Vintage F1 mods thread (anything before 2010)

[Kevin Troschinski]

Something like RSS 1990 F1 mod for Assetto Corsa is so good that no other sim title can compete. Not even close. Sure AMS2 F1 mods are great but AC is still the best. No other game can give me such feeling.

Just curious how is the car compared to ARS 1991 cars?

I am driving ton of championships including nearly everything from RSS, but i left the F1 1990 car aside, because of the ASR 91 ` (normaly i set up a f1 championship like every few years fe. 1958, 67, 70, 75, 79, 86, 91, 99, 2014,2023, no need to drive seasons with nearly same cars/drivers/tracks)

And you´re right, properly set there is nothing beating AC F1 driving in terms of immersion and intensity.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Just curious how is the car compared to ARS 1991 cars?

I am driving ton of championships including nearly everything from RSS, but i left the F1 1990 car aside, because of the ASR 91 ` (normaly i set up a f1 championship like every few years fe. 1958, 67, 75, 79, 86, 91, 99, 2014,2023, no need to drive seasons with nearly same cars/drivers/tracks)

And you´re right, properly set there is nothing beating AC F1 driving in terms of immersion and intensity.

Good question. I have three full seasons with RSS 1991 done so I think I'm qualified to answer. I always use Detroit street circuit in my seasons though because I haven't been able to find decent Phoenix street track that has competitive ai. There is one available and I'd buy it but what I heard it requires monthly payments to the author's Patreon, etc.

Some ASR cars are excellent, like the Williams FW14.

But I find the RSS cars even better to drive and they have superior sounds. ASR have better sparks from the ground effect though, which I love. They look amazing on tracks like Interlagos. RSS cars have very little sparks, only visible on very fast and partially bumpy tracks like the old Silverstone.

However, I had to make adjustments to the all wheels toe from 20 to -30 to make it more driveable on most tracks. And the RSS cars seem to be much more slippery unless the tires are warm, which I think is just realistic.

For me the biggest advantage is the V12 Ferrari sound which is unbeatable on RSS. And ASR Ferrari 642 is a dog to drive. In real life it was a bad car compared to the John Barnard designed 1990 model though... so not necessarily mod's fault. It's just how that car is revving and lacking good driving feel on the RSS.

I'd say ASR is 7 out of 10 with the Ferrari... 9 out of 10 with Williams FW13. They're both superb mods and because the 1988 / 1992 tracks are absolute masterpieces that helps too. Only Hungaroring 1988 ai was too slow. I have to try the ASR 1992 version in my next season.

RSS is almost 10 out of 10 with the Ferrari 641. And ai cars seem to be very competitive on all circuits. Ai skill 93-94 for Senna seems to offer plenty of challenge (for me anyway). Good to have them both. I'm a big Prost fan and in 1990 was the only year Ferrari was competitive and fast before the Schumacher reign.

We should have a vintage F1 mod ideas thread. I've done 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2007 seasons. It's been hard work to make some of the years competitive with correct tracks and car adjustments. Esp. 1982, 1984. I've removed the cockpit adjustable turbos, adjusted engine.ini, tyres.ini, etc. for those years.

PS: I used to have 22 cars grid but when I limited it to 18 it made the season more enjoyable. Much easier to qualify without lower tier cars ruining your fast qualifying lap constantly. Ai seems to work better generally too when you use smaller grid. Lower tier cars won't stuck behind eachother on Monaco and Detroit so easily, etc. And you HAVE to have significant differences in the ai skill settings too. For example in 1986 Jacarepagua F1 race there was 8 seconds difference between #1 and the last car in QF. You have to make the top drivers and cars shine over the Dallaras and Minardis.

Here's all my champs files in one package if you want to have a look. Let me know in pm if you need cars, tracks, etc.

championships

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

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[Kevin Troschinski]

Good question. I have three full seasons with RSS 1991 done so I think I'm qualified to answer. I always use Detroit street circuit in my seasons though because I haven't been able to find decent Phoenix street track that has competitive ai. There is one available and I'd buy it but what I heard it requires monthly payments to the author's Patreon, etc.

Some ASR cars are excellent, like the Williams FW14.

