Automobilista 2 V1.3.1.1 & Racin´ USA Pt2 RELEASED - Now updated to V1.3.2.0

Yeah absolutely, for me it levels out the playing field, if a default setup is crap, its the same for everyone, just a matter of how each one handles it.

 

+1 for fixed setups…

I understand the appeal for people to nerd out over setups to squeeze out the last few tenths of a second or more, but its just not for me.

Im quite happy to pay for CDA setups in ACC (where I do pretty most of my online racing), they are faster for me than the defaults and it saves me a lot of time thats better spent on track. Again, for me personally.
Im not super clueless on setups but I always wonder if its my setup thats holding me back or my driving.
I feel this also teaches me how to become faster by “exploiting” the setup, changing my approach to certain corners and looking at the Delta I know what works and what doesnt.

In real life, the engineering part is left up to the engineers for a pretty good reason. **** is complicated and if you do it wrong its pretty easy to make things worse.
Ofcourse certain drivers will be able to communicate issues befter than others, and Ill add a click of ARB or wing when I feel really brave… but for the most part I just drive.

 

I completely agree with your point, but all I see whenever that gif is used is the word "open" on a loop!

 

I’m all for fixed setups separates the men from the boys all comes down to the driver then and not relying on being a setup wizard.
It’s great for those who maybe want to just jump on and play MP without any stress
Works well for me as my time is very limited

 

Being unable to adjust brake pressure is outright a crime.

Edit: I guess most of you don't race too often the karts, but I would find extremely annoying to use the very same default setup for a track like Interlagos Kart Three and Ortona. They are worlds apart in terms of gear ratios.

 

I do hope though that a dev has seen these bug reports, VR immersion is broken in all of these vehicles to a degree, and time ought to be taken to fix them all;

 

This is downright wrong.
At least if we talk about pro racing in RL.
As example I read an article about Kevin Magnussen when he joined McLaren in F1.
And one of the positive things said about him from the team was that he mostly had a really good understanding of what should be done to to make a setup better.
Because if a driver dont understand what is happening in a car then his feedback can be more or less useless for the team.
And I know exactly the choice if a F1 team should decide between two equal skilled drivers with equal economic backing - but with one driver saying: I only want to drive the car.
And the other was known to have some good knowledge about car setup

And relating to sim racing then this attitude: I only want to drive the car - is most common between lower ranking drivers.
Because if we as example take the higher ranking drivers in iRacing then more or less all of them knows exactly how to set a car up.
So...

 

This post will probably get me a lot of grief but sod it.
Default setups on servers i find are just annoying at best and rarely joins servers with them depending on the car and for the following reasons:

• Servers with multicar in class with default setups is just plain idiotic when the BOP can be seconds in certain classes and conversely custom vs default can be negligible in low/non aero cars. For example having default setup in GT1 at historic Kyalami with the huge difference in performance of the three cars at altitude is f'ing stupid and pointless.
• Is this a game or a simulation of real life racing? Most motorsport allows the cars to be setup for the track, conditions and most importantly, driver preference. If the server is simulating a series that has closed setups then fair enough.
• However professionally the setup has been arrived at it is still a setup someone has designed and one i am forced to drive and unable to tweak to my preference. I have tried other people's setups and have found most of them undriveable or too unstable for me to even use on TT never mind a race.
• Setups can be as much about personal taste for example stability vs optimum pace and sometimes even slower on a one lap pace than the default but allow more consistency as they are not "on edge" as some of the defaults seem to be.
• Default setups do not make it a level playing field, more they force people to drive a car without adjusting the handling to their liking (BB and RB settings aside) and so whoever prefers the default gains an advantage.
• Allowing someone who maybe slower on default but has a car that they have setup to get the most out can actually narrow the gap in outright pace and make closer racing.
• Allowing Rollbar in car adjustments in default setups makes it a custom setup in my book as it changes the handling of the car and makes a mockery of the default even playing field argument as a lot of people might not even know about it.

To make a level playing field in multicar in class then run a full wet race or random conditions and just like real racing this will highlight which drivers can adapt to the conditions and minimise the differences in BOP in a lot of the car classes.
Why even have setups if you are forced to use default? Just get rid of the setup screens in MP and the weather system while your at it (as it is hardly used) and drive a GT3 on default round Monza at midday in sunny static conditions and throw a few red & green shells in there to spice it up!

