| Nascar Racing 2003 Season Facts : | ||
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PART 1 About six weeks ago, I started a thread in this forum evaluating, from my perspective as a Winston Cup team chief engineer, the accuracy of the physics presented in NR2002. I stated I would present my assessment to Papyrus. It turned out that it was unnecessary to do so; Papyrus came to me, as a result of that thread. To make a long story short, Papyrus and I spoke, then we met face-to-face at my team's shop, then we began an exchange of information geared toward making NR2003 the most accurate NASCAR simulation possible for gaming purposes available on PC. I have given (and still give) reams of engineering data on my team's cars. Papyrus has given (and still gives) me pre-release builds of their game to evaluate and comment upon. Numerous calls have taken place to ensure that design intent and engineering numbers have been understood and implemented properly. I want to say up front that the people who make the car model at Papyrus are engineers who take the development of the car model seriously, and they attempt to justify everything put in it by real engineering criteria. I think that the basic soundness of their modeling approach has been evidenced to me by the fact that with every inclusion of more accurate design information coming from my team, the more accurate the car performed, both in terms of setup and driving. I will limit my comments here to setup (physics/car modeling), and will address driving some, as it is affected by the car model. I will also say that I am doing this for Papyrus, the gaming community, and me, for free. Gratis. De nada. On the house. That means my garbage tolerance from the forum will be minimal. I will answer well-considered questions, when I have the time. I will not respond to catcalls, boorish behavior, nonsense, etc. I am not this forum's ARAB (Appointed Refuter of Assorted Bull-ka-ka), therefore, I will not respond to every uninformed opinion or misguided notion that arises. I have been reading recent forum threads touching upon physics and other subject matter, and believe me, plenty of both abound. First, simulation or game? It's both, really, a simulation wrapped up in a game environment. I will postulate that a few years ago, NR2003's car model could have passed as a credible simulation tool for engineering analysis. OK, enough prelude - what's changed about it? A lot. New and more complex aerodynamic modeling. Engine power has been revamped. Suspension geometry. Steering geometry. Swaybar stiffness. More. Up front I will tell you I have given Papyrus THE REAL STUFF. All I have done is very minimally massage horsepower, torque and aero properties so that no one can reverse-engineer my team's car. When you buy NR2003, you WILL have in your hands as accurate a model of current Winston Cup hardware as I can in good conscience release for public consumption. I have given a lot more than I've kept back. I think the only reason that such a working through of the car model was in order was because the sources willing to provide Papyrus information in the past have been reluctant to fork over the hard data. Further, such sources are few, and data can quickly become out of date. How will it affect how you set up the car? Well, expect to leave the rear swaybars back in the shop (It'll help the team transporter at the weigh station!). Oh, they're available, but you'll probably not make much use of them. Some teams use them at quite large tracks, and you can if you want, but the car will turn without them. You'll be able to select front bars up to 2", just like Cup teams can. Cup teams actually spend much of their time with bars bigger than the previous1-1/2" limit. Expect to shove the lead further forward in your frame rails (more nose weight). Further expect to be using stiffer front springs at many tracks. The days of starting with a 700/900 spring baseline across the front everywhere are gone. Oh, you can try it if you want, but expect to find some wall. Expect the fabricators back at the shop to hate you with a passion, too. Seven-degree camber is back, but with better tire modeling. Why? Because on the LF, teams are frequently above five degrees. The new aero model is such that you'll probably have the spoiler stood up more than before. You've got more horsepower and torque than before, along with a more tractable power band. More tractable power, but when 750 HP at the rear wheels gets turned to over 4400 ft-lb of wheel torque by the magic of gearing, you still have to stay on top.You've got more horsepower and torque than before, along with a more tractable power band. More tractable power, but when 750 HP at the rear wheels gets turned to over 4400 ft-lb of wheel torque by the magic of gearing, you still have to stay on top of it all. If you think it's that hard to find trouble at low speed, just remember Michael Waltrip qualifying for the Winston last year. Your qualifying setup will likely be tighter than your race setup. Cold tires still run a bit loose, and the effect of grille tape is bigger. So, to get a good balance for qualifying, more nose weight, stiffer front springs, and a bigger bar are likely to be in order, as it often is in real racing. So, I wouldn't even try to do a set up import from NR2002. Even if such an import works, I doubt the on-track results will be to your liking. Don't get your underwear in a wad over it; if Papyrus is out of the NASCAR sim business after this release, there will be