Project Cars April 27 2015
AI Racing and making a clean getaway
Tracks: Imola and Donington GP
Cars: Formula B & RWD P30 LMP1
INTRO: As we near the end game I’m still keeping an eye on the vehicle developments and zooming out for the big picture too. The racing is what we will all be most excited about when it comes down to it, in addition to the stunning visuals and handling, so it’s the racing I’m looking at the most. I will also weave in comments for the dev team to pick up on and put these in brackets for ease of use.
I was a late bloomer when it came to qualifying. In the junior levels it was far to much fun slogging your way from the back of the grid all the way through to the front. For knuckle heads like me the Sim should provide an endless resource of near misses and good fortune!
Once you add downforce and brutally talented competition to the equation you have to accept that qualifying is the be all and end all if you want to hang on the podium with the good looking people. That said, it always pays to have the heart for a fight tucked up your sleeve for those weekends that don’t quite go to plan. With that in mind I strapped into the Formula B and dropped into the “Quick Race” mode to try my hand…
One of better party tricks for a standing start back in the day was getting away from the line better than most on a consistent basis. In cars like F3000 and F3 this was a particular advantage because if you could lay the power down better than the next hooligan it made a huge difference to your afternoon.
In F3 my M/O was nearly always to start on 100% throttle with the engine buzzing on the rev limiter from just after the 5-second board went up (* we have no 5 second board and would be great to have one) then ease my clutch foot until I found the biting point and then freeze my eye on the lights.
Based on the traction level I felt on the green flag lap, I then decided how much clutch to slip all at once as soon as the red lights went out (*our red lights stay on when the lights go green and we should really change this so that the red lights go out a nanosecond before the greens come on – the amateur racer waits for the greens to light up, the pro goes when the reds turn off to get the jump)
On a grippy track when you dump, quickly release, the clutch you can hear the revs drop and in an F3 car you might snap the clutch pedal back in to keep the revs up, or hold it steady. On a slippy track you drag the clutch out slowly to control the wheelspin.
In a car like the Formula B which has more power than say the Formula C, which is more F3-like, I used to sit at around 5,400 rpm so that I could deploy the same strategy as above. Then I would whip the clutch out as far as I could, without stalling the engine, but avoiding wheelspin – and you have power in reserve if needed to prevent that happening. Bearing in mind all of the above – I discovered two very different situations with the Formula B and LMP1.
FORMULA B
I’ve done a ton of starts and restarts and tried every combination I know, including starting in 2nd gear, but I find it very hard to get away without breaking traction, and almost impossible to get the jump on the AI racers. The closest I got was when I fluked what should have been a jump start but the lights changed exactly when I dumped the clutch.. Now I wouldn’t normally try to apportion blame to the Sim for my incompetence unless I saw a trend..
LMP1
(*we need a rolling start for LMP1 & GT cars)
With the LMP1 I put full throttle in first, dumped the clutch and pulled away like a scolded cat every time – and way faster than the AI mob I was pleased to discover!
Conclusion: if I were to hazard a guess I would surmise that the Formula B is still a bit demanding in terms of controlling traction generally. It still punishes YAW when you slide and is pretty hard core when you reach the limit on the exit of a slow corner. I think this plays into the AI’s hands because it knows more than I do about physics!!
HANDLING
FORMULA B: I’ve hinted that I feel the FB could be a touch more forgiving but that said it’s a fantastic racecar and it keeps you on your toes. My only criticism is regards low speed traction and stability under hard acceleration over kerbs – coming out of the first chicane at Imola there’s a left hand kerb which can spin the car even in 4th gear if you ride it, so I just think she could do with a tweak at some point in the future.
Besides that I’m still having tons of fun with the FB and love digging into the brakes deep, deep into the braking areas and causing havoc with the AI field.
LMP1 RWD – I can’t believe it’s my first run in this baby. It’s my new favourite car! Here’s why.
DONINGTON is one of my favourite tracks and I won the Tourist Trophy here aboard the Ascari LMP1 some time ago.. It’s one of those places that looks big on TV and feels small when you’re inside a big car like the LMP – it punishes you if you go off line, and that is replicated beautifully on the SIM. I would go as far as to say I think it’s the best track model we have done. The detail of the track surface, cambers, import of the correct line and the sunny crests are superb.
This particular LMP1 has a serious turbo-charged engine so the sound effects are pretty awesome, but it’s the way it handles that absolutely hits the right note. The car is agitating all the time, hopping over bumps and darting around on every grain of asphalt, you can feel the urgency inside the steering wheel.
Once you find the sweet spot of the power band, you quickly adapt to driving the nuts off the engine to keep the revs high so that when the turbo spools up you have controllable power. This allows you to swoop in and out of the fast corners with tremendous control and still have the car feeling alive underfoot.
![[IMG]](http://forum.wmdportal.com/images/smilies_cscd/a19.gif)
When you do overstep the mark, the car is forgiving but not overly so. On this account – it is the most perfectly balanced car on our roster and I really want to high five the dev team for that.
Braking is mega late and it’s pretty much a maximum application followed by some feathering as you release the brake to tip into the corner. In the Ascari my foot used to be totally numb after 45 minutes for this very reason – Logitech’s brake pedal is more forgiving so count yourselves luck for power assistance!!
Like I mentioned, be mindful with your line around Donington and you can be fully committed on the braking areas as long as you hit those apexes EARLY. Especially redgate, old hairpin and coppice. Take it out for a spin and you will sense that immediately. I cannot fault the handling of this car – it does exactly what it should.
COCKPIT VIEW: But I can moan about the interior.. The A Pillar on the left of the windscreen does get in the way of your vision in left handers.. I have to admit that I remember getting frustrated with the real car in right handers and gradually adapting to having a great big black spot just when you were trying to out a wheel over a big kerb… The advantage I had was the ability to move my head around a bit, and get more context through the side window. Is there a way that we could try to alleviate this situation and help the driver’s point of view a bit? It would be a great shame if the visual challenge put people off one of the most exciting cars in the game – LMP1 has always been the best racing in my experience.
Artificial Intelligence
Replicating the thought processes of a race driver into a computer is widely viewed as being a more dangerous undertaking than re-creating a black hole in your living room, but we did it.
Some of the AI drivers are stupid, unpredictable and f***ing annoying.. It seems therefore that the dev team have done us proud here in re-creating real life.
![[IMG]](http://forum.wmdportal.com/images/smilies/tickyes.png)
I’ve not noticed any vindictive characteristics so I think we have a good balance here.
One moment that rooted me totally in the experience was exiting out of Turn 1 (redgate) at Donington in the LMP1 on the opening lap of a race. A car was shoved wide and re-joined the track. As he returned the rear brake lights flicked on and off twice to simulate the AI driver dabbing the brake pedal to make sure he had good brake pressure in case the pads had been knocked away from the discs. It’s detail like that makes Project Cars special.
Looking ahead I’m keen to trial the upcoming DLC cars/tracks so I look forward to their release. AND I’m standing by for the wet weather developments…..
Superb job guys and excited for the launch!
--- Dev reply: ---
Good stuff.
![[IMG]](http://forum.wmdportal.com/images/smilies/smile.png)
On cockpit view in the LMP1, you'd be amazed what a game changer tech like the Oculus Rift is there. In something like the RWD or, even more so, the Ford Cobra Trans-Am, having that depth of field filtering into your brain and head movements all synced turns them from a super claustrophobic experience into something that feels very nice and normal...maybe cozy, even? Much easier for me to focus on the road when using it. I presume something like TrackIR can have similar effect; never tried that here.
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