What's with the weird full-speed formation lap that I'm getting on some tracks after skipping the real one?

[aasasd]

This weird thing happens on some third-party tracks, in offline races with AI: if I either have ‘rolling start’ enabled and skip it, or have it set to ‘fast rolling start’, then after we're placed at the end of the track, the pace car rolls into the pit lane, but drivers begin another formation lap, going at 160–200 kph. They keep the grid, the car before me is highlighted in yellow, the message box says to drive behind that car, I get penalties for overtaking, all that jazz. After this lap ends, usually the race proper begins, but sometimes there's yet one or more of such wild formation laps—with autopilot enabled I've seen eleven of them before the AI drove into the pit for fuel.

I'm getting this on Road America by WGTL and RSDG Watkins Glen. Maybe other tracks, haven't checked many of them. Doesn't happen on e.g. St. Petersburg street track. And I've never seen this with ISI's tracks. Not sure if this happens on ovals—I've used just a couple third-party ovals so far.

I first saw this with VSM's Indycar 2016/17 mod, as I didn't need rolling starts before—but now that I checked, this also happens with other mods and built-in series: Shift Street GT2, National Stock Car, rF3, Formula IS. So I guess the tracks are to blame instead of mods, or rather some bug caused by the tracks.

Is there a way to get rid of this?

I'm using rFactor 1.255. The 4GB patch is applied and the XD plugin is added—otherwise I don't modify any of the game files, just drop in mods and tracks. Mods I use are: VSM Indycar 2016/17, Shift Street and a few cars for it, Rotax Max karts 1.2, WCORR Reloaded 2.5, VORRA buggies 1.1.

 

[jbbrown]

As far as I know, this is usually because the "Teleport Spot" is wrongly assigned in the track's .AIW file. It has to be placed early enough that the leader HASN'T yet crossed the finish line when the "green flag" signal arrives, which is the point where you skip to when you skip the formation lap. If the leader has already crossed the finish line, the game thinks the race is still on the formation lap.

You can fix this either by using the AIWCAM Editor, which doesn't work anymore on Windows 10, or by manually editing the .AIW file (but I forgot how to mark a waypoint as a teleport spot, maybe someone else on here knows).

 

[aasasd]

It has to be placed early enough that the leader HASN'T yet crossed the finish line when the "green flag" signal arrives

That was actually my hunch—that the leader seemed to land after the start/finish line.
Thanks! I'll try the editor and will read about the AIW files, as I've heard them being mentioned several times on the forum.

One thing that's not clear to me from this brief description: does the spot mark the position of the leader or of the player? If the latter, then presumably the proper location depends on the maximum number of opponent cars that the track supports (and also that I can fiddle the bug into disappearing or manifesting by changing the number of opponents and the player's position).

 

[MJQT]

You can fix this either by using the AIWCAM Editor, which doesn't work anymore on Windows 10, or by manually editing the .AIW file (but I forgot how to mark a waypoint as a teleport spot, maybe someone else on here knows).

The original rFactor AIWCAM editor does not work, BUT the guitarmaen AIW and CAM editor does work on Windows 10 – I've been using it regularly recently, and I can assure you it works

AIW CAM Editor by guitarman

Not the latest version but gets the job done..

www.racedepartment.com

Am not exactly sure how it edits teleport spots, but I know it can display them, and Simon has been using it (I believe) in this thread to move teleport positions.

 

[aasasd]

Thanks for the alternative, MJQT! It's always nice to have options instead of old programs, and for old formats.

Coincidentally, since I'm not actually on Windows, I can easily run programs as if in Win7
In fact, this makes me wonder if Windows users could achieve the same by running Wine in the ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux’—which would translate Windows system calls into Linux ones and then into Windows ones via the VM layer—with some changes, emulation and other hijinks on the way.

