Junkman Career!
Ain't no need for cash, when you have a bunch of hotheads willing to put their rides on the line!
Salvage parts from cars you've won for upgrades and replacements! This is no suggestion, but the only way, in this brutally unique alt. career mode all about racing for pinks!
In Junkman mode, any engine fits any car, for you're gonna need all the help you can get! :)
Career Mutators
Spice up your runs with these permanent modifiers, selectable during the all-new Career Setup, available for both Junkman and Classic modes!
NITRO & TURBO
- Race against upgraded competition, with nitrous, more powerful engines, and better suspension!
RANDOPP
- Randomize opponent cars & Prestige - no run will ever be the same!
PRONAV
- Race without Navigator! Plan your route during Race Setup, then drive it without taking your eyes off the road!
- Use classic navigation techniques to get around, with no toys holding your hand!
- Enjoy the thrill of not knowing where the opponent is!
- No Prestige gain if you choose the finish line.
A fresh Street Legal experience is a couple megabytes away! Have fun! :)
What else is new?
Great improvements have been made to engine damage & performance simulation, with exhaust headers now having performance effect, cylinder heads being freely swappable, with all the expected consequences of messing with compression, transmissions now take proper damage, with possibility of lost gears, and engines now have realistic weight, to make for much more interesting swaps!
More wheel options with good fitment are now available!
New tasks & challenges of both the silly and the brutal variety have been added in the form of 20 new Steam Achievements, for 36 total!
Of course, included is the usual assortment of new quality-of-life improvements and keyboard shortcuts no one will ever use! :D
We've also improved performance, loading times, stability, opponent AI, police, and much more!
Read on for details!
List of changes
Gameplay
- Introducing Career Mutators & Junkman Career; Discover further details in-game! :)
- Classic Career endgame: Max race prizes will increase every two consecutive races won without returning to garage, and reset once you do; Hold out as long as you can! Win 10 races for doubled prizes!
- Gas stations in Valo City can now be used to refill N2O.
- Demo version: Removed purchase restriction from Zed, Teg, Remo and Ninja.
Racer AI
- Racers won't randomly stall anymore.
- No more bad attempts to launch in 2nd gear.
- Greatly reduced fear of jumps.
- Tighter lines.
- More aggressive throttle & N2O usage.
- Less early braking with higher-end cars.
Police
- Restored elements of the old SL1 police spawn logic - the cop often appearing near Garage 4 is back!
- Police patrol level can now be adjusted under Game Options.
- Police patrol density is no longer tied to general traffic density.
- Some police cars spawn by the old SL1 logic, some spawn generally anywhere in the city, while some start out their patrol near police stations.
- On-screen police messages will now change alongside the fine increasing for not stopping, like they did in the original game.
- Police messages won't immediately override race completion text.
Engines
- Either supercharger can now be installed on the smaller I4 blocks; The restriction was intended to help you choose the better-performing charger, but in reality, just caused confusion on how to assemble the engine.
- Instead of being purely decorative, exhaust headers are now required for maximum engine performance.
- I4 dual exhaust header now slightly increases power.
- Supercharged I4 engines may now come with the dual exhaust header.
- V10 engines now require ram air intakes to achieve max performance - these aren't purely decorative anymore either!
- Performance effect of exhaust headers and the updated V10 intakes will start to reduce if they're damaged - take care of them! :)
- Re-tuned the V10 engine air/fuel delivery parameters - same peak torque as before, but more power at high RPM, and a torque curve much more closely matching that seen in the original game.
- Re-tuned I4 and V6 engines to much more closely match the performance seen in the original game, too: More high-end power and increased boost for I4; Greatly increased N/A power through the entire range, but reduced boost for V6.
- Cylinder heads are now universal! Rather than being restricted to installing the proper heads for each block, you're now free to experiment! Increase longevity, pick up a couple horsepower, or blow your engine with too much compression! :)
- Engine performance is now only fully recalculated whenever any parameter changes by more than 1% - this means zero lag during non-engine car assembly!
- Reduced power curve resolution to a less unnecessarily high level, closer to that seen in the original game. This almost halves the duration of some stutters experienced during gameplay, with practically zero compromise in power delivery accuracy.
- Cam & supercharger belts will slip at 0% condition.
