How important are setups for a sim? (to be a sim)

This is something I've always felt. I find setups tedious and, frankly, I haven't got enough time to monkey with bump lengths even if I knew what they were. I just want to race. To have be at the top of some sims you need to be a driver and an engineer (though I think in reality most drivers do have an intricate understanding of how all this works). I've come to the conclusion that I don't care if people call this or that racing game a sim anymore. What matters to me is that I enjoy it which usually involves it being realistic as regards the car, the road, the weather and what ever else is involved in the actual driving (rather than racing) experience. I love your idea of simulated engineers and mecanics - nice one :-) Paul

> What is the relationship between how extensive the setup options are, to > how realistic the sim is? Cant a sim be realistic in the fact that 'The > Driver' is not asked or expected to make all kinds of intricate setup > adjustments ..that *realistically* this is taken care of by a simulated race > engineer/mechanic/what-have-you? While real race drivers may not actually turn the wrenches to make adjustments, one of the most important things they must do is communicate effectively to the crew chief/engineers exactly how the car is behaving, so in that regard, real life drivers at the highest level are very intimately involved in the setup process. Trips

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> > What is the relationship between how extensive the setup options are, to > > how realistic the sim is? Cant a sim be realistic in the fact that 'The > > Driver' is not asked or expected to make all kinds of intricate setup > > adjustments ..that *realistically* this is taken care of by a simulated race > > engineer/mechanic/what-have-you? > While real race drivers may not actually turn the wrenches to make > adjustments, one of the most important things they must do is > communicate effectively to the crew chief/engineers exactly how the car > is behaving, so in that regard, real life drivers at the highest level > are very intimately involved in the setup process. > Trips

But there's a difference between being involved and knowing EXACTLY what to do. The basic adjustments (wing angles, gear ratio, car height) are pretty obvious; suspention travel, brakes ratio and suspention packers are more difficult to understand, and dampers and anti-roll bars are a complete mistery to me (even if I know what they are used for). I'd like to be able to do a few laps, and then, a virtual ingeneer could analyse the graphs taken from these laps (wich show my driving style) and give me some hints as to what to change in my setup. -- __________ .___ ________ ________ \______ \| | / _____/ / _____/ | | _/| |/ \ ___ ______ / \ ___ | | \| |\ \_\ \ /_____/ \ \_\ \ | ____ /|___| \ ____ / \ ____ / \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/

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> > > What is the relationship between how extensive the setup options are, to > > > how realistic the sim is? Cant a sim be realistic in the fact that 'The > > > Driver' is not asked or expected to make all kinds of intricate setup > > > adjustments ..that *realistically* this is taken care of by a simulated race > > > engineer/mechanic/what-have-you? > > While real race drivers may not actually turn the wrenches to make > > adjustments, one of the most important things they must do is > > communicate effectively to the crew chief/engineers exactly how the car > > is behaving, so in that regard, real life drivers at the highest level > > are very intimately involved in the setup process. > > Trips > But there's a difference between being involved and knowing EXACTLY what to do. > The basic adjustments (wing angles, gear ratio, car height) are pretty obvious; > suspention travel, brakes ratio and suspention packers are more difficult to > understand, and dampers and anti-roll bars are a complete mistery to me (even if I > know what they are used for). I'd like to be able to do a few laps, and then, a > virtual ingeneer could analyse the graphs taken from these laps (wich show my > driving style) and give me some hints as to what to change in my setup.

I'd like to see something like that too... I don't know how hard it would be to program an expert system to analyze your driving and then make setup suggestions, but I'm sure it wouldn't be an easy task. Another thing to keep in mind is that until recently, such detailed telemetry analysis wasn't readily available... Only a few years ago, the only information the crew chief and engineers had was what the driver could tell them. There's a great utility for Nascar2 called "N2 Crewchief" or something very similar. It asks you a series of questions about how the car feels to you on the track and then makes suggestions for setup changes... it's pretty cool. Trips

> Yes of course the drivers are involved with the setup process, but the 'craft' > of setting up racecars is a job all unto itself. They are highly trained and > technical professionals who interpret the drivers input, into physical changes > made to the car ..they work as hard at all angles of setup as the drivers do > in the driving. They are related but totally different jobs! I agree, my only doubt is whether it would be possible to program such an expert system into a PC game. If it were, I wouldn't be too surprised if some of those highly trained professionals started worrying about their job security... Trips

TOCA Touring car game gives you this - the handling and performance are sim accurate, but there are no set ups - just racing - and yet you can still be competitive in the default car. John

> What is the relationship between how extensive the setup options are, to > how realistic the sim is? I think this depends on the type of sim. The difference between a game and sim is its realism. If in one type of racing (e.g. Nascar) setups are very important, than this should also be in the sim. If it is something like GPL, than setup option are less important (or don't need to be as extensive), because the only real changes in setup made during a season were the gear ratios. And finally if you have a sim like NFSSE, setups are not important at all, because no-one starts to adjust the suspension of their new bought road car. What remains is the question of how much of the setup needs to be done by the driver? // Johan

