Codemasters' F1 game discussion

Wooo, just got back from ASDA... See you all in god knows how many hours!

Iain.

enjoy the game Iain, I have been playing for hours since I got it Yesterday its a damn shame work has got in the way though,lol

- Jeremy

and Dan sounds like you guys have been having a great time with the game

I'm sat here patiently waiting for it to unlock on steam. 31 minutes late now!

Gotta love valve time!

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Gui and I are racing online now

Good fun!

Accept he keeps spinning :P

Come join us Iain, add me: yupyupno

Gui only knows how to race at interlagos

That was a good race, was good not having to slow down and wait all the time :P

Learn more tracks!

I added you

We'll play tomorrow maybe, get some time to learn the physics and tracks, as i think Gui struggled with it at the start, but got really better when we went to Interlagos.

It will be good to have a race with the gpg'ers, so get some practice laps in and prepare for tomorrow!

And a hint to the rest of the guys, when we race online, it's best if you turn on proximity markers if you turn off them in the single player.

I play in cockpit view and it was hard to tell where he was when he was so close to me, the rear view mirror isn't that great.

loque Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MysticalCrayon Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Why am i consistently 3 seconds faster in 'time
> > trial' than i am in qualifying or over a race
> > weekend?
>
> green track in practise and heavy fuel for races?
> just a thought.

its crazy, i struggle in qualifying. But if i do time trial its like my team put on super magic tyres and i am 3 seconds faster, this is at albert park. Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

Edit: now i see it says in time trial the track is fully rubbered in, still 3 seconds is a decent difference



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2010 07:57AM by MysticalCrayon.

ralv585 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We'll play tomorrow maybe, get some time to learn
> the physics and tracks, as i think Gui struggled
> with it at the start, but got really better when
> we went to Interlagos.
>
> It will be good to have a race with the gpg'ers,
> so get some practice laps in and prepare for
> tomorrow!
>
> And a hint to the rest of the guys, when we race
> online, it's best if you turn on proximity markers
> if you turn off them in the single player.
>
> I play in cockpit view and it was hard to tell
> where he was when he was so close to me, the rear
> view mirror isn't that great.


Hehe, definitely helps once you have an idea of how the track and car are in the game :P. It's good to drive a few laps prior to get an idea for a setup as well!
Ruben and I raced at Spa, on my monitor I saw "Heavy Rain" so I put a full wet package, higher rear wing. Track was bone dry, I was super slow and even after pitting it was terrible due to the setup, hahaha . Definitely was a better race in Interlagos as I had some 8 laps there prior (albeit with the ps3 controller). Melbourne towards the end I was also learning the braking zones and gears for corners.
Monza and Sepang caught me way off guard with the braking distances, hahahaha.

Three things I can point out:
1- no lag
2- when checking my rear wing I'd see Ruben's car without the front nose depending how close he was to me (I'd say within 20m it happens)
3- using the PS3 controller gives an advantage in the awareness area, with the right stick you can easily see everything around you at almost 360º, with the wheel you're limited to each side and rear



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2010 03:53AM by Guimengo.

Upon further inspection, the AI has some serious issues that are unfixable by modders.

The AI suffers from rubber banding. If you are far ahead, they speed up. If you are behind, they slow down. This works great for games like TrackMania, Flatout or even GRiD. But it doesn't work for games attempting to be more realistic.

F1 2010 suffers from it quite badly, but if you do a race which requires pit stops (all races over 20% do in F1 2010) then it is impossible to have a realistic race.

If you pit first, you are far behind. The AI slows down. The AI Pits. You take the lead.
If the AI pits first, you are far ahead. The AI speeds up. You pit. You come out last.
If you pit on the same lap, the pit bug holds you till you are last.

The AI also has some odd 'features' with the times. During qualifying Nico Rosberg started a lap directly behind me and passed me that lap, finishing just in front of me. But my lap time was faster. Unless F1 2010 bends the laws of space and time, this is impossible. The game also stealthily hides all gaps between cars during the race. Presumably this is to mask the rubber banding, so you can't see the gaps fluctuating as much. This rubber banding would also explain a lot of the issues with the AI Varying so much.

They need to supply an option to turn off the Adaptive AI in order to allow realistic races. In the current format, long races, and therefore career mode, is completely worthless.

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com

Dave if that's true then what a load of @#$%&! What were they thinking?

