So many topics to cover, lol, this may be a long post...
As we are halfway through the season now might be an opportune time to review how things are going and canvas opinions from you, the drivers, on what has gone well and what hasn't. It can also be used to garner ideas for what we will do in the next season.
Firstly, we have set up four polls where you can vote (see 'announcements');
Porsche Team Cup65 divisionsSeasons and breaks60fps patchYou can ONLY vote in those threads but feel free to leave any comments regarding them here.
1. Porsche - I think the fact that this is the much easier car to drive makes it more suitable to running a team championship that has drivers of any skill level and experience running in it. Porsche vs. Ferrari is a bit like comparing 65s to 67s F1, and more people are feeling comfortable with the former. Anyway, if I have to speak for myself only, I support the Porsche as well, it's stable, fast, has a big mirror and looks good.
The only downside may be that it has a shorter braking distance so passing is more difficult, but I don't really mind. Ah and it's much less prone to experiencing the locked wheels bug than the other cars.
2. 65s - I don't really mind running smaller grids. As I've said before, you only race against 3-4 people at most, the rest are either backmarkers to you, which you'd prefer to go without most of the time, and people you never see during the race. So 3 divisions sounds better, not to mention the benefits in terms of handicapping the field better and allowing quicker drivers to race something other than BT7/Cooper, assuming we still continue to use the same handicapping system.
3. Season breaks and format - I like the idea of running a short 5 races season until the end of this year and then begin the next proper season in January 2012. The idea of planning up to 2013 is a bit unrealistic to me, it's impossible to predict how things would unfold in such a vast period of time (relatively speaking), so I see no benefit in planning to shift the season starts at January 2013 after having another frequently paused and prolonged season in 2011-2012.
4. 60 FPS patch - my new PC can handle it most of the time now, though I experience some fps drop with GTs sometimes, even without 60 fps patch, so if we're to use it, I would be against that to happen with the GT mod or that we use tracks with heavy graphics.
Aside from the ‘polls’ an Agenda is outlined below. Please feel free to comment on these items or indeed raise new ones. Nothing is written in stone yet.
1) Lap one modding - how do you feel it is working out? Is it having any effect on decreasing the number of incidents?
I've not seen a difference really. People drive the same as before, at least in the divisions I race in. It's a good thing to have though, so I hope lap one mandatory modding remains.
2) Scoring system - any comments following the change?
It works good so far, I'm glad we didn't go along with the initially proposed system.
3) 50% rule (Pro/Historics). How do we feel this is working? Is it making things safer or putting people off bothering?
I like it and if it was up to me, I would introduce it to more divisions as well, such as GTs, Porsche and Works. I don't really understand why it's only used in Pro and Historic, given that our only rookie divisions are Novices and Privateers.
4) Are things too heavily weighted against the following driver? Should we ease up to encourage more passing? Are we encouraging close racing or stifling it with too much moderation?
Apart from a few occurrences of verdicts where I think the driver in front should've shared more of the responsibility, but where it wasn't really a passing maneuver to begin with, I haven't noticed much of a pattern like that. In general I've always been under the impression that a lot of incidents are simply labeled as racing incidents as it should be, with a few exceptions which I oppose, but I guess you can't expect perfection with such a thing. I would actually ask for more severe penalties again, because the current ones simply don't teach the driver that he/she should change their approach in future races and not cause the same type of accidents over and over again. It's very frustrating to others who get involved and have their races ruined repeatedly, just for the responsible driver to be given another string of dropped places...
5) Any rule changes you would like to see?
Yes, as I just said for the previous point - gradually increasing penalties in terms of severity and type, instead of simply increasing the number of lost places, particularly when penalizing drivers who don't really lose anything with such a penalty, such as retired drivers or drivers finishing down the grid. The idea of penalties should be to show the driver he's doing something wrong and that he should change his approach.
I also think the corner cutting rule shouldn't be rigidly set in stone, but be adapted on a track by track basis. There are certain tracks which have corners and zone where cutting is the safer thing to do (i.e. Pebble Beach or Aintree) or tracks where, even if you try each lap, you would often cut quite often, just because it's the more natural line. Also, as was the case with Adelaide, we were allowed to use road beyond the white line in places, but not in others, where it the advantage gained would increase hand by hand with the risk taken. That means it should be down to the drivers to decide how much they want to risk in order to gain advantage.
6) Moderating and the Appeals Process - is everyone happy with the moderating and appeals process?
Seems fine to me. Some division races take a very long time before a moderator report is published though, but I guess people are busy.
7) Handicapping - are we happy with the way things are currently working?
Not in some divisions, no, especially in 65s. I don't like how our top drivers are so overly-handicapped that they are no more in contention for podiums and their only chances remain if one of those who is put in faster car has bad luck and either retires or drops down. I also don't like that nothing is being done for drivers who are clearly too fast for the chassis they drive. Championship standings should not be used to judge how well handicapping is working and things should be looked in detail - lap times, consistency, driving mistakes, fairness of driving and so on. It's really disturbing mixing up drivers on different stage of their development and having them race each other, because there's a lot of misunderstanding and trouble on the track as a result. Handicapping should be more subtle, just enough to close the gaps, but not so much as to change the order - that is unacceptable and it goes against the principle of competitive racing.
I'm also still not really content with the tokens system in Graduates. I know it's not a form of handicap, but teams who chose to use a single chassis are automatically handicapped by either having to drive slower cars in some races or being forced to take a non-team car if they're to have enough tokens to race their team car. With the pitstop system it allowed any kind of teams to race on equal terms - both single chassis and multiple chassis teams.
8 ) Rule confusion between divisions
Are all the different tweaks for different divisions confusing? What would you like to see happen?
Here are the basic differences;
67 Works - PRO so no shift/r
67 Privateers - ONE shift/r only with a compulsory SnG
66 Historics - PRO so no shift/r and you must complete 50% distance to score
65 Pro - PRO so no shift/r and you must complete 50% distance to score
65 Novs - unlimited shift/r but with a compulsory SnG
Specs - unlimited shift/r but with a compulsory SnG
GT's - ONE shift/r only with a compulsory 10 second pit stop
Porsche - PRO so no shift/r
Yes, I find it very confusing to remember all the differences between the divisions and I think they should be united under one set of rules or two at most - one for rookie/slower drivers divisions and one for the rest. I would support Pro damage, no shift-r, 50% distance to score, or if we want to keep shift-rs and stop/gos for some of the divisions, those should have Int rules, 1 shift-r only, compulsory stop/go at end of the same lap without any time served. GTs in particular were very confusing with that 10 seconds stop requirement.
9) The divisions - any comments or suggestions?
I think I mentioned that above under handicapping. Maybe I should add, in addition to what I said above, that I'm a firm supporter of the Historic handicap system and that it should be used in Pro division.
10) Tracks
Are we happy with the current track allocations?
Are we happy with trying new tracks? (subject to checking for faults and possible testing)
Are there any tracks you would particularly like to see in Season 22? If so which mod and why?
Tracks are good and interesting, but they must be chosen in relation to handicap systems to avoid giving too much of an advantage to quicker cars, otherwise it's extremely frustrating to some of the drivers. We should accent on driving skill, not machinery, and tracks play a major role in how that balances out. As for what tracks I like to see, I noticed one particular track which I remember is very interesting to drive and would like to see it used, probably in 65 division and some of the others as well. It's called Opatija (Preluk) and you probably know it. I think it was a real track as well. If I have to chose a fantasy track, I would vote for The Moon!
Seriously, it provides great racing as we found out some months ago when we used it in BREASTS.