So, I've been into rF2 for a while now, have been very impressed on how fast S397 is turning rF2 into a modern day simulator. I never really had any complaints, and if I had them S397 got them resolved by actually making this a modern day simulator. There is one thing though, I never have any sim do right before. The damage model. Partially this was due to recources, or computers not being good enough to simulate this. I mean, how many times did I see under beamng video's people wishing that damage model in actual racing simulators. Of course, it makes sense that that would never happen. Then of course iRacing came along with their video of their WIP damage model. This is what fired up my thoughts again about this subject with a few questions. What would one be able to expect from a 2018 racing simulator damage wise How advanced of a damage model is needed for a modern day sim What would a more advanced damage model mean for rF2 What would be the down sides to having a more realistic damage model Personally I think it will be a very important thing to look into before the competition system is introduced. Definitely if the competition system will have pro like races, where there of course will be live stream for, it will also be a marketing tool. If someone is looking into buying rF2 for example, and he sees people going into the wall, it normally being a race ending crash, and then driving almost the same laptimes as before, trust me, they wont go like "hey that looks good". I also think it's important for the racing itself. Risk vs reward will be way better.People wouldn't throw massive blocks, or throw their car in every tiny gap they see, because it would actually end their race or damage their car simply. Also street courses would be more challenging as well. When you scrape the wall with the tire, you tend to get a flat one. Also, because the content rF2 has right now is very endurance base, I think not only wall to car, or car to car contact is a thing that needs improving. Also wear should be a thing. If you go full nuts over sausage kerb every single lap, you'd simply get away with it atm. But if you look irl, there are so many, even sprint races, where it breaks the suspension if they hit them.
I don't know about damage models, only thing i can say is that, as a hardcore simracer (call it "realism fanatic" if you want), i don't like when we crash the car into a wall and can keep moving to the pits. I would like to see more "dead" cars in the side of the track after a huge accident, with destroyed wheels and smoking... maybe seeing marshalls taking the car off the walls, during the safety car laps, like we had in past in F1GP from Microprose... The advantage of implementing a realistic unforgiving damage model is that maybe will add another factor to the races and make people think twice before doing a risky maneuver, so i think that races might become more "clean" eventually... once you don't have the "death" or "debit" factors, the premature end of a race factor would make people re-think their approach to the events...
That's also a very interesting subject. I completely agree with you on the teleport back to pit thing. For a hardcore league, or for when the competition system gets released, it simply doesn't look good first of all in qualifying. People going full beans for a lap, then suddenly disapearing into the pits and going again. Or someone goes into the wall in his qualifying lap, and then still going out of pits only a second later do have another go. In the race it's usually different already. Out is out. But usually the damage is too forgiving to make you really be out. I'd be happier to see safetycars be implemented though if a car is wrecked and in a dangerous place. It just adds more variables to the racing, which irl also happens. on the marshall idea, I'm not sure if that will add much to it. It looks good, but doesn't ad danything to the racing. It would be fun, but not a priority for what they are aiming rF2 to be.
Not meaning to be nothing too complex, just simple animations, it was just an idea! But your example is what i also think it should be, you destroy your car in qualifying or race, so it means it's over for you... no escape or starting again from pits...
Before going down this whole route, understand what is already possible and realize that content creators are responsible for using the existing features. 1) Parts can fall off. There are flags for wheels, wings, bumpers, & fenders as I recall. The flags don't actually have to be used for the item being named (e.g. you might use the fender flag to remove a side mirror). Separate the mesh and then set a threshold & mass for the object. Maybe limp to pits. Parts that fall off are weight reduction and can affect aerodynamics. 2) Tires can puncture & deflate. Limp to pits & change tire. 3) Engines can seize from an impact. No repair possible. 4) Engine oil can overheat and the engine can blow up. Parts falling off can change the cooling. 5) Engine can blow up due to over-revving for too long. No repair possible 6) Time to repair/replace parts is set by the content creator. 7) Scrapes, light surface damage, and dirt can appear. 8) Deformable mesh, which was available in rF1, are not available in rF2. Edit because I forgot: 9) Suspension can "bend", putting wheels out of alignment. Pit & repair.
