IndyCar Game

[wolftree]

Nothing that I've heard! Other than discussion that there are different dev teams working on each of the Motorsport Games games... so the IndyCar game won't be developed by the exact same people as NASCAR 21. Others may have seen things that I haven't, however.

The problem is that judging by the number of vacant developer positions on the MSG jobs page that have been there for 9 months and counting, it is not clear if any of the other titles are being developed at all.

 

[MJQT]

TL;DR - a key part of what makes Indycar so fun and unpredictable is the pit strategy. It's quite sophisticated, and if modelled fully, could allow some serious gameplay depth that would be very rewarding (if challenging to master). It also is one of the key aspects making oval racing interesting to watch and do in games. See below for a long list of features making Indycar pit strategy fascinating!

Since Motorsport has the Indycar license, they should speak to Indycar strategists to understand what "rules of thumb" they could use to auto-generate suggested strategies for humans and believable strategies for AI (that aren't crappy enough to put the human player at a great advantage). You could even have a gameplay mechanic where the player could choose to manage their own strategy (for extra gameplay depth) or play the role of a real-world driver "doing what they're told" by their team's strategists. You could even have the quality of the player's team (e.g. Penske versus Foyt) dictate the quality of the strategy calls made.

Note that this sort of system is far from unprecedented. Most notably, manual strategy calls and team strategy suggestions are a key part of the gameplay in Codemasters' F1 series. So I don't think it's an unreasonable request.


Some bullet-point details illustrating the richness of Indycar pit strategy

• Red = soft, black = hard
• Must use each at least once on road and street circuits
• Unless wet or raining, at which point use wet tires (note: there are no intermediates)
• A tire of X colour at one circuit is not necessarily the same as a tire of X colour at another (creates more work for the developer)
• Only blacks used on ovals
• Oval races never run in the wet (if rain or lightning starts, races are red flagged)

• Red tires wear faster but allow faster initial speed, blacks are more durable
• Speed, severity of red falloff varies in different conditions, at different tracks
• Sometimes reds can last a long time e.g. St. Petersburg 2021
• Sometimes reds degrade very very quickly e.g. Road America 2019
• Sometimes reds provide little to no advantage compared to the blacks e.g. Barber 2019

• Cars refuel at each pit stop
• Fuel strategy: usually, teams need to save fuel and pit 2 times, or run aggressively and pit 3 times
• Chevy and Honda engines consume different amounts of fuel

• Limited number of tires available per race weekend
• Required to start the race on the same set of tires as used during qualifying
• Teams sometimes put on "scuffed" tires: used for a small number of laps in practice or qualifying to put them through a "heat cycle" (warm up to operating temp, then cool down) to make the rubber more durable, which is advantageous to put on a car later in the race once the track is more rubbered in
• Teams also use "sticker" (brand new) red or blacks

• Changes in tire wear based on weather (temperature, sun versus clouds, rain washing away rubber and cooling off track)
• This can affect drivers over the course of a race e.g. the oval race in Texas that starts during the late afternoon and runs into nighttime (and the track and air temps drop significantly)
• Presumably accumulation of rubber on track also impacts track grip and tire wear rates

• Expected number of full course yellows (FCYs) is a key factor in pit strategy
• When possible, Indycar does local yellows on road and street courses
• But pace cars come out for accidents, debris due to contact, cars stopped on track (even in run-off areas) due to mechanical problems
• Number of expected FCYs differs from track to track, and this might make it easier to run a two-stop versus three-stop strategy (some teams, especially if they're not running well that weekend, choose a risky fuel strategy counting on a FCY late in the race to make it on fuel)
• Mistimed FCYs can "turn the tables" and give some cars an unexpected advantage over others in terms of pit strategy by allowing fuel and tire savings
• Pits are closed during a FCY

• How to choose when to pit within the pit window?
• Undercut: teams bring cars in early to come out in clean air, run several fast laps unimpeded with fresh tires, gain time (and hopefully places and track position) once the pit stop cycle is over, but you are vulnerable to losing out if a caution comes out
• Overcut: if tire falloff is minor and lap times haven't overly suffered, teams wait and take advantage of clean air (and low fuel load at the end of a run) to run fast laps before their stop OR wait because the car would be hung up in slow traffic when exiting
  • This is viable less often than the undercut, though

Note: please forgive any errors, given how long this list became!

