RSRBR2011 - Realistic vs Reduced damage??

[Warren Dawes]

I would appreciate some feedback from more experienced users of RSRBR2011 re the damage level settings.

I have read the RBR manual about damage settings, which says that Reduced has medium mechanical faults and Realistic has full mechanical faults. The differences are obvious in an off-line Championship in the base RBR where Services reflect the time to repair the car.

However, I'm not sure what the scale of difference is in RSRB2011.
I have been doing a lot of testing for a possible up-coming RD Club Rally using Realistic damage instead of our usual Reduced. To be totally honest, I can't detect any difference. Maybe my driving style is not hard enough on the car, but I have tried to abuse it (over-revving on downshift, hitting roadside objects, etc), but nothing is obviously different.
I've only tried it in RSRBR2011 Off-line mode, and driving single Stages (but tried short ones, long ones, different surfaces, weather etc).
Does it have more impact over a longer driving period, ie. only over multiple Stages using cumulative damage?
Are the differences only minor (I expected it to be significant)?
Has the physics in RSRBR2011 eliminated any difference between Reduced and Realistic?
Does the difference only show in On-Line Rallys?

Hopefully, someone more experienced with using RSRBR2011 on-line can explain what the differences are and how much more severe Realistic is.

 

[Aaron DeMarre]

Those are all very good questions, now I am very curious to the answers.

I used to think the damage could be based on the car itself, however I just went thru the physics files for a car and I can't spot anything that looks at all like damage factors for the car. But it definitely feels like some cars (like WRC cars) are more fragile than others.

My assumption was that reduced still allowed you to damage all parts of a car, but it takes more force to break the parts than on realistic. However I have had some very small collisions result in broken rads and stuck gearboxes on reduced.

Also I read at some point (can't find it now) that there was some trickery that needed to happen to get cumulative damage across stages. Basically the damage info is taken out of memory at the end of a stage, then restored at the beginning of the next stage. However there is some weirdness there for sure, for example if you break the radiator you can go somewhere between 5-7km without blowing up the motor at max temp. When you start the next stage, it resets this engine wear timer and you can keep going stage after stage as long as it is less than 5km.

Also gearbox damage is strange too, if you get stuck in a gear and finish a stage, the next stage you will be unstuck but the damage will be like a broken axle or diff. This one might be by design since you always start the stage in neutral.

 

[Rick Bamford]

I used to think the damage could be based on the car itself, however I just went thru the physics files for a car and I can't spot anything that looks at all like damage factors for the car. But it definitely feels like some cars (like WRC cars) are more fragile than others.

I used to play with ONLY realistic damage and I have to say I have never noticed a difference between cars with some being more fragile. I am not saying that I am RIGHT, but I have never noticed it.

My assumption was that reduced still allowed you to damage all parts of a car, but it takes more force to break the parts than on realistic. However I have had some very small collisions result in broken rads and stuck gearboxes on reduced.

I have just writen a very long responce to this before i had an idea. I am still to test it but I think I might be right.

On reduced damage we only ever seam to have certain things in the way of damage. eg, gearboxs locked in gear, the damage is limited to one level. In realistic you have a number levels of damage.

The gear box can start to loose gears - Each time you select a gear the car revs and you go no where, this then makes the next gear fail after time as you are putting more pressure on it.
The clutch can be damaged - Each time you change gear the engine revs and you get only a small amount of drive. You have to be very careful about the amount of throttle you use.
The gear box can become stuck in gear - You know what this is like.
And i think you can just loose all drive. You can select all gears but you go nowhere. Gexbox is gone.

I would suggest that this means the game takes away the first few levels of damage on reduced damage. This is why when you have a mechanical failure is just fails rather than reducing your performance over time. Damage also (on reduced or realistic) is accumulated DURING a stage, so if you crash once and nothing breaks you should be carefull because next time you hit something you might loose the gearbox. This might be what is happening with the SMALL accidents people are having that kill cars, it is damage from the whole stage catching up with you. This means that when you have a minor accident the damage that would have made you start to loose gears or have a cluth issue becomes a number in the memory. Next time you hit something that number gets bigger and then.............DNF.

