rF2 Wishlist - Various Sources

Something I forgot to add, better traction control. We do use it at all in our leagues even though the real series does (like ALMS/LMS GT2) since the implementation in RF1 is very lacking in feel and realism. If you picked up this months Road&Track, they take all the major competitors GT cars and Street version at Miller Motorsports park....Tommy Milner noted the biggest change to the BMW this year was new TC from the F1 team and he went on to describe it a bit...

 

you all talk good ideas and desires, but if there will not be good AI then this game will be dead. I do not play for diverse reasons in online and sim-leagues and I know many other people to which it is liked to play with AI. rFactor2005 had terrible AI. AI in rF2005 is impossible to play. Therefore key moment for ISI to do good AI, it is very important! If it will not be then rFactor2 will lose very serious part of audience and for me this will be a dead game in spite of other things which will realize in it.

 

Graphics and detailed environment essential for immersion and fun-factor: must have detailed and realistic 3D (not 2D) trees, shrubs, grass, and spectators, alongwith all the graphical fancy doodads such as soft self shadowing and diffuse and specular reflections off the cars' and tracks' surface.

Of course the racing physics and force feedback and sound are crucially important to a simulation experience, but to have a truly immersive VIRTUALIZATION of racing I think we must have graphics of high a fidelity as possible. That means that everything should be at the level of contemporary graphics tech and not appear dated in any way.

The cars must be highly detailed, have realistic reflections, full self shadowing and soft shadows. Now, coming to the immersiveness, that is made up of two elements: the road, and the surroundings.

For the road, the texture should be as little repeated as possible, and there should be variations in the appearance due to wear and tear and tyre scuff marks etc.

For the surroundings, of course the buildings and fences etc should be detailed and also cast weather-correct (sun position, cloudy or not) shadows. But perhaps the most important component is the vegetation. Here I feel everything should be as much 3D and as highly detailed as possible. Seeing flat boring textures as "grass", or 2D cardboard trees looks laughably dated and takes away from the racing virtualization immersion. For this reason, please make 3D grass and trees possible and available in the engine/track building tools as well as the available grass. It pains me to say this, and I know its from a pre-release version, but in the preview videos for rFactor 2, the trees and grass still look very dated and from 2004 rather than 2010. Finally, speaking of the preview videos, the absolutely static trees stand out like a sore thumb. It would be great to have wind-swaying trees, if at all possible. That would also add to the weather simulation realism.

Oh, and please also have 3D spectators rather than the laughable 2D ones... please! I am sure our current crop of graphics hardware can handle the amount of geometry easily.

Or, to put in a concise way: can you make the graphics of rFactor2 (i.e. the engine, the mod tools, and the included cars/tracks) as good as Forza Motorsport 3 or Grand Tourismo 5?

rFactor is/was a great racing game and piece of software. Five years on, I hope rFactor 2 lives up to our (fans') expectations, and for me the graphical fidelity will be a big part of the reason to upgrade to it. Go ISI!!!

 

Like rFactor1 has been dead for 5 years now

 

of course rF is not dead for many online-sim-racers , but it is dead for millions other people who like offline-racing.

 

I would like to give an idea for the hillclimb mode, which I noticed to appear in the SRT review.
This is a very welcome add for the people that like the rally format for rFactor, although I am not sure if a mode for several stages for the completion of a full rally/raid event can be made.

I have an idea of how this should be taken into account. For a better explanation, I will divide it in format, weather and AI bulletpoints:

Regarding format:

- Several days of rallying (for instance, 1-15 days options, for a Dakar-style type of event), with several stages each leg/day (1-10 stages per day with the option of choosing a different number for each particular day), to simulate the real events.

- In a changing surface road like the one offered by RealRoad, a car that chooses a preferred place to start the stages will always have an advantage. So we would need to implement the option of choosing the starting position to take advantage of a cleaner/faster surface, applied in real time with other players/AI lines on the surface before and after you drive over it, affecting performance (grip) and handling (variable depending on the situation: tracks on snow, mud, dirt on asphalt, etc). Several options for implementing this are available and should be discussed by ISI themselves. I can just write some options: for offline: random, or regarding the championship position of the driver and [at the same time]/or [either] by player's preferred selection, etc. Online: random, or in order of joining the server (a bit unfair in the end, but simple) and [at the same time]/or [either] by player's preferred selection, etc...

- Real time playing: you play against "real cars" in a real moment. Car #1 (real online player or AI) starts at 12.00 and you, car#2, start at 12.02. If car #1 has an accident or is very slow, you can actually catch up with him and loose time while trying to overtake him or even crash into or because of him, just like sometimes happens. Obviously, also your surface is affected by other cars' lines on the mud/snow/dirt on the tarmac and will affect your grip/handling and, therefore, performance.

