XAR Mod file - XAR Mod for Xtreme Air Racing

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///XAR Mod Readme.txt///
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Table of Contents:

I. Important Notes

II. Installing the Mod

III. New Unlimited Airplanes

IV. New Track Selection

V. New Engine Selection

VI. The Formula 1 Class

VII. Uninstalling the Mod

VIII. Final Thoughts

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///Important Notes///
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Nothing in this mod may be sold or used for commercial purposes in agreement
with the "End User License Agreement" attached to Xtreme Air Racing.

I do not claim personal ownership over anything or any aspect of this mod.

This mod is freeware to be used in conjunction with a legally purchased copy
of Xtreme Air Racing.

These files should not cause any problems with your computer, but I accept no
responsibility if you think they do.

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///Installing the Mod///
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After Unzipping the XAR Mod file, simply click on the "XAR Mod Installer.exe" program and follow the instructions to install the mod.

If for some reason you did not originally install Xtreme Air Racing in the default
directory (C:\XtremeAir) you will need to input the correct directory when prompted
by the installer program.

*Note: This mod works best if when you originally installed Xtreme Air Racing
you set the cache size to be much larger than the default size of 60 MB.
Personally I have mine set at 2048 MB (a bit overkill) to ensure that
some of the larger textures, such as the new Reno ground texture, can
load without issue.

I did find that on an older machine with a smaller cache size for the
game, that the Reno ground texture did not load. If this is the case for
you and you do not want to uninstall and reinstall everything, you can
simply delete the Rtest2.rgb file from the game directory to revert back
to the original Reno ground texture.

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///New Unlimited Airplanes///
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Almost all of the unlimited airplanes added to the game are simply re-textured
versions of aircraft which were already included in the game. As such many of
the new planes do not look "perfect" (the Spirit of Texas textures for example
are rather distorted looking at points and the entire tail is incorrect).

Most of the new airplanes added to the game will appear as competitors in Bronze
and Silver races and are P-51 Mustangs.

Three new aircraft (Tsunami, Bardahl II and the F-82 Twin Mustang) already
actually had flight models in the game files. They were simply missing some INI
files. I added these INI files for them and made a few changes to Bardahl II,
otherwise these models appear as I found them in the Gameres.8on file.

Here is a list of the aircraft added to the game thus far ...
"Miss Suzy" Q P-51 Mustang
"Luscious Lisa" P-51 Mustang
"Lady Joe" P-51 Mustang
"Habu" P-51 Mustang
"Bardahl Special" P-51 Mustang
"Crusader" P-51 Mustang
"Merlin's Magic" P-51 Mustang
"Baby Gorilla" Hawker Sea Fury
"Samurai Mustang" P-51 Mustang
"The Galloping Ghost" P-51 Mustang
"The Penhall Mustang" P-51 Mustang
"Spirit of Texas" Hawker Sea Fury

Here is a list of the aircraft already in the game which I modified in some way ...
"Pat's Mustang" P-51 Mustang (completely new look)
"Section Eight" P-51 Mustang (changed logo)
"Race 49" Hawker Sea Fury (changed model for Spirit of Texas addition)
"Big Red" Hawker Sea Fury (changed race number to 88)
"Tsunami" Tsunami (added to aircraft roster)
"Double Trouble" F-82 Twin Mustang (added to aircraft roster)
"Bardahl II" P-51 Mustang (changed race number and cockpit)

I hope to add more planes to the game in the future and release updates to the mod
if and as time and life allow. However due to the age of the game and the tools
which were probably used to make the game in the first place, it is not an easy
game to mod. Most of changes that I have made have been done with a hex editor.

I can open many of the .flt files in a few different model editors out there, however
the game doesn't usually like the exported versions of those .flt files after I have
modded them. As such if I am limited to just replacing textures on a few of the
models that already exist in the game which can be ripped effectively out of the
Gameres.8on file, the extent to which new aircraft can be added to the game is quite
limited.

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///New Track Selection///
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The Mod changes the way track and difficulty selection operate.

Instead of simply choosing a course (ie "Reno Championship Course), you know select
the desired course along with the desired strength of the racing field. For example,
you may desire to race against a more stock "Bronze" field on the "Reno Endurance
Course".So you would first select the location (Reno) and then click through the
track options until you came to the track titled "Reno Endurance: Bronze".

There are basically 3 types of tracks and 6 types of potential field competition.

