The Bench

[TheJohnNewton]

Blooze - You tuned more than just the gears on the Hyundai right?  For some reason I thought that was all you had tuned so I matched your gears and went to Boomslang.  No way I could match your times until I messed with the tune a bit though.

[Blooze]

LOL - that deal with the Genisis was an all nighter and I was sort of confused, wondered what in the hell you were talking about.  The only Hyundai I could remember for a moment there was the E Class Tuscani.

You are correct - I did mess with the suspension a bit as well, but not as much as I usually do.

My changes are...

Tires: 28.5; 28.0
Align: -1, -.8, .1, -.1, 5.0
ARB: 12.8; 12.8
Rebound: 10.5; 10.1
Bump: 5.3; 5.3
Diff: 32; 26

...and I swapped to the Holeshot Holestar rims.

That's all there was to it.  Actually I think it is a screw up - the SWR on it is stock at 66.37 and there is no way I would have left it that high.  My tendency for the R2 class is to start with a 50/56.5 build and add 40% to 60% to the ARB.  I must have been in a hurry with it, or something got my attention (the original build was the beginning of January).  Anyhow, it turned out pretty good so I left it alone.

What did you think of the Tranny?

$

[TheJohnNewton]

Tranny worked well but I did not attempt to drive the stock tranny so I don't know how bad it started out.  I also haven't really driven the R classes so I don't have much to compare it to.  It's a vastly different driving experience than the C classers I've been messing with.

I did a seat of the pants 5 minute tune just to attempt to catch you, lol, which was (from memory) to up the alignment to something like -.8, -.6 (which is about my normal for most cars) leaving the other settings stock.  I also maxed the aero and reduced the rear bump and rebound by one click each.  Everything else stock.  I figured on such a short track max aero wouldn't hold me back and the rebound/bump adjustment was an attempt to allow me to get on the gas a little earlier.  With that I was able to barely keep up with you on Boomslang.  With the stock settings plus your tranny changes I was about a half second back.

[Blooze]

I'm glad I was able to present you with a challenge.

When I return to R2, I am going to put my customary build on the Hyundai and see how much difference there is and which way it leans.

$

[Blooze]

Kind of excited here - all full of anticipation.  I have decided to campaigne the #40 Ford GT Mk7 through my recently made up Private Season.  A piece of this decision is associated with the Twelve Hours of Sebring which kicks off next Saturday morning.  I really like the idea of racing cars and tracks that are seen regularly on major TV.  Before all is said and done, I plan on campaigning all of the GT2 cars, including the ones that in the bottom of the R2 class.  Even tho the R3 class is owned by the FXX,

(There's a rumor going round that the Mazda B09 times were going to get wiped from the R2 and R3 boards... I sure hope that is true.)

I am hoping to give it a pretty good run with the GT2 cars.  The Mk7 hits Pi 797 with the restrictors off.  I may be setting one of my goofy little rules aside and build Grip and Speed tunes for these cars.  The only real way to affect them is with the Aero parts and appropriate gearing changes.  We'll see...  right now I am pretty happy with my General Build.

The ALMS series collides with the game on 3 other tracks this year as well, Leguna Seca, Road America, and Road Atlanta.  Special emphasis will be paid to those tracks as well.  One of the things I hope to find is the various car's RL Best Lap times for those tracks... see if I can keep up.

R3 may be my favorite class right now, 'specially since I figgered out how to segregate the class without creating a half a gozillion spread sheets to do it (nothing exotic, I simply added a subclass sort field).  There are the GT2 cars, the GT3, American Stock, and Australian V8 Supercars, not to mention the handfull of exotics like the Ferrari FXX.  There are others as well though I am not as well aquainted with them.  Add to that that I am comfortable with the speed of the things, and they seem to be somewhat removed from all the glitchy-ness, and I am pretty happy with the class.  A guy can mess around in here quite awhile and not get bored.

But you know, the R2 class is about the same.  And I like it just as well.

If I were some sort of bettin' feller, I would almost put some money down that next month's (or May's) DLC car set will include the Carbon Limited Edition Z06 and the GT2 Corvette Racing ALMS car.  Anyhow, I hopa-hopa-hope...

Well, I got to go finish dialing the Mark 7 in and get my ass down to Florida.

Uh, maybe a cup of coffee first - I'll get a Round Tuit with all that other stuff...

$

[Fit4aking]

Sounds like you've been quite busy Blooze.  Wish I could say the same, my garage hasn't had too much activity seein as all the RWD C-classers are out on a world tour setting times all over the place. 

Did manage to have a nice 4 hour block of racing time on Sunday.  I DVR'd the last round of V8 Supercars in Abu Dabi and Bahrain as well as the F1 race.  I was able to sit back and watch them one after the other and it was Nirvana.  Specially since I inadvertantly planned it so the moment they were over the Supercross series came on Speed.  The wife wasn't thrilled about 6 hours of motor noises from the living room but it sure lulled me into a calm. 

