rF2 Oval Night @ Mountain Peak Speedway - Wednesday 27th January 2016

[Chark]

Sign me out pls have to work sry

Just tell tour boss you need to honor the mighty number 43, I'm sure he'll understand.

In all seriousness, really looking forward to tonight's event. Don't forget to pick the good combination on the tuning menu. I'd recommend using the penultimate steering ratio (17:1 I think). Even if it's said to be meant for superspeedways, I find it easier to drive.

Also, with these Gen6 cars, you shouldn't need to brake at all, just dose your throttle input. Make sure not to enter the corners too fast or your tires won't last long! See you guys on track.

 

[Magic43]

Just tell tour boss you need to honor the mighty number 43, I'm sure he'll understand.

You right Chark but my boss is absolutely humourless

 

[Chark]

Well guys, that was fun. Great win by @Joao Fernandes, pitting was the right option, even with 7 to go. Rookie mistake by me! No but really, going two wide, changing lines over the laps, pitting under green, under yellow... I mean, that game let us simulate an oval race to the fullest! We'd need 43 guys to see how it's like.

As for the continuous improvements for the servers, (yes @Daiman Patel, more work for you ), I think tonight we have three wishes:

1. The first point would be having a private qualifying session. Not that it matters much with a relatively small grid, but a public qualy doesn't really make much sense with these cars. Plus, it'll be shorter (for example 2 laps, 5 minutes). I think rF2 has a "knockout qualifying" plugin that is built-in since the stock cars were released.
2. The second point would be closing the pit at the moment the a yellow is thrown. It would stick to the real thing to open it when everyone is buched up together, and be fairer to everyone (see the spoiler below for the explanation).
3. The last point would be lowering the full course yellow sensitivity. Maybe not setting it to the minimum, but at least reducing it a bit. We've seen spins in the back straight that weren't triggering nothing but our surprise!

What do you think?

Spoiler: closing pits explanation

Let's take an example. The lead group has half a lap gap to the rest of the pack. A crash happens on the back straight, triggering a yellow. The leaders go by the pit entry at that very moment, impossible for them to go in given their speed, they have to keep going. They'll catch the safety car that has just been deployed at the pit exit. Meanwhile, the rest of the pack have time to slow down and enter the pits. While the leaders are slowly running behind the pace car, the rest of the pack has time to exit the pits and catch them (since they can go almost full speed until they catch up). What happens now is that the pit entry is coming back to the field, the leaders and the rest of the group now being bunched up. The problem is that leaders are going to pit while everyone behind them don't need to anymore. Consequence, the leaders will end up at the very back. If the pits are closed when the yellow is thrown, everyone will have to bunch up before the decision to pit is available! Then, everyone is treated equally. Note that I'm not asking for a favor to the lead cars in any case, but because I think it will be fairer for the whole field.

 

[Joao Fernandes]

This was a really fun and exciting race.
The first half was super intense with several cars running very close.
With so many laps under green flag the tires were getting rough and about halfway had to pit.

Second stint had to maintain a more moderate pace to try and get to the finish with fresher tires. That meant loosing some time but stayed near the front of the race. I knew that even with the tire saving i would have some difficult last laps so when the caution came i went straight to the pits.

Fresh tires were the best bet and the last laps were done pushing it to the limit. I was able to get to first place and maintain the small gap until the checkered flag. Wasn't expecting to do that well so it was a win-win situation. Had great fun that ended with a victory.

Thank you all the drivers for a clean and fun race.

 

[Daiman Patel]

As for the continuous improvements for the servers, (yes @Daiman Patel, more work for you ), I think tonight we have three wishes:

1. The first point would be having a private qualifying session. Not that it matters much with a relatively small grid, but a public qualy doesn't really make much sense with these cars. Plus, it'll be shorter (for example 2 laps, 5 minutes). I think rF2 has a "knockout qualifying" plugin that is built-in since the stock cars were released.
2. The second point would be closing the pit at the moment the a yellow is thrown. It would stick to the real thing to open it when everyone is buched up together, and be fairer to everyone (see the spoiler below for the explanation).
3. The last point would be lowering the full course yellow sensitivity. Maybe not setting it to the minimum, but at least reducing it a bit. We've seen spins in the back straight that weren't triggering nothing but our surprise!

What do you think?

Thank you very much for the feedback Charles! Everything you have suggested sounds good to me, so I will make the necessary adjustments when setting up the server for next week's event.

By the way, does anybody have any track suggestions / preferences?

 

[TTupsi]

By the way, does anybody have any track suggestions / preferences?

