Where have you been having your fun?

[05XR8]

Just replicating races at the Bathurst Internatinal: TCM(Vintage GTA/B), TCR, Trans-Am, Porsche Cup, Production Car racing( wish the Raptor could be deleted). Still a fantastic game.

 

[kjb]

Recently I decided to try every track in the game so I started at Algarve with the Cadillac. I am going to run a few practice runs with different car classes to figure what will work best for each track. It give me a chance to learn some tracks I'm not familiar with

 

[IfAndOr]

Recently I decided to try every track in the game

Don't forget the rallycross and ice tracks. You might have to select certain types of cars for some of them to be accessible. That certainly goes for the Ferrari test track, Fiorano, where only a Ferrari will do.

And then, not forgetting, there's all the kart tracks.

So many tracks!

 

[Wolfe]

Cars on kart tracks are a fun time. Select the kart, select a kart track, then select your car.

 

[kjb]

YeaDon't forget the rallycross and ice tracks. You might have to select certain types of cars for some of them to be accessible. That certainly goes for the Ferrari test track, Fiorano, where only a Ferrari will do.

And then, not forgetting, there's all the kart tracks.

So many tracks!

I plan on trying out the karts on the kart tracks

 

[greenlightning]

Picked up Monza 5 Direct Drive wheel and pedal set this weekend. Major step up from T-150 and G27. Never thought would make that much difference. This wheel is super quite, can barely even notice that it is even working from that perspective.

Anyways with some slight graphics card adjustments and this wheel feels like a new game.

Also have AMS2.

I think will enjoy some PC2 for awhile as car selection and track selection is some of the best.

Monza Wheel might be one of the best xmas/Bday gifts that have gotten myself in many years.

 

[greenlightning]

Looks like in game record lap track time trials is no longer available

Used old Ford GT race car at Road Atlanta. Been long time since even tried that car. Felt pretty good and drivers view etc was nice.

Has lots of fun with the rally lite cars at sidewinder a week or so ago....great fun if no one has tried those cars.

 

[Mr_D]

Got a PS5 recently and couldnt resist trying GT7 on it. After a few weeks I realized I just wasnt having fun and switched back to PC2 which immediately put a smile on my face. The graphics did take some getting used to because holy cow is GT7 a good looking game. My main gripe is the AI though. Starting last every race and overtaking the entire field in 3 laps just isnt a convincing simulation of motorsport..

Anyway, fortunately PC2 is still fun as ever after 370 hours played. Went to career mode and started the Formula Rookies which was amazing fun. Then today I spent all day getting to grips with the Radical in the Sportscar Lite series. After spending many hours in the Formula Rookies not going above 200kph, this machine feels, well, radical.. XD

I just love it how after spending hours with the same car on one track at one point youre just completely dialled in and can feel and predict every little bump on the road. Also doing minor setup changes are very noticeable at that point which is really cool.

Was kind of annoyed to have to do a championship on British tracks again because Ive done them so many times while there are a bazillion different tracks in this game. But fortunately the Radical is extremely fun to drive.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Yes, career mode is great fun and while it is a bit UK-centric when you start (won't complain, I find all those quaint tracks rather charming, not to mention ... challenging!) it becomes "wordly" after a couple of tiers.

PS - @IfAndOr, I'm still not fond of Cadwell Park though ...

 

[IfAndOr]

PS - @IfAndOr, I'm still not fond of Cadwell Park though

It's probably not LMP1 friendly but get the right (small) car and it's a fun drive. Although overtaking is tricky!

Do you know that after all the years of playing PC2 I've never really touched career mode. 😵‍💫

 

[Mr_D]

Yeah I do like the smaller tracks with the right car. In real life I do some trackdays with my bike and I allways seem to enjoy the smaller scale tracks the most. Mettet, Zolder, Ecuyer.. They usually have a more easy going atmosphere hanging around it, and often theyre very technical. Sometimes they're a bit dangerous on a motorbike though because of lack of runoff areas/gravel traps.

It's just in career mode there are only so many times I can drive Snetterton in the rain lol

 

[Mr_D]

It's probably not LMP1 friendly but get the right (small) car and it's a fun drive. Although overtaking is tricky!

Do you know that after all the years of playing PC2 I've never really touched career mode. 😵‍💫

I can recommend it because its the only way to do championships, also it forces you to drive cars and tracks you might otherwise not have chosen.

 

[IfAndOr]

there are only so many times I can drive Snetterton in the rain

That's just SMS accurately modeling British weather in the summer though. 😀

 

[r_outsider]

It's probably not LMP1 friendly but get the right (small) car and it's a fun drive. Although overtaking is tricky!

