So what is FUEL: REFUELED?
The mod itself is based on being an improvement/enhancement mod that for starters fixes a number of bugs in the game and secondly brings various new features to the table. It has been in development since the fall of 2009 and was first publicly released (Version 10) in Spring 2010. V14.4, the latest downloadable version was released originally in June 2010.
What new features?
A lot of requests and suggestions for the game are about expanding on concepts and features already in the game. Such as... why are there no multi-vehicle type races? Why are there no tornado's in offline free-ride? Why is the hovercraft only used in one race? And so on...
Multi-vehicle type races
In the CGI trailer for the game it shows various a whole mix of vehicles types all racing against each other and the elements. Races such as this never made it into the game.
In FUEL: REFUELED I've been working to make vehicles selection more fun and less restricting, obviously while still retaining some balance. To achieve this I came up with five vehicle groups:
- Bikes & Quads
Your light vehicles, on any number of wheels - essentially anything thats light and nimble and not a car or truck. - Buggy's, Muscle-Cars & SUV's
Your average vehicles, such as cars, buggies and SUV's - anything that isn't a lightweight such as a bike or heavy like a truck. - Trucks
The heavies - the sort of massive vehicles that just power over any obstructions and don't stop for anything. These are stuff like Monster trucks and any other type of large truck style vehicle. - Hydro
The Trident Hovercraft... that can obviously cross land and water. - Dragster
The Damocles Dragster... that can obviously out-run any other vehicle on land.
These classes are based on the what makes the game balanced, putting bikes up against trucks didn't work well in my early tests... especially for the bikes that often just got flattened lol
Tornado's in Free Ride
I understand obviously why online would be a problem - but why not allow tornado's to appear offline?! To achieve this I had to create an entire game concept I call "Free Ride Activities", which are essentially mini-games that you can activate in the game-world at various points such as a vista-point or helipad. From this I was able to create "Free Ride Extreme" which is a mini-game that spawns a tornado in the zone.
Other stuff I've developed include true chopper chases that don't follow a traditional race route, literally chasing the helicopter back to a nearby helipad.
What am I currently working on?
New Challenges
Currently I'm in the process of completing V15 of the mod - which goes beyond previous versions and actually replaces some of the lesser content of the game.
A example of this was the catch-destruction and chopper chase challenges, which I'd rendered obsolete by my Free Ride activities feature - instead they will be replaced by 38 new challenges including ones using the dragster and hovercraft.
New UI
One of the most noticeable changes when you start up the game is the removal of the old menu - In some ways I thought it was too obstructing and the various text strings and buttons that didn't follow the same use of terms, also made it confusing for some. Below are few mid-development screenshots that give an approx. idea as to what the menu will look like.
I should also add that I'm currently looking into a way for users to customize their menu to their liking, likely by me suppling a set of themes that can be customized.
When will the next version be out?
Hopefully later this month if all testing goes to plan, there are many more new features and changes I haven't mentioned so check out the change notes when I put them up and also why not take a look at www.tfroc.net for a discussion on some of the various features.
nice! looking forward to it. :)
i played the game for about 50% or less when it was released. it does look great but the car handling was sooooo bad that it was only frustrating and no fun at all.
now that i know about this mod, and that you have taken care of this i am thinking about re-installing the game, with this mod so i can play it again, and now till the end.
it always amazed me why they released the game like that, because as you can clearly see in one of you're video's is the car handling very bad, and is it really fixed with this mod.
great work!!!
leon
Handling was one of the major gripes about the game when it was released, and on some of the vehicles it was either bland (i.e. a SUV would feel like a buggy) or it would be plain awful and you'd spend all the time just sliding all-over the place.
I'm slowly working through each vehicle... but with 76 vehicles in the game it takes time, for V15 I have reworked the more popular vehicles and some of the ones that really needed fixing to help balance the classes. I do hope to have all vehicles reworked though at some-point.
Check out this video I just posted - this is another vehicle I reworked, The Warrior SUV.
Moddb.com < Video link
Thank you for your great work! FUEL is one of my favourite games, and I've always dreamed for good mods or at least patches for it, but haven't seen anything like that yet )
Definitely reinstalling it now :P
And a few questions:
- Could you please provide a list of vehicles with edited balance?
- Is it possible to edit sounds (loads of sfx from the game are horrible), or it's inaccessible for now?
- Same question about textures (they're nice, but there are some bugs like total difference of distant/close rock textures; some textures just doesn't fit well, some deserve a lot better normalmaps etc.)*
* on the note - I'm asking that because I'm interested in helping with that if the editing is possible.
For the upcoming release I intend to rebalance all the SUV's and Trucks, and the Damocles (Only got a few more changes to do left). I will look into other classes in a future release. I'll be providing a full list of all balance changes in about a weeks time shortly before release.
Sounds and Texture changes come under accessing the .dpc achieves. The achieves themselves have been extracted via a plugin for MultiEx Commander, however I've never looked into them extensively. I can't imagine it any more difficult that accessing any other games archives. Upon extraction your presented with .bin files, which will obviously need opening / extracting somehow.
Check out:
Article: Moddb.com
DPC Plugin for MultiEx Commander: Moddb.com
Its an area thats not really been looked at extensively, I've always focused on the programming side of things rather than the assets.
Thank you for the answer :)
Unfortunately I wasn't able to get this plugin working. It requires registered MultiEx version?
Yes it requires a registered copy of MultiEx to work.
Multiex.xentax.com