News posted in April 2018

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Apr 1

• dreadnaut
  One week left! And happy Easter!
• afullo
  Thanks, happy Easter to all!

Apr 2

• Smeagol
  Happy Eastern, BÖFF!
• Smeagol
  Ring rust...
• Smeagol
  It will be removed from the scoreboard - however, this public replay might be a decent speed reference.
• afullo
  CTriGgered!
• Smeagol
  Sort of...

Apr 3

• Smeagol
  Does ZSC automatically assign my replays to my original nickname?
• Marco
  CTG i s BACK !!!
• afullo
  We are the Borg. Your knowledge is our knowledge.
• dreadnaut
  Marco is Back!
• Shoegazing Leo
  They are back! I'm forward.
• Smeagol
  Not exactly, the nickname "CTG" cannot be found in the users list. And this is not a comeback - just a nostalgic Easter afternoon. My life changed enough to keep myself away from addicting games.

Apr 5

• dreadnaut
  I really don't enjoy precise cornering with the Melange

Apr 6

• afullo
  Breaking news: Donald Trump had an affair with Cherry Chassis, and paid her a Panamera for her silence.
• Seeker1982
  You'll see I managed to improve my RH/Freestyle-time quite a lot, even though I didn't believe it was possible - how much you'll see after the quite days are over resp. the final results go public
• afullo
  Dedicated to CTG's return (seriously, best song by Sia so far...)
• arturbmallmann
  That is historic week. Nice to meet you, CTG hehehe.
• arturbmallmann
  My GAR attemp:

Apr 7

• Shoegazing Leo
  Shhhhh.... BÖÖFFFF Böff dampening: < 1dB
• Shoegazing Leo
  O my gosh! Is there no BÖÖFF reduction anymore!?
• afullo
  It seems that there isn't in the shoutbox, but there is in the news archive. "Böff reduction: 103B" by surfing here: http://zak.stunts.hu/index.php?page=newsarc
• Duplode
  It is a travesty that even in this race I could only manage a hurried session on the last day... but here I am
• Duplode
  I should really try and beat CTG, but it doesn't seem I'll have time for that. It's on you, folks (By the way: anyone interested in winning this race with a little time to spare should give the Acura a shot.)
• Smeagol
  It's nice to be here again, not because of the racing itself. Even if we had serious personal conflicts in the past, Stunts community was always an important part of my life. (Yes, I'm still a spammer. )
• Smeagol
  And the usual "I won't improve my time" message: I don't intend to play before the deadline. Or at least not with Melange XGT-88. Btw shall I get back my original nickname and drop the current one?
• Zak McKracken
  I forgot my ZakStunts user password... this tells it all. But at least I did not forget to race! I admit I never liked the Melange, but given the revolution we had in the past years with custom cars, it is very appropriate to race on ZCT200 with the most established custom racing car and a custom body and paintwork. Thank you for everyone keeping the flame alive!
• Cas
  So great to see so much activity here! I don't think I have time to post an updated lap, but I'm glad I've been able to participate in the 200th race

Apr 8

• dreadnaut
  And that was ZCT200! Thank you guys for racing, and thank you Kevin for giving us the 200th track of the competition
• dreadnaut
  Quiet replays now published, I'll confirm the results tomorrow. And then on with track 201: Cas' track is ready, and it looks quite fun!
• Shoegazing Leo
  ...And the LTB?
• afullo
  No time to perform a 0.20 improvement...
• arturbmallmann
  congratulations, CTG.
• Cas
  Congrats, CTG! It's been a wonderful race, guys. Hope you like my track, coming next.
• Seeker1982
  Guess I have to lift my (virtual) hat to the veterans here I was hoping for 3rd place, but with all this competition it proved to be difficult. On the other hand I dominate the newbie league and the GAR-times pretty much ever since I started here back in mid 2017

