Season 5

[Ivan Mills]

i have the Formula Masters...they are nice to drive in the sense that they are more responsive and more F1-lilke then F3000's(just my opinion),but after spending a season inside the MAk F1 it will most likely feel like you are driving an F1 car in slow motion,meaning you can do other things while you are at it,watch tv ,eat,shave,etc...i suppose they are fun for races as driving them on the limit is very easy

 

[Brendan Crosby]

It is not unusual for sim drivers to be a lot faster than real life, however realistic the sim or mod is reckoned to be. Why is that?

Yes, the fear of death is a factor that speeds up sim racers but not by 3 or 4 seconds in my opinion. Using MoTeC it's clear that the MMG F1 league car pulls much higher G forces than real life cars and reaches much higher speeds on the straights.

At Istanbul the real life track is smoother for sure and a real life F1 car does about 5 G in cornering force through turn 8 and 310 kph on the longest straight. The MMG F1 league car on the simbin version exceeds 6 G through turn 8 and reaches 335 kph on the longest straight and that's after either going over a bump on the inside of the kink (turn 11) that makes you lose about 3 kph or avoiding that bump by going very wide through the kink.

At Sepang the real life car takes turn 1 at 76 kph. This car does turn 1 at 100 kph.

At Silverstone the real life car does 3.6 G through turn 3 and 301 kph on the longest straight. This car touches 7 G in that corner! and does 330 kph on the same straight.

It's clear that these cars are simply faster than the real life cars for reasons such as grippier tires and a more powerful engine and that the tracks are perhaps inaccurate in their layout, grip level, and steepness of elevation changes and we know that simbin tracks such as Barcelona and Istanbul are too bumpy.

If the real life cars had limits this high than whoever had the strongest neck would win.

Edit: I don't even know how relevant this is or if anyone cares it's 1 am I'm going to sleep

 

[Ivan Mills]

Actually i found that quite interesting Brendan..i knew the cars were faster on the straight and grippier in the corners as it seems there is a 5 to 6sec difference per lap between real and this,but i really liked the G factor comparison...7G+..interesting....thanks.....

 

[Mattia Gottardi]

lol some planes lose the wings at 7G!!!

 

[Valter Ostman]

The IRL drivers probably use higher wing settings to feel comfortable with the car going through a high speed corner. If we increase the wing settings the straight line speed will be more in parity with IRL cars.

 

[Joe Isaac]

Hi all
The first season will be hard for any type of car we choose, you need to get used to the car and know the set up, and hope for the next season, basically we need a couple to of seasons to be up there and that’s reality, look at the real F1 cars.
As Ivan Mils mentioned the MAK F1 most likely makes you feel like you are driving a real F1, and that’s what we like about. So I think we should stick with it, we are already halve way and hope to improve for the next season.
I believe there are many drivers are struggling with their set ups, so my suggesting is if someone from top drivers who knows a lot about the set up, example like Arno or Ventis or some others top drivers, if they can put together a user manual for the set up to explain how to use the: Anti roll bar, Toe-in, springs, packers, ext…. Wings and splitter: how to use, someone told me that every 4 at the rear is = 1 in the front, is it true?
By creating a user manual for the set up it may increase the driver’s skills and motivations and minimize the accidents, drivers will learn to make their own set up to suit their driving style, and then maybe you don’t have to lower the damage parameter and turn off the engine failures. I could be at wrong it’s just an idea.

 

[Brendan Crosby]

For the splitter and wings I've found that for me 5/1 is a good rule of thumb but not universal. For example 5/28 (1:5.6 ratio) usually keeps you solidly stable in high speed corners at the tracks where such an aero setup is necessary such as interlagos but 6/29 (1:4.833 ratio) worked well at barcelona and 7/33 (4.71 ratio) worked at sepang.

It's not a linear relationship

 

[Joe Isaac]

Thank you Brendan
A user manual with such explanation will differently help the drivers to make their own set up

 

[Arno Hoog]

Joe,

Here's a very decent GENERAL setup guide:

http://www.racedepartment.com/gtr-evolution/3511-racedepartment-setup-guide.html

And if you read through this forum thread you will find most of the MAK F1 exceptions:

Mmm, they deleted that thread. Anway you should know about those things by now

 

[Andy Paries]

F1 cars for me, i find them the most fun to drive.

cheers

 

[Jim Hawley]

Ok time for my 2 cents

I have struggled this season in the F1 cars, but after some setup help from Chris in the later races (Thanks Chris) I have slowly begun to find them a more comfortable ride so I'm happy to continue into next season,

I feel F3k or Masters would be a step backward, although the Masters are great fun to drive, of that there is no doubt

I have the most fun in the Porsche SC, GT and GTL cars, they feel more natural to me, maybe one day I'll head in that direction but for now I remain committed to PrestoGP and I want to race with my mates

Jim:letsgoracing:

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

hi guys for the next season Im ready
look here:

PS same you Jim ..... race with my mates.....

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

hi guys for the next season Im ready
look here:

PS same you Jim ..... race with my mates.....

That was absolutely fantastic Valerio! The result was perfect with your own skin inbedded in the seat! Could not have been done any better I think! Bravissimo!ray:

 

[Peter Marshall]

Very nice work Valerio:good:.
Both yourself and Stuntman Bob impress me with your skills and craftsmanship. The "boys" with their toys!

 

[Valter Ostman]

Nice seat and paintjob Valerio. You rock.

See you at the club race race in Melbourne. Porsche with almost no brakes or grip, very fun.

 

[Reik Major]

Hy guys!

Last season i was racing in the World Series Pro Division for BRM. Now i'm playing with the thought of switching to the European Series, because of wednesday racing instead of saturday.