I would like to try Joesville

 

[April Dillon]

I didn't notice fixed setups until I joined the server, why was this chosen? -1 wedge made the car an absolute pig to drive. Around -3 works well here, and helps balance tire wear & temps between the FR and RR. And with a proper balance you can actually challenge people on a high line here. But at -1, the FR visibly limited everyone's performance, and mostly ruled out defending on high lines. And for me all it took to throw managing the FR tire down the drain was a shove near the end which launched it up to 160-170 degrees right at the start of a turn, with no chance to cool it down again until the straight. And that was as good as race over.

 

[nounoubleu]

Sorry for yesterday. I had a trouble with my daughter and was finally obliged to leave during the warm up.

So, it's maybe good opportunity to do a proposal:
Since these races are relatively short, would it be possible to start them at 21:00 GMT instead of 20:00 GMT?
It would give more time for everybody to finish work and fix all home issues (including children management).

 

[Matt Sentell]

If you guys aren't seeing a closed pit until the field has bunched up behind the safety car then it probably means the stock car rules aren't being used. There are two things you have to do to run a stock car rules server:

1. Enable the stockcarrules.dll plugin on the server. When setting up the server you can just load the sim in single-player mode, go to Options/Plugins and make sure it's turned on, then exit.

2. Include the NSCRS15.rFM file in the vMOD. See link and info on this page:
http://rfactor.net/web/2015/09/25/2015-stock-cars-now-available/

If you want to use the NASCAR-style knockout qualifying then that's a separate plugin that has to be enabled in the same fashion, called KnockoutQualifying.dll.

As for private vs public qualifying, the point of knockout qualifying being used in real life is that outside of restrictor plate tracks (in rF2's case, Jacksonville and Alabama), all cars start out the qualifying session on track together rather than how they used to do it, which was single-car qualifying (private, essentially). Knockout format is used so that the very top grid positions will be less affected by traffic impacting lap times.

So basically if you use knockout style, it makes sense to leave it public, but if you want single-car qualifying then you should run private and leave knockout qualifying off.

 

[Chark]

Thank you @Matt Sentell for the info, I think I mixed up stock car rules and knockout qualifying.

I didn't notice fixed setups until I joined the server, why was this chosen?

It was chosen because most of us aren't really used to oval racing, let alone setting up the cars for it. Especially on the superspeedways where the most minor adjustments make a huge difference, we thought that fixing it would be fairer for everyone. Although we're thinking of building a stable setup for each round and making that one the default and fixed for all drivers.

 

[Daiman Patel]

If you guys aren't seeing a closed pit until the field has bunched up behind the safety car then it probably means the stock car rules aren't being used. There are two things you have to do to run a stock car rules server:

1. Enable the stockcarrules.dll plugin on the server. When setting up the server you can just load the sim in single-player mode, go to Options/Plugins and make sure it's turned on, then exit.

2. Include the NSCRS15.rFM file in the vMOD. See link and info on this page:
http://rfactor.net/web/2015/09/25/2015-stock-cars-now-available/

If you want to use the NASCAR-style knockout qualifying then that's a separate plugin that has to be enabled in the same fashion, called KnockoutQualifying.dll.

As for private vs public qualifying, the point of knockout qualifying being used in real life is that outside of restrictor plate tracks (in rF2's case, Jacksonville and Alabama), all cars start out the qualifying session on track together rather than how they used to do it, which was single-car qualifying (private, essentially). Knockout format is used so that the very top grid positions will be less affected by traffic impacting lap times.

So basically if you use knockout style, it makes sense to leave it public, but if you want single-car qualifying then you should run private and leave knockout qualifying off.

Thanks for the information Matt. However, we intentionally do not use the stock car rules, provided by ISI, as they are rather strict and not particularly ideal for club racing. I gave the NSCR15.rFM a go when it was first released, but the events ended in disaster.

As an alternative I have produced a custom rFM file for RD stock car races, which I have been tweaking over time to try and implement a set of rules with which everyone is happy for these events. Adjusting this in combination with the server's player.json file is allowing me to set up the events exactly how we would like them.

On that note, @Chark, this week's changes will include private qualifying (or knockout qualifying - which would be best?), closing the pits under caution until all cars are behind the safety car, and increasing the likelihood of full course cautions. Is there anything else?

 

[Chark]

@Daiman Patel I didn't know you did a custom file for the events, that's great.

On that note, @Chark, this week's changes will include private qualifying (or knockout qualifying - which would be best?), closing the pits under caution until all cars are behind the safety car, and increasing the likelihood of full course cautions. Is there anything else?

Sounds complete to me! I think private would be enough.