[WIP] GP2 2013

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Hello gents. Since there very few good quality open wheeler mods and no GP2* at all, i decided to make one.

Specs:
FormulaRR chassis (almost identical dimensions to real GP2 chassis)
620bhp at 10 000RPM
680kg with proper inertia
Fixed suspension geometry
Improved brakes
Wide setup parameter range
New aero simulation
Completely new tire model
- Three compounds
- Temperature simulation is highly improved
- Better drop-off curve on high temp/low temp and off pressure
- Better slip curve
- Improved tire carcass model
- Realistic camber torque and matching camber heat effect
- Improved pressure simulation
- Realistic wear

The goal is to make a car that can be used both on sprint to 60min race distances. It isn't easy to drive, the engine is not forgiving. Lockups will eat and heat your tires. Driver needs to manage them well but if he does, they are just lovely. Difference between compounds is around 0.8 per lap. Top speed is ~320km/h on Monza aero setup. Wings do produce significantly more drag than what you may have used to. Tire carcass "bounciness" is improved immensely and leaving suspension to handle chassis movement. Extreme setups might work on one lap distance but not on longer runs. Drivers effect on the whole package is more crucial, you can push and use tires more or you can keep them in optimal condition longer. Temperatures change quickly, the heat up fast and cool down fast. Brakes are strong and need to be at correct temperatures to work right.

The chassis is so close to the real thing that it's almost a miracle.. It might be re-modelled at later stage to fit GP2 visuals even better (nose is different and the sharkfin is missing)

Now i need data. The values are very close to the final but without broad feedback coming from all types of drivers and and wider talent range, they can not be finalized. Especially 12 to 25 lap stints, grip/aero/engine matching, extreme setups, extreme driving styles compared to more economical and optimized runs.. Fuel consumption is not set yet, there's no way of dialing that before the overall package is ready.

The only compromises are to be made for the sake of gameplay, to suit the needs of leagues and longer races rather than casual racing. Also 1km towards hardcore is better than 1mm towards arcade.

So anyone interested? Reply on this thread and i'll PM you the WIP link.(edit: the content is cleared, it is legal, as it always was... link is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z832jejhs28r76m/GP2_2013_WIP_0.5.zip ) You don't need anything but it's recommended that you install FormulaRR expansion, it's free..

* Yes, there is one GP2 mod but the car model is totally wrong. It's based on Formula Masters. So it's too short, too narrow, too low, weight is too low, inertia is breaking the rules of physics, tires are too small, aero is almost arcade.. In short, it is not a GP2 at all..

EDIT: Collision model is going to be checked and fixed if needed.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

IMPORTANT INFO, v0.5 install: Remove Formula RaceRoom before testing (via Steam, delete local content or manually). There must be some remnants, paths/filenames from the base models that needs to be fixed before next release.

Feedback so far has been very positive, more than i aniticipated. There are very few compromises made modelling the physics, it might've been the right choice.. Wet tires crash to desktop added to buglist.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Name is chosen, it is GP2013LE, GP2 2013 League Edition.

Bahrain tests are going like a dream. Managed to get some new features in it. Tire model is going to be the most detailed yet. Rainbow tire choices (like soft front, medium rear) is NOT going to be possible. This means that for the first time, leagues can enforce that rule! Found a way how to do it yesterday.

Update 0.6
(file link will be available when the pack is ready, there is a huge task of re-organizing and renaming to make this compatible with FormulaRR installed, which will become a requirement later)

Tire model, v0.6
- Separate, individual slip curves for different compounds (v0.6 has two of them active, soft and medium). No more wet tires with dry tire slip angles..
- Soft and medium compound wear rates fit 59 min race distance.
- Temperature ranges and grip effects tuned.
- Decreased grip overall

New Super Soft Compound, aka qualy tire, Time difference on real GP2 is up to 6 seconds between qualy and race!
- Lasts 4 laps
- Fully artificial temperature effect to fit SuperPole configuration for qualification.
- Optimal temperature when leaving garage
- Temperature effect on grip is halved
- Off pressure effects halved.
- Impossible to use in race, you simply have to coast outlap, make one, possibly two attempts depending on the track. They are unusable on lap 4, you can get decent inlap and that's it, overall grip is halved at this point.
- about +5% grip boost comparing to Soft compound, simply unusable in race.

Note, SS Compound is optional, it might be dropped from the final release.

