Unofficial Community Patch

[ElvenAvenger]

Not sure if its a bug or a feature(it would be a stupid one if it was) but Legends DLC cars that have the option to engine swap lose A LOT of their top speed when engine swap is used. For example, 911 Carrera RSR. Stock top speed - 288 km/h, top speed after engine swap - ~218 km/h.
Tested it in game and its actually that way, the car wont go past 220 km/h now. I tried fiddling around with my setup but it didnt fix that.


I tested this on:
911 Carrera RSR, Nissan Datsun 240Z, Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R, Ford Escort MK1(i think, the old boxy Escort anyway) in every case the car got lowered top speed and the 240Z seemed to go over its redline in most gears and the car seemed to choke.

[gaabrysz]

First let my say that i really appreciate what you are doing guys
But there seems to be a problem. The game is unplayable right now for me after installing UCP because the wheel is pulling from left to right so hard that i can't hold it straight :/
I had this problem when i first installed the game but after playing with wheel settings and car setups it was all ok.
What i will try to do is i will do a fresh install of the game and then i'll patch it and report back.

[matt2380]

Did you reset your cars setups after installing the patch? It's an essential step due to the changes we made to the tuning ranges.

Thanks for the feedback.

[gaabrysz]

Yes i did reset them. I'm just about finish installing the game and will report back

Ok so after installing shift 2 and then the the official 1.02 patch i then moved on to installing UCP 1.05.
I then started the game and just to be sure i deleted all my cars
I bought just one for now (radical) and did a quick test. It feels better Will do more testing tomorrow. Right now i have to go to sleep.

Thank you for the patch

[matt2380]

Thanks for the additional info and testing gaabrysz. Had you installed any mods prior to installing v1.05? Had you installed any earlier versions of the UCP? Had you installed the official patch v1.01 and the DLC from Origin.com (which contains official patch v1.02)?

From our end, v1.05 works perfectly with old and new careers when the game is patched correctly with v1.01 and v1.02, and no conflicting mods are installed.

[gaabrysz]

I didn't install any other mods or earlier versions of UCP, just UCP 1.05.
And about official patch i just installed the 1.02 from Origin with the DLC's. Do you think i should install 1.01 first and then 1.02 ?

[matt2380]

I could be wrong, but I assume they'd include v1.01 within the DLC and v1.02 patch. (Sadly we never really got much clarification on the v1.02 changelist.)

Everything working well with your fresh install?

[gaabrysz]

I think it was included well at least i hope so
Anyway it does work great now. I don't know what happened but i'm happy now
What about installing other mods like the one that removes greyscale collision effects? will that be in conflict with UCP ? The file you have to replace is "BOOTPERSISTENT.bff".

[matt2380]

Extract this zip to the modded folder and then run the "Run this for step 3.bat" again.

It'll be quicker if you remove everything else from the modded folder first - no point reinjecting all that other stuff again (but it wouldn't do any damage if you did leave it in there).

[gaabrysz]

Nice one ! Thank you

[The Driver]

You have seen any weird when you start making burnouts (on under 300bhp cars, and RWD)? The power of the car looks very weak - Burnouts aren't as cool as in real life in S2U!
The cars has waayy too much grip (I didn't have upgraded tires).

Can you fix this, thanks in advance!

[Charlievee]

Hi Guys

I have some questions for ya before I install the 1.05 comm patch ...
Do I have to unpack SU2 like I did with SHift1 ?
and does 1.05 replace all previous versions ?
( i e is 105 all I need to install ?)
thanks in advance

[matt2380]

The Driver, those sort of changes would need an Overhaul type mod (or ermo's upcoming Community Physics Experiment), not the UCP.

Charlievee, you don't need to unpack S2U, the UCP will "inject" the modded files into the default packed game. It's obviously important to make backups of the packed files, as described in the readme. You don't need previous version, just v1.05.

[Siggs]

How do I use other mods with this? It's probably already been asked right, do I need to unpack myself and inject the relevant lines from each mod?

I'm just looking for a larger garage and no focus blurring at speed. COuld these maybe be made a part of the community patch?

