NGPCarMenu

Custom plugin for Richard Burns Rally game (RBR v1.02 SSE) to improve the "Select Car" in-game menu and RBRTM and RBR_RX "Select Stage" menus (ie. for those people who don't use external RBR game launchers).

The original RBR game and RBRTM and RBR_RX plugins have various problems and limitations:

• The car menu name and preview image of the car (garage) doesn't match with the custom car model. The car specification details shown in a car selection screen don't match with the custom NGP car details.
• RBRTM doesn't show custom car details or car preview images. Stage selection doesn't show a map preview image and doesn't remember which stages you have driven lately.
• RBR_RX stage selection menu list doesn't scroll (limited to 20 BTB stages), it doesn't show map preview images and doesn't remember the stages you have driven lately.
• RBR_RX replay files cannot be replayed afterwards. You can replay those only once right after the stage is finished and before you go back to RBR main menu. After this you cannot replay RBRRX/BTB recordings.
• RBR has a bug how it handles inverted pedals (input.ini) at startup or after alt-tabbing to a desktop. For example throttle goes to 100% until a driver presses the inverted pedal at least once.
• RBR has limited support for xbox360/xboxOne gamepad triggers. RBR handles triggers as combined Accelerate-Brake control, so it is impossible to control throttle and brake independently (not good in a rally car).
• RBR supports only one set of GearUp/GearDown controls at the same time (not possible to map both sequantial gear stick and steering wheel paddles as gear up/down controls at the same time).

Good news! NGPCarMenu plugin solves these issues by doing following enhancements in RBR:

• Shows the actual NGP car specs (HP, gears, transmission), car preview images and 3D car model details in RBR/RBRTM/RBRRX menu screens.
• RBRTM: Shows Nth recently driven stages as a shortcut menu entries on top of the Shakedown stage list (easier and faster to choose your favorite stages and re-drive those).
• RBRTM: Remembers the focused stage menu line even after visiting the RBRTM main menu (without NGPCarMenu plugin RBRTM would always reset back to the first menu line after visiting RBRTM main menu).
• RBRTM: Shows a minimap of the track layout in stage selection screens.
• RBRRX: Scrollable BTB stages menu list (pageUp/pageDown/home/end/arrow keys navigation).
• RBRRX: Shows the stage information (length, pacenotes created or not, surface, author, version, date. See BTB track specific track.ini metadata file).
• RBRRX: Shows Nth recently driven stages as a shortcut menu entries on top of the RBR_RX stage list.
• RBRRX: Shows a minimap of the track layout in stage selection screens.
• RBRRX: Supports RBRRX/BTB replay files (ie. BTB replay files can be replayed at anytime, not just right after finishing the race).
• "AutoLogon" feature opens automatically the menu screen of your favorite plugin when RBR is launched (for example takes you to RBRTM, RBR_RX or RallySimFans menu screen).
• "Rename profile" feature renames the driver profile while preserving profile settings (ie. you no longer have to call yourself as MULLIGATAWNY. Now you can rename the driver via NGPCarMenu plugin and still keep all maps and cars unlocked).
• Inverted pedals behave correctly right away without going through the hassle of pressing all pedals at least once while waiting for a countdown.
• Xbox360/XboxOne triggers are splitted and work independently as a separate Throttle and Brake in RBR controls (How to use this fix? Set triggers as combined AccelerateBrake control as usual, but then set Throttle and Brake controls to any keyboard key and choose a gamepad ID in SplitCombinedThrottleBrake in-game menu, NGPCarMenu plugin menu).
• When steering wheel or gamepad is used for steering (=an analog Steering control in RBR is set) then NGPCarMenu adds support for a secondary gear up/down controls.
• RallyStatsDB feature to store a detailed history of all rallies in one place (RBR original stages, RBRTM stages, RSF stages, BTB stages).
• In-game menu to hide or show steering wheel/windscreen/wipers in the cockpit camera view (internal cam).
• In-game menu to enable or disable camera shaking in the cockpit camera view.
• In-game menu to override the FOV value in the cockpit (internal) camera view for all car models (ie. no need to modify manually all car model files).

The plugin supports RBRTM Czech Tournament plugin (V0.88) integration. Use NGPCarMenu in-game menu or INI file to enable/disable this integration. RBR_RX plugin (RBR_RX.dll with 417792 bytes, the file doesn't have version tag) integration. Use NGPCarMenu in-game menu or INI file to enable/disable this integration. RallySimFans plugin (RSF). Refer to RSF home page for more information. RBRPro RBR bundle. Refer to RBRPro home page for more information.

