Latest Roadmap Update - August 2017

Please do not write these jokes so early in the morning, I do not think it's good for the heart to laugh so much and so soon. It has been read the post and imagine Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso .... at the Spa briefing asking Charlie Whiting to show them the telemetry of their rivals.

The telemetry of each pilot is one of the most private things that exist in the competition and so should be in the simulation. If someone wants to share their telemetry is their decision but nobody should have free access to the telemetry of the rivals, however small it may be.

 

I know what Motec is in real life but not for rF2 ! Can you or someone point me in the right direction of it for rF2 and maybe give some tips or anything please ?

 

I think that too. I'm totally only looking forward to the code part, I want easier ways to host races, add BoP, etc without having to mess up with text files. Why we cant select full course yellow settings for example with a NASCAR, IndyCar, GP (F1) pre set and modify some options without having to deal with text files or plugins is beyond me. Or select a knock out qualify from the menu, etc.
Inb4 the same old guys appear defending current system.

On the BoP thing (Upgrades) the game has a bug with it and people have been removing this to avoid the bug (or so I heard from some guys). So my idea: make the game clone the original file with the modifications set by the player, the clone is added to original mas file when people load the vmod and the skin point to that hdv or whatever else is modified and forced/allowed by the server. You could have upgrades, without having upgrades, if that makes sense

 

https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/damplugin-for-rf2.49363/

 

Some telemetry is hard to get, some is easily available. Every time f1 broadcasts a qualifying session they have data overlays that show things like speed and g forces for most cars. And lap times and sector times. All that data is easily available to every person on earth. In sim we can see accurate speed readings as well. Access to some telemetry parameters is laughable easy while others are not.

Hamiltons, vettels and alonsos read their team mates telemetry all the time. The teams also have various data feeds that show where all the cars are around the track. It doesn't take rocket surgeon to take that data and pull all you can out of it. Especially if you are an f1 team.

And it is not unrealistic either. In real life you can put a guy with radar gun and camera into every corner and get speeds and pitch and roll angles which can then be used to get rough ideas of setup. Snap couple of pics in the pits and you have even more data like cambers, ride heights, wing angles, tire wear... It is all about money in the end.

I don't really personally care about telemetry because it is not that easy to take notes because driver skill and some settings like wing angles have massive effect on whether the telemetry is even worth reading or if there is even anything that can be learned from it. But having stuff like speed traces available and comparable directly from the ui is not out of this world. In the end it is about simulating how money you have, not whether it can be done or whether it is being done. If someone doesn't want to share his magical driving skillz he can drive offline where nobody can see his data. Having the option to compare the speed trace from anyone else on the server against your own laps is not that unrealistic. Doesn't mean everything should be shared but speed trace could be nice. After all in real life you will always have your team mates telemetry to look at so it is not unrealistic.

 

We play a game, I don't earn 50 60 billion racing RF2, and even if we would , a lot of data could be extracted from replays too, it's just more time consuming. Looking how early you can accelerate and how fast you go at the end of a straight thanks to your earlier acceleration could only help people improve, not surely detract from your ability. I think people enjoy multiplayer because it's competitive.. so, in my understanding, the faster is the average user, the better is for the fun factor.

 

It's just a game man. Not you're paying career.
I would get bored racing up front by myself online. I would hand out my setups so I can have closer, exciting action. Even give a tip for a corner. You can see gas/brake/speed in onboard videos on Youtube. There's GPS for all teams (that can afford it) at races. You can monitor someone else's speed around a track map. It's not a huge secret.

 

I haven't been online in a while, but you could select another player, maximize the TV camera in the lobby or garage screen and watch their gas/brake/speed/wheel and even cycle through their cameras.

 

Nobody prevents you from sharing your setups. It is funny to read this when the setup thread isbasically empty. You could also see dozens of setups for WFG shared here in the forum. Or was it the opposite way?

 

Don't you already have that data in the spectator HUD? You can see pedal imput, speed, wheel ,etc
Just load a replay and this will be there
rF2 logs also show fuel per lap and tire use per lap, get the log from the server and use rF2 Log Analyzer

 

You can share setups online in the server with people that you are racing with

 

@T1specialist @Comante @aguy0523

You three are giving me the reason. With the data offered by rF2 is more than enough. I am the first to spy on those who are faster than I, that speed they reach, where they brake, the curve step ... but from there to share the telemetry there is a huge difference.

Pilots of the same team share data because they have no choice. If they could avoid it they would do it as did Rossi and Lorenzo in MotoGP even putting a wall between the two boxes so that the mechanics / engineers could not see what happened on the other side.

Like it or not the Online is competitive and if someone does not have the level to compete is their problem. So are the races, both real and virtual.

 

and to add to the above. For sure I don't mind GIVING help, or setups or something, to other people, but I don't want someone who is very rude, a pain in the ass, someone I just don't like, to have it. If there would be an option I could give such data to someone, I wouldn't mind that being there, but not out in the open for everyone. They can get enough out of a replay, or looking while driving anyway.