[matt2380]

Siggs, as I said in the readme:

- if you have previously installed modded bff files then the UCP will be able inject directly into them - so as long as the UCP doesn't use the same files within the bff they should work together without issue.
- if you want to install a different mod after the UCP, then put the loose files (not the bff's) from that mod into the "<S2U install dir>\modded\" folder and then run "Run this for step 3.bat" again and they will be injected. As long as they don't use the same files within the bff they should still work together without issue.

A third option, if you've installed the UCP and then want to install an additional mod but you can't get the the loose files, you could simply install the bff's of that new mod then reinstall the UCP.



EDIT: just had a quick look and saw that the "Unlimited garage" mod uses an edited gamesetup.bin in the "Properties" folder which won't casue any problems with the UCP. Which camera mod were you thinking of using?

[pez2k]

I have a couple of unreleased fixes that you may or may not be interested in including. The first is fixing the menu statistics for some engine-swapped cars, for example a V8-swapped GT-R being reported as upwards of 900hp when it only has ~580hp, or a Works rotary MX5 with a similarly large gap. I never got around to testing that upgraded power figures are more accurate too, or checking all of the Works cars, but it's a start. The numbers aren't exact either, but a 5-10hp ballpark is a lot better than 350-400hp.

The other fix is a potential way to provide reward cars for sale without actually removing them as a career reward. I'm in the early stages of testing it however, and there will need to be some pricing tweaks as most prizes are priced at $100,000, which is generally cheaper than building a car to beat the series. I'm tempted to just cut it down to unlocking the more 'generic' cars, ie. the Exige, Z06, MP4-12C, Z4 GT3, M3 GT2 and GT-R GT1, leaving the specific cars like the RTR-X or Twins Viper as unique prizes. This means that series-dominating cars like the drag Scion still require you to build a car that can beat them, but cars that players may want multiple of (Works and non-Works Exige, or different-liveried GT-Rs) can still be bought. The Falken 997 I'd probably leave as prize-only too, since you can already buy a GT3-RSR.

I've also recently made this tweak to the Speedhunters DLC which I'd class as a fix, but mainly because I hate DLC that forces itself on the player.


Out of interest, can I ask what it was that was breaking saves in older versions of the patch? I've found the game to be very resilient with saves, including coping with level changes and deletion of garage cars, so I'd quite like to see what can kill it!

[Charlievee]

Thanks Matt2380

[Siggs]

Originally Posted by matt2380

Siggs, as I said in the readme:

- if you have previously installed modded bff files then the UCP will be able inject directly into them - so as long as the UCP doesn't use the same files within the bff they should work together without issue.
- if you want to install a different mod after the UCP, then put the loose files (not the bff's) from that mod into the "<S2U install dir>\modded\" folder and then run "Run this for step 3.bat" again and they will be injected. As long as they don't use the same files within the bff they should still work together without issue.

A third option, if you've installed the UCP and then want to install an additional mod but you can't get the the loose files, you could simply install the bff's of that new mod then reinstall the UCP.



EDIT: just had a quick look and saw that the "Unlimited garage" mod uses an edited gamesetup.bin in the "Properties" folder which won't casue any problems with the UCP. Which camera mod were you thinking of using?

Brilliant mate, thank you! I should have looked closer at that readme

This was the one I was looking at, taking a look to see what files it has in it;

http://www.nogripracing.com/details.php?filenr=32916

EDIT IGPHASEACTIVE and BOOTFLOW. I dunno about the former, but I know the latter would have issues

[matt2380]

Originally Posted by pez2k

I have a couple of unreleased fixes that you may or may not be interested in including...

Out of interest, can I ask what it was that was breaking saves in older versions of the patch? I've found the game to be very resilient with saves, including coping with level changes and deletion of garage cars, so I'd quite like to see what can kill it!

pez2k, your fixes, rewards and DLC tweak all sound great and I'd definitley like to include them. As we discussed via PM, I'd also like to include your "Extra levels 21 - 30" mod.