I did break down last night after the racing was over and built up a version 1.0 Panoz Esperante in A-class.  I sure have missed my two seater darlings, the TVR will be next.  I like the grip of it and the pull but I had to sacrifice power for some weight reduction.  Even with big fat tires and race brakes it wouldn't stop at 3400lbs.  I'll be building it to run on the real world tracks, Sebring, Road Atlanta, Road America and maybe even a few spins on Silverstone, Suzuka and Motegi.  Hell, who am I kidding, I'll run it up and down A-class before I'm all done with it.  Aero, non-aero, grip, power, I'll have a tune for each when the dust settles.  Don't know if it will rattle the cage of any AWD GT's or S5's but it will be what I want to drive.

Damn, doctor said to cut back on caffine, where's my tea.....grumble!

[Blooze]

I been watching you boys mess with them C Class cars.  I'll be so far down in that class from you guys it won't even be funny, probably have to pump sunlight to me...  However, due to your efforts, the old Muira is definitely on my to-buy schedule.  I thought about joinin' you guys a couple times, but I really want to do this R3 ALMs Season thing too.  And one thing we both know for certain about Forza is how easy it is to spread one's self too thin.

I've attached a copy of my Real Life Track season and my Current QR sheet.  They would work real good for handling the record keeping for your Panoz and TVR projects...

$

[Fit4aking]

I'll download it when I get back on my laptop tonight.  I really do miss my track spreadsheet, it was lost on the last hard drive.  Just never got around to making another one, I stink at Excel when it comes to creating things.  Perhaps I'll put that on my round ruit list in the near future.  At least if I do it now I'll only have to populate it with my F-class times.  That's the only class I'd consider "done" at least with round one.

[Blooze]

We pulled the hauler into the yard about 4 in the afternoon yesterday, and the butts were bumpin' on the railroad ties, I'll tell ya... pulled the Mark 7 out of the trailer and run it into the shop so's the crew could get to cleanin' her up and replacing some of the "consumable" parts.  I'm maybe gonna call Jack Roush and see how long it would take him to build another motor for it.

While the guys were sweepin' up and squaring crap away, I did the bookwork on the first season run through.  All of the races were completed, some more than once - the history shows 37, it started with 0.  We made $629k and drove it 561 miles.  All of these numbers were automagically plugged into the car sheet's Financial section, which in turn updates the Class and Overall rollups.  And all I had to do is put a one in the race counter, or a two if it was the second run.  Pretty cool.

The Ford has the worst Grip of all the GT2 cars (so far) but it still handles really well.  But along with no grip comes a pretty husky motor that pulls well down into the 4000's and is still in the 90% Hp range down there.  I tried a "grip" build, dialing the Aero all the way up - it only picked up a couple hundreths on the G@120 setting and ruint the handling, which was pretty nice.  I set everything back and apologized to the car.  I considered trying a speed build for stuff like Le Manns and such, but I have the Saleen, and that poor old Ford isn't gonna come close to it on its best day.  So I left it with my orginal build.

I managed to knock about 23 seconds off the RW Tracks with it, and knocked a miinute off the Benchmark tracks as well.  By the time we trailered 'er up and headed home, we'd knocked 101 seconds off the R3 aggregate and recouped 3 positions.  The car also has the top QR at 173.127, mostly due to the FXX holding real old numbers.  Pretty soon I'll run the FXX and everything will be set right...

So, it was a good outing, and right now, if Forza is any indicator, the Robertsons are going to have themselves a good day a Sebring this weekend.

Anybody know a guy named Sarcasmo Jones?  He has a target on his back, big Time!  He is just ahead of me in both the Circuit and P2P overalls.   375 seconds in the Circuits, 234 in the P2P.  I cleaned up my favorites and added him so I can see where he is at on a track right after I get done checking on my friends.  I wonder if his ears are burning when I chide him for havinig used a leaderboard car to post a bad time.  Or my celebritory "Yeah!!" when my new time jumps past him.  I wonder does his spirit register unrest when I grumble and scowl at a big time garnered with a Leaderboard car that I know I will be unable to match without resorting to the car myself. 

Yes siree Bob...  big red and white circles all over his back.  I'm coming for ya Sarcasmo, yes I am... I'm comin' for ya Jones......

  Do I sound scary?

Built out the Jaguar last night.  What an unfortunate little car.  It has hellascious grip, on a par with the FXX, but no top end.  None.  It is like the RMR Genisis.  Removing the restrictors knocks it into R2 - 801!!  I am going to race it against the Aston Martin there.  I'll plug the restrictor back on the DB9 and that should make them relatively even.  So now I got GT2 cars runnin in both classes... cool.

