So this is a mod I've been working on and off for a few years now. My aim was to try and fix some of the severe problems with the gameplay and make the game more fun for myself. I've always felt that C:R/MD lacks a lot of 'oomph', so I hope you can enjoy the game a lot more with this mod. Since so many changes have been made, you could think of this as a full new update!
Heads up: this is meant to be run with the beta patch!
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What the overhaul contains:
The big changes include:
Rebalanced cars for car-on-car combat
Less slippery handling overall
Many new powerups
New times of day and weather settings
Various ped improvements
AI tweaks
More variation + restored C:R peds
AI powerup gifting
..and a whole lot more. Here's the full list of changes and additions:
► Show Spoiler
Cars:
► Show Spoiler
A vast rebalancing:
Every car has been reworked. There might be minor imbalances but you shouldn't feel completely overpowered or handicapped by any of the cars.
Car-on-car orientated:
Crashing is encouraged once again! Every car should be able to wreck any other (with varied results - see the bottom). Even the APC is wreckable without powerups if you can keep smashing it well enough. The game should feel a bit more like the originals now. Also a heads-up, there's no balancing difference between the difficulties (only time bonuses change).
Handling and performance changes:
Cars are less slippery overall. Almost all of the cars handle considerably different to their vanilla counterparts, but many of them still contain unique characteristics. Just beware that fast sports cars may have RWD-styled handling so you'll still have to be careful with them.
Better sense of speed:
The FOV is now a lot higher and the third-person camera has been repositioned to suit it better.
APO changes:
Every Armour and Offensive level has been made the same as each other, so while this means upgrading them is pointless, it does mean the balance remains more consistent due to less variables. Power still needs to be upgraded, however.
You're also still encouraged to spend your upgrade tokens and collect them since they give you 1000 credits each. The APO parts 'limit' has also been removed. Power upgrades also become increasingly expensive now - so the first upgrade costs 2 tokens and the 5th costs 5.
Every car now has 'peds on map' powerup by default:
I never liked the idea of needing to find a hidden powerup just to see the peds on the map. If you wanna win by killing every ped, just go for it! Those hidden 'peds on map' barrels now give you a big credits bonus instead.
Mad Mike's extra wheels mod has been included:
Now the cars share wheels for extra customisation. However, as wheel sets were only made with the respective car in mind, just beware of the brakes clipping through the wheels on certain cars.
Regenerating Boost for the Tashita:
Ever noticed how the Tashita has a nitrous canister in the back? Well, now it has a purpose! The car has a specific kind of Afterburner that half-recharges every minute.
Most cars have had tweaks to their cockpit views.
Bonnet/Roof cameras as replacements for the bad cockpit views:
The Plow, Razorbill, Iron Hawk, Siamese Dream, and Blitzkrieger all have external 'in-car' cameras.
Hevy Impaler has a chance of spawning with a caravan.
The KVN has a new skin which is a recreation of the TRV concept by Doug Telford (plus a Carma 2-inspired colour variant). The Eagle R also has a new purple skin.
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The KVN skins are currently broken in the garage, but they work fine in an event. Here's a preview of them.
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The infuriating environmental damage system has been removed! ...mostly, with a few occasional issues.
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The extra-damage is still present if you're pushing or being pushed. Also physics-based powerups sometimes have problems, where an anvil kill *might* end up as a suicide, and a car might not take any damage from a Repulsificator.
The benefit to all this however is the fact that for the most part, you won't have to worry about this awful system affecting your enjoyment of the game.
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You now have to steal the Tez Eagle and Iron Hawk.
'Subpressor' -> 'Suppressor', and 'Super Suppressor' -> 'The Oppressor':
'Super Suppressor' was a bit unimaginative in my opinion, and since the 6-wheeled Suppressor is never coming officially, there's no need for its temporary name. :p
APC touch-ups:
The APC has had some slight tweaks done to its textures. It also has reskinned wheels based on the old concept art / pre-alpha version (which the Suppressor also uses).
The Plow's bucket is crushable, but no longer flappable.
