URD's newer DTM (T5 2018) mod?

Billy Pilgrim · Dec 28, 2018

I saw that URD is selling their 2018, newer, DTM mod at a discount price.

I have the first DTM mod (2013?, I think) from URD which i reckon is rather good. Is there any point in buying this new one too?

Oh, and the Detroit, Ford GT car from URD - is that good? Is it BOPed with the GTE cars in AC?

Thanks

Dirk Steffen · Dec 31, 2018

The URD Ford GT LM is really good indeed. If you like WEC, the GTE class, modern GT racing, etc THIS Ford GT LM is an absolute MUST BUY. I am not sure how perfect it is BoPed to match Kunos cars and with my experience over the years in sim racing there is no such thing as a perfect BoP. You end up with a good match in performance across cars and someone with a certain car will ALWAYS find something wrong about the BoP and the whole mess starts over again.

What I do re. BoP is I build historically correct full racing grids in Content Manager complete with skins, corrected driver and team names (Wikipedia has some great records for that, making editing the skin files through CM straight forward).

Then in the Content Manager race grid editor I assign my own BoP to each and everyone of teh cars depending on driver aggressiveness, skill, car BoP, etc to match the cars.

If you do it this way you can have some truly amazing Ai racing in Assetto Corsa with a full grid of cars and a really good performance match as it should be in real life.

For this exact reason I actually prefer mod makers to produce their cars like manufacturers do in the real world of motorracing - the customer race car is produced unrestricted with a slightly higher power output and slightly lower weight than regulations allow and you can BoP the car perfectly to match the rest of the field.

With the Ford GT LM from URD this works beautifully.
There is also a truly fantastic livery package for download here on RD with a complete set of proper skins for the Ford GT LM including those amazing night time LED strip equipped liveries as raced at Le Mans 2018!

RobertLidstroem · Jan 4, 2019

Would you mind making a tutorial on how to do this in CM? I understand that you just did, buy maybe in a easy step-by-step guide?

Dirk Steffen · Jan 4, 2019

Here you go:
- open the DRIVE menu
- select all event settings to your liking
- save the preset with a unique name - example "2018 WEC"

- click on the little hamburger menu button right next to the "+" button in the "Opponents" section of the DRIVE menu to open the detailed opponents window:

Here you can set all detailed conditions for each individual opponent car.
I usually select a specific skin for each car to make sure the correct skins for a specific race are used - I use "close enough" skins if I don't have a particular skin.
You can even overwrite in the NAME section the driver names to make sure a specific driver sits in the car (this will not overwrite the driver specification linked to the skin, which can be edited elsewhere but it will ONLY alter the driver name saved with this "Opponent Preset").
- set for each driver you want to behave in a certain way levels for aggression and skill.
- set BoP values after a test session to calibrate each car to match what you would expect from the real racing event results (say you just saw an amazing race unfold during the WEC season and you saw a spectacular fight between two drivers who were ahead of the whole field and battled back and forth - this behavior can be approximated with altering these 4 values (again, ONLY saved in this detailed Opponent Preset).

- when you are finished make sure to save this detailed Opponent Preset with a unique profile name (I used in this quick example THE SAME NAME as in my EVENT PRESET - they are always separate presets saved in different locations, so you can create as many presets for events and race grids as you like)

Example:
Create event presets for the 2018 Shanghai WEC race under different specific weather conditions.
Create ONE main detailed Opponent Preset.
Create alterations of this detailed Opponent Preset and save each of them individually (in one you want VERY aggressive LM GTE PRO drivers and perhaps less skilled LM GTE AM drivers and very skilled but non aggressive LMP1 drivers so they are patient, don't risk contact when lapping slower drivers and are safe and perhaps you want for some action a few LMP2 drivers you set at ~85% skill but at a VERY HIGH aggression, so they will cause incidents, crash and go wide while driving very risky lapping maneuvers, etc).

The possibilities to finely calibrate such a racing grid to closely emulate an actual race that unfolded in real life in a very special way or create really exciting, fun races with an AI that does not just run boring in a queue the whole race are endless.

The best is as ALL presets in Content Manager are saved separately and re fully interchangeable you can load a event preset and by the click of a button can load the grid of a 2018 WEC race or a 1967 F1 race or a track day for cars and coffee you have built with a handful of your childhood dream cars, … the possibilities are endless.

RobertLidstroem · Jan 4, 2019

Woooow! Thank you so much!

Billy Pilgrim · Jan 4, 2019

Thanks @Dirk Steffen for the great explanation on BOPing cars yourself. That's very useful.

Just wanna say that, after all, I bought the DTM mod and the Detroit mods.

I love the DTM 2018 one. I think it's excellent. The physics are quite different from the T5 2013 mod; the physics are much more lively. These cars are more of a pleasure to drive. I'm enjoying them loads and would recommend them for sure. (haven't tried the Audi yet though)

The Detroit one is very good too. But I haven't used it that much yet (as I've been very happy in the DTMs)

Billy Pilgrim · Jan 9, 2019

Dirk Steffen said:
Here you go:
- open the DRIVE menu
- select all event settings to your liking
- save the preset with a unique name - example "2018 WEC"
View attachment 284442

- click on the little hamburger menu button right next to the "+" button in the "Opponents" section of the DRIVE menu to open the detailed opponents window:

View attachment 284443

Here you can set all detailed conditions for each individual opponent car.
I usually select a specific skin for each car to make sure the correct skins for a specific race are used - I use "close enough" skins if I don't have a particular skin.
You can even overwrite in the NAME section the driver names to make sure a specific driver sits in the car (this will not overwrite the driver specification linked to the skin, which can be edited elsewhere but it will ONLY alter the driver name saved with this "Opponent Preset").
- set for each driver you want to behave in a certain way levels for aggression and skill.
- set BoP values after a test session to calibrate each car to match what you would expect from the real racing event results (say you just saw an amazing race unfold during the WEC season and you saw a spectacular fight between two drivers who were ahead of the whole field and battled back and forth - this behavior can be approximated with altering these 4 values (again, ONLY saved in this detailed Opponent Preset).

