Taxicab confessions

[sigma7]

Here's what I've done....

The video clip is a series of captures in sequential order as I was making the modifications, so some things aren't implemented depending on where in the clip you are. But in a rough chronological order of changes....

1. Taxis are nigh-invulnerable and stupidly fast. Their top speed is about 125 mph, give or take, with some variables like mass and drag having a bit of an unpredictable effect. But they accelerate very well (to the point where traction's something of a problem; indeed, in a lot of those earlier clips, the cars're just about unsteerable). Their damage coefficients are about a hundredth of what they were, so they can take ludicrous amounts of punishment with only cosmetic effects. They're still capable of being ignited or, their most-frequently-encountered vulnerability, flipped over.

2. Squad cars are fragile and almost weightless. I increased the damage coefficients of the police vehicles to be about 20 times what they were, so it only takes a few rounds to set them on fire, and they can be pushed out of the way with ease. By hand, even. (I toyed with them for quite a while, making them go crazy-go-nuts with the negative friction, then messed with the friction to the point that they wouldn't steer -- you could turn the wheel, but if the tires were pointed off-center, they lost their grip on the road. It was hysterical. But I like having the cops around in a nice, persistent, easy-to-dismiss fashion.)

3. A ton of cars have the negative friction effect applied. Basically any vehicle that starts with a first letter between A-M (except "FBI," who're now the aluminum-foil cars described above). So maybe half of the vehicles in town are tossing themselves strangely through the air and occasionally crashing down upon you or the police chasing you.

Now, the one thing I do really, really well in this clip is launch myself through the windshield. Hell, I managed to run myself over once. This is what happens when your hyper-accelerating car hits an utterly immovable piece of scenery. (Light poles snap off at a wayward glance, but the sickliest sapling is made of adamantium.) In the clip that I think made me rofflemao the loudest and longest, a pair of cops out by the airport in the new wimpified squad car are unable to pursue my character because the car's been critically damaged in a futile attempt to break through the wooden parking lot gate barrier. Though I do seem to find myself picking up taxis with a lot of dead people in the back. (Or maybe that's a side effect of my carjacking. Or my driving.)

Edit: If so moved, GTA4 PC players can download the handling.dat file here, and (after backing up the original!) slap it into the data directory (default: "C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV\common\data") and enjoy some vehicular-precipitation maelstrom.

Comments

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

Seatbelt, fool. ;P

This is a very good argument against 'conflating video games with reality'.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Occasionally I worry about the personality that might glom onto such a construct and misinterpret it as an educational tool. But I have to weight that concern against its sheer entertainment and catharsis potential. And I confess that I find unnatural delight in taking such a close approximation of reality and making it...ridiculous. And I take my solace where I can find it.

And I'm thinking there must be a pervasive anti-seatbelt lobby in Liberty City or something. I'd think that Niko, of all people, should be in the habit of buckling in, unless that precludes the possibility of leaping out of a moving car (which has saved my bacon on a few occasions).

[daethkow.livejournal.com]

That is just so wrong. It was worth it for running over yourself and the aforementioned cops at the barricade.

Also, I'll have to get this game just because it impresses the hell out of me that it keeps track of a single tire being on fire, and eventually bursting.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

For an engine this old, it's still impressively robust. It's got its quirks, which are more readily apparent when you're making movies (and can't move the camera very far away from the car or else it doesn't retain the data), and gunfights are still problematic, and I'm deeply annoyed by the cellphone nagging, but it's worth a few laughs. Especially at what I imagine the price is after two years on the shelf.

And I've only toyed with the handling.cfg file. I haven't even tried anyone else's mods.

[mindset]

When you're in the new super-taxi, you should avoid playing chicken with other taxis. Or do so, just to see what happens!

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I shy away from anything yellow (even the minivan-taxis, which don't have the white-dwarf mass) while driving. Though at 7:14 I do run headlong into another taxi and it's pretty much my default reaction to anything: Niko exits car via windshield and skips off freeway, through trees and onto offramp.

What's really fun, though, is to catch an ordinary car between your taxi and a bystander taxi. On bridges they sometimes get shunted straight through the terrain geometry. (Police cars tend to just explode.)

[gloomchen.livejournal.com]

I could watch these all day. And I'm not even drinking.

[teal-cuttlefish.livejournal.com]

What is with the guy scratching his head with his gun? That seems like a really bad habit.

(Bear in mind I don't really game, so I am watching this from the perspective of a total noob who likes the physics mods even if I don't know what's going on.)

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

That's Niko Bellic, the vaguely-Serbian war-scarred player-character. If you just stand around long enough he cycles through "idle" animations, like shifting his weight or swaying, with my favorite being the one where he scratches his head with his gun -- especially because, in the context of these clips, it looks like a properly baffled reaction to the laws of physics being grotesquely violated in front of him.

[beagle1971.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the entertainment. Reminds me of the fun times playing Midtown Madness.
So much funny. Reverse order of awesomeness.
5. Barrel roll.
4. Ramping off overpass and finally into water.
3. Watching police car flip, spin, pirouette then explode.
2. Adamantium sapling.
1. Subway taxi.

[beagle1971.livejournal.com]

Dang. Forgot about the 360-see-ya to one of the fares. Guess he wouldn't pay. Put it at #2.

[samson-of-5.livejournal.com]

This definitely brings me back to the fun I had with cheats in Vice City and 3. Only with more splosions!