Community Question | Damage In Sim Racing - More? Less? Enough?

[tatsu3]

Damage is essential in sim racing. Drives irl have to maintain a high level of concentration during a race. That's because one mistake can cost them the whole race. In some sim racing, however, the drivers don't care much of that and enjoy drive-bombing all the time.

 

[Nick Hill]

This is sort of a pet topic of mine.

As far as the aesthetic aspect of things, sure the more the better. I think we have near 100% agreement on that. Once the computing power is available, something like BeamNG level damage modeling in a sim would be great. At the same time, I understand the limitations involved in getting there (both in terms of computing power and developer hours).

Before I go into what I think we'll have less than 100% agreement on, let me say that I think a spectrum is good. We have a bunch of sims today with a variety of strengths and weaknesses and, within those sims, we have all sorts of sliders and toggles that allow us to tweak the gameplay to our liking. That should continue on, it's what keeps the hobby strong.

All that said, I think there is room for devs to be much harsher about damage. We have people who demand the highest fidelity physics and tire modeling known to man that will, without a hint of irony, go careening out of the pits on ice cold tires, throw the car headlong into the nearest armco, and reset to pits without a second thought. Sorry, that's way more immersion killing to me than a less-than-perfect tire model and I can't believe I'm alone on that.

I'm only dreaming here, but what if we could make a sim that really tried to replicate the real experience of what it means to operate a race car? Like in iRacing, you could be given a virtual budget that you would have to pay for your repairs, tuning, and rebuilds out of. Once that money is gone, you can't run that car the rest of the season. I guess you better race carefully. It also levels the playing field between the people who have the time/patience to run 15,000,000 practice laps before the race and the people (who I believe constitute the majority of sim racers) who maybe have an hour or two of practice time at most.

 

[passenger]

Most sim racers or sim lovers would want more realism, the more the better - hence the votes so far: 90%. BUT... if we have total realism in racing, and once seen what the model
and SHOW is, most of us would disable it, because with any error and accident we will
have to start the race all over again, which is very very annoying.

Yes, but I'm sure most people won't enable realism models much.

 

[Flavox]

More

 

[MetalMania]

My answer is "it depends". Whatever sim I'm driving, I do it for fun and I'm not training to drive a real race car. I'm all single player / offline, and I usually have medium to full damage enabled - sure it helps to keep me honest but I've never had a "wrecker" mentality anyway. Even with no damage I'd still try to be clean, because that's just how you're supposed to do it.

BUT... for me often it depends on the AI. Sometimes they're good and realistic, and I can race against them with confidence. If I screw up or there's a "racing incident", so be it and I'll live with the consequences - that stuff happens in reality all the time. But, other times they are infuriatingly bad and if I leave full damage on it's just a frustrating waste of time. Maybe that makes me a "casual" sim racer or some of you will say I'm not "sim" at all - but if it's realism we want, it's not realistic for my race to be ruined because my competitors don't acknowledge I'm even there or are so erratic no real world driver would ever behave that way.

So, sometimes in order to not cheat myself due to homicidal AI I admit I reduce damage or might even (gasp!) turn it off. But, if I do, and I still screw up myself, I actually will pit and stay there for a "guesstimated" time for my not-really-there-but-should-have-been repairs to be done.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

we need MOAR!

We need a sim where every single bolt is modeled accurately.. if you tight it too much, prepare to suffer!
We need a sim where every single piece has to be cared for and re-bought every time it breaks!
We need accurate laserscanned surfaces accurately modeled and taking into account the activity of the bacteria living there depending on the climate we live in. Moar bacteria = moar damage = moar realism = moar fun.

Anything else is arcade nonsense.

We are Simracers and we need MOAR!

 

[manu68]

One wrong shifting in grand prix legends and the race was over. Same with even the slightest contact.

I am for the maximal reality. If an idiot decides to hit me voluntary, at least his race will be as over as mine.

My experience is that more realism brings more clean racing , with more "intelligent" simracers.

 

[Caleb Lee]

yes. But games, even if simulators, have to be accessible to everyone

No, simulators are supposed to be accessible to a crowd that wants as close to a real-life experience as possible. Hand holding through different parts of racing in the name of accessibility would kill simulation. Its a niche market.

