Our ReVolt Pub

I haxx0red my Re-Volt.exe and created a new version called FutureCars.exe, with a few minor modifications, namely replacing the default car and track file addresses, as well as relocating the sky maps and actually taking advantage of the wild-west skymap to make some fiery sunsets. I've set it up this way so that I can race the tracks with the cars and tracks in campaign mode.

Since I don't have many tracks to work with, I've setup the first two campaigns using these tracks:

Copper Cup:
Plant XXI (3 laps)
Track 125 (4 laps)
Pipelyne (3 laps)
Newk (5 laps)

Silver Cup:
Newk (6 laps)
Plant XXI Mirrored (4 laps)
Pipelyne (4 laps)
Magnet (4 laps)

I mean to take advantage of Pipelyne R in the future, but I haven't redone the AI for it yet.

Anyway, racing the copper cup is fairly easy since it only uses the worst cars available, and 6 out of 8 of them are fairly awful. Only mildly decent ones are Shivan and Zonic. If you choose Shivan, you've removed most of the real challenge and you'll most likely win. If you choose a car like AV1, Fuego or Gamma, you'll have some challenge, but choose a car like Saber or Arc and you'll have a hard time of it.

I just setup the second cup like an hour ago and, to my dismay, the most difficult cars available in the game sometimes appear to race for that cup (I need to add more cars...) I tried racing as Fuego for the silver cup and got wasted on the first race, but when I returned again with greater determination I managed to place 2nd in the first race and then promptly got wasted in the 2nd race. 40 seconds behind, I decided I'd go with a faster car, so I picked decided to race Alien instead. I placed 3rd in the first race and, in the second race, I was so, sooooo close to 3rd when that other freakin' car passed me at the last millisecond...

Anyway, I just felt like posting because I'm SO STINKING MAD AT THAT OTHER CAR! DIE OTHER CAR, I HATE YOU, DIE DIE DIE! I HAD 3RD and was going to advance, and you stole it from me, DIE!!!

Yeah, they do that a lot. So I decided to make this topic to explain to you all that, racing with POD/FutureCars, no weapons, just pure racing, is so much harder than with the normal Re-Volt cars...

Oh, and after like 30-some races on the various tracks that I have, I've ordered all the cars in ranks from best to worst, using the rough who-placed-what-most-often method. Want to see the list? Here it is, from worst to best, followed by a number representing their average finishing position:
So for all those of you who thought that Blade was the coolest car, you're right. Blade totally freakin' rocks. But really, if you're going toe to toe against Blade, Catamax or Talon, you're going to have to really fight for that position.

The interesting thing about these cars though is that they're all based on the same statistics calculating formula, and they all have the same Weight, EngineRatio and roughly the same TopEnd speed. Aside from that, its mostly about weight distribution, power distribution, downforce, stability settings, and wheel size (which basically fluctuates between speed/accel). Oh, and lots of suspension work. So its fun when I design a car, I honestly have no clue how it will perform against the other cars, unless its just blatantly similar.

Incidentally the car that really peeved me just now was Thorax. I hate you, Thorax. But Talon won the race with Dopple not far behind.

[EDIT]
Tried the race again. First lap: big crash, I ended up in 1st. Second lap, 1st place. Third lap, Thorax knocked knocked me off track and took 1st, and I trailed behind Purpill for a little bit until Thorax ate it down the road and I ended up in 2nd. Fourth lap? Thorax knocked me off track AGAIN and everybody passed me, I finished in 7th. DIE THORAX!!! I HATE YOU!!!

[EDIT2]
Tried it one last time, managed to place 3rd behind Talon and Dopple... 15 seconds behind Talon in 1st. One they get up there, there's no catching them.

[EDIT3]
Somehow managed to score 3rd on my 2nd attempt at Pipelyne, but had a spectacular crash on Magnet and ended up in 6th, losing the campaign. Oh well. Dang, that was fun.

So the moral of the story is: No matter how fast you think you're going, there's always somebody else going even faster!

Aeon @ Feb 17 2009, 09:26 AM wrote: I haxx0red my Re-Volt.exe and created a new version called FutureCars.exe...

I'm curious, did you just hex edit it? I did notice some human readable text in that executable. I know it's kinda off-topic but I'm just curious.

Yeah, they're just file locations in plain readable letters, you just change them around to whatever you want so long as there's room.

This sounds very interresting, Aeon. I would like to try out some day

Did you also give Re-Volt some graphical improvements such as repainting the frontend, spru.bmp etc.?

The only things I've replaced are the car pics in the car selection screen. I've thought about replacing some other aspects, but changing the frontend level would be far too much trouble, and I haven't fiddled with the graphics enough to come up with any cool improvements.

If someone else wants to try and create a futuristic interface, they're more than welcome to.

Aeon @ Feb 17 2009, 07:13 PM wrote: Yeah, they're just file locations in plain readable letters, you just change them around to whatever you want so long as there's room.

Yeah I know, I've messed around like that before. You can't add or remove letters from the executable though, it'll corrupt it... I actually did similar editing with my hacked prm.zmf. Except it was even easier.

You can also modify the time trial time-to-beat times and the difficulty ratings for each track. But what I'd really like to find is a way to change the number of laps to race in campaign mode, or even WHICH tracks to race for each campaign, plus whether they're mirrored, reversed, etc...

At the moment, the only way I can assign tracks to the campaigns is by having the same track listed multiple times in the executable. That's fine since I only have like 5-6 tracks anyway, but it wouldn't work with more tracks.