GT Planet WRC League

[RYAN]

I figure that real rally drivers get to run the course at least a couple of times first (sometimes in different machinery), plus studying their asses off with their team/co-driver the night before and whatever prior experience they have with the car and the stage from earlier rallies. I think a lot of people have this weird perception that rally drivers essentially go into stages blind and figure it out on the fly, and that's very much not the case. They're getting paid to do this, they cram every bit of information they can to help themselves.

Doing a run in each available car to get a feel for a vehicle we've (probably) never driven before on a track we've never seen before doesn't get us anywhere near the level of pre-knowledge that a rally driver would have in real life. It would be insane to take a random car onto a random course and expect a decent result. Pace notes are great, but they're reminders more than accurate descriptions of corners. In real life, you would expect a crash if you went into a course at racing speed going only on pace notes. In real life you wouldn't do it, because you'd be scared of dying.

I'm well aware of the use of recce and even Team Cars/Safety Crews that go through a few hours before and give info and updates to the crew before each stage. I just didn't realise people were doing n practice here. It would get a bit time consuming having to practice each stage when we do actual proper rallies so I guess I didn't think people would bother with these test championships.

But yeah, I have no problem with practice runs, It was just a comment made in jest as I wasn't doing them and suffering the consequences. 😄

 

[Imari]

It would get a bit time consuming having to practice each stage when we do actual proper rallies so I guess I didn't think people would bother with these test championships.

Would it?

This is not intended to come across as picking on you, because I think you're not the only one that is assuming that people won't practice. This is more general thoughts for the group of racers here using your comment as a jumping off point, because I think this is a relevant topic that people may not have thought about.


I think if you had a half hour long league race every week in a game like Gran Turismo, most people would think it normal that you spend somewhere between half an hour and a few hours some time earlier in the week to get a feel for the track and get your setup and strategy sorted. And you're probably going to spend 15-30 minutes before the race doing a few laps to warm up and make sure all your gear is working properly.

It's a bit different with circuit racing because if you don't practice you risk also taking other people out with you when you inevitably **** up. That tends to annoy people. But it's also not seen as taking the race seriously if you didn't put at least the basic effort into learning the course and car.

People will absolutely practice when we do proper rallies. People should practice when we do proper rallies. Motorsport is fundamentally competitive, and anyone who cares enough to find half an hour a week to race against other people probably cares enough to find at least another half hour to put in a bit of practice. As far as hobbies go, that's not big time investment.

Anyone who thinks that people won't practice or that they shouldn't practice should also think about how they're going to feel when everyone else inevitably does. Because there's only a limited number of tracks and cars in the game, so like it or not we're all going to end up with substantial experience on them if we keep playing.

 

[RYAN]

Would it?

This is not intended to come across as picking on you, because I think you're not the only one that is assuming that people won't practice. This is more general thoughts for the group of racers here using your comment as a jumping off point, because I think this is a relevant topic that people may not have thought about.


I think if you had a half hour long league race every week in a game like Gran Turismo, most people would think it normal that you spend somewhere between half an hour and a few hours some time earlier in the week to get a feel for the track and get your setup and strategy sorted. And you're probably going to spend 15-30 minutes before the race doing a few laps to warm up and make sure all your gear is working properly.

It's a bit different with circuit racing because if you don't practice you risk also taking other people out with you when you inevitably **** up. That tends to annoy people. But it's also not seen as taking the race seriously if you didn't put at least the basic effort into learning the course and car.

People will absolutely practice when we do proper rallies. People should practice when we do proper rallies. Motorsport is fundamentally competitive, and anyone who cares enough to find half an hour a week to race against other people probably cares enough to find at least another half hour to put in a bit of practice. As far as hobbies go, that's not big time investment.

Anyone who thinks that people won't practice or that they shouldn't practice should also think about how they're going to feel when everyone else inevitably does. Because there's only a limited number of tracks and cars in the game, so like it or not we're all going to end up with substantial experience on them if we keep playing.

Like I said, I have no problem with people practicing. My feeling that people weren't practicing was mainly due to the fact that we have chosen to have shorter events than what was voted due to time constraints/Preferences for some people and the fact that clubs are broken at the moment and we are just doing these starter series just to fill time while fixes come.

