Fuel

This document explains how you can make fuel races. Experimental fuel support was added in version 1.0.7. Due to the experimental nature of the feature, no pit tracks are included in the standard intallation packet so players wanting to use this feature need to make their own tracks or join servers that contain such tracks.

FUEL RULES

In a fuel race, cars can run out of fuel, which causes them to move very slowly. To get more fuel, a car must go to the pit and be stationary. There is also an option to reduce car acceleration according to how full the tank is. The amount of fuel is seen in the stats panel beside the lap time and below the car when in the statistics mode (press TAB once to enter it). You will also see messages when the fuel is 50 %, 20 % and 0 % and when the tank is full again.

If a server runs a fuel race, versions earlier than 1.0.7 can join and play but they can't see the amount of fuel they have. They will see the messages, however. The car movement may also seem odd when cars are out of fuel or when full tank slowdown effect is on.

Currently, AI players are not affected by fuel.

STARTING A FUEL RACE

For a race to be a fuel race, two things must be done. First, the track must be a track with a pit (see the next chapter) and second, fuel mode must be set on. Fuel mode can be set either by editing sliders.ini or by using server command /fuel.

Sliders.ini has the following variables related to fuel:

FuelOn: 1 if fuel is on, 0 otherwise. MaxFuel: Amount of fuel. The unit is seconds of acceleration TankFillTime: How many seconds it takes to fill the tank. IdleFuelConsumption: Idle fuel consumption (compared to acceleration). MaxFuelSlowDown: How much acceleration is decreased because of the full tank. Note that if this is on, players with older game versions will experience more warping so consider letting this me 0 unless you know all the players have version 1.0.7 or later.

Server command /fuel can be used to change the same values. To simply turn fuel on, say

/fuel 1

To turn it off, say

/fuel 0

To see the current fuel status, say

/fuel

To set fuel on, set maximum amount of fuel to 200 units, tank fill time to 10 seconds, idle consumption to 50 % and maximum full tank slowdown to 5 %, say:

/fuel 1 200 10 50 5

MAKING A TRACK WITH A PIT

To make a track with a pit, first complete it normally with the editor. To define a pit, press F5 to enter pit mode (editor 1.0.7 required). Click two times on the opposite corners of the pit and the pit will be defined. Save the track normally with F6. You can also do this manually by editing the trk file and adding a Pit line to it.

Note that it is even possible to make an existing track to have a pit even after the track has been distributed to other players. This does not change the hash value of the track and the server always tells the clients where the pit is.

UPDATE in version 1.0.8: It is possible to mark a terrain to be a pit terrain by adding line "pit 1" to its definition. This changes the track hash value, though, and players with version 1.0.7 do not recognize the pit so using this is not recommended unless really needed. You must also add a normal pit to the track so that the track is recognized to be a pit track in fuel races. It can overlap with the pit terrain.

OTHER UPDATES

UPDATE in version 1.0.8: It is also possible to change the initial amount of fuel in server races. To enable this, server must first make it possible by saying "/set CanChangeStartFuel 1" or editing sliders.ini. Now, players can change the initial fuel before race by saying "/startfuel " where is anything from 0 to 100. To distinguish between different players using the same host, one can also say "/startfuel " where is their nick (quotes are needed if there are spaces).

UPDATE in version 1.0.8: You can see popup messages about the fuel level beside your car at certain percentages. There is also a new stat mode (press TAB three times) which shows fuel and other information on the screen. If you don't like these, you can edit sliders.ini and change HudMode. Making the value 0 removes the popup messages. Adding 4 removes the new stat mode. Adding 8 to the value combines the new mode with the old position list mode. So, here are some examples:
HudMode 0: No popup messages, three stat modes
HudMode 1: Default: popup messages, three stat modes
HudMode 4: Like in 1.0.7: no popups, no new stat mode
HudMode 5: Like in 1.0.7 but with popups
HudMode 8: No popups, new stat mode, position list also has the new mode.
HudMode 13: Popups, new mode included in the position list but not on its own.

UPDATE in version 1.0.8: If hold fire button (right shift by default) while in pit, you won't get more fuel. This way, you can repair the damage without getting more fuel.