Have Your Say – Missing Features in Sim Racing

[JohannDaart]

Even with the evidence out there from drivers like Ben Collins, Chris Harris and simply random people let lose in racing cars they all say how in relative terms 'easy' and user friendly racing cars are, even some of the old school ones.

Yep, and I've heard that Lotus 49 is far easier to drive in real life than what GPL and iRacing led people to believe.

 

[CiaranGTR]

For the Codemasters F1 series, I want to see a dynamic driver roster. It probably can't happen because of licensing, but it breaks the immersion a little when you see Felipe Massa on the grid when you're into your second season of F1 2017's career mode.

 

[Emery]

What I’m missing is:
[a bunch of things that are in sims other than AC & pCARS]

You really need to try AMS, RaceRoom, & rF2 where these things exist.

 

[elloLeo Kinnunen]

My attention is failing after 9 pages of great responses. I hope there's a part 2 to this article discussing the best, most original, and most common ideas.

 

[howitzer155mm]

AC and R3E are missing weather, day/night. I want to see my favorite sims Forza-Ified (graphics wise)

 

[wombat999]

How about really sensible and understandable manuals, in printable pdf format without the pretty pictures that are a waste of space and toner.
A very basic item mostly overlooked in most simulations, but essential for newbies and useful for old hands.

 

[Damage Inc]

You really need to try AMS, RaceRoom, & rF2 where these things exist.

Also many of the things people are requesting are in AC or PCars. Your point is? I play all the Sims yet gravitate more towards AC and PCars. I'd like certain features from the other sims in AC and PCars too.

 

[Tommy makeinen]

"There's no excuse not to have this anymore."

sim racing games are missing things that improve user interface. thats fine for now.

trackside crowd thats cardboard: thats getting to be eyesore.

i don't want to cycle through all the view to get to the view that i use.

 

[Dr. Death]

Other than the obvious "more realism, more features, more immersion"? The thing that i really feel is needed? would probably be a greater degree of freedom with the car, in the sense of where you can go to what can you do with it, or i dont know. Lets destroy this idea that you can change a preset of the transmission with one click away.

IRL changing any setup takes a LOT of time. Specially suspension and gear ones since they need to replace an entire gear and open up the tranny or with the suspension if you wanna change the strenght you would need new coils.

It would mean you have less time to fool around and would add a little bit of strategy more.

You can also implement realistic damage and failure, like with BeamNG having any small bump damage the front suspension, or have the engine suddenly fail during a race.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Other than the obvious "more realism, more features, more immersion"? The thing that i really feel is needed? would probably be a greater degree of freedom with the car, in the sense of where you can go to what can you do with it, or i dont know. Lets destroy this idea that you can change a preset of the transmission with one click away.

IRL changing any setup takes a LOT of time. Specially suspension and gear ones since they need to replace an entire gear and open up the tranny or with the suspension if you wanna change the strenght you would need new coils.

It would mean you have less time to fool around and would add a little bit of strategy more.

You can also implement realistic damage and failure, like with BeamNG having any small bump damage the front suspension, or have the engine suddenly fail during a race.

Yep, should be like this: first setup load simulates how the team got ready for that event before official session started (from team garage to track) so any change done in that moment is instant. After that it has to take the same time it would take IRL to do changes
I'd hate tho to just sit there in an empty garage for this to happen. Sooo... IMO either make it complete (what we should have by now) or dont do

 

[mantasisg]

I think that about good 10k active simracers are missing in simracing, might as well interpetate that as a feature thats missing.

 

[apex11]

Other than the obvious "more realism, more features, more immersion"? The thing that i really feel is needed? would probably be a greater degree of freedom with the car, in the sense of where you can go to what can you do with it, or i dont know. Lets destroy this idea that you can change a preset of the transmission with one click away.

IRL changing any setup takes a LOT of time. Specially suspension and gear ones since they need to replace an entire gear and open up the tranny or with the suspension if you wanna change the strenght you would need new coils.

It would mean you have less time to fool around and would add a little bit of strategy more.

You can also implement realistic damage and failure, like with BeamNG having any small bump damage the front suspension, or have the engine suddenly fail during a race.

