Copyright ©1996 Steve Weinkamer (Ualani@aol.com)
NOTE: THIS IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF MY ORIGINAL FAQ. I HAVE CORRECTED
SOME MISTAKES AND ADDED NOTES BY HELPFUL OTHERS WHO ARE ALSO INTERESTED
IN THIS PROJECT.
Many thanks to Jake (Snake43@aol.com,) Ken (Phienox@aol.com, Randy (Randy_Young@prodigy.com), and others as noted below.
Feel free to pass this along and post where ever as long as the individuals listed above are credited.
This FAQ will attempt to explain some of the settings in the TRACK.TXT files in the TRACK subdirectories in the Indycar2 and Nascar sims. Some of this is pure conjecture and a few areas remain unknown, especially some of the lines particular to ICR2. This represents many long hours of experimentation, and while I've run into a brick wall with the ICR2 THEAT, TCFF, and TCFR lines, I've decided to release this FAQ in it's present but incomplete form. I welcome anyone who can fill in the voids, correct unintentional misinformation, or add anything to this. Please contact me and I will post an update and give you proper credit at the top!
We will use the INDYCAR RACING II MICHIGAN track as an example as laid out below. Note that Nascar tracks do not use the THEAT, TCFF, or TCFR lines. Note also that this information may not necessarily pertain to tracks converted from Indycar2 to Nascar, Nascar to Indycar2, the converted Indianapolis track or even all of the original tracks. (I know, for example, that the GFLAG values can't be changed at Sears Point and must be hard coded into the dat file somewhere.) Remember to always save a copy of your original track.txt files before changing anything! That way if you screw up, you can restore and start over (An easy alternate way to do this is to copy the line you are going to change and insert a "rem" at the beginning of the line like this:
rem SPDWY 1 42 43 SPDWY 1 47 54
This way you can see where you started. The program does not recognize a line beginning with a rem.)
O.K......let's have a look!
TNAME Michigan SNAME Michigan PIT 570897 56273802 7084999 56391600 6655200 818122 27085691 29 55911600 56273802 7084999 SPDWY 1 42 43 LENGT 2000 LAPS 250 FNAME Michigan Int'l Speedway CITYN Brooklyn, MI COUNT USA PACEA 2 63151499 45000 -45000 0 QUAL 2 2 BLIMP -7571300 32626395 GFLAG 56273802 TTYPE 3 CARS 32 32 TEMP 784 81 TEMP2 807 67 WIND 2147483648 268435456 90 50 357913941 WIND2 2147483648 268435456 80 40 357913941 RAIN 00 00 BLAP 30400 RELS 100 THEAT 11500 9500 7500 16000 12000 9000 7000 12000 TCFF 46151 45401 44651 57535 30800 29989 28989 39000 TCFR 49151 48401 47651 61535 34800 33989 32989 43000 TIRES 64881 4300 120000000 64881 3300 120000000 0 TIRE2 64881 4300 120000000 64881 3300 120000000 0 SCTNS 8 5 3
TNAME Michigan
Refers to the track name as listed in the track selection menu. If you change this to Joe's Race Place, it will appear that way on the menu.
SNAME Michigan
Not sure what effect this has.
PIT 570897 56273802 7084999 56391600 6655200 818122 27085691 29 55911600 56273802 7084999
These numbers define the pit row information. I'm not sure what the first number does but the second number defines the location that the pace car pulls off of the track. A lower value causes it to pull off sooner, and a higher value causes it to exit farther down the track. I am not sure what the next number does either other than affect the spacing of cars in the pit and perhaps the beginning of the pit row where the player car sits. Best left alone I guess. The next number (56391600) defines the location of the pit stalls relative to pit road. Adjust this number and you will screw up the line of cars by putting in the pit in different locations around the track. Best left alone also. The next number defines the location of the parked pace car. If you think of the pit row as running north and south, this defines north\south orientation. The next number defines the east\west pace car location. Although I'm not sure about it, someone told me that the 29 refers to the number of pit stalls that are allowed for. The other numbers I have fooled with and have not figured out-and some of these numbers may only pertain to racing conditions when certain things like yellow flags are active, etc. Most of these numbers are not really configurable to any useable degree anyway, from what I can see. Note that on Nascar tracks with front and back pits that there are 2 sets of these numbers defining pit locations.
SPDWY 1 42 43
I am not sure what the 1 means in Indycar. In Nascar, a 1 refers to the "restrictor plate" at Talladega. Change this to a 0 (zero) to remove and run faster laps. The 42 and 43 refer to the laps in which the computer cars pit under full green racing conditions. I try to set this to within a few laps of when I have to pit to keep things interesting.
LENGT 2000
Length of track in miles (2.000). Used by the computer to figure lap speeds
LAPS 250
Laps in a 100% race.