Basically its an unfinished game with a LOT of bugs but it has serious potential to be a really good game if somehow these things got fixed. F1 2011 anyone? =\

you know, all of that wouldn't mean much if the amount of players would've been 24 for multiplayer races
but since they decided to restrict it it gives them a lot more importance than any or most racing games out there currently

you know, all of that wouldn't mean much if the amount of players would've been 24 for multiplayer races

Yes it would mean much! XBL is the biggest pile of @#$%& ever. It's just full of idiots crashing into you for fun. I want a relaxing AI Racer, not to be driven into my some 13 year old $#@t. And to add insult to injury they want me to PAY for XBL too? Yeah, pass.

I asked about the AI rubber banding on Twitter to the "chief designer". So we'll see what answer we get.

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2010 10:45AM by mortal.

looks like you can change the FOV on the PC version with a bit of tweaking





[www.racedepartment.com]

Got it, at Monaco in the pits, mechanics working away, music in the garage on the radio is Pendulem




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat

Wow what a let down

The ps3 version is so laggy, no sense of speed or any thing the brakes are rubbish.

Some of my impressions about the game from the 1st race:

Started 7 season long career with Lotus, game set to Expert, AI legendary.

1st race, Bahrain. Done around 15 laps before going into qualifying, my driving was far from perfect, but I still managed to get into Q2 on 14th position. My start position was 16th, it would be higher but Alonso f*cked my lap, AI is just awfully slow through the slowest part of the track. Anyway, happy with my starting position I went into the race (30% distance, 15 laps). Had to do some restarts because of my bad driving (spinning and going off track). Then everything finally started to go OK for me and I've got up to 11th place before the AI pit stops. I've started the race on hard tyres, so my pit stop was in 10th lap. Got out of the pits in 15th position with a possibility to get back to at least 11th. But on lap 12 my front tyre decided that it wanted to have a puncture. Not too surprised that it happened, because I went hard over the kerbs a few times, but I was pissed off anyway. Closed the game (btw. is there an option to retire from the race other than crashing?) and after some 20 minutes decided to try again. This time I've set the race distance to only 20%. Again started on hard tyres, AI mostly on soft ones. They pitted mostly between 3rd and 5th lap IIRC, I've done my pit stop on 7th lap. Before the AI pit stops I've got up to 10th place, before my pit stop I was in 2nd place behind Massa who started the race on hard tyres. He was mostly pulling away from me, Vettel behind me was about 1,5 seconds a lap faster than me. After my pit stop I was surprised that I came back on track in 7th place, I was expecting to be much lower. I've finished the race in 6th position after overtaking MS on the final lap. So I can't really say that AI gained anything by pitting before me. But it's possible that things will be different in Melbourne (going to set race distance back to 30%, hoping that it will give me more realistic results).

To sum it up, AI is too slow (at least in Bahrain), finishing 6th in a Lotus on the hardest settings should be impossible for me with almost no practise on the track (I haven't driven Bahrain in any game before).

Other things that should be better IMO:
-more data on the steering wheel (GP4 style)
-corner cutting warning is too "sensitive", I went off track with 2 wheels, on the outer side of the track, and I got a warning
-grey mirrors, possibly a bug, because they were fine on FP and qualifying but turned grey for the race
-menus are just awful
-no race statistics about fastest laps, place progressing,... basically it's missing the menu after the race that GP4 has
-there's no effect when touching wheels with other drivers (it doesn't lift you into the air or try to spin you)
-no feeling for back of the car when rear wheels are spinning (it doesn't slide left/right, etc.)
-no car sliding that would require slight steering wheel correction (at least I haven't noticed it yet)
-when you're going to spin, just press the brake pedal and the car will correct it self... that's just stupid IMO


Despite all, it's nice to have an F1 game after so many years. I hope they will improve things for F1 2011

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2010 12:22PM by anze89.

Anyone else finding that the Ai is about as hard as you expect only at Barcelona? Or am I just crap at Barcelona, Sector 2 specifically as well.

@anze
You can quit the game in the Outside section under "My F1" (or what it's called in English version).

I just had a brief look inside the game at a friend's yesterday evening, as my pre-ordered version still is underway. I started a 5 season career with Lotus and experienced the same thing, namely that I was easily able to finish 3rd in qualifying in "heavy" game mode with also "heavy" AI. I finished the race in 17th after having a crash 2 rounds before the end. For Melbourne I then took expert mode with legendary AI by only using the automatic gear change (I can't stand the wipes rocker switchs of my friend's wheel) and although Melbourne being one of my favorite tracks, I suddenly had big problems in reaching Q2 and ended in P19. With standard setup I also had to fight to end in P18 in the race. After that I had to go and haven't had the chance to get a closer look inside. I'll double check that again as soon as my copy arrives, with driving in Sakhir with expert mode again, but I have the feeling that the AI's strength is very different from track to track. I think somebody else also wrote this already.


GPGSL : Team Owner of 'Maverick Track Performance' (MTP)