lots of time to work on your setups. How does this affect driving? Hard to say exactly, but at the slow tracks, you need effective throttle management exiting the corners (as in real racing). You need to do it some at the big tracks, too, but minor rear end wiggle is easy to get under control. When the car is loose on cold tires, you can recover from quite large yaw angles and snap the rear back in line. You just have to swallow some pride and crack the throttle to do so. Just do it!! Don't be a Bodine about it!!! Getting into the corners is good. At the right tracks, if you're well set up and very smooth on the wheel you can turn in and come off the wall a reasonable amount before you have to lift off. If anyone questions this, view a tape of the Texas race that Junior won - watch his and Bobby Labonte's in-car shots and view & listen to their lift-off and turn-in points. I want to say here that the car model (a.k.a "physics"), setup, and driving are intertwined. They always have been. A different car model when set up to be balanced may give you a similar driving experience, but the proving of the model shows when you get crossed up. I've been hit from behind numerous times in my testing, I spin a lot less, but I still spin, and minor fish-tails are recoverable. I've also laid some chrome horn on the opposition, I've been able to loop them and keep digging myself. When I do hit a car in front of me and wreck myself, well, I probably should have wrecked. In one test, I raced some at Indy and bumped the same AI car three times light-to-medium, and we both kept driving. The fourth time, I over-reacted, caught some grass, and was rightly toast. I sent some real setups to Papyrus for them to try out and they said that they were "perfect". I don't draw much personal flattery from that - the crew chief decides what we run, I provide input for him. This does suggest that real setups run well. In all of my testing so far, I've gone to my setup sheets and used them as my baseline. Sometimes some tweaking is necessary, but the resultant setups still bear a semblance to reality. The changes I make, I make based upon real-life criteria, and I get credible response to the changes. As it is now, the "Fast" setup is going to be derived from real racing setups. "Derived" - I assure you they won't be EXACTLY what we run, but they will be close in many respects. No team runs as well as it wants to everywhere, including mine, I wouldn't be so arrogant as to suggest our stuff straight out of the box would be best for you, anyway. Some changes to the setups that you may be driven to make might go against the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom is not always right, however, and the car model you will have in your hands in NR2003 should allow you deal with some of these contrary situations. Any real team that lives exclusively by the "conventional wisdom" is hurting itself. The car model in NR2003 may place more demand on your driving talent/skills and discipline. That doesn't mean you need to be a pro to drive it. We are continuing to develop it so that a satisfying driving and tinkering experience remain accessible to the large body of gamers, while still rewarding superior setup and driving.PART 2 It's time again for another insider post from me concerning development of NR2003. The leaking of the Beta demo at first made me think that writing wouldn't be useful, but after seeing various reactions over the last few days, I have determined that it would be valuable to write after all. First, there are some things you are experiencing in the demo that will be different in the final product, and will in fact be different in the official demo, which Papyrus still plans to release. Aero push at the superspeedways will be reduced. This is an issue I personally lobbied for during the beta process. You won't be knocking down walls at Talladega any more. Superspeedway cars generate less front downforce, and apparently lose less downforce in a pack of cars. I say apparently because I have never had tandem cars in a wind tunnel before, so we had no data around which to base aero-push and loose issues. I think we also reduced aero loose at downforce tracks as well. Also, some of you have raised issues about the AI. I was not at all involved in the AI development, and for most of my work, I did not race against it (although it was necessary to do so at Talladega and Daytona). In the last two weeks of the beta process, I was, however, aware of code developments that were proceeding at a rapid pace, and I read numerous reports from the beta testers about improving AI performance. So, I think you will see a more polished AI in the final product. Regarding setting up your cars: The definition of the ride heights has changed. No longer will adjusting the ride heights change the rake of the body of your car. NASCAR essentially fixes the body height & orientation of the car by rule. Many real superspeedway cars are insensitive to the small amount of flexibility that does exist (raising the nose doesn't reduce drag). Further, everyone is probably aware that a lower roof and a higher spoiler makes more downforce, but in truth, NASCAR permits neither. So, with NR2003, the function of the ride heights now is to change the ground clearance beneath the car. This is not something that is done at the track, but is determined when a chassis is built: It's how high the frame rails will be off the ground when the car is at tech inspection height. So, a very basic car construction variable