Hey guys, I just wanted to open this thread in order to have a discussion about the way the game handles "cut track penalties". I feel like it's HUGELY inconsistent and a massive detriment to racing on the circuits that don't have the natural bounds necessary to punish track cutting. In AMS2, corner cutting or extending sometimes gets punished, and sometimes you have all the freedom you can get. Sometimes it's so bad that it doesn't remotely feel like racing anymore. A few examples: - At Spa 1993, you can cut the Bus Stop in a ridiculous fashion. It's possible to straightline the entire corner, even drive on the grass. Especially the second part doesn't have any idea about driving standards whatsoever, and you can gain entire seconds here by exploiting. - At Imola 1988, you can fly over the high curbs at the Acque Minerale chicane and gain two seconds. As there is no underbody damage gained by this, races here become like Super Truck challenges. An example (crew chiefs says something about track cut penalties, but the game doesn't dish out one): - At Imola 2001, you can straightline Varianta Alta in a ridiculous manner. - At Cordoba, you can extend into the runoff at T1 a lot. - At Watkins Glen, you can use the full (!) extent of the runoff at T1, making it an entirely different corner; example: I'm sure there are countless other examples. Curvelo seems to allow a lot of cutting as well, whereas on the other hand Donington punishes you for "cutting the track" when going wide at the last corner and losing a second. I hope this gets fixed ASAP by Reiza; maybe we can provide a nice collection of additional places with issues. Any other examples that you guys have encountered?
Tbh I don't consider this one that problematic, because they usually don't care about abusing the green strips in real life, too, and there is gravel at the edge of it. The one at Montreal on the other hand is a big one...
Perhaps if you know where you can go that far, The problem is that there are many places you would be punished if you just go over the white line, here almost a car fits in between, The problem is the inconsistency, so you have to find out with trial and error where the boundary is.
Donington National is one of the worst. Get the perfect line and not hit the bollards (assuming they are put there for track limits) yet you get a track cut at the Old Hairpin. And yet at the last chicane go a pixel over and you get the same penalty as just going full speed in most cars over the chicane and gaining seconds. That is the biggest issue that the sim can't distinguish between gaining seconds from a track cut, or next to negligible, or even none. Also, if you avoid an incident by going off track and in doing so overtake someone through no fault of your own, you have to give the position back. The penalty system was, (I assume), a stopgap for the inherited absolutely terrible PC2 system and more pressing areas of the game have took precedence physic,etc. which is understandable. All sims penalty systems are flawed so it's not a big deal to me and i prefer the historic tracks anyway where it mostly is a mute point anyway. Monaco has the most lax track limits and i wish i could delete my times on the TT boards - or it will be a future option to do so.
Cut tracks are imperative to the integrity of any racing sim... There's a lot of corners where the wide and fast line isn't cut track... It also makes the time trials a bit of a non-event as you can see who is trying to stick to the course and who has tried every different line illegal line to find the legal illegal line and go faster.... I get that there's a huge difference depending on where the track is located as to what is the track limits... Some series it's the white line in others it's the kerbs... But in a simulated world there needs to be some consistency...
