rec.autos.simulators

I am an experienced Microprose F1GP driver, having had the game since
its original ATARI ST release. I therefore consider myself failry
experienced racing wise. Recently I got IndyCar 2 and I am finding it
IMPOSSIBLe to drive. Do you NEED a steering wheel to drive this game
or what? I drive F1GP using a joystick and it works fine...but not so
with ICRII.

Going quickly on a straigh so much as looking at the joystick will
make me spinn.
With computer breaking ON you would think that taking the corners
would be EASY like in F1GP...but I always understeer, have to break,
and then am forced to brake whereafter I spin as I try to accelerate
out of the curve.

I have tried loading the EASY setups...changing LINEAER/NON-LINEAR
STEERING and fiddled with the wheel lock (wheel lock helps some but
makes it difficult going around sharp turns)...in short what am I
missing? MUST I get a steering wheel to enjoy this game...if so I must
say that papyrus are limiting there audience.

Any joystick drivers with advice are very welcome...

BTW, YES, I DO have a speed adjustable gamecard...

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: ICR2....joystick....IMPOSSIBLe to drive.....

There is currently a bug/feature in the software that makes driving for
the first 15 (or so) mins quite a 'challenge'.  You may or may not be
experiencing some of this effect.

Just start the game, select any track, hit Practice, then let the car sit
for 15 mins.  Then, and this is important, go to ANOTHER track.  Drive a
few laps there.  Then come back to the track you are having a problem with.

I know Rick has said they found the bug and there is no work-around for
it, but this technique has helped me.  It may not be correct (Rick?), but it
works for me.  Although, sometimes I can start the game and have no
problems.

You need to find a track that will tell you if the car has this bug.  
Others have used Nazareth to check it, but I use Martinsville (I'm not
that good at Nazareth yet, but can hold my own at 100%).

If you are not experiencing the bug, then there are several things you
could try:

1) Use NON-Linear steering.  Linear is too sensitive for ICR2 (I use
linear for WC, but not ICR2).

2) Cut the wheel lock down to roughly 8-15 degrees depending on track
type.  I use 8 at the NASCAR ovals, but am usually at 12 for ICR2 ovals
and up to 15 for road courses.

3) Make first gear taller.  The majority of setups use 11.9 for 1st
gear.  I almost always change that to 11.5 (maybe even 11.0 or 10.5 for
ovals).

4) Check your rear cambers.  Goofy numbers can give you oversteer while
powering out of a corner.  Keep the rears fairly close for road courses
(ovals can be a lot different though).

5) Check rear shocks.  Softer shocks will give you better bite, but a
compromise might be in order if the car gets nervous for you.  After all,
sometimes a four-wheel drift is the quick way through a corner.

6) Don't make a huge split in your wings.  WC worked best if you had a
big difference in your front/rear wing ratio (ie 64/40 or 64/36).  ICR2
will not like that on tight corners, but some ovals work nice like that.  
Keep the wings together until you think you can 'feel' the car.  Then
loosen it up until you start looping it (eg my Toronto setup uses
17.0/15.4 wings and is only slightly loose at 56.869s, whereas my Nazareth
setup uses 18.0/10.0 for race setup and is fairly nuetral although a pig down
the straights ;) at 20.2s.

Now, if your are an oval man, just gas and go.  The sway bars and wings
are the easiest settings to play with here.

If you need anything else, or have anymore thought, please feel free to
ask.

Gary

I find that most joysticks are not really suitable for racing
sims because they don't have the range of travel through
the arc from side to side (approx 40 degrees) making it
difficult to drive smoothly. I built steering wheel/pedals  
controls at home and made sure there was at least 300 degrees
arc travel with the steering wheel. This makes the steering
control far more sedate  than  the joystick.