Also, My initial comment was made in jest mainly at myself for not bothering to practice and suffering the consequences. Not complaining about or ridiculing others choosing to... And I definitely didn't intend for my comment to be used as a basis for others to do so either. We have a great group of people getting involved in here with healthy numbers running events. The last thing I would want is to call people out, Especially for the way they choose to play or for deciding to practice...

Like I alluded to earlier, Aswell as clubs being slightly broken I only questioned that people would practice in full rallies because already in this thread it has been decided to go for 30 minute long rallies instead of an hour long ones due to time constraints/Preference for some. (Even though 1 hour rallies won the vote)


In the end, I'm pleased we are practicing. I'm sure my personal performance will improve ten fold when doing so. I also spoke about doing Recce Runs and keeping in mind hazards I remembered in the S1600's run from yesterday. I can't display that I'm fine with practice more so than that surely so is all this rather unnecessary?

Anyway, Lets all continue having fun ragging these FWD's around like a bunch of yobo's, And reliving all our Early 20's by righting off our Fiesta's/Clio's/Saxo's into trees.👍

I hope you all like your hairpins guys. Croatia is cram packed 👍

 

[Georgeagea]

...

Another thing I would like to implement is teams. I have a group of Argentine friends that I have rallied with for years, and we put together an awesome DR2.0 season with them and a few from GT Planet with the R5 class, three drivers per team, and the teams were set up to where each would basically have one alien, one mediocre, and one slow driver, and it really turned out wonderfully. However all of us were familiar with each other so it was easy to balance the teams. That might be a bit more difficult with this league because I am unsure of the skill level of the participants. But hopefully we could make something like that work. Another problem is the inevitable attendance drop-off after the first rally but we will deal with that when the time comes. Teams help a lot to prevent attendance drop-off because it gives players a second reward to fight for.

Obviously this will be Rally1 but with enough participants we can split it into two classes (Rally1 and Rally2).

We will not use the FIA points system as it further tends to diminish attendance from those outside the top 10. Everyone will get points, even last place. Just to throw an idea out there, think of something like 30-27-24-22-20-18-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-1-1-1-1........... if we had, say, 25 people. That prevents the fast guys from running away with things while also encouraging participation for the slower guys.

Power Stage will be 5-4-3-2-1 points.
...

Old SLRE memories intensify...

 

[Ali]

Edit - Looking back at the Racenet Analyze, I could've definitely been a bit more brave towards the start. I noticed @Ali had a few close shaves though. A 2 left with 3-4 concrete bollards on the outside just before the hairpins starts was one of the hazards I kept in my mind from recce runs, I took a tight safe line whereas @Ali took in a lot more speed and nearly clipped them in the racenet replay.

Yeah, I wasn't driving like that on purpose . I thought I was going slow enough but I think I went too wide in 2 hairpins. Then after that high speed section I got a little confused, resulting in me taking a closer look at the roadside bank... luckily I didn't hit anything or roll the car.

 

[UKMikey]

I would recommend everyone do at least one run of the course in time trial before your hot lap, because anything less is just setting yourself up for failure in a way that isn't true to the spirit of rallying and racing at all. The game allows you to practice if you want, and so I think doing so is completely fair and sensible if you have the time to do so.

I think Time Trial is fixed to a dry summer's day. Once a new rally is announced I normally go to the rally page and check out the time of day and weather for each stage so I can set up a custom championship in quick play. Using the load/save progress option I can run each stage once before playing in case there are any surprises. It doesn't help much but it helps.

This is all optional of course depending on how much spare time you have. I'm still new to the game and am nowhere near having driven all the stages yet, let alone every car. As things progress hopefully I'll be more familiar with each location and won't need a recce. The non-WRC ones tend to catch me out as the opportunities for playing them in career mode are limited.

 

[RYAN]

I think Time Trial is fixed to a dry summer's day. Once a new rally is announced I normally go to the rally page and check out the time of day and weather for each stage so I can set up a custom championship in quick play. Using the load/save progress option I can run each stage once before playing in case there are any surprises. It doesn't help much but it helps.

This is all optional of course depending on how much spare time you have. I'm still new to the game and am nowhere near having driven all the stages yet, let alone every car. As things progress hopefully I'll be more familiar with each location and won't need a recce. The non-WRC ones tend to catch me out as the opportunities for playing them in career mode are limited.

