Q&A with Slightly Mad Studios: Ian Bell [Read OP]

[HardRock]

So just to be crystal clear, I can do some offline time trials in the ford gt gte at the nordschleife, have a time saved somewhere in the ui, then jump into the corvette c7r and do the same lap same conditions, and then compare? Thats really all I care about. I dont care if I need to click on "Practice" or "time Trial" to get that.

Only your best times are saved, but you can check those on the leaderboards by car and class, yes, if you did those laps in Time Trial specifically. If you want to compare your slower laps and outside of Time Trials, you would need to track those manually I believe, or with the help of the many telemetry apps perhaps.

 

[05XR8]

what you want is a real Trackday mode. This is not implemented as i know.
But could be done for PCs on dedidicated servers by help of LUA scripting and realtime posting to a website.

That's what I was getting at for offline play. Without jumping in Quick Race Weekend or Practice Mode. I understand about setting the time to 24 hours, but Track day could be an option.

Online is different. I could do a mock NISMO Festival. Just stipulate "Nissan cars Only". Players run around as much as they want, with maybe an impromptu race here and there. Then, back to just running around.

Offline, I don't have that luxury.

 

[PhaedrusSocrate]

What GT5 and GT6 had was that in offline practice mode, on any track, game would permanently (and automaticaly) save top 10 results of any car (wich ever cars you made current top 10 times on your own)... Those would be only total lap time, not split times.

BUT also, when practicing you can permanently save best lap of your current session, and load that whenever later you want and compete against it's ghost and it's split times - regardless wether you are using the same car or diferent. And you can make as many saves as your hard drive allows.

Can we expect same in pCARS 2?



(And ofc, in online TT you had access to save any of top 10 results in the world or region and use them the same way, either off or online.)

 

[Satco1066]

not so easy in pCARS2. But maybe a third party developer hears your voice and creates an app that does that.

 

[Morgoth_666]

I had tried running a 24-hour practice session as a pseudo-trackday in pCARS 1 so I could jump in and run some laps off and on as the mood took me, but it didn't work -- all the bots left the track never to return so after an hour or two there was nobody on the track. Then again it was at the Nordschleife, probably the 24-hour version(the real-world one, not the Norschleife-only version we're stuck with in the game). So they probably all just ran out of gas trying to figure out where the pits were like they always do in races there... at pretty much any version that leaves the GP course.

Memory suggests it happened even sooner than it does in races though, and more completely. I don't think there was a single car on track any more after an hour or two. I assumed it was something like what happened in rFactor 1 where the cars had a set practice routine(in that game they almost always would run a few laps then pit and run a full tank stint, and then they would park and never come back out).

Hopefully whatever was the cause of that has been corrected so the possibility is there.

 

[DesertPenguin09]

@IanBell I noticed in more recent videos that the netting in cockpits is moving around now. I remember awhile ago posting how it was static and reduced immersion. Were you working on this all along or did having me and others notice it push you to work on it?

 

[Tassie_tiger]

Hi folks.
Quick question for you.
A friend owns an Xbox One and is wondering what graphic fidelity and FPS he should be expecting.
Perhaps I missed it but I've tried the website and had no joy.
Maybe someone has a link.
Cheers.

 

[BaldBastard]

Apologies if this has been covered and I've missed it - there's quite a few similar threads going on at the moment and difficult to keep up with work etc

So with that disclaimer out of the way, @IanBell Are you, or SMS, planning on detailing the differences between the PC/PS4/Pro etc so those people with various systems can make a more informed choice on which to preorder?

Cheers

 

[Satco1066]

Apologies if this has been covered and I've missed it - there's quite a few similar threads going on at the moment and difficult to keep up with work etc

So with that disclaimer out of the way, @IanBell Are you, or SMS, planning on detailing the differences between the PC/PS4/Pro etc so those people with various systems can make a more informed choice on which to preorder?

Cheers

you forgot XBox one and Xbox one X

 

[F1Racer68]

Apologies if this has been covered and I've missed it - there's quite a few similar threads going on at the moment and difficult to keep up with work etc

So with that disclaimer out of the way, @IanBell Are you, or SMS, planning on detailing the differences between the PC/PS4/Pro etc so those people with various systems can make a more informed choice on which to preorder?

Cheers

If you have multiple platforms, why choose? Why not get it for both/all? That way oyu have multiple groups of friends to race against.

 

[05XR8]

If you have multiple platforms, why choose? Why not get it for both/all? That way oyu have multiple groups of friends to race against.

I thought about doing that as well. PS4 seems to have the bigger community. Additionally, most my family use PS4. Still thinking about it.

 

[AllReD]

If you have multiple platforms, why choose? Why not get it for both/all? That way oyu have multiple groups of friends to race against.

If you ran it on multiple platforms, will there be any syncing across them?

 

[Gr8_Lakes]

On the developer stream, I saw what seems to be the game recognizing 2 devices at same time - gamepad and wheel. Is this the case across all platforms? On PS4, I would love to map certain functions to gamepad and other functions to T300.

