Introduction
Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing is an ok-ish Formula 1 racing game for the NES. The game has some quirks, like Nigel Mansell himself teaching you how to play the game. I owned this game as a kid and I always wondered how it would be to finally beat it. Here it is, a manually routed, automatically (bot) driven solution of this game. This is my longest movie so far! I know this might be a monotonous one, but I did it for the nostalgia factor more than anything.
Choice of Category
Early on I decided that I wanted to win all races. Of course, for an any% movie the end game could be reached by forfeiting all races. Similarly, the championship could be attained by manipulating RNG to minimize the championship score of the runner-up, winning a minimal amount of races and forfeiting the rest. I found these alternatives to be pathetic and painful to watch. Therefore I wanted to pursue a 100%, where we win all races decisively and gloriously. The judge must decide if '100%' applies here, given we skip the qualification sessions. Perhaps a 'perfectScore%' or 'winAllRaces%' category more closely relates to this choice.
Strategy
Regarding car setup, I chose the aero setting that yielded better botted results. This choice did not affect max speed (seems like a programming faux pas, since in real F1 higher spoiler inclination adds grip but does limit max speed). Since wear tire is the most important factor in the pit stop strategy, I also configured the bot to take curves minimizing tire wear at all times. In some races I was able to pursue a single stop strategy. In the others, I distributed laps to allow the use of soft tires whenever possible.
Software + Hardware
- Rom: Nigel Mansell's World Championship Challenge (U) [!]
- SHA1: D32CCAFB8B336BFCB0666DBD60B1364CF226C3FC
- MD5: EEF24952A8552ED36EFA4B17CADB6C20
Emulator
- EmuHawk 2.8.0 (Core: QuickNES)
Routing Bot
- Bot: JaffarPlus
- Routing Core: QuickNES
- Platform: 'The Jaffanator' - AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X (64 cores, 128 threads) + 256Gb RAM (Average Exploration Performance: 1.2M States/s)
Timing
Frame Tire Strategy
Round Circuit Initial Total
Boot 0 572
1 South Africa 572 19574 Hard -> Hard
Transition 20146 98
2 Mexico 20244 20491 Hard
Transition 40735 99
3 Brazil 40834 21017 Hard -> Soft
Transition 61851 102
4 Spain 61953 18328 Hard -> Soft
Transition 80281 99
5 San Marino 80380 19486 Hard -> Soft
Transition 99866 106
6 Monaco 99972 17376 Hard -> Soft
Transition 117348 84
7 Canada 117432 18341 Hard -> Soft
Transition 135773 99
8 France 135872 17801 Hard -> Soft
Transition 153673 99
9 Great Britain 153772 17541 Hard -> Soft
Transition 171313 98
10 Germany 171411 17391 Hard -> Soft
Transition 188802 98
11 Hungary 188900 19069 Hard -> Soft
Transition 207969 99
12 Belgium 208068 19419 Hard -> Soft
Transition 227487 99
13 Italy 227586 18270 Hard -> Soft
Transition 245856 99
14 Portugal 245955 18010 Hard -> Soft
Transition 263965 98
15 Japan 264063 17859 Hard -> Soft
Transition 281922 99
16 Australia 282021 14543 Hard
Transition 296564 24
Last Input 296588
nymx: Claiming for judging....I've been waiting for this!
nymx: Your BOT modified engine is out of its league. Nigel wants to start a new Jaffar league for fair competition.
As usual...a complete BLOW OUT!
Accepting to "Standard" for publication.
