This is the handling update! Thanks to everyone who sent their tuning and told me how the car felt: your values, and a lot of driving, made the new handling. The leaderboards are open again, wiped clean, and a new career now starts properly, with a short film, your choice of first car and the Gaffer showing you round.
Handling and the leaderboards
- New handling for the Competitive car, built from your feedback: more grip, the front most of all, and brakes that build up rather than locking the moment you touch them. A little more engine braking too.
- The HANDLING tab in Options is gone. The values you helped find are now the car's own, so everyone drives the same car.
- The leaderboards are open again and every board starts empty. Times set on the old handling are kept, frozen, but no longer rank.
- Medal times are retimed for the new handling. The car is quicker, so gold is quicker too: expect to work for it.
- The rows of humps that could throw the car on the forest, desert and mountain stages are gone; the odd single bump stays. The roads are where they were, and your atlas notes on those stages are carried over to the new versions.
A new career
- A new career opens with a short film: two kids on the front-room carpet, the rally on the telly, and then the season's own stages. You can skip it once you have seen it to the end on that computer.
- You choose your first car at Penwern Garage: two of the same hatch, one front-wheel drive and one rear-wheel drive. Stand by the one you want and press interact; two of you have to agree. Older careers keep the car they have.
- Converting a car to the other drive costs 3,000, either way.
- A career car's handling now grows with its parts: each part brings in its share, and front and rear-wheel drive each have their own stock power, differential and fully upgraded handling. The early car no longer feels like it is on rails.
The Gaffer's tutorial
- A new career starts with the Gaffer's tutorial. A checklist card shows each step and ticks off as you go, and the next thing to use is highlighted, with an arrow when it is out of view. It works in split screen and online, each person with their own card.
- Steps you have already done on this computer can be skipped; ones you have never done cannot.
- After the tutorial, the bay has a short checklist of its own: the mechanic, his parts, picking a track, a practice run and an event.
- The projector has a PRACTICE RUN pick, and a practice run gives short driving tips when you need them: the pace notes, braking before the bend, lifting to turn in.
- Your first stage is a practice run on the season's first track. At the Gaffer's marker a wheel always comes off, however fast you are going, and it is yours to find and fit: the AI co-driver stays in the car and watches. With two at one computer you then swap seats for a second run.
- The practice Wren now comes off its stands and its flat is changed with the trolley jack, like the real car. Its windscreen is pushed out from outside, and rocks can be thrown.
- The pit stop step no longer gets stuck asking you to park in the box when you are already in it, and it highlights the boot for the jack.
Playing together
- Career now asks New career or Load career. Load career shows your saves as tiles, with each save's cup, medals, money and crew pictures.
- A new career is set up in its own window: name it, then fill the second seat with the AI co-driver, a second player at this computer, or a Steam friend picked from a list of your friends who are online (a pad or the keys work too). Start career waits until your friend has joined, and then you both watch the intro together.
- You can still invite a friend into an existing career from the bay (Esc, Invite a friend online), and the projector now says so.
- A new career online: the friend sees the first-car signs light up, hears the garage, can skip a step they know, put the bay checklist away, and follow the lost wheel on their own first-stage card.
Washer and wipers
- Holding the wiper control on a pad (or a wheel's button) now works the washer, not only the wipers.
- You can see the washer's jets on the glass, on dry stages too.
- With the windscreen out, the washer sprays the crew instead: it wets your visor and rinses the mud off.
Fixes
- A Retry after the car's handling has changed no longer fails its check at the start line.
- Bug reports (F8) could sit unsent on your PC if Steam refused the game a sign-in; the game now hands its Steam sign-ins back when it closes.
- Both players in an online session now need the same game version, and the one turned away is told why.
Keep the reports coming: F8 in game, or the Discord <3