BATracer general discussion (also if you're looking for a teammate)

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Remember, no qualifying runs, your practice laps will dictate your starting position, so it's a good idea to keep maybe a couple of laps to use once the others have refined the setup a bit...

also, that is for the first race of a two race event. The second race's starting position comes from your finishing position in the previous race...

FM

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Breeze

I'll join if you are looking for another driver...just let me know if you want me to jump in or if you've already promised SnDvls...

I've not promised anything. When I pm'ed back, I wasn't even sure I'd make the team and he went offline without replying. I say it's all open...

FM

[Breeze]

Nevermind, it won't let me join. I didn't count all my races on my record so it doesn't think I've met the minimum requirements...

[FrogMan]

that sucks...

FM

[FrogMan]

password's off, still one spot for anybody. Hopefully we'll get an FOFCer...

FM

[Brillig]

Snagged the last spot.

[FrogMan]

Should be fun, frustrating sometimes, cause you know, those cars are unresponsive buggers, but fun, cause I know I'll have good teammates, no offense meant to SnDvls, as I know he would have made a great teammate too. It's just that I'm a bit underwhelmed by my set of teammates in that midseason BATseven I joined a week ago...

FM

[SnDvls]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Should be fun, frustrating sometimes, cause you know, those cars are unresponsive buggers, but fun, cause I know I'll have good teammates, no offense meant to SnDvls, as I know he would have made a great teammate too. It's just that I'm a bit underwhelmed by my set of teammates in that midseason BATseven I joined a week ago...

FM

none taken...glad a fellow FOFCer got the spot

again keep me in mind if something else comes along and you or anyone needs a teammate.

[Mr. Wednesday]

7s are a bit different. I'm a fan of the live qualification, although it makes teamwork tricky to get proper sharing of the load on getting the setup. (Compared to conventional series where you can just do all your laps at once, if you go first you really need to only do about half so that you can wait on more setup info for "live" laps to try to lay down a good time...)

[Mr. Wednesday]

Dola, and that's despite the sevens being the only series where I've basically had no success at all (although I haven't really tried '02 and '86 for F1s).

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

7s are a bit different. I'm a fan of the live qualification, although it makes teamwork tricky to get proper sharing of the load on getting the setup. (Compared to conventional series where you can just do all your laps at once, if you go first you really need to only do about half so that you can wait on more setup info for "live" laps to try to lay down a good time...)

it is indeed very different. I see you have joined that series too, cool.

Speaking of that series, with only two spots left to fill, and four one driver teams, some people will have a looooong season...

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

Ayup. I feel sorry for them.

[FrogMan]

I liked my single driver season in V8 Supercars, but I don't think I'd have as much fun in the BAT Sevens... At least, you can win one of the reverse grid races in V8

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

If you do a single-car as a thinker, I think you could do very respectably.

I managed to hold onto first place in my championship season in V8s with a period of two or three race weekends (maybe even more) with an AWOL partner, in the time before we were allowed to sack our teammates.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

If you do a single-car as a thinker, I think you could do very respectably.

I managed to hold onto first place in my championship season in V8s with a period of two or three race weekends (maybe even more) with an AWOL partner, in the time before we were allowed to sack our teammates.

wow, nice. When I started that single driver season, I had about no clue how Thinker and Charisma could help me, especially as a single driver team, and I went with Pole Sitter King. I still finished 7th, so I was pretty happy with that.

FM

[Scoobz0202]

I am doing fairly good, first in my public but that is with a Ferrari. I did bring a BTCC Generic car from 13th to 3rd in a matter of about 6 races about halfway through the season, but I did have the help of a Kool Tools partner. As a team we have won the last five races (3 me, 2 him), and I have gotten the pole in four out of the last five races. But the one thing I havent quite figured out in the indy car series is if I should use hard or soft tires in dry conditions. Is there something I am missing in figuring out which tires to use? I tend to just use my hards during practice and warmups, and I use the same hard tires throughout those sessions so I dont waste any tires.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Hards are only useful (at all) on the ovals, and even then it's debatable — some folks will only run hards at Michigan.

I don't think it's a huge difference either way on two-stopping with normals vs. three-stopping on softs on the road courses, although there's at least one of the longer ones (+100 laps) where four-stopping on softs works even better. Use whichever type you're not running on in practice (hards give reduced feedback IIRC), and qualify on softs regardless of whether or not you're racing on them.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Dola, on thing to watch out for, when it gets moderately wet, only softs will give you full feedback. I know on at least one occasion, I practiced on normals anyway because I didn't want to burn up race tyres.

[Breeze]

I'm still interested in finding a partner in a public and private league - so if anyone it interested let me know...

