Lack of tracks

[Bela Valko]

Hi guys.

So after about 9 months I came back to simracing and I was very dissapointed to see that rF2 still doesn't have enough high quality tracks. In fact very few. I'm mostly talking about the looks of them because I can't really tell the difference if the layout is not like the real circuit in every cm2 but I can tell when I have to vomit just by looking at a track.

Lets talk about the cars a little bit: we have a high quality EGT mod (URD) and also Enduracers is in the works, so basically we have good cars to race with but where?

2015 United SportsCar Championship season schedule:
Daytona - no
Sebring - yes
Long Beach - no
Laguna Seca - no
Belle Isle - no
Watkins Glen - no
Mosport - no
Lime Rock Park - yes
Road America - no
VIR - no
COTA - no
Road Atlanta - no

Out of 12 we could race on 2 (two!!!) tracks if we would like to create a TUSCC like series.

What about the FIA WEC schedule?
Silverstone - yes
Spa - no
Le Mans - sort of...
Nurburgring - Newerburg?
COTA - no
Fuji - ???
Shanghai - ???
Bahrain - ???

So far I haven't seen a proper, up to ISI-track-like-standard Spa, Brands Hatch, Zolder (in the works), Zandvoort, Monza, Imola just to name a few because these are the famous, well knows circuits in Europe. Also if we would have these new players would be more interested.

Now I appreciate the work of those modders who create mods (of course, they do it for nothing) but they usually do the smaller circuits which is fun, but it's not the same.

I stand here and say this: I would gladly pay for high (ISI-like) quality tracks (from the list above), even for trackpacks. With proper layouts, proper elevation changes, high quality textures, high quality trees (background) and rumblestrips.

Also: if you know high quality (mostly) tracks please share it. So far I know about these tracks:

Sebring
Mid-Ohio
Croft
Poznan
Putnam Park
Norisring
Oulton Park
Portimao
Eltsu
Nordschleife
Symmons Plains
Dubai
Oschersleben
Slovakiaring

A very short list as you can see...

Thank you!

ps: pls ISI fix the flickering textures and pls fix the low res mirrors already in 2015...

 

[AndrewBo]

Tracks can be found in here---> http://www.racedepartment.com/forums/rfactor-2-mods.69/?prefix_id=73

 

[David O'Reilly]

2015 United SportsCar Championship season schedule:
Daytona - no
Sebring - yes
Long Beach - no
Laguna Seca - no. I beg to differ, I have raced on this one. That was April last year. Here is the YT.

Belle Isle - no
Watkins Glen - no
Mosport - no
Lime Rock Park - yes
Road America - no I beg to differ, I have raced on this one last month.
VIR - no
COTA - no. I beg to differ, I have raced on this one 3 months ago.
Road Atlanta - no

Out of 12 we could race on 2 (two!!!) tracks if we would like to create a TUSCC like series.

What about the FIA WEC schedule?
Silverstone - yes
Spa - no I beg to differ, I have raced on this one many many times.
Le Mans - sort of... What do you mean sort of, we have a great one.
Nurburgring - Newerburg? Yes its very good. So is the 24 hours of the Nordschliefe available in Summer and Fall versions.
COTA - no See above.
Fuji - ??? Yes its available. I have raced there.
Shanghai - ??? Yes its available. I have raced there.
Bahrain - ??? Yes its available. I have raced there.

So my friend you are in the majority of cases factually incorrect.

 

[Bela Valko]

David: that Laguna Seca has giant bumps, it's some kind of conversion issue as far as I know.
Road America: I tried 2 different versions, the 2nd half of the track is completely off compared to the iRacing version, the road is too wide and the turns are not as they should be (especially the carousel).
COTA: I know 2-3 different versions, I have one installed (1.1), this was the best, but I would say it's OK.
Spa: several versions out there, all conversions, not really good looking
Le Mans: one version, same. Even Virtua_LM admitted that it's not too good but it would be too much work to redone everything.
Bahrain: so it's the Dubai from the guy who created Oulton Park too? OK, I didn't know that.
Fuji, Shanghai: to be honest I didn't really care about these tracks, I never wanted to race on them, I just put them on the list (that's why the question marks are there)

Maybe we have different thoughts on "high quality". Even if Laguna Seca, RA and COTA would be great, still 7 tracks are missing.

