RDHCS - Merged Previous Season Admin Threads

[Bram Hengeveld]

RDHGP S3 - Merged Season Admin Threads

RDHGP 2009 - RaceDepartment Historic Grand Prix 2009

Details: TBA!

 

[Dmytro Botnarenko]

As an indication for you, the posted TC65 lap record on the NoGrip hotlaps is a 1:16.5 in an Alfa.
Let's say we're 3 sec slower in race trim, so about a 1:20 lap.

Oh, thats Chiosa's time! This nick means a lot for me. So many laps I've spent focusing on his times and replays. At the biginning, I just couldn't imagine how he can go so quick and where to get another 2-3 seconds from lap! But unnoticeably, after few thousands of laps, training and excercising, using different techniques and setups, drawing conclusions from own mistakes, you start to go faster. And, suddenly, when you back to some track and vehicle, you realize, that you win 2-3 seconds from your own time! And "scholar" begins to run with "teachers" pace...
Pity, that now I have not enouth time to go offline and fight with Ciosa's time. But, maybe preperations for 9th season...

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I'm looking forward to Season 9, as well as the Caterham series, and a Boss series in the future.

There is some replanning/rescheduling going on at the moment with regard to Leagues.

The Boss series is a Club thing and will be run in Tuesday Club slots so that's fine, and I'll sort that out once S8 finishes.

S9 & the Caterham League may need to be juggled/adjusted to fit in with a slightly more formalised and scheduled approach, so they are on hold pending the firming up of the League approach.

It should be sorted fairly soon, so it shouldn't have too much detrimental effect.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I'm going to be planning on being able to have 2 seasons per calendar year without having to halt the season halfway through for Xmas, or see people missing out on races because of summer holidays.

 

[Senad Subasic]

I always enjoyed the Christmas break. Dunno why, just seems right. Or it could be that I'm just morbidly averse to change.

Good bump as well, will do some more laps after the race tonight. Just have to guess a car.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Actually, thinking about it, I may wait until Sept for S9, as the Boss series goes on well into April, and then we'll have league races during August when loads of people are away.

I may just fill out the first half of the year with some series (similar to the Boss one) on Tuesdays, Various Club event on Thursdays, and then get Season 9 ready to go for the start of Sept, so everyone is back and raring to go.

 

[Ross McGregor]

More time to try out prospective S9 cars is better for me since i won't really have much free time over the next couple of months. Sorted.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

OK, the latest is that the Cats will become a weekly Club regular of a Friday - in the style of Race's Mini Friday. I'm still not sure about the League thing with them, as I'm wary of increasing the competitiveness too much. I'm not ruling it out, but let's see how the Club events go over a month or two.

RDHGP (possibly changing it's name) Season 9 will probably be starting late Aug / early Sep

 

[Tim Ling]

OK, the latest is that the Cats will become a weekly Club regular of a Friday - in the style of Race's Mini Friday. I'm still not sure about the League thing with them, as I'm wary of increasing the competitiveness too much. I'm not ruling it out, but let's see how the Club events go over a month or two.

RDHGP (possibly changing it's name) Season 9 will probably be starting late Aug / early Sep

IMO, if you are going to run a league for the Cats, don't have teams involved. We'll have just as much fun with Cat Fridays

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I'm never going down the Team route again, that's for certain. I'm still unclear whether a League structure would actually add anything beyond upping the "must win" quotient that's always nearer the surface in rF. The Cats are fairly fragile under impact, so I can't be doing with a load of "he knocked my wheels off" whining.

Just running a different track each week with the same simple format - job done.

 

[Tim Ling]

I like your thimking...we don't need more 'tards,do we?

 

[Dmytro Botnarenko]

Stuart, I understand that ATM a lot of time until September, but time tends to quickly run out. I want to know, what is the approximate final date when we can provide our test results to you? If you can define it now. Thus, I can better allocate my time. Thanks.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

To make sure there's enough time for me collate, test and announce the car list in time for people to test and choose (and not moan about their choice), I will say end of April for testing to reach me.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

League: RaceDepartment Historic Club Series
Season: 9 (2012)
Game Required: GT Legends
Number of Drivers: 30 max.

Introduction
Welcome to Season 9 of the RaceDepartment Historic Club Series.
Further info will be forthcoming.