I wasn't able to clarify exactly what was breaking saves in the early versions, it seemed that the unlockableitems.xml file was behaving very differently in different systems - perhaps due to Limited Edition vs standard edition, or perhaps original vs DVD vs steam. Not sure. In the end I got sick of it and didn't have the time to sort it out so I pulled it out to prevent issues. It would be awesome if you could find the solution and combine an extended career with unlocking hidden cars and reward cars!

Originally Posted by Siggs

EDIT IGPHASEACTIVE and BOOTFLOW. I dunno about the former, but I know the latter would have issues

Just use that "third option" I mentioned above.

[Siggs]

Which mod unlimited garage mod was that? I have 2 mods that need to edit the bootflow, so I can't install both, then UCP

I think I'll look at unpacking the game, as long as it can be packed up again afterwards?

[matt2380]

Oh sorry, I think I misunderstood.

Gimme a minute and I'll upload the edited file from within this Unlimited garage mod, so then you can install that camera mod that uses the bootflow, then add the garage mod file I give you to the "modded" folder before installing UCP again. That way you can have all combined.

Edit: Here you go.

[Siggs]

Right, I'll give that a shot! Thanks again

[Kinski]

Originally Posted by JDougNY

We changed the way the settings are presented in the tuning menu, but the default tuning remained unchanged..except for 1 item
The only tuning change was that the GT3 RS had a caster setting of "0" originally, now it has a setting of "2.0" degrees.
It might have made the car a touch more manageable driving on the straights.

Thanks for the info.
But that should not make such great difference.
Maybe SMS changed something in the patches as well as I have not driven that car since the original release.

[matt2380]

Kinski, we also fixed uneven front tyre pressure on the GT3 RS.

But the caster change does seem to make quite an improvement - particularly with the GT3 RS which had a bugged value at 0 in the stock game - which is ridiculous since it looks like they have around 8 degrees stock from the factory in real life (which would be 80 in the UCP... outside the max of 73 that the default game provides). I think all the cars need a LOT more caster than they have by default - but that might need a different type of mod (like ermo's upcoming Community Physics Experiment).

[Flamenawer]

Originally Posted by matt2380

Kinski, we also fixed uneven front tyre pressure on the GT3 RS.

But the caster change does seem to make quite an improvement - particularly with the GT3 RS which had a bugged value at 0 in the stock game - which is ridiculous since it looks like they have around 8 degrees stock from the factory in real life (which would be 80 in the UCP... outside the max of 73 that the default game provides). I think all the cars need a LOT more caster than they have by default - but that might need a different type of mod (like ermo's upcoming Community Physics Experiment).

the low value of stock caster, causing the loss of FF cornering at high speed, and in the central area have no hardness, and low precision when cornering.

All my setups are between 25 and 29, usually 29, so the wheel is always hard.
A example
Shift 2 LAMBORGHINI MURCIELAGO R-SV GT1 vs Reality + Setup

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NL9wto8Pzo

The caster also conflicts with the velocity sensitivity, which is reversed as the toe, and is another reason that makes the game unplayable. The patch would have to rename sensitivity for linearity, is what really changes.

[matt2380]

I agree 100% with you Flamenawer, using high caster definitely provides better forcefeedback and car handling. It is very strange that the game was released with such low caster angles for all cars. It's even more strange that suspension upgrades don't increase caster.

You are using a console right? PS3 or maybe Xbox360? Which means you can't use the UCP sadly. Your use of 25 to 29 (out of a max of 29) corresponds to about 63 to 73 (out of a max of 73) in the UCP - our values correspond to angles of 6.25 to 7.25 degrees of caster.

I think v1.06 should increase max caster...

[TangoUK]

any idea when the next version will be released and what fixes we can look forward to?
Tango

[Flamenawer]

If i play on XBOX, I really do not need the UDP, as the game's two biggest problems are the setups, and adjustments of the wheel, I have corrected them.

Unless they have some errors in the data of the chassis, I can fix all cars. I sincerely believe that few people have knowledge, time or desire to do setups for all cars. Any game from the beginning has to be able to drive, and unfortunately, this does not make the UDP, and will not attract new players or those who have left.

I firmly believe that you ought to make my setups UDP format and put them in the patch, with this and could be played with almost every car from the start, and modify and create new ones through the UDP, but will not have to spend so much time . I think in this way will attract new and returning players.

Perhaps one could convert the excel automatically. In the setups thread, there is one made by sagedavid, maybe you can convert.

Honestly, if the failure of this game are not fixed quickly with good setups, and getting people to play longer without proving that playing this game with rfactor 2 disappear, and much work will be in vain.

Once corrected bugs, the database, the setups and configurations of command must be corrected rivals are much lower than cars, and their variety, quick game mode. Also the AI ​​when they are developed, much lower speed, I guess that SMS did to avoid collisions while attempting to retrieve the position. There are serious flaws in the selection of opponents, nor can you play online because there are people, not the story mode because it is bad and no career mode because rivals quickly because driving the same car, no vinyl, and much more slow.

Thank you for your great work.

[Siggs]

you need some head shrinking

[Flamenawer]

I'm not sure I understand you, and I'm not sure you understand me, is a translation of google

can explain better, please

[Siggs]

Oh, okay, apologies.

Seems the translation made you sound very arrogant in regards to your car setups

[Flamenawer]

If the game has a problem, I say that is true, and if the setups are good, I say that is true, it is also true that people no matter how good the patch, it is, will still have problems with control cars. I say my setups, because I am the only one who shares them (Kazumi also one) and actually are good, and therefore improve the gaming experience as you can do UDP, or nearly so, and ideally could be used both to time.

And more ideal would be that many people made ​​many mods and setups, and choose the best for a patch, but there are only patches, and only those setups.

Now I just need to be thinking if I seem arrogant or not a translation of google. I will not win any medal campeonaato not, nor need anyone to tell me what I know.

A greeting and not apologize, but the comment I could have saved him.

[JDougNY]

@flamenawer
I'm sure that your setups might provide a few people with a decent experience, as you play on Xbox so you can't do anything to correct the physics files for the game. So, you have to do your best to tune out whatever is wrong to work on a console.

On the PC, we have more flexibility to address what is wrong in the physics files, and make those corrections (which is what I do to my own game). Once you fix those problems in the physics files, the type of tuning required will be quite different from what you are providing as a console player. So, you see...some of us know how to do things ourselves as we know what is wrong with the physics in the game, what to do to fix it, and how to tune our own cars after we fix the physics.

[D1Racer]

Agreed. On the PC version, with a combination of juls tyre mod and the UCP, I can be fairly competitive without touching the setups.

[JDougNY]

^
Tires is just one of the things you can rework in the game. I tend to rework all physics, so that I know that I'm tuning a car the has a good physics base. I rework a couple of cars here or there as I wait for the next racing title to release. I'm sort of bored with the game now as there is too much broken in the game and it's too much work to fix all that is wrong.

But, we should try to stop all of the physics/tuning related discussions on this thread. The intent of the Community Patch was to address bug fixes/typos/reversed toe/bad gas tank locations/materialpool/reversed mirror images. We only fixed tuning settings when we found them uneven on a car, and there are no intentions of supplying new default tunes for the cars in this patch (that I'm aware of at least).

[sagedavid]

For the moment, I'm using Flamenawer setups on my PC...
I don't want to use the UCP, because I'm not a "car engineer" and don't have all telemetry screens with my wheel (and spend enough time in setups : I want to DRIVE !)
Maybe some of you are OK with setups, but until nobody shares as Flamenawer did (thanks Kazumi for "trying"), I won't be able to use UCP...
Maybe I'm not the only one ?

If someone want to "convert" Flamenawer's setups for UCP, I'll add it to the excel sheet to share it (Flamenawer for standard S2U and UCP version)

More details on "ermo's upcoming Community Physics Experiment" ?

[pez2k]

Here are the handful of statistic fixes I've done so far, I intend to get back to them at some point within the next few weeks to cover torque figures and Works cars.

[sagedavid]

Originally Posted by pez2k

...statistic fixes...

What is this ? Sorry if I'm the only person who don't know this on the forum
Maybe a link for explanations ?

Is it correction of "toe in/out", etc. ?

[ermo]

@sagedavid:

The game doesn't calculate the HP ratings etc. shown in the GUI from its physics data, but from a different set of files (the statistics files).

If you 'fix up' the physics data, you'll also need to 'fix up' the statistics data to match the new physics data.

However, as has been mentioned before, the physics engine and the statistics code use two different ways to scale upgrade strength when you combine engine upgrades, meaning that the AI is likely to have less power than you if you have more than one engine upgrade on your car.

I personally consider this an annoying bug. People who like fair racing are probably better off never upgrading cars.

If I had a say in the matter, I'd single source the statitistics directly from the physics data and provide an automated 'dyno run' type of feature, where you enter the garage and can elect to do a dyno run and see a real time torque curve using the physics engine. The game then captures the numbers the physics engine generates, pick the highest torque and power and the corresponding rpms and save that. End of story.

The game could simply be shipped with pre-generated power and torque figures and you'd never need to worry about engine upgrades throwing off the balance.

EDIT: They could also include a long, straight test track and code an automated set of testing routines using an AI driver, which would do a 0-100 km/h, slalom, standing mile, skidpad etc. and capture that data automatically. If they can code an AI that can race cleanly around a track with a human driver, surely they can code up different test scenarious too and just save the results instead of that ugly seperate statistic file mess.

[edubz123]

^damn, that makes too much sense. Hope to see that dyno run feature in the next SMS game.

[TangoUK]

Gday,
prior to installation i made a complete backup of my S2U folder,but i already had backed up in my pakfiles folder the .bff files that are replaced when installing `Juls minimod` and the `PTMu` mod.i wrote a batch file for each mod so i could change easily when wanting to test and change wheel settings etc.
whilst watching the DOS window that opens when the injector tool is working,i noticed that it modified my backup files that i had put in a separate folder within the pakfiles folder. does the injector tool look for all .bff files within the folder and subfolder and then modify? if so can i recommend that backups are kept away from the S2U folder and the readme file warns that all .bff files are subject to modification.
In the modded folder there isnt any .bff files that match the ones in the pakfile root,so that leaves me confused,if no files to be modded then why is the injector tool doing what it does?
I hope you understand what im describing and thankfully no harm done for me as,like i said at the start,i have a complete backup already,just surprised that some of my backup files were modified also.
Tango

[pez2k]

Originally Posted by sagedavid

What is this ? Sorry if I'm the only person who don't know this on the forum

This is the first of the fixes mentioned in my previous post.

[Kazumi]

Originally Posted by TangoUK

Gday,
prior to installation i made a complete backup of my S2U folder,but i already had backed up in my pakfiles folder the .bff files that are replaced when installing `Juls minimod` and the `PTMu` mod.i wrote a batch file for each mod so i could change easily when wanting to test and change wheel settings etc.
whilst watching the DOS window that opens when the injector tool is working,i noticed that it modified my backup files that i had put in a separate folder within the pakfiles folder. does the injector tool look for all .bff files within the folder and subfolder and then modify? if so can i recommend that backups are kept away from the S2U folder and the readme file warns that all .bff files are subject to modification.
In the modded folder there isnt any .bff files that match the ones in the pakfile root,so that leaves me confused,if no files to be modded then why is the injector tool doing what it does?
I hope you understand what im describing and thankfully no harm done for me as,like i said at the start,i have a complete backup already,just surprised that some of my backup files were modified also.
Tango

yes, unfortunately that seems to happen.

but it already is in read me description...

Step 1) Make backups! And save them outside of the S2U folder, otherwise they may have the patch injected into them!

maybe there's a way to prevent the injector from touching renamed files?

