Had my first online race today =))) Race strategies?

[Tomas Torasen]

I had my first online race today, 15 min qualy and then 20 laps at some italian track I hadn't tried before in the Formula KS2. It was a brilliant track anyhow, just wish I could remember the name of it.

Was 6 seconds behind the leader in qualifying. Then in the start I get a message that my fuel is low (standard 10L) and already on the grid. =/
I made one lap and directly into the pit and put in 40L that I went the rest of the race on.
Really nice to feel the tires were going away more closer to the end of the race, but they were still drivable but a little slidey.
I dont know what happened, cause I was one lap down because of this. Suddenly I'm 70 sec ahead leading, and managed to finish it that way. Must have been some accidents.

I noticed a friend of mine that was in the race also, had some terrible lag inside the pit lane flying around. I thought there wasnt any of that on DEDI?

So I would like to hear about your strategies concerning difference in setup for race Vs. hot lapping. Fuel management and so on.. Do I just get the same amount of fuel that I choose in qualy?
Is there mandatory pit stops in dry weather like in F1?

And if theres anything else I should know about it I'm thankful for any advice..

 

[Senad Subasic]

When you're on the grid, you can return to the pits, fill up with fuel, and go back to the grid before the race starts.
Make sure you select the amount of fuel, and click on Fill.

Other than that, I'm a complete newbie too.

BTW, there's a race on the RD server in 10 or so minutes, join there

 

[Tomas Torasen]

Thanks for the invite, I'm at work now. I think I will need some more practice before I join big races though, too likely I will ruin it for someone not knowing the tracks yet.
I'm not sure how it works but it seemed to my that we were placed on the grid suddenly after qualy, and there it was like 10 sec's maybe until the red lights went out and the cars were going. Not enough time to go to the pits again..

Oh yes.. more questions

If we do a 50 lap race for example, and I have an accident and need to quickly pit. I might as well put on new tires. Is there a certain amount of tires available? Is there some keyboard shortcut or possibility to set up strategy before the race? Cause clicking around and making adjustments with the mouse sounds as being a very slow way of doing a pitstop during a race.

Also.. I remember wondering why I couldnt see my lap times during the race, crossing the finish line. This would be a good measure of tire quality in the future maybe.
And; I drive in cockpit view in all the cars. I noticed that in some cars I dont get the info bar at the bottom, that shows my gears and stuff.. is that a bug or intentional?

Sorry for so many questions but I get very excited finding such a terrific feeling game and want to learn it all ASAP

 

[Senad Subasic]

If we do a 50 lap race for example, and I have an accident and need to quickly pit. I might as well put on new tires. Is there a certain amount of tires available?

You have all the tires in the world

Is there some keyboard shortcut or possibility to set up strategy before the race? Cause clicking around and making adjustments with the mouse sounds as being a very slow way of doing a pitstop during a race.

Not that I know of, but there's an option for making everything in the pits automated. Haven't tried it.

Also.. I remember wondering why I couldnt see my lap times during the race, crossing the finish line. This would be a good measure of tire quality in the future maybe.

It is intended to be realistic, so you get some info on pitboards, and that's it. But the recent update has everyone's lap times shown on the left side of your screen, when you (or anyone else) pass the finish line.

Some cars, F1600, 1800, 2000 and Target, have AIM displays on their wheels, and they can show lap times, splits, and so on.


EDIT: there should be a manual in your installation folder. Some of the data is obsolete, but it's still a useful read.

 

[Tomas Torasen]

Thanks.
I have read the manual and it's very basic, couldnt find much deeper info at all in it.

Oh ok.. it's on the wheel. I noticed I can change what I want to see on it on some cars, it's a little hard when driving to really look at it though.

I remember reading something about a setup guide made for this game, but it was in italian (which I dont speak).
Does anyone have a download link for it? I wanna try some translator on it.

