A mild complaint about saving car setups...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Audii-Dudii, Mar 3, 2021.

  1. Audii-Dudii

    Audii-Dudii New Member

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    as things stand now, it appears one is limited to saving only one setup per car, per track. Which is unfortunate, because it means one can't easily keep a baseline setup as a reference when making further adjustments.

    I have found a workaround for this, which is to load another track, create the setup you want, then save it there, because you can later load it for use with any other track. But this isn't very convenient and, frankly, it shouldn't be necessary, since having multiple setups is pretty much standard practice at the higher levels of competition.

    Also, I have found that when one uses a track setup when competing in a leaderboard challenge, those aspects of the setup that are not adjustable for this purpose (say, fuel level and tire pressures) will automatically revert to their default settings the next time that setup is loaded for a proper race, where they can be adjusted. If one just assumes the settings haven't changed and doesn't check to confirm this, it can be quite a surprise to run out of fuel when you thought you started a race with more than enough to make it to the finish without a pit stop.

    This doesn't make much sense to me. Why can't the software simply disregard these non-adjustable settings instead of reverting them to the defaults? And for that matter, why are some settings non-adjustable with some cars or for some purposes, but not all cars or all purposes?

    I know some (many?) people don't understand how to optimize a car's setup or don't want to be bothered to do so, but this is a real part of racing and there are some of us who enjoy the process of setting up a car optimally, so why it being avoided and/or crippled?

    My assumption is that incorporating these functionalities into the software is more complicated than I realize -- and I'm not a programmer, so this is entirely possible -- but aside from this, I struggle to understand why things are configured as they are... <shrug>
     
  2. FeltHλt

    FeltHλt Moderator Beta tester

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    You can have as many setup for one track as you want, you just need to change file name of setup while saving or create each setup starting from default one. All available in setup menu
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  3. Audii-Dudii

    Audii-Dudii New Member

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    Ahh ... that's the problem, then, as saving an existing file with a new name causes the old one to be deleted, hence the workaround I developed. For some reason, I never thought to create a second setup file starting with the default setup ... doh!

    Now, about my other gripe, which is the software partially overwriting setup files when they're opened in the Leaderboard Challenge ... or have I overlooked something with this, too?
     
  4. Goffik

    Goffik Well-Known Member

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    Which bit do you think it being overwritten? Leaderboard mode has fuel use, tyre wear, tyre temps, and other variables disabled to ensure a level playing field, so yes, some aspects of a setup created in other modes will be reset or ignored.
     
  5. FeltHλt

    FeltHλt Moderator Beta tester

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    you sure you changing name and not description? changing name will create new setup/file without overwriting/deleting old one (i even launched the game to be sure :p)
     
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  6. pierredietze

    pierredietze Well-Known Member

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    I might be a good idea to have the classic "save as" dialog when saving setups.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  7. GooseCreature

    GooseCreature Well-Known Member

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    The reason some cars can have their setup changed or parts there of is solely down to which series allows this as part of the rules. GTR3 can change a fair few things where as say a cup car not so many. It's all down to the restrictions of the individual series. Plus a lot of the older stuff just didn't have the means to change certain things quick enough to be an adjustable in pit setting. While having multiple options to set a car up is great, there is still a place for the good old cup car and an almost fixed setup, then you'll find the cream rises to the top!
     
  8. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    It will save as the name you entered, so I'm not sure what's your suggestion is about. Add another button, next to "Save current setup"?
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2021
  9. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    setups-page.png

    It appears to me that it's not always obvious that you can manually edit the "Filename" field. And the fact that file names aren't shown in the setups list makes it even less obvious. You load a file, but what you see in the list, and what you mainly interact with, is a description. There's also no way to see the file name except loading the setup, only then you'll see it - which, again, makes it less obvious and more confusing to treat the UI as a list of files and operate with it accordingly.

    If a UI makes a user to guess, and makes it possible for the guess to be wrong, it means there's an issue with the UI. I'm not sure what's the best way to fix it here, though. At the least, if it works as a list of files, it should look like a list of files; if it looks like a list of database entries (kinda what we have now), it should work as one - namely, if you enter a new description, it should be added to the list as a new entry.
     
  10. Audii-Dudii

    Audii-Dudii New Member

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    I apologize for stepping away from this thread for a bit, but family issues arose and my attention has been directed elsewhere. :(

    Anyway, what I'm finding is that when a setup is loaded for a Leaderboard session, it will change any settings that are disabled -- in this case, tire pressures and fuel level -- to whatever the default values are and save the file, overwriting the original values and replacing them with the Leaderboard's default values.

    The next time the setup is then loaded for a race, it will now contain the default values instead of the original values and if one isn't aware of this, it can cause the car to handle differently -- a little or lot, depending on how the replaced values differ from the original value and how many of them have to be switched back, which varies from car to car -- which is mildly to somewhat annoying.

    (And while I'm aware the developers claim the Leaderboard values for such things as tire pressure are optimal, so presumably the believe there is no reason to change them when racing, I find that I'm almost always faster when I tweak them to better match my personal driving style. Among other things, I like the back of my FWD cars to be rather loose, so typically run toe-out instead of toe-in, higher rear tire pressures, and tweak the shock damping accordingly.)

