BRC 1976 - Under Pressure [E8-Q]

Well looks like 5th is where i belonged this race because I think I would finish there in both universes. For higher place I needed early SC and no crash.
Kudos to organizators who completed the race despite setbacks.
And now the mighty spa… I hope higher gearing will finally pay off :smiley:

Stupid brobot crash cost me a potential top 10 finish but P14 was a good improvement on qualifying all the same starting from P30. Going for two stops was clearly the best strategy.

The restart just proved again that it is a much more interesting race if the cars stay closer together. The 110% rule isn’t cutting it; we need some better solution for next season.
Having most of the field two or more laps behind without crashes is not exciting. It would be a lot more interesting if all cars were within two seconds of each other and it is down to handling and pit strategy.

Granted we could also do the Nascar solution of mandatory safety car to bunch up the field every 20 minutes but that’s quite a joke.

Perhaps mandatory slicks for all, so people will run more aggressive AFRs and try to match tire wear to fuel consumption?

I like the current rule set, people do not have to try and compete with the top cars, there can still be interesting and intense battles in other positions. I believe there was a pretty intense battle for 7th a couple of times and I know there have been cars side-by-side much further back. If the commentators would try and split up the cars, someone specifically watches 1-10, someone watches 11-25, etc. I think we would get better representation for everyone.
I try to watch most of the cars during the race to see if anything exciting is going on, but I do end up focusing on my car, would love to the see the commentators take a more inclusive approach since they tend to focus on the top 10 almost exclusively.
Not to put down the other commentators at all, but @KLinardo has been amazing, he really tries to bring a wider view to the races and it seems like he has done this before. Thank you, all of the commentators, for your hard work!

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I think the difficulty is that very few people know what they’re trying to aim for in their designs until they’ve completed at least one BRC season (myself included). If I could go back now I would bash about 30-50 bhp extra out of my engine, as I rarely carry more than 2/3 of a fuel tank in a race currently. However at the start of the season I thought “great, I’m so fuel efficient, I must have designed this really well!” despite the fact that I run out of tyres a long time before fuel becomes an issue.

I think the ruleset has to be a three-way balance between allowing different designs, including of new/less experienced players and close racing. This is a tough set of criteria and one that I think has been achieved well by this series.

The thing is that we have many players with different skill levels. A more severe disqualification rule, let’s say 105%, would not make the races more exciting, only the car list shorter :slight_smile: Of course, limiting player decisions is the easiest way to get the cars closer together. But in my opinion this limits the fun and is not what the BRC stands for: Few rules, different cars, surprises on track (and bluescreens)…

I have ideas for next season’s rule set already which should make it even easier to make different approaches viable, although I’m currently already quite happy with the variety of cars scoring well. People said before the beginning of the season that NAs are not competitive and sports tyres are not competitive. Both things are in the top 3 currently, NA even on P1. It is just about skill, using the choices to your advantage. And many ways seem to work quite well.

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That’s not a thing…

Wouldn’t that just result in utilizing less camber? You can easily get around this in tuning.

That would require really good organization. For what it’s worth, we’re a group of guys that get together over the internet and yell about dots going around in a circle. (Hyperbolic oversimplification for effect.) We’re also trying to monitor 59 cars in a single class. It’s hard to look down a scrolling order and come up with a story line. Your players are usually a much more mixed bag down the order, too.

Meanwhile, at the front, we have a pretty steady cast of characters that are running well from race to race with points implications scattered about. There are undoubtedly many tight points battles in the 20s and 30s of the standings, but one good or bad race really moves things around down there. It’s hard for us to follow without a production crew tracking stats and whispering into our ear. You’re getting at the reason why I suggested the cheat sheet before the season. It gives us a way to add depth to the broadcast.

Finally, I appreciate the compliment. I really do. But, I feel like I don’t deserve the praise because I have actually done this before. I have pages and pages of scripts and stats from the various games and matches I have announced in college and I got my start in high school. I like to break the monotony because many of my fellow broadcasters do tend to focus in on the top (unless we’re looking for the diesel car, the FWD wonder, trollercoaster, or “driftmeister” Pboy). So instead of being the 4th guy talking about the same thing, I try to add variance. That doesn’t detract from what my colleagues do; it just shows that we have different styles.

@Der_Bayer, well said.

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I did not mean to suggest that every car should have a story or anything so in-depth. I was mostly trying to say that if other groups of cars could be a little more focused on during the races it would make everyone happier overall. Last season I saw more talk about cars further back, espescally when things were a bit more calm in the front. I would like to hear some comments on other groupings going on during the races, even if not that often. I just feel the top cars and “celebrity” cars have really started eating all the talking points this season, which is nice to an extent… Not sure if I got my point across still.
Also, I TOTALLY understand that the commentators are doing this on their own time and everyone else and I really appreciate it!

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@Der_Bayer, @Madrias, following on from what you’ve said, something I’d like to suggest just to see what people think: the size and scale of BRC now is huge, meaning that the focus tends to be on the top 10/top 20. Nothing wrong with that in the commentary, but it means a large number of cars get little or no attention.

So, what if we were to have a class system? This could be done - rather out of the “multi-approach” spirit of BRC - based on engine size, though I don’t see this being very fun.

