rec.autos.simulators

There will be three different online racing features.

1. The one already available in GPL, improved of course.
2. A ghost version, where it's simple like GPL, but collision
detection is off.
3. An "AI drives like the human" version, where it's like GPL, but you
race AI's and the AI's try to be at the same position as the real
drivers are. It works most of the time like number 1, but as soon as
there is a large latency the drivers car will be driven by an AI
driver.

Any helps or aids used in GP3 will slow down the car.

There will be a feature where the simulator records the way you drive,
(call it ADM, AI Drives like Me) and then let the AI cars drive like
you do. Now you can race yourself, or anyone else on the net. Why not
race 20 other sim racers ADM at the same time. This would surely be
some great racing and great racing practice. This means the AI will
brake where you brake, drive your line, accelerate like you do, etc...

There is also a feature that allows you to preset the grid in races,
so you can put any driver at any place on the grid. This makes for
alternate racing formats in online racing as in offline racing.

There are two kinds of online chat in the sim. One is only seen when
you're in the pit, not when you're on track. The other is visible both
in pit and on track. This way you can chat in pit without disturbing
the drivers on track. You can also choose to send messages to a
certain driver, which cant be seen by other drivers.

It will be possible to view online races live. A server will connect
as a viewer, any other viewer connecting to the race as a viewer will
be rerouted to a viewer server, thus you can have as many viewers to
race as you want.

You will be able to save an online race between the qualifying and
race, so you can qualify one day and race another. One hour qualifying
with variably weather could really upset the grid :o).

There will be both F3000 and FFords to race in GP3... or was that GP4
;o).

There will of course be rain, and variable weather. There will also be
a seed possibility, which is a number you enter before a race to set
up the randomization. This seed determines the outcome of the weather
and it can be available just a couple of hours before an offline race
is scheduled, so noone can drive the track several times to get in a
good race time. Variable weather online will be just great :o). Too
much rain will bring out the pace car...

There are two official seasons included, one with slicks and one
without.

I really dont know anything about the features in GP3 or any upcoming
sim racing title, so these are pure wishes from my part :o).

/Christer Andersson
Almost 1500 hours of simracing, online and offline, mostly in GP2,
F1RS, and GPL...

F1RS, and GPL...<<

Is that all? You light weight! :o)

Rob Swindells
4th in Goldline Bearing FFord Championship (12 Points);
8 points behined Championship Leader (as of round 3 of 6)

Of course....

Social hotlapping....no thanks. Has nothing to do with racing.

Oh yeah, and with a cool chat afterwards....

Driver A: "Why did you do that?"
Driver B: "Huh? Did I do something wrong?"
Driver A: "I would think so! You rearended me at the Parabolica!"
Driver B: "Me? I never hit you! Must be that AI taking over thingy
what we called warp in the days of GPL..."

Problem is, 2 drivers race eachother in a different (virtual)
universe...I prefer the warps, then I understand why something went
wrong.

Yeah, that will help us to defeat those arcade racers...<g>

Crash where I do.....cool, VROC at home...<g> Personally I think
it isn't worth the effort. An AI skill editor would be better, IMO.

That would be nice.

Oh, like in GPL...

Won't work. Only way is a non-dedicated server.

You could do that with the "preset the grid" function. Personally I
don't think it is needed. What I would like is the possibility to give
all drivers an own number and custom carskin. Further software to
manage online leagues would be cool too.

Yeah, and of course Formula SEAT Terra....<g>

Nah, the F1 drivers are real man, they don't need a pacecar when it
is raining to hard! Wait a minute......Heh, BTW, did you hear Paul
Stewart, when he said that the pacecar drove to fast at the French GP?

I don't understand why the seed has to be entered a few hours in
advance. Why not let the server software decide?

This I don't understand...you're simulating a F1 season, with the
rules of that season. So, you're asking of multiple seasons? What
slick season do you want?

Oh, you fooled me....<g>

Yeah, had that too....last week <g>

Regards,

Remco

As long as they do the AI as bad as in GPL, I will prefer an ADM,
cause this will make the AI very believable. You dont have to race
your own ADM, you know :o).

There is also the problem with setups. It's probably impossible to
predict how good grip we're going to get in the corners once we get to
explore the setup physics. The AI going to slow in corners is a big
problem in a lot of racing sims. Too fast isn't good either.

/Christer

Wholy shit I didn't know this was available in GPL... How come noone
uses it. I always get dialogue of things not to my interest when
driving. I hope you dont mean the feature that I can shut off in-car
chat, cause then I didn't explain myself clearly enough :o).

/Christer

I guess it's the rerouting thing that confused you. What I mean is
that a request to view to the race server will get a response with a
new ip-address, then the viewer connects to this new ip-address, or
gets another ip-address from this one, if a viewer-server tree has
occured. An alternative viewer-server could also be setup with the
race server. Viewers connect to the viewer-server, racers to the race
server. The viewer server could build a tree of viewer-servers, say a
viewer-server is on cable-host, then it could sustain perhaps 15
viewers. Anyone of those viewers can also act as another
viewer-server. A 28.8 modem, should be able to sustain two viewers and
another viewer-server. In this way a huge virtual tree of
viewer-servers could be built. It's really not complicated at all :o).

/Christer

You'll never get what you ask for, but if you ask for a little bit
more, you increase the chances of getting what you really want :o).

/Christer

That I leave to the developers to decide :o).

/Christer

I know, I'm new to sim racing :o).

/Christer

--
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-41236/ (Read all about the "Global online
racing"-proposal under "For developers". Read it a couple of times,
cause noone has understood it the first time they've read it yet :o)).

Nah, it is easy! <g> If you take GPL, for example, the amount of cars
visible for a client is 5 cars...How do you get all the 20 cars
accross?

Remco

Hmmm, I don't think the AI in GPL is bad, but that's my opinion. We
both like an util to improve the AI skill, there we agree. You want to
obtain the AI skill parameters from an human driver, where I like an
advanced editor where you can alter the AI skill.

I think that my idea is better, but hey, if we're wishing, why don't
we want both! First get the parameters from an human driver,
then tweak them in the editor.   <g>

Remco

Well ok, you can't send messages to a specific driver, there you're
right. Somehow I skipped that line.....<g>

Remco

Trust me, it's easy :o).

/Christer

--
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-41236/ (Read all about the "Global online
racing"-proposal under "For developers". Read it a couple of times,
cause noone has understood it the first time they've read it yet :o)).