<aname="1"><h1>Welcome to Torcs-NG, the Torcs laboratory!</h1></a>
<p>TORCS-NG
is a fork of the famous racing car simulator TORCS, aiming to implement
exciting new features, cars, tracks and AI opponents to make a more
enjoyable game for you, the player :)</p>
<p>In other words, Torcs-NG is the place:</p>
<ul>
<li>Where developers can try their ideas and have every chance to get them released to the end-users
(<strong>democracy</strong> is the main principle ruling the dev team),</li>
<li>where end-users can enjoy the completion of these ideas and give their opinion about it, and/or make new suggestions.</li>
</ul>
<p>So,
if you find your or some people's Torcs patch proposals don't integrate
the official release as quickly as you would have loved, you have
reached the right place !</p>
<aname="2"><h1>How to contribute</h1></a>
<p>You can contribute to Torcs-NG as an "end-user" or/and as a "developer":</p>
<ul>
<li>As an end-user (check <ahref="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=239111">the Download page in SF.net</a> for how to get source/ binary releases):
<ul>
<li>Help the dev team to test pre-releases</li>
<li>Suggest improvements, express your support or disgust about changes</li>
<li>Ask questions about compilation / build from source problems</li>
<li>...</li>
</ul>
all through the user mailing list: <ahref="mailto:torcs-ng-users@lists.sourceforge.net">torcs-ng-users@lists.sourceforge.net</a></li>
<li>as a developer (see <ahref="http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=239111">the Code menu in SF.net</a> for how to get the source tree from the Subversion repository):
<ul>
<li>as guest contributor, you may propose your adds/improvements as <strong>patches</strong> (patch files built via diff -Naur or equivalent) against the latest source tree,
and send them to us as attached files through the devel mailing list (<ahref="mailto:torcs-ng-devel@lists.sourceforge.net">torcs-ng-devel@lists.sourceforge.net</a>)
or the <ahref="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=239111">tracker</a>;
you don't have write access yet to the SVN repository, but it's up to
a registered developer, you now have write access to the SVN
repository; but the preferred way for submitting adds/improvements is
still the patch, as it can be easily tested and reviewed by anyone
whatever the status of its working copy of the source tree; once the
dev. team, through discussions, peer reviews and tests, has
democratically decided to integrate the patch, you can at last commit
your changes to the repository!</li>
</ul>
</li></ul>
<p><br/>Your contribution to Torcs-NG may take place in many domains:</p>
<ul>
<li>The
core code itself, and its numerous subjects : user interface, physics
engine, 3D graphics engine, race managment, input device related code,
file formats, ...to enhance, optimize, make more up-to-date, fix bugs,
port to another platform...</li>
<li>The robot(s) code (AI racing)</li>
<li>The cars design or tuning</li>
<li>The tracks design</li>
<li>The documentation</li>
<li>Feel free to suggest...</li>
</ul>
<aname="3"><h1>Torcs-NG release process</h1></a>
<p>Torcs-NG
won't follow Torcs release stream : we plan to adopt a pace of at
least 1 or 2 releases a year, and to simply integrate all
interesting changes / fixes that Torcs would have released
meanwhile.</p>
<p>As already said, the content of each release will be <strong>democratically</strong>
decided inside the dev team. Stability and bug freeness is not our
first purpose, but it's just the second one: modifications that are not
really completed, well tested or that may degrade the simulation
realism, some other essential feature or performance, or the end-user
gaming experience won't be released (unless they are of great interest
and can be completely switched off through some run-time user action).</p>For
the moment, the supported platforms are Linux (x86, x86_64) and 32 bit
Windows XP and Vista, but any volunteer is welcome for any other... as
Torcs is known to work on Linux PPC, FreeBSD and MacOS X.<br/><br/><p>Next release (may be by the end of 2008) will include at least :</p><ul><li>3 exciting <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">new tracks</span> and 3 visually improved ones,</li><li>improved textures for many cars,</li><li>2 amazing new car sets by Andrew Sumner : <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">SuperCars</span> and <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">36 GP</span>,</li><li>a new TRB<spanstyle="font-weight: bold;"> first-class robot</span> for these cars, and many others (at last a real AI opponent !),</li><li>animated driver by Andrew Sumner on some cars, 3D wheels for many cars by Eric Espie,</li><li>and more ...</li></ul><br/>And with the following release (next year) :<br/><ul><li>you will enjoy <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">network racing</span> : race against your friends over the internet,</li><li>you will feel the cars in your hands with <spanstyle="font-weight: bold;">force feedback</span>,</li><li>and more ...</li></ul>
<aname="4"><h1>Links & Lists</h1></a>
<ul>
<li><ahref="http://www.torcs.org">Torcs: The Open Racing Car Simulator</a> and
<ahref="http://sourceforge.net/projects/torcs">its project page at SF.net</a></li>
<li><ahref="mailto:torcs-ng-devel@lists.sourceforge.net">Torcs-NG developers mailing list</a> and its