 

[nounoubleu]

I'm new in RF2 and agree with you both.
It can't be denied there are many decent conversions of some circuits (in the list above was forgotten Monza, Daytona and Birmingham by Alex Coutie ; I didn't downloaded them yet but they look very nice).
But most of time, these circuits are set up for online racing mainly.
For offline racing, list is much more limited.
I tested Spa for instance (V1.0 by ISR I think, not the one used here by club racing):
Nice looking but limited to 30 cars and no light at night. For a fan of 24hrs of Spa like me, it's bit disapointing.
I feel we miss of original circuits directly developed by ISI, with proper AIW, night, reasonale number of pits, etc.. that allow online and offline.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

David: that Laguna Seca has giant bumps, it's some kind of conversion issue as far as I know.
Road America: I tried 2 different versions, the 2nd half of the track is completely off compared to the iRacing version, the road is too wide and the turns are not as they should be (especially the carousel).
COTA: I know 2-3 different versions, I have one installed (1.1), this was the best, but I would say it's OK.
Spa: several versions out there, all conversions, not really good looking
Le Mans: one version, same. Even Virtua_LM admitted that it's not too good but it would be too much work to redone everything.
Bahrain: so it's the Dubai from the guy who created Oulton Park too? OK, I didn't know that.
Fuji, Shanghai: to be honest I didn't really care about these tracks, I never wanted to race on them, I just put them on the list (that's why the question marks are there)

Maybe we have different thoughts on "high quality". Even if Laguna Seca, RA and COTA would be great, still 7 tracks are missing.

Shanghai and Bahrain are available as decent rF2 quality version, here and here. Fuji is availabe here, not sure about quality. Regarding those American tracks, I doubt you will find all those in other sim than iRacing at moment. Most of the rF2 modding community is European based.

 

[Emery]

A couple more quality tracks you left out:
Sears Point
Gingerman
Longford

A quality Daytona is on the way, but author needs support: https://www.patreon.com/JMVirtualTracks?ty=h

The ISI "Jacksonville", a fictionalized Daytona, will likely be released when stock cars are released.

A track called "Mosfert" was recently spotted on the ISI test server. May or may not be a fictionalized Mosport coming soon.

 

[Bela Valko]

nounoubleu: that Daytona? I rather say nothing... Birmingham is OK, haven't tried that Monza.
Emery: Gingerman looks nice but that's what I was talking about above, modders do these smaller fun tracks from scratch but the big scratch-made tracks are nowhere.
I didn't mention Longford because I considered it as an ISI-track because it's on their webpage but that's a nice track too.
Searspoint 1.35? That's OK. But if I remember correctly the AI is bad there but I'm maybe wrong.

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

The RD get missing component data base has 64 3rd party tracks. You'll need to add all ISI tracks to that number.

So no lack of tracks.

Quality of free 3rd party content ... It depends on the time and effort someone wants to put into it...
IMO: if you are complaining about the quality of free 3rd party content: feel free to create your own... .

ISI and paid content... I'll expect some quality from them.

 

[Bela Valko]

IMO: if you are complaining about the quality of free 3rd party content: feel free to create your own...

I have no clue how to make tracks thats why I said above I would gladly pay for high quality tracks. I might be alone with this or not, after all people paid for the URD mod too which is the only quality scratch-made GT cars mod.
I was very close to buy the European track pack in RRE (very nicely done tracks) but then I didn't because the cars behave goofy in that game and because of that I play RRE about 1 hour per year.
I have all the road course tracks at iRacing but that's another thing, rF2 is for offline for me.

 

[JeffL]

There may be some little things wrong here or there but I have had great races and finished last on just about everyone of those tracks.

 

[Emery]

I didn't mention Longford because I considered it as an ISI-track because it's on their webpage but that's a nice track too.

Considering woochoo has steadily improved Longford over 6 years on his own and the ISI link has "THIRD PARTY" stamped across the image, it's definitely 3rd party. Difference is that ISI formerly endorsed it and has had no hand in the production apart from some guidance to make it conform to their internal standards (for instance, the "Smell Oil" banner was replaced with "Shell Oil" because ISI has permission).

Searspoint 1.35? That's OK. But if I remember correctly the AI is bad there but I'm maybe wrong.

Agreed. You can always make your own AIW file. That's what dev mode is for. There's a document in the ISI forum by matf1 to help you make better AIW files. Can't remember if he uploaded it here.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Shanghai and Bahrain are available as decent rF2 quality version, here and here. Fuji is availabe here, not sure about quality. Regarding those American tracks, I doubt you will find all those in other sim than iRacing at moment. Most of the rF2 modding community is European based.

The COTA we use in FSR - one will struggle to find a better version anywhere than that one.

 

[Bela Valko]

Emery: I'm not a modder nor I have time/knowledge/patience for doing stuff like that.

Btw we could speak about the Indycar too. ISI made us a nice car, what about tracks?
2015 Indycar schedule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_IndyCar_Series_season#Schedule
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Soon ISI will release the stock cars and we have 2 or 3 tracks for those cars.

 

[Dave R]

If I'm not mistaken a few of the Indycar tracks will be added when the majority of the "road to Indy" content is released.

 

[Emery]

Emery: I'm not a modder nor I have time/knowledge/patience for doing stuff like that.

Btw we could speak about the Indycar too. ISI made us a nice car, what about tracks?
2015 Indycar schedule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_IndyCar_Series_season#Schedule
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Soon ISI will release the stock cars and we have 2 or 3 tracks for those cars.

Well, sounds like iRacing is your ticket.