Apr 9

• Marco
  Wow my friends. The GAR is still surviving without me. This is great . I did a GAR trial finding easily the second place in 1:12 something. I had no problem to understand that the 4 seconds to Seeker could be very hard to reach so that I didn t try anymore. Already last year, Seeker has demonstrated to be the new GAR champion that you know, for my point of view, this means to be the best Stunts racer in the world. ))

Apr 10

• Shoegazing Leo
  ... and the LTB?
• dreadnaut
  LTB points added, and scoreboard confirmed: CTG sneaks in from the side door and take top spot for ZCT200!
• dreadnaut
  The new track is also ready, but I still need to confirm the car bonuses with Cas

Apr 11

• Shoegazing Leo
  My first LTB in my life! I lost my LTB virginity!
• CTG
  Oh yeah!
• CTG
  This track screams for IMSA cars.

Apr 12

• Cas
  Alright. My first lap
• CTG
  I hope these early shots wake up the LTB beasts (RBI, DUP, POO, etc).
• CTG
  Okay, this car is still annoying.
• dreadnaut
  Car bonuses final: P962 and F40 get +5%, Audi and Melange lose the same. Previous replays don't get recalculated, I just discovered, I'll fix that later today.
• CTG
  GAR-1
• CTG
  GAR-2
• Seeker1982
  1st RH/freepplay try - I struggle with that loop-jump
• Seeker1982
  still no weird loop jump, but imo quite a decent RH time
• Seeker1982
  I think i accidently submitted my GAR-replay without selecting that it IS a gar-replay in the upload dialog; now I can't upload it with gar-replay selected since it says that i already uploaded that replay - can anybody fix this for me?

Apr 13

• CTG
  GAR-3
• CTG
  Regarding GAR compatition, what do you mean on "no cheap speed-ups"? Is it allowed to use magic carpets, edge of boulevards, etc? What if I make a small jump at the beginning/end of the banked road? I tried to avoid any of these in my current GAR replay (with hald success ).
• CTG
  *competition; ** half... mobile keyboard sucks
• afullo
  Nations' standings: Brazil 35, Germany 29, Italy 28, Hungary 23, Argentina 19, Finland 10, Taiwan (or Taipei Chinese for diplomatic reasons) 5, Sweden and Czech Republic 4.
• Seeker1982
  @CTG there's a video of Marco explaining it in quite the detail: his 1st video regarding the differences 2nd this (GAR-Championship rules for 2017):
• CTG
  Thanks, it's clear now - something like Pershing's ISA. But wait... is that also a noRH competition? If so, my GAR replay is not valid.
• dreadnaut
  I've cleared the GAR tag from CTG's replays. Seeker, which replay should I add to the GAR scoreboard for you?
• Seeker1982
  the replay I intended to upload as gar-time is already outdated - i managed a new faster time as i tried to break CTG's now disqualified RH-GAR record
• CTG
  Suggestion: please amend the written criteria by adding noRH to the headline over the GAR scoreboard. Currently it shows only "One wheel on or over the track. Follow the yellow line, no shortcuts, no cheap speed-ups!".
• Seeker1982
  New times from me - my 1st RH-Lap below 2:10 and an awesome GAR-time, which is faster then CTG's RH-GAR laps Still up for a GAR-challenge CTG?
• afullo
  CTG, it is implicit in the "gentlemen agreement" that you cannot replay handle, you know nothing about bon ton, maybe because you can't afford an Audemars Piguet for your wrist! (of course, seriously speaking, I agree with you )