I could not agree more - at least as time goes on more and more setups are available from people who have the time, inclination and skill to do the testing and setups. I did a degree in mechanical engineering so I know a fair bit about how that stuff works, but I'm still more interested in spending time actually racing rather than tweaking setups. Also, probably most people would see far greater improvements working on their driving technique with the default setups, than spending hours tweaking. - Michael Powell

i'd like to have the choice to fumble around with the setups by myself OR have an engineer do that for me! setups posted from others don't really help a lot, because i have my personal style of driving. (maybe that's why i'm always last?) but you see ... if i can afford my own copy of GPL i can afford my personal engineer too, who knows what to change, when i tell him: hey jack! too much push in T3R! maybe it can be done by an extra add-on for gpl. *hint* *hint* Papy ;-) -- Surf Usenet at home, on the road, and by email -- always at Talkway. http://www.talkway.com

CART PR had this kind of Engineer Wizard. I never really could decide if it was a good or not thing. Z.

> I agree, my only doubt is whether it would be possible to program such > an expert system into a PC game. If it were, I wouldn't be too surprised > if some of those highly trained professionals started worrying about > their job security... Not likely. I would guess that in real life much of the success comes from the ability of the driver to precisely express how the car is behaving and especially how he would like it and the engineer to know the driver and have a gut feeling how this guy likes his car for different tracks, weather conditions and strategic situations. What comes to *** I totally agree with more driving and less tuning. But hey - we already have that! Just take Justin Tyme's setups and start driving! Then when you get so good that the behaviour of the car is the _most_ limiting factor you need to start fine tuning. At that point it propably will be rewarding if you can see that lap times improving by the small changes you make and little by little learn more how these things affect the feel of the car. Actually I feel sorry for those that buy the game and don't have internet connection. So there is a point, the game shuld have better default setups. -- Mikko Harjula SQ Consulting Oy | If you email me from a tel. ?3-3165206 33720 Tampere | use subject "I AM NOT SPAM" fax ?3-3165201 FINLAND |

<Racing sims should include set-up advice> : I agree, my only doubt is whether it would be possible to program such : an expert system into a PC game. If it were, I wouldn't be too surprised : if some of those highly trained professionals started worrying about : their job security... It would be simple to provide some pretty basic tips for set-up that would help newbies on their way. For example: Front wheels loose grip before back on cornering: Mechanic says "Hmm... you seem to be getting some understeer" It happens under braking: Mechanic says "Perhaps we should fiddle the the brake balance" It happens in a fast corner: "Perhaps we could run more front wing." etc etc etc... Of course you would want an option to say "it's just my driving style thanks" and, of course, an option to go it alone. After years of playing F1GP2 I can still get hopelessly lost if I fiddle around with anti-roll bars and bump ***s too much... Some interactive advice to get round this would be brilliant. I don't want to be led by the nose - but the fact is that a real driver has plenty of people looking at the telemetry to help him. My ideal F1 sim would have set-up options like this: 1) Floating ideal set up - that is to say track temperatures on race day means that you can't simply "download the _best_ set up from the net" because the _best_ set up depends on whether it's a warm morning, whether the track has been scrubbed of ***, whether it's windy and whether the air is moist. Each time you race you have to work out an ideal set up in practice and qualifying. This feature would only be for the real buffs - but, at the moment, I think that set-ups in sims are a bit artificial because you can gradually refine them over many races on the same course rather than knowing "it'll kind of be like it was last time but probably with some differences". 2) An option (perhaps only for the beginner levels) to say "give me a good set up" - for those times when you simply want to get out there and race. Your car is _at least_ as well set up as those of the computer opponents. Of course you could improve it by "tweaking by hand" but it's drivable and races are winnable. Not everyone is interested in set-up. I am but I realise it's not everyone's cup of tea. 3) A mechanic who will provide advice. No real driver has to make estimates of tyre wear himself. No real driver does all the telemetry work on his own. It would not be that difficult to add this feature to a program like GP2 where a lot of telemetry data is available. (I mean it wouldn't be difficult if you had access to the source - it would be damn near impossible to hack it on afterwards). You can easily tell understeer from oversteer on telemetry (by looking at which wheel loses grip first). 4) The "mechanic" would relate set-up advice to telemetry - that is, he would say "I think we're getting understeer from poor brake balance" and flash up a screen of telemetry showing front wheel revs, back wheel revs and braking. I think that, on F1GP2, I'm not unique in finding it hard to tell when grip problems are to do with wings, roll-bars, spring settings or brake balance or a combination. 5) Also a virtual "mechanic" could provide driving advice for new players who wanted it. E.g. "I think you could go faster into Pouhon" or "I think you're going to fast into the third corner and losing speed on exit". -- 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