Available Cars
Alfa Romeo GTam (mod) Download + required soundpack Download
BMW CS2800 (mod) Download
Chevrolet Corvette 74 - the Small-block model (red #850 default)
DeTomaso Pantera GTS - only the Non-Factory model (white #86 default)
Ford Escort RS1600 (mod) Download
Nissan Skyline GT-R (mod) Download + optional soundpack Download

Latest Livery Pack
Download here

Calendar
T. Tue 28/08/12 - Dijon-Prenois GP / Mondello Int'l - 9 laps each
1. Tue 11/09/12 - Nurburgring GP - 20 laps
2. Tue 25/09/12 - Autodromo dell Umbria - 34 laps (download)
3. Tue 09/10/12 - Donington Park GP - 24 laps
4. Tue 23/10/12 - Estoril 88 - 24 laps (download)
5. Tue 06/11/12 - Mo I Rana - 27 laps (download)
6. Tue 20/11/12 - Yas Marina - 19 laps (download)
7. Tue 04/12/12 - Adelaide 88 - 27 laps (download)
8. Sat 15/12/12 - Watkins Glen 75 - 37 laps (download)

Session Info
British Summertime / Daylight ends on 28th October - Testing Event & Rounds 1-4 will begin at 19.00 GMT. All other Events will be at 20.00 GMT - that is the event time used for the below.

Practice: 20.00 GMT - 40 Minutes
Qualifying: 20.40 GMT – 20 Minutes - unrestricted lap count
Race: 21.00 GMT – 100km (200km season finale)

Points Scoring
Points scored down to 20th position.

The Distribution is as follows (double for the 200km event):

P01 - 25 pts
P02 - 22
P03 - 20
P04 - 18
P05 - 16
P06 - 15
P07 - 14
P08 - 13
P09 - 12
P10 - 11
P11 - 10
P12 - 9
P13 - 8
P14 - 7
P15 - 6
P16 - 5
P17 - 4
P18 - 3
P19 - 2
P20 - 1

1 point for fastest race lap (not double on 200km event)

1 point for qualifying on Pole (not double on 200km event)

Vehicle Choice
Drivers do not have to have already chosen their vehicle for the Test Event. Drivers must choose their League vehicle for Race 1 by 19.00 GMT, Thursday 6th September 2012. Any driver with a vehicle not specified by this time will not be allowed to participate in Round 1. After Round 1, the cut off time for signing up and being allowed to race is the Thursday before the race.

Liveries
Each driver must use a unique car skin, and I will again be producing skinpacks for all competitors, adding any new skins into the existing packs for the relevant vehicles.

We will NOT be allowing any 3rd party liveries in League Seasons any more

A driver can select his livery in a number of ways:-
1. Select one of the default liveries, or from the liveries already available in the RD GTL skinpack for the vehicle.
2. Create their own livery, and send it to the Race Direction & Paint Team for inclusion
3. Ask for a personal livery to be created by the Race Direction & Paint Team (time dependent).

If a driver does not express a preference for a skin at sign-up time, he will be allocated a skin randomly for the car selected.

There is no restriction on people selecting the same vehicle, but if all default skins are already taken for the chosen vehicle, the driver will need to create a skin or apply to the Paint Team for one to be created for inclusion into the skinpacks.

Once you have selected your vehicle for the season during the sign up process, you must drive that vehicle - and no other - at all times during League events.

If a number has already been chosen, you may not specify a skin that uses that same number. You may not use team logos on your skin. You may not have a similar skin to another driver to reflect team affiliation.

The Official Testing event is not classed as a League event, but if a driver has already selected his car in the sign up thread, he cannot change that vehicle for League events, irrespective of the results of further testing.

Deadline for requesting Paint Team created liveries in time for Race 0 (Test event): 24.00GMT Wednesday 15th August 2012.

Deadline for supplying user created liveries in time for Race 0 (Test event): 24.00GMT Wednesday 22nd August 2012.

Thereafter, if people are joining later in the season, they must supply a driver or Paint Team created skin to Race Direction & Paint Team by 24.00GMT on the Wednesday before the race. If they are using a default skin (if available), the time restriction will not apply.

Sign-up
Please sign up using the following format in the sign up thread (when created and open):
Driver: Jeremy Clarkson
Vehicle: Ford Granada
Car#: 851 / "no preference"
Livery: Default / user created / request via PM

Miscellaneous
As with the previous RDHCS, discussion of test laptimes is NOT permitted in any RD threads. The not knowing before turning up and seeing what people are actually doing, and then comparing to your own times, was commented on by several RDHCS drivers as an entirely positive thing.