But I find the RSS cars even better to drive and they have superior sounds. ASR have better sparks from the ground effect though, which I love. They look amazing on tracks like Interlagos. RSS cars have very little sparks, only visible on very fast and partially bumpy tracks like the old Silverstone.

However, I had to make adjustments to the all wheels toe from 20 to -30 to make it more driveable on most tracks. And the RSS cars seem to be much more slippery unless the tires are warm, which I think is just realistic.

For me the biggest advantage is the V12 Ferrari sound which is unbeatable on RSS. And ASR Ferrari 642 is a dog to drive. In real life it was a bad car compared to the John Barnard designed 1990 model though... so not necessarily mod's fault. It's just how that car is revving and lacking good driving feel on the RSS.

I'd say ASR is 7 out of 10 with the Ferrari... 9 out of 10 with Williams FW13. They're both superb mods and because the 1988 / 1992 tracks are absolute masterpieces that helps too. Only Hungaroring 1988 ai was too slow. I have to try the ASR 1992 version in my next season.

RSS is almost 10 out of 10 with the Ferrari 641. And ai cars seem to be very competitive on all circuits. Ai skill 93-94 for Senna seems to offer plenty of challenge (for me anyway). Good to have them both. I'm a big Prost fan and in 1990 was the only year Ferrari was competitive and fast before the Schumacher reign.

We should have a vintage F1 mod ideas thread. I've done 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1998, 2002, 2007 seasons. It's been hard work to make some of the years competitive with correct tracks and car adjustments. Esp. 1982, 1984. I've removed the cockpit adjustable turbos, adjusted engine.ini, tyres.ini, etc. for those years.

PS: I used to have 22 cars grid but when I limited it to 18 it made the season more enjoyable. Much easier to qualify without lower tier cars ruining your fast qualifying lap constantly. Ai seems to work better generally too when you use smaller grid. Lower tier cars won't stuck behind eachother on Monaco and Detroit so easily, etc. And you HAVE to have significant differences in the ai skill settings too. For example in 1986 Jacarepagua F1 race there was 8 seconds difference between #1 and the last car in QF. You have to make the top drivers and cars shine over the Dallaras and Minardis.

wow that´s an answer ! I am always glad to see another "freaks" like me (freaks in a positive way). There are few of us present here or on GTP....

Yeah i know that Phoenix problem. I have also replaced it with Detroit.
A threadt similar to Yannick`s Automobilista 2 Formula 1 guide would be meaningful.
I will tell something more about my style of setting up the things later (because i am at work now )

 

[Apocalypse2112]

And Kevin, happy to report that the ASR 1992 Hungaroring track is very competitive. In the 1988 version ai was doing like 1:30-1:32. Now look at this. Amazing. Even Patrese (ai 90) improved and went to 6th in the end 1:28:208.

Still unfortunately the easiest track to win even with a half-assed effort. Maybe it's the track shape that AC ai struggles with. Cars are slow on races. But now they're at least doing QF quite well.

Too bad you can't set the ai level (for QF and race) individually for each race on the champs files. That would be huge improvement because the ai performance varies so much between the tracks.

 

[Kevin Troschinski]

And Kevin, happy to report that the ASR 1992 Hungaroring track is very competitive. In the 1988 version ai was doing like 1:30-1:32. Now look at this. Amazing. Even Patrese (ai 90) improved and went to 6th in the end 1:28:208.

Still unfortunately the easiest track to win even with a half-assed effort. Maybe it's the track shape that AC ai struggles with. Cars are slow on races. But now they're at least doing QF quite well.

Too bad you can't set the ai level (for QF and race) individually for each race on the champs files. That would be huge improvement because the ai performance varies so much between the tracks.

So as i am a non-CM user i set up my championshiops through the vanilla launcher.
When i create a champonship for the first time i set the difficulty for example on 94% and name it like - "f1 1999 94%."
So every AI driver is on 94% difficulty and i have to rename the AI driver with real ones. First thing to know is at this point - there are fast and slower AI drivers by default. From experience i know the default drivers pretty well so i know approximately who i should replace with wich real driver.
Thats the base, but it´s not realy the key.

Then i learn from wikipedia the standings of the real season and add ballast accordingly to the real life results.
For example f1 1999 again:

Häkkinen gets 0 ballast
Schumacher 5 (yes he was 5 but only due the injury)
Irvine 10
Frentzen, Coulthardt, Ralf S. each 20
and so on.... the slowest drivers should not get more than 40-50 ballast.