[Mr. Wednesday]

Anybody for a ChampCar public?

[Mr. Wednesday]

Dola, I'll wait another half hour or so before I create a team unless I get some interest in the interim.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

Dola, I'll wait another half hour or so before I create a team unless I get some interest in the interim.

I can't do Cart (I don't think), but if you're looking for an FOFCer to race with I can do F1 with you.

[Mr. Wednesday]

I'm looking at a pro ChampCar series. If you're still at the academy level, I can't race with you unless I come into the series midseason as an instructor.

Edit to add: So far, nobody's taken a Reynard yet...

[Mr. Wednesday]

OK, because of uncertainty of getting anyone, I'm not using an FO team name. It's the currently-filling pro ChampCar game, password is trout.

[vex]

If you don't mind racing with me again, I'll join

[Breeze]

Ok, I can now be a mid season replacement for anybody...so if there are FOFCers out their running without a partner, let me know.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Breeze

Ok, I can now be a mid season replacement for anybody...so if there are FOFCers out their running without a partner, let me know.

If you're not already in the FOFC F1 private series, you could certainly have some fun with a Ferrari

Look a page back or so, you should be able to find the series ID and password...

FM

[Breeze]

ok - i'm in

[Scoobz0202]

Quick question - I am in the practice stages of a race in a BTCC Generic series. It is stormy during practice, and bone dry for qualifying. Is the setup I get in practice for the stormy conditions, and i need to adjust for bone dry.... or are the settings you get in practice always for bone dry?

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

Quick question - I am in the practice stages of a race in a BTCC Generic series. It is stormy during practice, and bone dry for qualifying. Is the setup I get in practice for the stormy conditions, and i need to adjust for bone dry.... or are the settings you get in practice always for bone dry?

the setup you achieve is always for whatever the weather is at the moment you achieve it. Meaning once you're done getting a good setup in stormy practice, you need to adjust that setup for a bone dry weather for the qualifying session. It's not impossible that it could change again for the warmup session and then maybe again for the race too...

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

And as far as the wetness scale goes, it appears to be an equal spread for each weather type, each one taking up a spread of 8 1/3% wetness. If you have KT, the wet/dry setup tool can automate this adjustment, otherwise you'll want a spreadsheet to handle it.

[FrogMan]

yeah, I do x/11*50 where x is how many levels the weather has changed in order to get how many pegs I need to adjust on the KT slider. Would be more accurate with a spreadsheet, but I can live with that

FM

[FrogMan]

if anybody is interested in putting down their names in a waiting list for a good private series, I'd recommend the E-race career game. It's basically an ongoing F1-2007 career game where everybody drafts at the end of the season based on their finishing position to determine what car they will be driving the following season.

I just got in this season as a mid-season replacement, currently driving a Williams. I was in 19th place when I took over, looking at the prospect of having to drive a Spyker next season, but that was early enough in the season and I've turned my luck around and I'm currently sitting in 11th place, looking at a pick of maybe a Williams, or a Super Aguri, which I personally like... My teammate is currently in 4th place, which would guarantee him one of the top 6 cars...

Anyway, their forum is the following:
http://pow.ftlog.com/erace

There's a Subscription/Waiting list thread in the Career Game forum over there...

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

yeah, I do x/11*50 where x is how many levels the weather has changed in order to get how many pegs I need to adjust on the KT slider.

There are 12 types of weather, not 11 — or have you not experienced not-quite-bone-dry yet?

Would be more accurate with a spreadsheet, but I can live with that

It's unusual to get weather that falls between the cracks on KT, but it does happen occasionally. Usually, though, one of your sessions is uncertain enough that it doesn't matter.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

There are 12 types of weather, not 11 — or have you not experienced not-quite-bone-dry yet?

Thanks for confirming that I'm not completely crazy. Yeah, I've had some of those "bone dry in practice", "bone dry in quali", "bone dry in warmup" yet it told me the weather had changed and all the ranges were screwed... Annoying to say the least...

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

It's unusual to get weather that falls between the cracks on KT, but it does happen occasionally. Usually, though, one of your sessions is uncertain enough that it doesn't matter.

What I meant was more of the 50 pegs on the slider vs working with 100% in a spreadsheet, where you should be able to narrow it down even better...

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

That's what I'm talking about, though... there's only rare occasions when that 2% granularity means you can't hit the transition quite right — to match a pair of spot-on dry values, you need, say, 30 ticks for one spot-on wet value and 31 ticks for the other.

[Mr. Wednesday]

If anybody's interested in a little V8 action, I just joined the currently-filling V8 game (#17675), Team Sirromet Wines, protected with pwd "trout".

