Racing

The Racing app#

Racing lets players build tracks, host and join races with buy-ins, and climb ratings, weekly points and track records. Races are timed by the server, with a HUD that shows while the phone is put away.

• Racing is on Wolfden Phone and Wolfden Phone Pro, not Wolfden Phone Secure.
• Racers are known by an alias they pick on first open (3 to 20 letters, digits, _ . -), which can change once every 7 days. Other players only ever see the alias, never a name or number.
• Racing belongs to the character, not the phone: the same profile, crew and money follow them to any phone. All money moves through the character's Nova Wallet.
• No SIM is needed, but every request needs internet: mobile data or Wi-Fi.

The Racing USB#

By default Racing only appears while the player carries a Racing USB (racing_usb). Without it, the app is hidden on every phone they carry, including the Home Screen, App Library and Nova Store. Its install and its spot on the Home Screen are kept, so it comes back where it was.

When a player picks up the USB, each phone they carry without Racing gets a Nova Store New app available notification. Tapping it installs and opens Racing.

• A player who loses the USB mid-race can still leave, forfeit and follow their own race, so no buy-in or bet is ever stuck.
• The USB is never used up; carrying it is enough. It also unlocks underground races.
• It is sold for cash by the hidden black-market dealer, "Stranger"; see The Stranger. Like any item, you can also give it out yourself.

Add racing_usb from Installation. To make Racing an ordinary Nova Store app that anyone can download, set requireItemForApp = false in config/racing.lua. Turning underground races off does the same.

Tracks#

A track is a sprint (A to B) or a circuit (laps), with 3 to 60 checkpoints at least 25 metres apart and up to 20 km long. Each racer can keep 15 tracks, set private, unlisted or public, and share them with an 8-character code. Players build a track in one of two ways:

• Record it. Start recording in the app while in a driver's seat, then press J at each checkpoint. The phone can be put away. Players can rebind the key in the game's key settings as "Racing: record checkpoint". A recording lapses after 30 minutes or when the player logs out. A recorded track is verified at once.
• Place it on the map. Tap the checkpoints in the editor. The map does not know their height, so the track is unverified until its owner finishes a time trial on it. Unverified tracks cannot host buy-ins, bets, rated races or pink slips.

Moving a track's checkpoints makes it unverified again and clears its records. Renaming it does not. A track cannot be deleted while a race uses it.

Vehicle classes#

Every vehicle has a class from its model's stock performance, so tuning never changes it: S, A, B, C and D, best first. Every motorbike is class M. Cars, motorbikes and quad bikes can race.

A model's class is confirmed once two players report the same numbers for it. Until then, it can only enter races open to any class.

To fix a model's class yourself, add it to modelClass in config/racing.lua, such as modelClass = { zentorno = 'S', blista = 'D' }, or use phoneadmin racetier. Addon vehicles with unusual handling are the usual reason to do this.

Hosting and joining races#

The host picks a track and a mode, then sets the class, laps, buy-in, seats and start time:

• A race is public, or invite-only with a 6-character code. Players browse public races, races nearby, underground races and their own.
• Each host can have one open race, and a racer can be in one race at a time.
• The race locks 2 minutes before the start, and racers head to the grid. The host can also choose Start now for a green light 30 seconds later.
• At the start, each racer must be in the driver's seat of a vehicle in the race's class, within 60 metres of the start. Anyone who is not is left out and gets their buy-in back. A race left with too few racers is cancelled and refunded.
• A 5-second countdown follows. Moving more than 8 metres before the green light adds a 5-second penalty.
• If the host leaves before the start, the next entrant becomes host.

During a race#

The next checkpoint is shown with a GPS route, a map blip and a marker in the world, with the one after it as a smaller blip. A HUD shows position, lap, checkpoint, lap times and warnings with the phone closed. Spectators can follow a race live in the app.

Checkpoints are checked by the server from where the vehicle really is, in order. Once the first racer finishes, the rest have 2 minutes, and no race runs longer than 30 minutes.

A racer is out (DNF) when they:

• Leave their vehicle for 15 seconds, or switch vehicles.
• Are downed, or lose or wreck their vehicle.
• Stay far from the track for 45 seconds, run out of time, disconnect or forfeit.
• Move impossibly fast or jump across the map, which is also flagged for staff.

The anti-cheat thresholds are in Config.RacingServer.anticheat in config/racing_server.lua. Raise maxSpeed and teleportMeters for very fast addon vehicles, and offTrackMeters or offTrackSeconds for tracks with long shortcuts.

Buy-ins, payouts and bets#

Buy-ins are charged when joining and held until the race ends. By default the winner takes everything with one finisher, 70/30 with two, and 60/30/10 with three or more. If nobody finishes, everyone gets their money back. Leaving before the countdown refunds the buy-in. Leaving, disconnecting or a DNF after that loses it.

Bets. Other players can bet on a racer until the countdown, from 10 to 5000. Odds move with the bets, the house takes 5%, and a winning bet never pays less than its stake. Racers in that race and the host cannot bet on it, nor can anyone on the same game licence as one of them, so alternate characters cannot bet on their own race. Set bets.blockCrewmates = true to stop racers' crewmates betting too. If the race is cancelled or nobody wins, every bet is refunded.

Pink slips are off by default. When on, each racer's car must be one of their own, and the winner receives the loser's vehicle through your garage resource. They need a garage integration that can transfer vehicles; the built-in Qbox one can.

Restarts. Restarting wd_phone cancels every unfinished race and refunds all buy-ins and bets. Finished races keep their results. Plan restarts between races.

Money never goes missing: a payment that fails is retried automatically until it lands.

Ratings, leaderboards and crews#

• Ratings. Rated races with at least two racers move each racer's rating, starting at 1000. Time trials are never rated.
• Leaderboards show track records, each class, weekly points (weeks start on Monday), ratings and crews.
• Fair play. Points, wins and podiums only count in rated races, or in races of at least 1 km on a verified track. Racers on the same game licence never count against each other, and the same two racers count at most three times a day.
• Profiles show races, wins, podiums, DNFs, earnings and race history.
• Crews have a name and a 2 to 4 letter tag, up to 12 members, and owners and officers who invite, promote and remove members. A racer who leaves a crew waits 24 hours to join another.
• Sharing. A result can be sent in Messages, or posted to Clips with the caption filled in. The player picks the video.

Underground races#

Underground races are listed, joined and bet on only by players carrying the Racing USB. Until 2 minutes before the start, an underground race shows only a circle of 600 metres, not its start or route. Results count on the public leaderboards, by alias.

Police heat. When an underground race goes green, there is a 60% chance it is called in. Twenty seconds later the police get a "Street race" alert near the start, then up to two follow-ups near the leader. The alert goes to your dispatch resource; see Emergency calls and dispatch. Without one, on-duty police players get a map area and a notification. Alerts never name a racer.

Change the chance, timing, jobs and alert text in Config.RacingServer.heat in config/racing_server.lua, or set enabled = false there to turn police heat off.

Help a racer as an administrator#

These need the phone admin permission; see Admin tools.

Nobody is banned automatically. To ban after a number of flags, set banAfterFlags in Config.RacingServer.anticheat, with banDays for the length.

Configure Racing#

Edit config/racing.lua. Anti-cheat and police heat are in config/racing_server.lua, which players never see.

payouts.feeSharedAccount and bets.feeSharedAccount can send the fee and house cut to a job account, when your banking resource has them.