1) The challenges could be and probably should be handed out in a block of say 5 at a time with a week to do them and the scoring done once a week.
2) This is GT4 afterall and we are here more for racing then punishment drills, so a more defined entry criteria should be done. One could sit down and in 30 minutes or so come up with race classes and length restrictions for each one. Then all one would have to do is limit the hp, tires or other elements like in GT4. Examples could be like the ones in the beginners hall of race circuits.
3) It might be more interesting if different bots drove the same cars as the ones people bought and compare the times as the bots are a bit different for everyone but generally similar the results would be interesting. Say the category is Roadsters & Spiders, a driver then drives the car and track in the challenge followed by a lap with their bot or the bot goes first which ever. The times are recorded and reported back. So bascially you end up with the human teams vs the bot teams with the same group of cars.
4) The vehicles should probably also be from the same general era or decade.
5) We could race anything even the 1886 cars.
1) Disagree. I like the way the Top Gear hosts are asked to buy a car and meet up. They are then handed an envelope containing the first challenge which they proceed to do before being given the next challenge. It kind of keeps things flowing. Imagine if this thread was busy over the weekends while everything was announced, then dead through the week as everyone kept quiet on their progress so far as they didn't need to reveal their scores until the end.
2) Agreed. I was a bit too vague this time around. Perhaps this would have been less of an issue had I used the Civic SiR-II (EG) as an example of a car I didn't want everyone to choose instead of the Skyline example?
3)
I cannot see how this could be scored fairly. Having driven every car round 3 tracks, and Bob having also driven two of these tracks I can tell you that the
only car that Bob can beat me in at Trial Mountain is the Gillett Vertigo '04. For every other car I would score positively, up to 15.260 seconds in the Suzuki Alto Lapin Turbo '02. This would not be the case for someone else with a well trained B-Spec driver but little practise themself. They would be penalised in every comparason for having less experience.
This bias is also present in the way I ran this round, but less evidently. The only truly fair way of comparing to a B-spec driver would be to B-spec every car with the same Bob, but then the whole thing becomes more of a paper exercise and less fun.
4) Probably, but I can also see cases where this need not be the case.
5) I wouldn't bother with those two. Any track with even a slight slope can bring them to a stop - even the start/finish straight at La Sarthe is too much for them, and a 12mph speed limiter is no fun.
1.) I think the challenges should be a 24 hour or less deadline, Since they are so quick to complete. I haven't done more than 5 laps yet to set my times, even with these older cars, only takes 10-15 minutes to complete a challenge, I spend more time picking cars (and both times I bought 3 cars, although only 1 was chosen as my car).
2.) As for the 'far out-there' challenges, stay away from photomode it takes too long, and it stalls the progress, as we saw in the first running. Also as long as the odd-ball challenge is planned ahead of time, and not derived based on car selections, that makes things more interesting. I know I laughed quite a bit after seeing the length comparison, even though I knew after that I had no chance to win, this is all for fun and is enjoyable not being in a super-serious competition.
3.) Deadline compressing, if everyone has completed the challenge there is no problem firing off the next one if the host notices, so the host should check-in occasionally (if he has time).
4.) Let us race! The one issue I've had with both events run, is the lack of funds and tuning allowable. Remember although this competition is based on Top Gear, it is still being played through a racing game and 70-80 MPH just doesn't cut it, heck 130 MPH is still a bit slow. (now granted I'm used to zipping around at 200-250 MPH, and occasionally driving around hybrids capable of 400-500 MPH, and have one that can reach greater than mach-2. I thought I was going to snap driving the Midget around the test course.)
5.) Less vague terms for car selection, 'small cars' means something different to people depending on country, likewise 'coupe' has had different standards depending on locations, car companies, and car eras. So slightly more descriptive terms in car selection may help out.
6.) The lower point system seems to work better so far.
1) I was thinking of 24 hours as a minimum. Not everyone gets online every day, and with differing timezones even an 18 hour deadline could be missed due to sleeping then work. As this past week progressed I was leaning more and more towards 72 hours to pick your car(s), then 24 hours for subsequent challenges.
As for your 3 cars (and my 3 test mules), perhaps if everyone chose 3 cars but only entered one into the competition whilst quietly running the other two in the background. Then at the end of the week announced their other cars and how they performed. Could lead to some interesting reading, and more numbers for BH-21s Laptime Comparason threads.
2) I only mentioned the photomode challenge as it is one that we tried unsuccessfully - though the occasional photomode picture for illustration purposes does add colour, but it should not be compulsory.
I had hoped that my
underlining of the word
small in the initial post, then my
refusing to set a size
restriction would have hinted that you would be scored on the size of your cars. This had definately been planned out in advance.
3) I did consider this on two occasions. The first time was just a couple of hours before the set deadline so I let it run on, the second time I decided to keep the deadline but added the just-for-fun challenge to help fill the time. My reasoning was to keep things consistent making it easier for people to comment on how it had been run.
4) I doubt we'll ever reach 250mph and definately not 500mph, but I do have a couple of ideas brewing that should see speeds between 150 and 200mph. These will likely be the exception rather than the rule though as there are fewer than 200 non-road cars and these 200 include low powered concepts and historic cars. I'd say only around 20-25% of the cars in game are 200mph capable without major work.
at the Midget around Test Course
for fun.
5) As noted above, I accept I was a bit too vague this time, and my example didn't help. However we don't want to get too restrictive either. FF, 4 cylinder race cars over 200bhp would be a nightmare. You'd be better off listing the 3 cars eligible for entry, and it would then become a first-come first-served situation with those online at the time picking the rabbit and those in other timezones being left with the snail.
6) Agreed. The points system for the trial run did seem a bit odd, most likely due to not having been thought all the way through beforehand. A spread of between 10 and 50 points between best and worst scores for each round is probably best, thus my being unhappy with the scoring for the Motorland Laptime.
(I would have had 122 points after 4 challenges, 74 more points)