> I'd like to be able to do a few laps, and then, a > virtual ingeneer could analyse the graphs taken from these laps (wich show my > driving style) and give me some hints as to what to change in my setup. What a good idea !!! :-) Paul

I think the ideas going on in this thread are just fantastic. Papyrus, Ubisoft and Codemasters are you reading all this? This would not only help people enormously but also make the setups fun in themselves. I would buy a sim with this done well in even if the graphics stank. You good animate the virtual mecanic as well - sounds like a gimmic but did anyone ever play with the virtual doctor on old UNIX systems? How about a Ross Brawn animation standing over your car stroking his chin and pointing to the various bits as you discussed them with him - sounds outlandish but it could be done. This needed be limited to why your car might not be behaving properly from a mechanical viewpoint but he could also suggest how you might get an extra few tenths by adapting your driving. Codemasters have done a very preliminary sort of thing with Colin McRae's driving school in CMR but they have only scratched the surface. With the sort of telemetry available nowadays a whole lot more could be done. The current crop of sims have got the physics and AIs much better worked out than their forebears, but the setups remain in the relative dark ages. Paul

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> <Racing sims should include set-up advice> > : I agree, my only doubt is whether it would be possible to program such > : an expert system into a PC game. If it were, I wouldn't be too surprised > : if some of those highly trained professionals started worrying about > : their job security... > It would be simple to provide some pretty basic tips for set-up that > would help newbies on their way. > For example: Front wheels loose grip before back on cornering: > Mechanic says "Hmm... you seem to be getting some understeer" > It happens under braking: Mechanic says "Perhaps we should fiddle the > the brake balance" > It happens in a fast corner: "Perhaps we could run more front wing." > etc etc etc... > Of course you would want an option to say "it's just my driving style > thanks" and, of course, an option to go it alone. > After years of playing F1GP2 I can still get hopelessly lost if I > fiddle around with anti-roll bars and bump ***s too much... Some > interactive advice to get round this would be brilliant. I don't want > to be led by the nose - but the fact is that a real driver has plenty of > people looking at the telemetry to help him. > My ideal F1 sim would have set-up options like this: > 1) Floating ideal set up - that is to say track temperatures on race > day means that you can't simply "download the _best_ set up from the > net" because the _best_ set up depends on whether it's a warm morning, > whether the track has been scrubbed of ***, whether it's windy and > whether the air is moist. Each time you race you have to work out an > ideal set up in practice and qualifying. This feature would only be for > the real buffs - but, at the moment, I think that set-ups in sims are a > bit artificial because you can gradually refine them over many races on > the same course rather than knowing "it'll kind of be like it was last > time but probably with some differences". > 2) An option (perhaps only for the beginner levels) to say "give me a > good set up" - for those times when you simply want to get out there and > race. Your car is _at least_ as well set up as those of the computer > opponents. Of course you could improve it by "tweaking by hand" but > it's drivable and races are winnable. Not everyone is interested in > set-up. I am but I realise it's not everyone's cup of tea. > 3) A mechanic who will provide advice. No real driver has to make > estimates of tyre wear himself. No real driver does all the telemetry > work on his own. It would not be that difficult to add this feature to > a program like GP2 where a lot of telemetry data is available. (I mean > it wouldn't be difficult if you had access to the source - it would be > damn near impossible to hack it on afterwards). You can easily tell > understeer from oversteer on telemetry (by looking at which wheel loses > grip first). > 4) The "mechanic" would relate set-up advice to telemetry - that is, > he would say "I think we're getting understeer from poor brake balance" > and flash up a screen of telemetry showing front wheel revs, back wheel > revs and braking. I think that, on F1GP2, I'm not unique in finding it > hard to tell when grip problems are to do with wings, roll-bars, spring > settings or brake balance or a combination. > 5) Also a virtual "mechanic" could provide driving advice for new > players who wanted it. E.g. "I think you could go faster into Pouhon" > or "I think you're going to fast into the third corner and losing speed > on exit". > -- > 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

Apart from the fact that some setups are very good in all peoples eyes and so the art of setting a car up is an integral part of a true sim, the other major need for setup options is to set the car up to suit your driving techniques in general and from track to track. Funnily enough, I think most of our individual driving techniques are born from the types of setups we use when we first start driving a new sim/track.

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> This is something I've always felt. I find setups tedious and, frankly, I haven't > got enough time to monkey with bump lengths even if I knew what they were. I just > want to race. To have be at the top of some sims you need to be a driver and an > engineer (though I think in reality most drivers do have an intricate > understanding of how all this works). I've come to the conclusion that I don't > care if people call this or that racing game a sim anymore. What matters to me is > that I enjoy it which usually involves it being realistic as regards the car, the > road, the weather and what ever else is involved in the actual driving (rather > than racing) experience. I love your idea of simulated engineers and mecanics - > nice one :-) > Paul

-- Byron Forbes Captain of Team Lightning Bolt http://members.tripod.com/~HOSHUMUNGUS and http://www.frontiernet.net/~godsoe/bolt/home.htm