                     *************************************
                     *       <<< G P 2 E D I T >>>       *
                     *            Version 1.8            *
                     *                                   *
                     * Car and Driver Performance Editor *
                     *    for Microprose Grand Prix 2    *
                     *                                   *
                     *           by MILES WALSH          *
                     *     100066.3146@compuserve.com    *
                     *************************************

This document contains sections on:
*** What it Does
*** Without Whom
*** Installation
*** Running for the first time
*** The Three Windows
*** The Main Window
*** The Drivers Window
*** The Teams Window
*** Technical Notes
*** Program History

                 ********** W H A T   I T   D O E S ***********

This program allows you to edit the relative performances of the Drivers and 
Cars in GP2. It ONLY affects the Computer Cars - it has no effect on your car. 
You can also edit a few other bits and pieces.

YOU CAN EDIT:
*** Team BHPs for Race and Qualifying
*** Team Car Reliability
*** High or Low Nose design cars
*** Driver Grip in Race and Qualifying
*** Driver and Team Names
*** Driver Car Numbers
*** Available Driver Aids at each of the five difficulty levels
*** Quick Race Length
*** Colours shown on the Cockpit View for each team
*** Opposition Level, Weighting and Car Realism On/Off
*** Random Player Car Power On/Off
*** Pit Lane Garage Order
*** Pit Crew Colours
*** Player Car Power
*** First Car No (0 or 1)

This program has tested OK against the English, US, German, French, Dutch, 
Spanish and Italian versions of the game. If you have any problems with it, 
please contact the author.

                  ********** W I T H O U T   W H O M ***********
I couldn't have got this together without Andy Barganski, Jrgen Hiller, Trevor 
Kellaway, Irwin Kong, Georg Naujoks, Nigel Pattinson and Achim Trenz, all of 
whom helped in some way or other, knowingly or not <g>. Thanks, guys.

                  ********** I N S T A L L A T I O N ***********

The ZIP file should contain:
GP2EDIT.TXT - You're reading it
GP2EDIT.EXE - The program
CMDIALOG.VBX, COMMDLG.DLL - Libraries needed by the program
GP2EDIT.PAL - Colour Palette File needed by the program - DO NOT MODIFY THIS
1996-STD.GEP - Example Car Data file for 1996 Season.
ACEPLUS1.GEP - Added difficulty Car Data for 1996 Season
ACEPLUS2.GEP - Even more difficult Car Data for 1996 Season
ACEPLUS3.GEP - Nearly impossible Car Data for 1996 Season

You will need to have Windows 3.1 or higher and a version of VBRUN300.DLL on 
your computer. If you don't have VBRUN300.DLL somewhere, you can get it from any 
number of libraries on Compuserve - including the General/Help Library in the 
SPRTSIMS forum.

Just unzip all the files into the same directory, and add GP2EDIT.EXE to one of 
your Windows Program Groups.

   ********** R U N N I N G   F O R   T H E   F I R S T   T I M E ***********

The first thing you will be asked for if the location of a NEW, CLEAN GP2.EXE 
file. If you have the CD-ROM version, then you should choose the file on your 
CD. If you don't have the CD-ROM Version, and your GP2-EXE file has been 
modified using any of the other editors or patches available, copy a new one to 
your hard disk and choose this.

WARNING - the European CD-ROM has five different language versions on it. Be 
sure to choose the correct one for the language you have installed:
	GP2.EXE		English Language Version
	GP2FRE.EXE	French Language Version
	GP2DUT.EXE	Dutch Language Version
	GP2ITA.EXE	Italian Language Version
	GP2SPA.EXE	Spanish Language Version

The program will then scan your EXE file for the data areas it needs to read. If 

it reports "Can't find data", "Driver Aids not as expected" or anything like 
this, then please check that your .EXE file is a clean, unmodified version. If 
you are sure that your GP2.EXE is clean and unmodified, and you still get the 
same error, please contact the author.

Next, you will be asked for the location of the EXE file on your hard disk. 
Choose the GP2.EXE which you want to edit, and GP2EDIT will read the data in 
from this file.

After the first run, the program will not run the scan again unless it has a 
problem - it will store the locations of the data for the next run.

                 ********** T H R E E   W I N D O W S ***********
When the program runs, it will display three overlapping windows:

The MAIN WINDOW has the menu options "File", "Edit", "Patch Game" and "About", 
and allows modification of the Driver Aids and Quick Race Length.

The TEAMS WINDOW has the list of team names, and allows you to change the Race 
and qualifying BHPs and Car reliability.

The DRIVERS WINDOW has the list of drivers, and allows you to modify the grip 
levels available to each driver.

               ********** T H E   M A I N   W I N D O W ***********

FILE MENU
=========
This has the options "Export .GEP", "Import.GEP", "Edit New EXE File" and 
"Exit".

"Export .GEP" will write the data currently on the screen in the Driver and Team 
Windows to a file.