Just an idea and maybe an overly simple way to look at it but it might explain it.

Also I read at some point (can't find it now) that there was some trickery that needed to happen to get cumulative damage across stages. Basically the damage info is taken out of memory at the end of a stage, then restored at the beginning of the next stage. However there is some weirdness there for sure, for example if you break the radiator you can go somewhere between 5-7km without blowing up the motor at max temp. When you start the next stage, it resets this engine wear timer and you can keep going stage after stage as long as it is less than 5km.

Also gearbox damage is strange too, if you get stuck in a gear and finish a stage, the next stage you will be unstuck but the damage will be like a broken axle or diff. This one might be by design since you always start the stage in neutral.

No idea on this one but it could be right.

 

[WorkerBee]

To clarify the issues related to car damage:

There is no difference in the fragility of cars, all cars suffer the same damage. Of course, for example, FWDs have no rear and central diffs and no associated shafts.

The game sets an internal damage impact based on the settings: this factor is 0.7 for reduced and 1.0 for realistic. I think it was 0.4 for safe.
This factor is being used to calculate the damage produced for all damage events regardless of the part(s) being involved.

So any damage event on reduced causes 30% less damage on the part than on realistic.

Each part (maybe have a look into the repair.ini file of the car) remembers its own damage value or wear (tyres, bodywork) or remaining capacity (battery, head gasket) during the stage.

Depending on the part, this damage leads to more or less performance penalties. For example the head gasket is very sensitive, I think it was 97% or 98% capacity to get light damage, 95% for medium damage.

A remarkable issue of the standard RBR car repair logic is that on realistic damage the body work is not being repaired to 100%. There is still 15% damage left.

I do not know how the RSRBR guys do the repair. Cumulative damage is one thing, but repair is of course still another one. Is there a service park ??

 

[Warren Dawes]

To clarify the issues related to car damage:

There is no difference in the fragility of cars, all cars suffer the same damage. Of course, for example, FWDs have no rear and central diffs and no associated shafts.

The game sets an internal damage impact based on the settings: this factor is 0.7 for reduced and 1.0 for realistic. I think it was 0.4 for safe.
This factor is being used to calculate the damage produced for all damage events regardless of the part(s) being involved.

So any damage event on reduced causes 30% less damage on the part than on realistic.

Each part (maybe have a look into the repair.ini file of the car) remembers its own damage value or wear (tyres, bodywork) or remaining capacity (battery, head gasket) during the stage.

Depending on the part, this damage leads to more or less performance penalties. For example the head gasket is very sensitive, I think it was 97% or 98% capacity to get light damage, 95% for medium damage.

A remarkable issue of the standard RBR car repair logic is that on realistic damage the body work is not being repaired to 100%. There is still 15% damage left.

I do not know how the RSRBR guys do the repair. Cumulative damage is one thing, but repair is of course still another one. Is there a service park ??

Thanks for this WorkerBee, that all makes sense, and can be seen when playing the base RBR Championship mode when you get to the Service Park and see the times allocated to the various repairs.
My concern though, is that I'm not sure if, or how, that translates to on-line Rallys using RSRBR2011.

I guess we'll have to just start testing it and see what we find. I'm still not finding any noticeable differences in my testing, but it's not easy to compare. Light crashes don't seem any more sensitive, but if I hit an object harder, I get damage (of course) but then it is also happening to the same extent in reduced mode. Abusing the car with excessive revving etc hasn't caused me any problems yet.

We are going to run a few Realistic Rallys in our Rally Club (starting next week), hopefully that may enlighten us some more.

 

[Warren Dawes]

Now that we have run our first Test Rally using Realistic Damage (The Full Monte), I would like everyone to continue to provide their feedback on the Damage Modelling here, rather than in the Club Rally Thread.

Could all drivers who have participated in this rally (or any future Test Rally we organise) please continue to give feedback in this thread. That way, we can keep all the info together.