- when you are finished make sure to save this detailed Opponent Preset with a unique profile name (I used in this quick example THE SAME NAME as in my EVENT PRESET - they are always separate presets saved in different locations, so you can create as many presets for events and race grids as you like)

Example:
Create event presets for the 2018 Shanghai WEC race under different specific weather conditions.
Create ONE main detailed Opponent Preset.
Create alterations of this detailed Opponent Preset and save each of them individually (in one you want VERY aggressive LM GTE PRO drivers and perhaps less skilled LM GTE AM drivers and very skilled but non aggressive LMP1 drivers so they are patient, don't risk contact when lapping slower drivers and are safe and perhaps you want for some action a few LMP2 drivers you set at ~85% skill but at a VERY HIGH aggression, so they will cause incidents, crash and go wide while driving very risky lapping maneuvers, etc).

The possibilities to finely calibrate such a racing grid to closely emulate an actual race that unfolded in real life in a very special way or create really exciting, fun races with an AI that does not just run boring in a queue the whole race are endless.

The best is as ALL presets in Content Manager are saved separately and re fully interchangeable you can load a event preset and by the click of a button can load the grid of a 2018 WEC race or a 1967 F1 race or a track day for cars and coffee you have built with a handful of your childhood dream cars, … the possibilities are endless.

Do you understand the difference between "AI level" and "Opponent strength" in Content Manager? I sort of presume they are much the same (but don't know). When setting up championships, I have all the opponents with 100% opponent strength, then I adjust the AI level according to the race series. So I'll have the AI level for championships between 93 and 100, more or less.
I'd be interested to know what you know about this if possible.

Crispin Williamson · Jan 9, 2019

I will driven both and think the 2013 mod is better than the 2018 one

Dirk Steffen · Jan 10, 2019

Billy Pilgrim said:
Do you understand the difference between "AI level" and "Opponent strength" in Content Manager? I sort of presume they are much the same (but don't know). When setting up championships, I have all the opponents with 100% opponent strength, then I adjust the AI level according to the race series. So I'll have the AI level for championships between 93 and 100, more or less.
I'd be interested to know what you know about this if possible.

Thank you for putting my nose on this ;-)
I do know about this exactly as much as you do but I will try to remember to dig into this and find out more.

Without knowing the facts I assumed that the opponent strength is a global AI level setting that is used for all cars that DO NOT have a Opponent strength override in the detailed grid settings.

I assumed that the Opponent Strength setting in the detailed grid view is EITHER straight overriding the global Opponent Strength value OR is is a multiplier factor that the global opponent strength factor is multiplied with.

Billy Pilgrim · Jan 10, 2019

Dirk Steffen said:
Thank you for putting my nose on this ;-)
I do know about this exactly as much as you do but I will try to remember to dig into this and find out more.

Without knowing the facts I assumed that the opponent strength is a global AI level setting that is used for all cars that DO NOT have a Opponent strength override in the detailed grid settings.

I assumed that the Opponent Strength setting in the detailed grid view is EITHER straight overriding the global Opponent Strength value OR is is a multiplier factor that the global opponent strength factor is multiplied with.

Well, what I know (and this is in reference to setting up championships, I think it is not for Quick Race): "opponent strength" is determined when you set up the championship, on the same page where you set the "aggressiveness". Once you've started the championship, you cannot change these two things; you'd have to reset the championship to make changes to these two things.
But "AI level" is set just before each race in the championship (by default it is at 100%). I try to do an entire championship with one AI level for the whole championship - If I decide to do a championship at, say, AI level = 95%, I set it at 95% for every race (unless I see that the level is clearly too high or too low -then I may change it to make races more competitive).
I think BTW (and looking at your post #4 above), that you can set opponent strength for each car if you wish, whereas AI level is only for all opponents. Until now, though, I've always set just one opponent strength for all cars.
I'm interested in your understanding of all this.

Slowdive · Jan 11, 2019

Billy Pilgrim said:
Do you understand the difference between "AI level" and "Opponent strength" in Content Manager?

I did some testing yesterday (before reading this thread) on this very subject. It appears that if you set the "strength" for a car/skin, it completely overrides the "opponent strength" setting.

Also as an aside, if you want a realistic grid, keep the variance tight. So for example I was making an Indycar grid, and in the real world the entire field will be within about a 1.5 seconds of each other. To achieve this, their strength needs to vary by only about 0.5. Initially I was using +/- 1 and that created a field that was about 4 seconds apart (fastest to slowest) during qualifying.

Slowdive · Jan 11, 2019

Billy Pilgrim said:
I saw that URD is selling their 2018, newer, DTM mod at a discount price.

I have the first DTM mod (2013?, I think) from URD which i reckon is rather good. Is there any point in buying this new one too?

Oh, and the Detroit, Ford GT car from URD - is that good? Is it BOPed with the GTE cars in AC?

Thanks

Also, I recently purchased both of these mods and give them a big thumbs up. The DTM cars are a ton of fun and the Ford GT fits in perfectly with the other GT3/GTE cars in regards to BOP. I'm not sure that it's my favorite car in that subclass, but it's definitely a good one.