Map Kit Loader

Loads custom maps for Slip & Skid made with the Slip & Skid Map Kit. On its own it adds nothing: install it together with a map that depends on it (for example MegaStunt).

How maps work

When a map is picked, the game loads one of its own levels as a host. The loader hides the host's road and puts the map's track in its place, keeping everything else the game built:

• camera, lighting, fog and scenery of the host level, with extra scenery placed along the map's track;
• the real start gate (countdown lights, starting grid) and finish gate;
• the no-trap zones around the start and the finish;
• the end-of-race podium;
• tyre marks, gravity and the death plane below the track.

The map's road uses the host level's own asphalt and concrete, so surface cards (ice, sand, mud...) repaint it like a stock level, and the scenery changes with the main surface.

Maps also get their own picture, outline and spinning 3D model in the level select.

For players

Install maps with a mod manager; they pull in this loader automatically. Everyone in a lobby needs the same maps at the same version.

For map makers

A map is a folder with a mapkit.json and an asset bundle, built with the Slip & Skid Map Kit (Unity 2022.3.62f3). Put it in BepInEx/CustomMaps/<Map> or ship it as a Thunderstore package depending on this one.

Seasons (1.1.0): a map can turn on seasonalBiomes. During the race each player's sky, fog, lighting, scenery, weather and ambiance then follow the surface under their own car (dirt = spring, sand = summer, mud = autumn, ice = winter); asphalt keeps the current look. It is purely visual and local to each player.

This loader reads only mapkit.json maps, so it works side by side with other map loaders.

1.2.0

• The game's own road pieces in maps (KitStockPiece): a map can place any stock piece (R###B###: straights, slopes, 20-70 m curves, banked turns, Y-forks, half-pipes, tubes...) by name, from its host level or from any other stock level (loaded once per session behind the loading screen). Nothing of the game ships in the map: the real piece is cloned at load time, with its borders, collisions and surfaces. With it the Map Kit rebuilds every official track exactly.
• Seasons: the season under the car now comes from the road piece's own tag, so it switches exactly where the map says (mid-tunnel) even if a surface card repainted the road; spectators see the season of the car they watch.
• Scenery around long road pieces (a whole bend in one piece, like the stock tracks) is only cleared along the road, not across the inside of the bend; a map that lies where its host's own track was keeps the host's scenery as is.

1.1.0

• Seasons: maps can turn on KitMap.seasonalBiomes; during the race each player's look (sky, fog, lighting, scenery, weather, ambiance) follows the season surface under their car (Dirt, Sand, Mud, Ice, Magma). Local and visual only; off for existing maps, in rush mode and in split screen.
• Paint: map decoration can use the game's own toon materials with a colour (KitRoad.paint / tint), so maps can have coloured props (trees, rocks, snowmen...).
• Level select: maps show their real surfaces like the stock levels – every surface's share (it used to show one surface, and leftover percentages from the level shown before), the colour theme of the map's look, and a 3D preview coloured per surface with the game's own preview materials (and the host's road no longer counted as concrete). A map with seasons shows one band per season in the screen's and the card's background pattern, and its difficulty dots in the seasons' colours.
• Scenery around big maps: a host scenery piece is hidden only where its real shape reaches the track (it used to be its whole bounding box, which hid entire hill ranges), and whatever stood on a hidden piece is hidden with it – no more animals or trees floating in the air.

1.0.2

• Per-road surfaces: each map road piece can use its own game surface (Asphalt, Mud, Ice...), so maps can mix surfaces. Pieces without one keep the host road surface.
• The plugin reports its real version.

1.0.1

• Map roads use the host level's own road surface, so the game applies its biome: correct fog, sky, lighting and scenery (fixes far parts of maps drawing flat green).
• Host scenery is scaled to the map's size and pieces that would stand on the track are hidden.
• The tyre-trail camera covers the whole map.
• Prop pieces (concrete or dark asphalt decoration) that are not road tiles.

1.0.0

• First release: loads Map Kit maps on a stock host level (start/finish gates, no-trap zones, podium, lighting, scenery, surface cards).
• Roadside scenery from the host's environment, switching with the surface biome.
• Level-select picture, outline, 3D model and surface count for each map.