RD Le Mans Series Season 5 (rFactor 2)

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It shall not be within the coming month. We need to do some evaluation first, and see where we need to change things. Also, there is some development work we want to finish up.

I think (mind that this is ME talking, not RD!) we will have a single event race first, and then season 2 of VWEC. But, nothing has been made final about this at the moment.
Thanks for the update! Sounds really interesting with two seasons and a one off event. Really looking forward to more endurance racing this season :)
 
1) What did you like about this season? What worked well? What should we leave unchanged? Why?
Great Racing and we learned and improved.
The existing cars are great for endurance racing.
Good response by the Admins to the issues at Sepang re the software bug.
We had to learn new tracks
2) What did you not like about this season? What area can we improve on? Why?
Commentary liasion/synchronisation with cameras could be better. As we did not have a clear plan with camera work we tended to just chat about the race in general rather than specific battles or even a fast car approaching/navigating slower traffic. Maybe use track map to switch to cars that are in battles or coming up to traffic.

3) What suggestions or tips do you have for future season? Why those?
More rounds. Say 4-5. because we just got into the groove and it was over.
More weather (using the plugin that follows real life forecast) becuase its more dynamic and real life.
More Classic Tracks-Spa, Le Mans, Monza, Bathurst. because they are used in real life and great tracks.
Using driver develoment series to prepare new drivers for VWEC with mini Endurance Club Races of 2 hours on same tracks. because it will build the grid and RD and by using same tracks we will have good preparation and synergy with VWEC.
If numbers support a 5th class then LMP1 when ready and GT3. To have something fresh.
Thanks for a great series
 
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Are there any plans to drop the 1 team 1 car per class rule as discussed in the evaluation thread?
It would be good for some teams. We have at least 4 GT2 drivers and that is a bit too much for 6 hour races, so we would like to field another GT2 car. We had several teams with 4 or 5 drivers, which yoi need for 12 hour races, if they all can field 2 cars in the shorter races we would have a much bigger grid, which might attract even more drivers.
 
In my Opinion you guys should maybe think about reducing the Field to just two categories and maybe a driver limit per car (maybe 3).
I mean some Teams had 6 Drivers up there for a 6 hours race...im not saying that this is bad but if there would be a driver limit we could get much more cars in, which results in more competition which everyone is looking for i think. In the Bahrain race there were just 6-8 cars per Group, which are effectively the only cars you're racing against. If there would be two categories with 12 cars it would be much more fun.

3 drivers per team is an ideal number; however, I don't think this should be enforced as a rule. If teams have 6+ drivers then they should use their own initiative to divide themselves into a second team that is either separate and can therefore race in the same class, or remain associated and represent the team in another class. More cars would be fun, I agree, but forcefully splitting up teams would be harsh. Also, having only 2 categories of cars would reduce the fun factor IMO; endurance racing is all about long races, with a multitude of cars in different classes taking part. I think more interested drivers and teams need to be found, rather than limiting the current field, and I'm sure that in time (and with the introduction of new cars and tracks) new drivers and teams will come. People are almost always sceptical at first, but once the foundations are laid (which Season 1 has done) and improvements are made then I think this league will take off, and be as popular as (if not more so) than the RDLMS! :D

The big Problem in my Opionion of 12 Hour races is, if there is someone in the Team - if youre 3 guys for example, that can't take part its very hard to drive 12 hours. So for me personally 6 or 8 Hours would be more than ok. Especially when you think about a driver limit to get more cars in the field. 6 Hours for 2 guys is quite easy to handle and you get a lot of cars.

This is why a limit of 3 drivers per team shouldn't be a hard and fast rule. I agree that there should be races which ought to be between 6 and 8 hours long. However, 12 and 24 hour events are just as interesting IMO - it's where the magic lies in endurance racing, especially when the ultimate aim is to almost "re-create" real-life events; you have the psychological battles, stresses and strains, fatigue, well thought out strategies, and the desire to bring the car home in one peace if you manage to make it through the night. :ninja::coffee::roflmao: These longer events should only take place seldom though; the WEC presents a decent format for races - the majority of events should be between 6 & 8 hours long, and there should be a couple of events that are 12 (and maybe event 24) hours long. (The final race in the RDLMS was the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and it was absolutely amazing.) This will intrinsically reduce team sizes (nobody only wants to drive for an hour in a 6 hour event), and hopefully increase the number of participants. :thumbsup:

Apologies for having seemingly singled out your post, but I just had a few thoughts and potential improvements regarding your suggestions.