 

[Redvaliant]

if you ding your car in a race, you can jump back to the pits (escape key) and you will get new tyres automatically and usually your car will be fixed too. But in doing so, you will be a lap down, this is what happened to the other guys in your race probably. one trick I have just learned is to do two laps or so on the last part of qualy just before the race to warm your tyres up. This cuts down on a lot of the new tyre wheelspin that too often on the public servers sends some loose guy into you in a braking zone or even off the start...it's happened to me too many times to count. I find that once you have asetup you like and is quick, it pretty much works everywhere with a few adjustments for wings and gears. I use the same in qualy and race with brake bias adjustments for the heavier fuel.

 

[Dean Lawrence]

After the race you can analyse the AIM data to see your lap time performance. (you'll need a free app to look at it)

Look under Telemetry Data in the FAQ http://www.netkar-pro.com/faq.htm it has all the info there.

 

[Vilmos Vas]

There's one minute to make your pit changes before the lights go red. Just hit escape and make the changes (fresh tires if you will and fill fuel). You have to do it manually unless you checked autopit feature. And no, you won't be a lap down, it's perfectly legal and most of others do it this way. Some others leave some time during qualify to make the changes before the gridding process.

 

[Dean Lawrence]

the time available to make changes between qualy and race start is defined by the server admin. I have mine set to 30 secs so you have time to make changes to fuel and tyres but you have to be quick.

[SESSION2]
NAME=Race
TYPE=2
ESCMODE=0
MINLAPS=0
MAXLAPS=0
RACELAPS=5
VALIDPERC=100
SESTIME=30
WAITTIME=30
ACCEPTNEW=1

 

[Tomas Torasen]

Thanks for the tips guys, learned some good stuff.

I'm doing some laps for the rank site and noticed, whatever I set the qualy time for (I do it in qualy mode) I only get 15 minutes...

@Daniel Ouff: Do you have a good base for all the cars? I thought of the same thing. I can adjust wings, gears and brake bias by myself too. I would need good setups for especially the formula fords if anyone have any.. I checked the site here and googled for setups but didnt really find very much so some more suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Jaireh Pahalla]

try to look for the madaire (not sure with the spelling though) setup comparer tool it has baseline setups for all netkar pro cars (and yes, plus the setuo comparer tool; or the other way around ). its got nice setups actually i use base setup for F1600 in prato when i still had the demo. the baseline set for KS2 needs a little tweaking for aviano, however.

 

[Tomas Torasen]

Thanks for tip.
Found something here if anyone more is interested:
http://www.simracelink.info/NetKarPro.html

Havent tried it yet since I'm at work but it sounds useful. To be able to save and share setups in small sized files is great but for me that wants to learn it becomes maybe harder to learn what and how to change things when I cant really see what is done in a setup.

 

[Abdulhaq Elhouderi]

quite of topic but do you really think that 'tyres heating up' is programmed into the game? It's obvious that dirt affects the tyre/car but heat???

 

[Tobias Kluge]

Yes it is. Today every carsim calculates the tire temperatures/pressures. What netkar makes IMHO unique is the really awkward, "evilish" feel on cold tires, not the normal "tire cold = less grip" formula.

 

[Mattia Gottardi]

yes you can feel easily if you have cold tyres, good temperature on tyres or burning tyres because the grip level change a lot, but not also the grip but also the feeling on the tyre is a bit different... another thing that i saw was that if you go off the track and you have dirty tyres, you loose a lot of grip and the cars became tricky in the first corner, until the tyre return clear!!

 

[Tomas Torasen]

Also fuel load affects this combination of factors. And the setup values affect how quickly your tires heat up.
My feeling though, is that it is almost always gentle transitions. And the FFB is great, so even if you havent driven with tire ad fuel sim. You will get enough FFB to pick up on it pretty quickly, it's not as dramatic as some other games where you cant push full throttle almost and when tires heat up it becomes arcade game and you can go full throttle in every corner and rpm.

I dont know if this is the clostest to realism as some say because I havent driven very powerful open wheelers, but this sim is surely what gives me the closest feeling to the track, the sense of feeling what actually happens.

Someone said something like this somewhere here, and I agree; in most sims you feel that things happen as a simulation because they are supposed to, and they might be simulated very well. But in this sim you quickly stop thinking about how things "should be" and you catch yourself instead of thinking youre really driving the car, because it's so immersive.