STC BLACK CUP 2010

[Michael Hart-Jones]

For a team like ANE-Degen to take away a spot of the DMv2 place would be quite unfair if I may be so bold and state that. No offence to ANE-Degen, they are simracers in the same sense as everyone else, but most races they only had one driver and were 4+Laps off the pace, yes it s not about the speed, but we need a team that will field drivers in every single event, which DMv2 have done. Now I know I will get some "Tut tuts" for saying this but I'm sure it is on the mind of some team bosses here. For me, to take away a professional simracing team like DMv2 to replace them with a half hearted team, is unfair. Even Michael Hart-Jones says he doesn't really want to compete and is willing to step back from STC in order to staff the league. I am very sorry if I offended anybody there but I am just expressing myself. It is better to express your feelings than keep them to yourself.

Thats twisting my words a little. TBH Some of you have raced with me in other leagues and can vouch that "I" am not up the standard required to be competitive for the STC. I lack the pace at some tracks and those tracks where my times are competitive I am not consistant.

As for the team thing. I am furious with most of my team. I would not have paid for the licence, which was paid by me and not be anyone else, if I felt that others in the team would be putting in so little effort to race and stopping a better team from competing. That is why I will continue to the Black cup but the AnE-Degan team will be drastically changing its members2, and possibly name. This is the second league where my team mates have done this and I am not going to let this sully my name and demean the effort I, as a team manager, along with Lucas Degan have put into this.

 

[Massimo Martin]

I feel that until the problems are something like, "who stays out in the next black cup?", We should be happy for the long life that will have the 'STC'.
Here below some words:

1) Fewer teams.
The idea of my team mate Flavio is not discarded.
I love racing with full grid and if there were not a enough number of teams this hypothesis would be rejected.

2) Choice of cars.
I agree to don't use patches that are not fully tested.
I think we should, for once, with "feet of lead" (italian slang probably ) using ultra tested cars, no doubt. In this sense I would even for single car or otherwise limited number of cars (also 6 cars are fine).
Alternatively, to increase the fun and fighting, the leadership race from race to race could be assigned to teams faster the slower car and vice versa.

3) Time of race: it is not possible to start instead of 20 GMT to 21 GMT? Normally, in Italy at 20.00 GMT, we are with our legs under the dining room table

MM

 

[Mikko Korkiakoski]

3) Time of race: it is not possible to start instead of 20 GMT to 21 GMT? Normally, in Italy at 20.00 GMT, we are with our legs under the dining room table

Massimo, 21GMT would be 23.00 for the racers here in Finland and that is not really a good time to start a race that is 90mins long.

 

[David Garcia]

OK... I will answer you as fast and as well as possible:

MULTI SLOT PATCH: If you think the multi slot patch is not causing problems, let´s keep it and the B Teams, no problem and we will even admit one or two teams more to enter. Understand that we are looking for the most stable combination but of course it have been the MOD and SERVER responsablity almost 80%...

CARS: Sorry guys, no discussion open here. If "Greg" wants to race a wheelbarrow with Viper engine and "Patrick" a Train on hard tires we can do nothing about it, we are more than 100 driveres in that champ and everybody have a diferent idea. The decision is made.

Mike Simian put a list with 3 supposed slow cars and 3 supposed fast cars somes posts before... OK, the Ford GT was on the slow cars list and it is the seasson winner so it is OK if the last teams in standings picks a fast car and the first teams in standings picks the Lamborghini or another "supposed" slow car. Also remember how much didi that fast cars suffered on tracks as Trois Rivieres, Sugo or the non finished Mid Ohio. MOD was clearly probed to be well balanced so don´t keep with that discussion guys. :tongue:

About "fully tested" patches, we have already released a beta of the next seasson MOD, so the fact of having an satble seasson is a bit up to you, so please, TEST; TEST; TEST and then once you are finished, TEST again.

* NOTE ABOUT GALLARDO: We want to be 100% sure the MOD is stable, once it is assured we will balance again the Gallardo to fit more the other 5.

RACE TIME: Sorry, no discussion about starting hours. Again we are many people and fitting everybody is not possible.

 

[John Westerlund]

DMSv has had a great time so far in STC. With ups AND downs. (We lost the 2009 Black Cup in the final race if anyone has forgotten..)

STC is aspiring to be the very best team based championship in our time zone, if not the world. It just might be that as well.

Racing on the computer can be one of two things. Something fun to do when there is nothing better going on OR trying to emulate “real” racing as closely as possible. STC has chosen the second route with the ambition that the league shall be world class. But sometimes the signals are mixed.

This season has been riddled with problems because David and Xosé were trying to make STC even better. They could have chosen the simpler “fun racing” route, they could have settled on “same procedure as last year” but they didn't and they deserve a lot of credit and gratitude for that!