Rui F. Martins said:
...for example we could have a 8 hour race, a 12 hour race, 2 500km races and a 1500km race, something along those lines, in order to increase the variety of the races.

This would be a brilliant idea. If I remember correctly, this is very much the format that was used before the endurance racing series was governed by the FIA. And I agree with what @David O'Reilly has suggested regarding more rounds, use of classic tracks (they just never get old, haha), and dynamic weather. Could you imagine tearing down the Mulsanne Straight at over 150mph, and swerving through the Porsche Curves and chicanes in the dead of night, with the rain beating down... terrifying, even when you're only sim-racing, but it would be an incredible feeling nonetheless, especially if you get it right lap after lap; your palms maybe sweating after your stint, but you've just put in one hell of a shift in conditions that would be expected on a July night after a scorching hot day! :inlove: Sorry, I was in the moment, started fantasising, and have gone off on a bit of a tangent... but you get what I mean!

If, as @Dennis Coufal has suggested, the software could be further improved to include weather information (and even telemetry), then this would help to make the whole experience that much more (for want of a better word) "immersive". It would certainly add to the realism and help to recreate the stresses of not only being a driver, but also an involved member of a racing team.

And finally, I agree with what @Andrew Ford has said about the TOLA and the team information that was provided for use during the broadcast, but never actually used during the broadcast. I know that Team Marr, as well as several others, invested a bit of time into creating these "fact-files", and it's a shame that they weren't used. And about the TOLA, its re-introduction would be a good idea so that teams and drivers remain committed to partaking for a whole season; as much as the race at Losail was great fun, it was a shame that only about 19 cars took part in the event.
 
Just talking for myself here, as we have not discussed all reactions with each other.

In principle, I am not agains more cars per class. However, there is a but...
In case signups are massive in a specific class, I do not think it is fair to give out 2 cars to a single team, and deny entry to another. Basically, all teams should be able to have a go in each class. Although I understand your, and the other posters points, and they are indeed valid ones, I have to keep this limitation in order.

It's always a compromise. When we run 3 classes only, we have more options per class. When we run 4, or perhaps even 5 in the near future, these options become limited. And as said, in case of more signups then places, I really believe all should be limited to 1 car only.

We will put this on the agenda of 2014 season pre-staff talk.
 
If, as @Dennis Coufal has suggested, the software could be further improved to include weather information (and even telemetry), then this would help to make the whole experience that much more (for want of a better word) "immersive". It would certainly add to the realism and help to recreate the stresses of not only being a driver, but also an involved member of a racing team.

I think it would be nice if it was possibl to use the weather acording to meteorological sites that provide a forecast a couple of days in advance (the portugese weather institute provides a 10 day forecast, with rain probability for every day in that period), i'm not sure if it would be possible to include this or even desirable, because we could have some some strange weather, something like a cold, very rainy day in a 24 hours of Le Man, when it wouldn't be very likely that we would have something like that in real life. it's just something that crossed my mind, i'm not even sure if it's possible to do that
 
I just took this post out of the Evaluation thread. As stated by Yoeri, please keep it to answers to the questions only. It's undoable for us to go through, if there is all kind of discussions in between.

However, as I can imagine people have something to say about it, it can be done here.

In respond to above (personal views here, not discussed with other VWEC staff!!).
The limitation of drivers does not work that way. First off, you have to consider that a team will have to run both the shortest (6 in this case), but also the longest race (12 in this case, 24 in case of RDLMS last season).
So, the number of drivers you need to have, need to be based on the longest race, as to many drivers will not stop you from racing. To little does ;).
There is a different problem here, and that is commitment. It is not about the signups. Grid was more then full, and was limited by the track options we had. 40 was max we could handle on the tracks available at that point. We where over 40 with the signups.

However, we ended up with a lot less teams. As just about any league does. Here lies the real problem.

What we could consider though, and I will bring this to discussion with other staff in our internal evaluation, is to consider splitting teams, to fill in for dropouts. Off course, this only works for the shorter races in the tournament. There are a lot of pro's and con's for this, so I can't really say anything else about it, then that we will discuss it.

