armco at Spa doesn't keep you on the track side

There are certainly places with no way back onto the track. I've gone off that uphill area many times where you sail over the fence and end up boxed in, and you cant drive too far backward to look for a gate or you get black flagged.

I agree that crash should equal 'punishment' but in the first few days of my Spa RF2 experience i found it infuriating as it took forever to learn the track. There are also issue such as when i spin down a steep banking, the car ends up 90 degrees to the track and wont drive up the banking. I think a 500hp car should have no problem driving 15 feet up a steep climb. (it doesnt move at all, back end against the fence, revving to oblivion)

Minor gripes

 

But horsepower doesn't equate to grip. My brother-in-law has a 450hp 1934 Ford 3 Window Coupe hot rod, absolutely no grip, tonnes of wheel spin. It's awesome. Put the thing on grass and expect it to go up an incline and you'll be going nowhere.

 

There certainly are some places where you're stuck if you go off track, but most there is a way. But it will take you a long time sometimes to find them, you have to drive through hedges, etc. Again I'm not sure how much time the guys would put into this right now, or even soon.

Well just imagine having to do that with human body parts. That happened at Spa. They would clear objects if they could, but if not the drivers just had to adapt. That's kind of the feeling we're going for with rF2 as a whole, it's about adapting to the conditions as they are (be it objects, rain, wind, tires, marbles), not how they were when you created a snapshot of space and time.

Info here about the human body parts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_de_Spa-Francorchamps#Masta_Kink
It was a corner worker, and is why clearing objects probably wasn't in their best interest.

 

I don't mind objects being left on the circuit after they have been moved. I don't think people appreciate that hay bales are actually quite heavy and solid, we're talking from anywhere around 30-60kg for a small 2 x 3ft hay bale. Stack a few of them together and you're hitting a decent amount of mass, they certainly shouldn't go flying like polystyrene as Emauele Pirro demonstrated at Hockenheim in 1989 - and even then it gave him concussion. I think rFactor 2 treats the hay bales quite well (must admit, I haven't tested it specifically).


I do agree that your race should effectively be over if you ever went off at speed at Spa for realisms sake. Having said that, solid granite-like wire fences aren't realistic either. If you were to spear through a fence at speed, you'd probably end up hitting something solid and your race would be over anyway. Unless you are lucky to grind to a halt in an open paddock. I'm not sure what the paddock surfaces are like but if they are bumpy as I'd imagine them to be it would possibly flip your car over if you hit them at speed and end your race too.

The other positive of going through a fence (apart from realism) is that you won't be bouncing up in the air 60 metres or bounce back onto the track collecting other cars (unless of course you were to hit a house or tree at the right angle possibly).

 

Eugh...





So can we expect severed limbs and giblets during the beta phase or will that be added post-release?

 

I like that the old tracks are unforgiving. When I was learning Spa (still leaning really) I made sure damage was definitely ON all the time. For me it added to the experience, it made it feel more dangerous somehow. When you've spent 3 minutes getting the car around the track at full speed the feeling of 'Don't mess this up now!' pitted against 'Push Push PUSH!' is a feeling I don't think I've had from a sim before, at least not to the extent I get it from this one.

I'm not trying to start an argument I just wanted to offer a different opinion. For me I like the more difficult option but I can see it being impractical for some (i.e. you only have so many hours to spend on this).

Of course the result is I am a lot better at the start of Spa than the end.

 

Great post Andy, it's quite the same for me.

 

I believe that you actually could drive trough barbed wire in reality, both ways, but of course with 60's cars there might be a risk of severing one's head from his neck in process.

It is thing I find to cause bit of frustration, when there are seemingly weak fence which I can't drive trough, would love to have something there that behaves like real thing, but no fence at all would be, imo, better than fence that looks weak but is stronger than next guys racing car, which I can push off the track if I wanted to.

Having fence that offers resistance and causes puncture at some random chance might be something practical and better than what I have now observed, but would such be feasible?

Surely I want trees behave like trees and everything else when you hit them, maybe I want bit much? Well these are at least my thoughts about subject that thread starter bring up to discussion.

 

This is very much what I like in rF2, but why there is automatic feature turning car back to wheels then? Yes, it can be disabled from PLR file, but maybe it should be off by default

Damage, severity of consequences when one makes mistakes, that is all that makes the thrill in racing, add need to adapt into changing environment and conditions and it is truly a great experience and I hope we see that, there is damage slider to turn down if it is too much to handle, but max should indeed be as bad as in reality, imo.

