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Old 26 Aug 2010, 14:58 (Ref:2750608)   #1
Tim Wilkinson
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rFactor - increasing "realism"

Both here and on some other forums I've noticed people asking how to increase realism in certain aspects of rFactor. Being of an inquisitive mind I've fiddled around with mod data and thought I'd share my thoughts / ideas on how to make rFactor a more realistic experience in a few areas. Maybe others have info to share also?

First - be sure to back up any files before making changes! Some changes will cause mismatches if playing online.

Second - my testing has been mostly done with the TCL mod. This is because it's one of my favourite mods, a type of racing I know a bit about so can experiment to get what I feel is close to real life, and a mod I also feel is much improved through small changes such as these... I should point out that some of the settings I suggest are purely my opinion - I wouldn't force them on anyone, and this thread is intended to be more about the theory of changing data than being exactly correct.


Making the racing less close

That might seem like an odd way to increase realism, but in some mods the cars run nose to tail, seemingly ignoring performance except in extreme cases (eg the Escorts / Corollas will always get dropped in TCL, but 635s will happily run with M3s, Sierras etc.)

Solution - change the AI Limiter and AI Mistakes fields in the player PLR file.
C:\Program Files\rFactor\UserData\(Your driver name) or C:\Users\(your name)\Documents\RFACTOR\USERDATA\(your driver name) and open the (your driver name)plr file. Use notepad or another text editor. Find the line starting AI Limiter= and change the "1" to a "0". AI Mistakes= is the line below it, change the "0" to a "1". The computer cars will now not run so closely, and will make mistakes. You can fiddle with the mistakes until you're happy with it, nearer to 0 is less mistakes, further away is more.

This shouldn't affect anything online.

Handy hint 1 - in text files, use CTRL-F to search for the text lines you're looking for.


More accurate race lengths in championships

I use CTDPs Championship Manager to set up accurate championships - in TCL I have a season set up for every championship available e.g. WTCC 87 will visit Monza, Jarama, Dijon etc. The files may then require some fiddling to get the right cars involved within the whole TCL, but I can cover that later if there's demand as it's a pretty unique mod in that sense.

However, with this I found that it was difficult to get a whole season to race over similar distances at each track it visited. Setting the "rules" to 10 laps meant I'd do 10 laps of Brands Indy, and 10 laps of the Nordschleife, if the championship went to those. Equally unsatisfying is running to a time limit.
The key to this lies in the circuit GDB file. This can be found in C:\Program Files\rFactor\GameData\Locations\Essington\Essington_Long (for example of one packaged with the game).

Open the (Essington_long)GDB file (text editor such as notepad, again). Locate the lines beginning RaceLaps = and RaceTime = (both followed by a number)
For this I used F1 GP distance as my standard, so for my RaceLaps = figure I divide 305 by the circuit length in KM (this should be listed after Length near the start of the text in the file). This gives the amount of laps an F1 race would have to do to cover a full race distance. I set the RaceTime to 180, because although the F1 time limit is 2 hours, most mods will struggle to do a full F1 distance in this time. TCL cars were running a few laps short of full race distance in the 2 hours, and it isn't realistic to have every race cut short like that.
Change the RaceLaps and RaceTime so that they are standardised to F1 race distance across every track you wish to use (this can be time consuming, but then again I have over 200 circuits, not counting multiple layouts!). I set Rallycross circuits to 5 laps, 10 minutes.

Then, in game, go to player, settings, rules, and set the Race Length Type to "% track default", and then pick the % you want to race in the laps and time boxes underneath. Eg 100% should now give you a 305km race with a 3-hour time limit. 10% will be a 30km race, and so on. As the circuit defaults are all consistent, so will the race laps to meet the distance - so 30 laps of Brands Indy will be 2 laps of the Nordschleife (or something like that).

I have gone onto a couple of servers using my modified GDB file, and although a mismatch was detected the server allowed me to stay as it didn't affect the circuit itself. I'm not sure all servers will be set up like this, though.


I've got a couple more to do - mechanical failures and accident damage. I'll post those in a bit....
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Old 26 Aug 2010, 17:38 (Ref:2750689)   #2
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I have gone onto a couple of servers using my modified GDB file, and although a mismatch was detected the server allowed me to stay as it didn't affect the circuit itself. I'm not sure all servers will be set up like this, though.
Absolutely, most people running servers will set them to kick users with mismatches, be them track or mod. Some allow the mismatches during practice / qualifying but kick at race time, but most will be set the the ISI default and just kick you straight away.

Good guide so far tho, handy tips especially if you run offline a lot and mismatches don't concern you
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Old 26 Aug 2010, 19:34 (Ref:2750746)   #3
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I use the damage file from the Japanese F3 mod in all single seater mods. Means that any wheel to wheel contact is often terminal.

Just remember to backup original damage files for online use.
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Old 26 Aug 2010, 20:05 (Ref:2750765)   #4
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AI attrition

Some mods have an element of attrition built-in, while others don’t (or it is so high that it will never be a major factor). This comes in two main ways, which I’ll deal with separately. These are accident damage, and mechanical failure. How you set these is down to personal preference, and the aim of this post is purely to let you know how to change things; as before, make sure you have a back-up of the data!