has been put in your hands. Raising these ride heights lets you spring the car softer in corners that have high speed and or banking. Of course, since the car's ballast weight rides in the frame rails, you raise the initial center of gravity, as well. In NR2003, for the first time, the downforce your car generates is sensitive to on-track ride heights. Herein is the benefit of changing ground clearance as described above: Although they no longer affect initial, tech line body heights, the change in ground clearance gives you a very real and meaningful opportunity, through spring selection, to change the body orientation while the car is circling the track (you can travel the car more before it bottoms out on the pavement.). Many of you have noticed that the car feels more stuck to the road. It is. The downforce now used is much higher than in previous generations of Papyrus games. Again, the data comes from our cars, with minor sanitization. It also has more drag (at downforce tracks) as well. But you won't notice the drag, because the car has about 150 more, foot-stomping, fire-breathing stallions under the hood than before. Again, the engine performance data was de-tuned and sanitized a bit, but your NR 2003 car develops more power at the rear wheels than a vast majority of the real Winston Cup field. And not just a product of the power, but of Goodyear's involvement in NR2003, when you hit the gas in mid-corner, the car accelerates. Finally. Do you know what a real Winston Cup car does when it's rounding Turn 4 at Atlanta at 170+mph and the driver mashes the gas???? IT HONKIN' ACCELERATES!!!!! For years, when I would hit the gas in NRxxx, the car just kinda hovered at speed until the banking flattened a little, and I unwound the wheel. But now, push the pedal down, you're gonna leave town. But be prepared to master it, though; 800 ponies (at the flywheel, 720-ish at the wheel) turned loose at once can become a stampede if wrongly managed. Most beta testers remarked that NR2003 is easy enough to drive, but wrenching the wheel over to try to get the car to turn more easily results in snap loose problems. On the throttle, brake, or wheel, smooth will be the key.I'm prepared to say that my goal of getting involved with Papyrus in NR2003 (to get the car to perform and act more like a real Winston Cup car), has largely been achieved. My only regret is that I didn't speak up and get involved sooner, perhaps a few more things might have been do-able. As it was, by the time I started working with them, only four weeks were left in the schedule to bang out the physics end of things. Papyrus graciously stretched the window out to six weeks, allowing a few more things to be done properly. There were a few things (in-car brake bias, for instance), that we didn't get in, and a few other things (meaningful probably only to me, probably), that the short window of time didn't permit. There will be a "setup philosophy" piece I wrote that ships with NR2003, that covers more setup issues. It's not so much a setup guide, but rather a suggested thought process in wrenching your NR2003 car. There are also Jasper setups included for each track. They will not be, as I stated earlier, the "Fast" setups. The Jasper setups come from our real work here at the 77 car. I don't pretend to claim that they are optimized for NR2003, although a number of them drive quite nicely. Only minor adjustments to them have been made to afford basic drivability with the game (and to ensure that my real-life competitors don't just take them to work!). They are there for you to enjoy and to gain a bit of insight as to what kind of things are run in the real world. Other teams might do a few things differently than what we've done, but that's what the setup options are for, to try different stuff. Oh yeah, here's a screenshot out the front window of the final version. Look at the A-post. The big aluminum brace has been rotated not to obscure your view. I lobbied for this only a week before going gold, I think their 3-D artist and I nearly came to blows over it - I'm glad it didn't - all of the Carbones I knew in Connecticut could have whipped my sorry butt. Manuel Daskalos Chief Engineer Jasper Motorsports |
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Comments : |
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| Author: JPutty | 30-01-2003 |
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Kinda one sided, but he did after all stand behind the game maker. |
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| Author: jk | 30-01-2003 |
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Nice that Papyrus is so dedicated and the author has time and knowledge to help them make better sims! |
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| Author: keith_car61 | 30-01-2003 |
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Thanks for your involvement with NR2003, without your tireless effort it would of just been another $50 patch. |
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| Author: Sean | 30-01-2003 |
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Thank you for your dedication and input into this sim. This is excatly what the sim gaming industry is in need of. Real world data. "Bravo, Zulu" to both you and Papyrus. |
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| Author: Kramer | 30-01-2003 |
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I hope this guy doesn't break his arm as he reaches around and pats himself on the back! Geesh!! |
