MicroProse Formula One Grand Prix/World Circuit
IBM PC contemptible
Hall Of Fame
official located (and much prettier) on the WWW
as part of the pseudo-official F1GP/WC PC Home Page
http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/home.html
The WCPCHOF is published every other Monday 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. If you can
access the web page, I suggest you do, because there's considerably more
information there, and it looks better!
Commodore Amiga players might want to check out Edo Nijmeijer's
Amiga Hall of Fame
by contacting Edo at 130...@pc-lab.fbk.eur.nl.
Edo is, however, currently off-line, so the current contanct is
ree...@lucy.cs.waikato.ac.nz (Grant Reeve)
Notes from the editor
A quick reminder about LFRS, the Little Formula Racing Series.
This is scheduled to begin in earnest in July; mail DE3...@aol.com
(Steve Wilson) for a copy of the rules.
I'm very happy to announce that current HOF leader Ivanhoe Vasiljevich
will be joining me at Team Shark-Porsche, having lost Max Galvin to
Atlas Team.
In case you didn't know, I managed a clean sweep in the LF3000 Pro
division, taking driver's championship, team title (mainly due to the
stron supporting role Max played), and fastlap championship. For full
details see http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/lf3000/ on the WWW.
If you have an IRC handle and it isn't already listed in the driver list
on the WWW page, send it in and I will add it. Ditto for home pages.
Effective immediately, ALL drivers MUST use version 1.05. We had a new
driver, EC, who set times which would have been impossible to match on
1.05 (he used 1.03), so I have moved all of EC's times that would have
been top 10 into the "rallycross" category, and scored them with the usual
10% penalty, with the result that he is now in 2nd place. Details on how
to get the upgrade are below.
FUI is producing a .PRF file to show us all where we're going wrong at
Mexico. I have no reason to believe that this time is fraudulent.
Please, please, please read the note in the rules about the format of
dates. If I see another ambiguous date of the form "4/6/95" I will scream!
We now have 120 drivers, of which about 50 still haven't sent any times
in. Come on, people, why score 0 when you could score 1?
In future I will not make rule changes like the 1.05 one without first
consulting a group of drivers whom I have nicknamed the "HOF Grey Council"
(Bablyon 5 fans will understand). You will already have been contacted if
you were selected to sit on the council; I will introduce the council
properly next issue.
In the very near future, possibly next issue, there will be some major
changes in the way the HOF is published. My current plan is to update the
HOF much more frequently, and instead of posting it to you all I will set
up a simple mail server from which you can request updated copies. I will
still mail out rule changes and so on.
Once I've finished the program which does it, I will invite you to mail
your car and helmet designs as GPed/Windows .CAR and .HEL files for
inclusion on the WWW driver list.
Rules and regulations
You must use Formula 1 Grand Prix (a.k.a. World Circuit) on the PC;
players MUST to version 1.05. The patches are available from the following
places:
http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/f1gputil/
ftp://ftp.microprose.com/pub/mps-online/new-versions/
(This site is very, very busy, but appears to be the only place where
one can FTP the US patch from.)
FSP from ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de, port 21, in /pub/ms-dos/games/patches,
in files f1gpit.zip (Italian) and f105ptci.zip (European).
ftp://ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de/dresden/games/patches/
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/dresden/games/patches/
There is also a mail server which retrieves WWW documents; we are
investigating whether it can be used to get the US patch from my WWW
site.
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). (If you use the WWW forms, you really
should register first.)
I do publish times set by cutting corners or chicanes (what I call
"rallycross" records), but you need to tell me because those times do not
count towards the championship. Using the grass at the side of the track
is okay as long as it wasn't used on purpose.
"Wall braking", that is, using the walls of circuits like Monaco and
Phoenix instead of brakes, is illegal, except for absolute records. The
best way to ensure that this is not done is to run with indestructability
turned off at those tracks. Minor accidental contact with the wall is
acceptable (but won't do your times any good!). If you make accidental
contact with the wall and it allows you to drive a time in excess of the
fastest currently at that track, please enter it for the "rallycross"
section; if you don't already have a time at that track or you want the
old time for that track removed and the new one scored instead just say
so.
Using AI cars to brake is also illegal. Mere accidental bumping is okay;
they're pretty stupid so we have to make allowances. However, if you hit a
car and think there's any possibility of you having gained time as a
result, please abort the lap. (If you use the trick described below to get
rid of all the AI cars this will never happen.)