- Multiplayer/league options. Also, to play online against other mates in the same real time mode as if in real life option discussed above.

Regarding AI:

- Option of having a(n optional) real grid of AI competitors, offline or online (too, to make a more comprehensive participant's list), that race against you mainly against the stopwatch, but also racing at the same stage, after all, and, when starting in front, have different lines from previous cars in the stage and those lines and changes in the surface affect your driving/performance, and also your line affects to those that start behind yourself, even if it's AI.

Regarding weather:

- Variable weather in real time in different parts of the stage, which I believe is already implemented for the release.

- Also, a different point of freezing for the water, like for instance, rain below 1000m and snow over it, or from a certain part of the stage.

- Depending on the position you start the stage, you can get more or less snowy/muddy/wet surfaces, depending on how the weather/passing of other cars affects the surface.

I may have repeated myself a bit and some stuff may be harder to implement than other, but I hope you get the point(s) and that they are useful for making it THE best sim out of the track too...

 

Plugin for Freetrack support (or at least documented rF api to write such plugin)

 

Hello,

my only wish is a Version of the Nissan GT-R that has the Steering Wheel on the Left Side.

pleeeease

 

This is what I miss in rFactor and hope it will be in rFactor2:
1. Ability to turn off the "wrong way" message and DQ that goes after you drive backwards. I don`t think this needed. We have reasonable people in leagues, nobody drives backwards on purpose. But it is really annoying when you got DQ just from maneuvers after going off the track or driving from the garages to track (on some tracks this is confusing enough without "wrong way" message).
2. Better control for the upgrades when joining the servers. Ability to force upgrades easily. Now it is impossible to force everybody to use needed upgrade in mods like TCL without changing mod files, which requires modding knowledge.
3. Ability for admin to allow TC and other helpers for selected players on server. For example, we have a novice driver in our league, and nobody would mind if only he will drive with TC.
4. Better pit boxes managment online, so that during pit stops your place was not occupied by somebody else. It was already written by MaXyM on page 2. For now I manage this with pitgroups, but this requires changing of .rfm and .veh files of the mod.
5. Hotkeys for admin in the race. It would be great to be able to force flags, restart sessions, clear FCY, etc, just by pressing assigned button from the cockpit. For the admins that driving in the race that is.
6. Better detailed car movement in race and replays. Somehow in rF suspension, wheel movement is not very detailed. I mean graphically.
7. Auto adjusting of replay TV camera FOV or focus. Make it more lifelike, do not "glue" camera to the car that it is following. This was done in GPx series. For example if there is 2-3 cars near the car that camera follows, then camera automatically increases FOV, so that all 3 cars was on the screen. Or if a car exits parabolica in Monza and camera stands at T1, then camera not zooming in on car very closely, showing bigger picture of SF straight. This adds a great bit to the immersion.
8. Ability to view sector times, with personal bests and overall bests highlighted, with indication of cars that gone on track. Just like F1 timing for example. Also, a bar in left bottom that is visible in cockpit only, should be visible while in box. If this will be in form of a track map with a circles with numbers going around it will be even more great. This will help to monitor traffic in qulay. I made a simple montage to show what I mean. (sorry I have lame image editing skills).

9. Regarding wet weather. It sound promising now. I hope it will be possible to adjust tire characteristics realistically. Inters and monsoons overheating and wearing very quickly on dry/drying track, requiring you to go to cool them on wet patches. Slicks - possible to drive with lite drizzle, but impossible to drive from some point on more wet track. Also a point when its faster to go on monsoons than on inters.

I had some more thoughts, maybe post later. Thank you ISI!

 

some wishrs in rf2 for me:
- a great tyres and susp work (like netcar pro, iracing, lfs), its a main part . tyres and susp should work properly with a track sгrfaces;
- engine, cause it`s not enough that overheating just decrease life time of engine, it should also decrease horsepower cause the engine doesnot work in an optimum temp (and all other stuff with this)
- gearbox. gear shouldn`t changes upper or down before u get a proper speed for this gear, too early down and the engine dead.
- good track surfaces (and different not onle track to track, but different surfaces in one track also with different grip) with wright grip so the tyres work
together with it
- different weather conditions and track conditions
- remove bugs rf1 such as screen freeze, black screen or just the closed
- proper damage and collisions
netcar pro, iracing has a great one sims, U SHOULD beat them!!

