26.03.2013   Category: Site news

VIRTUAL OPPONENTS
We are proud to introduce to you our new event structure with virtual opponents. With this new mode we introduce the possibility to challenge yourself to race while opponents from your own heat or final are also on the track so you can now experience exactly the same sensations and pressure you experience in your real r/c racing. You may ask ‘why not multi-player events then…?’ Multi-player requires you and your opponents to all race together, at exactly the same time. If we had no time zones that would be less of a problem, but we have. As much as 12 to 15 hours time difference makes it practically impossible to organize multi-player competitions on a world wide scale. By introducing ‘virtual opponents’ we have come up with a solution that is almost as good. The opponents are actually selected from your own heat or main final. They may have raced a few hours before you but with this mode we can still bring all these runs together as if you are all at the track at the same time.

Of course you race with virtual opponents without collision between the cars, that is just not feasible. But other than that you will experience it as real racing. You and your virtual opponents will start from pre-allocated positions corresponding with your start number in the heat or main final. Racing together with virtual opponents will put some extra load on your computer so we advise you to first test how many virtual opponents your PC can handle before your frame rate drops.

Realistic start and finish
To make these races as realistic as possible the recording of your replay file will start bat 30 seconds and will stop 10 seconds after you have returned to the pit lane. You should now use warm-up to drive a few laps and drive your car to your start position, a green arrow points you to your start position in the pit lane or on the starting grid. After the race, do not crash your car as we have seen many do lately, but finish normally and then drive your car back to the pit lane until you see the pit stop dialog which will be displayed 10 seconds before you will see your lap times.

Race against target
Racing with virtual opponents is the closest thing to real racing that we can offer you right now, so be ready to handle the same kind of pressure as you would experience in a real race. You will only get better in your real racing if you go for this challenge! If this is too much for you we also have a ‘target mode’ . You can select a target and during your race your lap times will be compared with your target. When you are ahead you will see a green target at the bottom of your screen, and the more you are ahead the smaller the target dot will become. When you are behind the target will turn red. When the difference becomes 1 lap or more the size of the dot will not get smaller any further.

Visit current and past events
Current and past events can now be visited, also by racers who have not participated in that event. Of course you need to have the track. There are 2 options. You can practice with opponents, or you can just watch the race unfold. In Watch mode you will see the actual positions during the race change as if the cars were all racing together. You can select other cars to follow by simply clicking on the name in the positions table.

Check out the User Manual about the new virtual opponents event mode.

3 SPECIAL EVENTS FOR YOU
We have organized 3 special events for you to try out the new virtual opponents system before the new season starts next week. Each round only lasts 24 hours, so by Saturday morning we are done with these events. We have opted for Spec classes on free tracks: Short Course on Mikes 1, 1:10 ISTC on Carpet 2 and 1:8 nitro on Speedway Short track. So everybody can try out the new system, Trial members, Lite and Full members. Enjoy the new system.

New points system
The points system has been changed in such a way that the top-4 in each main final get a bit more points than the last 4 in a higher main final. With the new points system up to 310 racers will earn points for the series standing and for rankings!

Comments

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Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 (Total posts: 28)

Pieter B Founder	11.04.2013 [18:02] about the points system, there are pro's and con's top everything. We opted to present an insentive to make it to the top 3 in every main final, whether it's the B Main or the K Main... Often the top-3 in one main actually perform better than the last 3 in the one higher main. So this system compensates a bit for not taking the overall standings at the end but by Main. Anyway, we feel there is enough challenge in the new system to try to get the best out of yourself.
Pieter B Founder	11.04.2013 [17:57] Posted by: Josh Vulte (US) on 31.3.2013 17:20:40 (UTC) Posted by: Kirby Backemeyer (US) on 31.3.2013 5:14:01 (UTC) I wish they would switch back to the female announcer voice for laptimes and stuff. If I remember right, it was a female voice back in the day before VRC Pro launched and it was onroad only. Would be nice to hear something hot sounding, so tired of the dude I have turned off announcer volume totally lately, LOL +47 I'll see what I can do with this, it's a lot of work to do new recordings...
Josh V.	31.03.2013 [18:20] Posted by: Kirby Backemeyer (US) on 31.3.2013 5:14:01 (UTC) I wish they would switch back to the female announcer voice for laptimes and stuff. If I remember right, it was a female voice back in the day before VRC Pro launched and it was onroad only. Would be nice to hear something hot sounding, so tired of the dude I have turned off announcer volume totally lately, LOL +47
Kirby Backemeyer	31.03.2013 [06:14] I wish they would switch back to the female announcer voice for laptimes and stuff. If I remember right, it was a female voice back in the day before VRC Pro launched and it was onroad only. Would be nice to hear something hot sounding, so tired of the dude I have turned off announcer volume totally lately, LOL
Matthew S	30.03.2013 [00:35] The changes are nice, but I'm also not a big fan of the new points system. If anything, make better prizes (extra .50 euro or something) for the top 3 in the B, C, etc. Real races at least give them plaques and such, but points I don't think it should give more.
Paul M.	29.03.2013 [23:39] who cares if they run their main or not. they earned their spot. wether they race or not shouldnt make a diffrence.
Donald S Race reporter	29.03.2013 [14:40] Posted by: Paul Mulrain (US) on 27.3.2013 22:14:40 (UTC) what kinda point system is that? why would a person finishing 12th overall get more points then someone who finish's 8th overall? It is kind of like an integrated bump up system, Have you ever got so far into the official event to make it to the C' or D' main? You race the best you can and win your main, then you look up the leader board only to fin that the bottom three or four driver in the main ahead of you didn't even run. That is why this system was implemented. Im not an official anything for VRC but I know they put much consideration into this system and asked for input. There is at least ten pages of comments in the forum dating back 2-3 months.
Eben C	29.03.2013 [14:36] I Dont agree with the new points system...
Donald S Race reporter	29.03.2013 [14:34] I ran with 7 last night and had no issues at all. I actually ran the best race of my onroad career with that run. It took concentration to focus on the track and not the oponent, which is just like real racing. I am completely thrilled with this virtual opponent system. My wife on the other hand is not so happy.
Fred F	27.03.2013 [22:57] ...test how many virtual opponents your PC can handle before your frame rate drops... I tested it on a old dual core computer but with a good graphic card, which makes around 120 FPS, and once I added two virtual opponents with my car, I was still around 90FPS, which is enough to play, but I had a delay that I don't get in normal mode, and I was unable to drive as fast as I can (actually it's more than just slower, it's nearly one mistake each lap due to that delay). I will try it on my newer computer to see if it does the same.