Gustanator · Gustanator · Feb 1, 2026 · Nov 10, 2023 · Nov 10, 2023 · Nov 10, 2023
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -5,53 +5,128 @@ It should be kept in mind that some versions have a less complete changelog than
 
 For similar reasons, and because some features are vastly more complex than others, attributions of main changes should not be taken as a shortcut for overall contribution.
 
-## SuperTuxKart 1.5.1
+## SuperTuxKart Evolution (work in progress)
+
+### Gameplay
+* In lower difficulty levels, apply a relative decrease to the strength of speed boosts, by Alayan
+* In lower difficulty levels, reduce the nitro consumption rate, by Alayan
+* Add a fifth difficulty level, for more gradation between easiest and hardest, by Alayan
+* Increase the time to reach maximum steering in lower difficulties, by Alayan
+* Reduce the duration and fade-out time of the startup boost, by Alayan
+* Slightly reduce rescue duration, by Alayan
+* Allow braking while accelerating, by Alayan
+* Ensure the AI is bound by the same durations as the player to change steering, by Alayan
+* Make the boosts from ground zippers and zipper powerups distinct, only applying the better one, by Nomagno
+* New multi-level handicap system, by Alayan
+* Make handicap usable in single-player, by Alayan
+* Prevent validating laps driving backwards (provided at least two correctly placed checklines), by Alayan
+* Prevent texture slowdown and reverse speed cap from fully multiplying, by Alayan
+
+#### Physics
+* Make the restitution curves (used when a kart rebounds on something) smoother and reduce the strength of rebounds at high-speeds, by Alayan
+* Uniformize jumping characteristics of karts (previously, heavier karts would have a much easier time taking off), by Alayan
+* Push karts upright much quicker when only some wheels touch the ground, by Alayan
+* Great improvements to the kart-on-kart collision logic, by Alayan:
+- Prevent two colliding karts from locking into each other
+- Make it easier to push another kart and make kart weight more meaningful
+- Help karts keep their direction during and after a collision
+
+#### Powerups
+* Rebalance all powerup probabilities, by Alayan:
+- Account for the new powerups
+- Reduce how much karts in average and bad positions attack each other
+- Make it possible to get some powerups by 2
+- Avoid basketballs, parachutes, triple zippers with 2 or 3 karts
+* Introduce a restricted randomness system, that seamlessly reduces streaks of good or bad luck, by Alayan
+* Extend the early item timeout to parachute and nitro-hacks, give a zipper instead of a bowling ball, by Alayan
+* Don't give basketballs if some karts have already finished the race, by Alayan
+* Replace swatters and bowling balls by gums during the early item timeout phase, by Alayan
+* Don't apply the early item timeout in non-racing modes, by Alayan
+* Make the swatter less oppressive, by reducing its held duration, the time loss from squashing, and slightly its reach, by Alayan
+* Activating a swatter with a gum shield active now pops the shield into a ground gum, by Alayan
+* Reduce the bubblegum shield duration and the flashing time before it drops, by Alayan
+* Prevent the duration of bubblegum shields from stacking infinitely and fix Nolok's bubblegum duration stacking, by Alayan
+* Speed up basketballs (especially when far from the leading kart), by Alayan
+* Reduce the basketball bouncing intervall and make the transition to fast-bounce mode seamless, by Alayan
+* Prevent basketballs from squashing karts protected by a shield, by Alayan
+* Make cake speed relative to the user's kart speed, by Alayan
+* Make zippers halve the texture slowdown effect, by Alayan
+* Reduce the max speed boost from the zipper, by Alayan
+* Enable the "shield restrict weapon" mode for the gum shield: using attacking powerups will drop the shield, by Alayan
+* New nitro-hack powerup, by Alayan:
+- It can steal some nitro from karts ahead. The nitro of karts ahead can become negative as a result. If there is no karts ahead, a small amount of nitro is generated and given.
+- It activates a boosted nitro mode, represented by the nitro bar and exhaust turning green instead of blue.
+- It appears at a higher rate for players in front, but it is strongest for players at the back.
+* New electro-shield powerup, by Alayan:
+- When active, provides a small top speed boost and a huge acceleration boost.
+- Also acts as a shield against most threats (not ground gums). It gets disabled upon a hit.
+* New mini-wish powerup, by Alayan:
+- Gives the player a choice between three weaker versions of standard powerups: zipper, bubblegum and cake.
+- The mini-zipper gives less speed, the mini-gum lasts shorter and drops smaller ground gums, the mini-cake is slower and has no area-of-effect.
+- The first press locks the mini-item choice, the second uses it.
+
+#### On-track items
+* Significantly reduce the nitro and gift box respawn times, by Alayan
+* Big nitro cans give 2.5 nitro units instead of 3, by Alayan
+* Introduce a new "air nitro" can, giving 1.5 nitro units, specifically designed to be placed mid-air after jumps, by Alayan
+* Add small ground bubblegum, and make small nitro can switch into them when the swapper is used, by Alayan
+* Use the kart hitbox size when determining if an on-track item has been touched, by Alayan
+* Give a different hitbox size to different on-track items (instead of a generic collect distance) to closely match visual touching and collection, by Alayan
+* Prevent ground gums from being activated if the kart is simply flying above them, by Alayan
+
+#### Kart characteristics
+* Introduce a new kart class, similar to medium, but with lower speed, better handling and a drift bonus, by Alayan
+* Make it more difficult for all kart classes to take curves, and increase the differentiation between kart classes, by Alayan
+* Slightly increase the base maximum speed without boosts, by Alayan
+* Transfer some of the skidding engine power boost to base power, to make drifting less important for quick acceleration, by Alayan
+* Ensure heavier karts have more total power on first gear for soccer pushing-contests, by Alayan
+* Make the duration of kart explosions depend on kart class, by Alayan
+* Make the speed reduction necessary to remove a parachute depend on kart class, by Alayan
+* Reduce the turn-radius penalty of active drifting, by Alayan
+* Make the maximum turn-radius during drifting similar for all kart classes, by Alayan
+* Apply turn-radius limitations to the reverse-gear, by Alayan
+* Give a bigger speed boost from nitro the lighter the kart is, instead of the reverse, by Alayan
+* Reduce the bonus nitro and nitro fadeout durations, by Alayan
+* Reduce the speed boost from the first-level (yellow) and second-level (red) drifts, by Alayan
+* Reduce the duration necessary to trigger a second-level (red) drift, by Alayan
+* Introduce a third-level (purple) drift with longer boost and duration, by Alayan
+* Prevent skidding bonuses cumulating during fadeout, by Alayan
+* Prevent kart chassis from colliding into the ground at high speeds, by Alayan
+* Multiply all engine power boosts by a kart-class specific factor, by Alayan
 
