rFactor 2 Round 2 Imola

Speaking about track limits. Last night before my wheel broke I was lapping in the GT1 at Spa. With the newly enforce track limit active. It drove me nuts for a while because of an apparent lack of consistency. I decided to follow the AI around as I assume they would obey the rules. Sure enough there are corners where they went 4 wheels off, such as at Corner 15, Stavelot and corner 16. The AI went 4 wheels off, as did I and no penalty?
I don’t know. I was also annoyed see it calculating whether I did bad or just about did bad. I would rather a Red Square or something appeared at the top. You know something I really don’t need to see. A quarter second time penalty at each offense is no help either. You just run the penalties till you reach 9.75. That is 39 offs!

 

That was far better than i'd feared. My biggest complaint about the RC is the track temp was 58c in Q and Race! I thought the 51c i was seeing in practice was bad. This didn't fluctuate much during the session. The extra heat seemed to affect my setup, as the tires were quick to overheat and lose grip. But my assessment is clouded by frame rates that were jumping around so much and that translates into a loss of grip, at least for me. [The frame rates were a track issue, not an "RC" issue, i think. I checked offline and was getting 200fps at Brno after the RC update and 100 at Imola. In the race i was seeing as low as 54, which i find nearly undrivable.]

As for Track Limits... I concur with Toni's comments, this level of enforcement seems a bit unforgiving (doesn't really take into account time lost during the off as it says it does) and it forces a more conservative driving style. I was close to dropping this race when i couldn't even get a timed lap last night. Grids may shrink. But i did manage to adapt this morning. The RC release notes say there is a "known issue" that the enforcement is harsher with turbo engine cars (no idea why that should come into play?), so hopefully this will get fixed fast.

As for the server settings, did anyone actually have to serve a penalty? I finished at 2.75 points, well short of the 10 required for an actual penalty. These settings may be about right, until S397 gets things sorted. Might need to be adjusted for specific race distances.

That said, that damn "calculating..." notice is really annoying! Useful, but annoying!

 

I racked up 6.50 penalties out of 10. I might be on the opposite end. It's strict but I kind of like it. Keeps you on the straight and narrow. I say we keep it. I'll probably be out voted here. It made sure to keep myself within the lines. But whatever happens, I'll be happy to race.

 

Q went well. Coming into this race, didn't expect to get pole.

Race went well, Didn't know what Toni/the rest of the people were doing with fuel. So I pushed at the begging but not so much as I had to keep it in-between the lines. Toni stayed pretty close for the first quarter of the race. I didn't know if he had a full tank, so I thought, maybe he wasn't pitting so I wanted to put a gap just in case he didn't. Good thing he did pit and this lifted off some weight I was feeling. Didier Coelo on the other hand was going full tank and no pit for the race. When I caught up to him, I stayed behind to see how he was managing his tires. He was doing good. So I realized, if I don't make a move, my tires would start falling off and I wouldn't be able to pass with how strict they were around here. So I made a move and it stuck but I think I might have put to much expectations on my tires and maybe put to much on the pass. Good thing Didier plays clean and didn't turn in.
It was a good race.

I totally see why most will not like the off course warnings. There a pain! To do one clean lap takes a lot. I thought a few times during practice, "wait, I didn't go of course and your still giving me a penalty!" This happened over and over again. Got so tired of it. When I checked the replays and I thought I had gotten a penalty for no reason, I was actually millimeters off the course but it didn't feel like it in the car. It makes you slow down a bit, just to stay on the course. Maybe makes the race cleaner and there's repercussions if stupid moves are made.

Sorry for the long winded post race.

Johnny,

 

Actually, that wasn't smoke coming from his engine. It was smoke coming from the interior of the car. He was having a party while I racing.

 

Looks like the penalty system allowed me to finish ahead of Tony LOL, I think I finished with 4 points.
The counter is quite stressful and it looks like a lottery, but maybe the circuit itself is quite strict.
I agree to continue with, anyway it will take some getting used to.

 

I ended up with 5.5 min of penalties at the end but most of those in the last few laps as I explored the track limits. It could have been my tires falling off the cliff. I mentioned earlier that the AI goes off track at certain places without a penalty. Other than adding time to the penalty 5 to 10 can you program each corner? I guess not but how are we expected to follow a rule that varies so much.
That said I like the idea of race stewards over viewing, because it equal s up all the drives in regards to track limits. Also I think it should be set to 5 minutes as you’re suppose to get a penalty if you tend to drive about in a hapless manner.
Again also 5 min gives each driver 19 offs before you get a penalty, which is far more lenient than racers get in the real world. The down side I guess, is we will all have to relearn the tracks.

 

I trailed Lewis around for about 6 laps and figured he was burning a litre per lap. I was sure he was going to blow up but no and in the end I slipped on his oil and went off track. rF2 is such a great sim
Got a penalty for it.

 

So he was going green and burning bio fuel. No wonder I got dizzy and went of track.

 

I don't think we should jump on another "RC" in the future, this one isn't really "ready for prime time" . But after this race i did a session at SPA in the GT1, and it seems to behave much more like i think they intend the new track limits process to work. So i say stay with it as is for now unless the Alpine series reveals more troubles. We'll have to take it on in a couple weeks anyway, once the "RC" becomes "Release". There will also be some tweaks to the RC i think this week, if i've read their forums correctly, and I do think their intention is to add more flexibility for the admins. But we should stop talking about the "calculating" points as if they were actual penalties. They're just warnings and give you a pretty clear idea of how close you are to actually getting a penalty.

Loosing lap times in practice is a royal pain, though. Really hope they come up with a way to notify, but not delete for that. Oh, and like Michael said, the notification should allow for some user control, to reduce the distraction factor.

 

I vote to keep the track limits enabled. With 10 points it is plenty of space for mistakes. I finished with 5 out of 10 (and I had three big out of track events). I felt I could cut to gain time and still be under 10 at the end of the race. I like it

 

Exactly why I just "felt" and NOT cut to gain time. I don't cut on purpose even when racing with AI. By mistake, and when I miss the braking point, yes.
P.S. It was only ONE race. And after I saw the replay I apologize and asked for penalty if it was the case. It wasn't, but keep coming back

 

We had our tuesday series with the Alpine GT4 and i can report, that the new anticut system was ok.
I agree that the message...calculating...is annoying, but the detection was fine for me. Set it to 10 and all wrong
classifications as driving errors and so on will have no big impact.