You can choose wet also I believe IIRC. Instead of having all the seasons I think it's just Dry and Wet.

 

[MagpieRacer]

You can choose wet also I believe IIRC. Instead of having all the seasons I think it's just Dry and Wet.

Yeah, keeps it simple instead of needing a million boards for every eventuality.

Although, I'm not sure it's summer in TT, I think it's spring, based off of Finland and Estonia, summer has a lot more flowers (there's some notably large patches of what I believe to be Rosebay Willowherb, particularly in Finland) which aren't there when set to spring. Making me think TT is spring afternoon settings.

 

[Imari]

I think Time Trial is fixed to a dry summer's day.

Yeah, it's just dry or wet. But I'm not sure how actually nuanced the road surface changes are in this game anyway, even that icy one the other day just seemed to be [icy], [not so icy] and [dry] with pretty pronounced transitions in between. I would be surprised if there's a whole gradient of grip levels based on water/ice level and temperature, I think it's just a handful.

I figure for the sake of getting to know a course/car TT is close enough and very easy, but setting up your own championship is probably better if you want to take the time. Also, it's kinda fun getting into TT boards this early because some of them haven't really been challenged and a clean run can sometimes get you a top 5 time.

 

[RYAN]

it's kinda fun getting into TT boards this early because some of them haven't really been challenged and a clean run can sometimes get you a top 5 time.

This is indeed true. 😁 I got a cheeky second place in the S1600's on that Japan stage from yesterday. 👍

 

[JHop]

Time for a coffee and a practice run.

Insert surprised pikachu face when 1h of driving per week doesn't quite cut it in this club full of fast af monsters

GL everyone!

 

[MagpieRacer]

Yeah, it's just dry or wet. But I'm not sure how actually nuanced the road surface changes are in this game anyway, even that icy one the other day just seemed to be [icy], [not so icy] and [dry] with pretty pronounced transitions in between. I would be surprised if there's a whole gradient of grip levels based on water/ice level and temperature, I think it's just a handful.

I figure for the sake of getting to know a course/car TT is close enough and very easy, but setting up your own championship is probably better if you want to take the time. Also, it's kinda fun getting into TT boards this early because some of them haven't really been challenged and a clean run can sometimes get you a top 5 time.

The nuance is there but it is quite minor, and it seems to alter available tyre compounds which can shift the perception of a lack of grip.

Like you say, TT provides a good baseline to work from, it can just be a bit of a shock to the system when you then drive the stages in a custom event or championship and suddenly the track degradation kicks in and they become different beasts 😆.

 

[FrankieStail]

I figure that real rally drivers get to run the course at least a couple of times first (sometimes in different machinery), plus studying their asses off with their team/co-driver the night before and whatever prior experience they have with the car and the stage from earlier rallies. I think a lot of people have this weird perception that rally drivers essentially go into stages blind and figure it out on the fly, and that's very much not the case. They're getting paid to do this, they cram every bit of information they can to help themselves.

Doing a run in each available car to get a feel for a vehicle we've (probably) never driven before on a track we've never seen before doesn't get us anywhere near the level of pre-knowledge that a rally driver would have in real life. It would be insane to take a random car onto a random course and expect a decent result. Pace notes are great, but they're reminders more than accurate descriptions of corners. In real life, you would expect a crash if you went into a course at racing speed going only on pace notes. In real life you wouldn't do it, because you'd be scared of dying.

I would recommend everyone do at least one run of the course in time trial before your hot lap, because anything less is just setting yourself up for failure in a way that isn't true to the spirit of rallying and racing at all. The game allows you to practice if you want, and so I think doing so is completely fair and sensible if you have the time to do so.

All good points but I’m in too many clubs to have time to practice before runs, also being the wrong side of 50 I wouldn’t even remember a practice run anyway 😂

 

[MagpieRacer]

I guess a minor thing that could negate the practice run discussion would simply be setting the weather conditions to unknown and surface deg to maximum to get conditions that can't be replicated in TT or predicted beforehand.

 

[FrankieStail]

Tbh I don’t mind what settings, the young fast guys that have time to practice I say go for it, old has beens like myself are probably happy enough just with the immersion side of rally sims.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Round 3 of the FWD Tarmac exhibition is complete! A wet run through the mountains of Japan in the S1600 cars proved to be a lot of fun.

