Racing Sim Thread, Part II

[AcemanPR]

And so it starts...

Reading the last few posts of sub 20 minute times on the Snaefell Mountain course made me fire up Time Attack in this at lunch just to experience the full course, and to see how poor I am going to compare to you cats. Well, I am quite poor as my first attempt came in at 22m42s with a dozen or so falls from my bike. But now I have a base to work from and will know where to learn the course better. During this preliminary run, I came to the conclusion of a few things. First, holy s*** the sense speed in this game is just incredible! It truly is mind blowing to experience everything blurring past you. All the while, I am thinking it takes some major marbles to be able to do this in reality, as I end up falling because that is what happens the moment your concentration drifts. The more I play, the more I respect how well this game controls. Still tinkering with the assists to my liking, but I want things to stay on the more challenging side. This is the DiRT Rally of bike racing afterall. And finally, this is going to become videogame crack. I know sub 22's won't be a problem, and I think I can get to sub 21's in a couple days. But I am sure that it will take me a while to break the sub 20 minute mark on this. But I am going to do my best!

Have to echo the praising comments on this game. Anyone that enjoys bike racers and want on the simulation side that is challenging but ever so satisfying, you owe it to yourself to pick this game up.

[pk500]

I'm getting obsessed with breaking 20. Hit 20:12 with Bruce Anstey's Honda today at lunch -- with FIVE or SIX falls.

F*ck. I must do this soon, or I will go insane. In a good way, of course.

[TCrouch]

You break 20, you'll be obsessed with 19. Then you'll be obsessed with 18.

It never ends, believe me. I really don't think I'll ever go faster than I am right now, because any time I push it harder, I crash five times, but I still come back to it every other day or so on the 'what if' chance that I just find that zen place and cruise right through at warp speed and lay down a 17...

[pk500]

For now, I'm staying sane by finding small victories in each lap.

For example: It still thrills me to no end to pin it through the start-finish line all the way down Bray Hill before the first hard right turn at Quarterbridge. I usually lift slightly, but it's been such a rush the three or four times I've done it without lifting or braking before Quarterbridge. I watched the 2016 IOM TT Senior race (six laps) last night that I recorded over the weekend on Velocity, and it was nuts to hear Michael Dunlop barely lift in the same section from his very first lap.

Other victories: Clearing without crashing that little hump entering the small town in which both wheels leave the ground ... Clearing the Mountain section with no crashes ... Making it through the last roundabout with the tight right and incredibly tight section before entering the main straight to the start-finish.

Incredible fun.

Anyone with the slightest bit of interest in racing sims who also has a bit of patience with a true gaming challenge is missing out, big time, by skipping this game. Can't recommend it enough.

Trying to get a grip on the Mountain course in IOM TT is the most fun I've had with a console gaming challenge since trying to break seven minutes on the Nordschliefe in a Saleen S7 in Project Gotham Racing 2 in 2003. Seriously.

God, I can't wait for the real TT this year. Ranks behind only the Indy 500 as my most anticipated motorsports event of 2018.

[pk500]

Ace:

You, Terry, Don and I will need to start an IOM TT Anonymous support group. "Hello, my name is Paul. I've been addicted to digital crack, er, IOM TT, since early March 2018 ... "

Glad you're enjoying it, man! 22:30 out of the box isn't too shabby. You'll be in the low 20s and teens in no time.

[GB_Simo]

The piece of racetrack I know best, better than anywhere else in the world, is the first mile or so of the old Nurburgring, the long-gone Start-Ziel-Schleife loop over which the current Grand Prix track was built. The reason: by the time I'd got past there and into Hatzenbach, my car was usually on fire, on three wheels, upside down or all of those things at once. Restart, go well through the first mile, somersault into next week, rinse, repeat.

Having finally ran out of patience and gone down the digital route for IoM TT, I can tell you that I'm really, really good from the start line to Union Mills. Then I fall off, then again, then again, then I can't face the prospect of falling off again so I restart, I'm really, really good until Union Mills etc.

