PC1 A few question about pCARS, garage, liveries and setups

[Sk3ptik0n]

Before I go bitching around at the WMD forum or go insane in the game itself, I figure I ask these questions her at RD as it is usually a much friendlier place.
I have been with pCARS since the beginning but now I realize that some of the issues related to skins, setups, the garage, etc I never really considered and how they would affect gameplay. Now I am wondering if I am using the game wrong or if those things are as clunky as they appear to be:

1) Garage: I am able to go to the garage and select a livery for a given car. If I go race with that car then, the livery loads. So far so good. But if I come back after racing other cars or selecting other cars in the garage, often that initial car has a "random" livery assigned to it. I even tried saving a setup in case that was necessary.
How do I select my favorite cars in the garage with the livery I want so I know what I'll be driving in game?

2) Setup: I know how to manage the setup in the garage. But when I am in practice or a SP race, and I work on a setup I don't see a way to save it the same way I do in the garage. Seems to me that setup is lost to the world unless I work on it in the garage. That doesn't seem possible to me. There has to be a way to work on a car and keep that setup saved someplace. Is this something they are still working on or am I missing something?

Aside from the above, I hope they will develop a better livery management. I know we requested it during development and I am not that worried if they didn't have time to implement it, but 15 years old games have better setup and livery management than this. What gives?

3) AI: There used to be a way to fine tune the behavior of the AI. It was complicated and a bit obscure, but it worked. Did they remove it from the final release?

54) Is there a place where one can read up on all the available features and where they explain more advanced concepts? The manual is a bit skimpy but somebody must have written a more comprehensive guide. At least if a feature is no longer available or badly implemented I won't waste time looking for a way around it.

Thanks.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

How do I select my favorite cars in the garage with the livery I want so I know what I'll be driving in game?

You cannot at this time. It doesn't keep track of your preferred livery for each car; only the currently selected car.

I know how to manage the setup in the garage. But when I am in practice or a SP race, and I work on a setup I don't see a way to save it the same way I do in the garage.

When you are at the track (whether SP, MP), setups are only saved for that track. You cannot save that setup globally.

There used to be a way to fine tune the behavior of the AI. It was complicated and a bit obscure, but it worked. Did they remove it from the final release?

Those were removed when the AI was re-written.

Is there a place where one can read up on all the available features and where they explain more advanced concepts?

Which features are you referring to? FFB or something else?

 

[Sk3ptik0n]

Thank you so much for the replies. I actually figured out how to manage a working setup for a given track. Is a bit backwards but it seems to work.

As for the last question:
Is there a place where one can read up on all the available features and where they explain more advanced concepts?
Which features are you referring to? FFB or something else?

I was just referring to a list of not immediately apparent features athat are nevertheless available. As an example, I am going to list how to create and save a setup for a given cvar/track combo:

One of thje issues I found with the pCARS setups is that you cannot really work on a setup while in the garage and then for each change go and test the car. It would take forever.

What I do is as follows:

1) Pick a car/track combo I want to work on
2) Test the car and fine tune the setup in the SP practice mode
3) Once I am done, I go to the garage, open the car and edit the setup. At that point, I can save it to the track I choose. Next time it should be available.

Unfortunately, this system is far from optimal. I should be able to save the setup with a file name while in the practice session, but lacking that at least it
better than doing a setup blind.

What this system doesn't allow you to do is to create different setups for different conditions. For instance a dry Quali setup, a wet one, and so on.

I hope they are still working on this aspect of the game because when people discuss the tired argument "arcade V. Simcade V. Simulation" these are the issues that make a title "arcade" as much as how a car drives. I am happy with the way many cars drive on pCARS, I am not happy about AI behavior and car setup management.
Until they give us the ability to save setups to a file, pCARS will be an incomplete simulator.