 

[MJQT]

Coincidentally, since I'm not actually on Windows, I can easily run programs as if in Win7

Oh my. Could you please please check whether you can run the rFactor original AIWCAM editor? Because if you can, that's super exciting – you'd be able to do something reportedly no one else can anymore. In that case, you might have to teach me the ways of Wine so that I can run it too (or you can do some modding yourself, if you'd like!). FYI I'm on a Mac, but usually run Windows 10 in a VM for sim racing.

In fact, this makes me wonder if Windows users could achieve the same by running Wine in the ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux’—which would translate Windows system calls into Linux ones and then into Windows ones via the VM layer—with some changes, emulation and other hijinks on the way.

Oh baby... Windows on Linux on Windows?! Crap, that would be cool! I could even make it worse: Windows 7 on Linux on Windows 10 on macOS

 

[aasasd]

Could you please please check whether you can run the rFactor original AIWCAM editor?

I'm on Mac too, and in fact rFactor itself runs fine in Wine—though many plugins don't, regrettably, and FFB seems to have problems.

Wine is super easy if you know how to use the terminal at all—you'll probably run it faster than I download the editor. Just change to the editor's directory and run wine aiwcam.exe or whatever the program name is. Wine will spin for a while creating its files, then pop up the program. You may want to run winecfg beforehand to check that Win7 or earlier is selected as default compatibility. Your files are available on the drive Z.

If the program fails due to absence of some libraries (evidenced by ‘error loading somelib.dll’ in the output), then ‘winetricks’ is the easiest way to install them. It's also a terminal tool: you run winetricks list-all to see what libraries are available, then winetricks some-library to install ‘some-library’.

Both Wine and winetricks are easily installed with Homebrew. For Wine, I have the ‘cask’ installed, i.e. the Mac-style app—though it's still used via the command line.

Wine/winecfg create the directory ‘.wine’ in your home dir, which is the default installation of quasi-Windows, and weighs around 700 mb. You may want to delete it afterwards if Wine doesn't work out for you.

 

[aasasd]

By the way, I guess this is just the place to ask: where do I download the original AIWCAM editor anyway? I don't see it either here or on RFactorCentral. The ‘ISI tools’ archive seems to include only the MAS program.

 

[MJQT]

By the way, I guess this is just the place to ask: where do I download the original AIWCAM editor anyway? I don't see it either here or on RFactorCentral. The ‘ISI tools’ archive seems to include only the MAS program.

I believe this is it here?

https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/rf-aiw-cam-editor-with-dev-files.4156/

(Filed under Bob's Track Builder for whatever reason)

 

[MJQT]

I'm on Mac too, and in fact rFactor itself runs fine in Wine—though many plugins don't, regrettably, and FFB seems to have problems.

Cool, you're on Mac too! That's too bad the FFB doesn't work, although that's what I would have expected.

Both Wine and winetricks are easily installed with Homebrew. For Wine, I have the ‘cask’ installed, i.e. the Mac-style app—though it's still used via the command line.

Good to know it's operated through Homebrew. And interesting to know it's best operated through the terminal – that's fine by me. I had tried managing it purely through some GUI tool once and it was not a great experience...

 

[aasasd]

I believe this is it here?

https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/rf-aiw-cam-editor-with-dev-files.4156/

(Filed under Bob's Track Builder for whatever reason)

Nah, I've already looked there—it's guitarmaen's editor. On the TT server I found something called ‘rFactorAIWCAMEditor1255’—dunno yet if that's the original one.

 

[MJQT]

Nah, I've already looked there—it's guitarmaen's editor. On the TT server I found something called ‘rFactorAIWCAMEditor1255’—dunno yet if that's the original one.

That should be it.

EDIT: there is also a link to some related files and documentation here

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/tutorial-beginners-guide-to-making-rfactor-aiw.5507/

Is TrippTeam server up again?! If so that's super exciting – I haven't seen it operational in ages EDIT: YESSSSSSS it is. So glad that glorious archive of sim racing's past isn't gone yet