SHAR Tweaked 1.02 (Difficulty modes, improved progression, and tons of fixes).

• Easy: I could beat Level 1 in my sleep. Now you can do it for every level. Of course, the later levels still get harder. They're just about near the first half of the levels'... err... level.
  
  
• Normal: If you just want a better time completing this game 100% and get rid of those visual oddities, you can leave the difficulty on this mode. For the most part, the missions are unchanged. There are some changes that remove flaws that hinder the player's experience. I'm looking at you, Wolves Stole My Pills and Set To Kill. Though, some of the ridiculously easy missions were made more challenging to better suit the levels they're featured in. Level 5's Nelson race and Full Metal Jackass are a couple of examples.
  
  
• Hard: Level 6 but it's every level. Skilled players won't have much trouble on a lot of these missions. Some of the already infamously difficult missions aren't much tougher (in fact, you could say they were untouched from the original game). The difficulty in the first three levels definitely got an upgrade.
  
  
• Donuts of Steel: From the guy who brought you three and a half infamous difficulty settings, I bring you this hand-cramping mode. Vanilla SHAR doesn't have missions this difficult. You better hope you know every necessary thing about this game because one or two mistakes can cost you an entire run of a mission. As much as I hate to admit it, some missions are too easy. No matter how I tweak the AI cars and such, they'll find a way to screw up. A lot of missions that involve following a vehicle have this problem. Thankfully (or unthankfully), the majority of missions don't have this problem. Still, this mode is a true test of skill and knowledge of the game.
  
  
• Legacy Donuts of Steel: From the guy who brought you two and a half infamous difficulty settings, I bring you this hand-cramping mode back in 2020. This is how hard Donuts of Steel was like before v1.01. Some time after v1.0 was out, I started to regret making the mode the way it was. It may have been extremely difficult, but it wasn't exactly fun. When I first made this, it was made with the intention of making the game as hard as possible without putting the fun factor into consideration.
  
  One of the biggest problems with this mode was that missions that involved chasing down a vehicle were very annoying. Sometimes, they were faster than the player's vehicle, and that just wasn't fun to deal with. Another big problem was that the mode relied on overly cryptic tactics to beat. The current Donuts of Steel still has these in a way but not to this extent. There was also a chance that the AI would overpower you even if you were playing flawlessly. Smithers in L1M7 is a good example of this. Believe me, I only ever beat that mission because of him f****** up. This mode may not have been the most well designed, but I'll have you know that I already beat this mode twice without using exploits.
  
  For those of you who are somehow able to tolerate the bulls*** that can happen to you, this mode was left in the mod albeit as a separate setting. The real reason I kept this in 1.01 and later versions is for archival purposes. Any reports about this mode that isn't related to hinderance of gameplay (crashes, softlocks, inaccuracies to 1.0's DoS) will be ignored.

Notes

• Every mission can still be completed with the default vehicle on the hardest difficulty. Legacy Donuts of Steel was only tested with those vehicles, because I shouldn't assume every player will use the School Bus to beat The Old Pirate and the Sea, especially if they come back to this mission from the main menu or another level. Forced vehicle missions are barely beatable with their respective vehicles.
  
  
• Changing difficulty modes won't deviate too far from what the player has already learned. So mission collectibles are neither added nor removed; and AI cars take the same paths unless you're racing them. There are some exceptions to the latter for the sake of preventing them from getting stuck on harder difficulties. I'm looking at you, Lab Coat Caper.
  
  
• Mission vehicles were not tweaked in a way that they would just add padding. Why would I make Kwik Cash take even longer?
  
  
• Exploits are NOT required to beat the hardest mode. Do I look like a speedrunner to you? It's hard to watch people rely so heavily on exploits when trying the harder difficulties. Talk about cheap.
  
  
• Missions on Normal difficulty get some tweaks. That final timer in Set To Kill was unreasonably tight, so I've moved it to Hard mode and gave Normal mode a more generous final time limit.
  
  
• Most objectives that didn't originally have any challenge won't get new ones. Objectives like the entirety of The Cola Caper and getting the caffeine pills in Wolves Stole My Pills won't suddenly get a time limit. Why should Monkey See Monkey D'oh get a time limit for getting the blender after already doing the main challenge? For the sake of the other difficulty modes, there are a few exceptions. For example, the armored truck objective in Kwik Cash was given a time limit.
  