Handy hint 2 – test the effect of your changes by starting a race, accelerating time, then retiring. Let the race run to the end in time acceleration; don't click on the button to finish the session as the simulation won't complete fully and the outcome won't be the same as if you'd driven the whole race. I suggest running a few tests to get an “average” outcome.

First thing to do is load up the game, customise settings and set Mechanical Failures to time-scaled. I have heard that time-scale doesn’t work with all mods, but I have no ideas which have issues and which don’t, except TCL which works fine. This should mean that the mechanical failures are adjusted to take into account the length of the race – a 10 lapper will have the same amount of failures as a 50 lapper. Of course if you don’t want that, leave Mechanical Failures as Normal (or even off altogether, in which case don’t read any further!).

Mechanical Failure
The rate of mechanical failures for vehicles is determined by two lines in the engine file. The example I’ll use here is the BMW 635 in TCL. Go to the folder C:\Program Files\rFactor\GameData\Vehicles\TCL\635 and open the document 635_engine (text file, so use notepad or similar). This determines the engine characteristics, so there’s a lot of numbers in there, but the ones we are interested in are 6 and 7 from the bottom:

LifetimeAvg=55000 // average lifetime in seconds
LifetimeVar=100 // lifetime random variance


If you read my last post, you’ll see that I have set every default race distance to be standardised around F1 race distances, and if you’re using that base, along with % time-scaled races, then you’re looking at a race lasting around 8000 to 10000 seconds (depending on average speeds at the circuit). You can see from the figures quoted that the 635 will make this easily. I decided that I wanted mechanical failures to be throughout the whole race, so the LifetimeVar will have to be the same as the LifetimeAvg. The next key decision is what rate of mechanical failure I want; a LifetimeAvg that is too low will result in too many retirements. The 635 is pretty reliable, so I’ll go with a 20% mechanical failure rate, over an assumed 10000 second race (about 2hr40mins). That equates to this –

LifetimeAvg=25000 // average lifetime in seconds
LifetimeVar=25000 // lifetime random variance


10000 / 20% = 50000, halved to take into account that the variance is the same as the lifetime; although the lifetime is stated as 25000, a mechanical failure could strike 25000 seconds either side. Apologies for my explanation not being the greatest here, but I hope it makes enough sense to be useful.
Not every car is going to have the same reliability. I set the 635s and Corollas pretty high, and the Sierras (for example) lower:

LifetimeAvg=15000 // average lifetime in seconds
LifetimeVar=15000 // lifetime random variance


Total range is 30000 seconds, so in a 10000 second race 1 in 3 Sierras will suffer mechanical failure.

You’ll notice this if you change these settings, but the failures don’t always manifest themselves as “Engine”. “Brakes”, “Suspension” and “Gearbox” also appear, and the way the car visually exits from the race corresponds; plume of smoke, lock-up or straight-on at a corner, car suddenly veers off, pulls over or into the pits. I think that this variability is hard-coded into the game, as I’ve yet to find anything in mod data that influences it. The variation of exits is nice, though.

Damage run-through later.....

Last edited by Tim Wilkinson; 26 Aug 2010 at 20:33.
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Old 26 Aug 2010, 20:14 (Ref:2750769)   #5
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Absolutely, most people running servers will set them to kick users with mismatches, be them track or mod. Some allow the mismatches during practice / qualifying but kick at race time, but most will be set the the ISI default and just kick you straight away.

Good guide so far tho, handy tips especially if you run offline a lot and mismatches don't concern you
I used to run TCL online when RFC had a looped server. With my job and a young 'un I find it difficult to have the same time free routinely to join any online league (and not be repeatedly missing races). As a result I race offline mostly, but want an experience that feels "right". Plus I get far too interested in how this stuff works, and whether there's ways to make it more how I want it (I hesitate to say "improve"!).
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Old 1 Sep 2010, 20:21 (Ref:2753363)   #6
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Wonder if you might have a solution to a different issue i've had lately. I know how to fix ai setups but I need to also fix their upgrades. Some mods, especially nascar and indy, have upgrades that dramatically effect their speed. I need to find a way to fix the upgrades based on the track but cant find anyway to do so.
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Old 9 Sep 2010, 23:56 (Ref:2757055)   #7
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some really great info in this thread

will certainly try some of this out once I get my pc back up and going
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Old 15 Sep 2010, 09:27 (Ref:2759654)   #8
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I had trouble finding this in Windows 7.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

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Old 16 Sep 2010, 17:02 (Ref:2760448)   #9
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Dan - finding what? This thread?

Sorry, Hepatic, I've not played around with ai set-ups or upgrades.
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Old 17 Sep 2010, 10:37 (Ref:2760832)   #10
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The text files to edit

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Old 17 Sep 2010, 16:55 (Ref:2760965)   #11
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You didn't install rFactor to the default path offered? That's what I've given as file locations in my posts (from using Windows 7).
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