My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Mon May 31, 1999

A Rephrasing of Suggestions for Winning all colours of prize cars

I'm not the only person who noticed that they never (well, hardly ever, or not until after a very long time) seemed to get certain colour prize cars.

One FAQ maintainer complained he tried for a very long time to get a green FTO LM, but never managed it. This article consists of the hints I eventually mailed to him. I'm not entirely sure how much he appreciated it, but I believe there is a lot of useful stuff here.

My belief now is you've got to build up American and Japanese racing-mods, race and win (and don't lose) just about everything they are eligible for (all GT-league, including GT-I, and appropriate specialized series, and the other International Series), then they will have a more even chance of getting all prize cars in the JPvsUS series.

Every car which won one of my "hold-out" cars in those series had won the GT-I Cup, and none of those cars were prize cars. However, neither Griffith would win the yellow ConceptCar in UKvsUS. 8-? In two out of three cases I had recently deliberately and consciously "cleaned up" all of GT League and the specialized (FR) series before the "hold-out" cars appeared. The fourth cars "held-out" for a long time. Perhaps because I avoided the GT-I series for various reasons.

In order to get the last car (the yellow ConceptCar), I started another game. But shortly after winning it that way, I took my built-up Viper GTS in my "real" game, won all GT League races, and FR, and JPvsUS, then on its fourth UKvsUS it won a yellow ConceptCar! (Interestingly enough, a built-up Viper GTS is what won the yellow ConceptCar in the "alternate" game; it won 3 of 4 cars, but I raced only once more (getting another yellow ConceptCar!!!) before leaving that game; in my "real" game it won three different cars, and, put together, the Viper GTS won all four).

The only inconsistency in my theory is that a GTO'95MR won both 3rd and 4th cars in USvsJP even though the only US GT-I winner at that time was the prize ConceptCar, plus, I believe a racing-mod GTO'95MR. This might be just because of a probabilistic (though non-uniform) nature of the prizes. But another theory I have says; Japanese cars for JPvsUS, UK cars for JPvsUK, US cars for UKvsUS. (Another note is that two different instances of the same car (GTO'95MR) did win GT-I and the 3rd and 4th cars; racing-mod for GT-I, and a tuned one for 3rd and 4th cars; perhaps any "records" are kept in the "car model" portion of the game data, not the garage space).

In any case, I believe repeatedly racing the same car in the same International series, or even different cars in the same International series, is doomed to frustration no matter how many times you try power cycling the game with no memory card and reloading. It seems that the game gives more International prize cars to "reward" a particular car for winning (and not losing?) some subset of the series I've mentioned. I think I've seen other people say too that the stupid Sunday Cup *is* important...

In fact, it seems you (probably) will not win even a second prize in, say USvsJP with a car which has not raced and won any other series. In the same "alternate" "test" game mentioned above, neither the prize ConceptCar nor the prize RX7 could win the USvsJP FTO, nor could a built-up Viper; six white/blue Vipers in a row, with a power cycle and several car washes in between. Clean up A-level GT League with the Viper, then the first USvsJP gets a black(ick) FTO. Buy, gradually tune a GTO'95MR, clean up A-level--another black FTO. ConceptCar still wins two white/blue Vipers in a row, even with a wash in between. Then I decided to forget about the black/green FTO thing, and got my IA, won GT-I with the built-up Viper, after which in four UKvsUS that Viper turned up three different prize cars, ending with two yellow ConceptCars which I was beginning not to believe in.