Here follows a detailed breakdown / technical design of the expected requirements that we will need in order to implement the career, track training, and driving school design. Most of this is based on our experience from our previous titles. This does not detail the parts that are already in place (defining location, weather, opponent count, etc). This is intended to focus on the missing pieces. I've discussed parts of this in meetings with Anders and Stuart. The aim is to use this as a place to discuss and plan in detail who, how, and when we implement these features.
Career Contracts
The player receives contract offers as he progresses through the career mode. When the player signs a new contract, he is required to fulfill a number of objectives in order to successfully complete the contract. All the contract details are displayed in the GUI.
Firstly, we'll need to define all the possible contracts that a player can be offered. Using Formula A as an example, let's say we define the following three contracts:
Bobcat Racing - F1 Entry Level contract
Cougar wheels - F1 mid level contract
Tigernuts - F1 top level contract
Then for each of these, we'll need to define some data and the contract objectives.
Something like:
Name "Bobcat Racing"
Class "Formula A"
Rating 3 // with 1 being top-tier contract
Race finishes 10
Accolade score 100 // points earned for completing contract
Podium finishes 5
1st place finishes 0
Season points 20
Season finish position 15
Sales Pitch "Good day Mr Jones, we have been keeping an eye on you..."
Name "Tigernuts"
Class "Formula A"
Rating 1 // with 1 being top-tier contract
Race finishes 15
Accolade score 200 // points earned for completing contract
Podium finishes 10
1st place finishes 5
Season points 100
Season finish position 3
Sales Pitch "Mr Jones, it's time for you to team up with the best..."
We then define a group of these for each motorsport class, with a few per rating level so that the player doesn't always get the same contract proposal when for example entering Formula A.
Regarding per-difficulty contract objectives - I don't think we actually need to have this, seeing that the difficulty in reaching the objectives is automatically adjusted due to the opponents being easier (or harder) to beat.
Invitational Events
Event Objectives
During the off days from a player's active core championship, the player will receive invitations to take part in once-off races such as Hotlaps, Test Drives, Exhibitions, etc. To define these events we could use the current Championship.typ frame, and define the event as a single-stage championship. These events have event-specific objectives which will need defining. I suggest these initial core objectives so far:
Target lap time
Target event time
% damage allowed
finish position
LeadForXLaps
BeatDriverX
collision count (useful for eg. Top Gear style traffic cone exhibitions)
Some events will have a combination of these that has to be met in order to beat the event. For example, an event may challenge the player to "keep it clean" (no damage or collision) and finish 3rd or better.
Regarding per-difficulty objectives - We'll need that for most of these. The only one from the current list that shouldn't need explicit difficulty adjustment would be BeatDriverX, as the AI difficulty adjustment will automatically take care of balancing the challenge.
Event Conditions
We need a way to monitor for "event interrupts". That is, trigger an action based on a certain condition being met during in-game time. This is the stuff that we used to define in the _conditions.xml file in the old scripting system. Examples would be:
IF %damage > 10
THEN
{ AIControl=True; Camera=Trackside; Playsound "TooMuchDamage" }
IF RaceFinished=TRUE & PlayerFinishPosition > 3
THEN
{ Camera=Cinematic; Playsound "NotOnPodium" }
IF ZoneEntered "ZoneBeforeEauRouge"
THEN
{ Playsound "EauRougeGuide" }
etc.
This is an oversimplification to demonstrate the basics of what's required. Triggered events would have further control options, for example Playsound would have a delay and volume option, Camera would have a target option, and so forth. Stuart did most of the script system work for the _conditions.xml in our previous titles, so would be most knowledgeable on this.
Track Training
This refers to the section that we had as part of the driving school in GTR2. We had each track in the game split up into sections, and the player could then practice a specific section of the track. Say for example that the player had a hard time with "Eau Rouge" at Spa. Instead of having to drive the whole lap every time just to practice that section, the player could simply select that section from the Spa Track Training, and practice it until mastered.
The idea for pCars is that Ben or Nic would have a voice over recorded for each of these track sections. When the player selects the specific section to practice, the voice over would then brief the player on this section, explain how to best attack it, etc. The player can opt to watch a demonstration run. The player can also opt to have the demonstration run's ghost on the track while the player himself practices the section. The ghost's raceline (showing where the instructor accelerated, braked, and coasted) is then shown on the track so that the player can use this as a training guide as well.