Apr 14

• arturbmallmann
  About GAR, CTG, it`s good to have recorded the gameplay. Dosbox has the feature to capture the screen if you need.
• KaoS
  Is there any possiblity that i can drive with the PAD (Like ps3, xbox) without moving the Steer up to speed up. Can i bind it anyway in a button like press a to accelerate and b for break ? Is there a Software over DosBox to do that?
• afullo
  I think so, but I don't know how to do it.
• KaoS
  If there are any guides to inject a pad in DosBox please share . I found some in the Internet with JoystickMapping and something but im a Noob i dont unterstand it XD.
• afullo
  Having DosBox on Linux, I guess that for me it would be possibly even more a challenge...
• Cas
  In DOS, there existed a software interface for the joystick (via BIOS) that could be tricked. The problem is that most games didn't use it and read the joystick or gamepad via hardware ports instead. What I mean is, you don't need a software you can plug inside DOSBox, but one that tweaks the input "before" it gets to DOSBox. I'm sure DOSBox reads the input from Linux or Windows via software and then passes the results to the DOS hardware emulation. So the solution would depend on the OS you're running underneath DOSBox.
• CTG
  "Dosbox has the feature to capture the screen if you need." WHAT?!? REALLY?!?!?!?!?
• CTG
  Kidding, but thanks anyway.
• KaoS
  Finally i found a little Programm for Windows that can Emulate "Binding Keyboards commads" to the Pad im so happy now
• KaoS
  Is that possible, that i can also send a Trk for a Mounthracing? x3
• afullo
  A track for ZCT? There is a topic in the forum for that, but I think you are more than welcome, in the case. Just check which months are still to be assigned, maybe for the end of the year there are some free slots.

Apr 15

• Cas
  If you guys will be designing tracks for racing, remember to consider my editor, Bliss: http://dimioca.com/bliss I have to say it from time to time, so nobody misses it
• KaoS
  How called the Topic in Forum for the Trk?
• afullo
  It is this one: Guest tracks 2018 . Ok Cas
• Duplode
  KaoS: I remember having used a PS1 controller to play Stunts on DOSBox; a Xbox one should work just as fine. I don't think you need a separate joystick-to-keyboard emulator: if I remember correctly, the DOSBox mapper (press Ctrl+F1 in DOSBox to open it) can do just that (i.e. assign a keyboard key to a joystick button/axis).
• KaoS
  Oh okay thx Duplode but.. i dont know it dosent seems thats work by me. Anyways i have that programm and goes superb . Well i want to say i will build a Track for the Dezember this Year. I reg me up in the Forum but i must wait until a Admin set me free.

Apr 16

• dreadnaut
  Time to get on a more appropriate car.
• 

  After 200

  ZCT200 was named "Westwood"¹, but it should be called The Track of Many Surprises:

  • first, it was designed by Kevin Pickell himself, who kindly helped us celebrate this ZakStunts milestone. Thanks go to Duplode for contacting him and bringing back the track on time!
  • second, it was all about clean and fast cornering, no complicated tricks: some would call it a GAR paradise. And indeed Seeker1982 showed us some impressive times, and missed the main competition podium for only 0.30s!
  • and last (but in a way also first) CTG, sneaking in through the side door and taking the top spot on the scoreboard with a public replay.

  Now, some of you might remember CTG being banned from the competition just about three years ago, so I suppose this surprise might be a bit bitter. However, looking at ZCT200 as a moment of celebration for long years on these pages, we decided not to delete his replay, but allow him back on the scoreboard. The forum account is still suspended, and will be for a bit longer.

  New beginnings are a thing, I like to think, so welcome back CTG!

  But also welcome back to FinRok, taking the second place with a strong result on his first race of the season. To Alan Rotoi and Zak, who finally appeared on the scoreboard, and to Bonzai Joe and JTK, who are always lurking on the forums.

  Coming up next

  And that's two hundreds tracks done, it was easy! It only takes a lot of time, and a lot of care... and Zak McKracken :)

  Now, we'll take the rest one track at a time, and we start with ZCT201: No Kidding by Cas, master of the fast and dangerous tricks.

