My MP wishlist (based on AC 1.8)

I'm putting my realistic MP wishlist ("realistic" meaning "no rain, no night" ) out there in the hope that Kunos will read this and implement all of my wishes . It's in order of my preference.

• Rolling starts.
• Dynamic cloud cover (e.g. clouds slowly getting lighter or heavier), with a dynamic affect on track temperatures.
• Time progression multiplier, so you could have noticeable condition changes over the course of an hour long race, say.
• Manual pit limiter.
• Penalties for speeding in pit lane (e.g. drive through, like for jump starts).

 

Hopefully I am wrong, but here is what I have heard:

• Rolling starts. Not happening.
• Dynamic cloud cover (e.g. clouds slowly getting lighter or heavier), with a dynamic affect on track temperatures. Not happening.
• Time progression multiplier, so you could have noticeable condition changes over the course of an hour long race, say. Almost happened, but then was pulled; likely to still happen.
• Manual pit limiter. Not happening.
• Penalties for speeding in pit lane (e.g. drive through, like for jump starts). Not happening.

 

The cloud cover thing could be in theory done in a rather simple way. If the session had a temperature (which it does for both track and air) then the cloud cover could be simply based upon those figures. It wouldnt be dynamic at all really, however it would tie in clouds to the temp of the session. So if the temp was 14C, you would have heavy cloud cover, and if it were 29C air and the track temp was 40C, you would have a clear sky etc, so no clouds.

 

Bad news for the last two points, especially after the jump start changes give some hope in this direction.

 

Stefano said he had working dynamic temps working in MP a couple of builds ago, but then had to remove it, I guess because bugs were discovered. Hopefully once the consoles are all caught up with the PC builds he can get back on that.
------------
You guys have been around as long as I have, how many times has Stefano said that rolling starts and manual pit limiter (and all that it entails) aren't even on the table? Still sucks for sure, but not exactly anything new.

 

I wonder what the issue is with pit limiter/speeding in pits? You could put a line or other marker on pit entry/exit, and then easily enforce a speeding penalty exactly the same as for jump starts. Getting the pit limiter right in pit lane adds a nice bit of adrenalin.

 

I have no idea of the workings of the engine (of course) but I'd guess the pit limiter is now a few lines of code in the engine, as it's universally the same for every car & track. If you were to make it manual I guess you need to implement it per car, as not every car is equipped with a pit limiter? So maybe that amouts to too much work in relation of what it's benefits would be, and in the light of bigger features that need to be worked on? Just speculating here.

 

Yay, another wishlist thread and of course none of the points have been suggested before. Ever.

Stefano said something about penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Can't remember the details from the top of my head, but it didn't sound like it's been ruled out definitely.
Obviously once that is in place the manual pit limiter will surely come.

 

My thoughts about what MP features I think are feasable with the actual build and worth of being implemented.
Rolling start: MP only. An AI controlled pace car lead the start at about half the speed then it comes back to the pits at the end of first lap. As the pace car enters the pits, green flag appears and race starts. Any position swap identified at the instant the green flag appears will results in a teleport to pits or drive through penalty. As this feature is intended for organized races or leagues, any other misdeed not tracked by this simple automatic procedure, like incidents before green flag, would be reported and investigated by race organizers after the race. As an additional implementation, the real time app could track the behaviour of drivers before green flag, checking the relative distances for possible odd drivers' behaviours.
Manual pit limiter and pit lane speed penalty: the current system is able to detect when the car enters the pit lane because automatically activates brakes slowing down to 80 km/h, so just get rid of this automatic brakes, add a button and track speeds at pit lane entrance. Penalties could be optionally inflicted immediately forcing a 10 s additional time at the pit, or just a drive through.

 

if you had told me that in 2016 we would have no realistic stops box , I would not have believed . The really fast into the street box will have more advantage ... Another thing I do not like is that you can not choose your favorite car but left free . I understand that this may be more difficult to improve . This would improve online participation.

 

Interesting list. KUNOS have really honed the MP experience quite well over time. It can be really fun and really infuriating in the same day. I haven't experienced a drive thru penalty (haven't seen video of one either) so I don't know how real that is presented. I have done less than 15 MP races after V1.8 was released.

Here are my biggest gripes with the race presentation.

>The race ending is so abrupt; this is old news. Can't we get 30 seconds, with full control, on track before we teleport to the pits? Actually all transitions between sessions are too sharp; bring back the fade. The sudden jerk of everything is alarming when out on track setting a time. Even a quick fade is better than immediate screen, audio and steering wheel changes. But some time on track after the checkers would be nice after any race. Celebrations are good. I know at first people will go crazy; let them, it will be free and liberating. MR rules will still apply.

>The new controls lock is barbaric. I get that we don't really want people teleporting to the pits after a grid/T1 disaster, but waiting an hour+ for a race to start only to get blasted off the grid (by someone who can't set a diff) then to pit teleport and have to wait until you become backmarker traffic to enter the race again is no fun. I have got other things to do with my time if I am not even going to be given a chance. I am sure this is a server setting, but the times set are way too high. Getting blue flags on your lap 1 is kind of silly when you started on the grid.

>Timing and scoring is still somewhat dysfunctional on a server. That silly green -0.001 s indicator has been wrong for years now.

>And not quite related, but I throw it in when I can. When I have a good MP race I like to see the replay or make a video out of it. Please fix the timing and scoring on MP replays. This sim's feel is good enough where you want some more information to help you along the way. Lap times for you and your opponents is always helpful. If the F9 leader strip could also be added to replay; it would be helpful as well.

 

Yeah I agree with this, a much more important list of things in MP that need fixing. Sure the things in OP's list would be nice but there are still some fundamental things/ tweaks that need to be made to MP to round off those sharp edges.

The abrupt transitions; everyone I race with really does not like this and much preferred the fade. But ultimately a proper race end is what is really needed. Where we are not teleported to the pits and can still drive, where we can see the race results and where we can still interact with the Apps(PTracker etc). When the session goes back to Qualify etc, then we can be teleported to the pits.

The time lock for entering the pits is also a bit annoying. There is no server setting for these time penalties, it just comes on as part of the selected False Start mode. In Live For Speed there where no penalties for teleporting to the pitlane, I believe the reason for this was because, in LFS, when you teleported to the pits it set your lap counter back to 0, which does not happen in AC. Maybe this would be better? I mean If you cant get back to the pits under your own power, it's effectively race over.

 

The teleport to pits timer is just way way too harsh. Wait 62 seconds? Who is really going to do that and then join the race? Make it 5-10 seconds tops and that would do I think.

 

A part of me gets the penalty timer. If you get tagged on the grid in theory you should sputter around and pit for repairs, and for league play that's probably a decent option. That said, in theory there shouldn't be so many grid/T1 disasters, and for league play there likely isn't as much carnage. The timer is too long though. A drive thru penalty time frame would be sufficient.

 

However it raises another point. If the damage incurred was more realistic, there would be less of a need to Esc to pits to get a fresh car. After receiving two or three light hits in a start line crash, basically your race in terms of being competitive is over. If the damage sustained was much lower, people would still struggle on with a car, knowing that their race will only be slightly compromised. I took a hit up the back for a race at Monza and I lost 15kph in straight line speed, its too much.

 

It's called "up to date customer feedback". Would you prefer that we didn't want anything? I bet KS don't. A lot of things that were asked for in the beginning came to fruition.

 

Sure, but the things you asked for have been asked a 1000 times.