-### Networking
-* Add TV cameras as a camera option when watching soccer games in spectator mode, by LLS
-* Add a 'help' command for use in server lobbies, by Alayan
 
 ### General
-* Many improvements for localization:
-    * Make the name of skins translatable, by Alayan
-    * Make the server messages when signing in translatable, by Alayan
-    * Use context to allow for different translations of the same English string when relevant, by Alayan
-    * Full translation support for server answers to chat commands, and greatly improved base English messages, by Alayan
-    * Move all URLs out of translatable strings, by Alayan
-    * Minor improvements to some English source strings, by Alayan and others
-* Support using the command line to set the user-adjustable graphical parameters that were missing as command line options, by Alayan
-* Add a command line option to directly set a graphical preset, by Alayan
-* Various code quality improvements and minor bugfixes, by Alayan and others
+* Double physics FPS from 120 to 240, by Alayan
+* Make various things, such as item rotation speed and the minimum nitro burst, independent from physics FPS, by Alayan
+* New powerup audio code, by Alayan:
+- Use a shared pool of audio sources to drastically reduce how many are used, and prevent running out of sources
+- Don't interrupt a kart's powerup sound effect when collecting or using a new powerup
+- Better code organization, avoiding the mixing of gameplay and audio management
+* Correctly fetch the number of relevant tracks for achievements, by Alayan
+* Add new achievements for the completion of egg hunts, by Alayan
+* Make many more parameters modifiable in configuration files, by Alayan
+* Remove AbstractKart for cleaner code, by Fouks
+* A lot of code clean-up, by Alayan
 
 ### Graphics
-* Fix a regression where an increase of the 'Image Quality' setting would decrease the anisotropic filtering level, by Alayan
-* Enable high-quality mipmaps as soon as high-quality
+* Mix skid particles to warn that the next drifting level is almost ready, by Alayan
 
 ### User Interface
-* Add support for page-up, page-down, home and end keys in lists, by Alayan
-* Add a scrollbar to the server lobby chat, by Bcfworld
-* Better paging support in the server lobby chat, by Alayan
-* Resize kart icons on the left if the number of karts change, by Wilmaster
-* When renaming, prefill the textbox with the current name, by Brice Albiol
-* Display more settings in the benchmark end-screen, by Alayan
-* Prevent showing a render resolution factor in UI that's unsupported with the current renderer, by Alayan
-* Various minor UI fixes, by Alayan
-
-### Tracks and modeling
+* Update the kart skill displays (speed, etc.) to handle the new kart characteristics and handicap levels, by Alayan
+* Add a drifting skill to the kart skill display, by Alayan
 
-#### Tracks
-* Fix an egg that was very difficult to collect (due to collision issues) in the Black Forest intermediate egg hunt, by Sven
+#### In-race UI
+* Support the display of boosted nitro and negative nitro for the Nitro-Hack, by Alayan
+* New speedometer, that can display a maximum speed of up to 55 (up from 40), by Alayan
+* Support the display of wide powerup icons, for the Mini-Wish, by Alayan
 
-#### Arenas
-* TV spectator ameras for all soccer fields, by LLS and Sven
 
-## SuperTuxKart 1.5 (20. October 2025)
+## SuperTuxKart 1.5
 
 ### Networking
 * Improve the track-voting logic when no majority is achieved, by kimden
 * Prevent tracks missed by spectators from limiting the choice of active players, by kimden
 * Make bot indices start from one, by JipFr
-* Improvements to the rating formula for ranked play, by Alayan
 * Various bugfixes, by kimden
 