If the numbers go over the 36 driver per track limit, people who regularly attend Historic Racing club events will get the nod ahead of new drivers. I'm sorry if you lose out, but that is the harsh reality of the limit.

Attendance Reporting
Use GPCOS: Link here
ALL signed-up drivers must allocate for ALL races - this is not optional. Sending a PM saying "I won't make it" takes just as long as changing your allocation. A PM or post will NOT be considered as an allocation change.

Races are run at 20.00 on a Tuesday evening - UK time taking BST/GMT into account. If a driver is allocated as "will participate", or has not allocated by 18.00 UK on a race day, "will participate" is judged to be their status for that race. A no-show is one infraction.

You are allowed 1 infraction, and then the next infraction will result in expulsion from League without any recourse for appeal. 2 consecutive No-Shows will result in removal from the League.

Anyone with a "will participate" allocation who doesn't show, but is found to be participating in another event will be immediately expelled from the League without any recourse for appeal.

Expulsion from the League will result in possible exclusions from future GTL Club & League events.

Resigning from the League
If anyone decides to pull out of the League, they must do so publicly by posting in the Sign-Up thread, and from that point on I will remove them from the league.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

The tracks / schedule will be going up later on tonight

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Please use this thread to discuss the upcoming season (starting end August for the test event).

As always, please do not discuss laptimes & relative speeds - people can make their own minds up about what is faster than what. Just talking pure times or even relative times doesn't take into account people's driving preferences, the ability to take perfect, uncompromised lines on an empty track etc. Anything I see of that type will be edited/removed without consultation - let's just all rock up at the first event and see how we go.

I don't have a problem with people talking about characteristics that they encounter - eg "the xyz is a bit too understeery for me" or similar. One man's understeery is another man's stable, one man's responsive is another man's twitchy. It's only when those characteristic discussions end up with things like "...so the abc was way faster for me" or "...I chose 123 because I was consistently faster in it" that it becomes an issue for me.

Other than that - fill your boots.

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to the initial testing, and especially Knut who helped resolve some dilemmas with his very thorough and forensic analysis.

I hope that we've covered the entire spectrum of car choices for you so that all styles are catered for.

OK - fire at will, and look forward to seeing your contributions.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Also - I'll be posting up an alternate soundpack for the Skyline as it's very loud, and can get a bit wearing after a while.

You don't have to be using the Nissan for it to help, and it is server transparent, so you won't get mismatches if you choose to use it.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Track download links added

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Use this thread for all things specifically livery related: How to create one, questions, tips, resources, what colours you will be using/asking for etc.

You can even show works-in-progress, or for a big unveiling - all I ask is that you have already signed up for the season before you exhibit your work.

Remember - I will NOT be allowing any existing 3rd party skins into the pack this time round - everything must either be a default skin (or one that comes with the mod), a user created skin, or a paint team created skin.

Based on that, I thought that a dedicated livery thread might be more useful this season than in previous outings.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Here are some handy resources:-

http://www.colorcombos.com/ - shows you what colours go with what other colours. Useful if you do not have a preferred colour scheme that you use regularly - or if you want to get one that you can use regularly.

http://www.1001freefonts.com/ - guess what - this has a lot of free fonts. Over a thousand, in fact.

http://www.getpaint.net/ or http://www.gimp.org/ - 2 excellent free paint programs, able to use layers, the photoshop formats the car templates come in and to export to the nvidia plugin *.dds format that GTL uses.

http://www.licenseplates.tv/index.php/cPath/3 - allows you to select, customise and create a registration/license plate that you can screenshot and use in a GTL skin.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Please sign up using the following format:
Driver: Jeremy Clarkson
Vehicle: Ford Granada
Car#: 666 / "no preference" / "please assign"
Livery: Default / user created / request via PM

You MUST specify your vehicle at time of sign up - Any sign ups with "Vehicle: TBA or To Be Advised" will be rejected and removed.

You do not have to sign up right now, but you can't take a slot if you don't know what car you will be driving. There are 30 slots available, so no immediate rush necessary. Do your testing and find out what you enjoy driving the most/are fastest in, depending on your motivation.