Recent posts

#91

Competition 2025 / Re: Cars and rules for 2026

Last post by Spoonboy - August 27, 2025, 11:52:16 PM

Also curious about Mazda 787B, Lada Niva and Citroën XM. I have not tried any but I feel they'd be nice novelties.

But maybe Esprit and Diablo tend to overlap a little bit too much, and my beloved Oxia should not become a regular presence to keep its magical aura.

I tend to agree with @HerrNove. I love the Oxia, but its brilliance has meant it has dominated a lot so far this year. Much as I love driving it, it is becoming more of a workhorse for me, rather than a fun toy!
As such, it should probably have a rest.

The DTM has similar amazing all-round performance, but as has been mentioned elsewhere, it has yet to get a win so could maybe be given rather chance to shine.

The Niva was fun in the night-time Live race (anyone who hasn't tried this track and custom cockpits, do it!). It drove the nicest of the three. This would be a great slow car, if it could be seperated enough from the LM002.

I haven't tried the XM, but it sounds interesting.

As for the Mazda 787B, it is a beautiful, fast and stable rocketship, and would be a great addition. But as we have found when it first appeared, unless we lose some other original cars like the Jag or P962, we risk saturating the roster with similar cars..
But it is awesome

#92

Competition 2025 / Re: An apology to Alain il pr...

Last post by Alain il professore - August 27, 2025, 11:43:37 PM

One last message — let's end this right

This may be the last message I ever send you. Please read it carefully and answer it well.

Now that you've had your vengeance, let's make peace—on my terms. I will wipe the slate clean between us if you push for a reform of the competition format. You're smart enough to know it was never about you; I argued for change for the greater good of all ZakStunts pipsqueaks, you included. Imagine the respect you'd earn by proving you can win a title with a fair rate of PG cars.

I don't know if you'll still be playing next year. I don't know if I will either. Perhaps ten months from now I'll be gone and you'll still be here, wondering what you could have done to mend things with "Alain il Professore." I don't know what the next year holds for either of us. I'd rather we choose reconciliation now than look back wishing we had.

I know how much it will cost you to reach out. But this is your last chance to show —with actions, not words— that you regret the past.

Reflect carefully. Let's put this to rest as adults who fought the battles our passions told us were right. I'll be happy if you can find peace and one day say: "I'm Alain il Professore's Stunts friend — no regrets, no remorse."

— Alain il Professore

#93

Competition 2025 / Re: Cars and rules for 2026

Last post by Duplode - August 27, 2025, 11:35:12 PM

Also curious about Mazda 787B, Lada Niva and Citroën XM. I have not tried any but I feel they'd be nice novelties.

I'd love to see the Citroën XM in competition! It's a well-balanced car that could be a good representative of the "proper slow car" tier (example stablemates: Trueno, Thunderbird).

Idea: all cars available and no rules.

There is a way to make all cars available: set a fixed -100% coefficient to anything outside the 16-car list for the year. I'm not really joking: this might actually be a useful way to keep cars away from the competition proper while still allowing people to drive for fun with them.

#94

Competition 2025 / Re: Cars and rules for 2026

Last post by Matei - August 27, 2025, 10:55:23 PM

Idea: all cars available and no rules. Why bother with rules?

https://forum.stunts.hu/index.php?topic=4312

https://wiki.stunts.hu/wiki/Zapper%27s_car_pack

And:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun

The basic method used to construct such a set of inputs is to record one's input while playing the game on an emulator, all the while saving and loading the emulator's state repeatedly to test out various possibilities and only keep the best result.

Stunts is so advanced that it can do this even without an emulator.

To make this more precise, the game is slowed down.

DOSBox-X can do that, I don't know about DOSBox, but my game can obviously do it with a few modifications and:

https://github.com/schellingb/dosbox-pure

Using the core option Save States Support, rewinding can be enabled.
Keep in mind that rewind support comes at a high performance cost.

I never tried DOSBox Pure, but so much for NoRH (it was outdated anyway).

#95

Competition 2025 / Re: Cars and rules for 2026

Last post by HerrNove - August 27, 2025, 09:23:17 PM

I'll start by giving my strong support for the Hexa as new car. Impressing performance and visuals, partially compensated by the difficult reading of the steering indicator.

Also curious about Mazda 787B, Lada Niva and Citroën XM. I have not tried any but I feel they'd be nice novelties.

I liked all this year's cars so it's hard for me to suggest which should drop to make place.
But maybe Esprit and Diablo tend to overlap a little bit too much, and my beloved Oxia should not become a regular presence to keep its magical aura. Mercedes DTM can go if it manages to win a race, otherwise I'd be happy to give it a second fourth chance.

[no single solutions]

#96

Competition 2025 / Cars and rules for 2026

Last post by dreadnaut - August 27, 2025, 08:52:30 PM

Second quarter of the ZakStunts century 🐲
25 years means a lot of stories and traditions, trophies old and new, and a few dusty corners. It also means the 26th year is coming up fast! Are you ready? 😱

While the game stays the same, the Competition is open to rule changes. This thread is here to collect and discuss suggestions, and also to decide which custom cars will be allowed for the coming season.

See also: Cars and rules for 2025

For those who have not been part of one of these threads before, let me summarise the process:

• Pipsqueaks bring up ideas, questions, problems. A brief explanation is enough, a bit of data is welcome.
• There are no single solutions to a problem, there always many options that we discuss with curiosity about other people's experiences and opinions.
  
