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

[Satco1066]

@IanBell @The_American @wicken or anyone else that would know.......

This does bring me to a question though.....

Is it safe to assume that this interface allows for management of a remote DS? If so, what can you share already about requirements for that? Any info we can get about DS requirements (port numbers, bandwidth needs, etc.) will help immensely. I am hoping and assuming that it will be the same as the current one, but new features often bring other infrastructure changes as well.

More or less, the same as you need for PCars1 DS.
That pasted pictures are mockups ( thats why historic Touring is seen so often) to show developers targets.
Its a webinterface, so i think the look of the finished app could have similar visual style, independent of funtionality.

 

[F1Racer68]

More or less, the same as you need for PCars1 DS.
That pasted pictures are mockups ( thats why historic Touring is seen so often) to show developers targets.
Its a webinterface, so i think the look of the finished app could have similar visual style, independent of funtionality.

When you say Web Interface, does that mean a function of the server itself rather than within the game? I assume that it does..... That is PERFECT!!

 

[Dicra]

There is no input lag at all. Change 'Speed sensitive steering' on the slider.

It still doesn't turn as fast as I'm moving my thumbs but it wouldn't really be realistic if it did. Apart from that, I know that tips like that would've most likely been easy to find if I knew where to search, but I can safely say that today was the first time I ever had the feeling of being free as to how much turn-in I had with a pad. Wasn't even that far away from a wheel, to be honest. Thanks for that!
Now I just hope you manage to fully remove the subtle understeer the pad requires in PC1 for PC2.

 

[TexasTyme214]

@IanBell @The_American will consoles have options for the various penalties and pit stop errors in standard lobbies like the PC dedicated server has?

 

[Satco1066]

When you say Web Interface, does that mean a function of the server itself rather than within the game? I assume that it does..... That is PERFECT!!

Thats the same as with DS1. It had also a webinterface, but there was only low functionality. All you wanted to setup you had to assign in ther server.cfg file. Now this will be possible through the webinterface, w/o need to have full file wise access to the server. But be aware, its PC only. As mentioned somwhere earlier, there will be no dedicated server for consoles.

 

[F1Racer68]

Thats the same as with DS1. It had also a webinterface, but there was only low functionality. All you wanted to setup you had to assign in ther server.cfg file. Now this will be possible through the webinterface, w/o need to have full file wise access to the server. But be aware, its PC only. As mentioned somwhere earlier, there will be no dedicated server for consoles.

Understood. We are PC based. I assume that this also means the server will no longer require a restart when changes are made then? The current version, due to making changes via the server.cfg file, requires a restart for each race making remote management more challenging.

 

[F1Racer68]

@IanBell I would like to join WMD3 when it comes time but unfortunately dont have a PC. Will there be any chance for this on console?

First, I want to make it clear, this is NOT a criticism or negative post towards @LGee19 in any way, shape, or form. It's simply that his post is the most recent example of this.

I simply wanted to comment on the irony of the situation.....

When the WMD enrollment was launched and announced for the second round, the public ripped SMS a new one for "Abandoning the first title immediately after it launched", and "money grabbing" and "not supporting pCARS1". All of which was obviously untrue

Now with pCARS2, WHICH HASN'T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET, people are already asking about WMD registration for pCARS3.

Does anyone else see the irony in this?

What are the chances that any of those most vocal against SMS for launching the second round of WMD when they did will actually have the maturity and cajones to step up and apologize to @IanBell @The_American , @TheOwl and the rest of the SMS team?

I for one will be all over it this time around. I just hope we get enough advanced warning/long enough signup period this time.

 

[Satco1066]

yep. But anybody that joins, should be aware, that he does not get a new game from start on. Many of the functionality has been totally reworked over the months, only working half way than they should. So sometimes it's a pain, as regulary gamers would cry "gamestopper". Thats ongoing development, like in a puzzle in the beginning you cannot see the full picture. WMD members are here to help, suggest, find bugs or functionality that goes the wrong way. And bring in new ideas.
Not to complain. Or just to get a game 2 years before launch. Think of it.

