rec.autos.simulators

2) The schedule. RASF1 would require a lot of schedule filling, so we need
to decide if we want to run F1C tracks on the off weeks, or others, like
Laguna Seca or Road America etc. We can't really do this on a week by week
vote, there are too many off weeks in the F1 calendar, so somebody needs to
sort this out in advance. We could run 'period' races, like Monaco before
the electronic aids, so nobody has traction control etc...

3) Driving aids. Can the server decide which aids are allowed? F1 cars have
a much higher performance envelope than stock cars, so it's much more likely
that a driver without aids will end up in the wall at some point <g>. I
think the aids in F1C are much more of a benefit than the aids in NR2003 to
safety and speed. We need to decide which to allow/disallow, and how to
police it if they are not server controllable.

4) Race lengths. We can aim for much higher race percentages than RASCAR,
perhaps 100%. Depends on what people think.

5) The tyre degradation. This might need to be as high as 8x to get
realistic wear on soft compound tyres.

6) Setups. Fixed? If so, to what? I personally could always get around a bad
fixed setup in RASCAR, because I just thought, "Heck, I'm driving a WC car,
they're not meant to be responsive" <g>. A badly balanced setup in F1C makes
much more difference to my laptimes and consistency.

7) Connections. If there are 21 drivers in a race, how many can be on 56k
connections? None? Five? 21? (I don't think the new netcode is *that* much
of an improvement <g>). I know that i'll be a 56ker for another couple of
months yet.

Anything else?

Nick

No experience with this yet... we'll find out.

Suggest we follow the current schedule starting at Hockenheim and fill in
the off weeks with the earlier season tracks ie. start with Australia on
first off-week. We should have run about the entire season by the end of the
real season. For the late fall and winter we could think about special
"period" races or new tracks.

Allowable aids are set by the server. I suggest we go fairly realistic with
only TC and auto-shift allowed. Realistic damage should prevent
recklessness.

I could do 100%, but would prefer we aim for 1 hour race after
practice/qual? ie. about 65% length.

Sounds about right.

I think personal setups are an important part of racing. I would be a hazard
on the track trying to drive an F1 car with someone else's setup. Besides, I
don't believe there is a way to police setups with this sim.

Time to experiment.
Regards,
Spudster.

If it's realistic, two people on the same team cannot pit at the same time
even if they have different cars.  If the game implements that then people
are going to have to get with their teammates prior to the race and figure
out their pit strategy.

Within the 4 years that the game represents all the top teams had traction
control.  It wasn't legal for that entire period, but they had it.  ;o)

Let everybody use their aids.  I don't think it makes them faster than a
good driver without the aids, and it will make them more reliable, both in
terms of crashing and in terms of staying on (or close to) the pace.

Personally I can't do that.  I have back problems which flare up after about
an hour of seat time.  OTOH since we haven't picked a time yet I don't even
know if I can make it, so perhaps you should just ignore me.  ;o)

How about we avoid a long debate on that and simply proportion it to the
race length?  People will still need to pit for fuel anyway, so it's not
like having inaccurate tire wear will allow people to stay out longer.

I cannot drive the setups that come with the game.  I am comfortable with
mine or with TN's and that's about it.  I vote for open setups.

As long as the host has bandwidth throttling turned on it should be okay for
the clients to have lower rate connections.

Yes, I think open setups are a must for F1C, the ones that come with the
game are TERRIBLE

Even if you arent good at setups, just increasing negative camber to around
2-3 degrees will give you decent grip

Yup... in the test I didn't see much evidence of connections influencing
eachother, so we might be good on that front, but, personally, I'd like to
see if throttled modem connections are an option (as my cable is going
through a rough patch). I'd also like to know whether, as in Papyrus sims,
one can select an IP to join a race with (cable IP vs dial-up IP).

Jan.
=---

I like this idea.

I feel some aids should be allowed.  I personally use TC-Low, and Auto-
Up/Manual-Down.

I'm with Haqsau, 100% is too *** for me. :-)

No feeling either way..

I don't think you can have fixed setups and I would not want to race that
way even if it were a feature.

I'd like to see some of the oval tracks http://www.fzeri.com/xrlow/ run. I
think it would be a lot of fun. Also, the truth is, I have a feeling the
racing on the F1 tracks is going to be spread out quite a bit,
unfortunately. At least for awhile. I just don't think there are that many
simmers who can handle these rocket ships and do what the real drivers do.
There are going to be a lot of off track excursions and drivers ending up
alone on the track for much of the time. Oval tracks could add some close
racing to the mix.

I say allow them all. Whatever it takes to allow someone to drive cleanly is
fine with me. As they get better, they will gradually turn them off until
they are down to what the real drivers use. Less accidents and better
racing.

I think open setups are a must. A setup that doesn't fit someone and their
controller will feel like a real mess with these cars

--
David G Fisher

1. Setting the FUN works differently online than offline - it won't allow
you to run cars from different years online. AFAICT, the year that the
host's player is set to is the only year available. However, more than one
player can pick the same driver (there is a setting in the player file:
Unique Vehicle Check="1", but it doesn't appear to do anything.

Both drivers in the same team won't be able to pit at the same time.

Another setting in the player file sets Max MP Players, but I don't know how
high it'll go.

3. Yes, the server can set the aids allowed, but not the level. IOW, if TC
is allowed, both high and low must be allowed. The server also can force
physics settings.

6. Fixed setups can't be controlled (i.e. forced by the server).

7. From what I've heard, having 56k players or players setting thier
connection to 56k (like was recommended for F12002) leads to a lot of
warping.

Also, low frame rate leads to high latencies. You want frame rate above 30
at all times during an online race.

You can set the gravel to be "stickier", by setting the resistance to
48000.00 in the terrain.ini file.
Everyone needs to use that same terrain.ini file.

Jason

Remco

Cheers,

uwe

--
mail replies to Uwe at schuerkamp dot de ( yahoo address is spambox)
Uwe Schuerkamp //////////////////////////// http://www.schuerkamp.de/
Herford, Germany \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (52.0N/8.5E)
GPG Fingerprint:  2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F  67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

Well, they had the software since 1993, upgraded every year, just waiting
for the day it was reintroduced. It was never used in the races though <g>.
McLaren tried their highly illegal steering operated second braking system
in 1998, which was effective traction control, contravened a whole bunch of
regulations, but was eventually banned moins punishment, as all the other
top teams were well on the way to implementing their own versions, and it
would have gotten out of control.

Then I stand corrected.  Still, I think it unlikely we will be able to get
grids that high and a good experience.