The Bench

[feuerdog]

Agreed Fndr.

I have yet to really "need" to upgrade to DOT or slicks yet though, I have currently found my traction needs easy and affordable in the world of tire widths.

Engine mods are starting to show some optimization trends too. The intake adds power AND reduces weight, the pistons do the same. Cooling adds power but adds weight. The variety is helpful, but the possible combinations are complex and can be time consuming to work on.

I still use wheel weight tuning to some degree, but the need for power over grip has trended me to the moderate wheel weight defaults recently, not always to the ultra lightweights and then adjusting from there. The driveshaft is a nice final PI tuning tool to top things off.

The only other effect i've noticed in car building is the usefulness of the street/sport platform and handling parts this time. I'm pretty sure more than a few D, C or even B classed cars can be perfectly capable with a few sub-race level parts mixed into thier builds.

[Blooze]

The tires don't seem to be the cure-all that they once were.

It is still one of my pet peeves that basic wheel alignment is not available at all levels, just like Tyre Pressure.  And although they are messing with the weight over the parts, it still doesn't mean much because it is just over all weight that is being messed with.  Especially changes in the Wb - which are comical at best.

Lol, TJN - one of the things I did when I got enough bucks to be frivolous was to buy the '60 Corvette and take it for a Sunday drive on Positano, Camino Viejo, Kaido and the Ring.  In fact, I've decided to make it nothing but a Sunday Driver.  Gonna stop and take pictures of the scenery as best I can, just like any ole numb-skull tourist.

Oh, and my pick-em-up truck...  I like cruisinl in it too.  But I have it tuned up to a Raging Class B.  

$

[Spiny Anteater]

I have to agree with you all on the tyre issue - to me they seem to have closed the gap between the compunds with slicks being less grippy that in FM2 and stock tyres more grippy with the intermediates changing correspondingly.

And I also agree about there being less of a PI hit per upgrade - for example I retuned that gift RX-8 to D Class, and was amazed at the upgrades I could get on it. OK, I left the tyre compound at stock, but I could make all the "minor" race upgrades (e.g. gearbox, driveshaft etc), as well as the first stage weight reduction, fatter tyres and a little more power (may have been a rollcage in there too I think) It has no top end, but for a stock tyred car it is amazingly grippy. And it hasn't even left its original class.

[Blooze]

Good morning troops - sorry about the shop here.  I keep meaning to get a round to swamppin' it out but something keeps gettin' in the middle of my best laid plans and all that.

Did ya ever have one of those days that the further you project away, more projects ya get behind?  Boy, I do.  And I swore up and down that I wouldn't let myself get herded into all this helter skelter, willy-nilly business.  I need to stick to my guns, finish 'em  up - hell finish one!  I'll feel better.  I know I will. 

Along those lines - if I have a car that is built out in Classes D, C, and B and I decide to post the D version in my Storefront, what goes?  Seems like there must be a list of the parts laying around, even if they are unattached.  I noticed that uninstalled parts are still make up the balance of "Parts Cost."  Some ways it looks like they got it handled, and in some others it looks to be wide open for some sort of thievery.

Let's see - oh yeah!  I decided to make a command descision for my self around here.  I ain't running laps on the long tracks anymore.  I am going to treat them just like a point to point race.  One lap and shut 'er down.  The need for this was highlighted by a fairly good (by my standards) lap time on the 'Ring.  It occurred to me that if I wanted to improve that time, either with the same car, or a different one, that I would now have to run a minimum of two laps to get a time anymore, and the last quarter or so of the first one has to be perfect.  So unless there is an earth shattering contest of some sore involving The 'Ring, Kaido, or Positano they're going to be a one and done for me - just like a P2P race.  I just thought I'd throw this out and see if the logic fits for anyone else...

You lads have a good week doing the things you do to keep the hounds at bay...

$

[feuerdog]

In the interests of time, and possibly sanity, I completely agree with the idea of "one and done".

However, I am more of the "clean it and leave it" kinda guy. If i'm on the Nurburgring, taken the time to select and tune an appropriate car, waited for the track to download, got the tires and my skills warmed up with at least a rolling start cold lap, and then most likely made a few less than optimal driving inputs on that initial run which I know I can improve,....well, it seems to me that running just one or two more laps might be worth the extra effort. The ante is in, I might as well see the hand through.

Even if I only improve a couple of seconds from one lap to the next, a few seconds goes quite a ways to not feeling the need to return to the track and defend my efforts sooner.

The crucial difference is the loading time management, and I can see the rationale going both ways.

The sheer number of tracks and class combinations, even without the variety of cars, could definately find an advantage in overall progression within the classes with a "one and done" method. In my opinion i'd rather push just a little more quality into the runs, seeing as i'm already there and warmed up.

[Blooze]

Now, I'm only talking about the big ones, five tracks.  And they're not so much as left undone, as treated like a different animal - a Point To Point race.

Think about the percentage of start time against a short lap - the Ring in D @ 556.757 vs. Atlanta Short @ 64.787.  Guestimating a 7 sec cost in a standing start for this particular car, the start costs .0126 of the Ring lap, it costs .108 of the Atlanta lap.   Obviously the start has a lot more sway on the shorter lap.