But while I am lamenting the straights that Turn 10 put the little car into, I went and knocked 3 seconds off my Amalfi aggregate, then I set a top 1000 time for Atlanta Short with it.  Hmmm, says I to no one in particular, other than my cat...  So I run down south real quick to the Mesa where the old Snakes tracks are at and give them a try.  The Jaguar was able to knock that sorry assed Mazda off the first 4 tracks and get back 4 seconds doing it.  Nothing else could come close to it but the Jaguar nailed his ass.

So, I won't be running much of the Season with the Jag, just enough to pay back the $320k it owns the Daytona fund.   Then we'll be headed for the Snakes.  And Kaido.  And Positano...

I'm comin' for ya Sarcasmo...

Uh, right after this cup of coffee.

I love this game!!

$

[Blooze]

Oh, here's a little tid-bit I wanted to pass along, in case maybe you guys ain't considered it yet.

Yesterday runnin' the Private races with the Ford GT-Mk7, I would set the restriction for the AI cars to GT2...  and I would end up with a herd of Porsches, everytime.  Sometimes nothing but Porsches.  This morning, getting to go in there with that Top End challenged Jag, I needed to come up with something else.   Those Porsches were going to eat that car to pieces for a couple laps at least and getting a good time or escaping damage was going to be hard to do - more work than I wanted anyway.

What I come up with is this.  I loaded my save file for QR5 that has everything set for up for 5 lap races and setting QR times.   Then I set the Car restiction to R3 and GT3 and hit the A.  It told me to get a new car and set everybody else up with the old Corvettes and Vipers and such.  Then I went back to the set up and removed the GT3 restriction.  When I returned to the lobby, I still needed to get a new car, but everybody else, since they already met the only restriction left, Class R3, kept the car they were given at the start.  I went and loaded up my Jag, and we were off to the races, so to speak.

So there's the way to tailer the competition.  Come up with a restriction that leaves them legal once it is removed.   Say, C Class with PI < 400., then remove the < 400 after everybody has their cars and go get your 425 car...

$

[Blooze]

Well, I whacked a really big hole into the ole Daytona Coupe fund this morning.  I 'spose you could say that I pretty well tore it up, actually.  See, I found me this really good deal on the Auction House, a Ferrari 250 GTO with about a 100000 worth of parts and a buyout of $11.5 million.  So I bought 'er out, cleared the humungous engine swap and the transformer paint job and gloated.  If I were to sell it now, I would come within half a million of breaking even.  I can make that back racing in an afternoon.

I have been sitting on the cash stash waiting to see if this VIP Car Battle is going to cough up another of the big four and I was getting impatient.  Now that I did this, they pobably will have the GTO in a contest next week.

Now I'm back down to around $6M...  back to work.

BTW, that #33 Jaguar makes a pretty good R3 Hillclimbing Mongoose in the R3 class if you don't feel like doing the whole class with the FXX...

Coffee's on...

$ 

[Blooze]

Boy, have I been having fun.  I kinda got into an R&D phase around here, building the software to support my Season (nothing more than the RWT that aren't in the QR tracks).  The primary problem was facilitating gathering as much data as possible, as easily as possible, in a finite and short amount of time.  Then there is parsing out the data, getting to where it needs to go.

Waiting around... I think you will all agree that you have spent more time looking at the little swirly red circle than anything else in this game.  And when all you run are private races,  the layover at the end of the race just adds to the waiting misery.  But, we can do something about that one.  I have it down to about as low as I am going to be able to go now - 10 seconds.  I have about 5 seconds to grab the time, and the remainder of the time to grab the damage - which most times is zero and I can recognize that pretty quick.  I have my computer set with the cursor on the cell where the time is going to go.  As soon as I enter that, I move to the damage cell and enter that if there is a value.  That's it.

All the rest of the stuff is already calculated and rolled up, soon as I entered the count for the race.  1.  or if I'm running it for the third time, 3.  That's it.  It took me most of the weekend gathering the data and writing the functions and such.  Then there is the process...  developing the step by step for setting up a racing session probably requires documentation, it would if I were to try to share it with someone else. 

I've run 3 races while I've been writing this.  Not too big a deal, really.  But I have also taken care of all the data work that I have such a penchant over...  now, that!  That's pretty cool.

My good friend Randy, who is also my son-in-law was feeling unnecessary around his house, "read: His wife and her Sister were both starting their periods..." so he came over to the house Sunday, and ended up watching the Australian V8 Supercars.  He is a late comer to car racing and most of it has been watching NASCAR with a bunch of his football buddies when there's no football on.  He enjoyed it quite a bit.  I was flipping between the V8s and Bristol, he couldn't believe the action between those Aussies, knockin' each other all over them streets.  I explained Bathhurst to him a little, he's already got it on the calendar, he wants to see that one too.