Agree with the posts above. Just to add to things I like to see; After having gotten a punctured tyre, driving back to the pits too quickly risks much more extensive damage.
When I used to drive an Eve, I remember seeing some on fire on the side of the road. Or at least I think I did. it's been a while.
From AMS by Reiza: Added "RETURN TO PITS" option to RULES settings, options are: Instant, Car must be stopped before teleporting and Car towed to garage (with semi realistic or realistic timings). There is a reason rF2 is my second choice title right now lol.
This is indeed a good list of which we can evaluate the current state of it. Lets just talk about first party content though, as the third party mods indeed is their responsibility to make it quality. So I'll start off with the engine. You can overheat, damage, wear the engine. Something like that is fairly simple and I don't think that there is a lot more to simulate in that aspect. Scrapes, light surface damage, dirt appearing, I dont really see that as damage, but it's a nice thouch. Lets start about the flat tires then. I'll be honest, I've never had any flat tire whatsoever in rF2. Let it be because of wear, cutting kerbs, or from touching the wall, other opponent. They might simulate it for too high temps (LFS style), but not from wear, overuse, or hitting/scraping the wall. So this is simulated yes, but very very basic. The it is simulated, but very basic seems to be applicable to the body parts and suspension. This will probably be the 2 subjects which is the most difficult. So to begin about the body parts. This has so many levels of posabilities that can be simulated. It's not just the falling off part. It's not just at X amount of force it falls off. There is also the bending and breaking the part itself. There are different materials (like carbon doesn't bend) with different breaking and bending points. You can even go as far (as iRacing is showing) of when bending a certain material at a what force makes it bend back, and what makes it stay bend. Also the parts usually are attacked at multiple points. Just look at the dallara rear wing, or an F1 wing these days. It can also break at only one of those points causing it to hang off. Now it scrapes along the track, causing friction etc. in rF2 you need quite a high force to break parts off, and if it does, it's the entire bumper/wing, not just some part of it. Suspension has the same problem. I went to sebring with the USF 2000 and hit the wall full speed on the straight (damage 100%): I hit this wall with my tire that is sticking out. It launched my car into a 360 degree spin, hit the wall backward at a failry high speed, then spun and hit the wall 60 kph in a 45 degree angle. Nothing fell off my car, only my rear wing was dark blue, and a bit of my suspension was bend. But I could drive on no problem (only had to steer a bit on the straight to go straight). This should not be possible and simply looks bad. Can things fall off: yes, but it's simulated very very basic and you need to have a rediculous crash for it to happen. The question is: how much can you simulate, how much do you want to simulate, and how much is reasonable to expect to be simulated.
rF2 already supports as many parts falling off as you want, and also for each part you can set the force at which it detaches. So this is all in the game already, it's up to the mods and other content to make use of it and set those detach values properly. Material bending is indeed not supported. From my understanding one problem with deformable vertex damage as in rF1 is that rF2 has very high-poly models, especially the latest GT3/GTE pack. It seems obvious to me that adding vertex damage would further lower the FPS, which with current performance wouldn't be a good idea. So probably performance would need to be addressed further before rF1-like damage could ever be considered in rF2.
I've been talking first party stuff. But to get into the performance part. Beamng level of bending and stuff is indeed insanely resource intensive. But a simplified version wouldn't be. I mean, iracing is showing it right now. There are some key parts of a car (suspension parts like a wishbone, or driveshaft, wings) that can bend and break. Tbh I think the suspension is quite important to get the damage right off. As seen in my explanation, it's not very good as of now.
Yup, just because the possibilities are there doesn't mean they are used (or used correctly). And then go look at damage on public servers and you'll see it's often only set to 50% or 30%. I'm not going to apologize for first party damage implementations, but clearly the customer base leaves the impression that they are not all that interested in full damage.
