Look What The Cat Hacked In - S03E03

A very simple (2 lines) AutoHotkey script do already the trick for TC and ABS.

Here the example working for my rig (it has to be changed if you have a different controllers setup):

With only few lines more you can bind also turbo and other function.

Naturally having it natively implemented will make things easier!

 

Agree on that one. Current dashoards are not complete yet. Watertemperatures for instance are not real but preset. But other dials when available like Volt and oil pressure don't move at all. Only turbo an fuel move realistic. And on one of the BMW drift cars fuel doesn't work at all. I think it would be nice to see everything working and it would add to the immersion for me but it would mean spending dev time to implement all this and in the end it doesn't make the cars drive better. That time is better spend on things like braketemps for instance. IMO.

 

I know, but as there seemed to be some confusion about it I thought linking a video might be handy. It's always easier to understand something when you see it than just read about it.

For me this feature is as important as implementing leaves falling off the trees.

 

Some simple suggestions;

False starts - this is a very real racing situation and I can't count the times I've had to avoid a stall or slow reaction in real life. A racer needs to be prepared. Please done consider taking the control away from the player and teleport them... Not to mention you'll make VR people hurle.

Solution - simply "flag" them for a drive through penalty, if they don't take it within two laps or the end of the race then add 2x the time penalty or average of 1 minute.

Failing to start, just leave alone. It's very realistic and always avoidable.

Old issue of "escape to pits", in a race, just add 5 min to their race time penalty, or hold them in the pits for 5 min (better than adding time) and we can all pretend they where "extracted". Better yet, server control over the time limits.

Teleporting is never a solution to a game problem unless the player is stuck or falls through the world... Something mechanically terminal in the sim.

 

I do think the teleporting solution is good and has it's place in casual online racing. Rammers rarely obey flags

What would be an elegant solution would be a choice between rulesets. Flags/drive throughs/time penalties as an option, maybe titled "Competitive" and the teleporting stuff as another option, under "Casual", or something like that
The same could work for cut detection/penalisation. Current for "Casual"; flags/drive throughs/time penalties for "Competitive". "Back to pits" option from "Competitive" could be taken away as well.

And then a third option, "Custom", for, well, customised penalties.

A bit like we have with driving aids.

 

Just my thought: teleport is probably only a first step in implementation of false start (and hopefully stalling). Many people (me included) could not agree in the way these were implemented now.
But, as far as I can understand from my really low level programming skills, implementing such easy and logical rules as many (and I) suggest requests a lot of programming effort.
Probably they want to integrate in a more complete penalty system we could see in the future.
So, even if with teleport, I'm happy for the step forward regarding how race starts will be now possible.

 

As a choice, thats fine, though it would never be used and defeat the purpose. As a single solution it would be more of a step back than an enhancement. I mean what is the problem being solved here? Crashers? Or trying to have a feature for those that jump the start? Do we really have a wide scale problem with people sitting still at the start of races? No leagues would use it, online racing would be goofy, crashers would try to game the system to send you to the pits with them, and it's completely unrealistic. Its just doesn't have a place in racing... the "stall" situation is very common in real life and changing it would be appealing to the lowest common denominator...

False starts are ok, but stalling and getting hit? It happens, and sending to the pits is too late, the damage has already been done... Anyone who is competitive in AC knows the havoc even the lightest of damage can effect your car. Clearly needs more thought but at least some thought has gone into it... even if there are much easier systems that could add much grater value to consider.

 

Stefano said that ABS and TC will be bindable both for up and down, which AFAIK you can't do today, even with third party software.

 

I hadn't time till now to listen the stream, but that's for sure a good news. Hopefully in the future he'll allow also to use switch, so we'll finally have the possiblity to use it for lights for example. And I hope that he'll gave the possibility to use multiposition rotary switch for functions like TC and ABS Turbo etc.... I asked it at Early Access time, but naturally I understand is a really low priority request.

Nevertheless since garyjpaterson said he gave up to use that function with the keyboard, I simply gave him an hint (and eventually my help if needed) if he want to use until 1.7 will be out.

Any way at the moment with the proposed AutoHotkey 2 lines program TC ans ABS works exactly as in the game with CTRL+T and CTRL+A (i.e. you have to cycle), but since AutoHotkey is quite powerful piece of software, with some programming it's possible to program a workaround to make it behave exactly up and down. It needs only an effort in take some time to program it. It was in my plan in the past but I leaved due to lack of time, but now with the info you gave me, no more need to think about.

For turbo, since at the moment the percent is bind to the 10 Fkeys, with the help of AuotHotkey you can already associate to a 10 position rotary switch and select the exact wanted turbo pressure directly selecting the switch positions. I hope he'll leave both possibility (i.e. he'll leave still the association with F keys) or it'll be for me a step back having to push x times the same button to increase/decrease pressure instead of selecting the right position of the rotary switch.

 

Little late to the party. False start is nice, but teleporting to pits doesn't seam like good penalty. Maybe for open server where there are idiots crashing to everything. Maybe it's not possible in AC, but drive trough would be better. There are apps that measure time spent in pitlane, so maybe it would be possible to check if the driver was in the pitlane in first x laps and didn't stop for pitstop.

Shame that pit menu will not be controllable with buttons, but well we got used to it.

 

oh I didn`t catch that there will be some teleporting instead of regular drive through ... is it really that hard to implement ? we have triggers on pit entry and on pit exit (I think we have those), make pit speed limited (if faster -> another drivethroug), and counter that will take care the 3 laps to serve penalty, with popup informing you you have 3,2,1 lap to serve .. algorithm and logic behind it is simple, so unless there is something preventing smooth implementation into current system it could be good adept to few minutes of live hacking cat session ..

 

The problem with a drive through is, what happens if a driver doesn't take it within the required number of laps? You could make that a DQ automatic send back to the pits.

 

stop&go or black flag .. in case of DQ you could just make it as option to teleport him to pits to prevent rage crashing or something
You could say why make the efford and put extra work into it but it adds so much to experience and immersion ... before you participate in race without formation lap you would be thinking waste of time, just skip it .. but it is building the tension in you, and you add some temp to tyres .. it is often little things like this that makes games better .. sure in MP case this should be server option, you probably don`t wanna run formation lap on 4 lap sprint on public race ... and recovering from drive through penalty would be very hard but if you wanna make sim for more serious sim racers and leagues, it is something to think about

 

Clearly it is not difficult to simulate real-world sanctions. But Kunos has decided to target these things to the casual public, make the simplest things for this audience that does not like complexity.

We are in the hands of moders, hopefully these manage to resolve the shortcomings of this sim racing characteristics.

 

To be fair to the Kunos guys, they need to think about the lowest common denominator in these situations (where public server racing is concerned), and that is Bozo the Clown. Our good friend with the red nose and large boots enjoys wrecking the hopes and dreams of online racers more than he enjoys life itself. That being the case, asking him to obey drive through penalties, blue flags and general social etiquette is like asking a hungry cat to ignore an open tin of tuna.

Not gonna happen.

Therefore, drastic measures like teleporting Bozo to the pits is sometimes the only viable solution. I may not like it, but I do understand it.....which is why I would prefer everything to remain as it is. Not being able to jump start is a small price to pay in my opinion.

 

I think that if a casual driver makes a false start and the sanction is explained above on your screen know respect, when you do not obey the sanction could be directed to boxes automatically with explaining why he is there message .. And sentenced to last possición grill.

I think a simulator has to recreate the characteristics of the real world and not use absurd sanctions, I think it's better than casuals players learn to behave in the race and not to punish hardcore sirmarcers with absurd sanctions.

They could also use a method that would help no collisions were created at the beginning of the race, for example, it could be made that if the semaphore is not in green cars do not have activated collisions as happens in the pitlane.

Bad players may not collide with players who are waiting for the traffic light is green, the bad players who made a false start will have to fulfill its sanction and no collisions tendr'n activated for a while.

There would be thousands of possibilities to recreate the real world fairly well without punishing hardcore simracers.

 

...but it would still be unrealistic. However, I do accept your point. I guess we need to make the lack of realism as undetectable as possible!

 

Rules upon rules, rules for every situation... it gets boring for racing. In real life motor sport it happens because there's no other way, they need to make rules and penalties for everything (a lot of money involved, the competition is serious).

For a (sim) racing game you need to get more straight to the point. Something approachable for everyone. What's the problem with "You make a false start, you are sent to the pits to wait 20sec"? Isn't the purpose of a false start to give the ability to put the car in gear? 20 seconds is just the time for every car on grid to reach the first corner and you pull right behind them from the pits.

 

Aren't we simulating real racing? If I had thousands € I could be driving real cars. But Simulators are best option we have to get as close to real races as possible. I thought simulators where about simulating and not concerning with casual players (I guess that changed with consoles), still there it should be up to server admin to decide what options he wants to run.

 

Consoles don't have a say in this actually. AC came to the PC players in 2013/14. It was never hardcore in the features and customizations it simulates for before, during, and after race.

Ideally, it could be made for the server hosts to enforce their custom penalties. There are already penalty mods, just that they aren't automatically enforced, after each race the admin must check the logs report, like the stracker. But this doesn't work for open servers, so is there the custom penalties and regulations could be added by the server host, and first kunos would need to program this part to allow this control from the host.