it to whatever you like (like i had my special event set of 5 laps)
Also i think qualify must spawn at START not PIT. when qualifying starts you are on the grid, despite me setting it to race.

The most annoying thing ive discovered depite the race locking to 2 laps.. When you start the practise and you hit ESC to pause it and choose "return to pit" it pops up a little leaderboard with the practise lap times. there is an next and previous arrow in either top corner and i presume you click Next to make it go to qualify (thats what i did several times) but its a bitch to actually make it change over. i just spent over 5 minutes clicking all over the next button and it did nothing, the previous time, it took about 6 clicks to find the right spot..

Anyway its nearly 4:30 am here so im heading to bed now, i will come at this with a fresh head tomorrow

 

[Jorge Alves]

its possible to unlock the race weekend on race menu but the cars stay on pit and do not leave for practice or qualify ... so i guess we will have to wait