That's why it pains me to heavily criticize the proposal for next season but when I read about the proposed changes for 2010 Black it makes me so very tired.. and sad.

First, the cars..
I understand that STC has invested a lot of time and money on the current mod and that the heart is screaming to keep it. If not as the full mod at least partly. Instead of a fully diverged field use six cars. The selection is however hard to understand when the cars used by DHR, and may has caused them so many problems, is selected. Why? I originally had a long statement about the relative speed of the Lambo, but David has already stated that the problem will be addressed so fine.

Then the ever present issue of “B” teams. To me it is so disheartening after a season when a “B” team beat eight out of nine “A” teams to go to my green team and say that they (we) no longer have a place in the series. If STC is to keep it’s status as THE championship the best teams must have the chance to participate. It has in some races been too big a difference between the fastest and the slowest drivers. Sometimes it has been almost dangerously big differences. I’m all for spreading the hobby to more people but you don’t put drivers without practice in top racing series in the real world, why should we?

For DMSv it is important to involve a lot of people in our marquee series and we have had the privilege to field four cars in each race. With only two cars it is not feasible to make the investment in time and resources that we have made so far. If we are to return to STC in a two car situation it will most likely be with the same focus that some of the teams have spoken about this year. I.e. no practice, no strategies etc only in an effort to honor our license. Not because we are passionate about it!

Well, do I only whine or have I got any alternate proposals? Well, I do..
For cars we could all do some serious testing through out the summer of the entire mod to make sure that any/all bugs are squashed before the season starts. If that doesn't work we should revert to standard Evo cars, Sport or Pro, with skins. This would mean losing the tire mod and that in it self would be bad. But stability is key. This is however not the main pain for me now that David was so open on altering the relative performances.

If the multi slot patch works, fine! But if there is no way to get the multi slot patch to work I propose that the league is reduced to seven three car teams. That way the stronger teams can have the incentive to make a serious challenge for the championship crown while the smaller teams could consolidate their efforts in order to guarantee full competitive fields.

 

[Ross Balfour]

If there was a double thanks button I would press it John....

I think if we take the original mod that we have, take out the Porsche, Aston and Vertigo which seemed to be the most trouble-stricken cars, and focus on the other ones, make them completely bug free and test test test towards the new season, I think all Gunthar's hard work would go to waste which is such a shame! Or even if Gunthar isn't busy (I'm sure he will be as ever :wink: he can try to fix the errors in the bugged cars. Taking out half the cars takes out half the glory of the STC IMO.

 

[Grégory Cogotti]

MULTI SLOT PATCH: If you think the multi slot patch is not causing problems, let´s keep it and the B Teams, no problem and we will even admit one or two teams more to enter. Understand that we are looking for the most stable combination but of course it have been the MOD and SERVER responsablity almost 80%...

I'm pretty sure the Multislot patch don't work properly, because i made a WTCC race in the lobby (standard WTCC cars) a few time ago, who used 35 slots. There was many lags and warp during quali (unplayable), and at the start of the race, everyone was blocked on the grid.

After, if you have to reduce the number of the team, a prequalification system should be more appropriate, you can't made a judgement with the last overall standing, because lot of drivers were minidumped, ejected from the server and marked 0 points (remember Fernando Rees at Sugo when he was 1st...)

 

[Damian Henderson]

Nice post John, very well said.

because lot of drivers were minidumped, ejected from the server and marked 0 points (remember Fernando Rees at Sugo when he was 1st...)

Rees was not the only one who had it in good potential finishing poistions, we had it allot, roughly around 6-7 times last season, twice a driver of ours had it in the end of quali and could not even make the race, and others while racing, this stopped us from getting 2 cars to the finish a few times this season, thus making our position in the standings not where it should be due to the lack of points because of the minidumps, and other contributing factors.

Am disappointed to hear that the mod cars is a none discussion if am honest, and am quite surprised that last seasons mod was chosen for next season (Just cut down) And because of the section of cars, because as Mike & John said, we in the Aston & Porsche had allot of minidumps on race day, more then any other team come the race events.
We never got them in testing, only on race day, so it's quite hard to find a problem with the cars you can't recreate in testing.

 

[Massimo Martin]

Massimo, 21GMT would be 23.00 for the racers here in Finland and that is not really a good time to start a race that is 90mins long.

:eek: oh yes...

 

[David Garcia]

The multi slot patch use will be up to you, specially up to the B teams. If you think it is causing no issues we wil use it (John, I suppose all your post was made same time I was writning my previous mine).

We did even thought running up a second division while we wait for rFactor 2 or GTR3, that would be a nice solution to avoid using the multi slot patch IMO and keeping all the teams... but we don´t have the capacity to manage it.

It looks that I am continuosly doing a mistake considering B teams as expendable. I admit it is my mistake and I ask for being excused. So B teams disucssion is closed they are like any other team on the series and they have to stay.

