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

[DriveClubMaster]

Well why not include all as option, from no damage up to fully insanely realistic damage.

 

[Will Mazeo]

More realistic and people could make a fairplay races, the most important part is simracing must simulate engine damages in accident, most of games simulates bodywork and suspension but never engine parts like radiator, so if you damage bodywork you still can race but never if you blow your engine on an incident.
Another part is tyres, must be have puncture if you damage some parts near them, or sometimes affect rims, so you'll must tyre puncture, and this 2 things you'll never see it on racing games, on tracks or rally games, so i think developer must study this parts before make more damage, we need more but realistic too

Yep, I remember quite a few times Indycars would do a crash with a sudden stop, very little visible damage but it destroys the gearbox
Sometimes it seems like devs are only doing research about how things work while ignoring how things can go wrong (which IMO would lead to even better physics and less exploits)

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The moment real life racing series feature less damage I would like to have damage in sims reduced as well. So until that happens the more realistic damage the better.

 

[Tarmac Terrorist]

Yes - the more realistic the better
But the realism on simulator is very very complicated, because it's online multiplayer and most the people can't take as serious so many drivebombers, so many that brake into your rear.

F3 peoples are destroyed in formation lap.

Yeah well proper damage would make them think about their driving more, your more carefull if you know a knock can wreck your car

 

[Ninnuam1991]

I really didn't wanna switch over AC coming from rFactor 1 (but the most of the new mods are made for AC), I still think rFactor had the most realistic damage model of the sims I've played over the years (tires flying, engine overheat, transmission damage, suspension damage, losing car parts, etc.)

 

[FFF789]

Yes, definitely, and actually as far as me and both my current favorite AC and the new ACC, I wouldn't say it was left behind, but I can say pretty much even under-developed from what I knew. rFactor, AMS and rF 2 look better. The last sim with proper damage both in display and technical was NR2003 for me back in the day. Not only did a smacked car look and handle as it kind of should, but you had to watch the engine gauges and that gearbox during a race. And you're right, smack the wall hard and the race is pretty much over. Now it's common to see someone shrugging it off and getting on with it. As far as open wheel racing, even Indycar racing back in 1993 had wheels and debris coming off of that car and flying high and away. The brilliant F1GP series was lagging behind a bit there. Papyrus (now iRacing) always cared about those details. I saw iRacing have announced last year that they were working on a proper damage display and debris which looks very good today. On the other side, it shows how much more work it takes with all the better detailed 3D models and physics having been upgraded from the last decade or two.

 

[Icky427]

absolutely everything should be as realistic as possible. of course the option should always be there for limited or no damage or visual only or whatever. but we should aim for full damage being proper. like beamng proper. eventually we'll have the computing power to calculate physics of not only the tires/suspension and the car as a single object, but ALL the individual parts and how impacts/collisions would affect those individual parts. now that being said, im not sure how on board i am with implementing random mechanical failures into sims. i know its realistic, but its also not preventable in the same way it is in real life and it would just be annoying.

 

[BrightCandle]

I am a little torn on the idea of damage when the driver hasn't had a collision or hit a sausage etc. Those types of failures are just frustrating and random and they add very little when simracing already has its own set of technical failures that can hit at any moment. But things like brake fades due to overheating the brake pads and mechanical damage to the gearbox for bad shifts requiring careful management is something I would want to see more of alongside damage from collisions.

 

[Hailstorm BLX]

Wow. Yes community. Finally we are demanding more realism.

Indeed, yet what'll happen is the developers release more DLCs instead - and we're happy to pay

 

[Ghoults]

I have never seen it that adding damage makes people drive more carefully. The reason people crash individually and into others is because they made a poor judgment call or mistake. People won't stop making mistakes if the car bends more because they never planned to crash anyways. They did not saw the other car, they have poor spatial awareness and sometimes they were just caught out by something else. Maybe they spin out or made a poor decision how to rejoin the track. If they want to wreck someone on purpose damage doesn't prevent it. Even an actual fear of death doesn't prevent it, see suzuka turn 1 1990.

I remember many occasions where I've seen damage just being turned on and it did not change anything at all. I remember in gran turismo 5 we used to some online races and we had damage on. It was impossible to drive. We did like 10 races and half of the field dies in turn 1 every single race. It did not have any effect on how people drove. Zero. And the damage was turned up so it was harsh. People still drove into other people, missed braking points. Imagine if iracing turned damage off but kept the safety rating. Would people drive more recklessly? I doubt it. But turn off safety rating and leave damage... and you have wreeck 13.

