PLEASE- some tracks start us off in the pit garage right on pit lane (yes!) just like in Portugal. Some tracks start us off in back and make us follow some sort of maze to get out to pit lane (no!) just like in Watkins Glen or Sonoma (sorry guys). Granted, those 2 tracks aren't too bad, but some tracks in other sims are ridiculous where it's hard to find the exit to pit lane. Listen- we all want to hit the track quickly. Start us in the pit garage, right next to pit lane, OK? Even if the real track isn't set up like this- it's an unimportant thing to fudge.
I think not everyone think the way like you. There are part of community which prioritize reproduction of the real over other things. I also don't think that 'hitting the track quickly' is most important thing in simracing. If you have problems, you may try it once or twice and after that you will know a direction.
Changing the pits is the easiest thing to edit on a AIW. There are some good video tutorials on how to do this.
Realism is one thing, pit spots/garage spots another. Depending on how the modder set up the AIW, there will usually be just one pit spot for each 2 or even 3 garage spots. Since tracks without a garage building next to pitlane (such as Watkins Glen or Sears Point) would require you to put all garage spots right smack across the pit service lane, there would be cars parked where the pit spots are and making them unusable.
Even if you have room for it, placing garage spots on pitroad is just a bad idea. Every time someone retires or crashes out they will be sitting on pit lane instead of the garage. Giving those pitted next to them a disadvantage.
Exactly. Especially oval tracks suffered from that. I had to add garage areas to them myself. It usually meant I was using infield's parking area and sometimes make a hole in the wall somewhere, so cars could enter the road. It shouldn't be league admin's job to modify tracks into usable state.
It would be nice to have a driving line out of the garage area that could be toggled on and off. Several times at tracks in rf1 I got black flagged when I first downloaded the track and was trying to figure out where to go to get out of the garage area. lol Not really a big deal to me either way though.
As for what toebee said, remember old Dover didnt have enough pit stalls. When we ran ARCA trucks we had this problem all of the time. What if your pit spot had a car already parked in it? Talk about awkard?!?!?!
I don't particularly mind starting from a "Garage" type area behind the pitlane.... the only thing I want if that is the case is some form of direction on which way to go. I've been disqualified a few times because I couldn't find my way to the pitlane and went the wrong way.
All you need it to try it a few times offline and you will know the way. I usually spend 10-15 minutes familiarizing myself with a track before going online and I will probably exit my garage a few times while at it. That's really not a problem.
Yup, it might be uncomfortable or confusing maybe two or three times and that's it then. It's not like we couldn't make it easier for more casual drivers to find the way though. At Topeka I went a bit overboard and placed two truckloads of cones to mark out the way to the track. That's probably a fairly extreme version, but we could place a few cones with directional markers (http://www.champion-america.com/med...e/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/36653L.jpg), or if there's a garage building in the paddock area hang a plan of the paddock area.
Can you use the animated pit workers to point the way? like when you come out of the garage you see a crew member pointing which way to turn. why not put a few of them pointing which way to go. we have all the animations and this would be a good use of them.
You mean like the guys we had in the first build and rF1? Sure. I presume they'll come back in a build or two.
TSF uses garage spots and garage paths on every track they create from San Jose to Salem to joesville in some of the oddest configurations and it's just another part of sim realism. Extra time making this step helps I think. In an early video of ISR they even said some drivers new to the track found it helpful to have knowledge of the garage area even before they arrived.
I agree with the original poster. This is something that has always pissed me off. But... Having heard some reasons for starting in the paddock areas, i see they are valid. Having said that, i see no reason why a track builder would think it reasonable to suggest that we simply try a couple times to find our way out. To use the example i found most offensive in rF1: when Paul Tracy arrived at Cleveland for the first time, he didn't have to make two or three or four or five attempts to find the track entrance, like i had to. He simply asked his crew chief, "How the hell to i get to the track?" I don't mind following directions to get out of the paddock, but i shouldn't have to guess. Coming out of the garage, the only clues i could discern were the "Wrong Way" warnings (maybe i just didn't know what to look for, but that doesn't really counter my argument). There was a grid of roads, but every time i tried to turn and sometimes when i just went straight, i'd get "Wrong Way". Eventually i worked my way thru every intersection's possibilities and found the track entrance. Then i realized there was a more direct path, but I even got "Wrong Way" when i could see the track entrance straight ahead. There was some path i was supposed to follow but i found no clues to help me follow it. By then i'd used up 1/3 of the time i had available for practice that day and was thoroughly disgusted with the track, never having turned a lap. Screw it, i just withdrew from the race. I've never entered a race there since. That really the way a builder wants his/her work to be received?
The main technical problem with putting the garages in the pitlane is; 1) It would require setting up the AIW so that each car had its own garage and pit spot. this setup isn't implemented and there's no work around. This was possible in F1C but it was removed for rF and probably rF2. 2) If you were to put the all the garage spots in the pit area using the 3 garages per pit spot, they would need 2x as much space to accommodate the parked cars plus an extra spot for each or their shared pitspots. Both of my favorite tracks Ive build; Lime Rock Park and Road Atlanta both have this issue, I usually just turn on pitlane assistance for them. This is an ISI problem, they need to allow for greater flexibility as far as setting up different track configurations. For my next version, I'm planning on possibly using visual aides (transparent walls with red arrows) that lead you out of the pits with out having to scan the ground for arrows or wander around for the break in the pit wall. Would this be any better or just extend the pit lane and put the garages in the back and pits in the front?
Offline practice, or a map, or just some cones put up by the modeller. IIRC (and if we're talking about the same version) Cleveland was a bit of an odd one just from the paddock layout and it sure didn't help that the area had no landmarks you could use for orientation. The otherwise extremely well done Long Beach had a similar issue.
I seen a track where the modder parked all the garage spots facing the garage so you had to back out first. That made so many people mad lol! I agree there should be markings. That's something some of us have been doing for a while. A painted line and a sign with the pit speed limit goes along way.