Download

• The latest build of NGPCarMenu

Installation

• Download the latest version from the link shown above (ZIP file).
• Unzip the NGPCarMenu-versionTag.zip file to the root folder of existing installation of RBR game (for example c:\games\richardBurnsRally).
• Launch RichardBurnsRally_SSE.exe and navigate to Options/Plugins/NGPCarMenu in-game menu to enable/disable various options based on your personal preferences.
• If this was the first time you used NGPCarMenu plugin in RBR then you probably don't have any car preview images. Choose "CREATE car images" command to generate new car preview images for the currently installed custom cars in RBR.
• You are now ready to race!
• For advanced tweaks you can customize various options in Plugins\NGPCarMenu.ini file.
• See especially the RBRCITCarListPath option if NGP car spec details are missing in RBR in-game menus. This option should point to the carList.ini file from NGP physics plugin (by default RBRCIT\carlist\carList.ini which is a relative path under the RBR installation folder).
• Alternatively you can use EasyRBR tool to setup cars. In that case uncomment the EasyRBRPath option in NGPCarMenu.ini and set path to EasyRBR\easyrbr.ini file.
• If you are tired of doing half a dozen of key presses to open your favorite plugin ("Load profile/Options/Plugins/MyFavouritePlugin") then set AutoLogon option and NGPCarMenu takes you there automatically when RBR is launched.

The NGPCarMenu.ini file has various screen resolution specific options. There are default values for the most common resolutions, but if the resolution you use is not there the plugin adds it there automatically with default values. Refer to NGPCarMenu.ini.sample for more information about new options.

Note! If you use Windows Explorer integrated unzip tool to unzip the package then rbr\Plugins\NGPCarMenu.dll file may be in "blocked" state in some PC environments because the file was downloaded from Internet. To solve this issue choose properties of NGPCarMenu.dll file (right mouse button click and Properties popup menu) and untick "blocked" option. Or use better zip tools like 7-Zip.org or WinRAR to unzip packages.

Upgrading from an old version

• Download the latest version from the Releases-link shown above.
• Make sure RBR game is not running and locking the existing NGPCarMenu.dll file.
• Unzip the package on top of the existing installation and let the unzip tool to overwrite all existing files (the zip contains only NGPCarMenu related files).
• You won't loose your existing rbr\Plugins\NGPCarMenu.ini settings because the new version overwrites only the NGPCarMenu.ini.sample configuration file and not the NGPCarMenu.ini you may have customized. If you want to read more about new options then take a look at this NGPCarMenu.ini.sample file or Readme.txt file. However, the new version will initialize all new options with de1ault values, so the old INI file continues to work.

Configuration

rbr\Plugins\NGPCarMenu.ini options (see the NGPCarMenu.ini.sample file for more details): | Option | Comment | |------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | AutoLogon | Disabled, Main, Plugins, custom plugin name, Replay. If this is set then NGPCarMenu opens the specified menu screen automatically when RBR is launched. Replay option runs a RPL replay file (see AutoLogonParam1). If you have multi-profile RBR then see AutoLogonWaitProfileSelection option also. See NGPCarMenu in-game menu. | | AutoLogonWaitProfileSelection | 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled). If autologon is set and you have multiple profiles in RBR then setting this option to value 1 lets you to select a profile before autologon sequence does it job. If set to value 0, NGPCarMenu autologon selects automatically the first profile. | | AutoLogonParam1 | Additional parameter for AutoLogon command. At the moment only AutoLogon=Replay uses this option and the value should be RBR replay RPL filename. See NGPCarMenu.ini.sample for examples. | | RallySchoolMenuReplacement | Replace the RallySchool menu with a custom menu shortcut (Plugins or a custom plugin menu shortcut). See NGPCarMenu in-game menu. | | RaceStatDB | The path of raceStatDB storage file. RaceStatDB=0 option value disables the feature. | | RecentResultsPosition | The location of "Recent results" data on RBR main screen. If the option is missing or empty then the plugin uses default location. RecentResultsPosition=0 option hides this information. | | RBRTM_RecentResultsPosition | The location of "Recent results" data on RBRTM main menu. RBRTM_RecentResultsPosition=0 hides