About the cars. I think ALL the cars on the field had minidumps, tell me please wich ones didn´t. Mustang had some, Corvette had some, Mosler had some, Ultima had some, Porsche and Aston had some, Vertigo and Scirocco had some... please don´t ask why I choosed that 6 models for the nestx seasson MOD, you know something was wrong in the MOD and there is no way to know if it was the texture name of the cockpit of the Scirocco or a missing file on the wheels of the Ultima... it would need months to detect and fix it, possibly there is one single file causing it all to the rest of cars. If the use of the MOD is up to that, we will not use it anymore, but as we don´t know where to look at for the problem and we want to solve it, reducing the MOD car amount to only 30% is a good solution to start. This is the reason why I will accept no discussion on it. The selected cars will make the series very atractive amyway.

If this cut on the original MOD is dramatic for someone, it is for me... Anyway if we manage to have an stable 6 cars MOD this seasson we can attemp adding some more next one, and step by step recover and keep updated wich I think was the most ambitious MOD project for a Sim Racing league.

The K thing is, TESTING instead of talking (me included ). I will set up a a couple of test races next weeks but by the way you can start doing laps if you want. I don´t want to remember you that in the last test race we made in our seek to solve some server problems only 9 persons showed up... ...so please if your will is trully having a nice next seasson you know what to do. We need usefull testing.

Thanks all for your comments, wether we agree or not, we can take some really constructive and helpfull parts of them.

Remember a TEST SERVER IS ALREADY UP with the new MOD...

 

[John Westerlund]

Thanks David!

We started our testserver on friday and were 7 (i think) people testing last night

As I stated in my previous post I know that cutting back or loosing the mod all together is hard for you to do and I applaud that you are willing
to take this step!

We will do all we can in aiding you in finding the cause of the problems!

I really hope a lot of driver are willing and available to participate in the test races. Last time it was pretty much a DMS/PjD shootout

 

[David Garcia]

Remember aswell we need to improve too the tyre mod, so some feedback about it will be really appreciated. BUT, (there is a BUT always) remember the current TYR file on the released MOD have been already worked and HARD tyres are supposed to bhave a longer life and a bit less grip.

Please check it aswell.

 

[Mike Simian]

I don't really know what to say to be honest. Its still dumping alot, isn't this all just a bit too much trouble? You can bypass all this, theres no need to spend all this time trying to find the problem with the mod (which I dare say we won't be able to). Theres no point me repeating myself, and I really have been trying to be positive but I'm shocked we are here talking about using the mod that caused so many problems last season.

 

[David Garcia]

Yeah, if there is is a first attempt of test and we already have dumps... don´t really know what to say aswell.

Xosé and me had already a B plan, and I will coment more about it later.

 

[Tom Ilsbroux]

Agree with mike, its not worth it. Lets take Standard GT sport, or even better GT pro as its something new. I am all for mods, but if you run into problem you better stick to standard content. Yes tyers could be the main issue, last season with some mod cars added worked fine. We had the porsche back then, which i think is the same as DHR had apart from handling/engine, and it wasn't a problem. So could be the tyers are an issue. But thing is you don't know, there will be always doubts remaining, first guys getting a minidump will point the finger at the mod while it could be the game., therefore stick to the game.

Also why did we get minidumps almost every single time starting a practice race. Only difference is fewer cars on the grid, only 2 types. So could tunning down the number of cars, cause even more problems ?

 

[David Garcia]

No standard cars Tom, I think I already mentioned that. It is BORING and a step backwards in my opinion.

Exclusivity is always good and will make us better and speciall from other "standard" series.

 

[Damian Henderson]

I think using standard cars is a big step forward at this point, and could be what the series needs. GT Pro is a very high quality class with a big selection of cars, it's for sure not a step backwards at all. In my opinion when STC had this class it produced the best races we have seen here.

 

[Mike Simian]

I'm sorry but after this season standard cars are a step forwards, if there is a repeat of the problems we had last time well I don't know what would happen but it wouldn't a good thing.

 

[David Garcia]

I could quote my own post above, but I wont. :tongue: A step forward will be having no issues.

 

[Mikko Korkiakoski]

I'm sorry but I don't agree at all with that David. Standard cars are NOT boring at all. We have had the best races with the standard cars...including the Porsche last season. If you ask me having stability is far more important than having exclusive cars/mods. It seems some people don't really understand how much **** the mod caused some teams this season. To me the best format so far has been running GT Pro's and Sport's every other race and that is what we should do again imo. I mean this is after all a TEAM championship so we should be after the best team in general. Having 2 different classes would make the overall champion the absolute best GT team. Also as this is a TEAM championship I cannot agree with the fact that other teams are forced to pick worse cars than other teams. This is not equal and therefore does not determine how good a team really is.