Never the less, I just thought you might want to consider it from a time savings standpoint for those few tracks.

$

[feuerdog]

From that perspective, then yes, it does make more sense.

My only reservation then would be the sheer potential for making mistakes on such a big track. It deserves at least a proportional time investment, if not more so, to keep my consistency of times.
On the other hand, the sizes of these tracks seems to deter many drivers too, making it easier to post a competetive time. On top of that, I actually enjoy the challenge of running these longer tracks and therefore tend to spend more time on them from a sheer enjoyment standpoint.

As far as simply progressing through the boards for the purposes of time, though, I agree. One and done is mor ethan adequate in the short term.

[Spiny Anteater]

Just another thing to throw into that mix Blooze - I don't think you can allow a blanket 7 seconds time loss on all tracks. Taking your two tracks as examples, you may cross the s/f line at, say 90mph at Road Atlanta but at, say 135mph at the 'Ring. With all the time lost at the 'Ring from being slower down that long straight I would say the first lap time loss would be considerably more at the 'Ring than at R Atl Short (or indeed Positano or Kaido). That's just a numbers thing though, I think your principle still stands, just the percentages are probably less far apart than shown.

That said, I'm with FD on this. Taking into account loading times, and the easily made up time just from running a second lap, I would have thought that it is worth running that second lap now rather than at some time in the future when you still have to run the first lap to avoid the starting acceleration time loss. Look at it another way - how many laps of the short tracks do you have to run (and how long will it take to run those) to make up those 7 seconds you gave away by not running one more lap of a long track which would take circa 10 minutes.?

[Bad One]

One more thing to throw in with the one and done.  I just tried this on the Ring this morning (I screwed up later in the lap, but the idea still works).  When you start, don't cross the line.  Back up, and turn around.  I wasted about a minute and a half this way, but I was able to start my lap at top speed (was in a C1 Vette).  I don't know if you can go off track doing this.  I didn't but I didn't test going off track before you hit the start line. 

[Blooze]

Ah, just like the old days.  We used to do that to keep the first lap from being a waste.  It occurred to me that I was doing the very thing I was trying to dodge, though.  By setting this as the criterian for my test, I will have to do it for all the cars that I run, or the times will be invalid, as far as being a compartative tool.  One lap, from a standing start.  As long as that is the rule for every time I run, then the times are a tool.  My point was only that I can establish that, a compartative time on the 'Ring, and save myself 10 minutes in the process.  More, if you consider the probability of a screw up in a later segment of the lap negating not only the current lap, but the next as well.  Only 3 of the 14 times on my friend's F Class Nurburgring have valid laps at this time.  How are my times going to compare to others?  The 7 second rule is close enough for me.  Unless of course, it becomes a challenge...

I am becoming more infatuated with the game day by day.  This is the sort of OCD that should require some sort of intervention, some treatment.  Ah, well...

F Class.  They have done a bang up job with this.  In the previous "bottom" class, there was little choice in the path that could be taken, the Sheeple not withstanding.  So, I have been building and tuning F classed cars with an occassional foray  into the Season Six mish-mash of R1 cars.  I tell you, I am just not ready for those things yet.  My reflexes...  why, I need a half hour to decompress after one of those races.  I'll be glad to get it done.  Some insanity requires that I complete it, but I will be glad when it is done.

   Painting and Photography once again have prominent positions on my Round Tuit list...

...Love this job!!, er... game!!

  $

[Blooze]

Just futzing around with the Leaderboards as I've been known to do from time to time...

• The new accounts for a single day (yesterday) were 6,599.  Still, it looks to be slightly touch 'n' go for hitting a million by Chistmas.
• I found 19,800 seconds of fluff in the Circuits leaderboard - 5.5 hrs, or Eleven tracks.  My guess is that is the outside number of DLC tracks that they intend to add.  There is no such fluff in any of the other tables.
• A track that has an invalid time on it has 10 minutes added to it at the first rollup level.  But it doesn't compound, only one 10 min hit per class.
• I found out they don't round the seconds off for display purposes for times that are greater than an hour.  It's an Int instruction!  That one took me a while to find.
• Hired drivers don't set your leaderboard laps for you.  You just get marked for the race.  Still, it is the only way to handle the R1 16 lapper on New York.

Coffee's hot...

$

[Spiny Anteater]

Blooze, that 5.5hours/11 tracks thing just looks too round for my liking, what with there being 11 classes and all. Is there a possibility that they might have added an extra track into the calculation by accident (sort of like that extra track which "disappeared" from the career scoreboard in FM2)?

It just seems a bit odd to me that there was all this fuss about new track packs coming out on DLC, if it's only going to be one track at one environment... Then again, with the silence on certain other... ahem... features which has been amply discussed/ranted over on .net, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that that will be the case.

[Blooze]

The 5 1/2 hrs was per class.  I sort of omitted that, sorry.

Each class starts with 56 hours.  That is enough for 112 tracks, but we only have 101.

$

[Spiny Anteater]

Hmmm. 11 tracks does rather tie in with what the Tofu guy was saying about one track pack every 3 months for the first year doesn't it. That would give us 3 packs of 3 tracks and one of 2 which sounds reasonable.

[Open2nd]

I missed the track dlc discussion.  Good to hear.