I know it sucks to have a feature removed, but unfortunately non-crushable parts can ruin a lot of potential damage in a crash, so head-on collisions against the Plow were often dull. An addon is available to restore this feature however.
Several oversights/quirks fixed.
Mostly to do with glass parts - some cars didn't have the 'ejection smash' setting for the windscreen, almost no head/taillights emitted glass shards, and some of them had unused glass damage textures. The Tropikill's strange glass damage textures were also sorted out.
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Thought I'd mention, I'm still not completely happy with the combat. Gradual but reliable damage for every car is the goal. However, all of this heavily depends on the circumstances, so if the AI are squirming around and ruining head-ons like they always do, or the level is cramped or there's a fuckton of obstacles all over the road (or all of the above), you might still struggle to smash up strong opponents. On the flip side, a 'tough' car might feel too soft and end up getting 1-shotted in an extreme crash.
Despite this, I'm still very pleased with how the combat feels compared to the vanilla game. It's not perfect but I hope you'll enjoy smashing into your opponents and not feel compelled to spam powerups.
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AI:
► Show Spoiler
The AI are now given timed and offensive powerups - now you'll see them use weapons more!
While it'll be weird to see the AI gain super PUps out of nowhere (e.g. granite), they aren't able to go for barrels so this'll keep things interesting!
10/01/21 edit: gifting of timed pups has been removed for the moment as it turns out the feature is broken. Sorry! :x
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I need to point out that this feature won't be used if you're driving an addon car due to the method I used to make this.
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I do feel this doesn't work that well in Classic Carma, but I haven't been able to disable this specifically for that mode.
Another issue is that the AI will be given powerups regardless of whether or not the PUps are turned off. This is why I've included the addons to remove this feature.
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It takes a bit longer for an opponent to decide to chase you in Classic Carma. You'll also only have one opponent chasing you in this mode.
The AI no longer chase you in Death Race unless provoked.
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I wanted to have this for the other modes too but the AI's obsession over the player seems to be hardcoded for them. Fox 'n' Hounds is still completely trash in single player, unfortunately.
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Powerups:
► Show Spoiler
New powerups!
There are many new additions, including oldies such as Greased Tyres and Turbo Nutter Bastard Nitrous, and new ones such as Piss Artist and Attractive Lass.
PUp barrels have a new look to them.
Slaughter Mortar variants: Buckshot - double mortars. Chopper - a red mortar that splits an enemy car in half. Bomber - a black mortar that explodes on contact and inflicts full explosive damage on anyone caught in its radius, including you!
Slaughter Mortars and mines also have damage tweaks for Classic Carma - the chance of 1-shots should hopefully be lower, but the damage is still very random unfortunately.
Self Abuse:
Replaces the Earthquake Bomb. You blow yourself up to cause damage, just like Self Abuse's icon always implied. It wrecks cars as good as EQ Bomb always has, but now you trash your bodywork as a trade-off. There's also a rather slim chance you'll do proper bomb damage to yourself, and it also uses up your Invulnerability and Immortality. You do however get a couple of thousand credits as compensation for the damage.
Sell Your Soul:
Trade in your PUps (both stored and timed) for 5000 credits along with a high chance of spitting out a Lucky Dip barrel.
The credits bonus is mainly meant for those situations in multiplayer when you have little to no credits for repairs. Credits might be pointless in freeplay but the Lucky Dip gamble could be worth it!
Opponent Stun Ray:
Frustrated with that opponent that just won't hold still? Stun them! They can still move around and steer, they just lose power. Silent But Deadly also has a stunning capability.
Armour:
Makes your car stronger and heavier (and a bit slower) - imagine it as Granite Lite.
Stick Insects!
Although this was never fully implemented in C:MD, the unused 'stick' condition looks good enough on its own so I've made it a variant of Dismemberfest.
The unused 'Fat Bastards' condition is also used as a cosmetic effect for Helium-filled Peds.
The Afterburner now has proper thrusting power - you can potentially fly through the air with it!
The cheap instakill rays are gone.
Global Instant Repair! - repairs every non-wasted vehicle in the level on pickup.
Stainless planned and tested a similar PUp during the pre-alpha, but ended up removing it.
