fortine_oo files
Intro
"And Now... Here's Something You'll Really Like..."
My naivity regarding aspects of NR2K3 is painfully obvious at times. Since my college days I've professed to be a "jack of all trades, master of none". Which is not to say that I don't want to do things right... I always want to dig deeper, I just tend to scratch surfaces a lot in the early goings. Take our NR2K3 AI for instance: until recently I just took for granted (or assumed on some level) that it was what it was. That the AI could be no better or worse than its accompanying track, that 100% AI at Track A was the same AI that was 100% at Track B. Oh sure, I began to see that at some tracks it was almost easy to race 100% while at others I would merely become frustrated. And some places you could run a race while others became wreck fests. Tweaking the AI? Well yeah but will my efforts cheapen the experience and will I be sacrificing realism? I mean the author must have already accounted for every contingency when he built the track, right? Well part of what keeps me interested in the sim is the variety of conceptions and interpretations available. Authors work from different angles with different goals. And not everyone has the skills of the experts in the various fields who can take their track creation to a new level. Fortunately for us there are some, like fortine_oo, who are willing to share their knowledge, who have refined their craft, taken the raw materials and converted them to poetry and art. Yes, I said it. And I could just as easily have called it magic. And if you've been around NR2K3 much at all you are undoubtedly aware of his magic. But let's get to the crux of the biscuit here and take a look at what's in store:
1.) AI Drivers Ratings Primer (Help For Mods and Roadcourses)
The author calls this "a primer into setting ai ratings. A simple explanation of the settings that will get the ai to drive at the level that's tailor made for the offline player." He goes on to say "I monitored a lot of laps ( at Milano ) isolating the results of each entry of the ratings ( the ones that really count ), and this is what I used to develop a core group of ai from which I develop the track.ini settings for new tracks ( RC's ). Available RC ai ratings are kind of a joke. The only real ratings seem to be for CUP, and that's based off 2 circuits. Hardly definitive. For the cars that actually run RC's, pta & gtp, ( or any number of "illegal" mods ),there's none. There's not even a standard ( unless 60/40 is a standard....NO )". (Ed. note: If you've run any of Kurt Morgan's tracks lately you may have seen this file already included in the track folder. Take heed and tweak your offline enjoyment level)
2.) Making AI Adjustments For A Human Condition
Man I love this one... I've printed it out and reread it numerous times. I hope I can get the gist of it right as I translate it to HTML. This is indispensable. In the author's words this is "information confirmed by application and... monitored results from racing action. There's enough information to get a track.ini built from scratch, but easy enough to understand to just be able to tweak a thing or two to fix a nagging problem. It contains more than what is available on the net ( and some of that is wrong ), and it's all getting harder to find ( with NR2K3 popularity waning, and sites disappearing )." (Ed. note: Amen. I have my theories about this which I will undoubtedly get into but trust me... if you are interested in keeping NR2K3 vital, you will need to know this information so keep it handy)
3.) Making N2003 LP Files (For Roadcourse Tracks)
I saw this about a week after attempting my first raceline. Boy did I have to dig to find (some of) the information that is gathered here. The title should probably be "How To Make LP's That Work". This file will be my first stop next time and I may be able to avoid a forum search completely.
A Word From Radt:
LK gave me a little room here, hoping that I would use up a couple of my digs on the new guy (and maybe turn my attention away from him for awhile). And don't think I won't. But the fact is I'm just relieved right now that he is including something from someone who actually knows what he's talking about. Not only that but I hear the man can drive a fast car. Unlike you-know-who. Ya know what that means... he can probably whup everyone else and stay within 2-seconds per lap of me. Actually, the man can do setups so he might give me a tussle since obviously no one here can do that. Hey LK, ask him if he can share some setup tips for TA. Ya need to get a car that's right before you can take advantage of all this knowledge.