FNAME Michigan Int'l Speedway
You can change this to "Joe's Diner 500" or whatever, to appear as you want on your loading screen.
CITYN Brooklyn, MI COUNT USA
Self explanatory. For track loading screen appearance
PACEA 2 63151499 45000 -45000 0
The first number means that the cars will line up 2 abreast. If it is a one, they will be in single file, etc. The next number indicates the position on the track where the pace lap begins. A smaller number means the pace lap will start closer to the location that either the green flag drops or to the start\finish line, I'm not sure which. If you want a shorter pace lap, lower this value. If you enter a number that is too large here however, the program will crash. The next number defines the position that the inside row of cars sits on the track relative to the center of the track (East\West), and the next defines where the outside row sits. I don't know what the zero defines at the end of the line. If you want 3 abreast starts and a shorter pace lap, ( on this track, of course), try these values here:
PACEA 3 3151499 150000 25000 -70000 0
In this case, the 150000 defines the row location relative to the left of the center of the track, the 25000 defines where the outside row is located, and the -70000 defines the middle row location. This does not seem to be logical, but it works!
QUAL 2 2
Let's talk about Indycar first. If the first number is a 0, this means that the qualifying procedure will be in a TIMED FORMAT, ala road and street tracks. If it is a 1, then qualifying is done in a speedway format-your best speed determines starting position.
The second number, in TIMED FORMAT refers to the number of minutes in qualifying. Set this to your choice to allow longer or shorter qualifying periods. In speedway format, the second number refers to the number of laps in the qualifying run.
In Nascar the first number is always a 2. When set to a 1, the f1 "Lap Info" screen will not display any info. When set to a 0, you can't qualify. Always leave this set at 2 in Nascar. Again, as in Indycar, the second number refers to number of qualifying laps in speedway format.
BLIMP -7571300 32626395
This is on of the easiest to figure out. It sets the location of the blimp camera in the replay mode. Change to adjust x-y axis views. No real need to play around with this one.
GFLAG 56273802
Adjust this number for the location on the track where the pole sitting car gets the green flag. A lower value means farther from the start\finish line, and a higher value means closer to the start\finish line. When adjusted with the first PACEA number, you can tailor starts to your liking. (Note: set this number to GFLAG 53073802 for a flag that drops right after the pace car pulls off here at Michigan.) I have so far discovered that GFLAG does not work this way at Talladega or Sears Point. At these tracks, the green flag drop is determined by the pace car exit value (in the PIT line).
TTYPE 3
This is the track type and also determines pace lap and caution lap speed:
0 = Short Oval - 40 mph
1 = Mile Ovals - 55 mph
2 = Speedway - 70 mph
3 = Superspeedway - 90 mph
4 = Road Course - 70 mph and >
CARS 32 32
This refers to the number of cars in the field and the two should always be the same Maximum in Indycar is 32 32 (however there is a utility program that can set this at 39 plus the pacecar), and maximum in Nascar is 39 39. Set these lower for a smaller race field.
TEMP 800 83 TEMP2 825 60
Temp is the air temperature. 80.0 degrees Fahrenheit. 83 is 8.3 degrees Fahrenheit variation for random weather. Lower values provide better tire grip and slower heat build up-not all together realistic, but it'll do! TEMP refers to Goodyear tires and TEMP2 refers to Hoosiers in Nascar. OK....George W. Aker Jr. (itchweed.mail.naxs.com) has a different take on this line: According to him "These lines refer to a Championship race where the first time you run at a certain amount of tracks the temps are different the second time you come back." Hmmmmmm....sounds good, but I wonder about the tracks that you only run once a season. Any other takes on this one?
WIND 2684354560 268435456 113 65 2147483648 WIND2 2415919104 268435456 113 65 2147483648
These settings should be obvious, but I have not checked them out. It would be a long, laborious process to work these out. Is anyone game? Who cares anyway ; )
RAIN 00 00
Nascar does not run rain races. When the program code for Indycar2 was being written, it is reported that they made preliminary provisions for rain racing. In fact, there is a rain palette and rain.pcx existing in the code. However for some reason they abandoned the rain features. (Too difficult, time constraints, etc.?) Perhaps rain will be included in the long promised patch. Don't hold your breath though!
BLAP 30400
This defines the posted hot lap times that your opponents run in qualifying and practice. (30.400 seconds) If you are beating the pants off of them in qualifying and don't always want to start on the pole (yeah right!) lower this number in 10th's increments.
RELS 100
This is the relative strength of the field in percentage compared to the human player, kind of like the opponent strength option. If you are always a back marker, have trouble competing with the rest of the field, or learning how to pass in traffic, lower this by 1 or 2 percentage points.