Physics updates, v0.6
- Updated engine with correct fuel consumption
- Tweaked aero to fit new engine

Lap times are close, 1:38/1:44 are the real life values, qualy/race respectively. This mod can do 1:38 with average race pace on 1:42 before new tire model. So it's pretty freaking close, aero and engine tweaks were very very tiny. The basic concept of letting the game engine do it's job, making the physics just real, no frill and thrills, no compromises and clean, solid default values really does work. This is not a boast, i have been absolutely astounded by the results so far. It has also reversed the trend on Race07 setup; softer the better. With better tire model and better tire elasticity model, tire carcass is functioning part of the suspension, the chassis is tuned totally different, closer to real life values is definitely better. High ARB, stiffer springs, everything lines up with real life values used in such vehicles..

I started this just as an experiment, trusting the game engine and forgetting the usual "safety" issues that come when the physics is tweaked to make AI better, to give novice/amateur modes better performance.. AI won't ever be very good to drive this mod, it simply is not a requirement.

The re-organizing and bug hunting to make this mod fit all kinds of configuration can take a while. It almost stopped all progress.. It's now delegated, April Dillon tries to fix incompatibility problems. In the mean time, all i can offer are new physics files but it still wont work if FormulaRR is installed. In the final release, this situation will be reversed: it wont work without FormulaRR but works side by side with all popular Formula mods. That means super low file sizes and simple skin conversion FormulaRR (hopefully i can make a tool to batch convert FormulaRR skins to GP2013LE..)

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Update: 0.7.07: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q1h8i8c0tfrphvy/GP2_2013_Physics_Update.07.07.2014.zip

Main pack is the same, if you have them, don't need to download 'em.
(GameData\Teams https://www.dropbox.com/s/50nlmhamj1i7dy5/GP2_2013.zip
GameData\Sounds https://www.dropbox.com/s/jbznnpfylkczj8g/GP2_Series.zip )

Changelog: Tweaks all over, nothing too dramatic. Medium and Hard compounds are created, they are simple iterations from soft compound. Tire Temperatures tweaked. Aero tuned to have the more base drag but less accumulation. Engine torque curve is more refined. Like i said, no major changes, lots of smaller ones.

Problems: Lack of proper GP2 real world data, for ex they wont publish speed trap data at all (which is strange but i'm guessing it has something to do with F1...) so hitting the real lap times is pretty impossible. At the moment i fear that this mod is too fast but slowing it down anymore will start to cut down on simulation properties but F3000 lap times are not far behind on most tracks. It's about 5 seconds slower than F1 in Silverstone, which is good but there's a catch: i'm relying on MY driving skills, which are not really that good. Lack of feedback is the ONLY thing that is slowing the release of this mod. I'm surprised for the lack of interest, it is the first mod that uses fully dynamic tire modelling, would've thought just out of curiosity it would get some attention.

 

[Björn]

Heya - while this whole mod does sound interesting, it still seems to require a complete uninstall of Formula RR, is this correct? Just wondering as it was announced to be taken care of in the last post, however, I can't get it to work with the current post's links?

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Heya - while this whole mod does sound interesting, it still seems to require a complete uninstall of Formula RR, is this correct? Just wondering as it was announced to be taken care of in the last post, however, I can't get it to work with the current post's links?

Just move the original GameData\Teams\FormulaRR somewhere (like drag&drop it to desktop), in any case do not uninstall it. I agree, it should've been dealt with allready but it's was far better to continue with (slow) progress than no progress at all..

 

[Bob Miley]

Main pack is the same, if you have them, don't need to download 'em.
(GameData\Teams https://www.dropbox.com/s/50nlmhamj1i7dy5/GP2_2013.zip
GameData\Sounds https://www.dropbox.com/s/jbznnpfylkczj8g/GP2_Series.zip )

Extracted these to the paths as shown but no sound.



Its ok sorted it path should be GameData\Sounds\Car

 

[Björn]

Wow, feels really good - just did 20-ish laps on Monza, times comparable to 2013 GP2 results, so that seems to be fine.
One thing I noticed: The (left) front tyre overheats real fast, though that might also be track-specific and/or related to me not spending much time setting the car up

Other than that, just good fun, IMHO, this might become a viable option for club races alternating with FBMW/IFM and the like

Considering I'm not really getting Istanbul & Machwerk so far, I might give the car a few more runs during the week

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Temperatures do climb up really fast, they should also go down pretty fast if that tire is not loaded (most likely, that parameter needs further tweaking). Highly dependable on driving style. Tire scrubbing sound is very very high due to certain limitations put on the whole game, basically the whole grip range has been "squeezed" and with minimum grip inserted to low end (the maximum grip is still realistic in the original game). In this mod, there is no minimum grip so it slides over every bump. Just put it lower in the audio menu, if you have used 100% like i do, 30% is fine. Tire squeal starts a bit earlier too.

 

[vandkanonen]

Sorry, maybe a stupid question, but where do i drop all the files?

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Sorry, this mod is not developed anymore, at least, not publicly..