I threw together a text file that describes how to use it. I assume this
was also posted with the program. It is not fancy and has limitations.
Also, the default values for good, fair, poor etc. were used from Nascar1
and are way too far apart for Nascar2. You end up having to assign all
the drivers as good or great and then hand editing the various .TXT files
it generates. I would love to write a much better version but really don't
have the time right now. The existing one could be improved with a little
work which I will evaluate doing. However, this type of software is
freeware and is not tested in various configuration etc. It will not work
for all. I will be glad to give away the 'C' source code for the program
to anyone who wants to change it for their own needs. Here is the text
file for usage:
YADR2 - YET ANOTHER DRIVER RANDOMIZER
for NASCAR Racing 2 by Papyrus
Version 2.0 12/23/1996
(C) 1996 T H System Technology
*** IMPORTANT ***
---------
This program has had limited testing. It appears to work correctly with a
NASCAR Racing 2 season file with a full 39 drivers. The default season
file
name is 96season.lst. This program will re-write the season file and
update
your .CAR files - so SAVE YOUR NASCAR2\CARS directory before using - incase
you have a problem. I will try more things with it in the future - however
I wanted to make it available for other ASAP. I have not tried setting up
various season files with various number of drivers etc. Please post any
problems doing this or others to the rec.auto.simulators. Also, report any
issues you have with the default strength values that I assign. Thanks.
INTRODUCTION
------------
This driver randomizer offers the ability to tailor driver/team strengths
for
various types of tracks - short tracks, road courses, super speedways,
restrictor plate tracks, one mile ovals and flat tracks. In addition, it
offers an extra level of customization for qualification. This allows a
driver like Dale Earnhardt, for example, to qualify near the middle of the
pack and then come to the front during the race. Each driver can have two
randomizing settings for each of the type of tracks. The first value is
the
percent chance that the driver/team will have a bad day. The second is the
chance that the driver/team will have a better than average day. These two
values comprise the consistency. This along with the typical strength
settings allow you to set a team/driver as usually running strong and
having
an occasional exceptional or poor day. It can also allow a driver/team to
run at the back of the pack and have an occasional day at the front of the
pack.
It had been my goal to allow you to reset driver strengths without exiting
NASCAR Racing. However, the game only reads this file during
initialization,
so I could not feed it new data without reloading it. For now, we will
have
to live with exiting NASCAR Racing, running the randomizer and then
re-running
the game.
The YADR driver randomizer provides an interview for setting up each driver
currently in the drivers2.txt file. This interview has been designed to be
as painless as possible, getting information about each track type for a
driver and then displaying the settings and allowing changes. This process
takes a couple of minutes and then you are ready to go. If you later want
to change a setting, you can re-run the setup process and review the
drivers
making changes as necessary. The original settings are remembered and you
need only press enter to accept the current setting.
The YADR2 version for NASCAR Racing 2 has added a pit ordering option,
allowing the drivers to be shuffled to other pits. It also will randomly
shuffle drivers out of the field when driving at tracks that supports
less than the full field of 39 drivers. Unfortunately, your car cannot
be reordered - since the NASCAR Racing 2 simulation always puts you in the
first car. Since you may not want to shuffle out some of your favorite
drivers, you can select the last possible position a driver will be
shuffled into. Note that if you set more than 10 drivers to occupy the
first 10 positions - then YADR will end up shuffling them back further
anyway - since you can't fit 11 cars in 10 spots.
SETTING UP DRIVER STRENGTHS
---------------------------
The driver strengths are set by running ....
YADR C:\SIERRA\NASCAR2 -S ....
The first parameter is the path to where the season and .car files exist,
the
second parameter is an option that tells the program to begin the
interview.
You may also select the season file that you want to get the drivers from
using the -L option (eg. YADR C:\SIERRA\NASCAR2 -S -L97season.lst). The
default season list is 96season.lst.
You are asked to rate the driver at each track type choosing from ...
1. loser
2. bad
3. fair
4. good
5. great
6. winner
You are then asked to enter consistency information. You can enter the
percent chance of having a better than average day and a chance of having
a worse than average day. If you have configured a driver as great or
winner,
and occasionally want that driver to struggle, enter a 10-25% chance of
having a bad day. If a team is not consistent but is generally a good
driver,
you may choose fair or good for level at most tracks and then enter high
percentages of having a better than average and worse than average day.