THEAT 11500 9500 7500 16000 12000 9000 7000 12000
In Indycar, the first 3 values refer to left side tire heat, right rear tire heat, and right front tire heat. Higher values mean that the tires are more sensitive to heat buildup and heat up quicker. So if you are regularly overheating your tires during a run or with a certain setup, lower the respective values accordingly. The rest of the values have me scratching my head. To add a monkey wrench to all of this Harley Peters (HPeters63@aol.com) came up with this: "I have found that the following settings are for.
THEAT 11500 9500 7500 16000 12000 9000 7000 12000
The first number is the amount of heat in the tires using soft compounds the higher the number the more heat.
The second is for medium compounds.
The third is for hard compounds.
The fourth is for rain compounds.
The remaining four numbers I am not sure of but I think they have to do with heat in the tires under rain conditions."
OK.....but rain doesn't exist in Indycar2. Anyone else have any ideas, let me know!
TCFF 46151 45401 44651 57535 30800 29989 28989 39000 TCFR 49151 48401 47651 61535 34800 33989 32989 43000
These also leave me fairly clueless. The first 3 sets of numbers MAY refer to tire compound effects. The first one I think may be the rf with medium or soft tires. Lower values seem to give less bite with the med and soft tires.????? The next seems to be rf medium tires in some way also: lower=less grip. The next seem to effect hard tires on the rf : lower=less here too. The rest of the line I can't figure at all. When you think of all of the combinations of things that affect grip such as tire pressure, compounds, sway bars, camber, there are ALOT of possible combinations. I think the TCFR refers to the addition of rain tires in the coming patch.
Again, Harley Peters take on this is:
"TCFF 46151 45401 44651 57535 30800 29989 28989 39000 TCFR 49151 48401 47651 61535 34800 33989 32989 43000
TCFF is for front tires
TCFR is for rear tires
The first number is the tire grip for soft compound tires the higher the number the more grip.
The second is for medium compounds
The third is for hard compounds.
The fourth is for rain compounds.
The remaining four numbers I am not sure of but once again I think they have to do with the amount of tire grip under rain conditions."
Here's another take by Jayme@aol.com (I don't know where he got the different numbers from, but bear with him.):
"TCFF 61535 59535 57535 57535 30800 29989 28989 39000 TCFR 65535 52535 51535 61535 34800 33989 32989 43000
Ok...I haven't figured them all out, but here's what I got......
TCFF stands for Tire Compound Friction Front.
TCFR stands for Tire Compound Friction Rear.
The first 3 entries in each column represent Soft, Medium, and Hard compounds. The 4th-8th entries have let me totally clueless. The 1st three entries do not seem to care which type of tire you are running (Goodyear or Firestone). The 4th entry could relate to tire wear, though I'm not sure. If so, then the 5th-7th entries probably represent the right side."
This will probably be totally changed when the long awaited ICR2 patch comes out anyways!
TIRES 64881 4300 120000000 64881 3300 120000000 0 TIRE2 64881 4300 120000000 64881 3300 120000000 0
As near as I can tell, these two lines have no effect in Indycar, so use this as a guide for Nascar only. TIRES refers to GOODYEAR compounds and TIRE2 refers to HOOSIER compounds. This is probably one of the best lines to adjust if you are having trouble with grip in the turns or prematurely burning up your tires. The first number (64881) refers to the grip that your left side tires achieve. The higher the value, the better the grip. The next number (4300) refers to the heat your left side tires generate. A lower value means lower heat. A higher grip value will generate more tire heat, so you want to lower the second value to compensate for this. The 1200000000 refers to how fast the tire wear bars "shrink" when f5 is active. A higher value means that your tires will wear more slowly, and a lower value means that they will wear down more quickly. The next two values refer to right side grip and heat. Therefore, if you are sliding into the corners and burning up the right side tires in the process, adjust accordingly for better grip with less wear. (Adjust the grip values by (+ or -) 1000 to 1500 to start with. Adjust the heat values by (+ or -) 100-300 as a starting point.)
So....if you are slamming the wall and burning up the right front tire at say Bristol, you might do the following: Increase the grip values by 1000 to 1500 and lower the heat values by about 100-300. If you want to extend the life of your tires to last until your fuel stops, change the 1 in 1200000000 to perhaps a 3. You'll get better handling and longer tire life with less frustration and more racing in the process. By the way, this is how some people get the unreal times\speeds that they brag about. THEY CHEAT! But after all, these are just arbitrary settings that the folks at Papyrus came up with to make these sims challenging and as realistic as possible at each track. And if you'd rather race, have more fun, less frustration, are willing to sacrifice a little realism and not have to work on setups so much, you can tinker here. Just don't claim world records at each track!
SCTNS 8 5 3
Who knows?
big guy