@Daiman Patel your answers were as I kind of expected (but wasn't sure). You didn't waffle though and I'm really grateful for your answers!
That's good to hear, and not a problem - I'm glad to have helped!
I am going to write some assumptions here I've made so perhaps you could point out any/all which are incorrect and answer the highlighted?
Several of your questions and assumptions are highly technical and incredibly in-depth; after some research I unfortunately do not know the answer to some, and I would not even know where to start looking for answers within rFactor 2 itself. Nevertheless I shall try my best to answer what I can.
1) all practise server tracks reset to green at the beginning of a session.
No, the rubber on the track is not lost at the beginning of a session; the servers are configured to always load from the
AutoSave.rrbin file, so the track surface conditions will be in the last known / saved state when a session is restarted.
2) maximum track rubber is reached after X number of completed laps
Q. Based on this assumption, how many laps/how much time would it take to reach maximum rubber with 1 car on: a) Rd 4 server with NO rain b) Dry server?
I believe this would be the case, but I could not say after how much laps the maximum amount of track rubber would be reached - I'm not sure where to look for such information, or if it is even possible to determine this without conducting an experiment. Also I'm not sure if this saturation point may be dependant on weather conditions, and if it is different for each track.
3) If 2 cars are on server and complete the same number of laps, progress laps/time towards maximum track rubber will be halved (and 3 cars, it will be divided by 3?)
Again I believe so, but I'm not sure if all cars and tyres lay down rubber at a constant rate or at their own rate (if it is the latter then the corresponding value may potentially be defined in one of the many files that make up an individual vehicle in the game). Also I do not know if the track - temperature, surface type, etc. - has any bearing on the rate at which rubber builds up on its surface. As I have previously mentioned there is a configurable parameter that allows the rate of build up to be adjusted, but I do not know how exactly the rubber builds up.
5) Barring rain, both servers will provide more grip during the qualifying sessions
As the servers always load the track conditions from the
AutoSave.rrbin file there will be a continuous build up of rubber, unless of course it rains. So the amount of grip at the beginning of a qualifying session will be the same as that at the end of the practice session.
I suppose the bottom line is, if it's not raining, I would like to work out which server is likely to provide the optimum lap time for me. This will possibly depend on the artificial rate of rubbering on dry server versus the increased rate of rubbering from multiple cars on the R4 server?
This will be rather difficult to work out because, as you have said, it depends on the artificial rate at which rubbers builds up in addition to a number of other factors including the weather and the number of laps that have previously been driven on the track (since it last rained on R4, and since the server was started on DRY).
I hope this has answered most of your questions. For those that I have not been able to provide an actual response my suggestion would be to ask these questions in the Studio 397 forums where you may receive some better replies and information from more knowledgeable players (and maybe also the developers).
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