A police helicopter overhaul for Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005).
The stock police helicopter tends to hang far behind, dawdle on open roads, and lose track of you easily. HelicopterOptions makes it fly and chase more like a real pursuit helicopter: it keeps a sensible speed, anticipates where you are going, reacts when you make sudden turns or stop, and stays stable instead of tipping over. Almost everything is optional and configurable, so you can tune it from "slightly better than stock" up to "genuinely hard to shake."
- Keeps up with you. The helicopter no longer crawls along at a fixed slow speed on straights; it holds a useful chase speed so it stays in the fight, without becoming impossible to lose.
- Anticipates your movement. It aims a little ahead of your car based on your speed and heading, and pulls that aim back in when you brake or turn, so it corners with you instead of sailing off.
- Reacts to sudden turns. When you make a hard U-turn or handbrake turn, the helicopter recognizes it and re-centers on you instead of flying far past.
- Handles you stopping. When you stop, it holds a position close by rather than drifting away into the distance.
- Stays stable. A built-in safety system gently levels the helicopter out if it ever rolls, pitches, or spins too far, so it recovers instead of tumbling.
- Fully configurable attacks. Control how often it attacks, from which angles, how long it keeps trying, and how long it waits between attempts - or turn attacks off entirely for a follow-only helicopter.
- Optional extras. Make it never lose sight of you, never run out of fuel, fly higher or lower, turn more sharply, and more.
- Safe by design. It only runs on the supported game version, checks every change before applying it, cooperates with other mods, and undoes all of its changes when the game closes. A built-in safety net hands control back to the game if anything ever goes wrong.
Everything except a few safety features is off by default and easy to switch on. See the Configuration section.
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005), English PC version 1.3.
- An ASI loader, such as Ultimate ASI Loader. This is a small file that
lets the game load
.asimods from itsscriptsfolder. If you already use other.asimods, you already have one.
This mod is built for the English PC v1.3 executable of Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) - the same widely used version most mods target. It checks the game version when it starts. If it does not recognize the game, it does nothing and leaves every file untouched, then explains this in its log.
If you are certain your game is compatible and want it to try anyway, you can
set AllowUnsupportedExe = 1 in GeneralSettings.ini, but this is untested
and not recommended.
Download NFSMW Helicopter Options on NFSMods
-
Make sure you have an ASI loader installed (see Requirements).
-
Copy the contents of this package into your game's
scriptsfolder so that you end up with:scripts\HelicopterOptions.asi scripts\HelicopterOptions\Configuration\ (the settings files) scripts\HelicopterOptions\Documentation\ (these guides) scripts\HelicopterOptions\Logs\ (created automatically) -
Start the game. On the first run the mod creates its log at
scripts\HelicopterOptions\Logs\HelicopterOptions.log. Any settings files that are missing are recreated with default values.
To uninstall, delete HelicopterOptions.asi and the HelicopterOptions
folder from scripts.
All settings live in plain-text .ini files inside
scripts\HelicopterOptions\Configuration\. Open them in any text editor.
Each setting has a short explanation, a recommended range, and its default
value written right above it. Changes take effect the next time you start
the game.
The settings are split across fourteen files by topic:
| File | What it controls |
|---|---|
GeneralSettings.ini |
Logging, startup, and game-version options |
Speed.ini |
Keeping the helicopter's chase speed sensible |
Predictions.ini |
Anticipating your movement and reacting when you stop |
Recovery.ini |
Handling sudden turns, getting stuck, and circling |
Leading.ini |
How far ahead of your car it aims |
Altitude.ini |
Flying height and stability protection |
Skids.ini |
The attack (swoop / ram) behavior |
Aggression.ini |
How pushy it is about attacking |
SteeringControl.ini |
Turning sharpness and motion smoothing |
Acceleration.ini |
How hard it can accelerate and corner |
Visibility.ini |
Whether it can lose sight of you |
AIHelicopterBehavior.ini |
Safety net and leave/fuel behavior |
Navigation.ini |
Optional height/distance limits for stock flight |
Debug.ini |
Extra logging and experimental options |
A friendlier walkthrough with common setups is in CONFIGURATION_GUIDE.md.
A few popular changes:
| Goal | Change |
|---|---|
| Helicopter follows but never attacks | Skids.ini → [SkidAttack] FollowOnly=1 |
| It never runs out of fuel and leaves | AIHelicopterBehavior.ini → [ExitBehavior] DisableFuelBasedExit=1 |
| It never loses sight of you (harder) | Visibility.ini → [ChopperVision] Enable=1 and SeeThroughWalls=1 |
| It attacks more often | Aggression.ini → [Aggression] Enable=1, raise AttackFrequency and AttackWillingness |
| Stop constant ramming | Skids.ini → [SkidAttack] ReattackDelaySeconds=8 |
- HelicopterOptions changes the game only in memory, while it runs. It never edits your game files, and it undoes all of its changes when the game closes.
- It works alongside other
.asimods. If another mod has already changed the same part of the game, HelicopterOptions notices, skips just that feature, and leaves everything else working. Skipped features are noted in the log. - It only affects the police helicopter. Cars, ground police, and the rest of the game are untouched.
If something does not work or behaves oddly:
- Open
scripts\HelicopterOptions\Logs\HelicopterOptions.log. It records what the mod did at startup and any problems it ran into, in plain language. - For more detail, set
VerboseLogging = 1inGeneralSettings.ini, and to watch the helicopter's behavior over time setEnable = 1under[Telemetry]inDebug.ini. Restart, reproduce the issue, then read the log. - If you report a problem, include that log file and a short description of what the helicopter did.
Common notes:
- Nothing changed in-game. Make sure the ASI loader is installed and that
the files are in
scripts\exactly as shown in Installation. Check the log for a startup line and a "supported game version" message. - "Unsupported game version" in the log. Your game is not the English PC v1.3 version this mod supports. See Supported game version.
- A feature seems inactive. Check that its section's
Enableis set to1, and check the log for a note that another mod changed the same game code.
Some things people often ask for - multiple helicopters at once, helicopter minimap icons, avoiding buildings, and a few others - are not included, because they cannot be done reliably in this game without causing glitches. These are described honestly in KNOWN_LIMITATIONS.md.
The stock game can also fly the helicopter quite high in some situations.
Navigation.ini offers an optional height limit that helps in many cases; see
that file and the known-limitations notes.
- Fierelier for adding MinGW compatibility — greatly appreciated.
- Created by eatincrispies / XeroAbsolute.
- Thanks to the Need for Speed modding community for tools and documentation.
No Electronic Arts source code or game assets are included. The mod only applies its own changes to the running game.
Released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt.