BHMS: While talking about accidents, tell us what is so special about the damage model.

Warthog: Rough driving and crashing can damage plenty of components of the car. If you damage a brake line you will be driving without brakes, bust a radiator and you will loose your engine coolant and eventually overheat your engine. Damage the intercooler and turbo boost is lost. Run over a rock and you might bend a suspension rod, altering the toe of that wheel. On Easy and Professional, though, the damage is fairly lenient to the player, but I'm happy to say that in Champion mode the gloves are off.

BHMS: What about component wear during rallies such as tyre and brake-wear? How does one repair the car?

Warthog: Tyre wear is modelled. If you gamble that a track is wet and choose a wet weather tyre, but it turns out its not, then the tyre will overheat and wear down quicker. Brakes are accurately simulated. They increase their efficiency as they warm up but start dropping in performance as they get overheated. In car service the player will be presented with a team mechanics job list. The player then gets to decide what parts have to be replaced. As the player selects parts to be fixed he is presented with an estimated time - the accuracy of which is dependant on the skill and experience of the lead mechanic (no absolute time guarantees here). The clock ticks in real-time as the player chooses what to fix. Once the order has been given the time speeds up as the parts are replaced. Overdrawing the 20 minute service time (or 40 minutes for overnight service) will result in penalties exactly as in real life. One of the nicest features in car service is that the car parts are connected as they are in real life. Replacing a brake disc, for instance, means that the mechanics need to remove the brake pads and brake callipers before the disc can be removed. And then put it all back together again.

BHMS: Is the scenery interactive in any way? In other words, can you damage or alter the objects around a stage or are they solid and fixed in one place?

Warthog: Yes. We have fences, signs, mesh fences, cones etc. that can be knocked about and/or broken. Logs can be knocked around and roll down hills. Our tickertape is something special actually; it snaps just like real tickertape and the sticks fall over, of course. But if you drive really carefully you can stretch it over your bonnet and over the car. Try it when you get the chance - it's a neat little detail.

BHMS: Were there any specific feature of the game you found especially difficult to implement, and are especially proud of (please provide some technical details!)?

Warthog: Quite a few things. The most striking must be the dynamic weather (which is great), the way no stage has a pre-designed weather setting. We have different sky parameters, rain effects, potholes and ruts that can be dry or filled with water. Stage surface graphics and materials also range from dry to wet depending on precipitation and moisture (with different specularity levels for each degree of dampness). Track surfaces also have different degrees of wear, that also affects the surface materials. If you start a stage as one of the first cars, the stage will be pretty pristine. Starting last will have the road softened up and lined with your competitors' tyre marks. All of the above creates great verity in driving conditions. Also the game uses several different stage order schedules that makes the track order different from season to season. As for difficulty, the above features have put a lot of strain on the testing though, as you can imagine trying to perfect something with lots of random parameters and making sure no oddities appear.

BHMS: What about this 'dynamic weather' - just how dynamic is it? Do we get forecasts or will we know for sure how the weather will be like? Tyre gamble?

Warthog: Every rally has several weather settings as appropriate for that rally's climate and the season. At the beginning of a rally the "start off" weather is random and changes for better or worse as the rally progresses. Particular weather is not tied down to a particular stage. There are forecasts that tell the player the current weather and if the weather is inclined to get worse, better or be more or less stable. As you only have access to the weather data at the service park, you'll have to gamble on what tyres to use, particularly for sections where you drive two stages in a row without service.

BHMS: We know nothing about the career mode, apart from there being a rally driving school. Please tell us more.

Warthog: There is a rally school that is divided into a Basic and an Advanced section. After the player has completed the rally school he is free to start a rally season. The player commits to a team and drives that team's car for a season. After the season the player can change to another team and drive another season (the player is likely to unlock new teams to drive for if he doesn't do too poorly!). It takes skill to do well in a season however as we follow the rally rules to the letter. Failing to reach the finish line will retire you from the entire rally and reward you with no season points just as in real life. And there are time penalties for false starts, getting stuck in the rough etc.

BHMS: A lot of fans located in North-America have expressed concern about if and when Richard Burns Rally will be published on their continent. What can you tell them to put their minds at ease?

Warthog: You will have to keep an eye on the SCi website for any information regarding publishing deals.

* bonus question
BHMS: We received a question from one of your developers (Fozz on our forum) asking for a raise? We at BHMS all think that he deserves it, just by visiting and offering his insights on our forum.

Warthog: If he would spend as much time doing his work as he does on your forum, he would indeed get a substantial pay rise. As it is now, however - prospects are bleak.


To learn more about this game, visit our Richard Burns Rally Game Section, where you can check out some videos, screenshots and all the latest news.