GPL 1967 v3 Dev blog

[MonteCristo]

Bottom post of the previous page:

@MonteCristo Potentially. I'm thinking something like - "If code rolls a 7-7-7 (since damage is a random number generation system), do Power x 0.95". That would simulate say, loss of a cylinder. It wouldn't come up on the race report though. Random failures should already be a part of the game but probability is so low you mostly won't experience them.

I suppose the next question then is how you inform the driver.

If you're driving in real life, you can hear a change in engine note, or hear (or maybe feel in a small car?) a knock. But aside from power dropping 5%, and lap times going down all of a sudden for no reason, it would be hard to tell that you're meant to be nursing a problem.

Obviously the car can trail smoke, so maybe that's one way of notifying them. But not sure what else there is.

[PTRACER]

@MonteCristo Potentially. I'm thinking something like - "If code rolls a 7-7-7 (since damage is a random number generation system), do Power x 0.95". That would simulate say, loss of a cylinder. It wouldn't come up on the race report though. Random failures should already be a part of the game but probability is so low you mostly won't experience them.

I suppose the next question then is how you inform the driver.

If you're driving in real life, you can hear a change in engine note, or hear (or maybe feel in a small car?) a knock. But aside from power dropping 5%, and lap times going down all of a sudden for no reason, it would be hard to tell that you're meant to be nursing a problem.

Obviously the car can trail smoke, so maybe that's one way of notifying them. But not sure what else there is.

Maybe that's ok though? If it happens on a straight the car will unexpectedly slow down. And the driver should notice the car being lazy under acceleration.

I don't have time this weekend but I will see if I can implement something sometime.

[Michkov]

I like the idea of random failures. As long as they are not implemented like in GP2. There you'd get assigned a random failure at the start of the race and no matter what you do it will happen. Something I'd love to see is gearbox failures, I havn't seen that in any sims so far.

[MonteCristo]

Well as a sim driver you'd certainly know if you're missing a gear!

[PTRACER]

I had more time this weekend than I expected so i looked into the damage code as a provisional step to adding more damage types. What I saw was a bit disappointing.

Basically for overrev damage, the game does a calculation to check whether you are overrevving and by how much. Then it disregards that calculation and then just applies a fixed damage amount to the engine if overrev = yes.

So I had a play around and managed to implement an increasing amount of damage based on how far over the limiter you've gone. For something like the BRM, 1500rpm over = instant death, but you could hold 500rpm over for a decent amount of time without too much damage (though it will catch up with you eventually). This is a vital change if I am to implement the Disable Rev Counter code.

[leon_90]

I'm having fun with the x86GP2 version of Grand Prix 2 and man, those mechanical failures are such a fun twist! You start a race with no idea if you're going to crash, if someone's going to take you out, or if your car is going to break down on you. It's refreshing and makes for unique races every time you jump in.

The gamepad implementation is also state of the art. Better than most sims out there. For me, only AC and ACC are on the same level, if not better. You can set speed sensitivity, steering sensitivity with compression to change the curve, dead zones and most importantly there is an option for the steering wheel not to follow the raw input but to turn based on the actual possible range set by your speed sensitivity value! That's something that was previously only available in AC and ACC! It makes for such smooth steering, with no jerkiness. The triggers can also be customised. The only thing missing so far is the option to split the triggers (and rumble, but that's because GP2 has no FFB).
If possible, I would suggest to copy/paste the code written by the author of x86GP2 (with his permission of course) into GPL