 ICR2 is a SIMULATION (i.e as realistic as you can get without
spending 5-10 Million fo a real race team) now would you try to race a
96 Lola Ford Cosworth with a joystick...........no. On the oter hand
F1GP is, and always has been a GAME (a VERY good one at that but still
not a SIM..... ever seen a F1 driver steering with a keyboard? ) Do
yourself a HUGE favor and buy a steering wheel/pedal combo (you will
need it for GP2 anyway).

Anthony.
PS Don't cheat, the auto braking is hopeless.

You know, I heard that Nascar sells a lot better than ICR2, and that
as a result Papyrus is focusing more on Nascar than ICR development (I
don't know if this is true, it's just something I read on the net).
They probably concluded that Nascar racing is just more popular, but I
bet a lot of it has to do with the low traction and difficulty of
driving ICR2 cars. I can't count the number of times I've seen people
complaining about this, and it's given ICR2 a bad rep (a deserved one,
I'm sad to say - I cannot honestly reccomend ICR2 to anyone who's not
a racing and realism fanatic, despite an otherwise fantastic game
engine and graphics).

Joe

Maybe I'm remembering it slightly wrong, but I was surprised that the
book would say something like this in a book supposed to e*** people
about their Nascar sim.

Ya, the traction thing is a drag ;) One thing I notice in the cars
racing at Indy (I'll be watching Michigan next week, but can't resist
all the pre-action at Indy this week)  is that they don't need to lose
as much speed through the turns as I do... I figure that is because we
are cars with 1 year old technology- I guess the modern ones have
pretty much made up the downforce reduction in new improvements.

I don't really understand the logic in reducing the downforce- sure,
it lowers the speeds in the turns somewhat, but actually, it also
degrades braking distance and makes the cars virtually uncontrollable.

Anyway, I wish Papyrus would jsut get a fix out for the irritating
bugs, particularly the traction one talked about a lot lately.

Mind you, mix the tracks from both products together using the
conversion utilities, and I heartily recommend buying both games and
the Nascar track pack! Even though I've still got more than enough to
do learning the default ICR2 tracks, let alone any new Nascar ones!!

Stuart

--
Stuart Booth
Somewhere in Godalming, England, UK

The key to get good is to work on your setups. That's all there is to
it.

Anthony.

For someone who was totally fanatical about indycar racing, I could
see the low-downforce 1995 rules possibly being appealing.

But I just want to drive; to me the ICR2 cars seem to be made out of
paper mache because there's so little downforce. It seems like a gust
of wind will blow the back end around. I need a more solid feeling
car.

Joe

: But I just want to drive; to me the ICR2 cars seem to be made out of
: paper mache because there's so little downforce. It seems like a gust
: of wind will blow the back end around. I need a more solid feeling
: car.

Um, that is not low downforce, that is the traction bug.  You will see
that you can jump on the gas much earlier when the bug is not present.

Of course, the setup will make some difference, but with this very ***
bug present the car will loop with 18/18 wings and full hard front shocks
and full soft rear shocks at FORTY mph!  It's very frustrating.

I can't wait for that patch to get here.

So far I have only raced at Milwaukee. My best lap speed was 169 but its
tough to complete an entire race without crashing. I am using a MS 3D
joystick, medium compound RF tire, 5 deg wheel lock, 9 deg rear wing, 6:1
sixth gear, and everything else default.

I'm afraid that you don't understand how the bug "works." The traction bug
causes the weight distribution of the car to gradually shift from what it
should be.

The problem is that people develop setups based on how their car is
driving and start tweaking those setups to be looser and looser the more
they drive. This works fine when you've been driving for a while, but when
you exit, then come back in, the setup is so loose that it is undrivable.

Rick Genter
Technical Lead, IndyCar Racing II
Sierra On-Line, Inc.

The increased cornering speeds at Indy have come in the form of the tire wars
between Goodyear and Firestone and the track being repaved before this year's
race.

By reducing downforce, CART hoped that in addition to forcing cars to go slower
in the turns, the drivers would get smart and brake for the turns earlier.

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