Racing games - GTR, Race07, Rfactor, etc

Huh. Looks neat, and free-to-play-slash-try is always a positive. I’ll have to set it to downloading, and maybe give it a cough syrup-addled try later. See how far down the leaderboard I am from you on that lap you posted in June.

The purchase model doesn’t really bug me, given my investments into DCS and Rise of Flight, although I am trying to be a little more cost-conscious with respect to such things than I’ve been in the past.

The purchase model didn’t bug me in RoF, because 777 wasn’t selling different skies. With a racing game, unless everyone owns the same track, you can’t race each other.

With the two packs including eight tracks, total, actually finding people to race got a lot easier.

I’m sorely tempted by the BMW M1 pack, but it’s just cars and skins. If they put in even two of the tracks I don’t own, I’d probably fall for it.

You’re doomed.

Wow. Reading through the user reviews on this and some people reeeeeeeaaaalllly hate the DLC model.

They do. And you have to separate out the reviews a bit, as the SimBin R3E game really did nothing for me. Expensive, confused and disappointing.

The Sector3 part of R3E has been better.

There are still stupid things in place. For instance I own the GT3 SLS Merc as part of the ADAC pack, but I have to buy it again to race it in the GT3 class… because… reasons. But since Sector 3 took over, that second totally different exactly the same Mercedes is very heavily discounted to about a buck.

They can’t burn the old design down to the ground, but they’re doing at least something to soften it.

They still should have released this as an actual game that you buy though. The F2P thing has gone really wrong for them.

First impressions: what an incomprehensible interface. Force feedback is well done. I’m a good two or three seconds off of Mr Bismarck’s pace. Sure is pretty, and sounds good too, although I have a low tolerance for engine noises on sick days, evidently. More open wheel would be cool, but there are other sources for that.

And it’s considerably better than it used to be. [shaking head smiley goes here]

Which time are you chasing? The Silhouette time around Raceroom Raceway? The Konigseggeggeggeggegg time? The Egg just has too much power for my stupid right foot.

The Silhouette time around the default track. It’s an exciting circuit, with all the elevation changes and such. I can still take the first chicane faster, and going from the second chicane into the two right-handers at the west end of the circuit I can also improve. I also have problems hitting the braking point for the chicane afte the tunnel and the S bend, but that’ll come eventually.

Here is my newest sim. Sound needs work, but force-feedback is excellent :)


(sorry, cannot embed)

A little pricy too, but you can drive it home after hotlapping!

I almost bought a Miata when I was looking at cars. It was a lot of fun to drive, but I didn’t have anywhere to put the hardtop at the time, besides on the car, and I wanted something I could fit a tall person into if I had to. C’est la vie.

I drove my first race after getting back in the driving game saddle yesterday. I qualified a disappointing 16th, and ended up spinning on the first lap, then again just as I was closing the gap again. Much of my race was spent making up the distance to the pack, with the last third or so taken up with trading passes with such where-are-they-now names as Kovaleinen, Trulli, Glock, and Barrichello. For the last five laps or so, I was a few seconds ahead of Kovaleinen and a few seconds behind Glock, but another frustrating spin on bad tires on the last turn of the penultimate lap dropped me from 18th to 19th. Out of 24 cars starting, and 20 finishing. Not my best showing, but Istanbul Park is hard. Also, my carelessness with tires through practice and qualifying left me with no fresh sets for the race, which also may have had something to do with it. <.<

Having been away from games for a bit, I took a few laps around GSCE’s Cascavel with the Mini to get my chops back, then got into a race. Now I think I see the appeal. The AI was a delightful challenge, until I lost the back end going through turn 2 and hit the end of the tire wall at the entry turn 3. They’d frequently get me down the inside of turns 1 or 2, and I’d usually get them back going around the outside at turn 3. Paint-trading and all. It might have to go on the list.

I bought the cheapest content pack in R3E, getting me Monza, Hungaroring, and Suzuka, which is a pretty decent setup. I decided to spend a few more on one of my favorite tracks a la carte, so here’s my Laguna Seca lap. It’s a teensy big ugly in places. I also put up my best lap of Catalunya in P1 from my restarted F1 2011 career. I’ve always liked Catalunya.

RaceRoom Racing Experience released a new free track. I’m going to set a lap time with a free car tonight or tomorrow, in the interest of promoting friendly Qt3 driver competition.

I visited my fiancée’s family for Thanksgiving, and her little brother is a pretty serious kart racer. We went to an indoor electric karting place, and I was gratified to find that all of my recent driving game experience helped. It was a new track layout, and I expect he would have got further out ahead the longer we went on, but I was within half a second for forty laps or so. It’s a riot, and definitely worth the price of admission.

Do any of the drivers here spend time on iRacing*?

The folks over at Gamers With Jobs have a friendly league running Saturday nights, EST, using primarily the free content. It’s whatever car and tracks tacks the organiser’s fancy and there’s a mix of ability. Thus far we’ve raced the MX5s at Lime Rock, then any GT3 class car at Laguna Seca and this weekend we’re running the Caddilac CTS-V on the oval at Charlotte.

The MX5 race in particular was great, as the leaders ran less than a second apart for 15 laps. The GT3 race wasn’t quite so close, because it turns out 490 horses can go wrong in a hurry.

It’d be great if we could fill out the grid some more.

[SUP]*iRacing’s routine Black Friday deal is on at the moment - you can get a year’s sub for $49.[/SUP]

Yep, just came out of a race in fact! Turns out I’m rubbish at driving a Cadillac CTS-V around tiny courses like Lime Rock Park. :)

I’m not overly competitive (both in laptimes or my racing approach!) - tend to just settle into a groove and try to drive clean.

7pm Central would be 2pm Sunday afternoon for me. Probably doable, but with a young family and good weather there’s no guarantee I’d even be in the house! :)

Here’s Portimao Circuit, R3E’s most recent free addition, along with my lap (1:39.2ish, and I’m still making enough mistakes that a good bit of time remains on the table):

Observations: it’s a tricky, technical track in a lot of places, particularly in the namesake turn, which is a very late apex tightening slightly off-camber right-hander. The magnitude and frequency of the elevation changes means getting good exits out of the most important corners (turns 3-4, 7-8, and Portimao in particular) is difficult unless you’ve already worked out where the line is. It might just be that I’m in downforce-galore F1 mode, but I had a hard time keeping the Canhard planted on the way out of corners.

The Gamers With Jobs Racing League ran its week three event, with the Caddy CTS-V at the Charlotte oval and it turned out to be a lot of fun. In warmup for a long time all the cars were covered by a half second, but we didn’t get the expected pack racing in the actual event, as I was able to sneak out front just enough to break the tow to the car behind and the second place car eventually did the same.

Despite this, there was always something happening on track and all 50 laps had someone battling somewhere. Move of the night probably came on the last lap in a fight for the last step on the podium.

If you’ve almost exactly 30 minutes to kill, the video is here.

The CTS is a great sounding car.

I think next week’s event is going to be back in the Mazdas, at Summit Point.

There is an eBook for getting started with Assetto Corsa (that can be generalized to other sims):

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Nowhere-Assetto-Corsa-2014-11-04-ebook/dp/B00NS918M4

The content looks rather basic in the preview but I love curling up with a guide or a wide-ranging manual when it comes to sims and wargames. It gets me even more invested into the game. I think I might buy it to skim through it.

Why not get a book on real racing. I suggest Speed Secrets series as a good place to start. Only thing you miss is info on game itself

I read plenty of those back in the day. This is just for fun.