  
• The H&R meter and the number of cops are altered for each difficulty.
  
  
• It is still possible to cheese some of the other missions regardless of difficulty. But some of those cheap tactics were patched because they either look unintentional, or were just too effective and easy to do on a casual playthrough. You'll likely see these patches during street races. Don't expect a pack of fire trucks blocking some shortcut in the story missions.

• We all know that SHAR is a buggy mess. For the sake of classic SHAR players, a bunch of exploits were left in. I could possibly fix them if I wanted to, but casual players will most likely never encounter such exploits. Plus, speedrunners would get outraged that overpowered skipping techniques were patched. Even if they did get patched, they'll find another way to break SHAR. It's futile.
  
  It should still be possible to do whatever game-breaking glitch you have in mind. If that glitch was somehow patched by yours truly, I either didn't even know about it in the first place or fixed it so casual players won't get frustrated by them. For example, the classic "reverse cam to despawn traffic" glitch was fixed so that players who memorized the traffic before looking behind them won't have their focusing skills ruined by a garbage truck suddenly appearing in front of them. In other words, people who actually use the reverse cam for its intended purpose aren't punished for using it. If I did unknowingly ruin another speedrunning trick thanks to a fix, don't expect it to be brought back. This mod was not targeted for that audience.
  
  
• Of course, not every little visual oddity was fixed. If you found something that wasn't fixed, I either didn't know about it (some hole revealing the skybox in the ground somewhere in Downtown), couldn't fix it without making it worse (the guard rails between Kamp Krusty and the Observatory in the Seaside map), or was so stressed out with this mod that I can't be arsed to go back to it and fix it (the Bonus Game maps, and the UV mapping for the floor at the Squidport). The 1.0 release took way too much time.
  
  
• There are oddities that are very unlikely to be fixed like the character models. I once tried censoring the underside of Marge's dress with a black void, but the animations always deform it in a way that would make the void intersect with the model.
  
  
• This mod fixes works around a crash in L7M7. AI cars don't change states properly when going back to a previous stage. In the original game, escaping the alien car will set it to NULL (inactive). That's what happens when AI cars are no longer used. Normally when you start the losetail objective with the alien car, the alien car is set to chase. However, going back to a previous stage after losing it will prevent any changes to its state, even if a certain stage is told to set the alien car to something like race. Because of this bug, the losetail objective is trying to target a NULL vehicle, which will crash the game. This mod works around this bug by setting the alien car to something other than NULL. However, since I can't change its state after losing the barrel thanks to that damn bug, the alien car won't try to chase you down a second time. Oh well. You could imagine this like the alien car either felt pity for you that it's giving you a better chance next time, or it's spiting you because it thinks it doesn't need to chase you again since you'll screw up again.
  
  
• I would restore more unused content like the breakables and gags; but I wanted vanilla SHAR's save files to be compatible with this mod and vice versa. Not that people will even replace their old saves, but it sure would be nice for that one person who would want to do this.
  
  
• The HUD being arranged for wider screens is also its own mod.

• In the middle of development, I got really tired of seeing various visual oddities. After playing SHAR five times in a row getting more and more distracted by them, I decided to fix them for this mod. I seriously hope I don't have to go back to this mod. I hate vertex coloring.
  
  
• I originally wanted to add just the new difficulty modes. But then the first fun fact happened. Before I released the first beta (which only had a number of visual tweaks to the first three levels), I was going to remove those visual fixes and just use the mission changes. But they were far too complete to be removed. That is the main reason why this mod was previously listed as a Beta Release.
  
  
• I had an older version from 2018. My goal for that version was to tweak missions so that they would make more sense or something. I remember changing Vox Nerduli into a destroy objective (because doing two mandatory races in a row annoyed me back then), changing Bart 'N' Frink so you went to Herman's alone and followed Snake to his hideout, and trying to completely redesign Return of the Nearly-Dead. I had no idea how I wanted to make the new L4M4, and that is when I just gave up on the idea.
  
  
• Donuts of Steel was originally for my first mod ever here, and it was cut to speed up development. The name of the mode was a homage to Metal Arms: Glitch in the System's Nuts of Steel difficulty.
  
  
• At one point, I was considering rearranging dialogue so that they made more sense. However, this would cause problems with international versions of SHAR, which I don't have.
  
  
• Speaking of international SHAR, those of you who don't play the English version will still hear a few English lines.