- Starters can now fail completely from damage, rather than only losing up to 20% power.
- No more false warning light for transmission! Wear is now applied properly!
- Damaging the transmission can now lead to loss of gears.
- Fixed clutch only being required for I4 engines.
- Fixed cars with no drive not allowing the engine to rev freely when in gear.
- Engine position can now change alongside chassis deformation, just like in the original game.
- Increased impact resistance of non-V8 blocks to 225% - this is to keep your car limping along a little longer, and will encourage rebuilding after a serious crash, rather than loading a save.
- Reduced impact resistance of cylinder heads.
- Doubled operational longevity of V8 superchargers.
- More-appropriate 6-speed transmission defaults for high-end I4 engines.
- V6 wet nitrous injector no longer overrides the performance attributes of the port injector, if both types are installed on the same engine.
- Engines now all have realistic weights, rather than all weighing just over 100kg; Car weight amounts & distribution have been adjusted accordingly, based on the heaviest engine normally available for said car; For example, weight of a V6 Codrac remains the same as before, but it becomes lighter if you install an Inline 4, while it becomes heavier than before if you install a V8 or V10 via Junkman Career or cheats. The weight & balance change means engine swaps will have a major effect on handling! Build your suspension accordingly! :)
Wheels
- Fixed the narrower 19" wheels using swapped meshes.
- Added Spider wheels in 19", 20", and 21" sizes - good fitment is now possible at bigger sizes for Codrac, ST9 and Yotta! Due to the high ET of this style, wider wheels will now fit more cars nicely!
- The new wheels are available in the Catalog, and Shops 2-3-4 for 19-20-21"!
- Spider is now the most prevalent 19" wheel style for Codrac and ST9. Low-end Yotta has some chance to come with 19" Spider wheels instead of Rotor. 17" Spider can now appear on Codrac, too!
- Coyot and Ninja will no longer come with Spider style wheels when used by racers or at the dealer, now replaced by Speed 6 and Sparkler respectively - this is to avoid making the Spider style too prevalent through the game. It also does not fit well on these cars.
- Slightly narrower front track for Yotta.
Cars/parts
- Front seats can now be freely swapped between cars.
- Fixed adjusted seats losing their new position after loading a save, until entering first person mode.
- Supercharged Stallion may now come with a cut hood rather than no hood at the dealer.
- Fixed Coyot underside paint spots.
- Collision mesh patch to reduce Coyot chassis scraping the ground upon heavy braking with weak suspension.
- Lights & grills will now break from impacts more easily.
- Reduced visual deformation of mirrors & sideskirts.
- High-end Remo may now come with the trunk spoiler.
- Patched oversized Teg rear end collision mesh.
- Slightly higher chase cam for Sunset.
- Coyot and Sunset now come with a final drive modifier, to make these AWD cars a little more lively thanks to shorter gearing!
- Simulated limited-slip differentials for all Category 4 cars.
- N2O bottles are no longer weightless.
- Fixed a semi-recent regression causing a game crash upon loading some imported SL2 cars (0x5D error).
- For modders: Added support for scriptable part interactions upon first person right-click or garage shift-click - action can take place instantly, or an SL2-style tuning menu can be constructed. Example use cases: Windable windows, adjustable wing position, performance part adjustment, etc...
Steam Achievements
- 20 new achievements have been added! Master driving without brakes, roll your car, and more! :D
- "Respect the Machine" achievement can no longer be obtained with damage level LOW (unless EXTREME WEAR MODE is enabled).
- "Trade Ya!" and "Spice of Life" achievements will only be awarded in Classic career.
- Note: Some actions were not tracked before this update, so few of the new achievements will not be awarded for older careers.
- Reminder: The Mar.14.2024 update fixed achievements not working for some players!
Loading
- Greatly increased resource cache persistence - increased memory usage, but greatly reduced need for loading! Maps you've previously visited during the session will load much faster, completely eliminating the need for some loading screens, including the ones upon race start!
- Other improvements for section loading speed & stability.
- More-precise timing for hiding of loading screens.
- Fixed loading screens sometimes being hidden long before everything has loaded. If you like watching stuff load in, you can always enable the 'AGGRESSIVE HIDE' loading screen option under Advanced Options, or disable them entirely there :)
New Navigator modes
- Always Show - same as before.