Currently on Project Cars 1/PS4, having a controller and wheel on at the same time is a no no. The game doesn't allow the wheel to function if a controller is also on. Therefore, I have a separate button box. If a controller could be used along with the wheel it would save a lot of folks the expense of a button box by being able to map additional functions to a closely mounted controller.

 

[ozwheels]

Currently on Project Cars 1/PS4, having a controller and wheel on at the same time is a no no. The game doesn't allow the wheel to function if a controller is also on. Therefore, I have a separate button box. If a controller could be used along with the wheel it would save a lot of folks the expense of a button box by being able to map additional functions to a closely mounted controller.

I use a controller with a wheel all the time. You have to start the game with the wheel though and then turn the controller on. You can't map separate buttons for the controller.

 

[F1Racer68]

If you ran it on multiple platforms, will there be any syncing across them?

Probably not, due to different online networks/player names (PSN vs. Steam).

 

[sbtm]

@IanBell I noticed in more recent videos that the netting in cockpits is moving around now. I remember awhile ago posting how it was static and reduced immersion. Were you working on this all along or did having me and others notice it push you to work on it?

Afaik they always worked on this. And it's not only the safety net, it's all loose hanging stuff that's moving. I think the reason you didn't spot it back then was because only a few had it at this time. it's added to the cars slowly and not all cars at once. So in recent builds you are much more likely to see moving parts in the cockpit as it's done for much more cars now.

 

[nrosko]

Afaik they always worked on this. And it's not only the safety net, it's all loose hanging stuff that's moving. I think the reason you didn't spot it back then was because only a few had it at this time. it's added to the cars slowly and not all cars at once. So in recent builds you are much more likely to see moving parts in the cockpit as it's done for much more cars now.

yeah i noticed a small metal hoop swinging around the other day & thought that was pretty cool & had not noticed this before.

 

[notanexpert]

Im usually on the side of scepticism when i hear "well that was an old build", but I have to say, I can really notice a difference between the press build and current builds on youtube videos. The ai looks completely different in the newer builds.

 

[Donnced]

Some Spanish members said that actually the AI need a lot of work in terms of consistency, speed and first lap..

Let's hope that SMS get the AI where they want.

 

[jake2013guy]

Some Spanish members said that actually the AI need a lot of work in terms of consistency, speed and first lap..

Let's hope that SMS get the AI where they want.

I assume this is because of the review copy. Seen in more modern builds that the first lap AI is fine and doesn't slow as much if at all.

 

[Donnced]

I assume this is because of the review copy. Seen in more modern builds that the first lap AI is fine and doesn't slow as much if at all.

Nope, the where talking about the last build that is newer than the "review build".

They also mentioned that on rain the AI is quite slow also..

The really hope to see a good improvement on the AI before the game enters in gold.

 

[jake2013guy]

Nope, the where talking about the last build that is newer than the "review build".

They also mentioned that on rain the AI is quite slow also..

The really hope to see a good improvement on the AI before the game enters in gold.

Interesting.

 

[xMetalHead515]

Hi guys, I have a question about career mode.
When you complete a tier you are forced to start a championship in the next tier or you can do another championship in the same tier?
(Example: in tier 4 going to Porsche Cayman championship after finishing gt4 championship).

 

[Bealdor]

You can always stay in your current tier if you want to.

 

[Anomalistics]

Nope, the where talking about the last build that is newer than the "review build".

They also mentioned that on rain the AI is quite slow also..

The really hope to see a good improvement on the AI before the game enters in gold.

I thought this was going to be the case. So unfortunate but oh well.

 

[Sentry87]

Ian Bell in ProjectCarsGame forum said the A.I. in the final build is pretty good, fun, and definitely an improvement over PC1. However he also said a patch will be needed to fix issues such as slowing down and bunching up on the first lap.

 

[Anomalistics]

Ian Bell in ProjectCarsGame forum said the A.I. in the final build is pretty good, fun, and definitely an improvement over PC1. However he also said a patch will be needed to fix issues such as slowing down and bunching up on the first lap.

game isn't even out yet and a "patch" is required. I think you just need to accept it'll always be this way. Don't get your hopes up.

 

[Sentry87]

game isn't even out yet and a "patch" is required. I think you just need to accept it'll always be this way. Don't get your hopes up.

Post release patches are almost standard in this industry, calm down. Only thing that matters is it's improved over PC1 in which A.I. wasn't terrible anyway

 

[MABlosfeld]

Does anyone have any information about Camber?

 

[sbtm]

Does anyone have any information about Camber?

Yes there will be camber...

Post release patches are almost standard in this industry, calm down. Only thing that matters is it's improved over PC1 in which A.I. wasn't terrible anyway

Not post release. It's day-one-patch. Game is going Gold and everything that's worked on now will be in the d1p. So the gold build basically just gets updated to the latest and final development build then.
At some point they have to submit a build as a release candidate and then keep working and then update it with d1p. Either that or delaying the release.