• Office Spaced's "get out of vehicle" theme is not as boring.
• Seaside Map: The camera at the entrance to the Android's Dungeon no longer activates when in a vehicle.
• L1M1: Skinner is a little slower on Hard.
• L1M2: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L1M3: Smithers is a little slower on Hard.
• L1M3: Smithers now slows down when very far away on harder difficulties.
• L1M5: The van is a little slower on Hard.
• L1M5: The van now slows down when far away on Hard.
• L1M6: The truck now slows down when far away on harder difficulties.
• L1M7: Smithers is a little slower on Hard.
• L1SR3: Bart accelerates a little slower on harder difficulties. Previously, Bart started getting bulls*** speedups at the barn. I hope this was fixed.
• L1SR3: Adjusted catchup parameters to be more forgiving on harder difficulties.
• L2M1: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L2M2: Removed some unused variable for Wiggum's car.
• L2M2: Fixed the number of traffic not being properly set on Legacy Donuts of Steel.
• L2M2: Increased time limits on Hard.
• L2M2: Increased final time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L2M3: The nerd is a little slower on Hard.
• L2M4: The pizza van is a little slower on Hard.
• L2M4: Fixed the traffic not spawning during the race on Legacy Donuts of Steel.
• L2M5: Fixed Apu's top speed not being properly set on Legacy Donuts of Steel.
• L2M7: The cell phone cars have less health on Hard.
• L2BM: Increased second time limits on Easy, Normal, and Hard.
• L2BM: Increased last two time limits on Hard.
• L3M2: Increased time limits on Hard.
• L3M4: The black sedans have less health on Hard.
• L3M7: Increased second time limit on Hard.
• L3SR1: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L3SR3: Opposing racers are slower on Hard.
• L4M3: Increased first time limit on Hard.
• L4M5: The black sedan is a little slower on Hard.
• L4M5: Increased last time limits on Hard.
• L4M6: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L4SR2: Adjusted catchup parameters to be more forgiving.
• L4SR2: Apu accelerates slower on Easy. Normal, and Hard.
• L4BM: Increased final time limits on Hard.
• L5M2: Increased time limit when starting the mission for the first time.
• L5M3: The Nonuplets Minivan is a little slower on Hard.
• L5M4: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L5M5: Increased time limits on Hard.
• L5M7: The curator's car has less health on Hard.
• L5SR1: Fixed Normal and Hard using each other's time limits.
• L5SR2: Adjusted catchup parameters to be more forgiving on Hard.
• L5SR3: Adjusted catchup parameters to be more forgiving on Hard.
• L6M5: Skinner is a little easier to beat on Hard.
• L6M6: Increased first time limit on Hard.
• L6SR1: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L6SR2: Adjusted catchup parameters to be more forgiving on Normal and Hard.
• L6BM: Wiggum's vehicle has less health on Hard.
• L7M1: Increased time limits on Hard.
• L7M4: Increased time limit on Hard.
• L7M5: The time limit for getting in your vehicle is no longer affected by difficulty.
• L7M7: Fixed the time limit for getting back in your vehicle being set to 1 second after escaping the alien car.
• L7M7: Finally managed to work around this stupid crash when losing the waste barrel after escaping the black sedan. See the Notes section.

• Fixed a crash related to the observatory in Level 6. Only a few people consistently get this crash, and I was never able to replicate it.
• Donuts of Steel was made a little easier. The old version still exists with the name Legacy Donuts of Steel.
• Some missions on Hard mode were made a little easier.
• L2M5: Disabled canceling the mission after talking to Cletus for the second time.
• L4M3: Made it (even) easier to get the last ketchup packet.
• L4GR1: Fixed the entry fee always being set on Easy mode's.
• L6M7: Reworked the alien car.
• L7SR3: Reduced the chance of the opposing racers doing a random U-Turn.