• We keep in mind the principles of the Competition; I suggest reading along the chain of previous threads to get an idea of what's an acceptable proposal, and what is not.
• We try to find consensus on a very small set of changes: we can't make a lot of changes at the same time, or we'll have no idea what worked and why.
  
• Some ideas will not gain traction, and that's alright.

Now a few rules to have a productive thread:

• No AI generated content in this thread; machine translation is fine, slop is not.
  
• No off-topic, spamming, etc. Those messages will be deleted without warning.
• No attacks, no recriminations

#97

Competition and Website / Re: Server upgrade 2025 (stuff...

Last post by dreadnaut - August 27, 2025, 08:42:50 PM

It seems that the "Corrected time" row does not display the centiseconds of the raw time correctly (it shows 1:13:00 instead of 1:13:95).

Thanks for spotting that. That's me I think, mis-placed brackets around an integer cast. I'll fix it

Curiously, the confirmation screen after submitting the time shows the centiseconds correctly.

Unfortunately there are still two codepaths here, for basically the same view

#98

Competition and Website / Re: Plaidoyer: Maintaining Fai...

Last post by dreadnaut - August 27, 2025, 07:42:00 PM

I'm just spotting patterns and drinking detox bio tea.

What is this, @Alain? You change topic, make another aggressive joke on a different channel, post two messages on topic, and assume it all goes away?

It's 2025, and I expect an adult to be responsible for their behaviour, not squirrel away for a moment. So I need you to use your adult powers and think about why your behaviour is a problem, and ask questions if you don't understand. If you can't do that (pride, shame, I'm-in-the-right-here), you are out.

If there are other difficulties that we don't know about, bring them out. There's been others who said "sorry, I've got baggage and I've been shit", to then deal with their issues without unleashing them on the community.

Hint: while you keep saying you are doing things for weaker pipsqueaks, this is plainly for yourself. If you cared about others, you'd be elevating their voices, opening up the stage, instead of drowning it with noise by being the loudest voice and shutting off everyone else, to the point that I have folks telling me "I just try to be nice and not say a lot when he's in the middle".

So you either solve this in the next hours, or the ban is coming.

[If the community agrees that PG wins should be limited, here's my proposal:]

#99

Competition and Website / Re: Plaidoyer: Maintaining Fai...

Last post by Argammon - August 27, 2025, 07:03:10 PM

If the community agrees that PG wins should be limited, here's my proposal:

Once a car wins a race, it becomes unavailable for the rest of the season.

We can then discuss whether a pool of 16 cars remains sufficient under this rule.

your proposal looks fresh as a compromise measure, in general I support it. but it is even better to use patched versions from Daniel3D, then you won't have to change anything at all

Thank you for bringing the discussion back to a mature level — I truly appreciate it. 🙂

Please allow me to share how I see the situation. I openly acknowledge that the combination of PG cars and the car coefficient system gives me an advantage. My strongest skill in stunts is, without question, the ability to manage a PG lap where others cannot — which explains the high number of unexpected PG surprises.

Now, let's address the question of whether we should introduce rules to limit or even ban PG cars. From my perspective, pipsqueaks have different preferences:

• Some enjoy driving PG laps — I'm one of them. I'm fascinated by the strategic side of stunts: a great stunts map is full of inventive tricks, and I love discovering them and finding the best car–track combination.
  
• Others simply enjoy watching PG laps because they're spectacular — my ZCT 284 Corvette lap is a good example.
  
• Many casual competitors are indifferent to PG cars.
  
• And finally, there are pipsqueaks who actively dislike their presence — you and Alain fall into this group.
  

I respect all of these viewpoints. As humans, we all have different preferences. What matters less to me is Kevin Pickell's original intention over 35 years ago. If what began as a bug now provides enjoyment to several of us, its technical origin doesn't necessarily mean it should be removed. What matters most is what the community thinks — and that's difficult to gauge, given the limited participation in this discussion.

We also shouldn't overlook an important point raised by @dreadnaut: Zakstunts is currently the only active competition that features both free rules and power-gear laps. Those who prefer OWOOT driving already have several other competitions available. This is a key consideration.

Putting aside the fact that I personally benefit from the current format, I believe that in an ideal scenario, all cars should have an equal chance of winning. If we agree that's a worthwhile goal, the next challenge is figuring out how to get there. @HerrNove mentioned some justified concerns regarding my proposal so we should keep the brainstorming going.

#100

Competition and Website / Re: Plaidoyer: Maintaining Fai...

Last post by HerrNove - August 27, 2025, 06:20:11 PM

Since I'm the only genuine newbie here, allow me to say that I'm against any change of rules that reduces car or strategy choices. The "drop winning cars" rule would also penalize track and car creators. Imagine Frieshansen building "Lord of the Rings" and finding out the Audi is not available. Or Ryoma seeing the Diablo out of the compo after just two months.

Also, the recent streak of victories of PG cars seems mostly to be the result of them being underrepresented in 2024, which led their combined bonus to reach +15% at the start of the year. At present it is at -17%, so the trend will settle down by itself, without needing external assists.

Other points:
* I'm also against extending the discretionary bonus range to ±20%. This would be the equivalent of the track designer being able to mandate a car. With ±10% we instead just had a very interesting month where the suggested car (Quattro) was subverted by the Lambo, and then by the Corvette. I found it excellent.
* More rules are usually bad for newbies, as the recent disqualification of StanceboyCZ's lap from R4K shows. I am also not super happy of having wasted time to find a rules-sanctioned way to negotiate the slalom, just to see said rule changed two days after. I like to put the most work in the very first days of the compo, so this would have been a big turn-off for me if I had taken the race as seriously as I do in ZakStunts.