 

[jake2013guy]

First, I want to make it clear, this is NOT a criticism or negative post towards @LGee19 in any way, shape, or form. It's simply that his post is the most recent example of this.

I simply wanted to comment on the irony of the situation.....

When the WMD enrollment was launched and announced for the second round, the public ripped SMS a new one for "Abandoning the first title immediately after it launched", and "money grabbing" and "not supporting pCARS1". All of which was obviously untrue

Now with pCARS2, WHICH HASN'T EVEN BEEN RELEASED YET, people are already asking about WMD registration for pCARS3.

Does anyone else see the irony in this?

What are the chances that any of those most vocal against SMS for launching the second round of WMD when they did will actually have the maturity and cajones to step up and apologize to @IanBell @The_American , @TheOwl and the rest of the SMS team?

I for one will be all over it this time around. I just hope we get enough advanced warning/long enough signup period this time.

In fairness, most people who did that were like BlackPanthaa who called it a "con" without either knowing what one was or what the acronym stands for. Surprisingly, I heard he enjoyed playing PC1 when he was in a car on PSVR.

 

[F1Racer68]

In fairness, most people who did that were like BlackPanthaa who called it a "con" without either knowing what one was or what the acronym stands for. Surprisingly, I heard he enjoyed playing PC1 when he was in a car on PSVR.

No, there was plenty of uproar from individuals on the official forum as well. It wasn't just a few "review sites".

Anyway, I made my point on the matter. Time to get back on topic

 

[TheoSkullz12]

:@:IanBell big question, When your car is wrecked and unable to make it back to the pits, is there at least someway to bring it to the pits like a reset or even the return to pits option or something that correlates with the Flag system. I know that there won't be any cranes or safety car but will there be at least this because waiting on someone to pick you up who is never going to be there is kind of annoying. I would love to have the ability to at least try and continue my race instead of forfeiting:tup:👍

 

[F1Racer68]

:@:IanBell big question, When your car is wrecked and unable to make it back to the pits, is there at least someway to bring it to the pits like a reset or even the return to pits option or something that correlates with the Flag system. I know that there won't be any cranes or safety car but will there be at least this because waiting on someone to pick you up who is never going to be there is kind of annoying. I would love to have the ability to at least try and continue my race instead of forfeiting:tup:👍

Agreed. Something in line with the iRacing style "tow truck" option would be good.

For those not familiar, if you are severely damaged in iRacing, you can request a "tow truck". This then gives you an automatic return to the garage and a time penalty of several minutes (varies by track and race). You then sit in the garage for an appropriate length of time while the crew fixes the car enough to get you back on track. In some cases these repairs can be actual hours...... So for example during a 12 or 24 hour endurance race, you can easily spend an hour to 2 in the pits getting repaired, and will then be the appropriate number of laps down.

 

[TheoSkullz12]

Agreed. Something in line with the iRacing style "tow truck" option would be good.

For those not familiar, if you are severely damaged in iRacing, you can request a "tow truck". This then gives you an automatic return to the garage and a time penalty of several minutes (varies by track and race). You then siting the garage for an appropriate length of time while the crew fixes the car enough to get you back on track. In some cases these repairs can be actual hours...... So for example during a 12 or 24 hour endurance race, you can easily spend an hour to 2 in the pits getting repaired, and will then be the appropriate number of laps down.

See i actually like this idea. Just because you can't have the animation doesn't mean you cant have the base. There wouldn't happen to be a video on this feature if i may ask.