 

[Chrhun]

no brainer really, since it's called sim. I had my weekly race in the iRacing Skip Barber destroyed because an errant wheel a chap had lost some yards back smashed into the front of my Skip Barber car causing a speed loss of about 10 secs a lap. Furiously I calculated how long a magic wand repair would cost me as opposed to how long the race would still last. Did the right thing and pitted, saved about 20 secs in the process and finished 12 secs ahaead of the next chap in the end. That is the sort of realism I would always consider enjoyable.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ry3rqicsrbjr4i/wheel.png?dl=0

I have to say that I also think iRacing does this quite well. When you see a crash, you not only have to avoid other cars, you also have to pay attention to random debris like flying wheels, front splitters, wings etc which all affect your car differently if you hit them. I think that brings a lot of extra immersion and is very cool.

 

[Antony Snook]

5 lap sprints are my thing. Damage is off on my car's and seems off on the other cars. For formula one today that is quite realistic. Only 3 retirements per race which is about 200 miles in most F1 events in the real world nothing much happens is 5 laps. The cars that retire is due to low fuel. But i like a bit of carnage rather than a car parked on the side puffing smoke.

 

[roadyroad]

More damage = less agressive players (idiots) on the track.

Or more idiots going the wrong way by frustration... But automatic kicking (few seconds in the wrong way on track) is a good solution against that.

 

[roadyroad]

I remember how it felt when crashing in TOCA Race Driver 3, with deformations and parts going everywhere. It was so immersive. Maybe too fragile but not sure, modern cars are made to absorb the maximum of energy while wrecking to protect the driver. I assume the Grid series had improved this part of the game (while weakening the driving side). If Grid did it, it is not a manufacturer issue, it's a physics part which is not rightly done to make saves because it must be really hard to model and not a priority.

 

[Paranoid_Andr01d]

I recently found someone running an AC server using 500% damage, since the vanilla game is a bit lenient in that category. It's perfect. If you bump a wall in an open wheel car you're done. Forces everyone to race clean.

 

[OZ67]

Yes simulate real damage and eliminate fake penalties such as slow down for 5 sec ., safety rating points etc, Real damage externally and internally is the penalty for poor driving.

 

[mmmarac]

Or more idiots going the wrong way by frustration... But automatic kicking (few seconds in the wrong way on track) is a good solution against that.

Not sure about ACC but in AC you will get kicked out of the game after few seconds of wrong way driving. Those 1st corner, no brakes agressive drivers are worst of the worst.

 

[kevintaddo10]

Not sure about ACC but in AC you will get kicked out of the game after few seconds of wrong way driving. Those 1st corner, no brakes agressive drivers are worst of the worst.

Not exactly. Only with KMR

 

[mmmarac]

Are you sure? I’ve only seen wrong way drivers in Raceroom online lobbies. They appear as ghosts, you can drive through them.

 

[MrWaflz55]

I think Damage is one of those features that's nice to have but doesn't really affect the overall experience of a game too much either way. Ideally you're going to want to baby your car all race and avoid taking any damage to get the most out of it, so you won't even be seeing any substantial damage if you do that. Having super-realistic crashes would be cool in those once-in-a-blue-moon instances where there's a massive pileup or a huge impact with a wall, but some racing games have decent enough damage models already to look convincing in those situations. I'd much rather games focus on better VR support, more realistic weather effects, better graphics, higher framerates, improved sound, etc. over a more detailed damage model.

 

[CodyS1998]

GTR2 damage = best damage.

Proper 3D model deformation, parts fly off the car, race is over if you go headfirst into a barrier at speed, but not so finicky that you feel its unfair.

iRacing looks good too but I don't play it so I can't speak for it.

 

[stenovitz]

Well, the last decade and a half I've mostly played older sims like GTR2 and rFactor and all their mods offline (and last 5 years AC ditto), setting up series, improving AI reaction/aggression and as the simmer I've been for the last three decades ofcouse with damage ON. The damage mod in those games are OK fine, just as GP2 was for it's time when I was in my mid 20ies in the mid 90ies.
Last year I started to grow the newer sims like rF2, ACC, iRacing and PC2 (ok sim-arcade) and I'm quite astonished how little damage simulation have moved.
When I moved from rF to rF2 after 5-6 years hesitating, I felt the improved tyremodel as well as feeling the higher DoF, but the damage simulator seemed status quo, more or less.
Now I'm concentrating on ACC and the damage simulator seems to be fine (yes, entered the open lobby, behave ppl!), but was still a bit dissapointed. Don't misunderstand me, I'm a simmer and not a demolition derby outlaw, but when crashes happens I expect as of 2020 to really feel the impact.