 

I just want a few things myself

Realistic weather - so far looks good so check off that one

Option for realtime cubic reflections - not every system can handle it but since it's been around for almost 10 years now should at least be an option by now

Abiltity to have keyframe animations - already said to be true to check off this one already

Save race feature - first few nascar racing games has it, grandprix 4 has it, GTR, GTR2 have it, no reason Rf2 should specially with endurance racing as one of the focuses

Better ai - grandprix 4, GTR2, Forza, lots of good ai out there, offline racing is still important to many

More optmized shadow casting - said to be true not enough proof yet to see how much an impovement there has been

Ability to have changeable tire compounds during a race with different visual looks - believe this has already been stated to be true

Easier to manage championship seasons - construct seasons with just one file, having individual track overrides is great but way too many files need altering to make events for each season, one file one simple struction to create a season, just need track name, and put in distance, time, sessions, etc. If aiw's are going to have multiple racing lines in one aiw, even more reason to have this as different aiw's between mods may not be needed anymore. Better yet, have an ingame season creator, choose a mod create a season for it.

 

-One of the important things I`ve missed in Rfactor 1 was no coop playing. The possiblitiy to play a Championship up to 8 Player, like Coop in Formel 1 (2 Players in one Team) 4 Teams ore something like this. Whith Raceresults/Points and Constructionteampoints. That would be the greathest thing ever.

-Better copatiblity for plugins like the Spotter Plugin 2.17 by carlomaker and F1Dave. There is no update for the old one. So ISI please make a better once.
Posiblity to speak with the Teamchef over Headset, make own .mp3 files for communication between driver and pitcrew
like fuel, and tires.........

At last i don`t think there must not be much grafik hype for eyecandy noobies inside rfactor 2 linke in F1 from Code...... much bling bling, and no sence. The most important thing is not how good a game looks like, the gameplay and the small details makes a good game..

 

Some more things that have popped into my mind these days:

Engine files:

Turbo/Supercharging implementation, with their own sounds, of course.
Possibility to properly model the (only oil) heating of an air cooled engine, like those on older 911s.

Cockpitinfoini:

Option to replicate:
Analog tachometers that move in big jumps, like those that you can see on old racing cars. I shall explain it with the greatest movie introduction ever, Grand Prix (min 3.44):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knspbmbQMDY&feature=related
It would be great if it already worked on the 60s grand prix car that you had on the first screenies.

Logarythmic tachometers, like those from "stack":

So that it gives you the option to emulate the different needle movement from 1-4k and from 4-10k revs.

Turbo and battery gauges (with alternator failure being also a possible issue for engine retirement, etc) couldn't hurt...

I'll probably come back with some stuff that I can't remember now...

 

One thing I have always wanted is some camera movement on the outside camera views. Having the car 100% immobile in the center of the screen during a replay makes it look very fake. Just a small reference between the track and the camera would make a world of difference.

buzard

 

Richard Burns Rally had excellent following track camera's. Alot of stationary and the helicopter chase cams were awesome. rFactor cams are usually too high and try to show you and things around you. In RBR its just you so it can be closer to the action.

 

The answer to a lot of these requests is to make the exe moddable (plug ins) in the same way as the game data (and MOTEC data), that way the modding community can do all these things. For example, an AI API giving out information to a program running on the same PC (or over a network) and "driving" (just positioning it on the track - or off it!) the AI car with the inputs.

 

rfactor in 3D XD

 

Some more features that I want to see in rF2:

- Car technical characteristics (taken directly from the ini files) shown in show room when car is selected. Now we must press "Information" button. It will be more useful if data just shows simultaneously with the 3D model of the car. And info in rF1 never shows all data. I want to see useful technical stuff, such as: FWD, RWD or AWD this car is, optimum temperature range for engine, brakes, tires, critical tire pressure range (if tire blow up from high pressure will be simulated), RMP to HP graph, etc. Basically I want to see data that racing driver/engineer gets when he starts driving a car for the fist time. Technical passport data of car and tires. Now we "hunt" this data in ini files.
- All of the above data copied also to the setup screen and shown near corresponding car parts.
- Ability to assign ballast to your car in offline practice or offline race weekend sessions. Now for training before league race in which my car will have a ballast handicap I must create a network session and use admin command /setmass. This commands do not work offline.
- Built-in spotter plugin. Will be cool with samples recorded by real life racing team spotter (English language will be enough for me).
- Ability to view gas/break/clutch pedal movement indicators while in cockpit or built-in TV Style or rfDynHUD plugin.
- TV Style or rfDynHUD plugin or similar system working in replay also. Ability for players that do not want to show their pedal work to delete this data from replay.
- Ability to decide before race whether I want or not automatic repairs for different levels of damage. This was already mentioned before. Its a big trouble going to the pit setup menu in a middle of the race to cancel "repair body" when I just bent something not affecting car performance.