Changing Handling & Speed For Modded Vehicles

This guide is mainly intended for mod users who would like to learn how to change driving behaviour, but also adds info to the Basic Car Modding Guide.

Driving behaviour of each modded vehicle is defined in the .yaml file included with each car mod.

This .yaml file will be somewhere in r6\tweaks\. Some modders put their .yaml files in subfolders with their name or the name of the car whithin the tweaks folder. The .yaml file must be somewhere inside r6\tweaks though.

Some modders also use .tweak files to define the driving behaviour of their cars. This tutorial won't cover these, but the settings within those files use the same names and values as .yaml files. The files are formatted differently and the information presented here must be adapted to the specific format of .tweak files.

Changing Speed

Manually

The engine setup is made up of different sets of values for each gear of the car. These sets of values are usually taken from one of the vanilla cars and then modified. The sets of values are added to the car within the vehEngineData section of the .yaml, which we'll now look at:

• Open the .yaml file of a modded car using a text editor like Notepad

• Search for vehEngineData

• This section might look like this:

  vehEngineData:
    $base: Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport
    gears:
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline0
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline1
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline2
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline3
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline4
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline5
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline6
      - !remove Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline7
      - !append yv_r8_gear_reverse
      - !append yv_r8_gear_1
      - !append yv_r8_gear_2
      - !append yv_r8_gear_3
      - !append yv_r8_gear_4
      - !append yv_r8_gear_5
      - !append yv_r8_gear_6
      - !append yv_r8_gear_7

• This car uses Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport as the $base for its engine setup. This is the Rayfield Caliburn

• Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport contains eight gears, inline0 through inline7

• inline0 is the reverse gear, inline7 the seventh gear

• The vanilla gears are removed from the modded car in the lines start with - !remove

• Custom gears are added to the modded car in the lines that start with - !append

• The custom gears are defined further up in the .yaml

• Use the search function of your text editor to search for the name of each gear, for example yv_r8_gear_7

• It might look like this:

yv_r8_gear_7:
  $base: Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline7
  maxEngineRPM: 9000
  maxSpeed: 45.75
  minEngineRPM: 4100
  minSpeed: 40.2000008
  torqueMultiplier: 0.205

• yv_r8_gear_7: is the "title" of the TweakDB entry for this gear

• It uses Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport_inline7 as its base, this is the seventh gear of the Rayfield Caliburn

• The most important values are minSpeed, maxSpeed, and torqueMultiplier

• minSpeed defines the minimum speed of each gear

• maxSpeed defines the maximum speed of each gear

• torqueMultiplier defines how quickly the car goes from minSpeed to maxSpeed

• Raising all three values across all gears makes the car go faster

My explanations of each value might not be technically correct. I've arrived at this explanation by changing the values and seeing what happens in-game. Finding a gear setup that feels smooth across all gears requires a lot of trial and error.

You can also change these values live in game using Whip Wizard.

Vanilla Gear Setups

If you don't want to make an entire gear setup from scratch, you can also use an unmodified gear setup from one of the vanilla vehicles. Since we now know how the gear setup works, we can remove the custom setup of the modded car:

• Within the vehEngineData section of the .yaml, remove everything but the line that starts with $base:

• Feel free to stop here if you like the engine setup of the vanilla car that the modded one is based on

• If not, find the name of the TweakDB entry for a vanilla car

• Download & install WolvenKit

• After starting the program, click on "Continue to editor" in the bottom left corner

• Open its Tweak Browser from the right sidebar and wait for it to load

• In the search field at the top, enter a keyword of the name of the car

• The names of the car within the TweakDB might not line up entirely with what's displayed in-game

• If all else fails, search for the car brand such as "Quadra"

• In the list on the left, scroll down until you see entries that start with Vehicle.v_

• In this example, we'll use the Porsche 911 Turbo

• In the list on the right, scroll down until you see vehEngineData

• Right click the vehEngineData entry and navigate to "TweakXL > Copy to Clipboard"

• Hold down Shift on your keyboard and "Copy to Clipboard" changes to "Copy Name to Clipboard"

• Click on "Copy Name to Clipboard"

• Now, back in the text editor, replace the name of the gear setup of the original car with the one you've copied.

