ACC Safety Car

Ideally, it would be great if SC comes out for a real reason. For example, while animated marshals clear out debris.

This is complex feature, however. Even simplistic SC like in ISI games is an addition, and lack of it serious drawback for me personally. I like the idea of single series recreated to small details, that is seems what ACC is after. SC is part of the series, really it'll be in, even in simplified form.

 

I quite like the idea of a Safety Car. Maybe not for short races <15/20mins?

How about this for implementation... Say Johnny Noskill manages to damage his car beyond reasonable drivability. It's not a total right-off, but will take some time to get back to the pits and repair. He can try and recover to the pits, causing local Yellows as he trundles around. However, he gets a warning and a delta time to make it back to the pits, failure to keep to the delta time triggers a SC.
Once the SC is deployed, he is 'stopped' on track while the SC picks up the field and passes his position. He is then 'towed' back to the pits and the SC can come in on the same/following lap.

Johnny Noskill is out of the race, so there is incentive to make it back to the pits, hopefully weeding out any system abuse (yeah I know...)
If his car is a right-off, then the SC is automatically deployed, same for any other car.

OK, so reading it back its a crappy idea...

 

I hope it won't be in tbh. I like the idea of a safety car, but when I try to look at it objectively I see it more as game ruining tbh.
There's certain tracks at which turn 1 is almost always a crashfest (Monza), then there's people who are not fully able to properly control their car yet who crash into walls or into other people, and lets not forget about the trolls that enjoy wrecking people more than actual racing.
I hate it when a safety car has to be deployed in real life because it removes the action for a couple of laps and it lets people catch up again, but in real life it is necessary. In gaming it isn't necessary, and lets be honest... most of us aren't pro-drivers like most real life drivers are, which means the safety car would probably get deployed more often than it gets deployed in real life. I just wanna drive and have fun, not get frustrated because of a stupid safety car.

I dunno, I think the idea of a safety car is more enjoyable cuz realism than having an actual safety car in the game.

 

Well this certainly splits my thought 50-50. But maybe in the longer endurance races safety car could actually have a some impact on the race. I think it will also kinda depend on how realistic damage modeling Kunos will add. Think about seeing a car on the track side with no left front wheel after hittiing the wall from a slide or having the bumper pieces scattered on the track.

Would be nice to try out this feature but then again it would be a waste of work if they choose not to implement it in the end

 

I'd say it's a lot easier to implement in oval racing for a number of reasons, simpler track layout means getting the pack organised behind the safety cars is much easier. The fact iRacing have it for oval but not for street shows that it's probably not easy or they've have implemented it already.

I think that the safety car is only workable in races that are at least an hour. In a race like that I think it could be exciting, it would be very different from watching a race with a safety car. A lot of races end up being pretty lonely if your faster than the guy behind and slower than the guy in front. So getting bunched up after a few dozen lonely laps would bring excitement.

Bad drivers probably won't be doing the longer sessions.

It probably wouldn't make sense for a one car accident, maybe there could be a rule that it only gets deployed if two or more cars crash. Then it runs for two laps.

I suppose the bottom line is that the SC just isn't necessary in sim racing. I wouldn't oppose it being in the game, but I also wouldn't be upset if there's no safety car because it seems like a lot of work for minimum returns.

 

great idea, Kunos could release another game and combine it with ACC Multiplayer and call it "Recovery Truck Driver Simulator 2019"

 

Maybe it's possible to implement a Full Course Yellow instead of a safety car. Would be (I assume) a lot easier to implement, doesn't let all cars catch up and could be lifted after lets say 45 seconds to 1.5 minutes.
You get the realism of people cleaning up a track, without the frustration of an actual safety car. Would be a nice compromise imo.

 

Wow! so many against SC. I think SC is must for proper league races and top level races.
I do think that SC is unusable for short and low skill races. But that is no reason for not having a feature in a game. As many have said it already, it should be optional.

 

Well it kinda is, TBF. If the feature is hard to implement and the majority of races are short or low skill, then that is a pretty good reason for not implementing it. I’d like to see proper safety car functionality for sure but you have to be pragmatic about these things.

… in an ideal world with infinite developer time, sure that sounds like the obvious solution. Sadly that is not this world.

