Microprose Formula One Grand Prix/World Circuit
Hall Of Fame
officially located (and much prettier) on the WWW at
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
The WCPCHOF is published every two weeks on rec.autos.simulators, by
request via Internet e-mail, and on the World Wide Web. Direct comments,
questions, membership applications, bloopers, and anything else to Dave
`Gizmo' Gymer at one of the addresses at the bottom of this page.
Commodore Amiga players might want to check out Edo Nijmeijer's
Amiga Hall of Fame
Notes from the editor
The HOF is dead, long live the HOF! Yes, the WCPCSHOF is officially dead.
Anyone interested in acting as a go-between for a BBS or other network
should let me know as I'm preparing a WWW page on what's involved.
I've added a rule about not constructing perfect laps by saving the game
and coming back if anything goes wrong.
The HOF has now moved to an ugly Excel 5 workbook; this has a few effects.
The count of entries in the standings only includes points-paying times.
For this reason I've decided to drop the averages as a seperate
championship.
The format is changed a bit; it's not quite as pretty but I hope it's
still fairly clear and concise; the plain text version is ugly because
it's automatically munged from the HTML used for the WWW pages. If
you've got any suggestions on how to improve the format I'm very willing
to hear them, within my limited knowledge of Excel.
The times no longer include any details like control method; there
didn't seem to be any useful patterns emerging so I guess it's no great
loss to us. Some of this detail has been moved into the driver list.
The HOF is now published in several parts. I was going to have to do
this anyway because the mail-to-news gateway I use couldn't cope with
the increasing size of the HOF.
If Rene (RS) can appear in both PC and Amiga HOFs, so can I! Yup, my
collection of useful, interesting, and psuedo-antique computers now
numbers 7, the most recent acquisition being an Amiga 500, upgraded to
1MB, with a brand new copy of F1GP (now licensed by Digital Integration
from Microprose and released on the PowerPlus budget label). Don't expect
any earth-shattering times for a while, though!
Rules and regulations
You must use Formula 1 Grand Prix (a.k.a. World Circuit) on the PC;
players are strongly advised to upgrade to version 1.04 or 1.05.
You need to get a driver ID from me to enter, but I can allot one when you
send your first record(s) in. I sometimes let people choose their own. So
if you want to join in, just mail me your real name and e-mail address,
and your preferred DriverID (if any).
I do publish times set by cutting corners or chicanes, but you need to
tell me because those times do not count towards the championship.
Drafting (slipstreaming) AI cars is permitted, as is using an editor to
alter the computer cars' power. Player power must be left at the default
716BHP. Drafting a human player with two linked machines is not legal.
There is no restriction on the AI grip setting but players are asked to
keep this below 16, just in case it does have an effect.
Laps must be driver in one complete go; you are not allowed to drive part
of a lap, save the game, come back, and then reload if you don't drive the
rest of it perfectly. You may, of course, simply pause the game (and
examine the replay).
Use of a game editor which permits wing settings outside of the normal
limits (0-64) is not permitted.
I prefer people to include their setup details, but do not require it. You
may use any tyre compound. Note that up to and including version 1.03, a
bug in the game allowed you to set very fast times during the race at
Mexico; such times are illegal.
Feel free to tell me anything else you think important when you send times
in. I'm always willing to discuss the rules.
The scoring system
The scoring system awards points to the 12 fastest times at each circuit,
using Indy-style scoring (20, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1);
absolute records don't count towards the championship. Also listed in the
standings are the number of tracks at which the driver has entries in the
points, and the average score (assuming 0 points for any tracks where the
driver hasn't submitted an entry.
Miscellaneous
The full lap record listings are only available on the WWW; the plain text
versions sent via mail and news contain only the times which score points.
The driver list is only available from the WWW; you should know who your
are, and I don't want to be mailing out too many files!
The "absolute records" listed are set by cutting chicanes or other
corners. They don't count towards the championship.
Ivanhoe (IV) has spotted a potential future problem; on 24 January 1995 he
pointed the following out to me.
Due to the rapid decrease in time necessary to complete the laps in
F1GP, especially in Imola (-0.853s in 30 days), I have done a little of
calculation and discovered a potential problem to arise in the future.
If the average rate of decrease does not change it follows that on or
about the 15th of April 2002 a driver will break through the 0m00.000
mark, hereby driving at an average speed which exceeds the speed of
light.
As you probably know this will entail problems with causality, meaning
that it will be possible to cross the finishing line before even
starting the lap.
When it comes to this, there may be organisational difficulties too
because you will have to post the HOF before the laptimes are driven.
Now how are you going to do that, eh?
I guess we better hope that F1GPv2 comes out before 2002.