Assetto Corsa Competizione - Generic discussion

Nope, this was the absolute tempest around midday when @6S.Manu almost flew away with the Kunos tent and I was only miles away from the circuit stuck on the motorway.

 

Please don't make me remember those moments!

 

Hehe.. I could feel your constant struggle to remain "cautiously optimistic" during the weekend - glad you lost the fight.



Let me share some of my experiences, but please note that this is just a private summary of a random forum member, and I'll obviously leave out the comments about the driving experience.

So first, the whole weekend was about spending time with amazing people. Finally met most of the KS team members by face, and wow.. What an inspiring group of people. Words can't really describe how heartly welcomed I felt. Despite the level of expertise, everybody is down to the ground - humble and modest. Special thanks go to Aris, who took care about me beyond imagination. Insane person, you just need to follow him and your day is going to be perfect.

I also became acquainted with the AK Informatica crew, which brought and operated the simulators - very fine combination of actual gamers with highest professionalism. Quite impressed about them. The same goes for the SRO officials I've met: Super friendly, competent and enthusiastic.

My actual job for the weekend was to watch drivers and compare some background-numbers, as this was the unique opportunity to actually see many (and very different) users driving in ACC while being able to see some interesting data. After the EA we'll have much more data of course, but without the comparison to the actual driving. For that reason I was around the simulators most of the time, and of course I met many fantastic people again; casual people, diehardcore simracers and quite many real drivers were visiting us, and usually very open to a chat and HQ feedback. Many thanks for the good time here!

Coming to the (real life) drivers, this was playing out very different to what I imagined. They are freaking aliens and beyond. Luckily my numbers served me very well here, so I could spot drivers reliably even if I didn't know them by face, so I guess I had a chat with most of them. We had quite some real celebrities, but also a quite a few ST and even LMP pilots. Any real driver had the ability to just sit down, drive and hit the spot. Just like getting used to FFB, pedals, seat position, camera settings and FoV wouldn't matter at all. Not to speak of the simulator software they've never seen before.

For the dry event, there were two types of drivers: some just were 100% sharp on the limit (but never above), and some would abuse the hell out of the car - but still do very good laptimes with highest consistency. In the wet race, there was only one type of driver: 100% on the limit, INSANE precision. Don't exactly have an explanation why it was different for the dry conditions, but I guess most of the drivers tried to overcome the defensive setup somehow. Dries told me he was trying to hit the curbs in a way the car unsettles and gives him the rotation he'd like to have. I mean, this was maybe 5 minutes after he fired up the event for the first time. Unbelievable.
A word to the setup: Of course the compromise for an event like this is a not-so-agile/nervous setup, defensive brake bias and high TC/ABS default values. Everything the real drivers obviously don't like, and their mood usually got a lot better when reducing ABS/TC to scarily low levels. Have to admit I didn't remember the keyboard shortcut for the brake bias, but Aris changed it a few times for drivers and good simracers - and you instantly could see big smiles during the next turn.

For the wet events (that is slick + puddles or really wet race), I think we were surprised how well the drivers did there. I think Kelvin van der Linde was the first one to actually win the wet race event on the first try, and he obviously enjoyed everything. Dries also had a good first run but soon became a victim of the T3 puddles - with a big smile. David Perel also won the event immediately. This guy btw. is such an amazing person. He had an argument with Luca, who would the celebrity be for a selfie (and gave some low level feedback as well).
Ya back to the wet races, my first impression always was that the drivers got calm and focused, so I was afraid they weren't enjoy it - but in the end everybody was really happy about the experience. After thinking for a while - it seems like the physics department (I'm not involved there) really nailed the wet stuff, when the drivers are immediately great in those conditions. (edit: while everybody else really had a hard time in the wet)

Also funny: At least every 2nd driver asked me for the laptime to beat.. The competizione is strong with them And to be honest I don't even know who had the best lap, but they were pretty close. Maybe Riberas or Marciello. Also funny: Dries started to flash the AI during the wet race once (don't ask me how he could know that and where the flashing was mapped on the wheel). After the race, I said "bonus points for flashing a computer-controlled car", and he started laughing open-heartedly and just responded that it looks so damn real.. Then he did the night race, and well. You can imagine


Of course we also got some great feedback from all groups of users. For the real drivers it was interesting how different the "quality" of the feedback was - while some are quite ambiguous and you can't really tell if he has a point in physics or just doesn't like the setup, others are really good at pointing out what we actually need. Then you have situations where 3 (real) drivers give feedback about the exact same thing, and 2 tell you "spot on" while one says "totally unrealistic". mh...
But still, I guess we learned really a lot, the whole thing was a unique source of information. I can tell you the (kunos) guys were so happy to hear about anything, and can't wait to see what we can do to improve the experience even further (I'm quite hyped). Actually the stuff David Perel posted seems pretty interesting, for the rest we have valuable (but not really fundamental) suggestions (e.g. the visual track wetness often gave the impression to have more water on the track than the actual physics did) - but I'm not really qualified to classify that kind of feedback, so please take this as a random comment. Still amazing to learn about the driver's perception, especially what you can/can't see during harsh conditions, and how they handle it.


Overall you see it was hell of a ride, I'm physically exhausted but the motivation batteries are at 101,27%. Can't wait to go on, but I need to find a way to work without Stefano noticing it for the next 2 days.
Just like in January, it just felt unreal (haha) to be a part of this. Huge thanks to everyone who was involved: Kunos, AK/I, SRO, Drivers, Visitors, Guest, Simracers.

PS:
Ah right, and there also were some real cars

 

Some photos are from Friday, less interesting day for spectators. Saturday and Sunday there was an uninterrupted flow of journalists, real drivers, sim racers, casual gamers and staff from SRO that tried ACC, even during the real races.