rec.autos.simulators

by **pdot..** » Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:13:47

It friggin awesome. I'm actually e***d about oval racing again :)

I've raced with AJ Allmendinger twice this week on public servers.
Allmendinger and I had some really fun tight racing. Also saw other
real life drivers online like Kevin Swindell and Jeremy Clements.
Probably lots of others who don't go by their real names online.

Generally speaking, the quality of racing is pretty high for open pick
up races. The smaller tracks can be hectic with lots of crashes, but
most of the races are pretty clean.

I've seen more warping in ARCA this week than in a whole year of beta
testing. In fact, I could probably count on one hand the numbers of
times I saw a warp during a year of beta. Not sure what's going on
there. Maybe the larger field sizes of the public servers. But the
warping still doesn't detract much from the racing. I haven't had or
seen any accidents caused by warping. It's kind of like the collision
detection turns off momentarily or something.

The beautiful part of ARCA is the way the tires wear. If you run a
pace much more than 96% to 98% of your potential, the tires will go
away in 10 laps or less. If you back off just a hair, and keep from
spinning the tires, you can go a full fuel load. It really forces a
different approach to driving than I've seen before. You could do a
bit of tire saving in earlier Papy stock car sims and see some
results, but nothing as significant as in ARCA.

I've always felt like sims let us drive way too hard without
consequences in tire wear. ARCA is hands down the best in this
department.

Pat Dotson

by **Larr** » Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:01:03

You could save a LOT of tires and win a LOT of races in NR2003. Ginger used
to kick my ass almost every week like that dammit :)

-Larry

by **Dean** » Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:30:15

Just out of curiosity, how's the single player? Don't do much online
anymore, but still like to spend some time here and there behind the wheel.
I'm hoping the ai is at least competitive without being clueless. TIA.
Dean

by **pdot..** » Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:56:52

Early reports on the AI aren't that great. I haven't yet tried it
offline in the production version. In the last beta I had ran some
offline races. Usually starting on the tail, I was able to move up
through the field without much difficulty. They seemed to be well-
behaved enough for some fun.

The problem/challenge with ISI-based stuff for me has always been
finding the right balance of AI strength to have a competitive and
interesting race. Seems like qualifying speeds and race speeds are
never balanced so that you end up either too fast or slow in qual,
then the opposite in the race.

Honestly, assuming a decent internet connection, I think it's easier
just to hop online and race rather than try to set up a fun offline
race. The multiplayer interface is very smooth. Since the tracks and
vehicles are locked down you don't have to deal with mismatches or
downloads.

Pat Dotson

> Just out of curiosity, how's the single player? Don't do much online
> anymore, but still like to spend some time here and there behind the wheel.
> I'm hoping the ai is at least competitive without being clueless. TIA.
> Dean

> > It friggin awesome. ?I'm actually e***d about oval racing again ?:)

> > I've raced with AJ Allmendinger twice this week on public servers.
> > Allmendinger and I had some really fun tight racing. ?Also saw other
> > real life drivers online like Kevin Swindell and Jeremy Clements.
> > Probably lots of others who don't go by their real names online.

> > Generally speaking, the quality of racing is pretty high for open pick
> > up races. ?The smaller tracks can be hectic with lots of crashes, but
> > most of the races are pretty clean.

> > I've seen more warping in ARCA this week than in a whole year of beta
> > testing. ?In fact, I could probably count on one hand the numbers of
> > times I saw a warp during a year of beta. ?Not sure what's going on
> > there. ?Maybe the larger field sizes of the public servers. ?But the
> > warping still doesn't detract much from the racing. ?I haven't had or
> > seen any accidents caused by warping. ?It's kind of like the collision
> > detection turns off momentarily or something.

> > The beautiful part of ARCA is the way the tires wear. ?If you run a
> > pace much more than 96% to 98% of your potential, the tires will go
> > away in 10 laps or less. ?If you back off just a hair, and keep from
> > spinning the tires, you can go a full fuel load. ?It really forces a
> > different approach to driving than I've seen before. ?You could do a
> > bit of tire saving in earlier Papy stock car sims and see some
> > results, but nothing as significant as in ARCA.

> > I've always felt like sims let us drive way too hard without
> > consequences in tire wear. ?ARCA is hands down the best in this
> > department.

