STC BLACK CUP 2010

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David Garcia

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Hello guys,

finally this seasson is gone.

Xose and I want to THANKS to all the teams involved on STC and all his enthusiast drivers. Also want to thanks to all the Team Spokesmen and Assistants, John Westerlund, Andreas Hultgren, Mikael Hellen, Vicent García, Maxime Boithias, Jason (Fallout Motorsports) and Günthar Rowe for his help & support with "staff stuff", press and technicall stuff. Special mention to Eckhart von Glan wich never miss a date with a race and has become the spirit and voice of the series closing the loop between The Black Rebels and Blue Flag Racing, founders of the STC concept.

For us this have been one of the worse seassons Xosé or myself could have ever expected when we decided to make an ambitious step forward last winter trying to improve STC, but also it have been a seasson to learn a lot from. There have been so many and diferent problems that at least we will know where to look at and what to modify in our attempt to get a perfect Black Cup 2010. Also this seasson have helped to get staff & teams in a closer situation to understand each other´s point of view a bit better.

Today I am partially happy because we have managed to get a good server in the last race of the seasson, what makes me expect the same for the first race of the Black Cup 10 and forwards. The Game Hoster have done a demostration of cooperation and good will with STC and we are really gratefull for it. As curiosity if you want to know what the problem was, it was that our server was hosted on a 64 bit operating system and not a 32 bit one... it was really dificult to find.

Now, after this little introduction I will make a short list with the changes we have decided to apply for next seasson. As usual I will ask you for your support and understanding, changes are never good for everybody, but the important thing is getting the right direction for everybody involved interest and we are sincerely looking for it, whether we are right or we are not.

These are the changes we have considered as needed or important for next seasson:

  1. Only 11 teams will have a STC license, B Teams will lose his spot and the server will run always with the standard 25 slots as we consider it is the casue if some of the problems in combination with the circuits. Half of the B Teams payed license for the current seasson will be payed back to the teams.
  2. MOD will be reduced to 6 race cars* from the current 20 race cars and will include aswell the 2 staff cars. With only 6 cars we can check and grant are bug free models. Tyres MOD will be improved aswell and the full package will be distributed to all the teams to do several testing in the next days. Only 2 teams will be able to choose same car and the choice for each team will be in order of the previous seasson stats, from last to first.
  3. Calendar will be not always 10 races and staff will have freedom to decide between 8, 9 or 10 races per seasson. It will be always decided at the start of the seasson and will be never modified during the seasson unless there are major cause problems.
  4. Attempt to increase a bit the staff to grant a better coverage in all fields.
  5. Some more features as Team Speak 3 and some new rules and details will come.
* This is the list of cars for next seasson:
1.- Corvette C6R
2.- Porsche 997 RSR
3.- Ford GT
4.- Aston Martin DBRS9
5.- BMW M3
6.- Lamborghini Gallardo


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0LO4QS85 <-- MOD DOWNLOAD (there is a server up to test)

We will set a couple of test races between the end of June and start of July. We need to get full servers guys, stay tunned.

We are actually in need of some holydays, but we will be resting on a beach with a coconut shell full of rum looking forward for next seasson with big enthusiasm…

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
David

* We will open the thread in some minutes for your comments.
 
Find here the beta Black Cup 2010 MOD: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0LO4QS85

It will be still a beta until all teams make several tests with it and we can grant it is bug free. I am thinking specially about that teams suffering massive problems during the Blue Cup 09 seasson. Cars are exactly the same than in the previous MOD so are well ballanced.

What comes to the tyre file, the only modified compound have been the hard one, making it´s life a bit longer with a bit less grip.

There is already a server running with the new MOD.

Please, comment about the Black Cup 2010 MOD on THIS THREAD. All your feedback is needed.

Thank you!

THREAD IS NOW OPEN!
 