The standard Instant Repair is now an inventory powerup.
The limb slicer PUps come with numbered uses, instead of oddly being on a timer.
Groovin' Peds now has randomised music with 34 tracks - an addon to make the PUp silent is also available.
Ped Napalm is also another mortar variant.
Turbo Opponents no longer gives you turbo, and it now gives the AI different kinds of turbo.
Powerup randomisation has been improved:
Uber, Timed Ped and Turbo powerups are randomised. Offensive PUps are randomised in non-Classic modes like in multiplayer. Powerdowns (such as Jelly Suspension, Bouncy Bouncy, etc) are randomised Lucky Dips so you don't have to avoid the same barrel(s) until the end of time. However, each powerdown has its own biased Lucky Dip, so a Fragile pickup has a higher chance of giving you Feelin' Fragile, but it's not guaranteed. There's a risk vs reward factor involved.
The boosts have been given more 'oomph' with new sounds, 'Hot Rod' flames, and camera effects.
Mutant Tail is now a timed PUp that lasts for 20 seconds.
No more just switching to the scissors every time you pick it up, you'll have to deal with it.
The self-morphing PUps (e.g. Spazzed) should no longer instantly kill you.
Your car is immortal for a few seconds when you pick one up, but you'll still take mechanical damage. Look at your health when you pick one up as your engine might be completely destroyed.
..and many more tweaks and additions not listed here.
Peds:
► Show Spoiler
Much more variation!
Many C:R peds make a return, and there are several additional skins and changes.
e.g. traffic wardens are back, male scooterists are a thing, the old lady has more colours, the cows use their unused skins, etc.
Randomised damage for ped weaponry:
The blades and spikes no longer have just one effect - they can slice in half, cut limbs and even impale depending on the car. Electrocution kills also have some variation depending on the PUp.
General tweaks to their behaviour:
They are now more easily startled, cower and plead longer, and see you coming from further away. They're also out of breath for longer.
C1-styled point system:
The default amount of points for ped kills is now 100, with certain types of peds giving you different amounts (150 for builders, 200 for old-timers, etc).
Time bonuses for ped kills have been changed to 8 and 5 seconds for medium and hard respectively.
They have a lot more blood in them so they won't die almost as soon as they lose a limb.
This also gives 'Fast Bleedout' a proper use now!
Minor flagman improvements:
There's a variation of flagman offsets so he's in the middle for a third of the levels and on the right for another third. The flagman also no longer waves the flag when you jump start the race.
Levels:
► Show Spoiler
Many races now have different times of day and weather settings.
The Landing Pads has a 'crusherless' variant.
The gravity is a little bit higher.
Explosive gas pumps are also a thing. :p
Effects:
► Show Spoiler
Car explosions are quicker and more intense. Car fires are brighter and also light up the world.
Crashes are a bit more extreme:
There's more shrapnel and glass to go around.
Better blood - now the blood is a bit chunkier and darker.
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Even though this was lazily done by dropping in C:R's respective files, it's still not back to C:R levels. Just a heads-up.
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Cars also leave bloody tyre tracks.
The ugly stars for stunned opponents have been removed.
Invulnerability and Immortality now have blue and green (respectively) acme-like effects.
No more guesswork when they're involved!
DoF is disabled for the main cameras during gameplay:
DoF has always been a terrible effect for driving with, but now (if you wish) you can leave it on so its other uses remain (e.g. for the pause screen, action replay, etc.)
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Motion Blur has also been disabled due to a problem I haven't found a fix for yet.. not that it's even noticeable in vanilla C:MD anyway.
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Sounds:
► Show Spoiler
Wastage explosions and glass shattering now have much needed debris sounds in them.
Crashes should sound more severe:
Crumpling and glass damage now use their more 'extreme' sounds by default.
New voices for ejections:
Drivers now use a variety of sounds, most of which are from FlatOut 2. Max and Die use their sounds from Carma 1, with an option to use the regular voices. ED 101 and Stig/Don also have their own voices.
Varied announcer lines:
Now you won't always hear the same lines when you wreck someone, get wrecked, steal points, etc. The new lines from Carmageddon Crashers are also used. Sometimes the announcer won't say anything too.