    I'm not a programmer, so maybe there's a technical reason why this has to be handled this way, but if there isn't, I think it would be better if the software left the original setup file alone when it's loaded for a Leaderboard Challenge. <shrug>
     
  11. Audii-Dudii

    Audii-Dudii New Member

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    What you're describing is a separate issue, although if prompted, I could rant about this, too ... lol.

    I have an engineering background and although I've had to step away from real-world motorsports over the past decade, I have a lot of experience tweaking car setups. Not only do I enjoy the process, I'm good at it, hence my ability to get my cars to perform just a bit better than those of my competitors is a hard-earned advantage that I hate to give up when sim-racing.

    I understand imposing limits on what can be adjusted to comply with the real-world rules of the series that's being simulated, but I'm at a loss to understand why some settings are disabled in the Leaderboard Challenge -- including some very basic ones, such as tire pressures -- but not when racing wheel to wheel. If you want a fixed setup, then make it a truly fixed setup, but don't arbitrarily disable some adjustments, apparently just because...
     
  12. Audii-Dudii

    Audii-Dudii New Member

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    I can confirm this, because it wasn't obvious to me ... doh!

    I agree! :)
     
  13. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    You worded it in a way as if the setup gets overwritten the moment you load it, but that's not what you meant, right? I checked it and the setup wasn't overwritten. I guess you mean load the setup, change something and save it. Anyway I understand the inconvenience.

    As far as I know they do not say that. They even unlocked the tyre pressure option for fixed setup multiplayer races recently. The only claim is that the default settings should be decent so people shouldn't worry too much if they use default setups.

    The reason tyre pressure is locked in Leaderboards is that your tyre conditions (wear, temperature, pressure) are locked to max grip and never change. If you think it shouldn't be that way, I believe it deserves a separate thread.
     
  14. Audii-Dudii

    Audii-Dudii New Member

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    What I meant is that any setup that is loaded into the Leaderboard Challenge will automagically be changed such that any disabled adjustments -- in the case of the 2016 Audi TT, the car I'm focused on at the moment, these include tire pressures and fuel level -- will be reset to whatever default values the software specifies.

    And when that same setup is loaded again for a race, those default values will remain in place. My description of how or when this occurs may or may not be correct -- I'm not a programmer! -- but the result is the same, which is the values originally saved in the setup file have been permanently replaced with the Leaderboard Challenge default values as a result of the file having been loaded during a Leaderboard session!

    Unfortunately, I can't point you to the statement I'm referencing, but I recall reading it somewhere. It's possible it wasn't made by a developer, but it definitely was attributed to them.

    Which is fine, I suppose, but as anyone who has ever setup a real race car knows, every adjustment is a compromise and what is optimal in isolation may be less than optimal in combination with other optimized adjustments, let alone a particular driver's style. I consider a driver's ability to setup their car to achieve the quickest lap times to be as important as their ability to operate the pedals and steering wheel, so absent any unavoidable technical limitations, I really don't understand the rationale for disabling adjustments that are otherwise possible and/or allowed in different circumstances. But this is my opinion and YMMV!

    Of course and I've already acknowledged as much, which is why I originally touched upon this only briefly during this thread. I also hope that my picking nits doesn't make me out to be a curmudgeon, because I'm really enjoy using RaceRoom as my sim-racing drug of choice, now that it's no longer possible for me to get a "fix" to satisfy my "need for speed" in the real world. <shrug>
     
  15. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    Simply loading the setup while in a leaderboard run doesn't overwrite the setup for me, only saving it does. But I agree it better leave the locked settings as they were instead of changing them to the leaderboard values.

    At the same time I found out leaderboards aren't a good place for testing/setting up the car because the tyre conditions are locked and don't change. It's especially important for FWD cars because in the leaderboards your rears temps are locked to 85 degrees while in a practice or a race they're only about 40 degrees. Makes the car behave very different.

    However, I'm also curious why tyre pressure is locked. Is it because it won't change your car's behaviour anyway, with the grip being artificially maxed out? Or because there are some technical limitations in the game that prevent maxing out the grip together with changeable pressure?
     
  16. majuh

    majuh Well-Known Member

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    Tyre physics and fuel usage are locked on leaderboards so your car is always in the same condition, regardless of whether it's the first lap in the session or the 15th lap. If the tyre temperatures could change, you would need to restart the session after each lap because the tyre temperatures already aren't optimal anymore in your second lap.
     
  17. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    Well, yes, but what about tyre pressure? It not only affects your temps spread - which you don't need when temps are locked, - it should also affect (from my understanding): 1) the shape of your tyres surface (more convex or more concave) and thus grip, 2) your tyres stiffness and thus handling. You can probably achieve the same results by tweaking the suspension, by why limit it?
     
  18. majuh

    majuh Well-Known Member

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    https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/setting-up-cars-in-raceroom.14267/#post-217651
     
  19. ScoPi

    ScoPi New Member

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    Particularly baffling is when you go to copy an existing setup's name in the new UI to paste it into the field as a basis for a new setup name, your clipboard is filled with JSON describing the setup--not the setup name.