Do you know that after all the years of playing PC2 I've never really touched career mode. 😵‍💫

I just have the Pirelli World Challenge and another run at Indycar left now, then some of the manufacturer drives and invitationals (and some of those are bloody fantastic on their own). Some series are better than others but it's been worth every minute to me. They do like to throw some surprises in to keep it interesting.

 

[greenlightning]

I would be interested if anyone has ever attempted to do career mode at full length races with A.I. at 80 or above and A.I. aggression being similar setting. Especially with realistic damage etc and no short cuts on applied penalties etc.

If one was to do so, would most likely take several weeks/months. Especially if not able to advance you career.

 

[Mr_D]

I just have the Pirelli World Challenge and another run at Indycar left now, then some of the manufacturer drives and invitationals (and some of those are bloody fantastic on their own). Some series are better than others but it's been worth every minute to me. They do like to throw some surprises in to keep it interesting.

I dont really enjoy the invitationals because there are no practice sessions or qualifying. You're just thrown in a race with a random setup (usually a bad one) and no clue about braking points etc. It doesnt really work for me to be honest.

 

[Mr_D]

I would be interested if anyone has ever attempted to do career mode at full length races with A.I. at 80 or above and A.I. aggression being similar setting. Especially with realistic damage etc and no short cuts on applied penalties etc.

If one was to do so, would most likely take several weeks/months. Especially if not able to advance you career.

I am doing this right now. I do use a lot of restarts because the first laps often involve some kind of pile up. And yes it takes a long time because I spend at least 30 min in practice (at the start of a season easily double or triple that to get a feeling for the car), 15 mins in qualifying and sometimes twice that because Im still dialing in the difficulty (if I find myself ahead of 2nd by more than a second I usually up the difficulty but if Im being demolished Ill lower it). And then a race with usually a couple of restarts. So yes, progress is very very slow XD

 

[Hun200kmh]

All this talk will probably mean I will resume my career, long forgotten. Never got to far, reached a championship with the Caterham track day cars (similar to Radicals) and was having a nightmare with those when I noticed a group here that was about to start a ... Caterham online championship! Since I loved the Seven (and hated the barchetta) I thought it might be fun and entered that championship. Since then, I hung my offline career helmet but maybe it is time to resume it.

Would need to check to be certain, but from memory I was doing it at 80% skill 30% aggression, 15 minutes free practise and 15 minutes quali, 10 lap races. With setups on, engine damage on, rules on and ... most importantly ... Performance Impacting damage. But I would restart any race where first lap pile ups or moronic AI behaviour made me crash.

About invitationals ... many are great fun, others just don't make much sense due to game issues. I remember one particularly that I never cleared/won. it was with Group 5 Porsches (935) at Hockenheim classic. Rain would come after a few laps and the car would become undriveable (there's no avoiding puddles at Hockenheim classic). Either I set the AI to the usual level and have a fine race until the wet track became a nightmare (the AIs would still be driving as if nothing had changed) or I would set the AI skill to a very low level, and race to gain enough distance so my 3 spins per lap after would not prevent me from a win. I never won that race, gave it up entirely. So, yeah ... mixed bag regarding invitational and manufacturer events

 

[MrCrynox]

All this talk will probably mean I will resume my career, long forgotten. Never got to far, reached a championship with the Caterham track day cars (similar to Radicals) and was having a nightmare with those when I noticed a group here that was about to start a ... Caterham online championship! Since I loved the Seven (and hated the barchetta) I thought it might be fun and entered that championship. Since then, I hung my offline career helmet but maybe it is time to resume it.

Would need to check to be certain, but from memory I was doing it at 80% skill 30% aggression, 15 minutes free practise and 15 minutes quali, 10 lap races. With setups on, engine damage on, rules on and ... most importantly ... Performance Impacting damage. But I would restart any race where first lap pile ups or moronic AI behaviour made me crash.

About invitationals ... many are great fun, others just don't make much sense due to game issues. I remember one particularly that I never cleared/won. it was with Group 5 Porsches (935) at Hockenheim classic. Rain would come after a few laps and the car would become undriveable (there's no avoiding puddles at Hockenheim classic). Either I set the AI to the usual level and have a fine race until the wet track became a nightmare (the AIs would still be driving as if nothing had changed) or I would set the AI skill to a very low level, and race to gain enough distance so my 3 spins per lap after would not prevent me from a win. I never won that race, gave it up entirely. So, yeah ... mixed bag regarding invitational and manufacturer events

Urrrrhh this reminds me of another horrible challenge at that track with classic Lotus F1 car where it starts to pour down. I think it's 6 laps or so but no matter what combo of tires and pressures I can't beat it. Once they go cold there's just no grip, not fun.