Results:

Round 3: Japan, Hokono Lake - Partly Cloudy (wet)
Rank	DisplayName	Vehicle	Time	TimePenalty	DifferenceToFirst	Platform
1	Almu89	Citroën Saxo Super 1600	03:58.836	00:00.000	00:00.000	XBOX
2	RDA-JETS	Renault Clio S1600	04:01.571	00:00.000	00:02.735	STEAM
3	Space_Wadet	Renault Clio S1600	04:03.319	00:00.000	00:04.483	STEAM
4	xxXJojjeXxx	Renault Clio S1600	04:04.553	00:00.000	00:05.717	PSN
5	Larzi25	Citroën C2 Super 1600	04:05.540	00:00.000	00:06.704	PSN
6	Neomone	Renault Clio S1600	04:09.136	00:00.000	00:10.300	STEAM
7	Zero_The_North	Ford Puma S1600	04:13.816	00:00.000	00:14.980	STEAM
8	P308R	Citroën C2 Super 1600	04:15.206	00:00.000	00:16.370	PSN
9	Hasnain282	Renault Clio S1600	04:16.809	00:00.000	00:17.973	PSN
10	NeilPearlJam	Ford Puma S1600	04:16.835	00:00.000	00:17.999	STEAM
11	Speedster502	Citroën C2 Super 1600	04:17.281	00:00.000	00:18.445	PSN
12	magpieracer	Citroën C2 Super 1600	04:17.619	00:00.000	00:18.783	XBOX
13	Cabelmania	Citroën C2 Super 1600	04:20.020	00:00.000	00:21.184	PSN
14	GOTMAXPOWER	Ford Puma S1600	04:22.091	00:00.000	00:23.255	PSN
15	aekara38	Renault Clio S1600	04:22.584	00:00.000	00:23.748	XBOX
16	muumilapsus	Renault Clio S1600	04:23.969	00:00.000	00:25.133	PSN
17	FerryF1	Renault Clio S1600	04:28.712	00:07.000	00:29.876	PSN
18	Dreadmed	Renault Clio S1600	04:31.847	00:06.000	00:33.011	STEAM
19	cutback73	Ford Puma S1600	05:00.476	00:00.000	01:01.640	XBOX
20	GTP_Northstar	Citroën Saxo Super 1600	05:06.924	00:11.000	01:08.088	STEAM

With no standout dominating car, all 4 in the class are represented inside the top 7! @Ali takes top honours in the Citroen Saxo ahead of @RYAN and @space_wadet both in the Renault Clio. @Larzi- takes the highest position for the C2 in P5 and @ZeroTheNorth the highest placed Puma in P7.

The championship standings look like this:

DisplayName	Rank	PointsAccumulated
Space_Wadet	1	55
xxXJojjeXxx	2	51
Neomone	3	42
RDA-JETS	4	39
Larzi25	5	34
Hasnain282	6	33
Dreadmed	7	32
magpieracer	8	29
Zero_The_North	9	24
Almu89	10	23
Speedster502	11	17
P308R	12	17
GOTMAXPOWER	13	16
Cabelmania	14	14
NeilPearlJam	15	13
bmxbandit28	16	11
ukmikeya	17	10
the13PeSK	18	10
aekara38	19	7
muumilapsus	20	2
lebowski2	21	2
cutback73	22	1
FerryF1	23	1
WRC Player	24	0
GTP_Northstar	25	0
Maique	26	0

@space_wadet maintains top spot ahead of @xX Jojje Xx and @Imari ,

Round 4 takes us to Croatia in the Rally4 machinery, with Ford, Opel, Peugeot and Renault represented in this class.

 

[UKMikey]

Well, that's the last time I ever drive a Twingo. It's nippy enough but as soon as I brake too hard it skids all over the place like Nancy Kerrigan after Tonya Harding beat her up and gifted me a needless second 5s corner cut penalty on the closing straight.

I went for grippy softs which may have been the problem. When I ran the recce on medium it didn't have these problems but understeered a bit into the trickier corners.

Not looking forward to the kit car round as I've always been crap at driving them in DiRT Rally 2.0.