 

[F1Racer68]

Not one I can think of, but if you watch any of the 24 Hours of Daytona videos or the 12 Hours of Sebring videos form this year's races, I am sure you will find some. There really isn't anything to see though. Just the car sitting in the pits for 45 minutes + LOL

 

[Ian Bell]

It still doesn't turn as fast as I'm moving my thumbs but it wouldn't really be realistic if it did. Apart from that, I know that tips like that would've most likely been easy to find if I knew where to search, but I can safely say that today was the first time I ever had the feeling of being free as to how much turn-in I had with a pad. Wasn't even that far away from a wheel, to be honest. Thanks for that!
Now I just hope you manage to fully remove the subtle understeer the pad requires in PC1 for PC2.

Yes we set the speed of rotation of the wheel with a little inertia. The other thing is that we had quite a lot of central deadzone (this is mandated for manufacturing tolerances) with pCARS1 which we have reduced in pCARS2.

We've worked many areas of the pad input for pCARS2 extensively and the consensus among our testers is that it's dramatically better than what we concede was a sub-optimal implementation for the first game.

 

[FuriousDemon]

Yes we set the speed of rotation of the wheel with a little inertia. The other thing is that we had quite a lot of central deadzone (this is mandated for manufacturing tolerances) with pCARS1 which we have reduced in pCARS2.

We've worked many areas of the pad input for pCARS2 extensively and the consensus among our testers is that it's dramatically better than what we concede was a sub-optimal implementation for the first game.

That's great to hear. One question I have related to control methods. Currently, if you want to use an Xbox controller instead of your wheel, you have to recalibrate and reconfigure the wheel, when you switch back to it. Do you guys plan to have seamless transition between the two?

I plan to play pCARS 2 mostly using a wheel and the Oculus Rift, but sometimes I'd like to be able to play on my couch using Steam Link + Steam Controller. It would be great if it was possible to do that without losing my wheel settings.

 

[Wolfe]

It still doesn't turn as fast as I'm moving my thumbs but it wouldn't really be realistic if it did.

Be sure to turn off Visual Wheel Filtering. The animation of the steering wheel lags behind your actual input if you have that setting enabled. 👍

The setting exists to make things look smoother and a little more "real", but it's unhelpful for anyone who uses the wheel graphic as an indicator for your steering input. It probably turned some people off from the game even though it's merely a visual anomaly you can easily eliminate.

 

[Rjo]

@ianbell,my post earlier with an example on youtube was taken down,but no matter 👍,in the clip there were two things of which 1 is ayrton senna's iconic and my childhood hero his f1 mp4/4 on the macau track,now i know macau would be stretching it to have that in the game but then again i'd gladly shell out the money for that track,any chance or a glimpse of hope seeing that machine in project cars 2 ripgrip the track(s) in glorious dynamic circumstances??

 

[Vitesh Patel]

@IanBell @The_American

Can you describe how endurance racing will work in PCARS 2, are there any differences from how races were run in PCARS 1 (outside of the new weather/seasonality throwing up different conditions) and the options to put an AI driver in for a stint.

Thanks

 

[crowhop]

Will we be able to speed up Fuel Usage the way you can Tire Wear (2x, 3x, 5x, 7x, etc, etc) in Project CARS 2? @The_American

 

[proterra1]

I know car damage and deformation questions have already been answered. But are we likely to see any proper tyre wall deformations in pcars 2? Non-concrete like tyre walls would make crashing much more realistic!

 

[HardRock]

I know car damage and deformation questions have already been answered. But are we likely to see any proper tyre wall deformations in pcars 2? Non-concrete like tyre walls would make crashing much more realistic!

Actually pCARS 1 had that at one point. During its development, I distinctly remember destroying tire walls on one of the kart tracks, leaving tires everywhere, so technically it's definitely possible. However, without a nice way to clean the tires up they were a real hazard. If there would be physics for tire walls again then the flag rules would have to extended with detection for them and some kind of realistic clean up for them wouldn't hurt either, because tires popping out existence wouldn't cut it for me in 2017. Maybe eventually we could have race marshals under yellow flags running in to pick up debris (not just tires), but until then I would prefer if tire walls would remain static.