- City Only - Test Track is easy to learn, you can disable the Nav there, for a cleaner look.
- City-Auto - Only show the Nav after asking a pedestrian for directions, and during races. Besides keeping the screen cleaner, this mode encourages learning the map as a 3D space, rather than mindlessly relying on the Nav.
- Pedestrian Directions Only - Same as above, but hardcore, with no Nav during races! Same idea as the PRONAV Mutator described at top of the post, but available anytime, and without the Prestige penalty.
First person mode
- More generous car exit click area when stopped/very slow.
- Updated the car exit logic, to always put you on the clicked side of the car, regardless of which seat you're clicking from.
- Moved default Furrano first person camera position slightly forward, to avoid headrest-based wallhacks.
- Fixed in-car gauge needles not disappearing after leaving first person mode while driving.
- Fixed audio positioning sometimes getting messed up after first person driving.
- Fixed parts' raw flap value being shown immediately after switching to first person mode, rather than "Open" "Close" etc... text.
- Patched F2 sometimes not returning you to driving chase cam.
Garage
- You can now hold Shift upon installing a part to snap the cursor to the previous inventory panel; Same idea as spamming clicks to assemble parts in buy order, but in reverse! Auto-scrolls, too!
- Hold Shift upon confirming part repair to temporarily invert the 'Auto-install repaired parts' advanced option; With the option disabled, it WILL auto-install, with the option enabled, it WON'T auto-install, if you hold Shift.
- Easier-to-read ASSEMBLY ERROR dialog.
- Added a clickable Explode button - open doors one-handed!
- Fixed a case of F2 not taking you to Valo in first person mode.
- Moved the first person Esc "menu" to the same side as the regular one.
- Better auto-hide for first person Esc interface; Shorter timeout, hides after visiting Main Menu, Catalog, etc...
- Less-disorienting animation for the double-RMB 'quick-flip camera' function.
- Fixed cursor sometimes getting stuck in 'rotate' mode.
- Identical decals now auto-stack, rather than spamming stacks of 5. Note: Will not work with decals acquired before this update!
Interface
- Optimized part display panels - almost eliminated lag from car disassembly, and changing of inventory & Catalog pages.
- Further Catalog display & page change optimizations - scroll through lightning-fast!
- Added a hint to Shift-click to insta-buy Catalog items, skipping confirmation dialog.
- Fixed scroll wheel sometimes not working in the Catalog.
- Fixed dialog buttons sometimes having wrong proportions.
- Fixed QUICKSAVE function not getting enabled after using SELL ALL.
- Improved career save selection menu.
- More-readable CarInfo engine power graph for engines just barely exceeding max displayable values.
- Fixed CarInfo falsely displaying full power for engines with worn blocks.
- Renamed "Max. RPM" to "Destruction RPM" inside CarInfo, for a clear distinction from "RPM Limit".
- Added option to hide profanity in crowdfunder-written pedestrian responses. Nothing is hidden by default.
- Fixed missing SFX for menu confirm via keyboard.
- Implemented previously-unused SFX for back/cancel via keyboard / mouse 4.
- Added menu item auto-highlight after pressing Esc.
- More-accurate scaling for 4:3 dialogs.
- Fixed pause menu button textures getting messed up.
- Race Setup now accepts map clicks even if the cursor isn't perfectly still.
- Highest position & Prestige is now highlighted by Race Setup.
- Race Setup bet is auto-maxxed, if maximum available was previously selected.
- Slightly increased delay between opponent honking and Race Setup showing, to give the honk a chance to be heard.
- Swapped 'high-end'/'local' racer request buttons in endgame pedestrian talk dialog.
- Input filter sliders (for Steering) are auto-shown upon entering the relevant tab, to make the existence of deadzone settings less easy to miss.
- Fixed button hover SFX sometimes being loudly blasted upon unhovering.
Misc
- More reliable saving, again.
- Fixed a missing fence texture in West End.
- Fixed game crash upon flying too high in Car Lot photo mode.
- Fixed wrong position of Wet N2O injector in shop #2.
- Various script stability & performance improvements.
Enjoy and stay tuned! :)