"Import .GEP" will read data from a file and load it into the Driver and Team 
Windows. When you do this, you will be asked whether you wish to overwrite the
details in the final team slot. If you were using this slot for your own team
details, you can choose to keep the names and colour-scheme which you have
entered, or have your setting overwritten by the new file.
An example file called "1996-STD.GEP" is included. This file contains settings
which will give reasonably realistic results based on the 1996 Formula 1 season,
but which is no more difficult than the standard GP2 settings. 

"Edit New EXE file" will allow you to read in the data from a new GP2.EXE. If 
this new file is the same language version as the old, there will be no problem. 
If the language has changed, GP2EDIT will complain, and ask you for the location 
of a clean GP2.EXE which it can scan to find the positions of the data it needs, 
either on the CD-ROM or on the hard disk. Do this if you want to change versions 
of GP2, e.g. for a different language version, or if you want more than one 
GP2.EXE on your disk with different setups.

"Exit" closes the program and discards all data.

EDIT MENU
=========
This has the options "Names/Car Nos", "Cockpit Colours", "Pit Crew Colours" and 
"Pits/Noses".

Names/Car Nos
-------------
Using the "Names/Car Nos" option will close the Driver and Team windows, and 
open a new Team Edit window. This will allow you to edit the team names and 
driver names, and decide which cars are part of which teams.

You can NOT use Car no 13, or any car number higher than 40. To choose Car 
Number 0 (Damon Hill in the standard game), enter 1. If you choose car zero (0), 
that car will be removed from use. You are not allowed to have less than 26 cars 
in use - GP2 will not work properly with less than 26 cars.

Click the OK button when you are finished, the Editing window will close and 
your new setup will be displayed in the The Team and Driver Windows.

Cockpit Colours
---------------
Using the "Cockpit Colours" option will close the Driver and Team windows, and 
open a new Cockpit Colours window. This will allow you to edit the cockpit 
colours displayed when in the Cockpit of any car in the game.

There are three colours for each cockpit - the Main colour, used for the cockpit 
surround, the colour used for the driving mirrors, and the colour used for the 
front wing. Please note that the front wing colour is not correctly used by GP2 
when using the standard VGA cockpit - SVGA is OK.

To change one of these colours, just double-click it with the mouse. The old 
colour will be displayed, along with the shading colours which GP2 will use. The
current colour will be marked on the colour pallette. To change the colour,
click on either a colour from the palette, or one of the other team cockpit
colour boxes. The new colour will show, along with the shading which will be
applied. Watch the shading carefully! If you choose a colour from the right-hand
block in the palette, you can wind up with two very different colours used to
shade the cockpit, and it will look very odd in the game.

Click the Exit button when you are finished, the Cockpit Colours window will 
close and the Team and Driver Windows will reappear.

Pit Crew Colours
----------------
Using the "Pit Crew Colours" option will close the Driver and Team windows, and 
open a new Pit Crew Colours window. This will allow you to edit the colours of 
the pit crew uniforms.

The colours are displayed on a crude representation of a pit mechanic <g>. The 
"hand" on the left controls the glove colour, and the "lollipop" on the right is 
the "brakes on" sign. The small area marked "Trim" controls the colour of the 
trim stripes on the uniform.

Move from team to team using the list at the left of the screen.

The colours are changed in exactly the same way as the cockpit colours - 
double-click an area, then choose either a new colour from the pallette or click
another area of the pit crew uniform to copy the colour across.

Click the Exit button when you are finished, the window will close and the Team 
and Driver Windows will reappear.



Pits/Noses
-------------
Using the "Pits/Noses" option will close the Driver and Team windows, and 
open a new Pit Lane and Noses window. This will allow you to edit the order of 
the garages in the Pit Lane and whether the cars appear with a high or low nose 
configuration.

Pit Garage "1" is the one nearest to the pit entrace. Garage "14" is the one 
furthest away. The program will check that you do not use any garage more than 
once.

Please NOTE that in practice and qualifying sessions, cars can sometimes appear 
outside a different garage from normal if both cars from the same team are in 
the pit lane at the same time.

The "High Nose" boxes control whether the car will appear with a high or low 
nose in the game. The only low-nose cars on the 1996 grid were the two Ferraris.

Click the Exit button when you are finished, the window will close and the Team 
and Driver Windows will reappear.

PATCH GAME
==========
This menu option will take the settings from all three windows, and attempt to 
apply them to your GP2.EXE and F1GSTATE.SAV files. BE SURE TO HAVE A BACKUP OF 
YOUR GP2.EXE BEFORE TRYING THIS.

The GP2.EXE and F1GSTATE.SAV files will not be altered until you choose this 
option.

ABOUT
=====
This menu option displays the program version information.

DRIVER AIDS
===========
Clicking the boxes here allows you to modify which driver aids are allowed at 
which levels of difficulty. The default settings are:
   Ace      F2, F7
   Pro      F2, F5, F6, F7
   Semi-Pro F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7
   Amateur  F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7
   Rookie   F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7

QUICK RACE LENGTH
=================
This scroll bar allows you to change the length of quick races between 10 and 
100% of full race distance. The default is 5%.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL and WEIGHTING
==============================
These options allow you to choose the difficulty level and CC performance 
weighting used by the game. Please NOTE that if you do NOT choose the "1994" 
weighting option, then any changes which you make to CC performance will have no 
effect.