 

I don't see that there is a huge difference between telemetry and replay, which contains pedal and steering inputs. You can put the replays side by side and compare the exact pedal input if you want or use the vcrmerge tool to merge the two replays, which works similarly as a ghost car. I would even say that vcrmerge can sometimes be more useful than telemetry to quickly see what you're doing wrong, as it gives the overview of both the driving line and the pedal inputs in one. Of course to really use the information from vcrmerge to an advantage, you need to have a basic understanding of driving, but that's the same with telemetry.

 

@Mulero

We don't have secret proprietary software or a factory making race motors. What do you expect someone to see and gain? Your suspension bouncing up and down is not going to do anything for anyone on here. @Comante said gas/brake/steering which is already available in the spectator view which you just admitted to doing your self. No one can see your setup page, and it's up to you to share. Even still, I can't imagine S397 making the garages open and public for all to see. I'll take the risk and say, it's just not going to happen.
@Nimugp
There is an option for that if you like. You can select the people who get your setup on the server list so not everyone has it. I haven't been on in a while but someone online can explain it to you. It's not hard at all. Again, it's something I do voluntarily, it's not mandatory. I give it to the back markers that are struggling. Not the one right on my rear bumper.


I wonder what S397 is thinking right now. He just wanted some feedback on the update and we went off on a tangent into the abyss. I think the new UI looks pretty cool. Way better than what's available now.

Later all. Have fun

 

I know. That's why the quoted post makes no sense "I would hand out my setups so I can have closer, exciting action". Whoever that wants to share his setup can send it to whoever he wants.

 

<Our plan is to make DX11 our new default at the end of September. At that point we will also update our current demo version>
This sentence is a little cryptic for me. Are we getting an update in September or just a switch to DX11 as the default base in September?

 

S397 have to look at where rF2 is in the market, and build out features and functions that support that position or advance it towards their intended goal or goals (since this can be many things to many people).

At the current time, the very best sim for online community racing is iRacing, bar none. Anybody who says otherwise isn't facing facts.

There are numerous other competitors in the 'tier 2' online sim racing, and they are the same ones for offline racing/driving.

rF2 is in my mind the very best sim on the market today for going from a newbie to a fully capable online simracer. It is by far the best application to start to learn how to drive a car; R3E may be cheaper (free to play) but beyond that offers so little starting point, it doesn't compete. After all, the sequence ought to look something like this:
(i) keep your virtual car on the track, gradually building up safety and speed to turn reasonable lap times
(ia) learn how to do setups for a car, what the most basic settings do and affect lap times
(ii) compete against AI, and learn how to race; offline time trial
(iii) compete against other humans directly online, in either pickup races or organized communities/leagues

Since iRacing doesn't include any AI, they throw you in at the deep end having to compete online against other rookies, when your driving and racing skills probably don't support that. I'd never suggest a complete noob try and learn to race on iRacing; its best to do it on rF2 first.
So, this then needs to translate into a roadmap of what to build, and the UI is crucial to that experience. First is to get to drive quickly in phase (I) without much effort to select car/track and start driving, but then be able to vary session settings for things like conditions (dry/wet, clear/cloudy, time of day). Next is to get you to be able to look at car settings. And so on. I know they need a baseline for all of the settings if they are to replace the UI that currently exists, but they ought to update this as they go, rather than try to get it perfect at the first attempt. That's what betas are for. So phase (I) is about getting to drive, and phase (ii) is about controlling sessions and races, and phase (iii) is about online.

They also need to have a couple of concepts. First, is that they can and should encourage a community, and sharing of the experience. It's really what all the other sims lack in a cohesive way. iRacing has things like the ability to share and compare best laps (see telemetry discussion above), share paints etc. which are community-provided add-ons. The good news is these are both OPT IN features. [I've always wanted iRacing to build the lap sharing and setup sharing features in house]. So in the above discussion, sharing of telemetry should not be forced in, but opt in.

They also have to figure out how they want to structure the online racing; finding online races (pickup style), finding communities/leagues, and setting up hosted events. We've got the ability now to run dedicated servers on our own computers, but seriously, how many people do that and how likely is it that that is the way forward for creating online events? It's the most basic capability.

I feel that has been half of the problem with the approach taken by ISI, and inherited by S397. It's all very homebrew; it's open, but it's a mess. There's some basic capability, but its not exposed or easy to use. In my opinion, it can't stay that way. So they really have to sit and think about what they want to build, not merely put lipstick on a pig or simply a pretty face on what we already have, which is what it feels like this UI design is; or its just a technology replacement, which may be necessary but doesn't move the ball forward. Which is exactly the mistake made by iRacing with their new UI, which actually doesn't solve any of the usability aspects of the old web-based one.

 

Thousands run their own servers. There are far more servers out there than players taking advantage of them. They may use server farms with best-in-class backbone connections or they may just use their own computers connected through their local ISP. However, the number of people running their own servers is likely 10k+ across rF1, rF2, AMS, AC, & pCARS.

 

Precisely. rF2 needs a bigger player base for an iRacing-like system to work, finding servers isn't the issue. Even iRacing is suffering these days from having so much content and so few series that people are actually interested in taking part in. Most of the series and events are empty.