Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I wanted to create a custom grid of 20 or so AI GT3 cars, each with their own custom name and driver stats, but I'm fine with sticking to the existing liveries for now. With just the in-game opponent filter classes, I will have a random grid every time, and the skill distribution is not as wide as I'd like, so this is something I wish to do quite often for many of the cars in the game. Fortunately, there are tools in-game to help me do this... to a point. Through the car customization menu, we can create a new folder for the skin and then make a new menu entry with a new driver name and all. This also creates an .rcd file in the UserData folder for that car, so we can assign AI parameters for that driver, like so: Spoiler: 0.rcd Code: //[[gMa1.002f (c)2016 ]] [[ ]] GT3 { Darren Turner { Team = Aston Martin Racing Component = AstonMartin_Vantage_GT3_2019 Skin = alt.mas VehFile = AMV_GT3_01FBE87734.VEH Description = #1 Turner Number = 1 Aggression = 100 Speed = 100 QualifySpeed = 100 WetSpeed = 100 StartSkill = 0 Crash = 11.98 CompletedLaps = 90.63 MinRacingSkill = 100 Composure = 100 } } StartSkill being 0 there is an easy way to visually tell that these parameters are working when our new driver is on the grid. That's good. We can also put our other Aston drivers inside this same file, and it should work great. But this still doesn't solve the main problem: In the opponent filter, we only added another entry to "GT3" and "GT3 Aston Martin", so we can't load these guys separately from the premade drivers. Fortunately, we can edit the .veh file's Category (where it is in the car select menu) and Classes (under which opponent filter names it is under) parameters from this same RCD file, like so: Spoiler: CGT3.rcd Code: //[[gMa1.002f (c)2016 ]] [[ ]] GT3 { Darren Turner { Team = Aston Martin Racing Component = AstonMartin_Vantage_GT3_2019 Skin = alt.mas VehFile = AMV_GT3_01FBE87734.VEH Description = #1 Turner Number = 1 Category=CGT3, Aston Martin Classes=CGT3 Aggression = 100 Speed = 100 QualifySpeed = 100 WetSpeed = 100 StartSkill = 0 Crash = 11.98 CompletedLaps = 90.63 MinRacingSkill = 100 Composure = 100 } } We now have "CGT3" in the opponent filter that only contains the one Aston Martin, and when we try to race against it, we... immediately see it's no longer respecting the AI stats, because it's taking the start at a random skill level, instead of 0. Presumably this is because - from prior experience with RCD files - that the name at the top of the file needs to be the same as the classes the cars are actually set to. Changing it to CGT3 makes our new driver disappear completely, though. And there's the question: Is there a workaround to this that doesn't add a lot of extra hassle? For the sake of completeness, below are the two workarounds that do add quite a bit of hassle, but do work. Spoiler: Workaround A - the clicky way Don't try setting a new class for the drivers, but instead set AI driver count to 0 and add all the desired drivers manually during the practice session. Simple, and might not seem like a big deal to do, but with up to 30 cars to do it with, it adds up. How would you feel if the session took a minute or two longer to load? Spoiler: Workaround B - the patchy way Open the teams.mas file for the car with the MAS file utility, and extract the VEH files associated with each livery you want to use. From those, the name, category and classes can be changed. You can also create an RCD file to go along with them, having the custom classname at the top line like it should. Then you have to package these files as a new .MAS file, and install it as an update to the car. The full process I won't go through here. For GT3, that's a custom update for what, 6 or 7 cars? And if you want to make a change to any of them, or if S397 decides to push an update for any of them, you have to uninstall your patch from the package manager and recompile it. The upside is that in the between times this works great, but if you're like me who would like to do custom grids for many of the available series, you'll quickly find that you're spending more time working on rF2 than actually enjoying rF2.