 

[nyrmetros]

Ohh.......

 

[Peppelino]

Thanks MJQT, for the insight about this.

 

[whacko2]

would love to see other eras such as watson roadsters / 60s era with turbines included / up to todays cars as those are forgotten eras that made the Indy 500 what it is

 

[MJQT]

would love to see other eras such as watson roadsters / 60s era with turbines included / up to todays cars as those are forgotten eras that made the Indy 500 what it is

Sounds like a good idea for your own separate thread!

 

[pz666]

Considering F1 games haven't had anywhere near this level of strategic sophistication in recent years due to no refuelling I don't see Indycar getting near that level... Close but not as complex as all the bullet points make... I'd love it to be the case though...

The hardest part is the AI side... For instance modelling the fuel consumption of specific drivers is a lot harder and processor taxing than it is engine by engine... Take Dixon vs O'Ward... The way they approach each lap during a race is extremely different... To the point that the devs would have to create multiple lap pathways (AIWs in rFactor) for each driver to properly represent both drivers...

At best I'd expect a dev company to make 3-4 AIWs based around fuel saving and 2-3 based around tyre saving per track and per weather setting, not per driver... Then have the driver personality files have something that gives a percentage of race that a driver saves high, saves medium, light lifts or drives flat out... And relevant skill at each level pitted against race strategy so that when on a 2 stop they save fuel and when on a 3 stop they go flat out... As well as weighting those good at fuel saving so they are more likely to 2 stop and those who struggle at saving are more likely to 3 stop...

That would just scratch the surface of the complexity involved in fuel filling pit stops... But that's on the high end of expectations as it would give the player a variety of strategies to race against and be just complex enough to not give the player an advantage... Whilst also not being as processor taxing as creating multiple AIWs per driver would be...

On the lower end of expectations I hope to see AI drivers on fuel and tyre save or on full attack and be split into 2 or 3 stop strategies... On some tracks there would still be an advantage for the player due to the simplicity of it...

The level of tyre complexity within the F1 series needs to be the standard set in the Indycar game... Roaded and sticker tyres and the allocation is very important... As are the different compounds for different races...

The same for the engines, there's obvious fuel usage, traction and top end differences between the 2 makes that needs to be represented...

Done right the devs can allow for something close to real life without completely making the AI code too taxing for lower end PCs... Whilst I'd love for the game to be as close to possible to real life as can be, I've also got to accept that the market for this game will be the same as the F1 series... So I'm trying not to set the bar too high... But I do feel that the devs should be able to achieve something that scratches the itch for the more hardcore among us without turning away the casuals in their marketbase...

 

[MJQT]

Thanks for chiming in! Fun to read your thoughts.

Whilst I'd love for the game to be as close to possible to real life as can be, I've also got to accept that the market for this game will be the same as the F1 series... So I'm trying not to set the bar too high...

I'm not sure this is a bad thing. All things considered, the F1 games from Codies recently seem to get so much right while retaining mass market appeal – which would be pretty great for Indycar, honestly.

I do feel that the devs should be able to achieve something that scratches the itch for the more hardcore among us without turning away the casuals in their marketbase...

Exactly! Wouldn't that be awesome?

The hardest part is the AI side... For instance modelling the fuel consumption of specific drivers is a lot harder and processor taxing than it is engine by engine...

Not sure I agree necessarily. Take fuel and tyre saving. In principle, implementing areas of "lift and coast" before braking zones on the track or getting AI drivers to short-shift to save fuel is not very CPU demanding, because the decision rule to switch into fuel saving mode would presumably be quite simple. Not sure this sort of behaviour could be written into the ISImotor AI, though. In contrast, tyre saving could be rather easy on the CPU and programmer: maybe assign something like the ISImotor PLR file "cornering grip" parameter (meaning the AI don't push as hard into the corner) to each driver and provide a simple decision rule to lower this value to save tyres. Not sure a bunch of AIW files would even be needed (much as that is a cool idea).

Still, I feel like the biggest challenge for devs will be developing adequate heuristics for the virtual race engineer (like Jeff in Codies F1) to provide sensible race strategy decisions in a way not dissimilar to choices from real-life Indycar. Not an easy problem!

 

[Wolfzz]

Motorsport Games today released the first images of its new Indycar Game