rFactor Caterhams - Proposal

[Stuart Thomson]

All, the Cats seem to be taking off very nicely, and ever since someone mentioned it would be nice to have a "League" in these cars, I've had my pondering hat on, to see what I could do, and how to implement the possibilities.

The fact that the mod has so many available classes sent me off down one avenue of thought, and Michael's post today kind of firmed up the vague ideas I'd been having.

Now - as it's your Club as much as mine, please have a read of the below idea/proposal, don't necessarily respond immediately, go away and have a think, and come back with anything that occurs to you during your ponderings.

So - here's what I've been working up:-

1. Would we have any interest in possibly run some short series (say 4 events with 2x races per event) on alternate Fridays, not a full RD League, but I still get the results and compile a standings table etc.

2. The series would be open to anyone who wants to join/is available at the time, it's not hugely result oriented so if you miss a week, no big deal - the only caveat being it is limited to 21 signups per night.

3. At the completion of each series, we could go up a "class" like they do in the real Caterham series? eg Season 1 - Academy -> S2 - Graduate - > S3 - Roadsport etc.

4. Everyone would then be progressing at roughly the same speed, and we're not just all jumping into R500's, putting our foot down and spinning off into a wall.

5. To keep the Club as open and simple as possible (which after all is one of the main selling points of the Friday Cats), we run "normal" club nights (like the ones we've been doing up til now) on the "other" Fridays, staying with the very successful Academy class.

So - what do you think?

 

[Ryan Callan]

Sounds good, but I found the faster Cats nowhere near as enjoyable as the slower ones. I don't know about anyone else.

 

[Michael Herrmann]

my post was in noway intended to move of the academy's as they are pure joy it was throug in a way we could contact the developes to make the gearbox of the academys more usable without making them a lot faster, the gearbox should be still locked and not adjustable
just a bit shorter to have the 5th gear used as it is now even on lemans the old layout you wont realy rev enough to get the 5th gear used

for your idear of a mini league with stepping up the in classes i am totaly up for it

 

[Anders Madsen]

ive been thinking a little about this as well, like MH ive been wondering about that 5th gear as well, and thought about maybe running one of the classes with variable gearbox. But everyone with same setup.... maybe have a setup pack for whichever tracks we gonna race at.

I do love the current setup very much, im Sure it will be fun anyway it turns out, and its nice to see it grow every week. And why shouldnt there be room for Cat friday and a Cat league running at same time?

So far i havent read anything i didnt like so i guess i just go with the flow on this one :biggrin:

 

[Stuart Thomson]

@ Ryan - Thought about that - even after 4 or 5 seasons at the rate I'm proposing, we won't up at proper mentalist level, so we'll have time to find the best fun v speed balance.

The first season where the extra power starts to take the fun out of the Cats, we can scrub and stipulate the previous season to be the top Class we use.

 

[Ryan Callan]

Sounds good.

 

[Sam J Simpson]

Sounds like a plan Stuart, I would definately be there as much as I could, I tend to agree up to a point with Ryan, once you get above the Roadsports the cars tend to get a bit lary, are very hard work and, for me, loose some of the fun factor, I have raced the R500s, both normal and Superlight, in decent grid, 15/20 drivers, league races, and have had a hoot doing it though so it's probably dependant on your race mates more than cars as to how much enjoyment is had, best all round combo I've driven was Roadsport 165s with all the upgrades maxed, eg, r500 stickies, adjustable suspension/diff and 6 speed box in a couple of long distance pitstop races, much fun and reasonably easy to tame.

Sam

@Micheal and Anders, the RL Academy class cars almost never use 5th in races, it's an entry level, road going car with an over the counter engine, box and diff and deliberately limited in setup options. 5th is meant as an Autoroute/Motorway overdrive, not a driven/high speed gear.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I haven't really done the full investigation on what the steps would be, to tell the truth, the Academy -> Grad -> Roadsport etc. progression was for indication purposes only :biggrin:

 

[Michael Herrmann]

ok Sam thanks for clarification it was just feeling somehow wired as i drive a car not a cat but with a 1.6l engien and a 5 speed box it runs
at top 188 km/h and the 5th gear is atleast usable but it is not ment to be a overdrive so i understand it now a bit better why the gearing
is that long compared to the power output of the engien

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

I think it's a great idea. Especially since it's less formal and shorter races. I think that would be more fun than longer races in these cars.

For close racing I prefer slower cars to keep things tight and manageable. However I havn't tested the other variants of this mod and I'm sure there are other classes that produce the same fun with a bit more speed

 

[Dan Hemmings]

Sounds gr8 Stu!

 

[Ron Attwood]

I prefer the slower cars because it take a little longer before I'm lapped! I'm good for anything really except ultra manic stuff. Interesting about the gearboxes.
Sign me up Scottie. :biggrin:

 

[Hans Sneep]

I think thats a good idea ,moving up the ladder (slowly) to get used to a bit faster Cats,
but the main sing is Having Fun in driving and Fun it is !

 

[Gary Lennon]

100% positive Lenno backing for everything ive read here .

 

[Carlos Diaz]

I'm in for trying out the other Cats. I haven't driven any of them yet, so I can't tell you if I consider them a handful or not.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Here's a little something from the Caterham Motorsport site, might give an idea of relative speeds.

Please note - the mod has a few more options than shown here, so please file this under "indication purposes only"

 

[Oliver Roelandt]

There's definitely a lot of fun to be had in the faster Cat's but the main problem this would bring with it - IMO - is that some of the other models offer quite a bit of upgrade options and as far as I know there is no way of checking or limiting people's setups in rFactor, so it would be dependant on the goodwill of the drivers to just use certain upgrades. Now, I don't think that will be a problem here as I reckon we're all here to have fun, first and foremost, and we're all grown ups who prefer fairplay over winning, but still.

I'm creating a league racing website for a number of rFactor mods myself - the Caterham mod being one of them - and for the first Caterham series I have opted to go with a model that doesn't allow any performance-altering upgrades just to rule out the possibility of people using unfair advantages.

Anyway, I definitely like the idea of slowly moving up to the faster cars. I may have to drop out of one of the alternating events, though, as I'm looking to get a job that will have me working 'till 9pm on alternating weeks. But that's none of your concern, of course

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Oliver - A couple of points, we have the option to lock upgrades on the servers, but as you say, I'd hope that if I specified what upgrades may or may not be used, people would respect that.

Additionally, if you intend to use v1.5 of the Cat mod, that is clearly not a problem. You would need to obtain permission for use of v1.75 however, as we did here.

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

Here's a little something from the Caterham Motorsport site, might give an idea of relative speeds.

Please note - the mod has a few more options than shown here, so please file this under \"indication purposes only\"

Looking at the different classes it reminds me of the reviews of EVO of the R300 and R400. http://www.evo.co.uk/videos/trackdayvideos/208561/caterham_r400_takes_on_ariel_atom.html
Makes me wanna try them out myself

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I had a go in the spec R300 & R400 round Dijon last night, oddly enough.

R300 is a beaut - more power than the Academy, but wide grippy tyres manage to offset that power nicely.

The R400 is more of a handful, so I'm thinking that maybe the R300 should be the top of our particular tree.

And of course, I've remembered that we also have the Classic 1.4l below the Academy, so we could actually start our progression at Series 1 in those on some twisty short tracks.