BRC 1976 - Under Pressure [E8-Q]

Community Challenges & Competitions
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#[color=#ffee00]BRC 1976 - Under Pressure[/color]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

after a thrilling 1966 season (behind first place) it is now time to announce the 1976 BRC season!

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[color=#ffee00]New features[/color]

  • drivers are exposed to pressure and tiredness. The pressure system increases the chance of driver errors if another car is very close behind for a longer time. Driver tiredness increases error chance and is influenced by how difficult the car is to drive. In the 90 minute races this effect can be neglected, though.- chance of safety cars
  • revised weather system including forecasts
  • revised crash system - more minor bumps
  • revised error system - less damage, errors increase tire wear.
  • blue and yellow flags
  • revised rules including 110% lap time check: Cars slower than 110% of the fastest in-game time around the Automation Test Track will be excluded from the challenge. Example: If the fastest time is 2:10.00, your car must be faster than 2:23.00 to qualify for the challenge.
  • the safety car will come on track when at least 3 cars are standing on the track simultaneously or a major crash (effective car damage > 150) happens. The safety car will stay out for ~3 minutes. On tracks longer than 7 km the safety car will not be active.
  • A weather forecast can now be taken into account for strategy planning. The forecast applies to the race only. Practice will always be in dry, qualifying will be in constant conditions (depending on rain chance and severity). Please note that the forecast shows only a ā€œsmoothedā€ version of the actual rain progression, so more extreme changes can happen. It does not show track humidity but the actual rain intensity.

Find out everything about the challenge, especially the technical regulations, in this shiny booklet:

BRC Booklet

[color=#ffee00]General Rules[/color]

  • Use the updated BRCTool for your entries. Watch a short introduction here. [color=#dd3333]The car trim must be finished and tested before you can load it in BRCTool![/color]
  • stable release game version only
  • no mods except Steam HQ Essentials collection by pyrlix. Longtail version of Sillyworldā€™s 70s Racecar is forbidden in case it becomes part of the HQE.
  • no lua editing/cheating
  • one car per participant only
  • one car revision per pre-season test (except if dropping behind 110% mark). Additional revisions/PMs will be ignored. Think before you send. The deadlines for each pre-season test will be published below.
  • one strategy revision before each race. Cars stay the same during the season.
  • it is suggested to run a car with engine reliability (shown in BRCTool) > 30 and strategy mode ā€œSprintā€.
  • any rule not written down does not exist.
  • questions? Ask in this thread, not via PM.

[color=#ffee00]How to modify your race strategy[/color]

It is allowed to optimize your race strategy during the season. Just use the BRCTool like you did when first submitting your car. Send me only the exported -Info.lua file in a PM.

[color=#ffee00] Updated Weather Forecast - Hints[/color]

Alright, I promised to update the weather forecast because a new weather system was necessary. Here is the new forecast and some hints how to plan your strategy. This info will be added to the first post in this thread, too.

What can be seen in the forecast?

  • The forecast shows the estimated severity of rain over the first 90 minutes of the race. Horizontal lines are at 33 an 67% rain, vertical lines are 15 minutes apart.
  • It does NOT show track humidity.
  • It shows only a ā€œfilteredā€ version of the actual rain. That means the rain will probably be more spikey, can be a bit heavier than depicted and can start a bit earlier or later in the actual race.
  • Ignore the three numbers on the very right, these are just input parameters generating the weather forecast for 24 hours.

How can this be used for strategy planning?

  • First determine how long the race will roughly be. Some races will be shorter, some longer than 90 minutes. The number of laps per race is in the BRC Booklet.
  • Then estimate from the practice results released before qualifying for each race, how many stops you want to make in dry conditions (minimum number of pit stops) and how long you could go on a single tank of fuel and one tyre set before losing to much time.
  • Then check the weather forecast for big weather changes. Thatā€™s probably when you want to make a pit stop to switch to another tyre profile. Please not that after it stops raining, the track needs some time to become dry again. Watch past BRC races to get a feel for that.
  • Determine if you want to use intermediate tyres or not. This mostly depends on how fast weather changes happen and how long rain will stay somewhat constant.
  • Check how many stops you would have to make between major weather changes.
  • Decide on your number of planned pit stops. Time them a good bit AFTER the major weather change, not before it! That way your tyre profile change thresholds will let your car pit exactly in the right moment when track humidity is bigger or smaller than the thresholds you set in BRCTool.