 

[r_outsider]

Urrrrhh this reminds me of another horrible challenge at that track with classic Lotus F1 car where it starts to pour down. I think it's 6 laps or so but no matter what combo of tires and pressures I can't beat it. Once they go cold there's just no grip, not fun.

Oy, I had forgotten about that nightmare. Yeeesh, that was a tough one. Of course, for every one like that there's a Ferrari Challenge at Mugello or the one with the Mustang at Watkins. I totally get why people wouldn't like the invitationals but for the most part I enjoy the challenge, including having to come through the field. Plus, once you know the combo you can always go knock a few practice laps off and dial the car in in practice.

@Mr_D and @greenlightning running everything complete, full calendar and length and including all the regionals? That would be quite the feat and is going to take some time, especially considering there's more than one full 24 hour race in there (I ran them as close to 2.4 hours as I could, all I had time for). You will likely need to make an exception to your rules for Group C, the AI Nissan GTP ruins that series, otherwise it would probably be my favourite of the sports categories.

 

[Mr_D]

All this talk will probably mean I will resume my career, long forgotten. Never got to far, reached a championship with the Caterham track day cars (similar to Radicals) and was having a nightmare with those when I noticed a group here that was about to start a ... Caterham online championship! Since I loved the Seven (and hated the barchetta) I thought it might be fun and entered that championship. Since then, I hung my offline career helmet but maybe it is time to resume it.

Would need to check to be certain, but from memory I was doing it at 80% skill 30% aggression, 15 minutes free practise and 15 minutes quali, 10 lap races. With setups on, engine damage on, rules on and ... most importantly ... Performance Impacting damage. But I would restart any race where first lap pile ups or moronic AI behaviour made me crash.

About invitationals ... many are great fun, others just don't make much sense due to game issues. I remember one particularly that I never cleared/won. it was with Group 5 Porsches (935) at Hockenheim classic. Rain would come after a few laps and the car would become undriveable (there's no avoiding puddles at Hockenheim classic). Either I set the AI to the usual level and have a fine race until the wet track became a nightmare (the AIs would still be driving as if nothing had changed) or I would set the AI skill to a very low level, and race to gain enough distance so my 3 spins per lap after would not prevent me from a win. I never won that race, gave it up entirely. So, yeah ... mixed bag regarding invitational and manufacturer events

Yes the Hockenheim is actually just plain broken, lol. Didnt finish it myself either but I read somewhere theres a trick to it. Like fully closing your dif or something.

About the AI, theyre not very consistent. 80 is very easy on some tracks and very hard on others, so personally Im not too bothered lowering or upping it accordingly

 

[Mr_D]

Oy, I had forgotten about that nightmare. Yeeesh, that was a tough one. Of course, for every one like that there's a Ferrari Challenge at Mugello or the one with the Mustang at Watkins. I totally get why people wouldn't like the invitationals but for the most part I enjoy the challenge, including having to come through the field. Plus, once you know the combo you can always go knock a few practice laps off and dial the car in in practice.

@Mr_D and @greenlightning running everything complete, full calendar and length and including all the regionals? That would be quite the feat and is going to take some time, especially considering there's more than one full 24 hour race in there (I ran them as close to 2.4 hours as I could, all I had time for). You will likely need to make an exception to your rules for Group C, the AI Nissan GTP ruins that series, otherwise it would probably be my favourite of the sports categories.

Nah I'm not doing 24h races in realtime. I remember when I was 18 yrs old in Gran Tursimo 4 I actually did one although even then with the B-spec / computer controlled driver to do some stints for me. I dont have time for that nowadays

And yes after 370+ hours played in like 4 years (I almost feel guilty for only paying 10euro for the game and all DLC lol) I only finished one tier in the career. Although admittedly I lost some progress because of some cloud save muck up forcing me to do the entire GT3 championship again. I'm not bothered though, I'm having fun doing it and thats all that matters. I'm not doing it to gain credits to buy virtual cars. Cough - gran turismo - cough

Yeah I read somewhere about the group C being broken. Bummer.

