Wednesday Assetto Corsa Fun - 30th July 2014 - GT Track Test Silverstone Int'l

[Jester]

What's the secret to race starts in AC? It's ridiculous you can't put it in gear on the start line until the lights go green    Yet I notice a lot of you steam off the line quickly while I don't! Do you guys use auto clutch ?

Depends on the shifter used for the car. I use flappy pedal and h-shifter, dependent on what AC gives me to use. With h-shifter I set it in gear and push down the clutch and give some throttle, when the lights go I give more throttle and try to release the clutch gradually. With the flappy-pedal I just give some throttle and when the lights go I flap it in gear (no brakes or clutch).

[ChrisR]

I would personally not like to race gt's straight away.. There are loads of cars and car combos we can use.

Maybe even some one make races possibly?

[goldtop]

I would personally not like to race gt's straight away.. There are loads of cars and car combos we can use.

Maybe even some one make races possibly?

Understand that Chris and I have run a few different flavours over these weeks and will do so in future. Modern GTs have a strong following here and AC could eventually be a successor for GTR2 so I want to make sure that we understand these settings and get them right. The following 2 events will be GTs. Next week we'll have the grip for each session starting at 90% and if that goes well the following week we'll look at % transfer of grip from different sessions. Once we're happy with this, other car types will also benefit from racing on "realistic" tracks.

Is there any way the server can be set so that quali doesn't end so quickly (as we do with race sessions)? Would be nice to be able to cross the line with a second to go and then be able to complete a timed lap.

[ChrisR]

i'm confused as to why it takes so long to test these settings.

we already know to set it at 92%-94%% grip, enable grip transfer at 100% but have gain per lap set to a number where by the time the race starts its at about 97/98% that way the track starts the most realistic for a green track in summer and the buildup during practice and quali still be a challenge. (ill say it again, this is based on my own real life racing experience taking track temps, tyre temps and compounds into consideration) not having grip transfer between sessions is silly, the guys on teamspeak were a little disgruntled about it and it was the reason for 2 dropouts.

could you also add in the P4/5 Competizione into the mix as it is a decent competitor for the GT3's

[goldtop]

i'm confused as to why it takes so long to test these settings.

we already know to set it at 92%-94%% grip, enable grip transfer at 100% but have gain per lap set to a number where by the time the race starts its at about 97/98% that way the track starts the most realistic for a green track in summer and the buildup during practice and quali still be a challenge. (ill say it again, this is based on my own real life racing experience taking track temps, tyre temps and compounds into consideration) not having grip transfer between sessions is silly, the guys on teamspeak were a little disgruntled about it and it was the reason for 2 dropouts.

Evidence? Data? You keep coming up with these figures but how do we know these are correct. What "real life racing experience" do you have exactly? Name a RL event where practise, quali and race follow directly after each other and track conditions are retained from one session to another.

I have zero "real life racing experience" so I'm not about to dictate what settings we run based on what I think is correct. The track settings AC provide in their presets seemed far too low and unrealistic to me but how am I to know? They presumably have the data and a real track to test on 

[ChrisR]

15+ trackdays in street cars to single seaters starting from 9am all the way to 5pm in varying weather conditions and temps.
3 seasons of UK time attack with warm-up, practice, qualifying and then a race (with monitored tyre and track temps)
i have done 100's of hours in a real cars, with all sorts of tyres in all sorts of conditions..
ive even built my own track focused racing car (4 seconds slower than a mp4-12c gt3 car on a track we have both been on)

Id like to think that i have an idea of what feels realistic between the game and real life. Kuno's offices sit in the middle of vallelunga racetrack so id like to think they have done their fair share of data aquisition on what feels right and wrong.. tbh the presets feel pretty close to what i think they should be anyway.

the only thing you could add from a gameplay perspective is the amount of time it takes for the track to rubber in which is why i said test what grip_gain is needed to go from starting grip to start of race with 100% transfer rate.

i dont want to argue with you, i just want to drive with lads on different configs/combos and have a laugh.. and im trying to save you literally weeks of testing.

