GTPlanet Community Spotlight: A Reckoning Force a Decade in the Making

– 2015 Audi TTS Coupe, August 9th, 2015, courtesy of Populuxe Cowboy.

What, no trucks this week? I need trucks! I’ve spent hours trying to think up an exciting way to best last week’s presentation, and as I’m writing this I’ve come to the realization that it just isn’t possible and there’s a very good reason for that, last week’s opening was so unexpected, even to me, that is was entirely an act of spontaneity. If you know anything about spontaneity than it should become apparent why I can’t will this week’s opening into a better place on my own admittedly selfish hierarchy chart because it just doesn’t work that way.

As I professed last week and will continue to do so this week, Euro Truck Simulator 2 is in a league all on its own and had I known the kind of trouble I would have gotten myself into I wouldn’t have done anything differently. In fact, what I neglected to mention last week is the developer behind ETS2, SCS Software, has been working on American Truck Simulator which will serve as a spin-off of sorts and it looks just as good and even introduces new features one of which will be weigh stations.

“Drivers cruising across American highways might occasionally be  required to visit a weight alongside of the road to verify if their load complies with regulations. These weight terminals are concentrated along the highways and can be easily accessed by drivers at any time. Please note that Weigh Stations will be exclusive to American Truck Simulator and will not appear in Euro Truck Simulator 2.”

We’ll be talking more about American Truck Simulator over the coming weeks but I’ll leave you with this for the time being.

Onto the real focal point of this week’s festivities: the 10-year anniversary of the Forza Motorsport franchise, and the celebration of this milestone begins in a little more than three weeks time with the release of Forza Motorsport 6, or again, earlier if you opted for the Ultimate Edition which entitles players to early access beginning on the 10th of September, 5 days ahead of the official release.

The franchise has come quite a long way since its inception in 2005 and appears to be in a position where Turn 10 Studios are readily embracing and returning to the series’ roots, all the while improving them tenfold in the process. This is evidenced by the return of Rio de Janeiro and nighttime racing, both of which haven’t been seen in the series since the original and have received fairly noteworthy overhauls.

There’s a lot to get through this week and I promise I won’t mention trucks again at least until next week, so with that out of the way I ask the following: who’s ready for the Spotlight?

GTPlanet Picture of the Week

This week’s featured image comes to us courtesy of Ak1504 and showcases the Ginetta G55 GT4 parked on the main straight of the Nurburgring GP Circuit.

If you like what you’re seeing and have a suggestion for next week’s featured image, start a conversation with me, entitle it “GTPlanet Picture of the Week” and fill it to your heart’s content with suggestions and they’ll be featured in upcoming Community Spotlight articles. NOTE: You cannot elect your own work.

GTPlanet Gallery of the Week

This week’s featured gallery, as you’ve no doubt gathered by now, is RaY29rus’ gallery and brought to you by none other than RaY29rus. Opened on the 30th of November in 2013, the gallery approaches GTPhotography utilizing an incredible color palette, attention to detail, close ups, and angles you’re unlikely to see anywhere else.

You can find RaY29rus’ gallery here in all of its splendor if you want to look through an entire catalog that offers a gallery full of style and unique moods. The latest update being just this past Wednesday, Wednesday, August 19th.

– Lotus Elise, November 11th, 2014.

If you like what you’re seeing and have a suggestion for next week’s featured gallery, start a conversation with me, entitle it “GTPlanet Gallery of the Week” and fill it to your heart’s content with suggestions and they’ll be featured in upcoming Community Spotlight articles. NOTE: You cannot elect your own gallery.

GTPlanet Thread of the Week – Name Your 10, Stranger

As it stands Forza Motorsport 6 is set to feature an incredible list of cars ranging from classic open wheel racers and Group 5 monsters to hot hatchbacks for the everyday commute, and seemingly everything in-between. A game, no matter how good from the start, can always have just a little more to send you straight to the moon and back, and the idea here is to think of 10 cars not already confirmed to be in the game that you’d otherwise love to get a hold of and spend as much time with as possible.

