Rockingham Motor Speedway

[Squirrel 5,180]

https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/games/gtav/ps4/jobs/job/FyMNaQkW70CdShg-bz1cdw

1:1 Recreation of Rockingham Motor Speedway in England. Unique for two reasons, it's the only functional oval in the UK and it has an asymmetric shape with four different corners. The banking is 7 degrees and track length 1.47 miles. Use GTA mode to activate the pitlane.

This is an ultra high speed track, designed for supers to get their maximum speed. The track is 1.5 times wider than normal for safe overtaking. Laps will take approximately 40 seconds.

[Squirrel 5,180]

Checkpoints have now been finely tuned to eliminate the worst of the kerb surfing opportunities. As long as your car is within the track limits on the left you will hit the checkpoint, if your car is over the white line then you run a very high risk of missing the checkpoints. 

[Squirrel 5,180]

After tonights race a bit of debate is needed about what to do about the checkpoints. 

They have all been placed so you can't miss them while on the track. You can put two wheels on to the kerbs and still hit them. 

However it seems to be against everyones instinct to use the full width of the track. Lots of impacts tonight, many of them caused by cars grouping together in the middle to make sure they hit the CP. 

The track is wide enough for 5 cars or more. Didn't really need to group so much. Plus supers are still probably too fast for large numbers with slipstream on ovals. 

Theres two choices about what to do with the checkpoints. I'll go with what the majority decide.

I can either leave them as they are, you will have to trust the checkpoints and use the full width of the track.

The other choice is go back to the double checkpoints but this means kerb surfing and corner cutting is possible.

 

 

 

[no_snacks 3,345]

Yeah, it's sometimes hard to go against your natural instincts when it comes to checkpoints.  Even in a normal/street circuit, I'll often make a second movement away from the apex because the CP looks too far from it, even though I know it'll register if I scrape right up against the apex prop.  It just causes a bit bit of doubt in peoples minds and can lead to sudden, last second movements towards the CP.

I think the double CPs worked better than the single ones, even though the single ones did their job as a deterrent to curb boosting.  

My suggestion would be to make a saved copy of the race in the creator and have a play around with barriers.  You mentioned there's about 15 or so props used for the infield, plus there'll always be another one or two props you could salvage from somewhere else. (the white start/finish line you've laid into the track for example - nice to have it, but not a deal breaker if you have to lose it)

The barriers don't necessarily need to be continuos on the inside of the track either, but you'll need to fiddle around a bit with your saved copy to work out the best solution.

It's a very well made and smooth track, so I reckon any time spent making improvements is well worth the effort.   

[Squirrel 5,180]

I'd like to keep the asthetics of the track where possible. Barriers on the inside do cause their own set of problems too as you mentioned earlier. Unless you have a nice continuous line of barriers, cars can be caught on the edge of the prop plus some of the barriers make the cars stop dead in the track which will cause far more problems in a contact race than just a missed checkpoint. 

I will keep the debate open and if trusting checkpoint range is a problem then I will do something about it. 

[Squirrel 5,180]

Think I have a solution but it means losing the pitlane which due to a bug isn't usable anyway.

I can gain 9 props by losing the pitlane track sections, barriers and slow down strips. These will be enough to add a slow down strip to every corner, two to each side straight and another to the back straight. I'll go back to double checkpoints as well to limit the grouping of cars.

I will need to do some testing to see how strong the slow down strips need to be, I don't really want to make cars stop dead in the road as that will cause accidents but they need to be strong enough to make sure using the kerbs is not an option. 

[no_snacks 3,345]

You'll need to do some thorough testing first, but I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen. 

If someone is boosting on the rumble strips, they'll more than likely still have two wheels on the actual track.  If you slow them down rapidly, it'll just cause a rear end collision with the car behind them, especially if the car behind was getting slipstream at the time.  I think it'll cause more problems than it will solve and will most likely punish the innocent victim more than the perpetrator.  

[Squirrel 5,180]

Just now, no_snacks said:

You'll need to do some thorough testing first, but I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen. 

If someone is boosting on the rumble strips, they'll more than likely still have two wheels on the actual track.  If you slow them down rapidly, it'll just cause a rear end collision with the car behind them, especially if the car behind was getting slipstream at the time.  I think it'll cause more problems than it will solve and will most likely punish the innocent victim more than the perpetrator.  

That's what I'm worried about too. Main thing is stopping the corner cutting opportunities. I'll be placing the strips so cars with two wheels on track shouldn't be affected by them, it's only when they take all four wheels off track that they are off course and should be slowed. Luckily there are different settings for the slow down strips. From a gentle reduction in speed all the way upto the equivalent of hitting a brick wall.

It's a shame there's always some bug or exploit you have to worry about.

[no_snacks 3,345]

You only need two wheels over the rumble strips to get a boost from them, so it's not going to stop anyone from boosting if they want to.

IMO, barriers would be the best bet, but you might want to explore raising the infield props to the same level as the top of the rumble strip.  You wont be able to overlap the rumble strips at all though, otherwise the infield props will protrude onto the actual track.  It'll be easy to do along the straights, but a bit tricky in the corners and you may end up using more props than placing barriers. 

Yeah, it's a shitty problem when you have to waste precious props to reduce the affects of the poorly implemented game physics.  It would be nice to use those extra props to make some nice visual features or to make improvements to the actual track. 

The slowdown strips will work well to reduce corner cutting though, especially if they're hidden so nobody knows exactly where they are. 

Edited February 13, 2017 by no_snacks

[Squirrel 5,180]

I know DC mentioned before that the number of props used should be tied to the model memory and not the actual quantities used. Nice flat track pieces and building blocks will have relatively few polygons compared to more complex pieces like tubes.

[zztop911 1,609]

I think your biggest problem is corner cutting. With catch up on, boosting really doesn't seem to be as influential to the outcome of the race as cutting the corners. Corner cutting can steal a win far more blatantly.

LOVE the track! Send me an invite if you see me on line and need help testing things.