Cars not getting up on grass incline is one great thing that I like, it really is so in reality, you get stuck and it is possible to get stuck in rather easy looking place with racing machines made for tarmac, it is also thing I like.

Certain severity and brutality that have been missing years from sim racing seem to be coming back to rF2, that is what I see as great potential in it.

Yeah, as I wrote earlier, I would except to go trough such fences, but also I except to suffer from it.

 

That's a great way of doing things. It's a shame really but in real life you work up to the limit, in sim racing all-too-often it's about crashing (finding the limit) and working DOWN to it. Doing it the other way, and working up, actually seems to make you a better driver.

 

Goodness gracious, I wish you could implement some ragdoll physics for bodies being thrown from cars...although from what I know about licensing, no one who licenses you their car or track wants to see that

 

Thats pretty messed up. I sure as hell dont want anything like that. Tim's post above, alone make me feel queasy

 

SIMULATION = REALISM not much more to be said

 

Keep it as it is.
I heard a story from Jackie Stewart. He crashed at Spa and was trapped in the car by the steering wheel. They couldnt get him out for ages. From then on, he had a shifter taped to the inside of the cockpit so he could remove the steering wheel if it ever happened again.

 

1966 race. The fuel tank ruptured and he was doused in petrol and stuck in it for nearly half an hour. Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant hlped him. Finally he was extracted with a few broken bones (ribs and shoulder from memory). They put him in a van to take him to hospital but they got lost on the way. I think I recall something about it being unhygienic, cigarette butts in the van etc. It was this awakening call which caused him to start on his safety campaign.

I believe the accident happened somewhere near Masta.

 

Well, we are allowed to turn damage off. And a magic hand flips you over when you are upside down. Good features when practicing IMO.

Personally I think you can take the realism thing to far. What I dream for is dead-on accuratcy in the car handling physics (which I would never be able to identify having never raced a real car) and photo-realistic graphics. But don't try to simulate punishment or inconvenience. At least not in offline practice. Do you realism guys really want to wait overnight before continuing practice while your car is "rebuilt"? That's realistic.

I do agree that when competing it is good to have your race end if you damage your car. I won't race in a league with free "resets". (Edit... actually my league allows resets but only if you do it from within the pits.) Just allow me to practice in a way that is effective and efficient (and enjoyable) for me. That is, let me get back on the track.

Sorry Coops but SIMULATION = SIMULATION. You literally wouldn't survive total realism.

I agree with this. I don't buy the argumant that the cars are too powerful to climb a grassy hill. Even when creeping up at an angle the rear end can slide down the hill. Seems like the grass is modeled as permanantly wet or as snow or ice.

But back to my original point...

Tim, I do think the armco is just not "built" right. I'll bet it wasn't a "feature" calculated to end a session.

Understood. On the grand scale of things this could be considered in the noise. But a simple "reset" as in GPL (with tire temps intact) would make guys like me happy without requiring a bunch of changes to the landscape model. Make it work only when offline.

But for sure, thanks to ISI for allowing me to turn damage off and for flipping me over! Over and over again!

and this Jackie Stewart guy... what a pussy!!! JUST KIDDING JUST KIDDING... PLEASE... I love Jackie Stewart!

 

Too far for some is too little for other, that is why there is damage slider, not everyone needs to keep it at 100% put to 50% or bit less for current level etc.

When you have to wait your car to be fixed, that surely makes one think twice about his tactics and way to drive, generally in sims everyone is pushing way too much, even at races people drive like they would be hotlapping and not adapting to conditions and situations.

It requires new kind of thinking for racing and driving, but certainly possibility of such is not something that should always be on, there should always be option of choice and when there is possibility it is easy to try and experience, maybe learn new things to like.

I would say that it alone changes driving styles in races to be more realistic than any graphics or handling physics ever will, but importance of it depends from how one likes to race, like simracing or like in real racing. That is at least what I think, I also think that both ways should be possible.

 

I don't. Cameras are not eyes, and photos aren't in any way a perfect representation of how humans see the world. Optimally I hope that devs would veer away from trying to achieve photorealism.

 

+1

rF2 has a unique look. With graphics turned up Monaco and Spa are brilliant. Racing around monaco I can almost feel the mediterranean sun. To me those tracks have the most immersion.

 

I totally disagree with this. I've been stuck on short-cut grass in dry summer conditions on a grade so low you wouldn't even think it was a hill. Tires just spinning into the ground. Also With the 2000 km's i drive every week I have seen plenty of people stuck on SMALL embankments after running off the highway. If anything I'd say we can drive some embankments in the game that we shouldn't be able to