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 NFSMW HelicopterOptions V2.2.1
 A police helicopter overhaul for Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
=============================================================================

The stock police helicopter hangs far behind, dawdles on straights, and loses
you easily. This mod makes it fly like a real pursuit helicopter: it keeps up
with you, aims where you are going, reacts when you make sudden turns or
stop, talks on the police radio, and stays stable instead of tipping over.

Almost everything is optional and configurable, from "slightly better than
stock" up to "genuinely hard to shake".


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 WHAT YOU NEED
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 1. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005), English PC version 1.3.
    The mod checks the game version when it starts. If your game is a
    different version, the mod does nothing and leaves everything untouched.

 2. An ASI loader, for example Ultimate ASI Loader.
    This is a small file that lets the game load .asi mods from its
    "scripts" folder. If you already use other .asi mods, you already
    have one and can skip this step.


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 HOW TO INSTALL
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 1. Open your game folder (the folder that contains speed.exe).

 2. Copy the "scripts" folder from this zip into the game folder.
    If Windows asks to merge folders, say yes.

    You should end up with:

      <your game folder>\scripts\HelicopterOptions.asi
      <your game folder>\scripts\HelicopterOptions\Configuration\
      <your game folder>\scripts\HelicopterOptions\Logs\

 3. Start the game and get into a pursuit that calls in the helicopter
    (heat level 3 and up).

 That's it. The mod works out of the box with sensible defaults.

 TO CHECK IT IS WORKING:
 After running the game once, open
   scripts\HelicopterOptions\Logs\HelicopterOptions.log
 in Notepad. Near the top you should see
   "Supported game version confirmed."
 and
   "Initialization completed successfully."

 TO UNINSTALL:
 Delete HelicopterOptions.asi and the HelicopterOptions folder from
 the scripts folder. The mod never changes any game files.


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 WHAT IT DOES OUT OF THE BOX
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 - Keeps up with you instead of crawling on straights.
 - Aims ahead of your car and corners with you instead of sailing past.
 - Re-centers on you after hard U-turns and handbrake turns.
 - Holds position close by when you stop, instead of drifting away.
 - Recovers gently if it ever rolls, pitches or spins too far.
 - Talks on the police radio: dispatch announces the helicopter, and the
   pilot reports spotting you, losing sight of you, your position when you
   stop, low fuel, and leaving. These are real recorded lines that shipped
   with the game but are almost never heard in normal play, and they go
   through the game's own radio with the proper radio effect.
 - Works at any frame rate. The game's helicopter was built for 60 FPS and
   flies badly above it (above 200 FPS it freezes in place entirely). With
   this mod it flies properly at 75, 120, 144, 165, 240 FPS or higher.
   If you play capped at 60 FPS, nothing changes.


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 CHANGING SETTINGS
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 All settings are plain text files in:
   scripts\HelicopterOptions\Configuration\

 Open them with Notepad. Every setting has a short explanation, a
 recommended range, and its default value written right above it.

 Settings are read once at startup, so RESTART THE GAME after editing.

 The files, by topic:

   GeneralSettings.ini      logging, frame rate, game version check
   Radio.ini                the helicopter radio speech
   Speed.ini                chase speed
   Predictions.ini          anticipating your movement, stopped-player
   Recovery.ini             sudden turns, getting stuck, circling
   Leading.ini              how far ahead of your car it aims
   Altitude.ini             flying height and stability protection
   Skids.ini                attack (swoop / ram) behavior
   Aggression.ini           how pushy it is about attacking
   SteeringControl.ini      turning sharpness and motion smoothing
   Acceleration.ini         acceleration and cornering muscle
   Visibility.ini           whether it can lose sight of you
   AIHelicopterBehavior.ini safety net and leave/fuel behavior
   Navigation.ini           height limits for stock flight
   Debug.ini                extra logging and experimental options

 POPULAR TWEAKS:

   Helicopter follows but never attacks
     Skids.ini -> section SkidAttack -> FollowOnly=1

   It never runs out of fuel and leaves
     AIHelicopterBehavior.ini -> section ExitBehavior
     -> DisableFuelBasedExit=1

   It never loses sight of you (harder!)
     Visibility.ini -> Enable=1 and SeeThroughWalls=1

   It attacks more often
     Aggression.ini -> Enable=1, then raise AttackFrequency
     and AttackWillingness

   Stop constant ramming
     Skids.ini -> section SkidAttack -> ReattackDelaySeconds=8

   Turn off the radio speech
     Radio.ini -> Enable=0

 If you make a mess of a settings file, just delete it - the mod recreates
 missing files with default values the next time the game starts. Deleting
 the whole Configuration folder resets everything.

 A longer walkthrough is in
   scripts\HelicopterOptions\Documentation\CONFIGURATION_GUIDE.md
 (open it with Notepad if you have nothing else - it is readable text).


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 PLAYING ABOVE 60 FPS
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 Nothing to set up - it is handled automatically. Whether you cap the game
 at your monitor's refresh rate or uncap it entirely (for example the
 Widescreen Fix with SimRate = -1), the helicopter flies the way it was
 designed to.

 If you want to see it working, set LogFrameRate=1 in GeneralSettings.ini
 under the FrameRate section and check the log while playing.


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 OTHER MODS
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 HelicopterOptions changes the game only in memory while it runs, and undoes
 everything when the game closes. It works alongside other .asi mods. If
 another mod has already changed the same part of the game, HelicopterOptions
 notices, skips just that one feature, and notes it in the log - everything
 else keeps working.

 It only affects the police helicopter. Cars, ground police, and the rest
 of the game are untouched.


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 IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG
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 1. Open scripts\HelicopterOptions\Logs\HelicopterOptions.log - it explains
    what the mod did and any problems it hit, in plain language.

 2. "Unsupported game version detected" in the log means your game is not
    the English PC v1.3 version. The mod will not touch other versions.

 3. Nothing in the log at all? Your ASI loader is not loading mods from the
    scripts folder - check the loader's own instructions.

 4. Reporting a bug: set VerboseLogging=1 in GeneralSettings.ini, and
    Enable=1 under the Telemetry section of Debug.ini. Restart, reproduce
    the problem, and include the log file with a short description of what
    the helicopter did.

 Known limitations (multiple helicopters, minimap icons, and so on) are
 explained honestly in
   scripts\HelicopterOptions\Documentation\KNOWN_LIMITATIONS.md


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 CREDITS
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 Created by eatincrispies / XeroAbsolute.
 The NFSPluginSDK structure reference by berkayylmao was used to cross-check
 several of the game's internal layouts.
 Thanks to the Need for Speed modding community for tools and documentation.

 No EA source code or game assets are included. The mod applies its own
 changes to the running game only.

 License: MIT - see scripts\HelicopterOptions\Documentation\LICENSE.txt
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