If you have questions, please ask in this thread.

Enter all of your decisions in BRCTool. Send only the updated *-Info.lua to @Der_Bayer before each qualifying session (if you want to adjust your strategy to the weather, which will give much better race results).

[color=#aa2222]DEADLINE for Race 7 strategies: Thursday, January 5, 5 p.m. CET[/color]
NEXT RACE: tbd

[color=#ffee00]Race Number Reservation[/color]

Here you can claim your racing numbers in advance.

[color=#ffee00]Top Trump Cards[/color]

[color=#ffee00]Event 1: Betonschleife[/color]

[color=#ffee00]Event 2: Diepholz[/color]

[color=#ffee00]Event 3: Norisring[/color]

[color=#ffee00]Event 4: Hockenheimring[/color]

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

[color=#ffee00]Event 6: Spa-Francorchamps[/color]

[color=#ffee00]Event 7: Kassel-Calden[/color]

[color=#ffee00]Event 8: Nordschleife[/color]

BRC_Statistics.zip (235.1 KB)

16 Likes
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Edit: Ugh stable versionā€¦ thatā€™s a huge hit. Understandable but(t) still hurts. Well I hope I can build a car in beta and than import in stable to fine-tuneā€¦

Edit2: brctool not working with betaā€¦oh well I tried

edit3: we have a lot less money than in 76 test race. oh boyā€¦

7 Likes
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WooHoo :smiley:

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I might actually have to bite the bullet and figure my stuff out to make this work this time. 1976ā€¦ What car to build in '76ā€¦

Iā€™ll have to have a look at whatā€™s available. High Quality Essentials is a little bit of a pain, but not a big problem. Iā€™ll have to design intelligently with whatā€™s available. Hopefully it wonā€™t look too bad, Iā€™ve gotten used to having a wide variety of parts to work with.

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Iā€™ve heard quite a few people mention the HQE mod, but Iā€™ve never seen it. Is there a link for it? It doesnā€™t seem to come up in a search.

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https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=469666352

This is maddens how low the budget is!

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Interesting, thanks, @AirJordan. So, to use only the HQE stuff I need to unsubscribe from all the workshop items and only subscribe to the HQE list?

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Thatā€™s one wayā€¦ other is to subscribe to every possible mod and than be very very careful what you pick :slight_smile: or what Iā€™m doing, pick a vanilla or HQ car body and than go full vanilla on fixtures just to be sure since they donā€™t affect performance.

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Thatā€™s my problem, I sub to everything in the workshop and Iā€™m not sure which is which anymore.

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HERE WE GO FOLKS! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

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[color=#ffff00]Race Number Reservation[/color]

Here you can claim your racing numbers in advance.

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Queen lyrics, eh?

Pasted image1416Ɨ685 238 KB

Now to actually look at the mechanicalsā€¦

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how do i save the spreadsheet?

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It autosaves.

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i just close it? @one85db

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Enter your user name in the spot you want and press enter then close it.

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Sorry for the bother, but could you please give me the link to the brc tool download? @Der_Bayer

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There is no maximum engine size. Depending on engine size there is a minimum total car weight limit.

The fuel tank size is a value calculated by me depending on car footprint.

If a rule is not written down in the challenge description it does not exist. So no mufflers or catalytic converters required.

The differential does increase maximum power transmission to the ground in my simulation, too, just like it does in the game. The calculations are the same.

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Iā€™m getting an error when loading my trim in the BRC tool: readlua.lua:30: attempt to index field ā€˜Timeā€™ (a nil value)

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There can be two reasons:

  • Not using stable release version (B160420, I believe)
  • Not having finished and tested the whole car in Automation before loading it in the BRCTool

If it must be something different please tell me. :slight_smile: