: % Am I correct in assuming that the BLAP parameter in the track.txt
: % files only affects the qualifying performance of the opposition?
: In theory: BLAP is the value that the AI drivers will "migrate" around.
: In other words about half of the drivers will qualify better than that
: number and the other half will be below it. RELS may have an effect on
: the BLAP. It also appears that BLAP may have an influence (minor if it
: does) over the speeds run during a race. If it does, I think it only
: applies to NASCAR Racing 2 and no the other Papy sims.
What, am I in everybodies kill file or what!?! ;)
BLAP does in fact control ALL laps: Practice, Qualifying and Racing. This
is not a number that the field will split, half above/half below. This is
because BLAP, RELS, the numbers in DRIVERS2.TXT and the numbers in *.lp
all make up a formula. A formula that has affect on lap times, the
way the cars drive and the "ability" of a car to finish ahead of another.
IF _all_ of the numbers for a particular driver are set to 500/501 for
min/max in the DRIVERS2.TXT file, then they will drive laps that are
EXACTLY equal to BLAP.
Ex. 0 0 0 4 500 501 500 501 500 501 500 501 Alex_Zanardi
Now set the BLAP to 30.000s. Alex will turn qualifying laps of exactly
30.000s, 100% of the time, each and every time you qualify with him.
Never will he run 30.001, nor 29.999s. He will run 30.000s.
Keep in mind that the numbers for POWER and TRACTION will both make the
car go FASTER/QUICKER than the numbers for DRAG (which make the car go
slower). Therefore, when you leave BLAP at 30000, but then have numbers
GREATER than 501 in the DRIVERS2.TXT file, then that particular driver(s)
will run laps QUICKER than BLAP. If there are 80% of the drivers greater
than 501, then 80% will run quicker than BLAP. If there is only 3%
greater than 501, then only 3% will run quicker than BLAP.
Here is a hard core example of Milwaukee in ICR2.
Baseline numbers 500/501 min/max and BLAP set to 20.000s. This is a lap
of 185.733 mph.
Here is how the numbers affected the lap speed:
Power = 999 191.456mph
Power = 1 180.341mph
Traction = 999 191.456mph
Traction = 1 180.341mph
Drag = 999 180.332mph
Drag = 1 191.447mph
Note that Traction and Power have equal amounts of affect when used
seperately. When used together, they can double the affect. If I put the
traction and power both at 999, then the lap is 197.179mph.
To break it down even further, using the example above, when the Power or
Traction is ABOVE 500, the increase is equal to 0.0114689 mph per
increment. And this is not a linear formula. So you will find that an
increase of 3 might not equal 0.0344067 more mph. This is only an average
over the entire range. The mid-range is actually the 501, not 500.
Likewise, RELS affects ALL laps as well: Practice, Qualifying and Racing.
Experiment with it for yourself. It's real easy to get good AI
competition with the numbers in DRIVERS2.TXT, but since we now have LP
file editors, it's actually possible to have GREAT AI competition. Just
find where they are weak for you, then increase them slightly to
accomaodate. Just remember that after adjusting them up in the LP file,
you will have to turn them back down in the DRIVERS2.TXT file or you will
get SMOKED!! ;)
I'm sure people will post in regards to what they think it is supposed to
mean, but believe me, I have experimented countless hours to get to know
all of this. I am an AI tweaking fool. :)
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