[SOLVED] Monaco old layout pit lane problem

Hi guys,

Once again, I'm in a rather delicate situation with a track - it's probably more difficult than it was the last time out with Imola.

In the same vein as Imola, I built an old layout of another track, Monaco, inside its original 2001 graphics environment. Those of you familiar with the old Monaco would probably guess it right that the biggest challenge in making this work lies in making the extremely unusual pit arrangement work.

The pits of the past (1929-1971) Monaco were not separated from the track, but ran 'inside' it on the right edge of the S/F straight.

Now, I think maybe against all odds, I almost managed to make it work via some judicious adjustment of the lanes and the magic data. The AI is all fine apart from a minor inconvenience (cars occasionally forced out of congested pits midway towards their stalls and thus running out of fuel), it is the player car that is the issue.

I simply cannot enter, or to be more precise, cannot stay in the pit lane - the car responds well to the Sectors To Pit In and Pit Lane Start commands in the magic data, swerwing to the right after exiting the final hairpin, it begins to slow down to adhere the Speed Limiter On command and then... all of a sudden, right around where the Pit Lane Fences Begin and/or Speed Limiter On commands are, it gets kind of 'freed' from the pit lane, accelerating away. The AI also used to do that in the beginning as well, but I solved that issue by extending the route from the first Pit Lane sector to the Pit Lane Fences Begin command.

Some details I think I have to share due to the unusual arrangement:
- The pit lane is entirely inside, not just the track, but the actual track ribbon as well.
- It has no gates on the left.
- Its fast lane is a little to the left of the right edge, leaving a narrow bank, extending to the right fence, for the cars to stop on.
- Garage Angle is adjusted in the magic data to make the cars park roughly parallel with each other.
- Garage and Pit Y Positions are brought close enough to the pit lane.

My personal opinion is that, while they are extreme values, the latter three has nothing to do with the problem as they work well for the AI, even for me, when I'm leaving the pits for the first time.

Things I tried so far:
- Playing around with the placement (not the order) of the Pit Lane Start, Pit Lane Fences Begin, Speed Limiter On, Pits Start and Pits End command.
- Widening the fast lane on the section in question (in the sectors around the Pit Lane Fences Begin and Speed Limiter On commands).
- Shortening the pit entry.
- Enabling gates on the section in question.

(Worst case scenario is that you can only play without pitting, e. g. up to 35% race length only.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2015 05:33PM by Atticus..

well, I have no experience of track modding, so I don't know if this would work, or if it's possible, but
have you tried making the pit straight narrower so the pitlane doesn't "belong" to the track? The AI then would take a racing line closer to the wall on the left I think. That's what seems logical at least.

---

GPGSL - Yakuza driver

GPGSL activity check app: Direct link - Source code - Have you posted?

It's an option, yes, but that would cram the starting grid close together in an ugly way, so I would want to avoid that solution, if possible.

(I tried it in any case, and yes, it definitely works as far as I can finally enter the pits, but certainly no one wants to see the terrible calamity which erupted when the race started, lol. :D)

I just fear that there simply won't be a solution other than this... although I do hold on to some hope since the AI does manage it so there might be something out there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2015 12:12PM by Atticus..

I wouldn't mind having the chaos start version of the track!

Haha, yes, it's fun to watch (at first), but it does not bode well for the overall nature of the project which is otherwise most realistic.

This reminds me 1980's race.


Did you try to put pit lane side by side with track lane with no overlaping ?

---

Could you post a screen of your actual pitlane(+track) to see how it is actualy ?





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2015 06:24PM by Lo2k.

Sure, here you go:



I hope you can work it out, if not, let me know and I'll try to get a more detailed look.

Pit Lane Start is in sector 1
Pit Lane Fences Begin is in sector 8
Speed Limiter On is in sector 10
Pits Start is in sector 12
Pits End is in sector 45 (not pictured)

All pit commands are accepted as good by the Track Flags List.

Thanks for your time.