Well, the question was bound to come up, and it did fairly early on.  How would the Australian V8 Supercars fare if they took on the COT, or maybe a Nationwide car.  So that is one of the first things I am going to run on my new Season program.  I sure hope they are compatible...

I been able sneak up on ole Sarcasmo pretty good this week - only 4 minutes behind him right now.

I think I'll go fry me an egg...

Then I got to run over to England and run me some races on Silverstone...

$

[Blooze]

Blooze, I'm sure knowing you you'll still manage to beat us all in getting the thing completed before the lot of us, especially with all the tunes you have sitting there ready. But...

I'm sorry to have to do this, but I feel it's only fair to deliver the following kick in the nuts from Che:

"chespace T10 said:

We're looking at the options, but we will probably end up doing a top X% wipe across the boards. Won't know until I hear back from our designers/devs. In the meantime, if you want to be perfectly safe, just hold off on getting serious.
March 19, 2010 6:58 PM "

It's really bad that they had to do this, especially with all the promises of being able to do a surgical wipe and all. I really feel for people like yourself who I know are clean and have put so much hard work into this just to have it whipped from under them like this.

(PS: Sorry for derailing the thread - feel free to delete this post if you want to keep it on topic).

Yeah, I saw this last Friday when everybody was jumpin' Che's crap for not mentioning the wipe in the weekly update.  Everybody is freeking out, again. 

If I get got, I get got...  I still got the cars, I got the tune sheets and the tunes saved.  It would be nice to get at the boards without all the sheeple in the way.   I guess I am more sick and tired of seeing that Mazda filling up the top of a board then I am worried about having to run a few laps again.   That's what I designed this Season sheet for anyway.

Have you seen anymore news about when is it going to happen?

[Spiny Anteater]

Sorry, no news on when it's going to happen. I think you have the right attitude with regards to the wipe - certainly I agree that it will be much better to compete on untainted leaderboards even if it does mean losing a lot of times. But unlike you, I haven't spent ages hotlapping. I also can't help feeling that when you rerun the wiped times you'll be quicker anyway - and I also suspect you'll gain time on ole Sarcasmo too

Can't help feeling that T10 don't help themselves with regard to their PR. Ever since the game was announced, they seem to have got into a bad cycle of over-promising and under-delivering. I feel that that, much more than the wipe, is what is feeding the frenzies. Am I getting old, or was their communication much better back in the FM1 & FM2 days?

[Blooze]

Can't help feeling that T10 don't help themselves with regard to their PR. Ever since the game was announced, they seem to have got into a bad cycle of over-promising and under-delivering. I feel that that, much more than the wipe, is what is feeding the frenzies. Am I getting old, or was their communication much better back in the FM1 & FM2 days?

They seem to have become quite adept at hitting the big toe without even taking their shoes and socks off.  They appear to be trying - what is it now?  Three people that they have hired from the community to work at nothing but their hand.  There's a couple of things I think they have seriously underestimated...

• The size and visibility of this "community"   There are the vocal quite a few...  the habitual bitchers.  But they have been here forever - I remember them on the Sega GT board.  Same stuff, gimme this car, that track, and everybody but me is cheating.  There are a few rah, rah boys.  Then there is a whole bunch that just play the game and don't participate, either in the good stuff, or the BS.  So they end up selling stuff to sponsers that they haven't been able to deliver on and they wind up with egg on their faces and in their hair.  People see that and like a pack of dogs, head for what appears to be vulneralability, squeaking even louder than before.
• One of the principal fundamentals of Quality Control is managing expectations.  Like you said, they promise much and deliver sporatically.  And the dogs prick up their ears...
• I think they tried to save a buck on the QC end of things and cut a chunk of the testing department.  There are some trivial yet obvious software foxe pahs that should never have seen the light of day.  That sort of things makes people glance askance and sneaky like at the over all project, which may be fine, but it just appears sketchy because of the little things being handled so poorly.
• The Bitching and Bellyaching squad has got to be taking the realease of the VIP package as a victory.  I think that was handled poorly.
• And this Multiplayer buckets thing (or whatever)... I have no idea what it is, but it doesn't seem to have ever been ready for prime time.  I heard it is part of some larger overall gamer world plan and that they will make it work.  Everybody hates to be part of something like that... throwing good money after bad.

So, MS appears to not be packin' their mud in a lot of ways, and this almost but not quite wipe is just adding fuel...  What happened to the surgical strikes?  How do you keep leaving holes in the system where glitchers can take advantage?  It is always the same way too...  buy something in one place and get rid of it in another.  You'ld think they would learn.

Ah well...

That Dark Fairlady Z makes a pretty good Mongooser... 

I know that...

$