 

[Hun200kmh]

I'm not sure Group C is broken. In some tracks, where downforce is needed (like Brno) the Nissan is unbeatable. However, in classic Le Mans I dare anyone using a Nissan to beat me to pole position in my Sauber

 

[r_outsider]

I'm not sure Group C is broken. In some tracks, where downforce is needed (like Brno) the Nissan is unbeatable. However, in classic Le Mans I dare anyone using a Nissan to beat me to pole position in my Sauber

Against the AI version? The player version was BOP'd after release but the AI version was never fixed.

 

[r_outsider]

Nah I'm not doing 24h races in realtime. I remember when I was 18 yrs old in Gran Tursimo 4 I actually did one although even then with the B-spec / computer controlled driver to do some stints for me. I dont have time for that nowadays

And yes after 370+ hours played in like 4 years (I almost feel guilty for only paying 10euro for the game and all DLC lol) I only finished one tier in the career. Although admittedly I lost some progress because of some cloud save muck up forcing me to do the entire GT3 championship again. I'm not bothered though, I'm having fun doing it and thats all that matters. I'm not doing it to gain credits to buy virtual cars. Cough - gran turismo - cough

Yeah I read somewhere about the group C being broken. Bummer.

Not sure what happened to my multi quite but here we go, Me neither, lucky to squeeze an hour in, lost my career a bunch of times when it first came out, no hiccups since getting the Series X though. And the funny thing is, the AI version of the Nissan isn't really broken, it's just the rest of that class runs in WSC spec and the AI Nissan runs in IMSA GTP spec, which were bloody monstrous cars.

 

[greenlightning]

Great conversations. I was just curious if anyone had ever tried or considered doing that.

I should consider restarting career mode.

With my work schedule 50 plus hours a week as project manager. Really tough to find time for quality sim racing. I enjoy a lot of AMS2 since it is really what PC3 should of became. I dabble in online racing from time to time, just open lobby races. A lot are mainly GT3. I prefer much more variety. Then for 10 lap race or less, I do not see the point in qualifying, especially if skill points is turned off. Sometimes in AMS2 - I will set up some race only lobbies, but very few takers.

AmS2 is really lacking on offline career mode compared to PC2. Also for me some of menus a little buggy in AMS2. Hate having to turn off two things everytime to get clear replay screen. Still no way to my knowledge to exit replay screen in AMS2 just using your wheel.

I could care less about rain or night races. Dawn to Dusk though is cool. Start off with damp track in AMS2 looks great.

Ferrari 365 cars and rally lites just some of the best fun with PC2. Have enjoyed a lot with LMP car classes in the past.

 

[greenlightning]

So today actually decided to go ahead and create a new career mode in PC2. Spent about 2 hours in Gentta Junior on the first track, practice, qualifying and the first race. Started with A.I. at 85/80, but was still way off pace. Restarted with A.I. at 80/67 and ended up maybe 2 seconds off pace. Did as much tunning as I could, except with drivetrain. Ended up increasing brake pressure to near max, adjusting brake balance (reducing the front). Turned off engine braking. Ended up also turning off all driving aids as seemed could go quicker through the turns. Never been a fan of the narrow european tracks. After several race restarts, finished last on the first track after the full race length of 15 minuets. My fastest lap time was only about .5 seconds slower then fastest lap for the A.I. I did get a 2 second pentatilty on the race that I did finish for exceeding track limits. Anyways there is perhaps hope to do better on the other tracks in this series.

I also ran the same track and Genetta Junior in AMS2 for a few minuets. I had more fun with PC2. Might just ave been that had not spent that much time with that car in AMS2. Slight off tack excursions in AMS2 is generally brutal.

All in all a good few hours in PC2 this afternoon.

 

[Mr_D]

Nice. Glad to hear you're enjoying it.
Getting the AI setting right can be a bit of a pain sometimes. Today I had to lower from 90 from the previous race to 40 to qualify first. Then in the race I absolutely demolished them..

 

[Mr_D]

Not sure what happened to my multi quite but here we go, Me neither, lucky to squeeze an hour in, lost my career a bunch of times when it first came out, no hiccups since getting the Series X though. And the funny thing is, the AI version of the Nissan isn't really broken, it's just the rest of that class runs in WSC spec and the AI Nissan runs in IMSA GTP spec, which were bloody monstrous cars.

Its weird how they seemed to miss this. But there are more than one weird design choices and/or bugs in the game

 

[05XR8]

Been recreating Group A races in GT7 and boot up PC2 for some “real” Group A action. This game still amazes me with the faux period liveries and to the date historical track list settings, to recreate past real events. Will always be one of the great console racing games of all time.