What I need to do, obviously, is just keep riding around so I can see the rest of the lap and start to figure out where it goes. I can get to Port Douglas Corner reasonably safely but even with the racing line on (which is where it shall remain for some while yet), everything from Kirk Michael onwards is just a few landmarks I recognise being connected up by a gigantic mystery tour. I've completed 3 laps that I can remember, the fastest of these standing at 20:22, and while I know I can be an awful lot faster than that, I don't necessarily know quite when I will be.

A word on the setting. I have never been to the Isle of Man. I couldn't tell you whether they've got the geometry right at Ballagarey, or whether the turn into Parliament Square is tight enough. What I do know is what whistling down a country lane in this part of the world should look like, and it is exactly - exactly - the way it looks here. It doesn't really matter to me (yet) that I'm not hugely competent, because the experience, the speed, the "I wouldn't have crashed if I hadn't been distracted by how accurate that road sign looked", the sheer visceral rush of it all are everything you could ever want.

[pk500]

19:59.517, Bruce Anstey, Supersport, 6:01 p.m. (ET), March 26, 2018, first lap in Time Trial.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

That was with two falls and pussyfooting it on the Mountain section, out of shaking hands, thumping chest and sweating palms more than anything. So rewarding!

It's weird: The maxim of staying relaxed works in this game -- to a certain point. I find that I don't want to grip the controller too tightly or clench my jaw too much. But I'm slow if I'm too relaxed. I need to stay dialed in and calm, but not chilled.

Maybe that's why I suck at this game and most racers when altered. Just too numb.

Sub-19, here I come. Might take awhile, but I will get there.

[DChaps]

I will raise a pint to you and Terry tonight before starting my own assault on, gasp, sub 21. I have been practicing section by section, but just can't get faster. I also just can't run anything other than Peter Hickman's Triumph. I started with that bike and I have tried the others, and technically my current fastest one lap on the mountain is with the Honda, but I just can't get the feel on that one yet. I wish the game posted your number of crashes along with your best time. I have come up with some DSP IOM TT Anonymous support group Challenges. These should have point values and some cool names associated with them, either the riders, the corners, etc. I am just not creative enough to come up with them. Check off how many of these you already have!

SuperSport:
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course - Completed
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course under 22 minutes - Completed
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course under 21 minutes - In Progress
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course under 20 minutes
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course under 19 minutes
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course under 18 minutes
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course without any crashes - my current record is 3 and I was very slow on that lap unfortunately
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course using PK Settings (Low Assists for all except Wheelie Control on Medium, Manual Shifting, Combined Brakes On)
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course using PK Settings and NO RACING LINE or MAP
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course using PK Settings and NO RACING LINE or MAP, without any crashes
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course using PK Settings and NO RACING LINE or MAP, without any crashes, AND under 20 MINUTES
Finish the Four Lap Tourist Trophy Race for the SuperSport
Finish a complete lap of the Snaefell Mountain Course with every make of bike in the game and record your fastest time

Then do it all again for the Superbikes and Sidecars!!!!

[fanatic]

Guess I have to work on my technique! This is probably my 7th time playing this game (I generally just do one lap before I feel the need to stop and resume my smoking habit to calm my nerves). Just made it through the mountain course without crashing and only took off 7 seconds from my best time at 22:27.

I have to figure out a way to keep my speed going through those tight sections I guess. Maybe I need to race on the edge more

[Rodster]

I just got TT Isle of Man on Steam and they priced it at $39.95 with the King of the Mountain DLC included. Hopefully my 5 year old rig can handle it.

[pk500]

Thanks for those challenges, Don. I embrace them!

I wish we could upload our Friends ghosts and use them as poor man's telemetry. I know there are sections in which the line turns red, and you can get away with either a lift or a quick downshift and make the corner with no brakes. That really helps on a fast, flowing 37-mile circuit on which momentum is EVERYTHING. Still, I would love to see where Terry makes up so much time.

[TCrouch]

I was thinking about setting up a Twitch and then just recording the lap, and posting a link to the archive. It's not like I'm a world-beater, but I tried to do stuff like that with Dirt Rally, too, in case it helped anybody.

If you want to see it, Paul, I can do that the next time I sit down for IOM.

...no guarantees I have a GOOD run, however...

[pk500]

One of the many strong points of this incredible game is the difference between the bikes. Not only does each manufacturer's bike handle differently, but even the bikes of each manufacturer ride differently.