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| Author: Napoleon-X | 30-01-2003 |
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Great comments. I don't think they are one sided at all. He wanted to help great a realistic sim and based on his comment I think he has. |
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| Author: GD | 30-01-2003 |
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Unfortunately for me everyone just wants to race 20 lap races online wich means some key issues will still never get fixed because noone seems to know they exsist or just don't care. When i am following a AI car at 200 mph at superspeedways right on there bumper and they decide it is time to pit and slow down with no warning guess what happens. A BIG WRECK. this issue alone takes the rating of this sim from a possible 10 to a 2. This would be so easy to fix it makes me ill that it hasn't been done in previous releases. When you display the F2 standings cars on same lap are white. cars a lap down are red. What would be so hard about making cars that are going to pit have the name turn blue. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP. |
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| Author: Krimit | 30-01-2003 |
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GD I have noticed that in a few races in 4X on the DEMO but when they did pit they were very low and you get the idea when the low line is going to pit because you can see them tires get under the line and slowly back off as for the high runners I have seen them pit and dive accrose the track 1 or 2 times or the high runners will pit the next lap, I agree somewhat with you on that issue but I only have the DEMO and thats okay the DEMO is possed to have alot of bugs like that |
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| Author: Giaky | 30-01-2003 |
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Papy is the best! |
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| Author: Clark | 31-01-2003 |
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Excellent article, concise and informative! Thank you! Can we get you to write more stuff for us on BH Moptorsports, I'm in awe. |
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| Author: Roger87 | 31-01-2003 |
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Great read. I can't wait for the finished product next week! |
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| Author: Kevvan | 31-01-2003 |
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I can't believe how rediculous some of these comments are. I recently had a discussion with someone the other day about just how good the demo is. Do you people understand what went into this? Kudo's to you for translating your passion into our passion. We've come such a long, long way from Bill Elliott's NASCAR challenge of 1990 (which is where I started). Boy are we gonna miss Papyrus. Anyone that cares to belly-ache, uninstall N2002 and go race Nascar Heat! A sincere Thank you is in order. |
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| Author: TSUNAMI_22 | 31-01-2003 |
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Great read. I agree with the weight and drag observations from the beta testers. My only request would be to have a sound patch for a real sounding engine along with also hearing the transmission whine while in the "in car" , then when bumps are driven over, the sound might be reflected to the sim driver as to create even more of an "audibly tactile feel" of what the car is doing. Also, I just think it would sound really cool. For what it's worth...... ;) |
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| Author: Bob Halliday | 31-01-2003 |
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the insight this artical conveys is excellent, i wish he would have gotten involved sooner, this might have given us something special to hang on to for several years of great racing untill another group step up to the plate to deliver to us, the hungry public, a NASCAR racing game, that gets us as close to REAL racing as any average joe will ever get....... thanks for your effort, it's folks like you who are a tribute to the Winston Cup scene, and help show people not as familiar with racing as US diehard Winston Cup finatics, how Cool it is to be apart of this ever growing sport!!! Keep up the great work!!! Bob Halliday |
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| Author: AnubisRT | 31-01-2003 |
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Thanks for your input for this final edition of Papyrus' NASCAR Racing. I'll hate to see the series go, but they definitely aren't going out quietly. The demo is the best NASCAR simulation product I've seen yet, and I can't wait for the finished product. Papy's NASCAR Racing was the first racing sim I ever bought (in '94), and I've gotten every one since. This is something, considering I'm only 16. Thanks again, Papy... this is one I hate to see go... |
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| Author: Norman24 | 01-02-2003 |
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Excellent article... Gave more insight to the handling of the car.ie:sways/weight/springs... |
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| Author: Scott Marshall | 01-02-2003 |
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Good read.. |
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| Author: MikeHart | 01-02-2003 |
