THE F2 MINI MOD
Hi chaps,
After working for a few years on a Formula 2 Mod for GPL, I'm releasing
it into the public domain as-is as the 'F2 MiniMod'. We managed to
update the old F2 Carset a bit, and made an F2 gpl.exe that is much
closer to real-life F2 than the 'Advanced Trainer' in GPL.
Unfortunately, after that point of 'Whew that's the first working
version done' - a while ago now - Gilles Maltais, who worked on updating
the .exe for F2, basically disappeared from the scene and he was the
only one in our mod team with access to the gpl physics editor.
So, consider this a preview - a rough version of what Formula 2 cars did
in 1967. It's not perfect, it has flaws - but on the track, it is WAY
more accurate than GPL's 'Advanced Trainer' as an approximation of F2.
Use it if you like F2, or the 65 Mod (on the track, it drives similar to
that, but the F2 cars had a bit more grip and a bit less top speed. The
F2 physics were developed from the ground up, we only used the 65 Mod as
a reference to what it should kinda-sorta feel like).
An F2 Mod may still be released much later on, but the project was
delayed for nearly two years already - and it doesn't look like it would
be finished any time soon, if at all.
So in the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy driving this 'first rough working
version' of F2 for GPL. It simulates the Brabham BT23, Matra MS5, Lola
T100-FVA, McLaren M4A, Lola T100-BMW, Lotus 48 and Ferrari 166 Dino.
Special thanks on behalf of Gilles, Michel Needforspeed and me must go
to Charlie 'CJM' Mark, who made a really superb-looking Lotus 48 as a
replacement for the one in the old carset.
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To get the files, just download from here:
http://www.savefile.com/files/1076243
To use the F2 MiniMod, just swap your old F2 carset for the car folders
in the package.
Then swap gpl.exe for the one in the .zip (the same f2.exe is in there
twice, btw) and run it directly without GEM (for some reason, it messed
with our .exe when we tried it a while ago and the cars drove weirdly).
It may be easiest to just make a separate F2 GPL folder with only the
tracks used for F2.
Then drive and see if you can get close to the real-life laptimes, which
can be found on http://www.formula2.net/F267_Index.htm.
Unfortunately, F2 AI has yet to be developed for this (there only is a
rough AI version for Zandy included which works with no more than 5 cars
on-track).
Still, in the end I felt it would be better to release this 'preview' F2
mod as-is than let it rot away unused (hey, F2-wise it's still better
than the Advanced Trainer). Despite its rough-'n-ready state, we did put
two years of research and testing work in it and the relative top speeds
of the cars were tuned to the last 1 Kph.
As an added bonus, the updated F2 carset (mainly updated to make the
cars' cockpits look much more like their real-life counterparts) can of
course also be used with GPL's Advanced Trainer.
Enjoy,
Regards, Rudy
(GPLRank: -32)
