I can't say anything bad about N2003. I was just never able to get
hooked on it when it came out. I've tried it again a few times over
the years, but still couldn't get into it. There was something
sterile about it where the car felt disconnected from the track. ARCA
is completely different to me.
I find ARCA to be much more realistic in ways that are most important
to me.
First of all, the car responds to changes the way you would expect. I
find that when real-world ideas and concepts about car setup are
applied in ARCA you get substantial improvements. I don't just mean
in changing the handling response of the car in terms of dialing in
understeer or oversteer. I've repeatedly found that I can come up
with an abstract idea about a setup change that should improve some
aspect of the car, like improving speed, tire wear, stability, etc.
Then when I set down and make the changes in the sim, I get real,
positive, expected results. I've never found this in another sim.
Along that same line, I haven't seen any sort of setup 'exploit' that
gains speed for no apparent reason. In past sims it always seemed
like coming up with fast setups required trying random things that
didn't necessarily make any sense just to see if it's faster. When
speed is found there is no rhyme or reason to it. So far in ARCA this
approach doesn't seem to work at all.
Another thing is that a really bad setup will not work for more than a
few laps. The car has to be finely balanced to be good for a full
fuel run. If not tire wear will kill you to the point where the car
can be undriveable after a few laps.
Similarly the tires in ARCA are very unforgiving to abuse. Reasonable
driving technique is absolutely necessary in this sim.
ARCA is awesome online. The worst thing I've seen is interruptions in
the connection to the servers. It seems to happen most often when
there are 30+ drivers on a server. It's not a warp exactly. The good
thing is that when it does happen it's only for a second or two, and I
have yet to see it interfere with the race proceedings. I have yet to
see a warp-related crash.
When the connection is smooth you can bump and rub all day long
without problems. Cars are no longer launched into the stratosphere.
It's not too different from rFactor in this regard. You can do close
racing online with confidence.
All of this is what I expected it to be based on what I saw in beta
testing. Sim Factory seemed to concentrate most on the driving and
setup aspect of the sim. They went over and over the tire models and
driving characteristics of the cars to get realistic driveability and
performance. That work shows in how conscientious you have to be in
your car setup and driving approach. To me all the other small
details of the sim that might not be perfect pale in comparison to how
nice it is to tune and drive these cars.
Based on what? Have you actually tried? I completely disagree.
Pat Dotson
ARCA is ok, and is the better of all the ISI based sim's, but it's still an
ISI based sim.
I don't think we will truly have a replacement for NR2003 until someone
steps up and actually writes one from scratch without depending on the ISI
engine.
-Larry
-Larry
This is the main reason I always preferred fixed-setup racing. Everyone is
on the same level.
Still, I think it's not been beat. Yet.
-Larry
I can't say anything bad about N2003. I was just never able to get
hooked on it when it came out. I've tried it again a few times over
the years, but still couldn't get into it. There was something
sterile about it where the car felt disconnected from the track. ARCA
is completely different to me.
I find ARCA to be much more realistic in ways that are most important
to me.
First of all, the car responds to changes the way you would expect. I
find that when real-world ideas and concepts about car setup are
applied in ARCA you get substantial improvements. I don't just mean
in changing the handling response of the car in terms of dialing in
understeer or oversteer. I've repeatedly found that I can come up
with an abstract idea about a setup change that should improve some
aspect of the car, like improving speed, tire wear, stability, etc.
Then when I set down and make the changes in the sim, I get real,
positive, expected results. I've never found this in another sim.
Along that same line, I haven't seen any sort of setup 'exploit' that
gains speed for no apparent reason. In past sims it always seemed
like coming up with fast setups required trying random things that
didn't necessarily make any sense just to see if it's faster. When
speed is found there is no rhyme or reason to it. So far in ARCA this
approach doesn't seem to work at all.
Another thing is that a really bad setup will not work for more than a
few laps. The car has to be finely balanced to be good for a full
fuel run. If not tire wear will kill you to the point where the car
can be undriveable after a few laps.