Same, as expected again the discussion about the "B teams". Need to talk with my team about this. Black cup 09 ran fine that seemed to be forgotten. Ditch B teams because mod sucks up, great.
sry for beeing neagative, but you can imagine we get abit tired of this. B teams are seems to considered expendable, while they where considered as "equal" teams and thus payed full licence. Not sure we want to go on the discussion again, need to talk with the team.

Short comment about the cars, That Gallardo sucks in every aspect, there is a reason nobody picked it :) .
 
Short comment about the cars, That Gallardo sucks in every aspect, there is a reason nobody picked it :) .

Then it will be one of the top teams using it as the car decision will be same format than previous seasson.

About the rest of questions I will wait for some more comments and opinions and we can talk about it.
 
A thought about the cars chosen:

It seems the choice has:
3 slower engine cars - 997(Spyker) - FordGT(Mosler) -Lambo(Mosler or Spyker?)
3 fast engine cars - M3 - Aston(M3) - Vette.

Was that a conscious decision?
Is it an idea to bring back the standard sport class, as it is by default quite well balanced - but then just change the body shapes to the ones you prefer?

I think developing the tire mod is great, I think has potential however this season I found. A) Intermediate tires never had a weather range where they were better than softs, and then as the weather worsened they were never better than wets, so not sure they were quite right. B) Hard tires didn't last long enough.

Just some first thoughts, wasn't expecting to see this so soon, had though we were going to discuss all this. Are we? are you guys movable on anything in the mod now or is it all decided?
 
I think we are open to discuss both things, this is why the thread is open.

About the B teams... I know guys, I already told yesterday in the broadcast, I don't have anything against the B teams, is just the MOD patch causes this two issues sometimes:


  • Disconnections
  • Problems to join the server
But if you all are ok to consider that as part of the game I think we have no problem, are not happening very often and we do like to have the B teams in.

The proposal to go back to 25 original slots it's a safety proposal, for STC is better to have the biggest grid possible.

About the MOD cars, we tried to do a balanced field. The only sure thing is we want to continue with the different tyre compounds, so use default cars is not an option. We would also want to get rid of the conflictive cars, but if you have a proposal of 6 cars that you like more than this one post it, and we will discuss it.
 
Also GTPro is out the door? It would be nice to drive some faster cars.
How about a halfway mod? maybe give all the cars 10-15% more power and slightly better aero?

EDIT - just read your post Xose which answered my questions, so deleted them.

One thing about the Hard tires, I and most people I spoke with this season found the hard tires generally very good, but they just didn't last long enough. I think making them last longer is good, but giving them less grip is not needed but untill we test them properly I can't be sure, so will need alot of testing by the teams.

Cars:

By using the default cars I mean using the files not the standard game, like you have modded the corvette. I only suggest it because there is a good range of characteristics in the default sport class and its well balanced. Then you can put whatever body shape you like onto them so it doesn't look like we are driving any of the sport class cars (like this seasons 997(spyker), Vertigo(Marcos), GTFord(Mosler) etc etc. It sounds like I'm saying what you already have done, but I think what I'm trying to say is just clone all the standard cars I think 6 cars is not enough, and the choice of Engine and Handling is very limited at the moment. Also I think not mixing engine, handling, suspension is the better way to go. Thats why we had the problems with some cars being too fast and some just felt wrong - Like the Lambo, if my memory is working I think that car has mixed characteristics from different cars. Its just too hard to balance and I think theres no need to complicate this, Simbin already made a good balance of car characteristics, just clone them.
 
I think is the best to avoid the multislot patch. In 2009 we got some issue with him too, remember. I'm also pretty sure that we will can do the STC in 2011 on rFactor2 (or maybe GTR 3). At this moment, we will can surely go back to 26 slots (and maybe more).

Actually, each one have to admit we can't continue like in this last STC blue cup. GTR evo is too unstable. What's the pleasure to have a Damocles sword on your head at each race?
 
Firstly, thanks for the work you guys have put in, it has definitely paid off and I hope next season is even better You deserve some time off to relax :D!