In the next post, I will attempt to copy the relevant comments from the "Full Monte" thread.

 

[Warren Dawes]

Here are the first set of feedback comments:

Wow, I just ran a practice session; not pretty.

I guess Warren may not have noticed much difference because he's one of the top-line drivers that doesn't make many mistakes. But for someone like me, all the usual oopsies that you can just about get away with are gone. Going to be seeing a lot of DEAD ENGINE and red ink.

Should be amusing stuff. umpkin:

well, Waren was asking - how specifically is realistic damage different? well, I rejoined after kicked 1st stage and so far made other 2 with 100% of DNF... I have answer for you - in everything! I only lightly touched the outside barrier with my bottom - steering out, then light bump into a tree - smoke, couldnt restart the car the same for the third stage

The most idiotic rally I run so far ,

Start with the same probl "not conect etc"start the ss over but not online, start SS2 Retire, start SS3 Retire-start SS4 Finis yes!
start SS5 Retire-start SS6 Retire-start SS7 Retire-start SS8 FINIS but lost engine with 900 mtr.to go,free wheel down hill to the fin an faster then SS4 LOL..

Not a great success that Realistic damage for me than!!

Don´t no if I thank you for this but I do,Thanks Warren great experience ha ha

Yow!

Managed to bag 2nd in session, assuming Dudo is toast in the wrong car (unlucky mate).
Actual thing went way better than pre-session practice, 1/8 vs 5/8 - and I dropped one due to the bug.

Enjoyable stuff, though even more stressful than usual.

As I mentioned previously, a move to realistic damage is a significant difference for drivers who are accustomed to a number of spills over an event. Anything that you can normally get away with, with a lost front bumper or an overheating engine usually ends in absolute and instant death. The one stage where I did get a blown radiator it only drove about another mile.

I totally appreciate the challenge though, nothing quite focuses the mind like the conditions we had this evening - and I may switch to realistic for RDRC practice. :bomb:

That said, I think any sudden move to realistic will kill the experience for a lot of drivers. It's a huge step up and will kill participation from people coming to RBR for the first time. Occasional rallies, definitely a good thing though. I always say, variety = good.

Using it in RDRC will definitely stop it being a championship open to everyone.

Everything said, much entertainment, cheers Warren.

overall a great night out with the boys, thx all for turning up (too bad there was so much red ink), the realistic damage is great because it is - wait for it - realistic: you just lean slightly into a wall to slow the car down because you misjudged the approach to a turn and - bang - you're saddled with a seriously bent axle for the rest of the stage. Now who in real life would lean into a wall with any car? really like it.

I totally agree. The damage set to realistic, especially in these conditions, made me think about every move I would make earlier so my stages were pretty clean. Coz one little mistake and your out and the car dead.

Some things I forgot to mansion,

Second I have run al most all the stages offline with Realistic dam.having less trouble when I hit something than on line? Imagination?

 

[Warren Dawes]

Some more comments:

My thoughts about realistic damage.

1 hour before the start of the rally, i tested both cars on ss1, 2 passes in each. And had very similar thoughts to Warren, not much difference as i went ( lightly ) into some barriers, the damage received was only slightly more then it would had been with reduced.
On ss2 i didn't hit anything, ss3 still enjoying myself i hit this little tree on right hand bend, 80% down the stage. It wasn't very hard at all, but the engine was dead. Ok, i thought, this is realistic damage and i can't expect to get away with broken radiator or gearbox. A bit hash imo, but i could accept that. ss4 started very well and i was still enjoying myself, but with this cloud over my head, i NEED to stay clean. 90% over and i went into a tight right out of shape and hit a post with 5!!! km\h on my clock, engine dead. Thats not what i was expecting at all. Very unrealistic. ss5 comes and the fun is totally gone, replaced with caution. I still push and get the car to roll, when it comes back to track after CFH i expect a wreck. Another surprise, no major damage. The car feels very lose and on edge but drivable, i think i would have got worse ( or at least similar ) damage with reduced. I continue and got head on with a post near the end, not hard but not very light either. And guess what, i only got radiator damaged and could finish the stage.
ss6- light hit small tree at the very beginning, engine dead
ss7 - i,m thinking of quitting, very 1st time in my RBR carrier, but continue, no fun
ss8 - 50% down, tree again, engine dead