For example:

vehEngineData:
    $base: Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport

Would be changed to:

vehEngineData:
    $base: Vehicle.v_sport2_porsche_911turbo_inline0

Finding & copying the name of the engine setup for the Porsche 911 Turbo

Here are some of the names for the gear setups of vanilla cars:

Car name	Engine setup
Archer Quartz "Bandit"	Vehicle.v_standard2_archer_quartz_nomad_inline11
Archer Quartz EC-T2 R660	Vehicle.v_standard2_archer_quartz_gt_inline12
Hozuki MH2	Vehicle.v_standard2_mizutani_hozuki_sport_inline1
Mahir Supron FS3-T	Vehicle.v_standard25_mahir_supron_sport_inline9
Mizutani Hozuki "Hoseki"	Vehicle.v_standard2_mizutani_hozuki_sti_inline9
Mizutani Shion "Samum"	Vehicle.Shion_MZ1_Nomad_Engine
Mizutani Shion MZ1	Vehicle.v_sport2_mizutani_shion_inline0
Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech	Vehicle.v_sport1_quadra_turbo_r_inline9
Quadra Type-66 640 TS	Vehicle.v_sport2_quadra_type66_inline5
Shion Bonewrecker	Vehicle.Shion_MZ1_Nomad_Engine
Thorton Colby "Little Mule"	Vehicle.v_standard25_thorton_colby_nomad_inline5
Thorton Colby "Vulture"	Vehicle.v_standard25_thorton_colby_nomad_inline5
Thorton Colby CST40	Vehicle.v_standard2_thorton_colby_gt_inline4
Thorton Galena "Locust"	Vehicle.v_standard2_thorton_galena_nomad_inline5
Thorton Galena "Rattler"	Vehicle.VehicleEngineDataBobas
Thorton Galena Gecko	Vehicle.v_standard2_thorton_galena_nomad_inline5
Villefort Deleon "Vindicator"	Vehicle.v_sport2_villefort_deleon_vindicator_inline10

While the engine setups above are car specific, the game also features some generic engine setups:

Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_2_Default
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Base_Transaxle
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Default
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Muscle
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Base
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Large
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Large_SC
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Medium
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Small
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Small_Peaky
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Regular_Van
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Sport
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SportPlus
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Sport_SC
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Sport_Transaxle
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Sport_Transaxle_Turbo
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_SuperSport
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Truck
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Truck_Nomad
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Utility
Vehicle.VehicleEngineData_4_Utility_Big

Changing handling

Similarly to the engine setup, handling also works by adding handling data from vanilla cars onto modded ones and then overriding that data. Handling is defined in the vehDriveModelData section of each .yaml file. Such a section might look like this:

  vehDriveModelData:
   $base: Vehicle.VehicleDriveModelData_TurboR_VTech
   maxWheelTurnDeg: 55
   wheelTurnMaxAddPerSecond: 100
   wheelTurnMaxSubPerSecond: 140
   chassis_mass: 1200
   total_mass: 1200
   center_of_mass_offset: { x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: -0.135 }
   wheelSetup:
    $base: Vehicle.v_sport1_rayfield_caliburn_inline1
    backPreset:
      $base: Vehicle.v_sport1_rayfield_caliburn_inline3
      frictionMulLateral: 1.28
      frictionMulLongitudinal: 1.28
      wheelsVerticalOffset: 0
    frontPreset:
      $base: Vehicle.v_sport1_rayfield_caliburn_inline2
      frictionMulLateral: 1.28
      frictionMulLongitudinal: 1.28
      wheelsVerticalOffset: 0

Here, the handling is copied from the Quadra Tubo-R VTech onto the modded car and then modified with custom values.

• The three lines that start with $base: work the same way as the engine setup. You can replace the vanilla cars used there with other vanilla cars by following the method outlined above.

• maxWheelTurnDeg is the highest angle that the front wheels can turn while steering

• wheelTurnMaxAddPerSecond is the speed at which the front wheels turn while steering

• wheelTurnMaxSubPerSecondd is the speed at which the front wheels return to their default rotation after steering

• All three settings:

  • Affect steering sensitivity

  • Decrease for lower sensitivity

  • Increase for higher sensitivity

• frictionMulLateral and frictionMulLongitudinal affect wheel grip

  • Decrease for more drift-y handling

  • Increase for more grip

My explanations of each value might not be technically correct. I've arrived at this explanation by changing the values and seeing what happens in-game. Finding values that handle well requires a lot of trial and error.

Finding & copying the name of the handling data for the Quadra Turbo-R VTech

Same as with the engine setup, you can also change these values live in game using Whip Wizard.