Using an editor to alter the computer cars' power is permitted. 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 it to a maximum of 15, just in case
it does have an effect (drivers using GPLap 5.0 or later can ignore this
rule). When you submit a record, if possible please let me know if it was
clear or if you got a tow, so that I can include the information in the
WWW page for others trying to match or better your times.
Slipstreaming is illegal for all new times. Existing times are marked as
such on the WWW, but I ask that when driving, if you get a tow you abandon
the lap. This makes it much easier to compare laps with other drivers.
Alternatively, submit the lap in the "rallycross" category. To avoid
slipstreaming during qualifying sessions, simply go to the driver/team
selection screen and select all drivers (multiplayer mode). You can even
edit the game to remove all but a couple drivers. Thanks to drivers PAL and
VOB for these excellent ideas!
Laps must be driven 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). This rule is relaxed for both "rallycross" records,
and for records in the "perfect" category.
Use of a game or setup editor which permits wing settings outside of the
normal limits (0 to 64) is not permitted.
If your time is pretty good, within say 1.5s of the fastest, I and
everyone else would probably be interested in a GPperf log file of it.
Send it on in and I'll add it to those available from the WWW pages. Even
if it's not your best time, if it's close send it anyway! To make life
easier for me, please name the file Pxx-ddd.PRF, where "xx" is the track
number (01 for Phoenix through 16 for Adelaide) and "ddd" is your DriverID.
You'll need to send this uu- or MIME-encoded through normal mail; it
cannot be done via the WWW pages.
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. Many people ask what format I
like the results in; as long as all the information is there I don't
really care, but I usually recommend something like the following.
DriverID: DPX
Standard (no corners cut, no save/restore):
Phoenix:
1m16.743 30-Feb-95 64/50:04F:25,33,41,49,57,65
Interlagos:
1m13.342 27-Jul-96 30/10:02R:25,33,41,49,57,65
The setups are, of course, optional. Please, please, please, do not list
dates as "4/6/95", because I never know whether you mean 6 April or 4
June. This is an international publication! The best format is that shown
above, with a named month, but if you inist on doing it with numbers only,
use the ANSI format, eg. "1995/6/4" for 4 June 1995.
Note that I do not send acknowledgement messages for laptimes, so if
possible you should check every now and again that I have correct
information.
The scoring system
The scoring system was inspired by the IICC HotLaps system, but has a new
twist. The fastest time at each track scores a fixed number of points;
slower times score in proportion, down to a cutoff point which is some
fraction of the fastest time slower (this is all based on the average
speed, rather than the actual time). A more mathematical explanation
follows.
Given C (the "cutoff speed fraction"), F (the "fastest time score"),
and H, the highest speed at the track, we can say that an entry of speed
N (the "normspeed"), where N=H*(1-C), scores 0 points, and that an entry
of speed H scores F points. The range of speeds over which entries score
points (the "points spread"), is of magnitude P, where P=H*C. So an entry
of speed S scores P points, where P=(S-N)*(F/(C*H)).
The current values of C and F are to be found on the WWW pages.
The net impact of this is that two similar times score similar points; the
greater the difference between two times, the bigger the difference
between the points they score. The nature of the scoring system means that
you gain points for improving your times even if you don't improve your
position at each track, and that you can't lose points unless the fastest
time is beaten.
Every driver who has sent a time in for any category at any track will get
a bonus point simply to ensure that they do not score 0. This point is
registered in their overall score, but is not included in their average
score.
Miscellaneous
If you know non-Internet people who might like to join in, either read the
"hosting" page on the WWW version or ask me to mail it to you.
Note that the WWW pages only get updated when a new HOF is published. If
send a correction or new time, don't be alarmed if it doesn't appear
immediately, I'm very busy and this is a good way to reduce my workload.
The full lap record listings are only available on the WWW; the plain text
versions sent via mail and news contain only the top 10 standard times.
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!
Even with the Qtyres patch, you will never be able to match qualifying
times in a practice session, because the fuel load is heavier.
It appears that the game randomly degrades the player car's power. A fix
is available as part of the latest GPlap (version 5.0); see the FAQ for
details. The FAQ is posted to rec.autos.simulators and the amigaf1gp
mailing list on the first Monday of every month, and is on the WWW pages
as http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/f1gp-faq/faq.html.
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.
If anyone wants to chat with me via IRC, connect and send a message to
"GizmoVDH". I'm usually available between 1330 and 1430 BST (UCT/GMT +1)
Monday through Thrusday, and often at other times during the UK working
day. I'm usually on EFNet (standard IRC) but occaisionally on Undernet
too. At some point I will host a discussion on the WC2PCHOF when version 2
of the game is nearing release.