Progressively restricting throttle curve for damage points

[skipper3203]

I have an idea (somebody may have a work around already)

A new feature that would be cool:
Reducing the throttle curve as a driver incurs damage points (for track calls)

My thought would be to knock of 10% power for each damage point....simulating damage and the speed reduction from the damage,

Then after 6 damage points you would be down to 40% power and going so slow that you would force them to Pitt or drive better!

(like I said I might be missing something, and you already have the feature and I'm too dense to find it) but I can only set damage points and a limp home speed....

[martin]

Actually a great Idea.
I will discuss it with Marcel.

Sadly we have stoped adding new features in for the next release. So this will be in the priorities. But Should not be so difficult..

Martin

[skipper3203]

That's awesome that you feel the same..

I can't help to think about f1 races where the driver has incurred damage and found a sweet spot in setup accidentally and used to gain points.....it happens all the time in the v8 supercars in Australia...

In the slotcar Sence drivers would after a crash or two might find it easier control and race their slotcar. Their forced conservative drive might give them a chance to hang in in there with a good race result.

The balance of conservative driving and speed would be an interesting challenge

You inferred that development on the next release has moved into code writing, how far along are you guys, when will we see some of the features or a release?

Keep up the good work guys

[GRUNZ]

This is a nice idea but would be good to let the user decides how much % of power should be taken out each time a damage point is detracted.

[martin]

Well we are having a version there is in test mode and Bug fixing, But time is against us. So cant say for sure when we have the next release.

Martin

[skipper3203]

I agree with Grunz, percent loss per damage point would work really simply (being a user setting would be a must, simply so it could be tweaked to match race length)

But maybe you could even have a different throttle map per point of damage, that could be used to create an erratic car as damage increases

[GRUNZ]

I agree, I think it is a bit too late to add this in the upcoming release. Maybe add it to the list for the following-up version. We still want something new for Xmas, don't we? ;-)

[Minardi]

We have thought about reducing power when you get more damage, but this will only work if people use 100% power, otherwise after 2 damage points a car might stop, especially when you use magnets.
It would only be possible as a 'pro 'feature, where you enter a minimum power setting at max damage points, and RCS interpolates the different values for each damage point.

Enforcing a throttle profile is what we did in old RCS version for weather simulation, and we have thought about using something similar for (random) car failure. But a while ago (2-3 yrs) when we suggested this, people did not like the idea.

[GRUNZ]

I do not understand the "car might stop" comment. What we are suggesting here is to have a similar effect as for fuel load. If you set the power at 30% on a car with full tank then yes your car might not move around some corners. That's is why the user can set different values for each fuel level (to sensibly adapt it to the car power). What I think would make sense here is to say how much power reduction each damage point will cost you that should be subtracted to the actual power you have (depending of fuel if fuel simulation is on).

For instance, you can set that each damage point will cost you 2% in power. So if you are at 85% of power because your fuel level is 100% and you make a track call then your power will be 83%. Or in other words it will be: current_power - (number_of_damage_points_used * percentage_of_power_loss) -> 85-(1*2) = 83

Of course, you have to use sensible values. If you put 10% loss for every damage points and you have 5 damage points by the time you get to the last damage point your car will have 40% less power and if you have also fuel simulation then it could be going at a crawling speed...

[Minardi]

Agree, but I am sure a lot of people will not understand, so if we want this to work we should make sure power is always sufficient to at least get around the track. Steps of 2% sound good.

[GRUNZ]

I agree as well that 2% is a good starting point. It would be interesting also what to do when the car gets to 0 damage point.
Let it go is the limited power resulted in the accrued power restriction or revert to safe speed? In any case, the lap counting should stop for that car so that the driver is forced to do a pit stop to repair the car. The advantage to reduce power only to the accrued power restriction is that other cars are less likely to bump into given that the speed will be not as lower as the safety speed. This is especially true if you have pacecars. But I would leave this as an option to the user to decide.

[skipper3203]

My idea was based on everyone having the same throttle percentage values...

However wouldn't it be possible to stop the forced reduction at the safe speed... and stop counting laps as suggested?

[GRUNZ]

you shoud also take into account when also the fuel simulation is on. This could cut your initial power to 85% while growing towards 100% during the race. So not everyone will be on the same level of power. In my view the effect of damage on power should not be too drastic. Already a reduction of 2% can get you in to trouble to defend your current position from a faster car.

[MrFlippant]

Well, yeah... so crash less.

The point is to have another deterrent for crashing. In this case, it can actually HELP the frequent crasher.

Also, it would/should be optional and configurable.

I like this idea.

[Jogger]

Hi! is there anything happening with this?
Cheers
Josh