Once
these numbers exceed 50%, however, you may want to consider changing the
basic strengths, higher if the better than average number is too high,
lower
if the worse than average number is too high.
You also are asked to enter qualifying effort. Entering 50% here will
indicate that the qualifying effort is consistent with the way the driver
runs during a race. Less than 50% indicates that the driver qualifies
worse
then he races, over 50% indicates the driver qualifies better than he
races.
Finally, you are asked to enter the last pit position in the season order
for this driver. Entering a number that exceeds the number of cars at a
certain track may cause this driver to NOT qualify for a certain race.
The setup procedure will create a set of TXT files in the same directory as
the .car and season files. The files are named as follows ...
short tracks = shorttrk.txt
flat tracks = flattrk.txt
road courses = roadcrse.txt
restrictor plate tracks = plates.txt
superspeedways (1.5+) = speedway.txt
one mile ovals = mileoval.txt
Each file contains motor settings, traction settings, drag settings,
consistency settings and qualifying effort for each driver. You will
notice
that the car number if also included, allowing it to be matched up with the
drivers2.txt file. YADR will complain if you modify the car numbers in
drivers2.txt without updating its files or re-running the setup process.
You can further customize the settings in the text files produced by YADR's
setup process. The numbers are stored as follows ....
KSCHRAD.CAR = 300 500 450 600 80 120 0 0 25 15 50 38
where KSCHRAD.CAR - car file
300 - low end of motor range
500 - high end of motor range
450 - low end of traction range
600 - high end of traction range
80 - low end of drag (lower number is better)
120 - high end of drag (lower number is better)
0 - aggression number, not used
0 - aggression number, not used
25 - 25% chance of having a bad day
15 - 15% chance of having a better than average day
50 - qualifying effort, 50/50
38 - last pit position for this driver
If these values are edited by hand, a YADR setup review will display CUSTOM
as the current setting and will not alter these values unless explicitly
changed during the interview.
RANDOMIZING DRIVERS/TEAMS
-------------------------
Once the setup process is complete, you are ready to use the randomizer and
begin racing against more unpredictable AI cars. The randomizer is run as
follows ...
YADR2 C:\SIERRA\NASCAR2 SS [-Q] [-L97season.lst] [-O] ...
where SS is the track type for SuperSpeedway and -Q indicates
that we want qualifying settings.
Use the -Q when qualifying
to allow the good drivers to qualify further back - assuming
you have configured qualifying values other than 50%.
NOTE : the -Q is not useful in the current version of NASCAR
Racing 2, since you cannot exist and reload new random settings
between qualifying and racing. I left it in just in case
Papyrus makes a patch to fix this.
Use the -L97Season.lst to specify a season file other than
the default 96season.
Use the -O option to enable pit order randomization.
The tracks types allows are ...
SS or SuperSpeedway for 1.5 mile+ oval tracks like Charlotte, Atlanta,
Michigan, Indy and maybe Darlington. You can decide if you think the
drivers
that run well on flat tracks tend to also run well at Indy in which case
you can add Indy to the flat track list.
MO or "One Mile Oval" for 1 mile oval tracks with banking like Dover and
Rockingham. You might choose to also add Bristol since this track is
heavily
banked and runs fast. Its up to you.
ST or "Short Track" for tracks less than a mile like Martinsville,
Richmond,
North Wilkesboro and maybe Bristol.
FT or "Flat Track" for tracks that are very flat in the turns like Pocono,
Loudon and Pheonix.
RP or "Restrictor Plate" for tracks that use restrictor plates. This
includes
Talladega and any home made Daytona make believes that you may use.
RC or "Road Course" for the Sears Point and Watkins Glen.
NOTES ON USAGE
--------------
As state in the introduction, in order to change driver/team settings you
must exit the game and re-run the randomizer. When you want to use the
qualifying effort settings, you must start a race, qualify for the race,
save and exit and then exit NASCAR Racing. You can then re-run YADR
without
the qualifying option for the specific track and then
...
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