Out of 7 stages i run, i didnt finished 4. This hasn't happened to me in a long time. I didn't pushed to hard or was over aggressive with the car, in contrary, i really calmed down and understand how to drive in this game lately. Almost all my rallies were 100% finishes in the last few months. I think there is a problem with the realistic damage, IT IS NOT REALISTIC AT ALL TIMES, only sometimes. Its like a lottery to me.

I would recommend not to use it in the club rallies, its suppose to be fun, and realistic kills it imo. As for the championship, well, it would definitely put it on another level. Just to finish with cumulative realistic damage you would either need; a lot of practice or a very very cautious drive. Not fun. If we were ever to use realistic it would have to be only for the top class, as an extra challenge. But i still wouldn't like to see it.

Summary.
The realistic damage is to inconsistent imo, if you are a very clean driver you may get away with it for some time, until that little tree or post will reminds you of it. Its only for those who know the stages by heart, not for the casual player. I,m sure the red ink will back up my words.

http://www.speedyshare.com/files/28146284/R_ss5.rpl

This is my replay from ss5, with the big roll and head on post later, i shouldn't finished this stage at all if you could see how lightly i damaged the car in the stages i didn't finish ( no replay from those obviously ). Have a look Warren, you will see what i mean by saying this is UNREALISTIC ( inconsistent ).

Big GL to those still to run lol.

Looks like we might have two issues to investigate here, The Start Up glitch, and the Realistic Damage modelling.

Realistic damage: Keep the feedback coming, it will be helpful. I still didn't notice any major diferences to Reduced during our brief on-line test with Al. I wrecked the car in Ss02, but that would have happened in Reduced as well. However, I have since noticed some wheel wobbling after bumping the banks or guard rails, this seemed more sensitive than Reduced. Unfortunately, due to lack of feedback from experienced RBR guys, we can only find out the effects by testing this way. I'd like to test it again using a gravel Rally, maybe Monte Carlo is too slippery anyway.

Sorry to those who had problems and didn't enjoy this one.

Dariusz, this is where it becomes difficult to compare. eg. I did exactly the same thing in the last RDRC Round, gently nudged a tree going extremely slowly, and it killed the engine. And that was using Reduced damage. Seb and others reported similar things but were able to restart the car (I couldn't).
Getting a meaningful understanding of the differences between realistic and reduced is not going to be easy.

No Warren, i know of the gentle taps you may get your engine killed by in reduced damage, but what i've experienced is different.
I may get engine dead like 1 in a 50 with reduced, not 3 out of 3. We are talking about such a little taps i shouldn't even get the splitter off. If i did that in real, i would have dent in my front bumper, nothing else. Very unrealistic. I really really hope you are not thinking about introducing realistic damage to club rallying, it would get many many people off rallying imo ( especially new ). Club rally should be about having fun first and foremost, i can't relax and have fun when i know the slightest of front end touches will most likely end my rally. But again, this is only my opinion.

If i have to fully honest, i even think safe damage would have been good for the rally club ( for some at least ). Looking from a distance at my RBR beginnings, i was always looking for rallies with safe damage to join, as it would more\less guaranteed that i can finish. Don't get me wrong, i,m not asking for it to be changed, i,m very comfortable with reduced and i wouldn't drive any different ( read: more risky ) with safe. It really doesn't matter to me tbh. But the new guy may get more comfortable ( read: more fun ) knowing he can experiment ( learn ) with the car and track, without the dreadful dnf hanging above. I know there are two sides to a coin, and many of you would oppose such a move, and i think i would too lol. I did learn from all those crashes, frustrating as they where .

Well, that was a mixed bag, but not for the expected reasons. I drove very well and didn't hit anything, so the realistic damage didn't affect me.