Now onto the format, interesting choice of cars there. What I don't understand, as Mike said, default cars aren't in among the Mod. As far as I'm aware they are the cars least likely to have any bugs/issues with them. To add the default cars, we can up the car selection to 11 cars, exactly the amount to fit one car per team.

The new idea of having no B Teams is a step backwards IMO. B Teams were a could way of giving drivers a chance to race when they probably wouldn't of had a chance to if there was only one team. The likes of DHR and DMv had lots of drivers, and to condense them down into the same team size as the likes of Project D with I think 10 members? Not that fair. B Teams should be recognised as separate teams, like Toro Rosso and Red Bull. If we take it like that, why would be take out a Team ranked #3 in STC?
For a team like ANE-Degen to take away a spot of the DMv2 place would be quite unfair if I may be so bold and state that. No offence to ANE-Degen, they are simracers in the same sense as everyone else, but most races they only had one driver and were 4+Laps off the pace, yes it s not about the speed, but we need a team that will field drivers in every single event, which DMv2 have done. Now I know I will get some "Tut tuts" for saying this but I'm sure it is on the mind of some team bosses here. For me, to take away a professional simracing team like DMv2 to replace them with a half hearted team, is unfair. Even Michael Hart-Jones says he doesn't really want to compete and is willing to step back from STC in order to staff the league. I am very sorry if I offended anybody there but I am just expressing myself. It is better to express your feelings than keep them to yourself.

I think points 3,4 and 5 are good as it will hopefully improve STC. For me, 10 races is a good amount for a season. SO if the maximum a driver can race is 5, then they can only do half the seasons races.
 
The new idea of having no B Teams is a step backwards IMO. B Teams were a could way of giving drivers a chance to race when they probably wouldn't of had a chance to if there was only one team. The likes of DHR and DMv had lots of drivers, and to condense them down into the same team size as the likes of Project D with I think 10 members? Not that fair. B Teams should be recognised as separate teams, like Toro Rosso and Red Bull. If we take it like that, why would be take out a Team ranked #3 in STC?
For a team like ANE-Degen to take away a spot of the DMv2 place would be quite unfair if I may be so bold and state that. No offence to ANE-Degen, they are simracers in the same sense as everyone else, but most races they only had one driver and were 4+Laps off the pace, yes it s not about the speed, but we need a team that will field drivers in every single event, which DMv2 have done. Now I know I will get some "Tut tuts" for saying this but I'm sure it is on the mind of some team bosses here. For me, to take away a professional simracing team like DMv2 to replace them with a half hearted team, is unfair. Even Michael Hart-Jones says he doesn't really want to compete and is willing to step back from STC in order to staff the league. I am very sorry if I offended anybody there but I am just expressing myself. It is better to express your feelings than keep them to yourself.

Very very nice text Ross, exactly the reason why we have a second team. I have no idea how we would continue with one team. Def wouldn't be the same.
 
Yea good post Ross, The B teams has and still is going to be a sticking point, and I'm not sure I agree with the reasoning behind scraping the multicar mod. I think the biggest issue this season has been the mini dumps which happens even with just two cars on a server so don't see that has anything todo with the multicar.
 
For us having no B team is not a problem, as what happened last year made our driver's lose motivation to race here, so we had less guys available to race, thus we decided to pull the B team out for the next season before STC decided to remove them, but even before then , the main reason for us to have the B team, was the reason they was created, to help STC fill the grid spots. So it's not a problem for us, But I fully understand the situation with FO and DMSv, as both of these have worked allot harder for the B teams then ourselves in past seasons.

For us this last season we don't really have any positives to take from it unfortunately, so while I would love to talk about positives, am sorry but for us we really have them available to speak about. The tyres in the mod where a very positive though. The negativities are because of the technical issues. The minidumps caused by the mod, track bugs earlier in season, the server lag which caused some bad incidents etc, DMSv & RPM etc got very lucky to avoid these issue's so your feelings are generally good, but the facts are these issue's where not our fault, as allot of our guys run the game in other series without a single issue for a full season, the only issue which was caused by one of our systems was with Mikko earlier in the season having a video card error and Yuri wheel failure at Le Mans. This is the same with Flat-out and the problems they suffered.

Currently we have mixed feelings about the next season, we want to continue racing in STC as we are a very dedicated team and love racing here when things go well, but generally with the announcement that a cut down version of last year’s mod will be potentially used next season, our general feelings are a bit mixed about racing next year. This may sound harsh but after this last season we don’t want to put all our effort into risking a potential same situation as last season with the same mod/situations.

Best Wishes,
DHR
 
Totally agree, whatever we go with for next season has to be rock solid stable.

This year has been very hard to get interest from our team after all the problems, and I totally understood my team mates lack of motivation when we couldn't even practice together.

The other issue for me is the car choices, personally I'd love to drive the Pro cars again, and I think there has been enough response from other drivers for that request not to be ignored. However I would still be happy to drive the sport class cars, but the current 6 cars in the proposal I don't agree with, or at least the cars chosen with the physics as they were from last season I don't agree with.

I firmly believe the current mod and the new cars within are unnesessary and a possible cause of problems. Much safer bet to use the standard models and physics. I think in some ways the mod is trying to reinvent the wheel, its not needed, the balance and variation is already within the game. Obviously alot of hard work went into creating the mod with all the new cars etc, but I feel sometimes its time to cut your losses and move on.

Also something I dont understand with the current car choices is within the 6 cars chosen are the Porsche and Aston which on race day caused alot of mini dump issues for DHR. I don't think it can be fixed, if it was possible I dare say it would have been fixed by now, as it is I don't think anyone knows the cause of the problems so I can't see anyone finding the solution.

The best part of the mod so far without doubt has been the tyres, and I think there is still scope to develop that even more. It just adds so much more to the races, for everyone, the racers, the spectators, its made the whole thing so much more dynamic. It wasn't perfect, there was still usually the same tactic of one stopping but at least this time there was more chance to make a two stopper work or run long on hards with a full tank and switch to softs for a quick second stint etc etc. Lets improve on this.

To summerise.

A) Consult the teams GTPro or GTSport
B) Make it stable.
C) Work on the car selection and bring in a balanced selection of car Physics. (Standard Models and Physics)
D) Develop the tyre model.

Can we all pull in the same direction? I hope so, I don't want to complicate anything. I just want to be honest on what I believe will help the series, and also bring back the feeling we had when we first joined STC. I love racing here and thats why I'm posting, just want to see everything work smoothly and have a great season.
 
The likes of DHR and DMv had lots of drivers, and to condense them down into the same team size as the likes of Project D with I think 10 members? Not that fair. B Teams should be recognised as separate teams, like Toro Rosso and Red Bull. If we take it like that, why would be take out a Team ranked #3 in STC?

For the moment we are 9 drivers, but we have done the Blue cup at 5 (Seb Degraeve has disappeared since 6 months ago and we don't know what happen to him, and our others drivers do others leagues). It isn't a problem for us to race against huge team, it's the contrary :) From my point of vue the ranking is not really fair if you take in account the number of guys who were ejected from the game (minidumps).
 
I do not know whether it is better to eliminate the team B or whatever else, we had joined STC in the worst seasons, with minidumps/crashing almost every race has caused to put us in the back of the ranking, position that don't reflects the value of our team.
Instead of
reduce the number of the teams, why not to encrease them with TWO championships A+B with 7teams x 3cars or 10teams x 2 cars each, with promotion and relegation every 3-4 races?
I sincerely hope my team will attend the next Cup.
 
I do not know whether it is better to eliminate the team B or whatever else, we had joined STC in the worst seasons, with minidumps/crashing almost every race has caused to put us in the back of the ranking,position that don't reflects the value of our team.
Instead of reduce the number of the teams, why not to encrease them with TWO championships A+B with 7teams x 3cars or 10teams x 2 cars each, with promotion and relegation every 3-4 races?
I sincerely hope my team will attend the next Cup.

That could be an idea but the workload for that would be staggering, as one season is already a huge job.
 
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