Anti-Alien technology

Edit: People cheat in computer games, it's a fact. That's why there are entire programs dedicated to eliminating them such as Punkbuster, and these days programs like Steam do some of this job too.

But AC is different. No drivers in AC will ever cheat or push the boundaries of reality, physics or the game engine to go faster. And that's becuase fast simulation drivers or 'aliens' are 'talented' and slower drivers are all untalented in comparison, bar no exceptions, that's just a fact, you'd better learn to live with it buddy and not question. So the developers should not spend one minute of precious their time on this as surely it would be a total waste.

Therefore we don't need this thread.


Many aliens are quick, very quick, but I think they use different methods to be quick, from outright cheating, insane amounts of gameplay to developing muscle memory and very high levels of circuit knowledge though to unrealistic car set-ups.

It would be great if Kunos could figure out exactly how some guys are quick, and some just are which is fair enough, but at least use the simulation as best as possible to prevent unrealistic set-ups from being able to work, increased tire degradation after a lap or two on soft or very soft tires, flat-spotting, going off-road and driving too hard, preventing cutting in certain areas and anything else I've forgotten to level the playing field a bit, but in a realistic way. I'm not into artificially slowing people down who are insanely quick, we'll always have aliens, but thinking about why some of these alien techniques couldn't work in the real world and preventing them might be beneficial to the simulation.

 

Oh God not this again...

TBH most 'aliens' are very, very tidy and they use exact same techniques that would work in a real car too...

 

One word; realism.

If a sim is as realistic as possible, the aliens would be equally fast in the real world. To me, AC feels the most realistic up untill now. In iRacing you had to use some quirks of the physics to be fast, in AC it is not the case. Regarding 'fast unrealistic setups', I'd like to see some examples.

Not to bash you Luigi, but sometimes I have the feeling that simracers cannot accept there are very very fast people out there who are quite frankly (a lot) faster than they are. Live with it, you are not the fastest, nor am I. Greger however, is .

 

1. practice
2. practice
3. practice
4. ...

 

Kunos doesn't need to reinvent the wheel here, not when the answer to your problem is in your own hands......simply boot anybody that runs faster than you when you host your on-line lobby; problem solved.

 

Ciao Luigi, I partially agree with you in some points that you mentioned. Although insane amount of "gameplay" could also be called "training", I don´t think anyone should be penalized for being alien fast. Maybe you´re being influenced and getting frustrated by the alien times, in that case, as Ross Bentley wrote, forget about the other racers and focus on your own speed, technique and improvement.

Regarding the unrealistic car setup-ups, I agree that it could be limited, but I´m afraid the only viable way to do so, would be by realistic means, like as you said, flat spottting tires, realistic tire wear, realistic engine wear, over heating, oil pressures behaviors, and so on, and I´m pretty sure that Kunos is walking this way doing the best they can, tho I´m afraid that it will always be possible to walk around it, simply by restarting the session. Its a simulator, and that´s what they´re for in first place, to simulate what ifs without spending big bucks with track time. How many crashes, extreme over Gs, restarts, unreal setups and situations do you think that a real air force fighter pilot goes through during each of his simulator sessions?

 

Flat spots on tires, transmission damage because of misshifts, and brake fade are all on their way so that will help if the fast guys are driving unrealistically.

 

Thoroughly searched the forums, no thread quite like this or would have posted in it.
Also if it really was the case that aliens are exactly as quick as in real life aren't race teams beating a path to their door, or should they be?

Felipe, of course nobody should be penalized for playing insane amounts of AC, if that's their choice, and to TBH the time you put into practice and set-up configuration rewards itself with lap times mostly. I don't have any alien jealousy, for the most part I'm happy with my lap times 2-3-4 usually better than 80-90% of the other drivers in single seaters except at Nurburgring where I suck. Full time job and 2 kids and serious motorcycle and bicycle hobbies, so time is limited.

Also I realize some extra realistic car features are coming as MH is right to point out, and that's where I'm trying to steer the conversation, with the hope that when full damage/tire degradation is implemented some aliens who are relying near cutting and insane flat spot type trail braking would be hurt by sufficient car and tire damage and the Devs not wimp out in this area as some other sims have allowing some very quick drivers to get away with murder. Much less so with AC but in other sims like Simbin/RF1 the aliens were all cutting like crazy up to 1mm from where they would be penalized, flat-spot trail braking like heck and using loads of clutch out of corners and some just cheating.

No problem with aliens, as long as they are pure practice-practice-practice, set-up refining types, just like Kunos to work towards to weeding out those other ones out.

 

Not all (if hardly any, really) aliens practice-practice-practice to get that way....I have a friend that can get in a car/track combo he has never been in and within 15 minutes he is setting WR or near WR times.....he will then pick up another tenth or two with a couple hours practice and setup tweaking....but out of the gate he is running faster than I will be even if I practice several hours every day for months...natural talent is a wonderful thing for those that possess it...he is mortal in street cars though, lol.

 

in a sim whose goal is realism, those unrealistic setups wont be an issue anyway. however i agree with you on one point: one of the cars in AC could have just one default setup. and it would be the same for everyone.

so aliens, even if they use the very same car as you, they will be faster. i dont really think fastest people cheat. theres really no point in being fast by cheating. for sure you can feel better when you accuse them of "cheating" instead of yourself being too slow maybe?

muscle memory? i dont think so. racing has variables. your two laps will not ever be the same whatever you do. so it has nothing to do with muscle memory. anyway if its as easy as that, try to build up that so called muscle memory with just one shortest tracks on AC.

