driving too slow

[Tyr]

Hello everyone!

I just read your tutorials about gp2 working on xp and made it work. Thanks! Now i patched gp2 with the final version of 2007 season f1 carset and tried to play.

My problem: Playing rookie mode with Alonso i´m an average of 1,5 secs behind pole, placed around 8-10. I tried some car setup with wings, gear ratio, having no success at all.

I do not remember having such problems some years ago playing the unpatched version of gp2.

Any help?

[DJS]

What you should do is this:
open the carset with GP2edit
Go to the tab "Performance" and select "Car settings"
If you don't like what is in there, just adjust it to your likings or get the values from another carset.

Hope this helps.

[Tyr]

i can change data of all teams, but hamilton is, having same car as i do, going to dominate the championship.

isnt there any option to change the strength of all by computer driven cars? like going down from 100 to 70%?

Or does anyone have a list of perfect setups for tracks?

[rremedio]

There's no perfect setup for any track...in rookie mode you should be able to win all races with the default setups. I think you are running with automatic brakes. To turn it off press F1 while on track.

The fastest way to drive in GP2 is to turn the trottle help off (F7), raise the 1st gear to around 40-46 and use rear wing set to 1 (front wing will be between 9 and 13 depending on track and carset). But it demands a lot of practice and may not be necessary for you to beat Hamilton in rookie level.

I think the best way for a beginner to improve his speed is to learn to drive without the automatic brakes, and praciting level after level until you win the championship in ace level.

Anyway, it takes a long time...

Another advice I can give is about setups, if you are not used with setups, try at least the more basic aproach, take a look at the computer cars top speeds on each track and adjust your top speed to be that same speed by changing your rear wing (lower values raise the speed) and the adjust your front wing to a value wich makes you turn without losing the car (lower values give understeering).

Those are all very basic advices...

[AD]

I did a post way back in the days on simultaneously altering the performance for all teams (http://hfgp2.hf.funpic.de/forum/viewtop ... mance#p146):

For the purpose of this, I've assumed you already have GP2Edit to edit and export carsets. In case you don't, you can get it directly from here:
http://www.smyoung.fsnet.co.uk/gp2ed186.exe

The approach I'm suggesting here is adjusting the power of all teams simultaneously. That way, all AI's engines will appear stronger, however, the balance between the teams that has already been established in the carset you got will stay intact.



This is just for illustration - here you can see where every team's power and reliability values are located normally, if you select them one by one from the main screen. Now, if you select "Performance > Cars" from the list of menues above, you can edit all the teams' values simultaneously with this dialogue:



If you work with the stuff inside the red frame that I added to this picture, you will notice that every time you click on the "+" sign, all teams' power settings increase by the number specified.

I think this is the easiest change that does not compromise the balance between the teams (i.e. Ferrari being stronger than Toro Rosso). If you want to get more complicated, you'd have to get into the individual tracks' files (like a Monza.dat in your circuits directory) and edit the CC setup. It will most likely also have an effect, however, I've never done that, so I can't get you any instructions for that.

If I understand your concern right, whether the cars "break" or not does not depend on the car's power settings, but their failure probability (I've made a green frame around these settings in the screens). The greater this value is, the more likely any cars are going to retire from the race because of a technical failure - provided you have technical failures activated in the driving options dialogue within the game.

Analogue to that, you can also use GP2Edit to decrease the performance values for all drivers simultaneously by a certain amount.

The driver performance values in the original GP2 carset are mostly set to 15xxx with very few exceptions above and a few below, current carsets (like the 07 ones) have higher values. But if you have the editor, you can completely customize that to your preference if you want.

[Tyr]

Thank you for your very detailed answers! Ill try it. But i see gp2 is a much more intensive game than one imagines before. So ill begin with a worse team and learn.

[TdK]

Well, after patching the game the 'rookie' till 'ace' levels still work don't they?.

I always drive on ace level (keeps it exciting ) that's why i don't know what the other levels do...

[DJS]

I can't understand why you all start about the teams and drivers performances, when it's just his (Tyr) car that is under performing.
Tyr should adjust just the players car, as I have said, maybe you (AD) can make a tutorial for that as well, because I can't. [-o<

[AD]

Just to clarify that, I reposted/posted that teams/driver stuff because Tyr asked if there was an option to change the strength of all computer controlled cars. Obviously, the opposite of doing that would be just tuning your own car up like you're saying, but I ruled that out as a likely reason here because the modern carsets I've seen all have the car settings set to "use selected team power", and per default, GP2edit should export these settings when you export the carset. I assume that if you're using one of these current sets, you should have a reasonable, team-dependent performance of your player car and that shouldn't be the primary reason why you'd be significantly slower than a lot of AI drivers.

What I did was that I compared the original carset with some modern ones and one difference I immediately saw was that a lof of the AI drivers' performance values in the original carset are significantly lower than in the modern ones. I think that's what could most likely create the impression that the unpatched game is easy to play, while in a 2007 carset, even driving a Ferrari or McLaren you could be far behind the lead.

That being said, I still made a tutorial for changing the car settings.

This screenshot shows the "car settings" window, which can be accessed from GP2Edit's main window by clicking the button "car settings" at the bottom left. Alternatively, it can be accessed via the menu: Performance > Car settings.



I've numbered the relevant fields so it might be a bit easier to see and illustrate (assuming the general buttons at the bottom should speak well for themselves):

Players Car

[1] Power (Race/Practice)
This value shows the current power value of the player car that will be applied for all practice seessions and the race on Sunday. You can adjust it by moving the scroll bar element left or right.