  ---

  1. Westwood is a track near where Pickell grew up, closed in 1990. No relation with the release date of Stunts! ↩︎

Apr 17

• Cas
  Here goes an update

Apr 20

• arturbmallmann
  Duplode, Stunts don`t support 2 different sources of input at the same time, if you assign keyboard keys to a joystick you can`t use the analog axis. If you you digital one then ou can map the left right key to the d-pad.
• arturbmallmann
  if you use*

Apr 23

• Akoss Poo
  Forever Pittsburgh Penguins! Oh, poor CTG and Philadelphia Flyers! :-D
• GTAManRCR
  Is this good for a beginner in the forum?
• GTAManRCR
  I think that's a good time for a Nissan Skyline
• GTAManRCR
  I think that's a good time for a Nissan Skyline
• afullo
  Cas, when you open Bliss for the first time having previously always used the standard editor : - GTAMan15, not bad for a first try, welcome aboard!
• Cas
  Ha, ha! Glad you like it It was a lot of work and still has a few bugs.

Apr 24

• afullo
  That's great, also commercial software has bugs, and sometimes for them it's even better a good marketing campaign, than to correct the actual errors :| For the moment I just found a typo, as "Alipne" instead of "Alpine" in the scenery selection and maybe basing upon the results of this season, I can be inserted for estimating winning times (ok, it's open source and with some effort I would be able to do these things on my own, but maybe it's not the case to risk the creation of a fork just for two minor observations)
• Cas
  Oh, I hadn't noticed the Alipne typo! I'll fix that. I could add you to the famous racers. The thing is that those results were added based on one special race we ran at that time. We could make an update so that other races could participate and all have the same chance. I'll consider how that should be done. I had found other bugs, like when a split later joins to a path that's already forked and then rejoins, the analyser fails. Try to run Track Analysis on No Kidding and you'll se the number of paths is wrong. Another thing is if you go to Track Analysis and then to See Times, then press OK and finally try to start a New Track, old buttons will appear. I can fix that easily, but don't know how to fix the previous one. The analyser is too complex!
• afullo
  Ah, I thought that some sort of analysis had been done on some results of Zak's competition, and then coefficients have been devised to estimate the behaviour of the various racers (I noticed that the times of the players are proportional to a certain constant depending on the track and on the car, e.g. Marco's time is always higher than Duplode's by 0.08%, Finrok's one by 2.83%, and so on). About combinatorial issues, for particularly complicated tracks, maybe it is easier to write, by basing upon their structure, some lower and upper bounds on the number of paths, instead of the exact value. Another typo: "Nissasn Skyline" instead of "Nissan"
• GTAManRCR
  Intel: The Computer Inside
• GTAManRCR
  Update

Apr 25

• GTAManRCR
  Another update
• Alan Rotoi
  Damn you Cas! The track seems so f*** great. I must race
• GTAManRCR
  Yes, i agree Alan Rotoi, but if you wanna be on the first place, then you will need to be extremely strong and fast
• Cas
  It took me some days to make a track I could feel satisfied with. Now I have a couple more ideas I could have included, ha, ha

Apr 26

• afullo
  Cas, I wrote some suggestions about Bliss in the forum: Bliss / Cas-Stunts track editor Some of them were discussed here in the latest few days, but there is also a couple of new observations.

Apr 27

• dreadnaut
  @GTAMan15 - when you mark your replay as 'GAR', you should follow the additional rules that exclude shortcuts and replay handling. I removed the tag from your recent Vette replay, since you drive outside the track.
• Cas
  I've been reading the suggestions for Bliss. I'll be working on them Here I post another lap
• afullo
  Ok, thank you. About not allowing times higher than the maximum admitted by Stunts: I remembered it to be near 25 minutes, as said in the topic, but trying to run a race now with BB 1.1 in DosBox 0.74, resulted in the game getting completely unresponsive when the 10:00 threshold was hit, such that I was even forced to close with the X the whole emulator. Is it a normal behaviour, or it could be that there is something wrong in my configuration? It seemed to me that I was able to play races longer than 10 minutes, but it was many years ago, with MS 1.0 and no emulation.
• afullo
  Another thing: non-internal editors can allow (and it is the case of Bliss) to insert unproper sections of road (along with other objects) on the sloping part of the hills, like a section parallel to the contour lines, or above an angle of a hill. This is possible for most of the elements, usually at the cost of some visual weirdness, but if you try to put the start/finish line not in a flat area, even if its orientation is correct (i.e., a regular section of road would fit for the internal editor), Stunts would not run the track, while the editor states otherwise (i.e., that the game would run it, but some problems with the terrain can occur).
• Cas
  That one is quite interesting, yes. I tried to include some things. For example, often Bliss will tell you if a jump is impossible in OWOOT. Stunts does not detect this.