About the weather.
At this point, the output of the game does not support current weather info. If you look in your multiplayer monitor screen (when in a game, but in the pit), you can see that the info given, is not correct. This will be fixed in the near future, and only then can weather info be displayed. This goes for User Interface info, but as well for extrenal plugin info. The parameters are there, and can be used, they just give the wrong info at this point. Implemenation will be done by ISI.
Dynamic weather also has it's limitations. The tracks have to be suited and prepared for rain conditions. Also, the rain model in the game is not completely final yet. Only damp tracks work well, the rest does not change the handling of the car at this point. This is the reason why we limited rain. The intention was to have it at Malaysia already, but due to a mixup in the server setup, weahter file was not correct, and therefore it stayed dry. We learned from that, and made it work in Bahrain. Losail was not suited for rain yet.

The info for the broadcast.... What can I say. A missed opportunity. It was build so well, and presented in such a good way. However, our broadcast commentating team is still very unused to doing these events. They are still learning, and so are we as the broadcasters. Displaying the right info, getting to the right action on track and some other things required so much effort and time, that we did not had the full coaching to the commentators that was needed. I am convinced that this will improve in the near future, as we are slowly getting a group of dedicated, and enthousiastic guys. They will get better and better I am sure.
That said, I really have to make a compliment to them as well, as it requires some amazing skills to keep the commentary spot on, on topic, enjoyable, and informative, for a period of 6 - 12 hours!

Thanks for all the good, and valuable input so far guys! Keep it comming, and the future will only become brighter :)
 
Just talking for myself here, as we have not discussed all reactions with each other.

In principle, I am not agains more cars per class. However, there is a but...
In case signups are massive in a specific class, I do not think it is fair to give out 2 cars to a single team, and deny entry to another. Basically, all teams should be able to have a go in each class. Although I understand your, and the other posters points, and they are indeed valid ones, I have to keep this limitation in order.

It's always a compromise. When we run 3 classes only, we have more options per class. When we run 4, or perhaps even 5 in the near future, these options become limited. And as said, in case of more signups then places, I really believe all should be limited to 1 car only.

We will put this on the agenda of 2014 season pre-staff talk.
Looking back to the last race I think we won't have a problem of too much cars. It seemed like GT1 was getting a bit slim, but in GT2 and GT4 I guess we could get 3 additional teams each with that rule, but we will see :)
 
At this point, the output of the game does not support current weather info.

Good point! But for now maybe you could just display the current rain info (we used that on our live telemetry plugin and it seemed to work well - doesn't provide a forecast, but at least your teammates are informed about the situation with hard data rather then just the driver's description)

2rWzNFM.png
 
Although you have a valid point, it does not work now ;)
Rain is 100% or nothing (in the game data display). All other percentages are not implemented properly in regards to output (for sure in the User interface, not 100% sure about the plugin output, but cant imagine that would work, and UI would not).

With recent builds, the plugin info has been expanded. A lot more data is coming out now. Marcel is continously working on the software. That will be updates as well, so I am sure he will take this into consideration ;)
 
wasn't sure anymore either about the plugin, so I gave it a try:

nLggd4a.jpg

ScoringInfoV01.mRaining seems to be working, the other values not so much (despite except temperatures)

That will be updates as well, so I am sure he will take this into consideration

Awesome! :thumbsup:
 
I just took this post out of the Evaluation thread. As stated by Yoeri, please keep it to answers to the questions only. It's undoable for us to go through, if there is all kind of discussions in between.

Apologies for that. :rolleyes: I wasn't sure if my suggestions warranted a new discussion; clearly, and understandably it did! :p
 
1) What did you like about this season? What worked well? What should we leave unchanged? Why?

To keep it short I did like a lot of things, basically most of the things in this league.

2) What did you not like about this season? What area can we improve on? Why?

Last minute changes to tracks and mods. There were a few things which could be easily avoided if the tracks were finished earlier. Also (no disrespect to Marco and his work on the last track) to include a WIP track in the CC was not really needed. As much I appreciate Marcos work but a lot of the time done on this track could have been used for other organisation/testing stuff for the league. It was not the case that there was a lack of tracks for such a short season.

After the small "disaster" in race one I couldn't really understand why a rain race was necessary in the second race. Although it went well what we needed for the second race was a clean run without much experiments for the first part. If that went well further experiments could have been done. It was just a bit too much at one time IMO.

It was a pain, at least for me, to be up to date with all the stuff. The released mods where "hidden" in some updated posts with to many updates IMO. I understand the need to eliminate errors and bugs but as said above this could have been avoided so that the tracks/mods could have been released in one thread with max three posts for three rounds. This may not sound important but at times I was just like WTF where is the stuff and the search for the server passwords did not made all that easier.
I know there is probably more work required for this but IMO one mod release at the same time as the next round is announced and we are done. This would make the preparation for the actual race for the mods/admins/race control also easier I guess.

