: Hehe,
: what we simracers want from a sim that ships after GPL is the same or better
: physics model... <snippage>
Hmm... not what I would want from a "next" sim - I'm already put off
GPL by the "too hard" and the high systems requirements. I'll probably
buy it when the price comes down. What I'd like to see is more
attention spent on the "non-driver" figures.
From what I've seen in GPL, the bit that is maximally unrealistic is
the set-ups. No driver would work on all that himself without advice.
To me it would be really important for realism in a sim to have pit
figures who would say "Hmm... looks a bit loose at the front, could we
change some of these springs."
For me, GP2 was realistic enough on-track (although I'm sure there is
room for improvement and I'm sure GPL provides some of that improvement)
but off-track it became totally unrealistic. No driver climbs out of
his car and says "inflate the left front by 10% and stiffen the off-rear
spring by 20". It's a discussion process with the mechanics, tyre guys
and other crew. That's where, for me, racing sims really lack realism.
It shouldn't be too hard to build some kind of expert system which can
recognise understeer, oversteer, poorly adjusted dampers or the "wrong"
gear settings. Also, I don't know about GPL but in GP2 you could make
any number of adjustments to the settings in a practice session.
("OK mechanics, I'd like to try my eighth set of new gear rations in the
warm-up hour - off ya go boys"). Also, once you had a "right" set-up,
it would remain "right" for the next day and the next. (Unless, of
course it rains). It's not particularly realistic to arrive at a
race "knowing" you have a precisely correct set up because you've done
1000s of practice hours to obtain them. Could it be too hard to have
something where varying track temperatures mean that the "ideal" set up
changes a bit. For me, it would be great to play a sim where you're
told by a "senior engineer" character what to expect from the track and
make guesses towards a better set up in a limited number of laps - with
"expert" help in looking at telemetry etc afterwards (rather than just
having to scroll through it all yourself). This would make "set up"
a more interesting and vital skill. At the moment, in most sims I've
seen, set up is a question of driving 1000s of laps to find the optimum
for each course for your style. In real life you don't have that
opportunity - you have to "know" which way to go and how far after a
limited series of laps and you have to "gamble" on how far you need to
go.
--
Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving
Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York.
www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html
