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I propose ZCT105 to be somehow a hacking-themed track in order to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of Dstien's revolution and next-gen Stunts modding.

First, a rule interpretation question. Does the sanity-check "you must cross the finish line rule" mean you need to cross the line on the road (that is, passing under the banner), or are other ways of crossing the line (through the grass, from the "wrong" direction with penalty time, etc.) valid as long as you do cross the start/finish tile?

Also: come on and race, folks! The track is short enough for everyone to be able to drive at least one lap... 

Here is a quick test on the evenness of car choices along the races with the bonus system. I only included races from Z91 onwards to avoid flawed conclusions - it is known that 2008 rules resulted in bonuses which tended to favour PG cars. The method consisted in adding points for cars in each race as if in a normal scoreboard. In order to give extra weight to podium results, I chose to deploy the 2009 F1 scoring system (1st to 8th receive points; 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1). Here is the overall rank:

Countach: 67
Skyline: 56
Ranger: 47
Ferrari: 46
Lancia: 41
Audi: 40
Corvette: 39
Carrera: 35
LM002: 33
Speedgate: 32
Acura: 22
P962: 18
Indy: 18
Jaguar: 13

Comments:

• Most cars are in the 30-40 range. Considering the maximum score for a single race is 39 and that there are more cars than tracks in a season, that fact speaks well of the current bonus system.
• The cars topping the rank either were used by most pipsqueaks on a track but failed to win it (Countach @Z93, Skyline @Z94, Ranger @Z95) or were used exclusively by the winner on a race (Ferrari @Z91) and ended up resurfacing late in the season. Nothing wrong with that.
• Cars lying low on the rank are now, after the averaging of bonuses for the new season, in a good position to be deployed in 2010. Audi, which was largely ignored through 2009, already dominated Z103; the IMSA cars will likely play a major role on the next few races and Indy and NSX (which were arguably over-used during 2008) will surely appear again by mid-season when their bonuses accumulate a bit more.

Thumbs up for the bonus system, I guess  In case anybody is curious, here is the full "season scoreboard" copy-pasted from OpenOffice Calc:

Code Select Expand


Z91 Z92 Z93 Z94 Z95 Z96 Z97 Z98 Z99 Z100 Z101 Z102 Z103
ANSX 22
AUDI 8 32
VETT 39
FGTO 10 31 5
RANG 17 30
JAGU 1 10 2
COUN 28 39
LANC 2 39
LM02 4 29
NSKY 17 39
P962 18
PC04 35
PMIN 18
GATE 4 9 10 9


...for a week. Since the Holidays season left me in a super-lazy mood, I will only get down to racing on all those wonderful tracks when I return. But I promise to come back with a vengeance, or something like that   

Feel free to let me know how did you feel about the tracks, the management and everything else - it surely can will be useful for a novice like myself!

Initial draft just finished, right now I am in the process of sorting the good ideas from the stupid ones (current ratio is about 50:50). As for the car, please refer to this post by Bonzai Joe  

Track building started today. So far I can tell you two things about the next round. First of all, expect a long track, as I do not think I'll be able to pull off the desired effect with a standard-length circuit (those of you who raced or followed JACStunts will have a rough idea on what to expect). Second: a key design goal this time is making the track as beautiful as possible  

This competition needs more of you. Who else would better show us the way around the roads?

[epic]

The sense of anticipation and excitement Mark mentioned on the news page is very real - Z100 is shaping up to be The Race, indeed. I mean, it's not everyday we have the chance of reuniting so many stars from different eras in one single race. In fact, with the recent comebacks it seems we're very close to getting all of the champions in it! Roy and Renato are already on Z99. Soon enough, BJ will have his DOSBox setup up and running, and CTG will find a bit of time to rejoin the fight. Ayrton and Gutix were racing earlier this year, and it probably won't be so hard to bring them back (c'mon Rotoi, time for the MeganiuM Red Alert!  ). Only Alain remains missing - but at the very least his (digital) whereabouts are known, thus a convocation can be issued. That would be simply epic, and not to mention all the other pipsqueaks which are to take part...

Since people do not seem to be very keen on racing Battery  )-: , I'll leak some info on the forthcoming track. I already have a design concept set, and a track draft that portrays very well what I want the circuit to be like. Problem is, the draft is (as they always are) slightly too long (~1:50) and, more importantly, it has a jump over the start/finish line, which would mean mandatory penalty time or worse.

Anyway, expect something completely different from the current track.

I have been wondering a bit about some historical records that might change hands in the near-future. For instance...

• Most podiums in a row: obviously Ayrton has 12 consecutive podiums (all these victories in 07/08). I wonder if anyone had topped that before. Maybe Roy or some other early champion?
• Longest gap between victories: BJ took this at the start of the year (Z62...Z91). But now we have three strong potential claimants on the scoreboards...

(Original title: Track 2...)
...is being designed right now. First draft was almost two minutes long so I'm shortening it a bit. I still haven't decided which car will be used...   although my shortlist has only two viable options at the moment.  