This thread put together by buickgnx88 channels this particular idea but with two particular caveats: you can’t suggest a Porsche as it’s confirmed the marque will return to Forza Motorsport in 2016 and can currently be enjoyed in Forza Horizon 2, and you can’t suggest any cars that were “dropped” from FM4 as it’s practically a foregone conclusion that many would want them back. So with that in mind have at it and stop by the thread!

Battle of the B-Spec

– Sauber C9’s going head-to-head, August 20th, 2015, courtesy of Giulietta73.

Has it really been more than a decade since B-Spec was first introduced in Gran Turismo 4? B-Spec hardly needs an introduction but for those not privy, B-Spec allows the player to participate in a race by managing an AI driver. This proved extremely useful in the longer endurance races especially those of the 24-hour variety. This isn’t about the usefulness of the feature itself, no, this is more about which Gran Turismo has featured the best B-Spec.

The thread, put together by our own ToyGTone pits GT4, GT5, and GT6 against each other in a battle for B-Spec supremacy and it’s all your call – which of the three do you think has the better B-Spec? If you’re unable to remember which game did what with the feature then worry not as a list of what each game’s version allowed you to do is on-hand. If you extensively use B-Spec than you’ll undoubtedly want to share your opinion by stopping by the thread and letting the community know!

GTPlanet Member of the Week

Yes, it has returned but this absolutely needs to be prefaced by saying there aren’t nearly enough possible nominations to keep this going past next week, so if you want to see the Member of the Week continue moving forward you’ll want to send some suggestions my way and remember to title it “GTPlanet Member of the Week”.

With that said and done, the time to acknowledge a member of the GTPlanet community is upon us. A member who has stood out among the hundreds of thousands of members already here, both old and new alike for all that they’re worth and all they have contributed to the community.

This week’s particular inductee defines community in a way anyone could agree with, and is all about having fun in GT6 whether it be with his league or hopping into a public lobby, so without further ado et’s give a warm welcome to the newest member to find vacancy in the ever-growing Member of the Week madhouse, trobes29!

You can read the interview in its entirety in the official thread right here.

F1 2015 v1.0.19 Now Available on PC

While we’ve yet to encounter any updates in the form of livery updates or aero packages, Codemasters continues to relieve the PC release of F1 2015 of the many problems that have admittedly burdened the game since launch. The patch focuses almost entirely on fixing bugs to keep players engaged for what is hopefully a turn for the better as the second half of the F1 season is prepared to kick off this weekend.

Noteworthy fixes are the AI’s pit behavior, players acquiring another’s points when joining a multiplayer session mid-season, and the addition of adjusting camera and field of view settings.

• Fixed AI always pitting on the same lap as their team mate
• Fixed some instances of cars getting stuck in the pit lane
• Fixed infrequent crash in the pit lane
• Fixed car resetting to track when using flashback in the pit lane
• Fixed instances of the pitting strategy not always updating correctly
• Fixed fuel changes not saving correctly when changed under parc fermé conditions
• Fixed various errors with the damage, fuel and temperature swipe
• Fixed game stutter when the player takes control of an AI-driven car
• Fixed AI cars having punctured tyres in P2 and P3 sessions in Pro Season mode
• Fixed identical weather being used for all practice sessions in Pro Season mode
• Fixed game resuming instantly when backing out of replay
• Fixed flickering on track reflections in wet weather on high graphics settings
• Fixed objects popping when playing with multi-monitor and wide screen setups
• Added ability to adjust camera and field of view settings
• Fixed McLaren 2015 car’s gear paddles glowing orange under braking
• Added ability to delete car setups
• Added a new “invite only” custom match option
• Added push to talk functionality for voice comms
• Improved session joining speed through the multiplayer hoppers.
• Reconfigured hoppers to give one hopper per difficulty setting
• Updated feature race to Belgian Grand Prix
• Fixed players with invalidated lap times being shown as in 1st place during one shot qualifying sessions
• Fixed grid order being incorrect after one-shot qualifying session if players had invalidated their lap times
• Fixed several instances of players failing to start a session after other players have left the game
• Fixed race start timer increasing whenever a player joins a hopper lobby
• Fixed players acquiring another player’s points when joining a session mid-season
• Fixed saved lobby settings not loading in correctly
• Fixed players not joining hopper lobbies correctly from some game modes
• Fixed car body not loading in correctly in some multiplayer race
• Fixed multiple incorrect fastest lap notifications being displayed during online practice sessions
• Fixed vote to skip track being used multiple times in lobbies
• Added notifications for players retiring during a multiplayer session
• Various other bug fixes and improvements