Now this is a bit harsh but if I may please. The rule not to be able to apply live penalties I honestly can not understand. If all of sudden one guy goes totally mental and decides to ram just about every car around him in a 12h race the race control is "officially" not able to apply live penalties (DQ, drive through, stop and go etc) we could end up with three cars on track.


3) What suggestions or tips do you have for future season? Why those?

IMO the the team manager of every team has to be all the time available to race control during the race. Otherwise some teams/drivers are not available through the race which in some cases is needed to clear up weird situations.

As for the weather forecast. I am not sure why rain or sunny races have to be announced.
TBH honest if we could agree on one weather forecast service which we would use and all of us would use this service to get the information for the coming races would be perfect. In the case the chance of rain is "house number" 50%, well than it doesn't need to be a rain race but could be. That's all.
I have seen people complaining I think after the first race where no rain was coming and couldn't understand that. I think a 100% bulletproof forecast isn't even IRL possible.

As said live penalties applied during the race.

Blue flags for the same class. If a driver is 2-3 sec slower but a lap behind I don't see why blue flags are not applied for the same class otherwise you could end up with drivers, which are fighting for the golden pineapple, fighting with the leaders of the same class although being slower. If a driver is able to unlap himself due to his raw pace that's all good and nice but holding up people which are fighting for the podium is nonsense IMO. Of course due to common sense most of the time there are no problems in this area but to ensure that there do not come up some problems, blue flags please for the same classes.

And the last thing is I would like to suggest you please to consider using the URD EGT mod for the next season. Lots of different cars in the same class makes the cocktail a bit spicier IMO as well there would be more competition in the GT class. I am not associated in any form to the URD team, that is just personal preference. I do understand that some people are against it maybe and respect their arguments but we should aim here for the best possible in this league. All modern sims have DLC's in one way or another and I don't see why this could be a hurdle honestly. I am sure Ales is open for a talk there if needed.

Yeah, as already mentioned more rounds. I could also live with 10 rounds or more TBH as this is going to be my most preferred league.

Thank you for a great first VWEC season.
 
I just wanted to get a big "thank you" in to everybody here who took the time to provide such detailed feedback. Don't be shy to share your opinion. The posts so far have been very constructive as far as criticism is concerned, and that for us is an excellent way to learn and improve.
 
There were too few teams in some classes so having only a two classes (Prototype/GT) would make sure that we have more drivers to race against and thus making the races more interesting. ISI are releasing game updates "frequently" which sometimes can cause problems with tracks and mods.
Its relatively easy to have multipple rF2 intalls so we should use that feature to ensure that the tracks/mod are in working well before rushing to using newest version on the game.
 
Just one thing I forgot and can be improved.

The starting procedure was a bit "odd". We went single file through the last corner and in Bahrain and Losail the pole position car started accelarting after half the straight, that caused some dangerous situations especially for me on pole position in GT2. The last GT1 accelerated a lot after the last corner, so I went full throttle to keep up, but he was only closing the gap, which I can't see in a low GT2 behind a big GT1 car.
He slammed onto the brakes and I could just avoid it.

I would prefer the usual F1 SC start, so the leader bunches up the field in the last sector and puts the hammer down somewhere between before or just after the last corner. As we are only allowed to overtake after the Start/Finish line it would be more "relaxed" start especially lower in the field.
I also noticed that some GT4 had trouble to keep up to the rear of the field sometimes before the start.

It causes just so much confusion if you accelerate somewhere on the start/finish straight and is a big disadvantage for the pole sitters in GT2 and GT4, because they don't get a lot of slipstream from the faster car ahead.
 
This sound so interesting, haven't had time to read through all posts but I'd like to take part in this when the new season starts, any details on that?
 
The info for the broadcast.... What can I say. A missed opportunity. It was build so well, and presented in such a good way. However, our broadcast commentating team is still very unused to doing these events. They are still learning, and so are we as the broadcasters. Displaying the right info, getting to the right action on track and some other things required so much effort and time, that we did not had the full coaching to the commentators that was needed. I am convinced that this will improve in the near future, as we are slowly getting a group of dedicated, and enthousiastic guys. They will get better and better I am sure.
i will be better in 2014, i promise you, but we need more guys on the team when some of us are not around and i need help when in the commentary booth (because i still dont have full rf2) but yes this year we will be stronger and much more aware of what is going on, on and off track
 
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