To use these tweaks, you will need AgentHex 0007's WRC 9 Mods package. You can find his stunning work HERE. You will need his mod because that extracts the files you will need to overwrite.
What does this mod do to WRC 9?
1) Changes AI driver ability so they finish where they roughly should. No more Loubet finishing on the podium and no more Evans and Rovanpera going through an entire season without scoring a point!
2) Rebalances the AI stage times. On some rallies, the AI was either ridiculously fast or ridiculously slow. Very rarely was it anywhere near "right". This attempts to change that. DISCLAIMER - the times are based on my driving. There are some stages and events that I know better than others. Some I just struggle with, even though I've driven on some of these stages across WRC 7, 8 and 9!
3) Edits to the speed of the AI on the second stage of a day. I found the AI to be way too slow on the second stage of a day compared to the first. It's possible this has gone too far for some circumstances, but there are so many factors involved in the AI speed, I doubt it's possible to get this perfect.
4) Reduced the gap from fastest to slowest. Before, the gap from first to last was massive. It's still a fairly sizeable gap, but you'll see much smaller gaps over the course of a rally now. Sometimes events will be decided by tenths or a handful of seconds.
5) Slightly increased AI speed at night. For me, they were just too slow on most night stages.
What files are included?
1) AIPARS.CFG - controls AI stage and sector times.
2) AIDELTATIMES.CFG - controls AI field spread and speed in certain conditions (day, evening, night, rain, snow etc).
3) CAREERCONFIG.CFG - controls various things in the career, including second stage pace.
4) TEAMS.CFG - controls AI driver ability. You can also decide which events the AI takes part in if you so wish! Be aware, changing which rally the AI take part in will also affect which rallies YOU enter in career mode, should you take an edited seat. This is why I didn't include a realistic set of AI driver events.
I'd suggest making backups of these just in case you don't like the changes.
Installation
Simply drag the common folder into the main WRC 9 game directory and allow it to overwrite when it prompts you to. If it doesn't prompt you to overwrite anything, you've made a mistake.
Final Comments
The tweaks in this mod are the culmination of a ridiculous amount of hours I've put in to try and sort out what KT Racing haven't once tried to do over WRC 8 and 9. It involved far too many hours of looking at spreadsheets, working out how the stage times worked, created sums that would allow me to edit those somewhat reliably. Then every single stage had to be tested by driving them and/or generating seasons and stage times to get things roughly where I wanted them. There will still be some anomalies from time to time, but it's impossible to make it perfect. There has been a good bit of swearing at the developer's over the last few weeks I can tell you!
You are free to edit these files and experiment as you wish. I'm aware that what works for me may well not be so good for others. That said if you do use them as a basis for your own mods and upload them, just a little bit of credit would be nice.
Enjoy!
What does this mod do to WRC 9?
1) Changes AI driver ability so they finish where they roughly should. No more Loubet finishing on the podium and no more Evans and Rovanpera going through an entire season without scoring a point!
2) Rebalances the AI stage times. On some rallies, the AI was either ridiculously fast or ridiculously slow. Very rarely was it anywhere near "right". This attempts to change that. DISCLAIMER - the times are based on my driving. There are some stages and events that I know better than others. Some I just struggle with, even though I've driven on some of these stages across WRC 7, 8 and 9!
3) Edits to the speed of the AI on the second stage of a day. I found the AI to be way too slow on the second stage of a day compared to the first. It's possible this has gone too far for some circumstances, but there are so many factors involved in the AI speed, I doubt it's possible to get this perfect.
4) Reduced the gap from fastest to slowest. Before, the gap from first to last was massive. It's still a fairly sizeable gap, but you'll see much smaller gaps over the course of a rally now. Sometimes events will be decided by tenths or a handful of seconds.
5) Slightly increased AI speed at night. For me, they were just too slow on most night stages.
What files are included?
1) AIPARS.CFG - controls AI stage and sector times.
2) AIDELTATIMES.CFG - controls AI field spread and speed in certain conditions (day, evening, night, rain, snow etc).
3) CAREERCONFIG.CFG - controls various things in the career, including second stage pace.
4) TEAMS.CFG - controls AI driver ability. You can also decide which events the AI takes part in if you so wish! Be aware, changing which rally the AI take part in will also affect which rallies YOU enter in career mode, should you take an edited seat. This is why I didn't include a realistic set of AI driver events.
I'd suggest making backups of these just in case you don't like the changes.
Installation
Simply drag the common folder into the main WRC 9 game directory and allow it to overwrite when it prompts you to. If it doesn't prompt you to overwrite anything, you've made a mistake.
Final Comments
The tweaks in this mod are the culmination of a ridiculous amount of hours I've put in to try and sort out what KT Racing haven't once tried to do over WRC 8 and 9. It involved far too many hours of looking at spreadsheets, working out how the stage times worked, created sums that would allow me to edit those somewhat reliably. Then every single stage had to be tested by driving them and/or generating seasons and stage times to get things roughly where I wanted them. There will still be some anomalies from time to time, but it's impossible to make it perfect. There has been a good bit of swearing at the developer's over the last few weeks I can tell you!
You are free to edit these files and experiment as you wish. I'm aware that what works for me may well not be so good for others. That said if you do use them as a basis for your own mods and upload them, just a little bit of credit would be nice.
Enjoy!
