rec.autos.simulators

1. Radio communication with Crew Chief/Spotters:
   o "David, you need to pit and get that fender off of your tire"
   o Lap times from crew
   o "You are 2.56 seconds ahead of the 3 car"
   o "You have a multi car crash in turn 4; stay low in 3 & 4"
   o "It'll be 2 tires and gas"
   o "Watch the pit road speed"

Spotters play an important role in racing, so I think it should carry over
to the simulation.

2. The racing groove should be shown as a dark (groove) area on the track.

3. If you get out of the groove or off the track, the "marbles" get picked
up by your tires and pelt your inner fenders. This can be noisy.

4. Cars in front of you sling up debris onto your windshield.

5. Cars in front of you lose fluids and hampers vision. Water dries and clears
but oil has to be washed off in pit stops.

6. Cars can be heard when they are being passed or are passing you.

7. As mentioned in #1, pit road speed should be enforced.

8. Need the ability to set the skill level of each non-computer player in
multi-player mode. If a friend comes over to race, he doesn't want to run
pro and I don't want to run beginner.

9. There should be pentalties for rough driving.

10. Should be able to run illegal parts with the chance of getting caught.
Some parts are more obvious than others. It's part of the fun to see what
you can slip by.
  o Clutch/Fly wheel
  o Carb
  o Rear end
  o Brakes
  o Intake
  o Heads
  o Motor
  o Etc.

11. As most have been saying, need better artifical intelligence than sims
before.

12. Long short track races should be *** the brakes.

13. When a car blows an engine, not only does he put oil on the track,
but he smokes up the track where there is no visability where he blew.

14. When cars spin out, that also causes a lot of smoke. When your car blows
or spins out, it fills your***pit with smoke.

15. How about an option where you can choose to be the team owner/driver
and handle the off track business also. This could get deep.

16. Don't forget the trophy girls in victory lane.

Feel free to add your suggestions and maybe the programming gods
will hear us and make the best racing sim possible.

--
David Atchison
Customer Engineer
Vehicle Design System
Intergraph Corporation

Some of these are already implemented in IndyCar Racing as text/pit
boards, but voice would be nice addition.

<deleted...>

: 6. Cars can be heard when they are being passed or are passing you.

Already in ICR with sound card.

<deleted...>

: 9. There should be pentalties for rough driving.

Definitely needed.  I was quite disappointed with F1GP: Manual explains
all flags, but F1GP only uses yellow, white, green and checkered flag.  No
"oil on track", stop and go penalties or blue flags for backmarkers.

At least I'd like to see penalties for taking shortcuts, repeated
contacts with other drivers causing spins/crashes (also computer
drivers!), exceeding speed limits on pit lane and overtaking during
yellow flag.

: 10. Should be able to run illegal parts with the chance of getting caught.
: Some parts are more obvious than others. It's part of the fun to see what
: you can slip by.

And possibility to turn off this feature;-)

: 11. As most have been saying, need better artifical intelligence than sims
: before.

Of course.  ICR has decent AI compared to F1GP.  I hope Nascar will make
it even better.

: 12. Long short track races should be *** the brakes.

: 13. When a car blows an engine, not only does he put oil on the track,
: but he smokes up the track where there is no visability where he blew.

: 14. When cars spin out, that also causes a lot of smoke. When your car blows
: or spins out, it fills your***pit with smoke.

Agreed on all three.

: 15. How about an option where you can choose to be the team owner/driver
: and handle the off track business also. This could get deep.

This could be two separate games;-)

: 16. Don't forget the trophy girls in victory lane.

: Feel free to add your suggestions and maybe the programming gods
: will hear us and make the best racing sim possible.

Couple of small additions I miss from ICR, that could be used in Nascar and
future ICR updates:
  o Race starts too soon after menu selection, I'd like to have couple
    of seconds to get ready for pace lap after I select "RACE".   Maybe
    a "clock" that goes from 3 to 1 before start.
  o Weather changes during race.
  o Pace car.  ICR uses speed limiter during yellow flags, which is bit
    annoying sometimes.

: --
: David Atchison
: Customer Engineer
: Vehicle Design System
: Intergraph Corporation

If these penalties are going to be enforced, Papyrus will also have
to tweak the AI so that the cars will enforce these rules also (and
in ICR, they definitely don't).  I'd especially want the pit lane speed
limit; it sucks when I set up for a pitstop and then another car will
punt me into the wall going 160 mph.

"Yes, Mr. France, sir, I did remove my restrictor plate at Daytona..."

Me too.

Deep, indeed. *grin*

Maybe the CD-ROM version of NASCAR will allow the trophy girl portion
of the game to be interactive.  (Yes, for $9.95 and a copy of your
driver's license, we'll give you the NC-17 trophy girl disk.)

Yes!  The standing starts in ICR suck; I'm just about to strap on
my shoulder harnesses and the field is already into turn 1...

And a "Gentlemen, start your engines" thing would be nice before running
the warmup laps.

Although weather changes won't make much difference in NASCAR (oval
races are red-flagged for rain), this was something I was truly hoping
for in ICR (the '93 race at Portland comes to mind).  If not weather
changes during the race, at LEAST weather changes between qualifying
and the race.

Agreed.

My suggestions for NASCAR (or ICR v1.06 *grin*):

For the road courses, how about curbs and rumble strips?

An editor that will allow us to program engine and chassis characteristics.

A random factor can be introduced for our OWN mechanical problems
(gearbox, water hose,...); of course, this option can be turned off.

Better mirrors than those ***y-weeny ones used in ICR and/or a virtual
***pit or padlock mode for taking a peek at cars running side-by-side
with us (quite necessary for the fender-to-fender racing in NASCAR).

+---------------------+--------------------------------------------+
|   G. Warren Abao    |     ICRS ][ - Rookie Division, Car #13     |

+---------------------+--------------------------------------------+  
| NFLPABB ][ - Owner/GM/Head Coach, Indianapolis Colts (2-4) *wah* |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+

You can always turn on the pace lap and then you'll have a whole lap to get
ready.  Unless you mean if you hit ESC during the game (ie. to check out a
replay) and then when coming back.  

The way I've found that works the best in that case is hitting <CR> on RACE
and then while it's showing the driver standings get ready on the keyboard or
joystick and then hit ESC.  Works for me, I'd rather have it this way then
having a clock countdown...

That would be nice.  

I've wished for a racing sim. with this feature for awhile.  It wouldn't be
too hard to implement, especially in the NASCAR sim, because the cars are the
same (or similar looking).

How about a track editor?... you know make your own tracks...I'd still
like to see a big figure 8 race :)

pac
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|Michael Packer           831 - 5978 |  Radford University Computer Science  |

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