 

[The_American]

Will we be able to speed up Fuel Usage the way you can Tire Wear (2x, 3x, 5x, 7x, etc, etc) in Project CARS 2? @The_American

We had this already in pC1 correct? I'm pretty sure accelerated Fuel Usage is also available in pC2 (i don't remember the exact multiples/choices however)

 

[The_American]

Actually pCARS 1 had that at one point. During its development, I distinctly remember destroying tire walls on one of the kart tracks, leaving tires everywhere, so technically it's definitely possible. However, without a nice way to clean the tires up they were a real hazard. If there would be physics for tire walls again then the flag rules would have to extended with detection for them and some kind of realistic clean up for them wouldn't hurt either, because tires popping out existence wouldn't cut it for me in 2017. Maybe eventually we could have race marshals under yellow flags running in to pick up debris (not just tires), but until then I would prefer if tire walls would remain static.

Some trackside objects are collidable and can move/deform. I think walls for the most part are fixed but you can scrape them up. We didn't model messing up a SAFER barrier and you're right that would normally be a lengthy full course yellow. One nice thing we have in the virtual world versus reality is that we can instantaneously clean up our damage so we can have more green flag racing. I think for pC1 objects knocked onto track disappeared/reset after like 60 seconds (?)

 

[crowhop]

We had this already in pC1 correct? I'm pretty sure accelerated Fuel Usage is also available in pC2 (i don't remember the exact multiples/choices however)

No, unfortunately not. You can't speed up Fuel consumption in pC1. To my recollection for pC1 you can only set Fuel to "None, Slow, Real". Hoping for the speed multipliers in pC2 to match the Tires. Thanks for the reply.

 

[jake2013guy]

We had this already in pC1 correct? I'm pretty sure accelerated Fuel Usage is also available in pC2 (i don't remember the exact multiples/choices however)

It was Slow or Normal in that case. He's asking if it would be numerical like fuel.

 

[Animera]

Some trackside objects are collidable and can move/deform. I think walls for the most part are fixed but you can scrape them up. We didn't model messing up a SAFER barrier and you're right that would normally be a lengthy full course yellow. One nice thing we have in the virtual world versus reality is that we can instantaneously clean up our damage so we can have more green flag racing. I think for pC1 objects knocked onto track disappeared/reset after like 60 seconds (?)

Speaking of trackside objects, is it still possible to destroy marker boards? This sometimes caused problems in MP racing.

 

[proterra1]

Actually pCARS 1 had that at one point. During its development, I distinctly remember destroying tire walls on one of the kart tracks, leaving tires everywhere, so technically it's definitely possible. However, without a nice way to clean the tires up they were a real hazard. If there would be physics for tire walls again then the flag rules would have to extended with detection for them and some kind of realistic clean up for them wouldn't hurt either, because tires popping out existence wouldn't cut it for me in 2017. Maybe eventually we could have race marshals under yellow flags running in to pick up debris (not just tires), but until then I would prefer if tire walls would remain static.

It wouldn't even have to be tyres flying all over the track, (all though that would be nice!). These days the tyres in tyre barriers are all held together I'm fairly sure. Probably for safety reasons. Anyway even if the barriers could sort of squish on impact it would be nice touch. No magically disappearing tyres that way too!

 

[jake2013guy]

Speaking of trackside objects, is it still possible to destroy marker boards? This sometimes caused problems in MP racing.

That's how it is in real life. Somebody destroys a marker board, you lose that reference. It's why you usually have another reference in that eventuality.

 

[F1Racer68]

We had this already in pC1 correct? I'm pretty sure accelerated Fuel Usage is also available in pC2 (i don't remember the exact multiples/choices however)

Unfortunately, no. Fuel consumption was either Off, Low or real. You could not accelerate fuel usage the way you could tire wear. This limited our options for ensuring appropriate number of pit stops in time accelerated events.