Similarly the tires in ARCA are very unforgiving to abuse. Reasonable
driving technique is absolutely necessary in this sim.
ARCA is awesome online. The worst thing I've seen is interruptions in
the connection to the servers. It seems to happen most often when
there are 30+ drivers on a server. It's not a warp exactly. The good
thing is that when it does happen it's only for a second or two, and I
have yet to see it interfere with the race proceedings. I have yet to
see a warp-related crash.
When the connection is smooth you can bump and rub all day long
without problems. Cars are no longer launched into the stratosphere.
It's not too different from rFactor in this regard. You can do close
racing online with confidence.
All of this is what I expected it to be based on what I saw in beta
testing. Sim Factory seemed to concentrate most on the driving and
setup aspect of the sim. They went over and over the tire models and
driving characteristics of the cars to get realistic driveability and
performance. That work shows in how conscientious you have to be in
your car setup and driving approach. To me all the other small
details of the sim that might not be perfect pale in comparison to how
nice it is to tune and drive these cars.
Based on what? Have you actually tried? I completely disagree.
Pat Dotson
So does this (being an ISI based sim) mean the replays are still missing stuff,
like tire scrubb sounds?
So basically whenever iRacing comes out?
> This is the main reason I always preferred fixed-setup racing. Everyone is
> on the same level.
> Still, I think it's not been beat. Yet.
> -Larry
> I can't say anything bad about N2003. I was just never able to get
> hooked on it when it came out. I've tried it again a few times over
> the years, but still couldn't get into it. There was something
> sterile about it where the car felt disconnected from the track. ARCA
> is completely different to me.
>> I love the "realizm" factor of NR, setup options,
>> online driving, and driveability of the cars (they can be somewhat of a
>> handful when loose).
> I find ARCA to be much more realistic in ways that are most important
> to me.
> First of all, the car responds to changes the way you would expect. I
> find that when real-world ideas and concepts about car setup are
> applied in ARCA you get substantial improvements. I don't just mean
> in changing the handling response of the car in terms of dialing in
> understeer or oversteer. I've repeatedly found that I can come up
> with an abstract idea about a setup change that should improve some
> aspect of the car, like improving speed, tire wear, stability, etc.
> Then when I set down and make the changes in the sim, I get real,
> positive, expected results. I've never found this in another sim.
> Along that same line, I haven't seen any sort of setup 'exploit' that
> gains speed for no apparent reason. In past sims it always seemed
> like coming up with fast setups required trying random things that
> didn't necessarily make any sense just to see if it's faster. When
> speed is found there is no rhyme or reason to it. So far in ARCA this
> approach doesn't seem to work at all.
> Another thing is that a really bad setup will not work for more than a
> few laps. The car has to be finely balanced to be good for a full
> fuel run. If not tire wear will kill you to the point where the car
> can be undriveable after a few laps.
> Similarly the tires in ARCA are very unforgiving to abuse. Reasonable
> driving technique is absolutely necessary in this sim.
> ARCA is awesome online. The worst thing I've seen is interruptions in
> the connection to the servers. It seems to happen most often when
> there are 30+ drivers on a server. It's not a warp exactly. The good
> thing is that when it does happen it's only for a second or two, and I
> have yet to see it interfere with the race proceedings. I have yet to
> see a warp-related crash.
> When the connection is smooth you can bump and rub all day long
> without problems. Cars are no longer launched into the stratosphere.
> It's not too different from rFactor in this regard. You can do close
> racing online with confidence.
> All of this is what I expected it to be based on what I saw in beta
> testing. Sim Factory seemed to concentrate most on the driving and
> setup aspect of the sim. They went over and over the tire models and
> driving characteristics of the cars to get realistic driveability and
> performance. That work shows in how conscientious you have to be in
> your car setup and driving approach. To me all the other small
> details of the sim that might not be perfect pale in comparison to how
> nice it is to tune and drive these cars.
>> I still think NR is the best Nascar sim.