That's fine as an option you can disable though.... as someone who follows adult family members who race cars and the young kids race karts, one of the things i love the most about sim racing is the fact things can be done quickly. I don't see any joy in having it so real that if i started practice and smashed up my car so it was unfixable i'd have to miss qual and the race and wait 2 weeks till i can try again......
I'll just stick with re starting practise with a fresh race car within 2 mins thanks....!!

 

[Will Mazeo]

That's fine as an option you can disable though.... as someone who follows adult family members who race cars and the young kids race karts, one of the things i love the most about sim racing is the fact things can be done quickly. I don't see any joy in having it so real that if i started practice and smashed up my car so it was unfixable i'd have to miss qual and the race and wait 2 weeks till i can try again......
I'll just stick with re starting practise with a fresh race car within 2 mins thanks....!!

You dont need to literally wait for all that time unless you are driving online but even there you don't have to. Once a session is changed it goes from friday to saturday or same day but hours later.
For offline you could use time acceleration key. Obviously nobody is saying the game should block your car for 2 weeks.......

 

[apex11]

You dont need to literally wait for all that time unless you are driving online but even there you don't have to. Once a session is changed it goes from friday to saturday or same day but hours later.
For offline you could use time acceleration key. Obviously nobody is saying the game should block your car for 2 weeks.......

Lost in translation.... point was professional sims are used because its a lot easier than taking real cars to tracks for example.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Lost in translation.... point was professional sims are used because its a lot easier than taking real cars to tracks for example.

Exactly, key word being professionals
And they actually do that because it costs too much money to take a real car to a track, some will do only because rules dont allow them to do, if they were allowed they'd drive their cars every day lol
When is about sim racing the issue is that the racing part is not being fully implemented. We get more a driving sim that is nowhere close to a professional sim anyway

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

well, wouldn't a truly true to life sim mean i'd have to give up my daytime job? isn't part of the deal that many aspects are easier to handle than in real life? no g-forces? no 100,000 bucks to be cut out of some advertiser's wallet? no danger of misjudging one apex and paying for it for the rest of your life?

 

[Terry Rock]

Yep, and I've heard that Lotus 49 is far easier to drive in real life than what GPL and iRacing led people to believe.

Been saying that for years.
Nobody builds a race car without an emphasis on setup to make it better than the average road car.
We spend a lot of time going over suspension setup on shock dynos....best braking equipment, etc..
When I can easily put my regular, 'every-day', road going 9-3 through a corner at 50 mph, while having a 'fight' on 'cold' tires in a virtual race car at the same speed, something is very, very wrong.
VR exposes a lot of flaws in sim racing physics. You can actually now see the 'numbers' while executing a turn, etc...

 

[apex11]

Been saying that for years.
Nobody builds a race car without an emphasis on setup to make it better than the average road car.
We spend a lot of time going over suspension setup on shock dynos....best braking equipment, etc..
When I can easily put my regular, 'every-day', road going 9-3 through a corner at 50 mph, while having a 'fight' on 'cold' tires in a virtual race car at the same speed, something is very, very wrong.
VR exposes a lot of flaws in sim racing physics. You can actually now see the 'numbers' while executing a turn, etc...

Thankfully it's changing, but not totally sure the sim community is catching up as fast as you still hear "its got too much grip, its arcade"...... If that is the case then Motorsport IS arcade..
In real life you can set a car up to be loose or tight, basically loose is 'sim' tight is 'arcade', that is how daft it is....its like saying to a race driver he is a noob because he needs his car set up with balance and grip (like Jenson Button)....

 

[BenCollins]

One thing that really annoys me is sims without a rotating track map, makes learning the track unnecessarily tedious. Even F1 drivers get this using their sims before they arrive at the track, but rfactor2, GTR2, etc.etc. a rotating track map is deemed not needed.

 

[BenCollins]

How about really sensible and understandable manuals, in printable pdf format without the pretty pictures that are a waste of space and toner.
A very basic item mostly overlooked in most simulations, but essential for newbies and useful for old hands.

The Geoff Crammond GP manuals were a work of art, particularly Grand Prix 2, which explained actual race lines and the history of the circuits, above and beyond what was adequate. Grand Prix 3's manual detailed the intricates of wet racing. Fantastic.