An additional patch released today fixes issues that were introduced in the aforementioned patch.

• Fixed assists being available in the Hardcore – No assists hopper.
• Extended the default bounds of the Field of View user adjustment.

GTPlanet Vehicle of the Week

Introduced at the 2015 North American International Auto Show and hitting the road in select global markets beginning next year, the all-new Ford GT celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Ford GT40’s famed 1-2-3 victory at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans and is likely to continue to live up to its given title as “The Ferrari Slayer”.

The second generation Ford GT is powered by a 3.5L twin-turbocharged EcoBoost V6 engine, one that is based on the same architecture used in Ford’s IMSA Daytona Prototype endurance racing efforts and will produce more than 600 horsepower effectively making it the most powerful EcoBoost powerplants in production.

Estimated by Ford that the GT “will exhibit one of the best power-to-weight ratios of any production car” thanks to the GT’s use of advanced lightweight composites. Underpinned by a carbon fiber passenger cell, the GT features aluminum front and rear subframes covered in carbon fiber body panels.

The Ford GT is set to make its return to the racing scene during the weekend of the 24 Hours of Daytona where it will be racing in the GTE-Pro class. The production version of the GT will be limited to 250 examples over the course of several year production term, with each costing upwards of $400,000.

A Difference of 20 Years

https://youtu.be/PRjOFeGK84k

The evolution of racing games has been a hot topic in the Spotlight in recent weeks and Marc Dxn has put together an interesting video showcasing just how far racing games have come.

The video pits classic racing titles found on the original PlayStation against their modern day counterparts: Gran Turismo goes head-to-head with Project CARS, Colin McRae Rally goes up against DiRT Rally, and finally there’s F1 1995 compared to F1 2015. Not only does it show how far the genre has come in terms of visual presentation, it also brings to light an issue that was discussed in the Spotlight on a number of occasions in the past and it’s something that resonates with a handful of people in our own community: features once thought to be state-of-the-art have fallen to the wayside and this is perhaps one of the biggest contributors to these very same classic games being held in such high esteem.

VVV Looks at Racecraft

GTPlanet Tune of the Week

– March 10th, 2015, courtesy of BanditRa101801.

This week’s featured tune is all about tackling seasonal events using the prowess of a Le Mans Prototype, the Pescarolo C60 Judd Hybride to be exact.

“With this setup I’ve done the Expert Level Race Car Challenge and the 1980 or Later Race Car Super Lap without big troubles: the car drives very well, high speed on the straights, good brakes; don’t leave the throttle when you’re in a high speed turn because the car can lose grip and oversteer without any notice. I’ve used the TC: 1 only because this track is full of bumps on every corner.

UPDATE: on the latest event, the “1980 or Later Race Car Super Lap” I’ve done 6:47,560 and I’m currently 96th on the leaderboard.

TUNE THE PPs OF THE CAR FIRST AND THEN CHANGE THE GEARS.”

Be sure to stop by TrueLife’s tune page and give this one a go. Can you rise to the challenge?

The Last Lap

Surprisingly enough I don’t think I have much more to say this week as I’m very close to being tapped out, but I would like to remind you all that there needs to be more Member of the Week nominations so once again if you have anyone in mind that you’d like to see celebrated you’ll want to send some suggestions my way and remember to title it “GTPlanet Member of the Week”.

Until next week, keep racing!

See more articles on GTPlanet Community Spotlight and GTPlanet Member of the Week.