Weight Penalties and Weight Rewards

[JohnBM01]

GTPlanet, normally on television, I get sick of all these diet pills, workout machines, and all this. I mean like, is America really THAT overweight which proposes so many of these supplements and high-intensity workout machines?

GTP, I'm only joking about this sort of weight. The kinds of weight I'm talking about relates to cars in race series. In series such as Speed World Challenge (America), the British Touring Car Championship (United Kingdom), and even the Autobacs Super GT Series (Japan), cars are given weight to keep competition equal. My thread called "What if You Could Upgrade 'My Home?'", talked about what would be possible if you were able to upgrade your home to become this sort of race shop. I explained the possiblilties of either modifying your car into a full-on race car, or even keeping your street car, and then fabricate a race car complete with tunable aerodynamics, suspensions, brakes, transmission, and all that. But then, imagine if championship races gave weight penalties for those who continually win. Or even imagine if the championship in question presents things like dropping turbo pressure for turbo-engined cars. GTPlanet, how would you feel if PD implemented a system which allows for weight to be added to your car with victories, then taking away weight as you're losing?

GTPlanet, give it some thought, imagine you were racing with such stipulations, and then make your voice heard... or should I say let your typing be seen, since I doubt none of us actually talk online. That is, unless message boards allow voice chat...

 

[[FPV]Rusty]

I consecutively gave myself an extra 10 unit ballest everytime i won a race in the formula gt championship. still won almost every race despite having an identical car to my competitors. The AI currently isnt trying hard enough.

Notice how i almost changed that into another rant about how easy it is to beat the AI?

 

[Emohawk]

I don't even think they should do that in real life racing. If one team makes a car that's simply better then all it's competitors, yet still within the rules of the racing series, then the other teams should just have to do better or keep loosing.

As for balancing the game, I think the points system works fine. If people don't want to worry about it, they don't have too; if they want a challenge, they can go for the 170-200 range.

 

[JohnBM01]

But... I thought the weight ballast deal didn't really apply to penalty weight or anything. I thought the ballast was there to aid in car control, not so much in weighing down cars. If you want to experiment in adding or subtracting weight, you can do play around with the touring cars. I don't own any Touring Cars in the game. I do have the Abt Audi TT-R DTM racer, but I don't consider DTM as a form of touring car. But if I were to recommend a nice touring car, I'd suggest maybe the Mazda 6 Touring Car, available at 450K Credits. Either that, or the BMW Touring Car also available at 450,000. Build up that money and sample with touring cars. If you want to step up, try out the JGTC race cars. The GT300 class is good to sample with, but you can even try the big dogs in GT500.

If anyone else has commentary on weight penalties and rewards, you are free to reply.

 

[LoudMusic]

I think the weight stuff in GT4 can be used as a penilizing system.

 

[[FPV]Rusty]

It definately starts slowing down the formula 'gran turismo' cars once you put about 50+ on it
Especially on turn 2 of Motegi High Speed ring or speedway or whatever its called

 

[JohnBM01]

Well, do you think the system should be auto-adjusted after each race in a Championship, just to keep things equal?

I think when I had my tape of the JGTC's inaugral race at Autopolis in 2003, the Esso Ultraflo Supra (defending champs that year) was about to cross the finish line in a high position. The Denso Sard Supra won the race, but as the Esso Ultraflo Supra was going to cross the line, it just stopped off course, since the team didn't want the extra weight with winning the race.

Like I said, many of you racing game fans that don't really see real racing, I think you all should see something like the JGTC. Buy some DVDs, read some magazines, look on TV, something. America has the Speed World Challenge. The Touring Cars and GT cars have the weight system in play, and thanks to the commentary of Greg Creamer, if you place sixth or higher in a SWC race, you get weight added to your car. Place seventh or worse, you lose weight to your car. I think I even remember in Speed GT when Peter Cunningham raced a wild Team Realtime NSX. That thing had to be restricted a lot. I even remember him being out of the race at Lime Rock Park (ALMS races there on Independence Day, by the way).

Do you think that the game should be able to give out specific levels of weight given to your car to make things tougher? If the next GT's races have horsepower restrictions like in GT2, do you think a weight system would make things even tougher to win? By the way, GT2 had a Touring Car series, so imagine making the touring car experience even more interesting with actual touring car rules.