[2] Power (Qualification)
With this value, you can specifically adjust the power of your car in qualifying. (Reference to a time in F1 when teams had engines with more power especially for qualifying)

[3] Use Selected Team Power
Case 1: Unchecked
If you don't check this box (as seen in the screenshot), the values set under [1] and [2] will universally apply to *any* car you might select in the game. Whether you select a Ferrari, a Red Bull, a Spyker or any other car, you will always have the same engine power (in the screenshot: 790/780 bhp).
Possible consequence: Your car's power might not be accurate in relation to other cars - you could easily win races with a Spyker if your settings here are set to a value that's at the top of the other teams' performances in the carset, or you could hopelessly drag behind with a Ferrari if, say, you have the values indicated in the screenshot and you're driving a 2004/2005 carset where basically all regular cars have performance values of 800 or higher.

Case 2: Checked
If you check this box, any car you might select in the game will have the performance specified for it in the carset (see the red frame in my "altering performance" post). Whatever values might be set under [1] and [2] do *not* apply to your car (the scroll bars will go grey/unusable).
Effectively, your car's power will always be in what's the intended balance to the other cars in the carset, i.e. a current McLaren will have a lot of power and a Spyker will have significantly less.

[4] Random Power Variation
Case 1: Unchecked
If you leave this box unchecked (unlike the screenshot), your car's power in the game will always be exactly the same, according to the values either specified in [1] and [2] or in the teams' power settings (if you checked "Use Selcted Team Power").

Case 2: Checked
If you check this, your car's power in the game will randomly vary the values specified, so you won't always have the exact same power.
Note: I don't know how much the power differs if you check this.

[5] Grip Factor
With this scroll bar, you can adjust your car's tyre grip. Values range from 0 to 1000. Low values give high grip, high values give low grip.

[6] Weight
Here, you can adjust your player car's weight (range: 182-1815 kg).

[7.1] Pit Speed Limit
You can use this scroll bar to adjust the speed limit in the pit lane (range: 1-321 kph).
Note: This seems to have an effect on your car only. The AI will always abide by a speed limit specified elsewhere, but I don't know where - in the track's .dat files maybe?

[7.2] No Speed Limit
Case 1: Unchecked
The pit lane speed limit for your car will be as specified under [7].

Case 2: Checked
You can accelerate as much as you want in the pitlane, as the value from [7] will have no effect.

Computer Controlled Cars

[8] Weight
With this scroll bar, you can adjust the computer controlled cars' weight (range again: 182-1815 kg).

[9] Performance
(These are the same three options you can also select from a menu in the GP2 options in the game.)

Case 1: All The Same
All computer controlled cars will have the same performance values, completely disregarding any specifications in the carset.

Case 2: Use GP2edit Values
All computer controlled cars will have the performance values specified in the carset.

Case 3: Random
All computer controlled cars will have random performance values that are set internally at the start of a session (practice/qualifying/race).

Global

[10] Show Driver [1] as [0]
If you check this box, the driver with the number 1 will have the number 0 in the game instead, simulating seasons like 1994 where the previous year's world champion didn't race.

Now, I could've just copied that from the GP2Edit help, but I didn't. I only looked there when I was about done with this.

[DJS]

@AD

I'm not mad or dissappointed at you or anybody else.
I just thought it was the players car underperforming.

Like your tutorial a lot, maybe something for AAS to put on his website.

[TdK]

By the way, who says it's due to the carset why he's driving that slow. Maybe it is the track(file) he's drving at...

And, in my carset the data and settings are almost the same as Microprose designed it. I pay extra attention to that. Drivers never have more grip than Schumacher in 1994, and the car/game settings are the same except for the "random power variation" and "use selected team power" so it can't be that.... :-"

[Edgars Erix]

"[4] Random Power Variation

Case 2: Checked
If you check this, your car's power in the game will randomly vary the values specified, so you won't always have the exact same power.
Note: I don't know how much the power differs if you check this."

You can check this while staying in the pits, choosing the GP2Lap box where your car's BHP can be seen and several times hiting the "Q" button. The BHP value will change at each hit.
If I remember correctly, the programm can reduce the BHP value set in the GP2Edit up to 5BHP or something like that. And this adds several thents to your laptimes...

[Edgars Erix]

And, in my carset the data and settings are almost the same as Microprose designed it. I pay extra attention to that. Drivers never have more grip than Schumacher in 1994, and the car/game settings are the same except for the "random power variation" and "use selected team power" so it can't be that.... :-"

The same for me. I have never changed the grip factor (198) and the race grip of the fastest driver is the same (should be close to the original) in all my carsets. Than I set the correct (slightly corrected becouse of different car weights in the 50-ies) BHP values, average cars' weight and then in excel calculate the grip values for all other drivers.

[TdK]

You can check this while staying in the pits, choosing the GP2Lap box where your car's BHP can be seen and several times hiting the "Q" button. The BHP value will change at each hit.
If I remember correctly, the programm can reduce the BHP value set in the GP2Edit up to 5BHP or something like that. And this adds several thents to your laptimes...

But even that is not completly true. It only works on your car. the shown power by the cc-cars is not the power they have. Should check this out.

Sometimes it says that a Ferrari has 770 Hp, and for an example an BMW 755, but still a BMW gets 305 on topspeed, and a Ferrari only 301 km/h on top.

So, i think that value that is shown by Gp2Lap only works on the player's car.

[Edgars Erix]

Sometimes it says that a Ferrari has 770 Hp, and for an example an BMW 755, but still a BMW gets 305 on topspeed, and a Ferrari only 301 km/h on top.

So, i think that value that is shown by Gp2Lap only works on the player's car.

Yes, you are right. The Random power variation works only on players car as it had been designed to be.
But don't forget the Driver Performance Range! This number is sometimes manipulating certain drivers' performance in different races in an awesome manner