@EricMoinet: Yep, I did, as I've told miki2000milos two posts above yours. It does work that way, I mean, I can enter - and stay in - the pits, but then it's the starting grid that gets too narrow, messy and buggy.

Got it, it wasn't clear to me. Thanks mate.

---

pitlane sector 0 is very long and GP4 doesn't like unusualy long sectors, particulary in pitlane.
Maybe forcing length to 16feet, rearranging the pitlane this way might get some better result (it may be not enough but it could be a start).





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2015 07:58PM by Lo2k.

Thanks for the suggestion, although it did not work.

I rearranged every sector in the pit lane as you suggested (so every sector, bar the first one, is now placed about half a sector before they originally were) and I also took care to keep their orientation right - luckily, I had the track sector orientations to copy from.

The only difference is that my car now seems to begin accelerating off the pit lane a bit earlier, it still begins to slow down to 80kph, but only for a moment, whereas earlier it almost came down to 80kph, before shooting away.

I still have to check if the AI is still alright (I'm glad that at least the AI handles this unusual solution well.)

EDIT: It's alright. The AI is still fine.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2015 03:47PM by Atticus..

Do you guys, have any other idea? :/

There might be something else out there that I can do.

Could you share your .dat in order I could make some tests ?

Sure, here you go:

[www.mediafire.com]

I somehow get it working, but of course you have to trade off.
What I did is moving and reducing track width to only cover part of the road on the left of the pitlane.
Then I reduced grid position spread to avoid cars to be detected in pitlane at start (funny).

The drawback is that cars are only running on the left half of the track along all the pitlane but I was able to run and pit without a trouble.

Have a try by just replacing your actual .dat with this one :
[www.realgpx.com]

Note : before I forgot, I also quickly fixed Track sector 47/48 verges direction causing concave issues. So they might not be aligned with track grahic anymore. There's a better way to fix them without changing .dat fence place but it's out of this topic yet





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2015 02:15PM by Lo2k.

Sorry, but the link is not working. (404, file not found.)

Thank you anyway, although I too tried this solution and yes, this one worked for me as well, although me too had a nice laugh at what happened at the start without adjusting the grid positions (the latter of which I don't know how to do, by the way, so I'll definitely take a look at your file as soon as we'll fix the link).

Problem is, that this is quite a compromise so that's why I kept on inquiring if there's another solution somewhere.

I know this is probably one of the most, if not THE most extreme pit lane arrangement ever tried with a .dat file, so I'm perfectly prepared to face with the reality that your solution is the only solution.

Thanks for the sector 47/48 adjustment as well, that's also a nasty one - I used extreme bank angle to adjust the .dat back to the original fence position correctly, and I've done so yesterday, actually, so I haven't even tested that small detail yet.

stupid linux names... change final .dat by .DAT and it will download...

Haha, OK, got it.

And. I. Just. Did. It.

: ))))))))))))))

I figured what made it work with the narrow start/finish straight may not have been the whole narrow start/finish straight itself, but rather the simple fact that the Pit Lane Fences Begin command (where I previously seemed to be thrown back to the track ribbon) requires the next pit sector to be outside the track walls (this is specified in the F1 Virtual step-by-step guide as well, by the way, so I could've used some more quick-thinking). What if it requires ONLY the next pit sector outside the track walls!?...

...And it did! I decreased the right width of the next track sector (and ONLY the next track sector) to zero, removed the gates for the safe pass-through et voliá.

I can now stay in the pit lane while I also managed the leave 99% of the S/F straight as wide as it is in real life. No start calamity with the original two-lane grid either.

The only narrow sector is so close to the Gazometre hairpin that no-one who intends to stay on the track (and not to enter the pit lane) will pass through it anyway.

(Well, it would be nice, in a way, if they did, because that would just mean a cutback is possible out of Gazometre, but GP4 cannot handle tighter radii - and I assume real 2001 F1 cars couldn't either.)

No more worries, guys, the proper release is on its way once again after a few more rounds of other (comparatively) VERY minor bug-fixing.

*

What was that method to fix verges direction without changing DAT fence places again, Laurent!?