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Can someone tell me where I can find infos about that this will be the last NASCAR sim of papy that other people mentioned here? |
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| Author: Rick S | 01-02-2003 |
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Thank you for taking time to be involved, I know you must be going great guns getting ready for the season. Your comments are music to most of us. I wish you well in your real racing program this year. We are all going to miss Papy. |
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| Author: Bill Martin | 02-02-2003 |
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Nice Article. |
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| Author: FartsInDraft | 02-02-2003 |
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This is gonna be the GPL of Nascar sims... still going strong after 5 years. |
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| Author: Don Wooldridge | 04-02-2003 |
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thanks for taking the time to tell us about N2003. I'll drive Papy Nascar sims forever...they're the best, and I appreciate your time to make them as realistic as possible. I currently race in the PSRL league, in both IROC and the upcoming full season, starting with 'speed week I do tape Nascar races, watch the incar cameras, and take notes, trying to get better at sim racin. You've saved me a lot of time..cause I did plan to send my 2k2 setups into 2003...now I won't. Plus, I'll spend more time practicing with the FAST setups, since you've mentioned how accurate they are. Thanks for taking to time to communicate with us sim racers that love the 'garage' part of it. Hopefully, your words of wisdom will help us spend out time more wisely. Keep it up. I think your input is GREAT!!! |
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| Author: Cliff | 04-02-2003 |
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Thanks so much for this - it's just FLAT AWESOME - thanks so much for keeping us fans in mind - I'm sooo damn'd bummed that Papyrus is getting ousted from a genre that they gave birth to. NR2003 is bound to go down in history as the best ever simulation. I really appreciate everyone's efforts and wish I had more to contribute than just buying the game. But you better believe I'll contribute to that. Cliff |
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| Author: jojo | 05-02-2003 |
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very cool |
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| Author: Sfordt | 06-02-2003 |
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Awsome job ! Looks like the final fling for Pappy is going to be a BIG 1. |
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| Author: RIP_25 | 06-02-2003 |
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I agree that the AI pitting is a Huge problem. What I don't understand is, Papy made the drivers hands move on the steering wheel, but, why can't they have the AI driver wave his hand like the real WC drivers do when they are pitting or checking up?!?! This would be a tremendous aid to ALL serious SIM racers. C'mon Papy, how about it? |
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| Author: 66Cyclone | 08-02-2003 |
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With much demo practice at michigan the WC record fell quite easily, hope the real game drives as well. From N2002 this is an entirely different game. More like the real thing vs arcade mode type driving with N2002. You can feel the car at breakaway point and come out of slide quite easily. Nothing on this game to complain about just my compliments to all involved. |
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| Author: TheBong | 12-02-2003 |
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Excellent article! I fully agree with you on the in-car view. This was something I really hated in 2002. The In car view was just too obscured. They've done a better job with it now, and thanks for anything you did to make it better. However, when in the car, I still kind of get that feeling of being a midget trying to peer over the wheel. Though the view is better, I still think too much of the active screen is wasted and I still think that A piller is in the way. The other prob I have with NR in general, is that the setup options are just too complex. How many of us really have crew chief experience and can understand all this? The game needs to do more to add more setups and try to help people understand how the thousand parameters really work. Unfortunately without understanding this I keep spinning out on curves which isn't a lot of fun. I do still love the game though. |
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| Author: Leigh Harris | 18-02-2003 |
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Very informative, i hope the game is as good as it sounds. If only they would make a similar game with open wheelers. CART IRL |
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| Author: 88champ | 05-04-2003 |
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Awsome article! Just want to say thank's tothe author for taking the time to help out the sim commuity and Papy. This is the most AWSOME sim ever!!!!!!!!! Thank's, 88champ |
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| Author: D W Goul | 06-06-2003 |
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More of the same. |
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