Introduction

Welcome to the Legends of GPL mod on the 20th anniversary of GPL's release back in 1998. In early 2018, mod team members had discussions about what could be done to release a new mod on the 20th anniversary of Grand Prix Legends.  There were many good ideas, but the only mod which seemed possible in the time available was an update to the 1967 Sports Car mod.  Thankfully, our modders have pitched in and the SCX mod is now in full development.  Hopefully, it can be completed in time to meet the goal of a 2018 release. I offered the idea of making a Legends of GPL mod which combined cars from the major mods that have been done in the last 20 years.  It not only would be a tribute to the original Papyrus design team, but to the numerous modders that have kept GPL alive and vibrant for two decades.  Because the car graphics were already complete, the mod could be developed in a relatively short amount of time. One major issue was that cars from various mods use different physics models.  If a combined physics package were used, the cars might not drive and feel the same to the player as they had before.  Specifically, each mod has various physics settings that are different from each other.  The cars themselves use different chassis and engines of course, but the main problem is that all cars in each mod share certain important physics settings such as the player car's tire slip curve.  The slip curve differs from mod to mod.  In order for the cars to perform and handle as they do in their original mod, some way of changing the slip curve on-the-fly for each car had to be done. I took that as challenge to make a Legends of GPL mod which overcame the physics issues.  It took some effort, but I eventually developed a special patch that does this.  When the player selects a different car, the slip curve, and other minor tire settings, are automatically changed.  The result is that the cars perform and feel the same to the player as if he were driving the car in its original mod. The graphics side presented another challenge.  Taking cars from one mod and combining them into another mod is not easy as car directories often contain conflicting files.  One wrong setting or file name can cause the dreaded "Could Not Load Track" error.  Eventually, all conflicts were resolved and the mod graphics now work great. As a result, you may now drive and race against the championship winning cars from each of the nine major GPL mods that have been made since 1998. Enjoy! Lee Bowden