[ChrisR]

there is a bug atm with the flow control option, it needs to be un-ticked in the launcher.. it would explain why we were getting bouncy cars even tho the hertz were at an acceptable level.

[goldtop]

Id like to think that i have an idea of what feels realistic between the game and real life. Kuno's offices sit in the middle of vallelunga racetrack so id like to think they have done their fair share of data aquisition on what feels right and wrong.. tbh the presets feel pretty close to what i think they should be anyway.

the only thing you could add from a gameplay perspective is the amount of time it takes for the track to rubber in which is why i said test what grip_gain is needed to go from starting grip to start of race with 100% transfer rate.

These are the presets that you say feel close to what they should be. Note the session transfer values....

[DUSTY]
SESSION_START=83
SESSION_TRANSFER=50
RANDOMNESS=10
LAP_GAIN=18
DESCRIPTION=A very slippery track, improves fast with more laps.

[OLD]
SESSION_START=86
SESSION_TRANSFER=80
RANDOMNESS=30
LAP_GAIN=50
DESCRIPTION=Old tarmac. Bad grip won't get better soon.
 
[SLOW]
SESSION_START=94
SESSION_TRANSFER=80
RANDOMNESS=15
LAP_GAIN=60
DESCRIPTION=A slow track that doesn't improve much.
 
[GREEN-]
SESSION_START=92
SESSION_TRANSFER=90
RANDOMNESS=20
LAP_GAIN=10
DESCRIPTION=A clean track, gets better with more laps.
 
[FAST]
SESSION_START=97
SESSION_TRANSFER=80
RANDOMNESS=20
LAP_GAIN=20
DESCRIPTION=Very grippy track right from the start.

[OPTIMUM]
SESSION_START=100
SESSION_TRANSFER=100
RANDOMNESS=
LAP_GAIN=1
DESCRIPTION=Perfect track for hotlapping.


But those presets are different to what you are suggesting here....

we already know to set it at 92%-94%% grip, enable grip transfer at 100% but have gain per lap set to a number where by the time the race starts its at about 97/98% that way the track starts the most realistic for a green track in summer and the buildup during practice and quali still be a challenge. (ill say it again, this is based on my own real life racing experience taking track temps, tyre temps and compounds into consideration) not having grip transfer between sessions is silly, the guys on teamspeak were a little disgruntled about it and it was the reason for 2 dropouts.

I can't imagine any track retaining 100% of the grip it builds up over a race weekend. Different tyre compounds from support races will affect that let alone the affect of changing day/night conditions.

Let's see how this setting works out for next week...

SESSION_START=92
SESSION_TRANSFER=90
RANDOMNESS=
LAP_GAIN=10

With 10 cars on track, that should increase grip by 1% per lap and transfer 90% of that increased grip to the following session (which I still think is a bit high for what it's worth). We'll need to monitor how much gain there actually is from the end of one session to the beginning of the next to check if this is actually doing what it's meant to do.

Edit: had to put a - after the GREEN heading as the text editor turned the rest of the post green

[ChrisR]

I was refering to the green track only.

The thing is.. In ac we are instantly going from practise to qual to race.. So if you did that in real life the grip from the track would remain the same as long as the weather conditions didnt deteriorate etc.

So you would want to transfer the grip at 100%

Anyway, its your server, you do what you want. Ill come back in a couple weeks and see what you have decided to stick at then ill decide if i will keep racing here.

[picnic]

The thing is.. In ac we are instantly going from practise to qual to race.. So if you did that in real life the grip from the track would remain the same as long as the weather conditions didnt deteriorate etc.

But we are trying to replicate a race weekend, there will be a time gap between each session. I wouldn't be surprised that we might end up with random rain between sessions so sometimes we get a grip transference and sometime not I'm sure the race announcements would be tweaked to include pointer information (rain showers between prac and qual or heavy downpour etc) I'd expect there to be some secrecy in the exact track grip levels if this was adopted. Personally, as I get so little time to do any practice, I'm not keen on widely different options that require practising of each grip/weather possibility.