I can't comment much on the Realistic damage comparison, I didn't hit anything, lol. However, Realistic seems to suit my driving style though, I always drive as though I own the car and pay the repair bills anyway.

Realistic damage was quite weird. There was no middle ground, either a normal drive to the end, or an immediate retirement.

One stage, bumping into everything, car fine. Another stage, catch the wooden fence with the side of the car, all over.

Yeah those damn wooden fences have a tendancy of killing the car good, espesialy when your tail hits first and it swings the front of the car into the next post

well was a good rally for me anyways, not sure how i did all in all because i think i ran most the stages before other did and didnt get to see how scores were, but finished every stage (except SS1 of course) and did alot better than i did in practice!

 

[Warren Dawes]

And finally these comments bring us up to date.

Well I thoroughly enjoyed that for my first ever Club rally ..............................I really enjoyed the realistic damage as being my first event I didn't know any different and it makes it even for me against the experienced drivers as being a newbie I don't know with reduced damage which banks I can safely bounce it off but by using realistic this way we are all on a level playing field starting with something new.

It's also better as its as real as driving my real rally car as the last thing I want to do in that is have even a slight tap, the last one cost me over 10k in repairs :frown:

totaly agree with you there, i didnt enjoy this rally the concentration needed to not hit anything and at times having to drive so slow it just wasent any fun.

I am even though up for more realistic club rallies as a test for RDRC

Thats exactly my point.

It actually polarise the field even further, to those who know the stages very well and can push ( hardcore RBR players ), and to those who don't know ( casual players ) and have to slow down just to have a chance to finish.

SS2 I hit one of the wooden fences and ended my rally. SS3, SS4, and SS5 I had gentle offs that resulted in retirements. I've had a few of those same kinds of offs during practice last week and only a few times did it every end my rally. I got frustrated and quit(don't tell anyone). Even though it wasn't a good rally for me I still enjoyed it and the realistic damage model.

Maybe we should have this whole Realistic vs Reduced discussion in a separate thread, rather than restrict it to only this one, where it may get lost.
However a couple of initial thoughts of mine.

1. This was the first test run using Realistic Damage, and maybe a Monte Carlo Rally was too tough for the first test. This was a very tricky one, with slippery surfaces, so easy to bump things. But I wanted to see if that would identify differences more quickly.
Before we pass final judgements, I thinik we need to try a couple more using Gravel and (maybe) Snow.

2. Re the suggestion that drivers have to slow down too much to avoid crashing, and making it unfair for some. That probably is realistic, most real drivers have to do that. Maybe we are allowing people to develop bad habits??? What is considered driving fast vs slow is subjective. You should be driving as fast as you can to suit the conditions but keep the car alive. Daruisz says it favours the hard core guys, I think it favours the drivers who respect the car / conditions. It is also frustrating for some of us to see some "fast" guys bouncing off walls, banks, etc, rolling the car, and still being winners or podium finishers. For example, I have always driven as if I own the car, and therefore have always tried to keep it clean, even when we have used Reduced. This was my first rally in Realistic, I didn't drive any differently, didn't hit anything, and I think my Stage times were very similar to normal. I'm certainly not an "alien", but I do try to drive cleanly and consistently.
I'm sure there are others here who drive similarly and can handle Realistic ok.

3. Maybe we need to stop people developing bad driving habits, and encourage them to drive more cleanly, rather than thinking that bouncing off walls etc is good driving?

4. Having said the above, I'm sure that it may be less FUN for some. It certainly raises the learning curve for new comers. RBR is tough enough to start with, Realistic Damage may make that curve too steep, and deter new members, even existing ones.


I have no plans to introduce Realistic Damage for ALL future events. However, it is an option that maybe we can use occasionally, for variety, especially if it mixes up the results a little more and gives the "clean" drivers more of a chance.
It is certainly being considered by the RDRC Team for possible future Championships, so we need to give it a good testing to see how much of an affect it may have.

This was the first time for many of us using Realistic Damage (including me), so perhaps we need to keep an open mind at this point of time, and lets see how it goes after a couple more Tests on other surfaces.