Apr 28

• afullo
  Nice, could it happen for example when a jump is placed just after a small radius curve, so that it is impossible to have the necessary speed while jumping? I have to try...
• Cas
  Yes, the "straightway before jump is too short" error that Stunts triggers is also emulated by Bliss, although Stunts may sometimes not trigger it. Bliss is a little more strict.
• Duplode
  @afullo: On the time limit, it definitely was ~25 minutes in some version of the game -- have a look at the descriptions of EXTREME, Ultima and Ultima2 in Luke's track collection (http://www.kalpen.de/luke/4dtracks.html). The replay buffer, OTOH, only goes up to 10 minutes IIRC. This issue is worthy of further investigation...
• afullo
  Hmm, it makes sense since while I was trying I accessed accidentally the replay. I have to try to wait 10 minutes without pressing ESC at all, maybe the behaviour could be different. I'll keep you informed.
• Cas
  The replay length limit is 10 minutes. I know it because when Stunts was a new game, I would often make very long tracks and drive that much, ha, ha. Also, I've been analysing Stunts' memory structure before and it has exactly the necessary space to hold 10 minutes of driving. Now, the driving limit, I didn't know it existed, but I can assure you it has to be much longer. About the number displayed by Bliss, I found it, it's exactly what you calculated and it was a default maximum I had set. I fixed Bliss so it won't display famous racers estimations if there's no complete path

Apr 29

• afullo
  Good about estimates Now that I'm focusing more on the limit question, I think to remember once, when I was a kid, that trying to access the replay after more than 10 minutes, resulted in only the latest ten of them displayed. But, unfortunately, with my current settings, both the game and DosBox crash after 10', even if I don't access the replay at all.
• Cas
  I remember well what happened. I can tell you. You start driving and when you get to 10 minutes, the game is paused and a message comes up saying that you've exceeded 10 minutes and therefore, your replay will be truncated. You're allowed to unpause and continue. If you save the replay after this, my guess is only the "first" ten minutes will be saved to the file. If you somehow construct a RPL file longer than ten minutes, Stunts will crash when loading it because it will overwrite vital data with the last part of the replay file.
• afullo
  It could be possible, maybe I don't remember precisely. So it is likely my config has a trouble while that message should occur, I have to try with a different version of the game.
• GTAManRCR
  No penault time xD
• Cas
  Strange... I'm unable to reproduce the early finish bug even though I place a very short alternative path around the start/finish line. Maybe it doesn't work with BB 1.1??
• GTAManRCR
  Broderbund 1.1 has a lot of bug fixes, so try it with Broderbund 1.0, or Mindscape 1.1 (Mindscape 1.1 is 4D Sports Driving), because these two versions has "lots" of bugs, so maybe you can produce it Do you try it on your ZCT201 track, or another track created by other players, or default tracks?
• GTAManRCR
  Cas, can you add please that in-game editor feature into yours, that when i select a piece of the huge grid, then it shows lighter, than the others?

Apr 30

• Cas
  Well, if the bug is not present in BB1.1, then I shouldn't issue a warning in Bliss, because the Stunts version we officially support in the community is BB1.1. In Bliss, you can pick up objects from the track map by pressing the mouse middle button or the letter P. When you do, the current track element will be shown on the left panel. You mean like the current track object blinking on top of the track map? Uhm... could be done, but you already see the square cursor around the pointer telling you where the object is going to land.

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