Restored pre-alpha vehicle startups.
The start and end sounds for stunning AI have been disabled.
I feel they're pretty obnoxious with how often they're played. I think they also hurt some of the satisfaction of smashing into cars by drowning out the crash sounds. That said, the stunned loop sounds are kept as they're quite nice and subtle.
An addon is available if you want the start/end sounds back though.
Menus & HUD:
► Show Spoiler
The HUD/camera shake effects have been improved.
The bonus callouts have a new look.
More freeplay options:
The pre-alpha options are back, so you can enable a non-grid start for Classic Carma, turn off the game mode elements, and enable the PIS overdraft. You can also change your driver to any other - credit goes to Trent for this.
The hold-ups when you boot up the game have been removed - no more waiting around for nothing!
Game-mode tweaks:
► Show Spoiler
Career improvements:
Some events in career mode have been changed to avoid repetition. The amount of credits you need to progress has also been raised to stop you from getting to the point where you're unlocking chapters 2-3+ nodes ahead.
Cops no longer appear in the other game modes.
The auto-recovery after death has been disabled in Classic Carma.
Recovery delays are a thing in single player:
1 second for Classic Carma, 5 seconds for Fox 'n' Hounds, and 3 seconds for the rest.
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This feature is a bit buggy when you try to recover when you're wrecked, unfortunately. Just a heads-up.
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The default time and score limit for the other game modes has been raised all around.
The more expensive repairs in Car Crusher were applied to the other non-Classic modes.
The starting credits is 0 by default.
Buying PUps and PUp respawn are disabled for career mode.
Plus many more changes I've probably forgotten about.
If you're looking to go through career with the game's progression then this is what you'll want to do.
Drag and drop the ZAD into the ZAD folder
..and that's it!
To install an addon, just drag and drop that into the folder too.
The CarMODgeddon way:
If you're not bothered about the career and just want to play freeplay, then this is the way to go. The main advantage of this method is that it unlocks everything and allows for new levels and cars*. The main con of this method is that the career is pointless due to everything being unlocked, but this won't matter if you don't want to play career anyway.
As explained in Trent's beta patch thread, you'll need to do this:
Create a folder called ZIP_MODS in C:MD's root folder
Put the mod(s) in there, then rename .zad to .zip
Open C:MD's launch options on Steam then add: -mod=zmod_ST_Overhaul_BETA_v090
If you want to launch multiple mods then you'll have to put it down as:
-mod=zmod_ST_Overhaul_BETA_v090,zmod_ST_Overhaul_Freeplay_Companion,zmod_no_cursor (etc.)
Make sure 'zmod_ST_Overhaul_BETA_v090' is at the beginning, as the addons need to be loaded afterwards.
(*just be aware that 'AI gifting' doesn't work with addon cars)
Freeplay Companion:
This is an addon meant for when you've completed career and want to go into Freeplay.
What this does is:
Sets every car to be tier 1 so they can all appear in the randomisation.
Every Power level has been set to be in-between 3 and 4 - it's not slow but not too fast.
Randomises every level setting
Sets the Suppressor and The Oppressor as the main cop cars, with the APC being the 3rd if present.
Turns the CU:NT into an opponent, so it's possible for every cop to appear in one level!
Slightly alters the career to accommodate the changes above, even if it isn't the focus. Despite that, career could almost feel like a wacky 'new game+' with this.
Just be aware that most cop spawn locations weren't placed with The Oppressor in mind, so it might struggle and/or die in its place in certain Classic Carma levels.
Silent Groovin' Peds:
Simply removes the PUp's ability to play its own music. If you have the game's music turned off, you'll want this addon. Download
Flappable Plow Bucket:
A mod that lets you flap the (non-crushable) bucket again. Download
Transparent maps:
This makes the full screen maps transparent so you can slightly see through them.
No annoying cursor:
A simple mod that makes the 'unclicked' mouse cursor invisible, as it keeps appearing in the middle of the screen after races and such. Download
Restored start/end stun sounds:
If you liked the *whack* sound when you stun an opponent, this enables it again. Download
'AI gifting' addons:
Self-explanatory mods for the AI gifting feature.