 

[Cabelmania]

I'm 14th with 14 points, nice

 

[MagpieRacer]

Well, that's the last time I ever drive a Twingo. It's nippy enough but as soon as I brake too hard it skids all over the place like Nancy Kerrigan after Tonya Harding beat her up and gifted me a needless second 5s corner cut penalty on the closing straight.

I went for grippy softs which may have been the problem. When I ran the recce on medium it didn't have these problems but understeered a bit into the trickier corners.

Not looking forward to the kit car round as I've always been crap at driving them in DiRT Rally 2.0.

I find with the Rally4 and F2 cars that the brake balance by default is ridiculously far forward and moving it back and the braking force down they become a lot more manageable under braking.

 

[UKMikey]

I find with the Rally4 and F2 cars that the brake balance by default is ridiculously far forward and moving it back and the braking force down they become a lot more manageable under braking.

Thanks, but I'm no good at tuning. Could you give us some suggested settings ranges?

 

[MagpieRacer]

Thanks, but I'm no good at tuning. Could you give us some suggested settings ranges?

I tend to move the brake balance to between 59-64% to the front, it can default around 80%. The braking force I literally just click it to the left 3 times. Not sure what the value is but I do that on almost every car and it helps massively.

 

[JHop]

Tomorrows rally is absolutely brutal.

F2 cars paired with a long stage filled with narrow cliffside roads that are brimming with sudden death spots.
If you survive without having an E.T go home moment, there are plenty of corners to bang up the suspension and tyres.

What was supposed to be a short practice sessions to just get a feel of the car, turned into an hour long survival battle. In the end managed a "lap" with a puncture and the wheels doing their best marty feldman impression.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Tomorrows rally is absolutely brutal.

F2 cars paired with a long stage filled with narrow cliffside roads that are brimming with sudden death spots.
If you survive without having an E.T go home moment, there are plenty of corners to bang up the suspension and tyres.

What was supposed to be a short practice sessions to just get a feel of the car, turned into an hour long survival battle. In the end managed a "lap" with a puncture and the wheels doing their best marty feldman impression.

You're welcome.


😁

 

[Cabelmania]

Tomorrows rally is absolutely brutal.

F2 cars paired with a long stage filled with narrow cliffside roads that are brimming with sudden death spots.
If you survive without having an E.T go home moment, there are plenty of corners to bang up the suspension and tyres.

What was supposed to be a short practice sessions to just get a feel of the car, turned into an hour long survival battle. In the end managed a "lap" with a puncture and the wheels doing their best marty feldman impression.

Yeah, even me, Mr. ""naughty word" it, I'm gonna do it 1st try", will probably do a Safety car run before the actual try and that's because Rally Mediterraneo can go "naughty word" itself

 

[FrankieStail]

Went for the twingo for today’s stage, although the slowest and oldest in its class it’s def the most fun.

Feels really light on its toes and fidgety, just as it does on sticky tyres irl!

 

[Pfei]

It's hard to judge the relative performance of historic cars by their stats alone. Just look at H2 RWD. You wouldn't expect it from looking at the specs, but the Alpine is totally OP in that car class.

 

[RYAN]

The stage in my actual run felt a bit slippery at the start compared to practice runs and I had a bit of moment near the start and lost a few seconds. Other than that issue I got a fairly clean run after that.

 

[doblocruiser]

Tomorrows rally is absolutely brutal.

F2 cars paired with a long stage filled with narrow cliffside roads that are brimming with sudden death spots.
If you survive without having an E.T go home moment, there are plenty of corners to bang up the suspension and tyres.

What was supposed to be a short practice sessions to just get a feel of the car, turned into an hour long survival battle. In the end managed a "lap" with a puncture and the wheels doing their best marty feldman impression.

I'll fire up my 306 tomorrow somewhere. Seen I am driving miss Daisy all be good.

I've did a few stages in Corsica with the Stratos so I know what to expect. However only short stages since well, Corsica 🤣

I most likely won't keep it together for that long so.....leaderboards....way down the bottom 🎂

 

[Cabelmania]

30s reset penalty............'cause that's was clearly a right 2, not right 4, co-driver !

 

[xX Jojje Xx]

30s reset penalty............'cause that's was clearly a right 2, not right 4, co-driver !

I always blame the co-driver