Well, I am not trying to be a nob here, but if you go off of public racing, you might as well say that nobody is all that interested in rF2 to begin with. I think rF2 their strong point is league racing. With their upcoming competition system it will turn all peoples eyes at rF2. I've got a feeling that when they want a realistic sim, and the see a crash like I gave you in my message, they will look away fairly quickly as well.
That new damage model video for iracing looks amazing,once they add night and day,this damage model,and if the tmv7 cures their longstanding tyre woes,it will be hard for rf2 to keep up with that product. Tyre and physics model aside,rf2 has a lot of half baked features that will take a very long time to put right or outright replace. Don’t get me wrong,as of now,imho from a pure driving aspect,rf2 wipes the floor with iracing,but iracing is a more polished and “whole” product. I don’t know if I’d return to iracing with all those features above being implemted,but when people just getting into sims try these two product,they are left with two impressions,one is cheaper but half baked,the other is dear as hell but well put together. I fear rf2 will always be playing catch up because it feels like it’s always in a state of beta,but then again all games do nowerdays,it’s just what stage of beta that matters I know isi never had the 20 million dollars that John Henry pumped into iracing,and I know s397 doesn’t either,but it’s not me that needs convincing rf2 is the the product to have
better half baked feats instead of mediocre tire model that drives like arcade as its best iracing tracks feels so static that i think i m dead in there i dont think iracing will be even better than pcars2 to be honest if no what took them so long ? no offence just doing some chat with you guys i like iracing but cant see a brighter future than the one they already have cheers
Ofc i would like damage model in official cars, mods will always vary a lot but its probably too much for S397 to develop, so i wouldnt expect irating detailed type of damage but anything would improve the game rather than nothing , including AI which just walks away casually flying off to the pits at the same pace no problem. Rf2 suffers from "pure driving aspect" vs modern pc CPU bottle neck, any type of modeling is a cpu scorching device unfortunately and for a complete racing title u need much more, development and funds altogether. I mean rfactor pro and pro teams simulators, cool expensive stuff but cant make a pc racing title without various changes, they re not meant to work like that. iRating hype, i dont get it, plenty of noobs that spin out every lap or crash/die (despite physics being much simpler), pretty much like AC online until u reach a high rating having played various cars that u wouldnt bother otherwise in arcade/console grind fashion, until u can brag about a number in your screen after some time and $ spent. So i wont pretend irating is my point of reference (or pretend its an mmo) and not even AC , because ultimately those two are what other developers want to copy and/or improve upon, also since different amounts of money are invested plus im not fanboy of anything. Although i agree with 2nd post, Microprose F1GP , imho thats the one to be inspired from, so far ahead of its time, and i think rf1 was ment to compete with GP4. Anyway too many comparisons i think, rf2 has huge potential on its own but its (still) rather under developed without even including visual damage modeling, even simple stuff matters for me, lets not forget that tire and physics are being developed since 2000 in rf1 & rfactor pro, along with superb visuals (tires & susp) but overall i hope they get rid of the "hot lap simulator" mentality, i guess its already happening in a slow pace. At the same time that means that rf2 will only get better!
Iracing has released a vid showing their new damage modelling Reactor2 I think always had this stuff but not sure if most cars have it fully implemented
iRacing's WIP sample at the end of is pretty impressive eye candy at least. Whether it brings a lot to the simulation is another matter.
This was pretty much my question at the beginning of the thread. I'll give me my view on this, The WIP that iRacing have showed, only showed the eye candy. At the speeds they showed the damage model, it only shows how much can break. When you have such high speed, certain to end your race, crashes, it doens't matter if its because you broke 2,3 wheels off, or if the driveshaft is broken. Your race is done anyway. The thing that will show the use of such an advanced damage model, will be the suttle and light contacts with the wall, or side to side contact with other cars when racing real hard. These are the touches, where the threshold is between just a knocked out toe or your wheel breaking loose, making your cars unsteerable and forces you to pit, if you can make it. If this model is done right by iracing, I think it will really add to all sorts of racing, but especially endurance racing. In endurance racing it's fairly common that someone goes off, hits the wall,a nd has to limp back to the pits. So in short: Yes, I think this adds a lot to a serious competitive racing simulator