- Stainless Games for creating this amazing and insanely flexible game in the first place!
- Sa1cor for originally starting the car balancing and handling tweaks with me
- Trent for his C:R UI tweaks, driver selection and the old C:R City A night mod
- Mad Mike for his wheel customisation mod
- Veritas for the Stainless intro removal
- L1ttlePupp3t and Mugmag for testing
Other resources from Bugbear Entertainment, id Software, dDara (the beer mugs for 'Piss Artist', albeit edited), Alexandr Cherkinsky (the brake icon for 'Brake Failure'), Daniel MacDonald (the shoe and pedals for 'Lead Foot'), sasha willins (hand) + panyawut norrasing (handbrake) (Instant Handbrake icon), James Cottell (heart for the Faint-of-Heart Peds icon), some sounds from ZapSplat, Criterion Games, and other places I couldn't remember.
Last edited by STShotgun on Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
This looks really promising, will definitely try it out at some point.
However one of the things that always bothered me in C:R was that there were too many powerups, and a lot of them are basically duplicates of each other. Is there any chance for a future addon that simplifies them by reducing the amount of powerup types to something like C2's variety?
Quick update: I've uploaded another version of 0.9.0 that removes the gifting of timed pups for the AI as it's broken at the moment. For those who already have the previous version, you'll want the 'weapons only' or 'complete removal' addons.
helomyname wrote: ↑Thu Jan 07, 2021 1:40 am
This looks really promising, will definitely try it out at some point.
However one of the things that always bothered me in C:R was that there were too many powerups, and a lot of them are basically duplicates of each other. Is there any chance for a future addon that simplifies them by reducing the amount of powerup types to something like C2's variety?
Thanks
About the pups, I don't think I'll make a proper addon for this since what should or shouldn't go is pretty subjective, and I'm not that bothered by the amount of pups to be honest. I don't mind all the variations as long as they're effective.
What I can do is leave a zad that contains the mod's general_data.lua file which will allow you to replace powerups with whatever you want.
So if for example you want to replace Ped Detonator with Ped Annhilator and replace the limb slicer pups with random ped weapons, then this'll do it:
Just a quick fyi, the 'classic_pups' category is for Classic Carma, and 'comp_sp_pups' is for the other modes.
Toshiba-3 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:05 pm
Gave it some playtime and must say it already seems like an improvement on all aspects.
Stellar job! Can't wait to see how this mod will evolve.
Loving this mod so far. One question, would it be possible to make a patch file to bring back the original CUNT cop cars as the cop cars that spawn in the levels instead of the Suppressor and Oppressor?
MalkavsRustyBones wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 4:29 am
Loving this mod so far. One question, would it be possible to make a patch file to bring back the original CUNT cop cars as the cop cars that spawn in the levels instead of the Suppressor and Oppressor?
Cheers
Here's an addon for the cop spawns. It's set to have 2 CU:NTs and an APC like in vanilla, but if for example you want to change it to have 3 CU:NTs then you can edit the cop_spawn_modifiers.lua file and change 'promote_1' under difficulty_map to 'demote', or 'promote_3' if you want 2 APCs and a Suppressor, etc.
RIKUSYO wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 9:22 am
This mod is great.
I hope this mod will be the definitive edition of Carmageddon.
There are two features I want:
- Option to use the original driver model.
- Cops driver model (I love cops concept art).
Thanks
By 'original driver model', do you mean to have the specific car's driver automatically chosen? If so then I dunno if such an option can be added but for now there's the driver picker in Freeplay, which changes the actual driver for the save slot so it'll change it for career too
Specific driver models for the cops would be nice but it's beyond the scope of this mod
By 'original driver model', do you mean to have the specific car's driver automatically chosen? If so then I dunno if such an option can be added but for now there's the driver picker in Freeplay, which changes the actual driver for the save slot so it'll change it for career too
Specific driver models for the cops would be nice but it's beyond the scope of this mod
I didn't know there was a driver picker. Thank you!
Don't worry about the cops driver model. It's just a small idea.
Can't wait to see how this mod will evolve.