It´s also possible to additionally slow down the slowest teams with the restrictor by adding 2% or something.

From my experience over 3000h with about 60 diverse championships .... it´s working pretty well, however not perfect, because it´s sometimes also depending on the given cars, mods

The Pro:
You have just more variety with the results. It´s not gonna be Häkkinen or SChumi all the time on the podium and you beating half of the grid with easy but beeing maybe unable to compete with the best.
It can sometime happen at a GP a guy like Panis or Wurz will win and the favorites will struggle, BUT by the end of the day (season) The ending results should be pretty realistic.
Another good thing is, most of the series will provide tighter quali lap times, the gaps will be not that big as using diverse AI strenghts.

The contra:
It may not work with any series and any season. Sometimes it will happen a favorit drive will struggle and do not dominate.
If you hate the fact a guy like Luca Badoer can reach the podium, and its obviously unrealistic - yeah ths may piss u off.

Semi: Often the AI quality on diverse track will vary. If you gonna beat them on 94% with ease on Track X, it could happen you`ll have not a chance on the next Track Y

But in fact it also brings variety and you never know what gonna happen, so it can be seen positive as well as negative.

If i am fe. done with a championship and struggeled to win it on 94%, i start the new season with another car/team on 92%.
If i win the championship it`s obvious i increase the AI strenghts ....

I think thats it for now.

SORRY FOR OFF Topic

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Cool. That method might work very well on early 80's seasons when there was a lot of different winners. Mostly because the turbos were so unreliable.

For example 1982 only Alain Prost took more than 1 win. He won 2 races. World Champion Rosberg won only 1 race (Dijon) but was very consistent through the season. And his underpowered Williams was fairly reliable.

Villeneuve died, Pironi got injured, Renault and Brabham turbos were superfast but broke down most of the time.

Jean-Pierre Jabouille was even more superior with the early turbo Renault in the 79 season. He led many races but finished only two. One win.

Almost impossible to simulate that kind of season properly as AC doesn't support ai tech.retirements.

But wait... actually it does. At least your teammates. I played with some cars that had /data folder and adjusted my car's engine.ini and increased Turbo damage. My teammates car's engine exploded. Just like mine (later in the race).

[DAMAGE]
TURBO_BOOST_THRESHOLD=3.0 ; level of TOTAL boost before the engine starts to take damage
TURBO_DAMAGE_K=10 ; amount of damage per second per (boost - threshold)
RPM_THRESHOLD=12300 ; RPM at which the engine starts to take damage
RPM_DAMAGE_K=0.05 ; amount of damage per second per (rpm-threshold)

I don't know much at all about car modding and most cars don't seem to have the data folder. I'm not sure if it's possible to set that way on other teams' cars but it definitely worked with my teammate.

That could open some doors to more realism. I have the 1982 and 1984 seasons with cars that both have /data folder and when I have time I'm going to experiment with it.

But say, 1998 it was only about Hakkinen and Schumacher. They were so superior compared to the rest of the grid. Coulthard and Irvine were good racers but not even close to Hak/Schu level. I think it's only realistic that they win 90% of the races. 1998 Coulthard won one, Hill one lucky win in the rain. Rest were shared between Hak/Schu.

Same with Senna-Prost era McLaren 88-89. Also most of the races even in the early 90's was 1-2: McLaren 2-6: Ferrari/Williams. Piquet took an occasional win at Adelaide 1990 because Senna crashed but many of those seasons were about just two (or max. three) remotively competitive teams. 1991 it changed towards Williams... Mansell and Patrese got much faster. 1992 was a snoozefest though... not much more variation than Verstappen dominance today.

Yes we definitely have to make a vintage F1 thread. It's way off topic. Otherwise we'll get banned.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Okay we have our own thread.

Any other classic F1/AC gearheads here? Let's see your videos, ideas track recommendations, etc. Has anyone made 70's F1 seasons and how realistic you have managed to get them?