My home race is Bathurst, if you're going for an enduro you may prefer to pick Sandown to minimize redundancy.

[FrogMan]

Would have loved teaming up with you, especially in my favorite series the V8, sadly I've got no public slot available at the moment...

Next one opens up on September 5...

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

I'm guessing it won't stay open that long.

(Too bad it's not an ROC... I remember one of those going a month without filling...)

[FrogMan]

yeah, I doubt it will stay open that long

They're not doing ROC anymore are they? What did these series mean, or what were the requirements to be part of one?

FM

[Mr. Wednesday]

When they did ROC, you had to have won at least one public series (of any classification) to be able to participate. Consequently, the level of competition tended to be fairly high.

They were introduced before midseasons, and really filled a need at that time. With the advent of midseason replacements and driver sackings, the level of play went way up even in the non-ROC events, and I think that the current pro/academy split has pushed that even farther. That said, I still think that in some carsets, the ROCs were a higher level than the public games you get now — aside from 7s, the only time I've ever finished outside the top 10 in a public series is ChampCar ROCs, and it happened twice. (That includes multiple iterations of V8s, both ROC and non-ROC, as well as both ROC and non-ROC A1.)

[kingfc22]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Would have loved teaming up with you, especially in my favorite series the V8, sadly I've got no public slot available at the moment...

Next one opens up on September 5...

FM

Would you want to team up for a V8 series once you have a spot open up?

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

Would you want to team up for a V8 series once you have a spot open up?

I sure would love to!

I'm finishing up a private V8 series (with Emiliano) where, with only three races left, I have almost clinched the championship title. I mean, a lot of points are available in two races out of three in a weekend, but I have a 240 points lead or so.

As I said, my public slot will become available on September 5, at 5am or so to be precise. We'll see when a V8 series opens up after that (or if one is already opened at that time) and we'll coordinate ourselves so we can team up together. Way I see it with the queue, the V8 should start once an A1GP will fill, so we'd need the BTCC to fill, then a ChampCar to open and start, and then the A1Gp to open and fill. Hopefully, all that won't take more than now until the 5th...

Not that it matters much, as the cars are just about all the same, but I just love that Tasman Motorsports car...

FM

[kingfc22]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Not that it matters much, as the cars are just about all the same, but I just love that Tasman Motorsports car...

FM

Me too. Just finished a season with Mr. W. I had a strong start, but ran into a bunch of bad luck in the latter part of the year that knocked me from th to 8th in points down to 15th by season end.

[Mr. Wednesday]

You got killed with retirements. You had more wins and podia than I did. (In fact, where I didn't win the series, you probably got more WR points out of it than I did.)

[FrogMan]

now that we're getting close to the end of this season, what do we want to do, us FOFCers?

To be honest, I was seriously thinking about not doing another private FOFC game, as we seemed to have lost a lot of drivers but on the other hand, it's fun driving with/against you guys. I then thought about that career challenge I'm playing in with the guys from E-Race. Basically, you get to draft your car at the start of every season, based on where you finished the previous season. They are using the F1-2007 carset to do that, but I thought we could be a bit different and go with the F1-2006 one, mostly because the car comparison makes many of them bunched up in the middle making it less dramatic of an advantage to get one of the top 3 cars.

Look at this:


It's missing some cars, as it's from the only F1-2006 game I played and it was a private (they all are anyway) and we had a short field.

We currently have two completely AWOL drivers in the F1-2007 series, with maybe 11 who ran laps in practice for the second to last race in the season. We could make as short a field as necessary and if you want, try to advertise it on the BATracer forum if we want to fill it, or start it with a short field. Of course, the drafting order for season 1 would be randomized.

I could run the whole thing, make sure people pick cars and such...

Anyway, what do you think about it?

FM

[vex]

I'll play whatever. I wouldn't mind seeing a private V8 or A1GP though.

[Brillig]

I think the F1 2006 idea sounds interesting... do we run in teams, though?

[kingfc22]

I'm down for whatever.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Brillig

I think the F1 2006 idea sounds interesting... do we run in teams, though?

nope, cars are drafted individually and you get the teammate that you get. Brings a tiny bit of strategy to people picking cars in the mid-range picks, where you can decide to go with what could be perceived as a slower car, but with what they think is a better teammate, or one they get along better.

My other reason for picking the 2006 carset is that you can't run it any other way.

As for the A1GP, man I'm beginning to hate that carset as I just can't figure it out. Maybe a short field of FOFC only drivers could make it more fun but I'm not too sure.

The V8 could be a lot of fun but would be a bit weird with say 12 drivers in only 6 teams, plus the season is looong, so we might lose some drivers if their season is not going the way they want it...

FM