 ### Gameplay
@@ -479,7 +554,6 @@ For similar reasons, and because some features are vastly more complex than othe
 * New coal skin by Alayan
 * Support for collapsing widgets in UI by Mrxx99
 * Multidirectional keyboard navigation in menus by Alayan
-* Allow the disabling of keyboard configurations (making them inactive without deleting them), by Alayan
 * Alternating background darkness in lists to enhance readability by Benau
 * Support text breaks into multiple line in lists, e.g. in the addons menu, by Alayan
 * Improved help menu with lateral tabs and a lot more information by Alayan

diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.12...4.0)
 
 # root CMakeLists for the SuperTuxKart project
 project(SuperTuxKart)
-set(PROJECT_VERSION "git")
+set(PROJECT_VERSION "2.0-git")
 
 add_definitions( -DSUPERTUXKART_VERSION="${PROJECT_VERSION}" )
 
@@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ if (BUILD_RECORDER)
     find_library(OPENGLRECORDER_LIBRARY NAMES openglrecorder libopenglrecorder PATHS "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/${DEPENDENCIES}/lib")
     find_path(OPENGLRECORDER_INCLUDEDIR NAMES openglrecorder.h PATHS "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/${DEPENDENCIES}/include")
     if (NOT OPENGLRECORDER_LIBRARY OR NOT OPENGLRECORDER_INCLUDEDIR)
-        if(PROJECT_VERSION STREQUAL "git")
+        if(PROJECT_VERSION STREQUAL "2.0-git")
             message(WARNING "libopenglrecorder not found, disabling in-game recorder. "
                 "To use recorder, install libopenglrecorder.")
             set(OPENGLRECORDER_LIBRARY CACHE INTERNAL "")

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -9,35 +9,32 @@ SuperTuxKart is a free kart racing game. It focuses on fun and not on realistic
 
 The SuperTuxKart homepage can be found at <https://supertuxkart.net/>. There is also our [FAQ](https://supertuxkart.net/FAQ) and information on how get in touch with the [community](https://supertuxkart.net/Community).
 
-The latest release binaries can be found [here](https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/releases/latest), and those of preview releases [here](https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/releases/preview).
+Latest release binaries can be found [here](https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/releases/latest), and preview release [here](https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/releases/preview).
 
 ## Hardware Requirements
-Any hardware that supports OpenGL >= 3.3 or OpenGL ES >= 3.0 should be able to run SuperTuxKart. For Android, Android 5.0 or greater is required.
+To run SuperTuxKart, make sure that your computer's specifications are equal or higher than the following specifications:
 
-This includes dedicated GPUs from Nvidia or AMD released after 2010, integrated GPUs released after 2012 and Android phones released after 2014.
-
-The game will run on some very weak devices, but a better GPU allows to run smoothly using higher quality graphics and a higher resolution, and a better CPU helps to keep a smooth playing experience in online multiplayer.
-
-Please check the "What are the hardware requirements?" question in our [FAQ](https://supertuxkart.net/FAQ) for more information.
+* A graphics card capable of 3D rendering - NVIDIA GeForce 470 GTX, AMD Radeon 6870 HD series card or Intel HD Graphics 4000 and newer. OpenGL >= 3.3
+* You should have a dual-core CPU that's running at 1 GHz or faster.
+* You'll need at least 512 MB of free VRAM (video memory).
+* System memory: 1 GB
+* Minimum disk space: 700 MB
+* Ideally, you'll want a joystick with at least 6 buttons.
 
 ## License
 The software is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) which can be found in the file [`COPYING`](/COPYING) in the same directory as this file.
 
 ---
 
-## Building from source
-
-Building instructions can be found in [`INSTALL.md`](/INSTALL.md)
-
-## Contributing code
-
-**To contribute code to the official STK repository, please review the ['How to contribute code'](https://supertuxkart.net/How_to_contribute_code) guide.** It contains important guidelines to make the process smoother and maximize the chances that your contribution is accepted.
-
 ## 3D coordinates
 A reminder for those who are looking at the code and 3D models:
 
 SuperTuxKart: X right, Y up, Z forwards
 
 Blender: X right, Y forwards, Z up
 
-The export utilities perform the needed transformation, so in Blender you just work with the XY plane as ground, and things will appear fine in STK (using XZ as ground in the code, obviously).
+The export utilities  perform the needed transformation, so in Blender you just work with the XY plane as ground, and things will appear fine in STK (using XZ as ground in the code, obviously).
+
+## Building from source
+
+Building instructions can be found in [`INSTALL.md`](/INSTALL.md)
diff --git a/android/make.sh b/android/make.sh
@@ -217,7 +217,7 @@ fi
 
 if [ -z "$PROJECT_VERSION" ]; then
     if [ $IS_DEBUG_BUILD -ne 0 ]; then
-        export PROJECT_VERSION="git"
+        export PROJECT_VERSION="2.0-git"
     else
         echo "Error: Variable PROJECT_VERSION is not set. It must have unique" \
              "value for release build."