I will, later, start a new Forum thread for this topic, and will copy relevant posts from here to that one. Then we can continue this topic over a longer time period as we try more tests.

 

[Warren Dawes]

Feel free to continue this discusion, or add your feedback based on any future Realistic Rally Tests that we may run.

 

[Alastair Walker]

I have to agree with Warren,

It is unrealistic to think that you can bounce off of banks, Armco, fences etc and finish a rally, especially on the podium.

Everyone on here I have spoken to raves about how RBR is a SIMULATION and the nearest thing to real rallying, well as someone who competes in real rallies I can tell you that the last thing you do is try and use the banks, Armco and fences to go quicker because if you do your rally is 99% of the time over for that day.

As an example have a look at the off in the video below into the Armco that we had in last years Targa Wrest Point rally in Tasmania. This was a left one hairpin so we were in the process of slowing dramatically for the corner and the ABS unit failed going into the the hairpin so I had reduced braking and pushed into the Armco.

This off is comparable to what I have seen people doing to the Armco in reduced damage mode in the RBR videos I have watched and they happily keep driving. The below off cost us a top ten finish in a field of 200 cars and over $10,000 in repairs bills so I can absolutely confirm that NO ONE in real rallies uses banks, Armco or fences as a means to go faster with the possible exception of a full snow rally and even then it is probably only team drivers who don't pay for their own cars.

The crash is at 5:16 into the stage for those who don't want to watch the whole thing

Finally regarding point 4 in your post, personally as a new comer I actually think using realistic damage in the rallies makes it fairer for a new comer to compete on a level playing field as they are going to be naturally cautious and drive to the conditions and the stage as they don't know the "tricks" of reduced damage of which banks, Armco and fences are safe to bounce off of and which aren't.

Just My $0.02 on the matter.

Cheers Al

 

[Dariusz Swiderski]

It seems i didn't explain myself clearly enough. I see the whole discussion is going down to how one drives and the consequences of it in realistic damage mode. I can only speak of myself but i,m sure this will be true for the vast majority of the drivers. When i drive in RBR, i do it as a simulation, means i NEVER use banks, barriers or ANY other objects in the game ( we're taking about impacts ). I never even realized you can use it to your advantage as any contact with track side object will ( ? ) slow you down in my understanding. Even if bouncing of objects will give you an advantage, the risk of getting damage is simply not worth the extra 1 sec you may gain ( maybe ( ? ) with safe or off damage mode ). M,i wrong with this assumption? Have i been missing some party tricks with RBR?

I,m NOT against realistic damage, far from it. I want my drive to be as real as i can get it to be. And i like some of the realistic damage model. But there is a problem with it, front end. You have to agree, it is weird, right? Often the same impact will give you very different damage, like gearbox with its variations or radiator or engine. You just never know what you're going to get. Lottery. With being on realistic this gets amplified. If you ever got the engine dead with light front end impact on reduced, it was something like 1 in 20, lets say. On realistic this bug gets you 8 out of 10 times. I don't want the number discussion on this, i,m only making a point.

In my 4 dnf's in the last rally, 3 were very very light front end impacts, with NO ( i mean 100% clean drive until the crash ) previous brush of any kind. My car was 100% damage free when very low speed front end crash resulted in dead engine. I hold my driving licence since 1983, i earn my living from behind the wheel, i know what kind of damage you may get with low speed impacts. What i got was well exaggerated. Not real.

ALL i,m saying; there is a bug with RBR front end damage model which gets amplified in realistic mode. It doesn't matter where, what surface or what weather we run, the end result will be the same if you make this one small mistake by getting your front end to connect with anything. There is nothing more to test imo.

I hope i made my point clear this time.

 

[Norman Biscuits]

Any offs I'm having during a stage aren't an attempt to wall-ride myself an advantage but just down to sheer lack of skill/competence/preparation. If the damage model punishes me for that, fair enough.