Or, we could make it more interesting: class the cars based on their stats. I’m not sure if there’s a correlation between things like Track Sportiness/Track Drivability and average race finish point, but if there is, the field could be split into 3 groups, meaning there’d be groups of ~20 cars competing against one another, which in turn would help to represent the range of skill levels found in BRC more fairly.

Doing it based on TrackDriv/TrackSpo would also prevent more people going for one class over another, as its hard to work out those scores before they’re published in the Trump Cards without going into the .lua files. This would still require people to enter one car of course.

Naturally, live race commentary can stick to whatever it deems interesting, I’m not saying that it should be trying to account for every car in the field. But, it’d mean that people who usually finish in the 40s/50s would be able to have their own mini championship and get a bit of attention, as well as competing for points.

Perhaps this is a bit too complicated to implement, but I think it would really make the BRC more interesting for people who don’t finish in the top 20 all the time.

Have to say, I also think the current tech rules are excellent. Like Der_Bayer said, we have lots of variety at the top of the leaderboards as far as technical choices are concerned. Being stricter with the rules would risk making the competitors very similar or, worse, make one body clearly superior to all others.

This is just a thought that crossed through my head when I was riding home on the tram reading your post, but… Perhaps it could be an option to have two classes of cars on track at the same time, sort of to the tune of Le Mans?

By this, I mean that each player could only submit a single car, and all the cars would compete for the same points, but there would be two sets of leaders to look at and talk about.

Say for example, BT1 would have a slightly higher capacity-weight allowance or budget and BT2 a bit lower. Those with the highest petrol-to-blood (or free time to friends) ratio would swarm to BT1 and one of them would probably take the overall win. But that would leave BT2 a bit easier to compete in, with bonus bragging points for every BT1 car you show your taillights to. At the end of a race or championship you might have a lineup of say five in BT1 cars at the top, then a BT2 and some assortment to follow.

It might be possible to have the BT1 cars show up in one colour in the simulation/overall standings and BT2 cars in another, or whatever? (I have just doodled onto the latest results for an example, there is no significance to who is what colour). It seems nothing else in the actual simulation would need to change.

As I said though, this is just a random thought that seemed intriguing. Might make things too messy or not mesh with the spirit of BRC too well.

EDIT: @DeusExMackia great minds think alike, eh? :slight_smile:

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The thing with two classes is this: Let’s take the decent top 10 finisher, who thinks he won’t win the “fast” class anyway and thinks: “I’ll dominate the second class!” Who chooses which class every player has to join in? Splitting up the cars into various groups might lead to 3 boring championships instead of a single exciting and close competition.

Anyway…

#[color=#ffee00]Event 5 - Track Presentation - Mainz Finthen[/color]

A little late (due to my bad internet connection yesterday), but better late than never.

#[color=#ffee00]Event 6 - P&Q Results - Spa-Francorchamps[/color]

BRC_Statistics.zip (182.5 KB)

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@HowlerAutomotive Apparently so!

@Der_Bayer That’s a fair point. I’d like to think what people who generally finish in the lower half of the field think about this and whether they have any suggestions.

Just release the top 5 cars.
Make a video explaining why they did so good in the races, and why others did horribly (like our gas guzzler :wink: )

Educate people.
I think that would be the proper way.

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Wasn’t a ‘looking-at-cars’ kind of video announced by KLinardo at the begin? I assume that’ll come when the season is over.

I wonder if that is my job to do. I’m not complaining :wink: But yes, that’s the right way to do it. Increase quality. I might contribute to that with more test races before the start of next season.

I think that was @GenJeFT’s voluntary reviews. I just made a few hype videos back when I had this wonderful thing called free time.

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Yes - it was @GenJeFT, sorry

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Question for @Trollercoaster after watching that P&Q session:

Can you actually manage two full-speed laps before you run out of fuel? Burning over 38 kg of fuel per lap is a remarkable achievement!

I have a feeling that people who want to be educated already are. There are killrobs videos and genjeft revives of previous seasons which are rich af with info on how to setup and there is this, the might forums where you can ask anyone anything. I believe the problems are: a) people lacking concentration or dedication to really get familiar with mechanics b) people that do not have time IRL to spend hours upon hours go through one 1cc up and test, 2cc up and test…
a) can’t help
b) same story with every motorsport if BRCtime=RLbudget

Apart from that, I believe that at least half of the field is educated but not all chose the right path and that is understandable, especially with limited time. Other half is a), b) and newbies.

I really like the open BRC rules and I also liked them in my first season running bottom of the pack. They present a great challenge. Don’t want to sound harsh, I’m all up for helping others to perform and I’m not selfish with knowledge I got so far. If top 5 cars will help, go for it, if quick notes/hot tips will help, I gladly share my 2 cents. I’m just not sure if more input from top 10 runners or der_bayer will help. Guys (or ladies) from the mid and back, who want to upgrade should step up and tell what they need.

Check the countdown caution rule in Nascar Trucks. 20 minutes timer.

Using a standard tyre is normal and makes sure everyone starts from the same starting point.
Each set of tyres is1.5-2s faster than the next.

Some people obsess over building the car way too much and should probably be reigned in somehow. I am looking at you @TheBobWiley.

Releasing the top cars should be mandatory, I agree. Perhaps one should go further and release all cars.