[rappo]

I posted this at GTAGaming but figured you guys would be interested, too, so here it goes...

Only a couple days into the release and modders are already at it! I've test out this method and it works perfectly on my system, which is the retail copy of GTA IV (not Steam). Here's how to mod the game:

• Download aru's File Modding Ability Patch - this is a small, but powerful tool, because it will basically trick your game into thinking that all the files are original (GTA IV won't run unless the original files are running).
  
• Figure out what you want to mod and locate the file. For this simple example, I made a fast and powerful taxi, which is just a modification of the handling.dat file, which is located at GTA IV\common\data.handling.dat.
  
• Right click the handling.dat file, choose Properties, and make sure that Read-Only is unchecked.
  
• Open the handling.dat file in a text editor like Notepad. Find the line that begins with COMET, it will look something like this:
  

  COMET		 1450.0  6.5   85	0.0 0.0 -0.21		0.2  5  0.24  1.0 160.0	0.34 0.66 0.7  35.0		1.50 1.25 12.5 0.12 0.48		  2.4  1.6  1.8  0.10 -0.15 0.0  0.5		  1.0 1.0 0.6 1.5 	0.0  60000 		40440010	1				1

  
  Copy the whole line.
  
• Find the lines that begin with TAXI and TAXI2. Delete these two lines, and in their place insert the COMET line twice. Change the first pasted COMET line to TAXI, and the second to TAXI2. What we basically did here was give the Taxis the same properties as the Comet.
  
• Change the first value on both the TAXI and TAXI2 lines from 1450.0 to 99999.0, therefore making your lines like this:
  

  TAXI		 99999.0  6.5   85	0.0 0.0 -0.21		0.2  5  0.24  1.0 160.0	0.34 0.66 0.7  35.0		1.50 1.25 12.5 0.12 0.48		  2.4  1.6  1.8  0.10 -0.15 0.0  0.5		  1.0 1.0 0.6 1.5 	0.0  60000 		40440010	1				1
  TAXI2		 99999.0  6.5   85	0.0 0.0 -0.21		0.2  5  0.24  1.0 160.0	0.34 0.66 0.7  35.0		1.50 1.25 12.5 0.12 0.48		  2.4  1.6  1.8  0.10 -0.15 0.0  0.5		  1.0 1.0 0.6 1.5 	0.0  60000 		40440010	1				1

  
  
• Save the handling.dat file, close it, and run GTA IV. Find a Taxi and you should notice that it's a lot more powerful than before!

And that's it. Here's a video of the mod running:

This was a silly little example, but the main thing to get out of this is that Modding Ability Patch - without it your file edits are useless! Be sure to share anything that you whip up

[Huckleberry Pie]

This is epic; can't wait to try it when I get my own copy of IV...

[WRX22B1998]

lol nice.

is there taxi missions in this game by any chance? i remember i did something similar to this in vice city to actually pass the ambulance missions, gave it extreme accel and top speed. only problem was it kept tipping over. and it had like no grip

[GTA Don]

There aren't any taxi missions in the game, sadly. Would have been a nice way to earn a little extra, you can do taxi missions for Roman but that's only until

Spoiler

the depot gets burned down.

[Spider-Vice]

Nice one, Rappo! I want that mod when I buy my GTAIV

[Chris]

Guys you don't need to quote his entire post, lol. :/

Thanks for posting this here rappo. For now I'll pin it since there's no proper tutorials here anyway. Someone really needs to get some powerful modding tools out there for us to use

[Butters!]

Okay, Now do that with a 6 Star wanted level

This post has been edited by Butters!: 07 December 2008 - 11:37 PM

[Joelzaar]

Had a strange effect when i tried this. I changed the carcols file to make the FIB Buffalo frost white but instead it disabled my wanted level and made car's react funny.

[MeNaCe]

which one is the top speed?

[jonhenry63]

MeNaCe, on Jan 11 2009, 08:35 AM, said:

which one is the top speed?

I want to know this aswel.

[FunGt]

Top speed in the first post is 160.0, if you want to increase acceleration you have to increase 0.24.

[ModellingMan]

thats good ill try when i install my original IV. - i was downloaded it