I'm now using realistic as my default damage setting for Round 6 testing. A tough love gesture in an attempt to make me keep the car on the good stuff.

 

[Rick Bamford]

I,m NOT against realistic damage, far from it. I want my drive to be as real as i can get it to be. And i like some of the realistic damage model. But there is a problem with it, front end. You have to agree, it is weird, right? Often the same impact will give you very different damage, like gearbox with its variations or radiator or engine. You just never know what you're going to get. Lottery. With being on realistic this gets amplified. If you ever got the engine dead with light front end impact on reduced, it was something like 1 in 20, lets say. On realistic this bug gets you 8 out of 10 times. I don't want the number discussion on this, i,m only making a point.

In my 4 dnf's in the last rally, 3 were very very light front end impacts, with NO ( i mean 100% clean drive until the crash ) previous brush of any kind. My car was 100% damage free when very low speed front end crash resulted in dead engine. I hold my driving licence since 1983, i earn my living from behind the wheel, i know what kind of damage you may get with low speed impacts. What i got was well exaggerated. Not real.

You made your point clear Dariusz. I May have only had my licence since 1993, but i also earn my living behind the wheel and have 20 years of rally experience and i think you are completely wrong, or at least i have NEVER seen this issue.

Any crash I have had, in any car in RBR i have always felt the damage, even dead engines were fair or UNDER exaggerated. I have been able to drive away from accidents i thought should have stopped me, but never have I thought an accident gave me too much damage.

ALL i,m saying; there is a bug with RBR front end damage model which gets amplified in realistic mode. It doesn't matter where, what surface or what weather we run, the end result will be the same if you make this one small mistake by getting your front end to connect with anything. There is nothing more to test imo.

There is NO bug IMO. The damage model works well on realistic with no bugs or strange effects. The only issue is what i said before, it is not sensitive enough.

 

[Rick Bamford]

Just re-read my last post......................:eek:

OK, the discussion is starting to get a little angry here, (I am to blame as much as anyone for that). I think, Dariusz, the issue here is you have found something that you consider a bug, but others like myself and Alastair simply can't see it. You can't convince us of something we don't see and we can't convince you everything is ok.

We can go round and round in circles fighting here and I am sure none of us want to have serious arguments that lead to people leaving the site and worse the game. While some of us enjoy realistic damage most of the RallyClub runs with reduced. Maybe Warren can throw in a realistic damage rally every now and then (maybe with big warnings for anyone new to the game) so it keeps us all happy

Instead of trying to tell each other here what realistic damage is like, each driver should find out for him or herself. So here is what any driver needs to know if they are using realistic damage in an RBR on-line rally.....................

On realistic damage you have to avoid EVERYTHING. One little tap can end your rally so DON'T MAKE MISTAKES, even small ones!!!!!. Wether it is unrealistic or not or wether you agree it is correct, it is a fact in realistic damage.

BTW Al, nice vid

 

[Warren Dawes]

Even if bouncing of objects will give you an advantage, the risk of getting damage is simply not worth the extra 1 sec you may gain ( maybe ( ? ) with safe or off damage mode ). M,i wrong with this assumption? Have i been missing some party tricks with RBR?

No Daruisz, you're not missing any party tricks or missing any advantages. (Not to my knowledge anyway).

I'll try to explain my comment better.
Rally Driving is a delicate balance between aggression/speed and risk, where the risks are dangerous and the penalties are severe. The driver must run that risk to a fine line, knowing that a mistake can be final. RBR is similar.
We all need to find the limits of our speed / aggression but keep the car clean. If a driver can push harder, knowing, that if he hits something, rides a barrier, runs off the road etc, he probably will get away with it, then he pushes harder, beyond what he would do if he knew the risks were more severe. That is where some can get an advantage over another driver who is driving a little safer.

I guess my comment results from people saying that Realistic damage is unacceptabe because they have to drive slower or more carefully. Well, that is real life I'm afraid, but it doesn't mean they are taking a "sunday drive", and therefore it is no longer fun.

