GT3 Power Pack Championship. STARTING JAN 2018

If you're interested in running a GT3 Power Pack championship respond here. I'm willing to set up and run the server. I'll even set up a Team Speak channel if we get something going.

Times are relative to Eastern Time or GMT -4 (I think that's right for this time of the year). Server will be located in the Mid-Atlantic region. I'm looking to do, at most, two races a month. Run a 6-7 race series. Tentatively starting the season in January 2018.

Tentative schedule:
Tuesday after 1900 Hours.
Saturday between 900-1600 Hours.

Tracks (not set in stone, make suggestions):
I'm mostly interested in tracks that are fun to drive. 'Murican tour is also a theme I'd like to try out but I'm open to suggestions. But, if it were me picking the first season:
- Road Atlanta 2017
- Palm Beach International
- NOLA Indy
- Daytona Road
- Sebring (12hr.)
- Road America (full)
- Lime Rock (uphill chicane)
- Mid Ohio (chicane)

Yes, that's more than 6-7... we'd pick from there.

Race conditions:
- Default weather.
- One race with scripted rain.
- Rolling start.
- 15 laps
- Fuel factored so that one pit stop is required.
- Ballast system (Thanks Goanna)
- No aids.
- Cockpit view only.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Tuesday Sign Up Sheet:
- Emery
- Will Mazeo
- TinoM
- Bearded Dragon
- Ricardo (me)
- Will Mazeo
- Hammermania

We have 6 so far, if this is solid, I'm good to go and run a championship with just a handful + AI.

Saturday Sign up Sheet:
- Crickets...

I'm setting up a server tonight and leaving it running when I leave for work tomorrow. PM me for server name and PW. Send me the following:
- What's your preference? Tuesday or Saturday?
- On the day you picked, what's your preferred starting time?
- What are your top two car choices in the GT3 pack?
- Favorite tracks?

 

Ooo, sign me up for Tuesday nights!

 

yes, ballast can be added. not sure how to do it as we have not used the ballast system in a number of years.

 

You've been added.

By the way, if we get enough people interested, I'd say we should start in January, after the holidays... you know, the stay married part. Things will settle down and we'll be able to get organized a bit better.

 

Thank you. I'll look into it.

 

Probably the easiest way to apply ballast is to use the welcome message plugin, just add driver name and ballast and anytime that driver joins the server the ballast is applied.

https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/welcome-message-plugin.30954/

 

Does the welcome message announce then to everyone the weight penalties to every person who enters the server? I also thought the message plugin creator advised that the user should try to keep the message to 5 lines or less...

 

I wish the creator of the rFactor Admin Automation updated it to rF2 and completed it with black and white list.
About the championship I may join on tuesday since I'm in Brazil. But depends on when exactly that "after 19:00" starts, I'm one hour ahead so if race start max at 9pm (my time) I should be ok with it

 

The json file is basically broken into two parts, the mass part which can have any number of drivers listed and the welcome message part, this is the bit that you'd want to restrict to 5 lines or less. So if I have a ballast of 50kg in the list every time I join the server a message that I've had a 50kg penalty applied would be broadcast, not the whole list...at least that's what happened the last time I tested it some time ago.

 

Brazil in the house! I'm an American now but I was born in Asuncion, Paraguay!
The start time is up for discussion. I get out of work around 1800. It takes me 15 minutes to get home. I'm good to go by 1900 most days.

 

If we get 6-8 drivers committed before the end, I'm willing to test how we run against one another in sprint races in order to determine if ballast will be needed and, if so, how much. If everybody wants to drive the 650S, lame, then ballast might make sense. If the field is varied enough... well, everything is up for discussion. I don't particularly care what I'm driving. I'd like to see people mix it up. I wouldn't want to impose a car on anyone but, maybe, we need to have a car lottery or something to that effect. Calculate an appropriate mix of cars based upon the number of participants and distribute them randomly. We did this years ago and used the ballast system in GTR2 and it worked out great. One does need a longer season for this to balance out a bit so, if that's the route we go we might extend the season to 8-9 races.

 

I'm going to set up a server tonight with something resembling this idea. I'll leave it running tomorrow. If anybody is around, I'll race with you around 1900. I don't have a TS server just yet so chat will have to do.

If you're interested, PM me and I'll give you the server name and PW. Send me the following:
- What's your preference? Tuesday or Saturday?
- On the day you picked, what's your preferred starting time?
- What are your top two car choices in the GT3 pack?
- Favorite tracks?

 

Server is up and running.

 

I still have to purchase the pack but I'm planning to. I'd be interested. Either day works although Saturdays could be hit or miss if some other commitment pops up. 7pm EST? I believe that's 00:00 Zulu. Question though, would you be willing to also include any of the other community GTs as optional cars? This could open it up to more people (although I have no idea how S397 deals with mixed DLC). Not sure what kind of numbers you were looking for. Also, you mentioned Teamspeak. No problems there but have you done anything with Discord? It's hosted so it'd free up server load (and be free). Just thinking out loud.

 

I've got no problem incorporating anything really. But, we need to make sure things are balanced. I don't need an Apex GT car, for example, blowing by a similar Power Pack GT3. So, whoever wants to see different cars in the series will need to conduct some testing at the selected tracks. It would be my preference to keep the GT3s limited to the pack cars but I would entertain mixed class racing where a slower class mod is included. I've done this in the past and had a blast.

I'll check out Discord. Thank you. Question for everyone, I need a microphone, is there a microphone that I can use without having to use headphones? I hate headphones. In the 2000s I had a set of open headphones that let me hear people and the game without being in my ear.

TRACK UPDATE: Palm Springs and Atlanta MP are out. Too short.

 

Thanks, Emery for testing last night. The server should still be up, by the way. Get on it! Make track suggestions.

 

I love my G930 headphones with mic. But they are over ear, not closed back. I will say it's a lot of fun having Crew Chief run through the headset with car/environment sounds coming through speakers.

 

I have had some issues with my single ear headset/mic and was told to look at the open ear types. I'll take a look at your model. thanks

 

One of the SoundBlaster cards includes a steerable microphone that cancels out the speaker noise. I think it was intended for conference calling. I've not tried it, but I chatted with someone during a race who was using one and it seemed to work well.

I use an old set of open-ear Logitech stereo headphones with microphone. It's not aged well, the foam covering the speakers quickly degraded and the speakers rattle around and wiring in the slide switch for turning the microphone on/off is a little flaky. Mainly I wear it around my neck for the microphone and get sound from a pair of big stereo speakers, using a PTT button on my wheel to enable the microphone.

 

After about 2 minutes of research I'm going with whatever the local Best Buy has, open ear.

So, on to more important things, who's available to test the server this weekend?