Only thing that changes people's accident probability is consequences that don't end when the race is over. Damage or stop and go penalties don't change how people behave. It needs to be something that exists all the time and can change how you can enter future events. Be that a safety rating or some active steward who has some kind of power to punish bad behaviour and make it impossible for the troublesome individuals to continue driving like that. Even the most arcade games have had harsh optional damage for 20 years and it doesn't fix driving standards. What does is educating people how to drive (how to rejoin, overtake, be overtaken, defend) and penalizing and blocking those from racing who don't want to learn.

 

[ricardokilbr]

The point of adding damage is not to avoid crashes, it is to have greater immersion and dynamism in the races, when we talk about granules or bubbles in the tires, mechanical problems, dirty side of the track, nobody wants to blow a tire, nobody wants to break a car, or walk but it brings dynamics to the races, if we think it makes no difference, there is no reason to have the correct pressure in tires, or setups in the games, this has to bring dynamics to the races, bring immersion, when there is a greater realism in the crashes, will bring dynamics, the collision debris can puncture other drivers 'tires, added to the fault system, could even puncture a radiator, bend a suspension, in categories like Nascar or Indy car debris can ruin other drivers' races like in Rfactor2 and yes with realistic collision the player knowing that depending on the collision is the end of the test he will be more careful, with realistic collision you would have several fields to explore, yes it must be very complex to bring these things, it should take a lot of time invested, but I guarantee that the first yes that brings this immersion to your game, will have great success and the hours worked will be rewarded with sales.

 

[Will Mazeo]

The point of adding damage is not to avoid crashes, it is to have greater immersion and dynamism in the races, when we talk about granules or bubbles in the tires, mechanical problems, dirty side of the track, nobody wants to blow a tire, nobody wants to break a car, or walk but it brings dynamics to the races, if we think it makes no difference, there is no reason to have the correct pressure in tires, or setups in the games, this has to bring dynamics to the races, bring immersion, when there is a greater realism in the crashes, will bring dynamics, the collision debris can puncture other drivers 'tires, added to the fault system, could even puncture a radiator, bend a suspension, in categories like Nascar or Indy car debris can ruin other drivers' races like in Rfactor2 and yes with realistic collision the player knowing that depending on the collision is the end of the test he will be more careful, with realistic collision you would have several fields to explore, yes it must be very complex to bring these things, it should take a lot of time invested, but I guarantee that the first yes that brings this immersion to your game, will have great success and the hours worked will be rewarded with sales.

This. Real life is dynamic and simracing should be too.
But we get sims with ghosting, poor damage models and lacking things like FCY instead.... not really what I expected from simracing in 2020 when I was playing GTR2, GP4, NR2003 back in the day.
Even ACC covering only one class failed at this (having a ton of different cars used to be an excuse for some stuff).

 

[Pauli Ahonen]

Get the tire physics right first"!!!

 

[SecretLaser]

There is not enough damage model, it would be nice lesson for idiot rammers if their wheels literally explod after contact

 

[SecretLaser]

Yes - the more realistic the better
But the realism on simulator is very very complicated, because it's online multiplayer and most the people can't take as serious so many drivebombers, so many that brake into your rear.

F3 peoples are destroyed in formation lap.

Serves them right, if they are not even able to do formation lap correctly.

 

[SecretLaser]

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

No, they do not have to. Watching pleb smashing all around in PC2 for example, is just laughable, go train alone first, then storm servers.

 

[DrSmile]

Generic damage of the bodywork and suspension, and wheels flying off, like in the spectacular game BeamNG is more than enough.

But, what do you want this damage for? Once seen, you don't want to see it again,
or do you want your race over?

YES! I want my race to be over if i crash hard or just drive like a moron without respect for the car im driving, the cars im driving against, the track im on.

It would make most people better drivers instead of just better cheaters (finding shortcuts on tracks / jumping over saucage curbs at ridiculus speeds/ grinding walls / cheating the physics in general with out of the world setups / etc etc

The only downside would be, that open lobby´s would me much more attractive to the mental retarded ones who just wants to see **** go boom and jacking off when 20cars gets smashed beamng style.

Just look at the viewercounts on random beamng youtube videos and youll see that there is really something missing in modern "sim"racing games.

 

[Mike nolan 1985]

Feel this is the final step for fully realistic sim racing. Cant wait till i can have proper damage rather than the over or under damage we have now. Touch wheels on some games equals critical damage some time and no dame on other games. Even consistency over all games would be an improvement

 

[Patrik Marek]

beamNG is imo overkill. haivgn that much resources going into simualtion of damange means that rest of the phsycs - that to me matter more - is left out
and even then at times it looks funny,when it shakes like Jello

 

[Maxra]

The addition of the damage is used for those who feel low in the simulators and then go to knead the walls with real cars because in the simulator the car remained intact. Destroying the simulated car at the first mistake would certainly avoid a percentage of crazy idiots on Saturday night