• Finally out of beta.
• Even more fixes to the first three maps.
• Transferred the fixes to the later levels.
• Restored some unused content.
• Reworked traffic so you don't see so many school buses at once.
• Added a second collect sound for the later levels.
• Adjusted transitions for area-specific music to prevent a bug where it would stay on until you re-enter the area and exit it.
• Changed sound effect for picking up collector cards while in a vehicle.
• The animation in the Itchy & Scratchy loading screen is smoother and better matches the console versions.
• Bonus Mission characters no longer despawn after completing them if the Replayable Bonus Missions hack is enabled.
• Evergreen Terrace: Moved the camera at the Duff Truck by the Kwik-E-Mart higher.
• L1M2: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L1M4: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L1M6: Increased speed of the Bonestorm truck on Donuts of Steel.
• Downtown: Fixed collision at the court house so that wheels don't clip through the stairs. (This was helpful in Monkey See, Monkey D'oh.)
• Downtown: Moved the camera trigger at the expressway so that the Fire Truck can't touch it on the main road.
• L2M5: Decreased the first time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L2M6: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L2R1: Increased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L2R3: Increased speed of the intro camera.
• L2R3: All opponents are slower on Donuts of Steel.
• L2BM: Reworked time limit to prevent cheesing on harder difficulties.
• L3: Frink now appears as an ambient character in the observatory.
• L3: Moved the trigger for the Itchy & Scratchy movie to the entrance of the Aztec Theatre.
• L3: You can now ask the Squeaky-Voiced Teen for food.
• L3M7: Bart can no longer speak outside of the ending conversation.
• L3R2: Marge is now slower on Donuts of Steel.
• L3R2: Lesser two opponents were made faster.
• L3R3: Marge is now faster on Donuts of Steel.
• L3BM: Decreased the first time limit on harder difficulties.
• L4R1: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L4R2: Increased speed of the intro camera.
• L4R2: Apu accelerates a little faster.
• L4R3: Fixed the opponents suddenly turning around at the first gas station after reaching the first checkpoint when in the lead on easier difficulties.
• L4R3: (Hopefully) Reduced the chance of Apu getting stuck after the big jump in the rich side.
• L4R3: Lesser two opponents are a bit faster on Donuts of Steel.
• L4BM: Decreased the second time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L5: Removed the jump camera at the dirt ramp.
• L5: Replaced Ralph at the Try-N-Save with Otto.
• L5: Added the Squeaky-Voiced Teen at the Krusty Burger by the construction site.
• L5M4: The "professional" is no longer spoiled in the mission briefing.
• L5M4: Decreased the time limit on harder difficulties.
• L5M5: Decreased the second time limit on harder difficulties.
• L5M5: Increased the third time limit on harder difficulties.
• L5M7: Increased health for the Curator's vehicle on Donuts of Steel.
• L5R2: Lesser two opponents are less likely to get themselves stuck on harder difficulties.
• L6M1: Decreased delay after reaching Krustylu Studios.
• L6M3: Increased delay after following Frink.
• L6M6: Increased the second time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L6R1: Decreased the time limit on harder difficulties.
• L6BM: Decreased health for Wiggum's vehicle on harder difficulties.
• L7M2: Fixed the Alien Car despawning when not at the school playground.
• L7M3: Hit & Run Meter is reset after losing the waste barrel and picking it back up.
• L7M5: Hit & Run Meter is reset after losing the waste barrel and picking it back up.
• L7M5: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L7M6: Hit & Run Meter is reset after losing the waste barrel and picking it back up.
• L7M6: Decreased the time limit on harder difficulties.
• L7M7: Hit & Run Meter is reset after losing the waste barrel and picking it back up.
• L7M7: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L7M7: Increased the time limit on Normal.
• L7M7: Changed the objective text when reaching the aliens.
• L7R1: Decreased the time limit on Donuts of Steel.
• L7BM: Increased the first time limit on Donuts of Steel.

• Some more trivial tweaks to pre-missions.
• Mission Complete music is no longer interrupted abruptly when transitioning to the next mission. This does not apply to street races (players who wait too long at the completion screen won't hear the whole thing anyway) nor bonus missions (I forgot?).
• L1: Some visual fixes.
• L2: Even more visual fixes.
• Seaside Maps: The logs being cut up at the Bowlarama are animated differently to prevent that fairly rare moment where the logs would suddenly spawn in the path of the player for one frame and damage them.
• L6M3: Players can now enter the Observatory during the Mission Complete message like in vanilla SHAR.
• L6M4: Players no longer need to re-enter the Observatory when starting the pre-mission already inside.

• L2: Some more visual fixes.
• L5: Fixed Moe's Tavern's gags from activating upon entry.
• L5M2: Fixed using the wrong objective text during the pre-mission.
• L5M5: Changed the text for the mission briefing.

• First release I guess.