 

And I am said to be negative person

 

In what way is it a 'must for proper league races'?

 

I see this same way as tyre wear or fuel consumption. It is integral part of the race strategy. Ask Fernando Alonso if you don't believe me.

 

I think Fernando would tell you that “must” means a necessity. If people have been managing to race in leagues without SC up ‘til now then you can’t really call it a “must have”.

Sorry if that all sounds a bit pedantic, but it makes discussion difficult when language gets twisted.

 

Sure, it becomes part of race strategy for races with a (mandatory) pitstop, but it's not a must for proper league races. 99% of league races have never needed a safety car.

In races without a pitstop it shouldn't even be an option, but then you get lobbies in which people set 10-12 laps with a mandatory pitstop to activate the option for a safety car. Then you end up with a mandatory pitstop for way too short races, plus a safety car that will most likely be deployed, ruining 2-3 laps. This is just to name an example of the impracticality of a safety car, not even talking about how hard it would be to implement a properly functioning safety car (not saying Kunos wouldn't be able to make a properly working safety car).

The way I see it, it brings more difficulties and frustration than it solves. I'm sure most front-runners in real life races wouldn't mind if there was no safety car.
Racing is about being the most consistent and fastest person on track, having a safety car which mostly favors the guys behind P1 is in no way necessary in virtual racing as there's no stewards who have to clean up debris. It's like implementing a factor of (un)luck.

I wouldn't oppose if Kunos wants to implement a properly working safety car, but I'd rather not see them implement one. And if it ever were to be implemented, only for endurance races please.

 

You can also say "It is a game, nothing in it is "must have". You can also say that for game that is simulating racing that uses safety cars it is "must have".

I really don't see why it would be bad to have option for it. I have had plenty of fun races with mandatory pit stop that are 10 to 15 laps long. Custom races should be customisable.

To this I can only say that there have been plenty of boring races in real life as well in sim racing where people have driven nicely in a queue through full race and there have been races that were spiced by SC involvement.
Of course it sucks for the loosing side but that is part of the sport we are trying to simulate.

 

I'm not saying it's bad to have an option for a mandatory pitstop, I'm saying it's bad when that option is used to activate the use of a safety car in such a short race (in case a safety car will only be possible to deploy in races with a pitstop).

It seems we'll have to agree to disagree Sure, I like battling and close racing, but I enjoy lapping and (trying to) staying consistent aswell. I don't get bored by driving laps on my own tbh, I don't feel the need for a safety car to spice up the race.

I remember from the interview Kunos did with RaceDepartment that Kunos didn't want to implement random damage that could take a driver out of the race (e.g. a factor of luck/randomness). I hope they also think the safety car belongs in the same category thus not implementing it.

 

I mean, you can say anything you like, but if you wanna have a constructive discussion, I’d strongly recommend you stick to the established definition of words. If you want to redefine “must have” to mean things that you personally think are important, then yes it does render the term rather meaningless as you demonstrate.

If you want an example of an actual “must have”, take multi-player. A sim must have multi-player functionality to allow players to run racing leagues.

 

+1 for it from me.

As others stated it’s part of Blancpain today and it also adds the thrill of being able to challenge others when they may have pulled away before.

Also gives a chance to relax for a few before kicking into high gear again!

 

Just to gather some thoughts from many posts above:

Positive:
+ Can change pitstop strategy for a race
+ Can effect the outcome of a race
+ Adds to the immersion and realism of Blancpain series
+ Can give others a chance to catch up a runaway leader

Negative:
- Can be used for trolling
- Can be really boring to some people
- Can be challenging to gather everyone into a proper formation behind SC
- Is not good in short races
- Can be very problematic in low ranked races where crashes happen more often

Additional thoughts:
* should have on/off option for race host in custom servers
* necessity of VSC (virtual safety car)?
* few other racing games have some sort of safety car feature (iRacing, F1 2018, rFactor2...)
* possibility to let a player act as a race director on custom servers?
* game needs some degree of damage modeling where you can actually total your car in a harsh crash
* towing features?
* possibility to add oil leak puddles and debris fields on track dynamics causing local yellows

Reminder to everyone: please keep it constructive

 

No safety car please