 

ramsay, if the purpose is to win, I would agree with you, but not all players share this motivation. Some players just want to spend some quick time decoupling from the stress of real life, drive a few laps and have fun. The game can still be a racing simulator without having to simulate the competitive nature between sim racers, as long as the rest of the pieces simulate other aspects of racing, e.g. the physics and the art of driving quickly. Your points against fixed setups are valid, but I believe they can easily be dismissed if a player is uninterested in racing to win.

 

It's interesting to see how opinions vary on the setup topic, luckily we can always create lobbies with setups allowed. It's not like they are going to ever remove that option.

When they start hosting MP, I would imagine they will have both available (with fixed setups in the rookie/amateur lobbies). Isn't that how Raceroom and SRS do it too?

 

I agree with @ramsay 's point of view, but also get what @Marius H have to say. And I think you're both right.

The issue is that people with different expectations and needs are playing the same title. And while I've called it an issue - it isn't. You want quick chill - jump in the fast lobby with locked setup. Want real life racing experience - join or create a lobby that does that.

I understand both camps because the way I play AMS2 depends on my mood - one time it can be the "easy" way, the other the opposite.

Peace brothers and let everyone play the game the way they want to. Find like-minded folk to race with and have fun.

 

@Roar McRipHelmet it is not so much to win but the fun for me is to drive the car on the limit or just over and for me the some of the defaults do not allow this but custom setups do.

 

I mean, if you want to give me a full weekend of tinkering with my car and we all have three hours of practice locked in and you're volunteering to babysit my son whilst I do all that, fantastic, thanks very much.

Otherwise, there's definitely room for both IMO - your points are perfectly valid but so are ones in the other direction. I'm rarely in it to win it, but fixed set up races tend to be more fun to me personally in my previous experiences online, because it feels less of a disadvantage to not 'knowing the meta' of the game.

 

I agree with your point in general, and I do prefer having a great race with lots of fights than winning easily, but still I do like to win whenever possible and at the same time love defaults setup races. This way I know when I lose that it's not due to my setup, but also when I win, others can't say it's because of my setup either!

I also prefer to spend all my available time in racing, than preparing setups for all the cars and tracks that I might use when racing in public lobbies. In league racing I think it makes more sense, as you know the car and track long time before the race, but still prefer fixed setups for the above reasons.

Having said that, I think it's very important that all default setups are done very well, not agreeing with people saying that it does not matter if some default setups are bad, since you can modify them. I would also love to see both a "stable" and "loose" default setup supplied for each car and people would have a choice which one to use, depending on their style. This is one of the (not so many) things that PCARS2 implemented extremely well in my opinion.

 

Fixed setups could be seen as a way to isolate the "Driver Skills" factor. The best overall driver will have setup skills / knowledge in their back pocket, along with many other aspects. When the goal is to test pure Driving talent, fixed setup / single make / model series can get the job done quite well.

Ideally, both approaches should be encouraged & supported, imo.

 

I see one issue with your argument: if the purpose is just to drive a few laps and have fun, why should the player care if other drivers are adjusting their setups? Let me adjust at least brake pressure and arbs and wings

 

I have no idea how feasible this is (please, someone with a CS background chime in, I'm really curious about this) but it sure would be cool for AMS2:
What if the devs created some sort of virtual test driver that they could use to tweak setups? Steelreserve would continue to make setups and drive laps on various tracks to train the model. The model could then simulate every track for a given car, looking for certain flags (e.g. time spent at max speed, time spent in top gear, steering angle to find hairpin issues, tire temps/pressures, etc.) that could lead to improvements to further train the model, leading to custom setups for each car/track combo while still being manageable for the dev team. Probably too far-fetched, but something to dream about I guess.

Depending on the number of oval-specific cars and tracks we get, I hope we can get default setups for each car/track as that will help ensure maximum enjoyment for those new to oval racing. The number of combinations should be manageable to handle, unless we get a huge amount of oval content all at once.

 

This is a question of machine learning, deep learning and AI, and research on this front is being done at the pinnacle of motorsport. I'm not sure if Reiza have the data, skills nor the time to do this, but formula 1 teams are trying their best. How Artificial Intelligence will shape the fastest race car – Motorsport Engineer

 

Having the defaults done well i agree with, but how do you define that as it is very subjective? What one person might like another will hate. Even with a stable and loose setup someone may prefer a setup looser, more stable, or in between. Setups are by nature personal and even your hardware can have an impact on your setup preferences.