I tried every Supersport bike on the Mountain course last night, and there's no question the Honda suits me best. The Triumph is fast with plenty of grunt but changes direction too slowly. The Yamaha is just far too twitchy and lacks top end. The Kawasaki is just a pig, period.

But each of the Honda's is different. Bruce Anstey's Honda suits me well, but then I tried Daniel Hegarty's Honda last night, and it fit my riding style like the proverbial old set of slippers. Bliss, and a nice tribute to the fallen rider to use his bike.

[Rodster]

Great value at $39.99 and some of the Steam complainers wish it were cheaper. It's the best representation of riding a rice-rocket since EA Sports Superbike 2001 and Tourist Trophy on the PS2. The sense of speed is dizzying at times and I marvel at the riders who challenge the mountain course for real.

There are certain spots like riding through the long tree tunnels where you're easily doing 150+ MPH where you begin to zone thinking you can go faster which usually ends up in a crash.

Performance wise it runs really well, maxed out settings and consistently hitting 60FPS with the occasional frame skip/stutter. If I dial back the graphics settings to HIGH then it's buttery smooth. Supposedly there's new Nvidia drivers for this game I need to try out but not bad for a 5 year old i7 3770K and GTX780.

[pk500]

Glad IOM TT is working for you, Rod, technically and spiritually!

Excellent shout to Superbike 2001. That was a hell of a game.

[fanatic]

Just took off 23 seconds with Cameron Donald's Honda. 22:04... Getting there! Really like this bike.

[DChaps]

So here are the current best sector times and delta to Terry based on data as of 4:00pm EDT yesterday. The cool thing is that it appears that it only tracks your best sector times based on doing an entire lap. For example, last night using the sectors option in Time Trial, I practiced just Sector 8 like over 10 times. I got down to 2:18 as my fastest time, but it was never posting to the leader board. I then went and did another full lap, and while I did not set my best overall time, when I went back and looked at my sector splits, it showed 2 new times that I previously did not have. That is actually pretty cool. The only thing that would be even better is if it tracked your exact sector times for your best overall lap as well your fastest sectors times during a lap. Also interesting to note is that my fastest overall lap so far was set with the Honda, but only 1 of my best sector times was with the Honda. Anyone else posting lap times, put your Gamertag in this thread or hit me up for friends list (DChaps66) as I am currently only seeing Terry and Paul in my list.

[AcemanPR]

You are on my friends list Don, I haven't raced each individual sector yet. But I will get on it.

[DChaps]

You are on my friends list Don, I haven't raced each individual sector yet. But I will get on it.

You do not have to post individual sector times. Once you complete a full lap in the Snaefell Mountain Course, it will automatically add your sector times. For some reason I did not see you listed when I filtered on friends list. I will check again. Thanks!

[pk500]

Where did you find the sector times, Don? Major find! Thanks!

I had two crashes on my 19:59 lap.

[DChaps]

From the main menu, go to Leaderboards, Select Friends from the Top Row, go down one row and select Supersport, then go down another row and select Snaefell Mountain Course. It may already have "Track" showing on the bottom row with our best overall lap times. Use the down arrow on the controller to select this last row. Now you can right and left arrow to get to the best times posted for the 12 individual sections of the Snaefell Mountain Course, along with the delta's to the best times. See screenshot below:

[AcemanPR]

Thanks for the info! That will help me to know which sections I need to focus more on. And weird you don't see me on the leaderboard, as you are on my Friends List and I see you on the leaderboards. I also just added fanatic. My gamertag is SG Aceman.

[pk500]

Ah, super cool, Don. Thanks!

Ace, I'll add you to my Friends list. I'm pk4425. Thanks!

[AcemanPR]

paul, I should be on your friends list as well. I see your name on the leaderboards.

[DChaps]

That's weird about the friends list. I only see three. Is fanatic's GT fanatic? I hope it's not a scenario where it only shows the Top 3 or something like that. How many total are you seeing in the Friends List for the Leaderboards? Can you post a screenshot?

PS - Is there a forum somewhere that the developers are lurking in? I could not find much info at Race Department or the Steam forums. Would love to give some feedback to the Devs. This game is so good, but with a few little tweaks to how the ghosts and Leaderboards work it could be perfection!