Briefly: Buddy of mine loves world of outlaws sprints. Got Rfactor to play Dirtfactor and SBS-Sprints. I got Rfactor to play with him. Then started messing with GRID. Reinstalled DiRT. Reinstalled Race07 and GTR2. Bought a Logitech MOMO wheel. Damn, I’m hooked again.
I have zero Rfactor experience, but it seems really neat. Cars that came with the game are absolute shit though. Dirt racing mods are great stuff. F1 2008 RFT mod is pretty tight. The force feedback SUCKED until I installed realfeel.dll and now it’s pretty perfect - if the mod supports it correctly.
What other mods are high quality? I have no desire to race subcompacts that can’t stay on the track through a corner though. GTR2 is pretty perfect to me, and I’d like to plug all the stuff from it into Rfactor if I could.
I have noticed a major difference between the driving of GTR/Race07 and Rfactor though, in that the Rfactor cars seem to have no grip in the corners. A turn I can take easily in GTR has me eating the wall. Does GTR way over-do grip, or is Rfactor the one with an issue? Maybe it’s just that the Rfactor cars have a useless setup out of the box.
Unfortunately, there are only a small handful of car mods that I think are keepers. The two I listed above are the ones I spend almost all of my time using when I play rFactor. I mess around with tweaking the physics of other mods for my personal use and have what I feel are a pretty good Formula BMW and SR Radical now.
Very much looking forward to the release of the Historic GT mod which should be out in the next few weeks. It’s essentially a port of the classic 60’s/70’s touring cars from GT Legends with completely reworked physics by a group which includes the person behind the C6 Corvette. Looks like it will be excellent.
I also highly recommend downloading the demo for Live For Speed and giving that a shot. In my opinion, the dynamics in LFS are far superior to any of the ISI-engined sims (rFactor, GTR2, Race, etc). The demo is fully-featured but content-limited and includes multiplayer support on the demo servers.
I’ve had a lot of good times racing online with V8Factor (Australian V8 Supercars), CTDP 2005 (Formula 1) and one of the Porsche Challenge Cup mods - I’d link the PCC mod but it looks like there’s now a few and I’d hate to get the wrong one :(
Really though, Race07 has taken over our touring car racing (note to everyone, do yourself a favour and watch the WTCC).
Should work for any wheels, the problem is that it won’t work for all mods.
I’d open the hand a bit regarding rF mods. Anything in the Hall of Fame of rfactorcentral.net should be at least enjoyable.
I too used to look down on rF from the heights of LFS purist’s heaven, but any average rF mod can be still worth a try and loads of fun. For example the 1979 F1s might be off here and there, but I swear I grew thicker sideburns while driving them in a champioship last year.
Some personal favorites:
-Cars:
Aussie V8s
Mini Challenge
BMW 320i
F1 1979
CTDP 05 F1
-Tracks (whatever version is most recent of these):
Nordschleife
Adelaide
Birmingham
Monaco
Lime Rock Park
There’s also a jewel in the included default content: Toban. It’s a fictional track that some billionaire should build for real.
Completely reworked the suspension geometry and tyres but there were a lot of little tweaks.
Formula BMW is a junior racing formula using spec single-seaters. There are several Formula BMW series run around the world. Here’s a photo of a couple of Formula BMW cars from the UK series at Knockhill in Scotland.
Lurb, is the AI in rFactor really that bad? Like unplayable, or just not challenging, or what? I’d really like to do a season with the F1 2005 (with 2007 skins or whatever) mod but don’t feel like joining a crew online. It is mostly for me just to have fun learning the tracks and driving the cars, and doing a championship makes me move along to all the venues and gives me a chance to do practice, qualifying, and a little racing. It’s worked great so far after two race weekends in GTR2.
Try NKP. The demo is pretty limited, you only get 1 car and one track, and don’t let the basic GUI scare you. Underneath is one of the best physics engines (some would claim the best).
I can’t really recommend the full version (unless you like hot-lapping). There is no AI, and the multiplayer scene is close to non existent (unless you join GPC).
The problem is that it’s too erratic. You have an “agression” slider that seems to have just two possible effects at any range you set: “target me and run me off the track” or “stay timidly behind even if I’m almost stopped”.
The “skill” slider is similar, you set it to say, “80%” and it works ok in a given track, with the AI matching your pace. Then the next track comes and AI leaves you in the dust, next one they are moving chicanes and next they are slow and always crash in the same corner.
If you fiddle a bit with it you can race the AI in many track&car combos, but we aren’t close to beat the Racing Turing Test yet.
AI feels somewhat better on RACE 07 or GTR2, I guess they have the original unmodded tracks somewhat pre-learned and that helps.
Still, I don’t want to be a bore, but racing someone else feels completely different: Pressure, mindgames, aggression, focus, rivalry… woah…
I have to keep myself under control when it comes to multiplayer. I started dabbling in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts last year, and that didn’t end well for my free time. And the wife doesn’t mind as long as I can pause! :)
The Historic GT & Touring Cars mod for rFactor has just been released. It weighs in at a hefty 1GB and the installer does a DVD check to ensure that you have a valid GTLegends DVD before installation.
It could be more involved than you’d like, if it’s anything like the Power & Glory mod for GTR2. I had to make a (non-functional) disc image of GTL on another PC then mount it on my primary system just so the mod could extract a few subdirectories. How I’d love a GTL re-release, sans protection…
I’ve always attributed the difference to the cars themselves. The basic cars in Rfactor are pretty stock-like, ie low tire grip, low power, and little aero. I’ve made a few setup chages to make them more tossable, but they are still not equal to the GT1/2/3 of GTR.
I have to say I still prefer Power&Glory for GTR2, mainly because of the modeling of the old tires and suspension in P&G. Those early tires require so much slip to get grip, meaning you are driving sideways much of the time. Only problem with P&G is you get less cars because they have only released about 1/3 of the cars from GTL so far.
I’m pretty much an offline racer due to family circumstances, so I thought I’d add a bit more to Lurb’s response. He is absolutely correct in his description of the aggression slider in rfactor, and the fact it is much better in Race07 or GTR2. What I wanted to elaborate a bit on is how the racing line is followed by the AI and why its a really big deal. Built into every track is a set of instructions for the AI regarding the racing line and relative speed. Depending on how well the author of the track did in this work will determine how well the AI will run. For example, the track author might overcall or undercall the racing speed on a given track and your typical AI strength slider will need to be moved to give you a good race. An example of too little AI speed on a track I run is Sears Point/Infinion. The track author could also create a slightly different racing line or speed in a specific corners than a human could/would. For example at the version of Lime Rock Park I run in GTR2 the AI runs a bit faster than me in Big Bend but slower than me in the Diving Turn. This can mean the AI will repeatedly punt you off the track if you are driving a different line than they expect. Once you’ve driven a few laps with the AI, you will learn their line and where you need to drive to avoid most of the blatent punts.
All of this means all the user-created tracks not only vary in realism and graphics, but also in AI. Some tracks AI is so bad that I only run them in practice or time trial modes (ie without AI). As Lurb mentioned, the base GTR2 and Race07 tracks are all solid. The popular real-world tracks (Le Mans, Sebring, Lime Rock, etc etc) tend to also be pretty good because the authors get good feedback.
So I should be able to run a season, look at relative times and how the AI behaves while I’m on the track with them, and change a slider for the actual race, perhaps? Or is that locked in at the beginning of a season?