> Based on what? Have you actually tried? I completely disagree.
> Pat Dotson
If so, that's how :)
I was in a California race once and on the last lap some ass passed like 7
cars in turn 4 on the outside doing like 210mph and won the race.
I don't know the in's and out's of it however.
-Larry
>>A agree with some of this regarding NR2003. The setup 'cheats' were an
>>issue from the start, and I have no doubt they would have been fixed by
>>Papy, but then Sierra screwed us all over and we never saw anything past
>>the first major patch :(
>> This is the main reason I always preferred fixed-setup racing. Everyone
>> is on the same level.
>> Still, I think it's not been beat. Yet.
>> -Larry
>> I can't say anything bad about N2003. I was just never able to get
>> hooked on it when it came out. I've tried it again a few times over
>> the years, but still couldn't get into it. There was something
>> sterile about it where the car felt disconnected from the track. ARCA
>> is completely different to me.
>>> I love the "realizm" factor of NR, setup options,
>>> online driving, and driveability of the cars (they can be somewhat of a
>>> handful when loose).
>> I find ARCA to be much more realistic in ways that are most important
>> to me.
>> First of all, the car responds to changes the way you would expect. I
>> find that when real-world ideas and concepts about car setup are
>> applied in ARCA you get substantial improvements. I don't just mean
>> in changing the handling response of the car in terms of dialing in
>> understeer or oversteer. I've repeatedly found that I can come up
>> with an abstract idea about a setup change that should improve some
>> aspect of the car, like improving speed, tire wear, stability, etc.
>> Then when I set down and make the changes in the sim, I get real,
>> positive, expected results. I've never found this in another sim.
>> Along that same line, I haven't seen any sort of setup 'exploit' that
>> gains speed for no apparent reason. In past sims it always seemed
>> like coming up with fast setups required trying random things that
>> didn't necessarily make any sense just to see if it's faster. When
>> speed is found there is no rhyme or reason to it. So far in ARCA this
>> approach doesn't seem to work at all.
>> Another thing is that a really bad setup will not work for more than a
>> few laps. The car has to be finely balanced to be good for a full
>> fuel run. If not tire wear will kill you to the point where the car
>> can be undriveable after a few laps.
>> Similarly the tires in ARCA are very unforgiving to abuse. Reasonable
>> driving technique is absolutely necessary in this sim.
>> ARCA is awesome online. The worst thing I've seen is interruptions in
>> the connection to the servers. It seems to happen most often when
>> there are 30+ drivers on a server. It's not a warp exactly. The good
>> thing is that when it does happen it's only for a second or two, and I
>> have yet to see it interfere with the race proceedings. I have yet to
>> see a warp-related crash.
>> When the connection is smooth you can bump and rub all day long
>> without problems. Cars are no longer launched into the stratosphere.
>> It's not too different from rFactor in this regard. You can do close
>> racing online with confidence.
>> All of this is what I expected it to be based on what I saw in beta
>> testing. Sim Factory seemed to concentrate most on the driving and
>> setup aspect of the sim. They went over and over the tire models and
>> driving characteristics of the cars to get realistic driveability and
>> performance. That work shows in how conscientious you have to be in
>> your car setup and driving approach. To me all the other small
>> details of the sim that might not be perfect pale in comparison to how
>> nice it is to tune and drive these cars.
>>> I still think NR is the best Nascar sim.
>> Based on what? Have you actually tried? I completely disagree.
>> Pat Dotson
That would be a hack or a trainer, not a setup cheat. No PC based game is
"trainer proof", depending on the level of motivation of the trainer
makers.
There is no NASCAR sim, and I suspect there won't be one for a few
years unless EA lets their exlusive licenselapse.
I was responding to Larry's suggestion that we won't have a good oval
sim until someone makes one that doesn't use the ISI engine, and I was
simply trying to point out that several of the gentlemen who made the
best oval-based stockcar sims ever have a new one coming out that
features ovals and stock cars.
-Larry