I read some different opinions here but every single one makes sence.

My opinion is simple:
Please stay with the F1 MMG mod! It's the only reason why drive in a league so far! The immersion is great and i love to feel like an F1 driver...

I ever like it as close as possible to reality. Real F1 cars are definately very fragil, so for me also the sim cars can be. In the pro division the discipline was excelent! Although i had two suspension damages through the whole season, taken by contact with other drivers. I think it's a fair thing. For me the challenge is not only racing against other good drivers, but also to make no single mistake through all the long races. It felt like winning the race, if i finished it without major mistakes, no matter what the real position was. But maybe i was lucky this season. I understand others who find it too difficult.

But like some guys already sayed: In the 2nd season you feel much more comfortable than in the 1st one. So please let's try again...

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

First of all, those drivers that have not raced with us (Europe) before, you are ofcourse welcome to join us next season (like Reik above and others who have expressed this wish).

Second of all, it seems obvious by now that we'll be racing the F1 mod next season as it seems to be the wish of the vast majority.

Lastly, even though we wish to simulate the real f1 races as closely as possible, there are some core differences that we need to adjust for to make our racing as good as possible. A few examples are:

• We do not race during European summer because for us this is a hobby and we wish to spend some time in the sun when it is summer time while the real f1 drivers do this for a living and race when they are told to.
• We are less skilled than real f1 drivers which means we need bigger safety margins when we race.
• We do not get any injury/lose money when we crash which affects the way we drive as apposed to real racing
• We don't do full length races as the whole event takes too long and the chance of lost connection increases.
• The pit stops takes too long compered to RL which force us to change the way we deal with race strategy (pitting as few times as possible is almost always a winning strategy.

Our main aim last season and also in the time to come is to have high attendance from all racers and improve the safety in the races. Both these goals needs to be reached with a minimum of maintenance from the admins during the season. This is one of the reasons why I/we are not a big fan of penalties as a remedy for incidents. The problem needs to be dealt with at an earlier stage so that there will be no need to look through races to look for bad behavior.

As Reik mentioned above, the solution is to make sure that all our racers are thinking in the same manner when it comes to staying out of trouble on the track and making finishing a race without incidents their top priority. We (admins) on our side needs to make it clearer what is expected by the drivers in different situations so that all are one the same "wave length".

Looking through the incidents last season most of them could be avoided if we all followed the same set of guidelines. We are in the process of making a pdf documents with guidelines on how to behave in a race and in different situations. Our hope is to make all the necessary changes before season 5 so that the quality of this season dramatically improves.

So to sum up (and add some stuff), next season we'll:
...be racing the F1 mod
...change the way new drivers can join our league
...improve communication with the drivers
...have less acceptance for drivers with low attendance
...release the "how to race in PrestoGP" document
..."soften" the general competition between drivers
...consider changing the qualify format
...be as much in sync with the f1 calendar as possible

 

[Reik Major]

Very sencefull said Nicolai!

You're right! The most important thing is, that all drivers have the same idea of what is expected in this league -> gentleman racing!

Of course i like realism, but i wouldn't also care if we'd have absolutely no damage enabled, because it wouldn't change anything to my intentions and behaviour on track. As long as everyones main focus is to have clean racing, it doesn't matter if we have damages realistic, reduced or disabled. But i'm afraid there'll ever be some drivers, who get over agressive in fights, because of a disabled damage system. And then you (the admins) would need to judge every single incident and give penalties and that's something you don't want to.

I justed want to say, that i think the discipline in the last season came from the fragility of the cars. And we all have to give in, that it first takes some practice to controll these cars also over a longer distance - but that's the challenge.

Finally reduced damage and no mechanical failures would be the best compromise i think.

About strategy: We could have 1 or 2 forced pitstops!?

btw: what was your race length last season?

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

Very sencefull said Nicolai!

You're right! The most important thing is, that all drivers have the same idea of what is expected in this league -> gentleman racing!

Of course i like realism, but i wouldn't also care if we'd have absolutely no damage enabled, because it wouldn't change anything to my intentions and behaviour on track. As long as everyones main focus is to have clean racing, it doesn't matter if we have damages realistic, reduced or disabled. But i'm afraid there'll ever be some drivers, who get over agressive in fights, because of a disabled damage system. And then you (the admins) would need to judge every single incident and give penalties and that's something you don't want to.

I justed want to say, that i think the discipline in the last season came from the fragility of the cars. And we all have to give in, that it first takes some practice to controll these cars also over a longer distance - but that's the challenge.

Finally reduced damage and no mechanical failures would be the best compromise i think.

About strategy: We could have 1 or 2 forced pitstops!?

btw: what was your race length last season?

Worry not, disabling the damage is not an alternative, the only thing that we consider is to adjust it slightly to avoid suspension damage after a very light touch. As a matter of fact I do not think anyone would notice the difference as the servers have been set at 70% damage the last month, including round 9 of the race in div 2 The mechanical failiur will most likely be disabled as it does not make much sence to keep it as a random "race-killer"

Last season the race length was approximently 63-64 minutes. That resulted in everybody having to do one pit-stop for fresh tyres and more fuel (although you often could complete the race with less than 150 liters, but then you would have big trouble with your tyres)

 

[Jim Hawley]

Sounds cool Nico,

The turning off of mechanical failures sounds like a good plan, after Chris's recent discovery into the effects of engine health on handling as well as power it seems a bit unfair that you can be dealt a dodgy car through no fault of your own, it is weird that you can start the race with engine health at considerably less than 100% and there's nothing you can do about it

With them turned off tho, does this mean we could all run with Rad at 1 and smoke like chimneys without any ill effects? I have no idea? maybe a little testing would be advisable

Jim