And yes, I have seen video's of drivers who have won, or been on the podium, after driving very aggressively, often out of control, crashing / rolling, but getting away with it. Lucky, yep, but not very realistic.

I'm still not sure of the differences with Realistic vs Reduced though, it does seem a bit variable to me. Some of the DNF's caused in this rally may still have been DNF's in Reduced. I agree, the damage modelling in reduced seems variable and inconsistent to me too.
At least by trying Realistic, we might learn more about it. We need to try it more yet, to get a better idea .
I think many drivers will quickly adapt to driving more carefully too, especially if the bad habits (driving overly hard) don't get in-grained.


Oops, I posted this while Rick did his post. I hadn't seen his when I did mine.

 

[Alastair Walker]

BTW Al, nice vid

Thanks Rick,

Not to take this thread off topic but.....

I hate that vid for obvious reasons If you want to see one I like have a look at the Sideling vid from Targa Tasmania 2010, I catch and pass two cars on stage (making up 60 seconds) then around 3 k from the finish I lose the clutch slave cylinder and they still don't re catch me

http://www.youtube.com/user/WalkerMsport
or links from our website
http://www.walkermotorsport.com.au/

Cheers Al

 

[Dariusz Swiderski]

I guess my comment results from people saying that Realistic damage is unacceptabe because they have to drive slower or more carefully. Well, that is real life I'm afraid, but it doesn't mean they are taking a "sunday drive", and therefore it is no longer fun.

I didn't explain myself clearly enough on the fun factor too, it seems lol. Its not a fun when you make 80% of the stage not touching anything and then one little tap gets you DNF. Frustrating and not real. That means you can't relax and have fun knowing you can't make ANY mistakes. So thats where the knowledge of the stages comes into play. If you know the stage well, you CAN relax and have fun, it won't impact on your overall time too.

I think, Dariusz, the issue here is you have found something that you consider a bug, but others like myself and Alastair simply can't see it. You can't convince us of something we don't see and we can't convince you everything is ok.

No offence to Alastair, but there is no weight behind it, too little experience with the game damage model imo. As for you Rick, why don't you purposely test it for this bug of my? Just head for the nearest tree\post\ect at the start of a stage with what you would consider survivable speed of impact. And repeat that a few times. I wish there was a way of saving replays when you can't drive anymore, but there isn't.

On realistic damage you have to avoid EVERYTHING. One little tap can end your rally so DON'T MAKE MISTAKES, even small ones

Is that realistic I thought we want to make the experience as real as it can get..what i mean by that is, if you do make a mistake in real life and front end something it doesn't mean your rally is finished ( it may happen ), NOT that you shouldn't drive without making any mistakes, you certainly should.

 

[John Cunningham]

heres my 2 cents:

Theres a lot of talk about comparing rbr to the real thing, and correctly people mention about if it was real they wouldnt use banks etc cos it would wreck their real rally and cost too much. I would just like to point out that if it was real I would be competeing in on a pair of roller skates. (Thats about all I could afford! I actually have a mk2 escort in my garage with a lovely new 2lt pinto beside it readie to go in, but thats how it has sat for 2 yrs, and prob will for a nother 2).

Personally I am all up for full real settings.... but.... I am concerned that for a complete newbie to try a first go at rbr on full real it may be very off putting, and I think encouraging new people to join in is very important.

For that reason the idea that only some of the club meetings are full real (Maybe 50/50) seems like a good compromise, this allows new peeps to enjoy their first foray into the rbr world, plus keeps the rest of us on our toes.

jc

 

[Warren Dawes]

Personally I am all up for full real settings.... but.... I am concerned that for a complete newbie to try a first go at rbr on full real it may be very off putting, and I think encouraging new people to join in is very important.

For that reason the idea that only some of the club meetings are full real (Maybe 50/50) seems like a good compromise, this allows new peeps to enjoy their first foray into the rbr world, plus keeps the rest of us on our toes.

Well said John, and for that reason, I have never intended for Realistic damage to be used for all Club Rallys. In fact I think we will only be running Realistic in Club Events about 20 to 25% at most.