> > Pat Dotson- Hide quoted text -

> - Show quoted text -

by **Dean** » Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:53:58

Thanks for the info Pat!
Dean

Early reports on the AI aren't that great. I haven't yet tried it
offline in the production version. In the last beta I had ran some
offline races. Usually starting on the tail, I was able to move up
through the field without much difficulty. They seemed to be well-
behaved enough for some fun.

The problem/challenge with ISI-based stuff for me has always been
finding the right balance of AI strength to have a competitive and
interesting race. Seems like qualifying speeds and race speeds are
never balanced so that you end up either too fast or slow in qual,
then the opposite in the race.

Honestly, assuming a decent internet connection, I think it's easier
just to hop online and race rather than try to set up a fun offline
race. The multiplayer interface is very smooth. Since the tracks and
vehicles are locked down you don't have to deal with mismatches or
downloads.

Pat Dotson

> Just out of curiosity, how's the single player? Don't do much online
> anymore, but still like to spend some time here and there behind the
> wheel.
> I'm hoping the ai is at least competitive without being clueless. TIA.
> Dean

> > It friggin awesome. I'm actually e***d about oval racing again :)

> > I've raced with AJ Allmendinger twice this week on public servers.
> > Allmendinger and I had some really fun tight racing. Also saw other
> > real life drivers online like Kevin Swindell and Jeremy Clements.
> > Probably lots of others who don't go by their real names online.

> > Generally speaking, the quality of racing is pretty high for open pick
> > up races. The smaller tracks can be hectic with lots of crashes, but
> > most of the races are pretty clean.

> > I've seen more warping in ARCA this week than in a whole year of beta
> > testing. In fact, I could probably count on one hand the numbers of
> > times I saw a warp during a year of beta. Not sure what's going on
> > there. Maybe the larger field sizes of the public servers. But the
> > warping still doesn't detract much from the racing. I haven't had or
> > seen any accidents caused by warping. It's kind of like the collision
> > detection turns off momentarily or something.

> > The beautiful part of ARCA is the way the tires wear. If you run a
> > pace much more than 96% to 98% of your potential, the tires will go
> > away in 10 laps or less. If you back off just a hair, and keep from
> > spinning the tires, you can go a full fuel load. It really forces a
> > different approach to driving than I've seen before. You could do a
> > bit of tire saving in earlier Papy stock car sims and see some
> > results, but nothing as significant as in ARCA.

> > I've always felt like sims let us drive way too hard without
> > consequences in tire wear. ARCA is hands down the best in this
> > department.

> > Pat Dotson- Hide quoted text -

> - Show quoted text -

by **jason moye** » Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:00:22

You can actually adjust the qualifying/race speeds independently of
each other, and for each track. I'm not sure if it still causes a
mismatch online (I think it does in Motor1, i.e. F1C/GTR2/Race07) but
I can't remember if it creates issues in rF.

by **pdot..** » Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:48:17

> > The problem/challenge with ISI-based stuff for me has always been
> > finding the right balance of AI strength to have a competitive and
> > interesting race. ?Seems like qualifying speeds and race speeds are
> > never balanced so that you end up either too fast or slow in qual,
> > then the opposite in the race.

> You can actually adjust the qualifying/race speeds independently of
> each other, and for each track. ?I'm not sure if it still causes a
> mismatch online (I think it does in Motor1, i.e. F1C/GTR2/Race07) but
> I can't remember if it creates issues in rF.

Yea, I always kick around the idea of revamping rFactor AI speeds so
that qualifying speeds match race speeds, but who has the time?
Especially now where you'd have to do it with multiple mods. This is
an area that has never gotten adequate attention, either from ISI or
from mod makers.

I haven't looked at the ARCA file structure to confirm that those AI-
related files are open for editing. I imagine they would be, but some
parts of the file structure are encrypted.

BTW, after having this discussion I ran some offline laps with ARCA
and Kansas yesterday. I had the AI strength all the way up to 105%
but needed to go higher. The AI drives OK, but it was like shooting
fish in a barrel. All you have to do is pull to the outside line of
the track and you can drive past 5 or 6 cars without even trying.

AI strength goes up to 125% or something, so maybe I just didn't go
high enough.

Pat Dotson

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