AI Driver Mod Tutorial

You can replace the built-in AI drivers with your own- check out this guide to see how.

Getting started

Karting Superstars allows you to replace the built-in AI drivers with your own. This works in Kartcade and Kartcore. It does not work in Custom Lobbies.

First things first, you can only mod AI drivers that you have seen in a race. Ensure you've played a race on the difficulty you want to mod. This will generate the files you need to replace the drivers for that difficulty.

Once you've done that, you need to navigate to the folder that the AI driver mod files are in. The easiest way to get there is to paste this in your file explorer:

%AppData%\..\LocalLow\Original Fire Games\Karting Superstars\mods\racing-team

Alternatively, you can use the "Open Log Folder" button in the game's settings menu. It's in Settings → Extras:





This will open the File Explorer with the log file selected. Ignore the log files. Instead, open the "mods" folder and the "racing-team" folder within it.

Regardless of how you get there, the racing-team folder should look like like this:



In the next section, I'll explain what these files are and how to edit them.

Opening AI driver files and making a simple change

AI driver mod files are JSON files. JSON is a common data format that you may be familiar with, but if you aren't, having a code editor that understands the format is very helpful. Visual Studio Code[code.visualstudio.com] and Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org] are great free options. If you don't want to install anything, you can also just use Notepad, which comes with all Windows installations. The screenshots in this guide show how the files look in Visual Studio Code.

Go to your racing-team mods folder. Notice that the files the game generates end with .example.json (or just .example depending on your settings). The game will not load files which don't exactly match an AI driver ID. To mod one, you'll need to remove the .example from the name. For example,

4a70b144-07c1-e056-f73e-1b520ae2b68f.example.json

becomes

4a70b144-07c1-e056-f73e-1b520ae2b68f.json

Remove .example from a file's name and then open it in a text editor of your choice. The first portion should look like this:



We can see that this file is for Masiela Dora, an amateur difficulty driver. If we change her name, save the file, and start a race with her in it, we'll immediately see a change:




Important note: all AI difficulties have more than 11 drivers (except for Superstar). This means you might not see your modded driver if they weren't randomly selected when the race started. Fully quit to the main menu and start a new Kartcore or Kartcade session to try again.

The game reloads AI driver mods every time you start a Kartcade or Kartcore session. You won't need to restart the game after changing your mod file; just start a new Kartcade or Kartcore session to reload it.

In the next section, I'll go into detail on the data you can change about an AI driver.

Customizing AI drivers (all valid values)

Each example file contains everything you can change about an AI driver- there are no secret options. You'll notice that you can only change cosmetic values. Difficulty is always the same as the driver you're replacing. There is no way to add new drivers without replacing existing drivers. Likewise, there is no way to remove existing drivers without replacing them.

It's important to understand what values are valid in each part of an AI driver mod file. Here is a list of requirements/possible values for each data type:

racerName

may be any string of any length, though the game can only render certain characters

Colors

must have RGB values from 0 to 255.

driverSkin.id

"driverskin-classic-f"
"driverskin-classic-m"

driverSkin.materialId

must be "driverskinmaterial-classic-f-0" if id is "driverskin-classic-f"
must be "driverskinmaterial-classic-m-0" if id is "driverskin-classic-m"

helmet.id

"helmet-0-modern-full-face"

helmet.materialId

"helmetmaterial-modern-full-face-0"         is Vertical
"helmetmaterial-modern-full-face-1"         is Slant 1
"helmetmaterial-modern-full-face-2"         is Slant 2
"helmetmaterial-modern-full-face-3"         is Digital Devil
"helmetmaterial-modern-full-face-4"         is Whirlpool
"helmetmaterial-modern-full-face-kanaan"    is Tony Kanaan's helmet

helmet.visorId

"visor-acid-splash"
"visor-black"
"visor-clear-eyes-clear-skies"
"visor-cold-violet"
"visor-cool-foof"
"visor-dark-foof"
"visor-filmic"
"visor-gold"
"visor-hazardous-environments"
"visor-lavender-days"
"visor-piercing-red"
"visor-royal"
"visor-salmon-dreams"
"visor-shallow-seas"
"visor-silver"
"visor-sky"
"visor-spark"
"visor-sunset-1"
"visor-sunset-2"
"visor-sunset-3"
"visor-two-tone"
"visor-wednesday"
"visor-witchcraft"

idleAnimation

"driveranimation-idle-01"    is Calm
"driveranimation-idle-02"    is Ready
"driveranimation-idle-03"    is Chill
"driveranimation-idle-04"    is Alert
"driveranimation-idle-05"    is Paparazzi
"driveranimation-idle-07"    is Relaxed
"driveranimation-idle-08"    is Twitch
"driveranimation-idle-09"    is Sleepy
"driveranimation-idle-10"    is Serious
"driveranimation-idle-11"    is Comfy
"driveranimation-idle-13"    is Challenger
"driveranimation-idle-14"    is Shift
"driveranimation-idle-15"    is Fashion
"driveranimation-idle-16"    is Warm Up
"driveranimation-idle-17"    is Daydreaming
"driveranimation-idle-18"    is Pugilist
"driveranimation-idle-19"    is Duelist
"driveranimation-idle-20"    is Punch-Drunk
"driveranimation-idle-21"    is Graceful Warrior
"driveranimation-idle-22"    is Energy Master
"driveranimation-idle-23"    is Light Fingers
"driveranimation-idle-24"    is Painful Joints
"driveranimation-idle-25"    is Salty
"driveranimation-idle-27"    is Rumba
"driveranimation-idle-28"    is Salsa
"driveranimation-idle-29"    is Samba
"driveranimation-idle-30"    is The Twist

celebrationAnimation

"driveranimation-celebration-01"    is Win
"driveranimation-celebration-02"    is Joy
"driveranimation-celebration-03"    is Jump
"driveranimation-celebration-04"    is Wow!
"driveranimation-celebration-05"    is Bow
"driveranimation-celebration-06"    is Look!
"driveranimation-celebration-07"    is Cheers
"driveranimation-celebration-08"    is Style
"driveranimation-celebration-09"    is Heart
"driveranimation-celebration-10"    is Dance
"driveranimation-celebration-12"    is Challenge
"driveranimation-celebration-13"    is Formal
"driveranimation-celebration-14"    is Gymnast

vehicles

This is a list of vehicles. You can't define multiple vehicles with the same ID in the same driver. There's only one vehicle ID: "standard-kart".

vehicle materialIds

"vehiclematerial-standard-kart-0"    is OFK
"vehiclematerial-standard-kart-1"    is Edge
"vehiclematerial-standard-kart-2"    is Neotek

vehicle symbol

This is a number from 0 to 99.

That's everything! I hope you have a lovely time creating your own AI drivers.

[tyguynow]

Is there a way to adjust the brightness of colors?

[Miguel Romeral]

I was looking for some guidelines on what values are related to what items (like type of helmets). Thank you very much for this brief guide! 😊

[[GxR] Ryder]

Important to note is that the order of Color 1-4 in the Customization Section is not equal to the order in the custom-JSON files.... a real pain in the a... to configure that...