CAR REALISM
===========
This button allows you to switch car failures on and off for the human driver.

RANDOM PLAYER CAR POWER
=======================
This button allows you to switch between random player car power (as in the
normal game) and fixed player car power.

FIRST CAR NUMBER
================
This button allows you to choose between having the first car as Number 0 (as it
was in 1994), or Number 1 (as it has been since).

               ********** T H E   D R I V E R S   W I N D O W ***********
This window allows you to change the Driver Grip levels for each car currently 
in use. Driver grip levels as displayed run from 1 to 4767.

The "Set Race=Qual" button will copy the current qualifying grip across to the 
race grip for each driver.

The "+ -" boxes indicate the range of random grip higher or lower then the 
setting you have entered for the driver. GP2 only allows one setting for this 
variable, and the program deals with this field automatically.

                  ********** T H E   T E A M S   W I N D O W ***********
This window allows you to change the Car Power (BHP) available in Qualifying and 

Race sessions, and the chance that the car will suffer a failure.

BHP settings run from 400 to 1000 BHP.

Car failure settings run from 0 to 2047. 0 means that the car will have no 
chance of failure, 2047 means that the car will be lucky to complete the first 
lap <g>.

To change these settings, click the correct option at the bottom of the form, 
then use the scroll bars to adjust the values.

There is a button, a scroll bar and two options at the bottom of this form. 
Using these together allows you to increase or decrease all Race and Qualifying 
BHPs by the same amount. The slider changes the amount of change between 1 and 
10%, and the option buttons allow you to set this as an increase or decrease. 
Clicking the command button will apply the change to the BHPs.

Also, there are two scroll bars for changing the power of the Player's car in
race and/or qualifying sessions. WARNING - changing the player car power can make
your game illegal for use in some racing leagues. The "Default" button will
restore the default values of 780 and 790 BHP.

                  ********** T E C H N I C A L   N O T E S ***********
Skip these unless you dream in Hexadecimal <g>.

The Grip levels are taken by subtracting 28000 from the GP2 actual figure, so
the minimum real figure is 28000, and the maximum is 32767.

The 400 to 1000 BHP limitation is artificial, and intended to keep the results
obtained reasonably realistic.

The Car Breakdown figures displayed are multipled by 16 to apply them to the
GP2.EXE, so the range of 0 to 2047 becomes 0 to 32752. There didn't seem any
point in giving any finer control than this.

The following table says where I am reading the Data from, whether it gets
stored in the GEP files or no and whether it is patched into the GP2.EXE and/or
the F1GSTATE.SAV.

    DATA ITEM       Read From Stored in GEP? EXE Patched? F1GSTATE Patched?
------------------- --------- -------------- ------------ -----------------
Team Names             EXE         Yes           Yes             Yes
Driver Names           EXE         Yes           Yes             Yes
Car Numbers            EXE         Yes           Yes             Yes
BHPs & Breakdowns      EXE         Yes           Yes             No
Driver Grips           EXE         Yes           Yes             No
Driver Aids            EXE         No            Yes             No
Quick Race Length      SAV         No            No              Yes
Cockpit Colours        EXE         Yes           Yes             Yes
Opposition Levels      SAV         No            No              Yes
Car Realism            SAV         No            No              Yes
High/Low Nose          EXE         Yes           Yes             No
Random Car Power       EXE         No            Yes             No
Pit Lane Order         EXE         Yes           Yes             No
Pit Crew Colours       EXE         Yes           Yes             No
Car #0 flag            EXE         No            Yes             No
Player Car BHPs        EXE         No            Yes             No

                  ********** P R O G R A M   H I S T O R Y ***********
VERSION 1.2
===========
Fixes a couple of bugs in handling of the F1GSTATE FILE.
Works in 640X480 screen mode.
New system for Team Data Editing

VERSION 1.21
============
Gets the screen captions on on the Teams form the right way round <g>.
Fixes bugs in "Export file" processing.

VERSION 1.22
============
Fixes bug in Car Selection which caused two cars with the same number.
Fixes bug in Team Edit screen which caused infinite loop when same car
number used twice.

VERSION 1.3
===========
Adds editing for Cockpit Colours and some game options.

VERSION 1.4
===========
Some file-handling problems fixed.
"Scan new file" option added.
High/Low Nose flags added.

VERSION 1.5
===========
Random Player Car Power Switch added.

VERSION 1.6
===========
Pit Lane Garage and Pit Crew Colour editing added.

VERSION 1.62
============
Minor improvements to colour-editing forms.

VERSION 1.7
===========
"Car 0" flag switch added. Player Car Power editing added.

VERSION 1.8
===========
"Home Team" overwrite added.

VERSION 1.87
============
Bug in "Home Team" overwrite fixed.

 ***************************** D I S C L A I M E R ****************************
 *             This program is NOT approved for use by Microprose.            *
 * The program is supplied "as is", and you use it entirely at your own risk. *
 *                         All Trademarks acknowledged.                       *
 ******************************************************************************