[The Southern Cross Stunts Trophy]

It's with the utmost satisfaction I announce the launch of a new competition:

The Southern Cross Stunts Trophy

Some of the main facts about the tournament were already leaked in the discussion threads we had here; now it's time to confirm them:

• IRC rules;
• Five rounds with three weeks each;
• First race will start at August 3rd (a Monday - deadlines will be on Sundays)

Other details (such as the preliminary rule code and a tentative schedule) are already available at the competition site: http://scr.stunts.hu , so I kindly invite you all to check it. And please report any bugs, broken links, Internet Explorer issues, layout suggestions, etc., as small as they may be - I have no web access at home right now, so I will have trouble to test things properly in the following few days.

See you on the scoreboard... in August  

1. Duplode (*)
2. Alan
3. Friker
4. BJ
5. CTG
6. Zak
7. para-Mingva
8. SuperBrian
9. Chulk
10. dstien

(*) This is just for, after I lose this race, illustrating to Alan why I do not bet on my own victories 

As the contest I wondered about managing is starting to take shape, I would like to get a few opinions about some organization details. I considered making a series of polls over the next few weeks, but I guess that would only waste everybody's time I'll just post all of my questions here so you can answer them all at once. Other topics might be added for discussion as I analyze the rules further. So, just say your mind 

• What do you think about non-Indy OWOOT (no shortcuts) racing?
  (Great! / No strong opinion / Only with fast cars / No way, boring as hell, etc.)
• What is your favourite OWOOT racing code?
  (Very strict IRC, no bugs allowed / IRC, minor bugs like boulevard bump allowed, as in WSC / Looser, ISA or IMSA Cup rules)
• What is your favourite day of the week for race deadlines?
  (Friday / Saturday / Sunday / Mid-week days)
• What do you think about mixing RH and NoRH races in a single event? (*)
  (Brillant! / Nonsense! / I'd miss the NoRH rounds anyway due to technical issues...)

(*) Note that the idea on question 4 won't be implemented on the first edition of the contest, it's just speculation on future events...

[Standalone, finished cars]

Note: this is a really old post, and at this point most links in it are more historically interesting than actually useful. I plan to update it wholesale Anytime Soon™.

This is a collection of links to useful posts with reference info and downloads, so that people do not need to wade through massive threads such as the "Dissecting" one to find some specific info. It will focus on stuff not yet transposed to the Wiki; therefore for better-established subjects it is probably easier to look for information in articles there, such as Resource file format or Car parameters. It would be nice if this could be made a sticky by Zak or dstien. Done, thanks Zak!

Standalone, finished cars

• ZakStunts '09 car pack (Ranger + Skyline + Speedgate) (yes, I know this actually points to ZakStunts downloads page... )
• ZR1 GT3 Mark II (March 2009 revision)

Posts on the "Dissecting" thread

• Standalone download of stunpack, the resource file unpacker
• Alternative colour set for Countach (NSX paint jobs)
• Alternative roof graphics for Acura NSX
• TEDIT.RES description (track editor interface parameters)
• Driveable car shape for the starting-line truck
• Custom paint jobs for the Indy
• Speculative analysis of the functionality of culling bit sets

Posts on the "Physics Investigations" thread

• Description of track object surfaces in GAME.RES
• Preliminary description of car size parameters in CAR*.RES

Recently it came to my attention the famous Home of the Underdogs abandonware site, which had been in trouble for a long while, is being rebuilt from the old database under a new address. Since users can add their own reviews to the game pages, I felt it wouldn't hurt to write something about our game...

http://www.hotud.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21851&catid=42:sport (scroll down to see user reviews)

It is a little bit long-winded maybe, but hopefully a few people will read it and realize the game is so good it still has an active community 

I'm not sure if I mentioned it already, but I had found Kalpen and the other Stunts sites long before I actually entered the community, and back then I briefly considered the idea of joining. While navigating through backup folders from my old computer, I was surprised to find evidence of that fact - competition replays dated from 2004...  Obviously none of these laps ever reached the scoreboards, although I recall having sent at least one of them to 4DSL, but for some reason - wrong game version maybe? - it never saw the light of the day. I didn't have much motivation to join and remain active back then, not to mention 2004 was an extremely busy year for me (University admission tests), and so nothing else came out of it. After the first months of 2005, I spent two years without playing Stunts, and only after this long while I finally enter a race at Kalpen 2007... Anyway, in case you're curious about what kind of impact my entry would have in 2004 (), I attached the laps (all of them are for Mindscape 4D 1.1).

When CTG releases Melange in the near future, we'll have five fully customized cars already. Wouldn't it be a good idea if we prepared a video showcase of the five new cars to celebrate the event? It might work as good promotion the community/competition...

A video tribute in honour of one of the greats...
General observations:
- It's not on YouTube due to their "audio fingerprinting" system that cut off the sound without a hitch.
- It's my first attempt at video editing, so I can only hope it makes justice to Mark.

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Dpld/video/x8hydy_wonder-ride-a-tribute-to-mark-l-riv_videogames