[ermo]

Re. installation:

What if the UCP install process looked like this:

• Move installation files to an \install\ subdirectory (the ones that currently live in \)
• ship empty \backup\ and \tmp\ subdirectories
• Copy the files the UCP will need to touch from the <S2U installation dir> into \backup\ (mirror the S2U install structure) -- Matt has already created this list, so just reuse that.
  I've written a script to do this and it appears to work -- it basically involves opening windows explorer and drag'n'drop-ing the full <S2U install dir> pathname onto a batch file
• Copy the .bff files we will need to perform injection on from the \backup\ dir to \tmp\ -- since we have the list already, this doesn't need user input.
• Apply the injection process to the pakfiles in the \tmp\ dir so that we don't touch the backup files, but instead inject into a 'disposable' set of files (you can always redo this process as necessary)
• copy newly injected .bff files into their proper place in \install\
• instruct the user to install JSGME in <S2U install dir> (supply it with the mod - this is explicitly allowed by the license under which JSGME is distributed)
• copy all files from \install\ into <S2U install dir>\MODS\Unofficial Community Patch v1.05\ (the dir JSGME will use to keep track of UCP)
• Give a screenshot that shows UCP applied in JSGME

This way, we won't mess with the users' installations any more than we have to, .bat files won't require admin rights, we have backups and we can enable/disable the UCP easily.

Thoughts?

[matt2380]

Originally Posted by TangoUK

can i recommend that backups are kept away from the S2U folder and the readme file warns that all .bff files are subject to modification.

It's actually in the readme twice. Firstly in the "Important information" section:

- backups are highly recommended and are clarified in the installation section - *save them outside the S2U folder*.

then again (as kazumi mentioned above) in the "Installation" section:

Step 1) Make backups! And save them outside of the S2U folder, otherwise they may have the patch injected into them

The first line from the "Important information" section is also quite helpful:

- to avoid problems, please (!) take the time to read this readme properly from start to finish.

Tango, I'm glad you did have a full backup and you haven't lost any files. Sorry if I'm sounding grumpy, it's just frustrating to spend time writing a readme that usually gets overlooked. Sometimes I think I shouldn't even bother with a readme... they are surprisingly difficult to do well.

ermo, your install suggestions look really good, but again I worry that then we'll get people saying, "Oh, it's so complicated - why can't you make it easier!"

Sorry, I think I got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.

[ermo]

Matt,

The general idea is that you unzip the UCP to a folder. Then, inside that folder, there's a file named like this:

Drag_your_s2u_install_dir_onto_me.bat

And boom, it does its thing (including creating backups) and creates a directory which is ready to be copied into the <S2U install dir>\MODS folder which you can then enable from within JSGME.

It would just need a few screenshots and we're good to go. I already tested that I can succesfully get the script to accept the dropped directory as its sole parameter

It's not that your guide/install instructions are bad (both are good IMHO) -- it's just that letting users follow both the path of least resistance and least surprise by both automatically creating backups and avoiding overwriting installation files by default is probably the safest bet if our goal is to avoid pushing you further towards the 'grumpy side of the force' so to speak

[TangoUK]

Gday,
my apologies,i feel a bit of a berk,too confident because i backed up and just went ahead with the installation and skipped over the step 1,sorry again,no harm done,just confused because in the modded folder there is no files that are in the pakfile root.
may i suggest that you copy and paste that line into the batch file with a pause command so that people will read before they `press any key to continue`.
ive got a feeling that the injector looks in every .bff file for the files it needs to replace,maybe you could enlighten us to how the injector does its job.
keep up the good work
Tango

[ermo]

Matt,

I've e-mailed a backup script to you. I decided against doing the installation via the script, as the only thing that's really missing is an easy and convenient way to back up stuff that will be changed by the UCP.

Check it out

[matt2380]

If v1.06 was to go ahead, it would look something like this:

- improved install process (ideas by xpertvision and ermo)
- fixed menu stats for upgraded engines (by pez2k)
- Limited Edition cars (and maybe some reward cars) for purchase (by pez2k)
- sellable Speedhunters DLC cars (by pez2k)
- increase maximum career level to 30 (by pez2k)
- slightly increase money earned in quick races

Thoughts? Additional suggestions?

Originally Posted by TangoUK

ive got a feeling that the injector looks in every .bff file for the files it needs to replace

Yep, it currently looks in every .bff within the pakfiles folder.

[MaxTreble]

Sounds like 1.06 is heading toward the direction of overhaul... instead of community patch.