Troubleshooting

Nothing changed in game

Check these in order. Almost every case is one of them:

• The handlingName. Open data/handling.meta and compare <handlingName> with the <handlingId> of the car in its vehicles.meta. They must match. For 9 of the built-in cars the export needs a new name; see What the handling entry contains.
• The start order. In server.cfg the handling resource must come after the resource that streams the car.
• The resource runs. The server console lists it when it starts. A typo in the ensure line or a folder one level too deep stops it.
• A fresh car. Delete the car and spawn a new one after the restart. An existing car keeps its old handling.
• Another script. Some tuning or vehicle scripts set handling values when a car spawns and overwrite the file.

Top speed moved less than expected

The common rule says top speed is 1.33 times fInitialDriveMaxFlatVel. That is the redline of the top gear, not the speed the car reaches: drag stops most cars earlier. On the stock Sultan, 145 → 160 on Max flat velocity gives 183 km/h instead of 173, not the 213 km/h of the rule.

• Look at the wheel force chart: the green line is where the push meets drag.
• For more top speed, lower Drag coefficient or raise Drive force.
• If the editor shows the gain but the game does not, the car was not respawned: Max flat velocity is read at spawn.

The full story is in Why the top speed does not change.

The file cannot be read

When the dropped file holds no handling entry, the drop zone shows:

1

1. 11. Could not read that file: no <HandlingData><Item> found: the file has no handling entries

Could not read that file: no <HandlingData><Item> found The editor looks for <Item> entries inside <HandlingData>.

• You dropped another file of the car, such as vehicles.meta or carvariations.meta. The handling file is usually in the data folder of the car resource.
• The XML is broken, for example a missing closing tag after a hand edit. The game would refuse it too; fix the tag and try again.
• The file is inside a .rpf or a zip. Extract handling.meta first.

A pack with hundreds of entries

Some people load a full game or server handling.meta with hundreds of cars. The browser prompt then lists all of them in one long window, and you have to type the right number.

• Better: copy the one <Item type="CHandlingData"> block you need into a new file, wrapped in <CHandlingDataMgr><HandlingData>, and load that.
• The export only contains the entry you edited. Paste it back into the big file, or install it as its own resource after it.

The car flips, loses wheels or bounces

• Wheels vanish: Grip bias front or a suspension bias is at 0 or 1 in the file. Keep them between 0.3 and 0.7.
• The car flips in corners: grip is high for its centre of mass. Lower the grip a little, raise Anti-roll bar, or lower the centre of mass in the file (vecCentreOfMassOffset z).
• It bounces: damping is too low for the springs. Compression damping plus Rebound damping about equal to Spring force gives a settled ride.
• A bike crashes the game when it spawns: its entry has no CBikeHandlingData block. Load the bike's own file, whose blocks the export keeps.

More fixes are in When it does not work of the handling guide.

The game differs from the editor

For most cars the predicted top speed is within 3 % of a measured one (80 % of 617 tested cars). Larger gaps usually have a reason:

• Upgrades. The car in game has engine or transmission upgrades, so compare with Fully upgraded.
• The road. Slopes, bumps and traffic change the speed. Measure on a long flat straight.
• Motorcycles. A wheelie makes bikes faster than the editor shows; the file cannot predict it.
• Scripts. Speed limiters, fuel or damage scripts, or nitrous change the car at runtime.
• Slow utility vehicles. Service, industrial and emergency vehicles are off by 4-6 % in the model.

Still stuck

Ask in the SwisserAI Discord. Paste the <Item> entry, the car and what you expected, so others can load the same values into the editor.