"very high levels of circuit knowledge" well, i think everyone has the right to get to know the circuit and be fast.


here is my point: instead of blaming others because of their talents and trying to get them slower, try to find the issue within your own. they are fast, and you are slow. that is the only reason creating the gap between the laps of your own, and theirs.

 

Do away with two out of these three things and use your extra time to 'SLP' as Luca put it, and within 6 months you'll be giving aliens a run for their money. I'm kidding of course but you get my point.

 

There are fast guys and there are slow guys, as long as you are having a good time it matters little which one you are.

 

I was with you until the last comment. First of all I'm quick, not alien quick and not jealous. Some people are known to have cheated at Rf1 and Simbin games, although there is absolutely no evidence this is happening in AC, it absolutely has happened in those other sims, the point of it, I agree, I fail to see, but people do. All I was trying to say was that there are those who will exploit the weaknesses of any game or sim to succeed, and that Kunos close those loopholes when designing the rest of the game so long as they make the game more realistic or not less when doing so, the personal attack was unnecessary dude.

 

i get quite close to the WRs so they dont really seem to be "cheating" to me. even if i wasnt that close i'd still not blame anyone unless i have proof. there wasnt any personal attacks in my post, just pointing out what you are doing: you are blaming the faster ones of cheating. you arent really just saying that Kunos should close the loopholes. you are saying "they are building muscle memory" as if there is something like this, even if there is, its not mine or your business. anyone can build all the memory they want. if you ask me, it still lays on talent. not memory. to me, you are just trying to find an excuse to justify yourself for being slower than those people. but as i told you before: they are not cheating, and they are faster than you, so, get over it.

 

Well, look at the GT Academy... We all agree AC has a higher level of simulation than Gran Turismo but the guys that were given to drive in the real seat were rejected from competing in British GT3 championship. Reason - too fast!

So the basic principle to go fast applies in all sims.

The real difference to be quick in a real car vs. the sim is the talent to feel the car, to detect what's wrong with it and to give good feedback to the engineers to solve those problems. You can do unlimited number of laps in a sim but it's very limited in real racing. Kimi Raikkonen is just a perfect example. Alonso was building the Ferrari for years to his liking, but Kimi has a very different driving style and thus he's off pace compared to Fernando. Until he get's the car to feel and behave the way he likes it he will be 0.5s slower. And his answer to testing in the simulator was simply "No", probably because even F1 simulators don't have the depth to recreate the physics and feedback in complete realism.

Another thing is that there are very few aliens that can be very dominant in any sim. Infact the only guy that can do that and keep winning again and again is the all-known Huttu. Every sim has a gap in where the driving techniques used might not be realistic. If I approximate this abit, I'd say rFactor has a 10% gap in which the sim is missing certain aspects and thus can be exploited. For example you can turn in very fast without losing speed etc. and no need to work the weight of the car that much. Some rF 'aliens' also use very fast steering lock, some even drive without FFB(because it's faster for correcting) and use clutch pedal on G25 insted of brake because you can press it quicker that way. Bono Huis who was dominating in Formula Sim Racing used this for example. But I asked another very fast FSR driver if you could do that in AC and he said no

Compared to rF I'd say that "gap" is 2-3% in AC. AC especially shines in GT and street cars, the way you can load the car and the depth of how differently you can take a corner is unlike anything else out there if you ask me.

In open wheelers, especially the Exos I don't think the FFB and feel is better than rFactor 2 because it's abit too progressive and not as direct which is better for formula cars IMO.

And Luigi, 3-4 seconds off WR is way back man. It means you still need to master the basic techniques needed. You should read a book like Going Faster or Speed Secrets. I'm sure you will shave you PB's like a joke once you really commit yourself to understand vehicle dynamics and techniques applied to go faster!

Once you're 1 or 1.5 secs off you know all about the basics. The talent and small details will determine how far you can reach...

 

I'm a "driving slow" alien .
I assure you that it's great to turn on the track with no fast times. I do not necessarily need to seek fast times to be able to enjoy the riding on the track, both in reality and in AC.
Go slow....

 

This post is fair and some of what I was trying to express that some use highly unrealistic techniques to go fast. 'clutch braking, extreme cutting, zero or near zero FFB, very fast steering lock, very sensitive clutch pedal nick into the power band on the corner exits and unrealistic set-ups'. Those are all exploited, however some of those who can be considered aliens really aren't doing many or any of those things, some are probably.

Also I don't believe in 'talent', nonsense. The Schumachers grew up on a kart track, Senna had a go kart and raced in the rain for practice when he was a child. More experienced, better car sympathy and understanding, faster reactions and ability to concentrate, yes, talent? No.

2-3 seconds off WR is way back? Not according to RS live timing, that's usually in the top 10%, 'respectable', but not the fastest maybe.

 

So then what is it that makes my buddy run WR or near WR times with little to no practice?

 

I already put it in the post 'more experienced, better car sympathy and understanding, faster reactions and better ability to concentrate'.

Genius is 1% inspiration 99% perspiration - Albert Einstein.