rec.autos.simulators

Just got GTR on Monday (shipped by sendit.com two days before release date
but thank Canada Customs for holding on to it for three weeks).  In the
brief time I've had it I'm liking it a lot.  Still feels quite a bit like an
F1C Mod, but as I love F1C mods this works for me.

Full disclosure here, I race over 90% offline.  Ran in a few GPL & HEAT
leagues in the past and dropped in to F1RST a number of times but by far the
majority of time is offline so that's where my bias lies.  I realize that
this newsgroup tends to skew towards online and therefore Papy sims but if
any one from FIRST monitors this group, you've got to fix the AI!  I mean
really, I want to love NR2003 so much but I just abandoned a Busch season
half way through because the AI was so dreadful it was frustrating.

Anyway this is all about offline experience which I think F1C was pretty
good at and GTR is even better.  However no one has mentioned here three
aspects of GTR that I think revolutionizes the offline experience. Mid race
saves, AI driving and time advance.  These are huge and SimBin should be
lauded for putting them into the game. Mid race save was probably the
biggest breakthrough and the  hardest to implement.  I can't think of any
serious sim that has had it.  AI driving was in SCGT but then disappeared in
all other ISI games and time advance was in F1C but now as a very real
purpose within the race.

Why do I think these features will revolutionize Sim racing? FULL.  RACE.
DISTANCES.

Offline or online people very, very rarely race more than an hour (maybe
longer with Qually, warm-up etc. but I'm talking actual races.)  This has
skewed sim racing into a sprint style mind set, in regards to setups,
driving mentality, etc. I know you can monkey about with 2X fuel and tires
etc but that's just jerryrigging. Now we can have a real race at a real race
distance. Hopefully this will change the thinking of many.

The only thing close to this break through was NR2003's ability to change
drivers online which has enabled some long distance online races.  Now if
only these two features could be combined. (rFactor I'm talking to you).

I think people should be talking up these features more and SimBin should be
credited for putting them in.  Hopefully then SimBin will keep them and
improve them and other developers will be spurred to implement them too.

Rudeboy

Good point. I recall running full race distance championships in F1GP back
in 92/3 as that had a save feature back then. Only problem is it requires a
lot of willpower not to revert to your saved game when you slide off and
loose a shed load of places... :)

lose I mean!

I agree 110% with your comments because I, too, spend ALL my time racing
against AI....tried online but preferred the more relaxed environment of
racing for entertainment, relaxation and when it suited MY schedule.

With regard to the saving capability, I place so much importance on this
aspect (because of, as you stated, the ability to do full races) that I
still run NASCAR Legends for that very reason. :)

Good points and I do wish that other developers would heed these.
Not everyone races online and for those who do, their experience is going to
be none the worse if these abilities are included, whereas those of us who
prefer offline racing miss out.

Bruce.

OK -- I'm one of those guys who have raced GTR online only (except for
Hot Lap Practice).  I'm very interested in your post, and in trying some
full-length offline races.

Since I have the German version (Game Menus converted to English), I've
managed to only figure out how to save a race.  However, I haven't
figured out how to _resume_ that race.  Can you explain that to me,
and/or point out where I can find those instructions in the manual (ie -
what page)?  (I have a PDF of the English manual.)

Also, I assume that you save the race only when you're in the pits?  Or
am I missing something here?

Also, can you elaborate on how time-advance works and why it's such a
great feature?  I miss the point on that one.

Thanks!

Bert

Once you save the race you exit.  When you go to load Race weekend in the
bottom right there is the usual  Load Track (Or is it "Race".  Or what ever
the German one says) with an arrow.  The normal button that you click to
load up the race.  Right beside that, just to the left is another arrow with
"Load Previous Game" (I think that was it I'm at work. Again it would be in
German for you). Just click it and it loads the race with the Pause screen
click continue and away you go.

No you can save at anytime.  You can also let the AI take over at anytime
but I always do it in the pits.

SCGT had it and I always liked it.  The reason is for when the AI is driving
you can advance the time.  I just did a 3 hour race at Catalunya.  I started
the race ran a fuel load about an hour.  Pitted had Johnny O'Connell take
over.  Went and took a whiz, got a drink, made a phone call, and came back
half an hour later. There was still half the fuel load to go. Without the
time advance I either wait around for half an hour watching. Or I call
Johnny O in, necessitating one more pit stop than the AI cars.  Or take over
mid track. Something I don't like doing for a realism point of view.  Either
of the last two means I'm driving 2 1/2 hours of a three hour race again not
realistic. (Also I didn't have an additional half hour to play with on
Saturday, however with the save feature it's not as big a deal in that I
could have saved it and finished on Sunday.)  Instead I time advance and
Johnny O finishes his fuel load in 3 minutes of real time. (tip: Watch the
MOTEC for the litres of fuel to know when he's about to pit.  Also this
stops you watching the track which gives me seizures ;-)

Basically it gives you the ability to run a full race distance three hour
race in two hours (or what ever) otherwise if you wanted the AI co-driver to
run a substatial part of it you'd need to have the game running without you
playing for the real time the co-driver was in.  MPITA.

It's not as big a feature as the other two but it is very, very handy. Same
deal with advancing the time in NR2003 or F1C in qualifing or practice but
with the AI driving all that more important.

Rudeboy