 

[Kevin Troschinski]

Another "interesting" thing i have made was putting a season together with the RSS F1 86` car and the Kunos Lotus 86`
So the best 5 team skins from that season got the RSS car the weaker one´s the Kunos.
The RSS car is a bit faster overal, thats the obvious reason. But it´s also come about the track characteristics.
So after about 6 races i am satisfied, there is some more variety and sometimes also the drivers in the "Kunos car" score some points.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Just for the record:

Piquet / Benetton (ai skill 91) won Monza and Thierry Boutsen/Williams (ai skill 91) won Estoril. Mansell won at Spa. So there's nice variation also when you make the season happening only in the champs files (and no ballast/restrictors at all).

I have my RSS 1990 season ai settings as follows:

Senna 95
Berger 92
Mansell 92
Piquet 91
Boutsen 91
Nannini 89

and the rest at 86-87 and low aggression.

Seems to work really well. I'm getting my ass kicked (managed to get 4th in Monza and 5th in Estoril). Hungaroring and Monaco are pretty easy wins. I also won Hermanos Rodriguez. I should have won Interlagos too but spun.

5-6 wins is possible (for my skills) with these settings. No room for errors on almost any track. If you spin even once, you're over and out. Prost won 6 races in 1990 so it's pretty much spot on (for me).

Whoever made the 1988 tracks did absolutely wonderful job with the ai.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Now this was a horrible race at Interlagos. The 1994 season mod is crazy hard with the ASR 1992 tracks. Playing with Alesi/Ferrari and clocked 1:14:89 which was good enough for the 12th place in the starting grid.

That car is a bit challenging to drive but ah so enjoyable. Really nice to fight for the last points positions instead of always fighting for the wins.

Hit the bump on the fast straight before the finish line and hit the wall in the 2nd lap. LOL.

But that's not the main point. I got the sparks working on this and they look amazing. Check it out.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Best looking sparks yet?

Watch til' the end as Hill (ai) cracks under pressure (and ruins my race too).

 

[Apocalypse2112]

I bought the Phoenix street track (89, 90, 91 layouts). Looks fantastic but ai leaves something to be desired for. 1990 qualifying ai is fast but many cars won't finish the qualifying as they crash or get stuck into the pits. I suspect it's caused by ai cars crashing on the pitlane.

1991 qualifying ai is slow. Race is ok'ish. Haven't tested the 1989 version yet.

Looks phenomenal though.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

Full 1998 season now functional. Buenos Aires 1998 with vintage skins. Amazing season.

 

[Apocalypse2112]

I'm in the process of creating early F1 turbo era seasons and I want to make them as authentic as possible. That means a lot of retirements. This is a take from my 1982 season. Only SimDream cars are available. They were useless in their default form. Way too slow on races. I removed all their other tires except for QF supersoft and they became very competitive.

I play with Williams 1982 Cosworth / K.Rosberg who won the championship that year with heroic drives- and with consistency and reliability against much faster turbo cars. I made my car turbo-less from data (or gave it much smaller boost) but increased the turbo damage value so it doesn't break.

Renault, Ferrari and Brabham had 1.5 turbos with huge power but they were very unreliable.

Renault/Prost had 8 retirements in 1982
Renault/ Arnoux had 10
Brabham/Patrese had 10
Piquet 11 DNF's / DNQ's
Pironi's and Villeneuve's season we all know how sadly it ended for both
Toleman's Fabi didn't finish even one race that season.

These seasons are not realistic at all if Cosworths have the same power and the turbos won't break. Guess what... now they DO break. But not in every race. This is Imola with a long top speed straight. Half of the cars retired.

My starting grid was 11th and ended up 3rd.

All retirements are ai engine failures.

Now the turbos last well on tracks like Long Beach, Monaco and even Dijon and Caesars Palace. But break on fast tracks like Hockenheim, Kyalami, Monza, Imola, Paul Ricard. Prost/Piquet at ai level 100 and Ferraris at 95'ish are superior on those tracks with the turbo engines. If you want to keep them behind you with the Cosworth, you can't have them close on your tail on the straights. You can fight for the championship with podium / points finishes and still have a chance to win on the street circuits (like Rosberg did with the inferior car).

I've been adjusting the 1982, 1983 and 1984 years for a long time. Looks pretty good.

PS: Look at Renault Turbo Prost's best lap time and compare it my Cosworth best lap time. That was pretty much the genuine difference on Monza, Imola and Hockenheim 1982.