Anders wrote the toolset that we used back in GTR2 to record these track training sessions. A brief summary of how I used to record these training sessions: I would load the track and car of choice. I would then drive to the part of the track where I wanted the training demonstration to start, and (while driving at the proper speed) press a key that would store all the info relevant to that point (car speed, direction, etc). This is the same spot then where the player would spawn on the track, so I had to make sure that it was on a part of the track where the player could have a 2-3 second under AI control, and then have control handed to the player on a straight part of the track. I would then proceed to drive through the target section of the track and press another key to mark the end of the section. Afterwords I would manually edit the recorded file to finetune start, end, AI control timing, etc. The system would automatically spawn a transparent finish marker on the track where the section ends, as a visual marker for the player to know where exactly the section stops.
In summary then, the functions that we need (high level view) to get this going:
Initialize recording
Record the driver's raceline, acceleration, braking, coasting.
Stop recording
Edit recording to finetune start, stop, Control-to-player timer, etc
Then in the GUI, we'd have Track Training, with a list of all the tracks, and when you select a track you see a list of the sections available for training/practice. Once the section loads, you can select from: View demonstration, Train with instructor (see the instructor's ghost and raceline), Take Challenge (try to beat specific times to earn a bronze, silver, or gold).
The voice overs for the different parts of the section (eg "Eau Rouge, take this fast..") can be done by placing zones in the viewer tool, and then setting a ZoneEvent (see Event Conditions higher up) to trigger the appropriate VO.
Driving School
This is where the player undergoes training on driving technique. Very much like we had in GTR2, where the player is first given the theory (in GTR2 it was all text, but here we can do VO with Ben and Nic), and then tries to apply the technique on track. This would cover the basic theory of driving technique, how to accelerate, brake, and so forth. The tech that we would need for this would be very much the same as for Track Training. What we'd need on top of that will depend on the individual driving school 'classes'. We should design a few in detail (probably with Ben and Nic's input) and then identify the required tech additions based on these detailed designs.
Championships
The current Championship.inc file structure does not allow us to define the championship formats as they will need to be for the various motorsport series in career. Stuart and I had another brainstorm session around this area. Below is a breakdown of what we've determined so far that needs implementing.
Example Case
Location: Donington National
Date: 04+05 May 2013
Day 1
Session 1: Practice
Duration 60 mins
Weather Clear
Time 10:00
Session 2: Qualify
Duration 20 mins
Weather Cloudy
Time 13:00
Day 2
Session 3: Race1
Duration 8 laps
Weather Cloudy
Time 14:00
Session 4: Race2
Duration 8 laps
Weather Rainy
Time 14:00
We need
The ability to configure per-session info for: date, time, weather, duration.
Split weather condition definitions into a separate Weather.inc file that will contain all the common weather conditions, so we don't need to define these every time for every session in each championship.
Definition files for each of the different session types (practice, Quali, race, etc)to define how the different sessions work, similar to how the ChampionshipScoring.hrdf defines the various points structures for the different series. For example, the race mode definition file will define how a specific series' grid placement works, if it's a rolling or standing start, are pitstops allowed, etc.
A Round's sessions should all be displayed on the calendar. In the example above, Saturday 04 May will show "10AM: Practice", "2pm: Qualify". When a player is taking part in this particular championship and moves forward on the calendar to the next event (round) in this championship, the player will land on Session 1: Practice. After completing this session, it would make sense to then automatically progress to Qualify, Race1, Race2 to complete the Event/Round without returning to the calendar in between each session. However, the player should be able to 'quit' the game between any of the sessions, and then when playing the game again, be able to continue with the next session in that Event/Round via the calendar.
![[mad]](/images/smilies/nuevos/miedo.gif "loco")
![[oki]](/images/smilies/net_thumbsup.gif "Ok!")
![[360º]](/images/smilies/nuevos/vueltas.gif "como la niña del exorcista")
![[angelito]](/images/smilies/nuevos/angelito.gif "angelito")
![[carcajad]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani2.gif "carcajada")
