Drift Race Path

Reference for gameplay_drift_destination, which tracks remaining distance along a race path and detects wrong-way driving.

Overview

Loads a race path file, calculates the vehicle's closest point on the path, measures remaining distance to the end, and detects when the player is driving the wrong way. Used by drift challenges and freeroam drift spots that have a defined start-to-finish direction.

Exports

How It Works

-- Set up a race path for a drift spot
gameplay_drift_destination.setRacePath({
  filePath = "/levels/.../race.race.json",
  reverse = false,              -- flip path direction
  maxWrongWayDist = 10,         -- meters before wrongWayFail
  disableWrongWayAndDist = false -- skip all checks
})

-- Each frame:
-- 1. Find closest line segment on path to vehicle
-- 2. Sum remaining segment distances from that point
-- 3. Check if velocity dot product with path direction is negative → wrong way
-- 4. Accumulate wrong-way distance; if > maxWrongWayDist → fail

Wrong-Way Detection

local desiredDirection = nextWaypointPos - previousWaypointPos
goingWrongWay = vel > 0.5 and desiredDirection:dot(vehVelocity) <= 0
-- Only triggers above velocity threshold to avoid false positives at standstill

Wrong-Way Failure

Accumulates actual distance driven while going wrong way. Once currWrongWayDist > maxWrongWayDist, wrongWayFail becomes true (consumed by driftSpots to trigger improper end).

Key Behaviors

• Path is loaded via gameplay_race_path and can be reversed with data.reverse = true
• If reversed, both the path and extracted waypoints are inverted
• distToIntendedRoad is the perpendicular distance to the nearest path segment (used for out-of-bounds checks)
• Fires extensions.hook("onDriftWrongWay") each frame while going wrong way
• Default maxWrongWayDist is 10 meters

See Also

• drift/bounds - Drift Zone Boundary Detection - Related reference
• drift/display - Drift UI & HUD Management - Related reference
• drift/drift - Core Drift Detection Engine - Related reference
• Gameplay Systems Guide - Guide