Having taken a Season 4 (Oct-Dec) break due to the lower number of entries we had for the last series we ran in Jul-Sep, I'd like to see what level of ongoing interest there is for continuing with Assetto Corsa here at SRO. Here are a few general questions to try and gauge that interest, but feel free to post any other observations you would like to make.
Not so fussed what I'd drive (Less preferance towards a lot of modern car mind). My biggest issue is the day - I'm unable to do Wednesdays, and am now unlikely to do Mondays and Tuesdays due to other commitments.
I could make a comeback if there were some modern fast cars, for example Indycar. Every community is full of GT3s and classic cars, so I'm tired of them.
i can do Sunday through to Wednesday nights. I prefer modern open wheeler/Touring/GT3/sportscars etc but will still race some old stuff.
Probably Indycar or the Formula Americas Mod from Rac3 would motivate my two AC pals to make a comeback. But I cannot guarantee that, although I like that mod too. 3-4 € worth spend, however they have also some free cars (F3, F2, F1 2017) Maybe that would be an option too, although I never tried them. Just an idea. Apart from that, I would probably also attend to something different, for example the series with some classic sportcars. We tried that in the past, it was good fun, except for the performance balancing, that was not great through all the cars.
Would race again depending on the day and time and would prefer a classic championship. Have stayed away from SRO for a while because it's only ran modern stuff recently.
Just over a week to go before the Poll closes and Classic Open wheel/sportscars are in the lead. Make your vote count if you haven't already!
Voted yes depending on day as weekends and Wednesdays are out for me. Would be good to see some quality mods used whether that's classic or modern but agree with comments regarding GT3/GT4 being overdone especially as ACC seems to have that covered. I would add all era of F1 and any series with modern Nords, Monza or Spa to that list..... as great as they are they've all been done to death. Something like the RSS or VRC Indycars would be cool for a change or maybe modern/classic TransAm as we all know the US has the best race tracks
OK many thanks to those of you who took the time and interest to participate in these Polls . It appears that there is sufficient interest to host another series, although the preferred day of the week is fairly well spread so that might be a problem in getting a reasonable entry, only time will tell on that particular front. For this return to AC series, we will be using the F1 1975 Mod https://thracing.de/formula-one-1975/ which will be added to our Downloads Library for the series. I will get the series setup shortly which will have an anticipated start date of Thursday 12th January.
Just a word of warning that the Lotus in the pack is extremely overpowered compared to the rest of the pack and a lot of cars are just crap in general so you might get a grid full of Lotuses.
I'm no AC expert but the BT42, M23, 312T & Surtees felt reasonably good to me and all posted times within 1 sec of each other.
Following Maddie's comments about this mod I decided to do some more testing at another track that I was thinking of using in the series and disappointedly the cars drove very differently and were more difficult overall. I don't want to have an AC series which prevents members with different skill levels from enjoying what should be fun racing, so I'm going to change the car mod/tracks to something else which should be a bit easier for everyone. Further details to come asap.
The cars aren't too bad to drive, but as Maddie says a lot of them are simply crap. The March can't be raised enough to be driven on hilly/bumpy tracks - for example old Zandvoort where they actually raced! The McLaren has broken suspension geometry and is also unable to be raised for bumpy circuits as a result - the Ferrari is dog slow in a straight line despite the fact it should be fastest etc etc. From memory the BRM, Hesketh, Lotus, Ferrari, Surtess and Williams are 'OK', but some run the slower DFV so will be off the pace of the others with a fully sorted setup (Everything in the link below is near stock with slight modding), and as mentioned the Ferrari has no top end.. Here's a link to some testing with notes from way back when that I did at modern Zandy in everything in case you're still playing with the idea. https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=16312.msg307471#msg307471 As you've binned the idea though does this mean we're now going to use the TA2's? Thursdays are good here BTW as Srou AC night is always a Weds!
Thanks for your viewpoints Tim. It highlights how difficult it is for us at SRO to find something that will appeal to both experienced and novice simracers alike, without alienating one or the other.
You can't. The only way to narrow the grid enough to encourage good racing is to use slower cars - this nearly always gives epic racing (I ran the Skoda 130RS in a season last year, it was absolutely epic ), but then you get the arcade lot suddenly not interested because the imaginary cars have a slow top speed... It's part of why I keep my own series at Srou using older cars, because they move around lots they feel faster regardless of actual speed!
As Tim said, I don't think you can please both. If we wanted to do something slower I'd suggest one of the early 60's open wheeler F1 cars. I think there's a GPL 1500 pack available too. They're fun to drive and not too fast.