The types of tracks are basically unchanged from what was in the game originally,
Championship courses, Endurance courses, and Distance Rally (Super Long) courses.

A Championship course will have 8 competitors, an Endurance course will have 10,
and a Distance Rally course should have 16 airplanes in the race.

Note: On the "Gameplay" setup menu page you can change the number of max planes in
a race. For the mod this has been set to 16. However if you click to change that
number in any way, it revert back to a max of 8 planes and there is no way to change
it in the game. You will have to go into the default file of the game, find the
file called "Setup.ini" and manually change the max number of airplanes back to 16.

The field competition is broken into 6 categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum,
and Random. They are just as their names would suggest, with the Platinum field
always being the same top 7-10 planes in the game. Note that a Distance Rally will
always have a random field made up of any 16 unlimited planes in the game.

In addition to changing the field of potential opponents, you may also change the
aggressiveness in which that field will race. The difficulty options are Easy, Normal,
Hard, and Xtreme. They are just as they sound, a field of planes set to Easy
difficulty will fly a slower and wider line, while a field of planes set to Xtreme
will fly a tighter more aggressive line and will receive noticeable speed and
engine health bonuses.

This allows greater customization in terms of the conditions of a single race.
Realize though, that this means that if you choose to fly the "Rare Bear" against
a Bronze field on Easy, you will blow the field away and it won't even be remotely
close. Likewise if you choose a stock mustang with a stock engine and race against a
Platinum field, even on Easy, you will be left in the dust. So when selecting a race,
keep in mind that the race will be as easy or as hard as YOU choose to make it.

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///New Engine Selection///
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Previously in Xtreme Air Racing you could choose from a series of different
highly modified engines for each aircraft. You could easily interchange a Merlin-9
for a Griffon 57 on any P-51 Mustang without any concern for anything other than
maybe a slight weight difference.

Now you only have one type of engine available for each aircraft, meaning you can
no longer choose to put a Griffon 57 in any P-51 Mustang. However you will have at
least two choices in regards to how modified the engine is for racing. This does
limit the impact that Engine Selection has on the game as stock aircraft now only
have mostly stock engines to choose from and more modified aircraft have only more
modified engines to choose from.

Initially I had an option to allow for planes to select any type of modified engine
all the way from Stock to Xtremely modified. However the AI always seemed to choose
the Stock motors so I had to limit the engine options.

The engine modification choices aren't exactly radical, basically each level increases
the potential speed of the airplane. Stock, Tweaked, and Tuned engines have a lesser
reliability rating than various modified engines. In general the greater the speeds
the engine is capable of, the less time you can spend at top speeds before the engine
heath is reduced to 0.

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///The Formula 1 Class///
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The Formula 1 class was not unlocked within the game but most of the files needed for
the class were included. I have simply unlocked the class with a few small tweaks and
added the sounds for the class. All of the airplanes in the class were made by Victory
Simulations and I believe are the same planes included in the Xtreme Air Racing 2
release.

I do not fly the Formula 1's often and have not really worked to improve their accuracy
or realism. As such do not expect much from this class at present. I hope to work on
them more and see what I can modify to make racing Formula 1's in the game a unique and
fun experience, but I'm not sure how much I can change.

One of the issues I have encountered is that all of the flight dynamics (specifically drag)
are based on the P-51. Even the drag coefficients for the other unlimited planes are
calculated as a variable of the P-51. I haven't yet figured out how to change this.

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///Uninstalling the Mod///
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To uninstall the Mod there should be a link to an "Uninstall" program in the program file
directory in your start menu. If not, you can find the uninstall program in the game's
directory.

However, I do believe that if you uninstall the Mod, it may also delete some necessary files
for Xtreme Air Racing to work and you will have to reinstall the game to continue playing
it in it's original unmodded form.

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///Final Thoughts///
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I really have put this mod together for my own amusement as I realize this is an older game
with probably very few people who still fly it regularly. But since your reading this, I
guess I may not be the only one, so I hope that you enjoy flying around the pylons!

I also highly highly encourage you (especially if you have never been before!) to attend
the Reno Air Races in Reno, Nevada this September. It's one of the most special weeks of
the year for me every time I go and I know it will be an experience that you will not soon
forget!

"Fly Low, Fly Fast, Turn Left ..."

Blessings,

Chris

Questions? Email me at chris.XARMod@outlook.com or post on the XAR Moddb page.