How to get the most out of RCS64 F1 edition, Examples of race night formats Options

[Minardi]

To give you an idea and inspiration for your race night, I will post some examples of how we use RCS64 on our race nights at my home track.
Some basic information;

Track length : 19 m., 2 lane.
Double pitlane
Pit Pro
Race night every other week. Amount of visitors varies from 3 - 8.

At the moment we are working on an event planner, with race classes and formats, point system etc., but since that is not finished yet the examples are based on single events.

Last race night was a lot of fun. Here is what we did;

Important; for this race I knew the cars I choose were similar in perfomance. Lap times and fuel usage about the same. To find similar cars, It help a lot if you take out the magnet. We used 4 scalextric cars;
- Porsche Spyder
- Aston Martin (2x)
- McLaren

All fitted with Sport + silicone tyres, no magnet.
If you are in doubt the cars perform similar, you should change the car between drivers every other race. (and do 4 races when you have 4 drivers)

Fuel, and especially tyre and weather simulation really add to the experiece when you do longer races.
We choose to do practice, qualify, race1, race 2(reversed starting grid)
60 laps GP (is about 10-15 minutes)

All cars tank size = 2000 (just enough to make it with 1 fuel pitstop)
Safe speed = 40

Main Page settings;

Burn fuel, fuel load similation on
refuel speed : 15
fuel warning: 25%

Pit Pro on, advanced light system. (I also use the arduino for ligts)

Stop and go time : 10
Stop and go within : 3 laps
auto track call OFF
Manual call: BR+LC (after 2 seconds)
Open Pit Menu: LC

Damage: off
*We had experienced drivers, It was not necessary to use damage.
This was before we had the feature that 1 damage point takes shorter to repair than more damage points.
From now on I will always put it on, because in new release this feature is IN!

GP: 60 laps

Tyre wear: ON
2% hard
4% soft
delays 0,1/0,2/0,3 seconds
Available sets Hard: 1
Available sets Soft : 2 (used Tyre set calculator)
brake points : 0 (we use button brake, if someone never brakes and brake point is set to 1 or more, his tyre wear would remain at 100)

Weather OFF
Background sounds ON

Divide cars (pick a number and choose)

15 min. practice to get familiar with car

5 min. qualify for start position

Race 1 - 60 laps GP. Weather OFF

Start position by qualification result, all cars in same lane, 1,5 track piece between

There was 1 driver who managed to do 1 pit stop, and change tyres and refuel in that stop. He finished 2nd. All other drivers made 2 stops, but not everyone was smart enough. Some drivers ended with about 50% fuel left, some with less than 5% and worn tyres (you can refuel and change tyres in parallel). There is a lot to gain if you do your maths.

Race 2 - 60 lap GP. Weather ON
Start position by reversed grid rom race 1 result. All cars in same lane, 1,5 track piece between

Now I prefer when I set weather ON, to choose random 1..5 weather changes, and than check the forecast to see NO rain. Since it CAN be possible the weather changes 5 times during the race, there is a chance it rains, but you dont know when or how long.

For this race, 2 drivers choose to start on SOFT tyres, and than hope rain will come just before their tyres are worn. I was one of them
And we made a good decision. Just before tyres got in the critical zone, it started to rain. The other guy was able to get in the pit directly, I had to do almost a lap, which resulted in a deslot because of the wet track throttle profile ARGGH!
When the rain stopped I could change to HARD tyres and finish the race on them, while the guys that started on HARD, had to put on SOFTS after the rain. And the fun part was that the dry period was long enough to wear out the SOFTS, so I managed to win because they had to make a pit stop for a set of SOFTS and I could finish the race on my HARD tyres.

Important note:
I am faster when I brake, but when my tyres get below 50%, I start making laps without braking to extend my time on track and save tyres (every tap on the brake is 1% wear extra). With this strategy I gain a lot, also because It safes fuel. But It depends on how the race develops. If I have to push to keep up, I go for It and hope the other driver(s) make a mistake sooner than me.

I hope more users will share their race night formats, so we can learn form each other.
Of course we know there is a lot that can be better or further developed, and we are working on that.
Thanks for reading, will share more formats soon.
Marcel,
Team RCS

[q-man]

We have annual race night once A year. We have 9 guys and only I have slotcar "habbit" so I am not able to win. 3 Guys group drives 3 races. We drive with scaley gt cars and everyone drives ones/car. Race is 20 laps on 9sec track. First gains 5 points, second 2 and last gains 1 point. After three races winner and second will continue and three losers drive "losers final"

semifinal
6 guys is left so they drive in 2 groups with similar way like in first round. Again same point system so 2 guys drops on in each group.

Final
In final we have 4 guys who drive at same time 40 lap race with random cars. And then we have just winner no points anymore.

Two marshalls and deslotting doesnt stop race, no pitstops, lots of beer and barbecue food after race

I found that pitstops are just too complicated for people who havent got this slotcar problem.
No mags, lots of tyre tuning before and 75% power.

And maybe most important thing is that hard drinking starts mainly after race. Afterall we live in finland.... hehe

No women anywhere near, just guys night. This system takes 2-3 hours. Winner gets small champagne bottle and name carved on torphy.

[Nanook]

And maybe most important thing is that hard drinking starts mainly after race. Afterall we live in finland.... hehe

No women anywhere near, just guys night. This system takes 2-3 hours. Winner gets small champagne bottle and name carved on torphy.

How an earth you manage to do that? I mean bunch of guys together 2-3 hours and you start popping cans only after that. You must be joking right?

[q-man]

I meant that drinking gets hard after race. And race starts pretty early and exact time so people dont get really drunk on 2 hours. And actually finns are pretty competitive when it comes to racing so people try to stay sober before they are out of race.

[mitchiemasha]

Currently we spend too much time seeing who can get the fastest lap, individually with each car. This will all change when we get RCS64 and another power pack for the APB.

[Minardi]

Race Event: 1 hr Endurance

Track length : 19 m., 2 lane.
Double pitlane/Pit Pro

Similar performance cars: (I did a qualifying session the night before by myself, testing all cars and ran them untill fuel was 25% to see how many laps they did and their laptimes. This was close enough, within 0,3 seconds lap time difference, and 3% fuel difference.

2x Scalextric Aston Martin DBR9
McLaren Gulf
Audi R8
Sport + silicone tyres, no magnet.

Practice 10 min, qualify 10 min., race 60 min.
All cars tank size = 4000 (about 20 min. of racing)
Safe speed = 40

Main Page settings;

Burn fuel, fuel load similation on
refuel speed : 15
fuel warning: 25%

Pit Pro on, advanced light system.
Stop and go time : 10
Stop and go within : 3 laps
auto track call OFF
Manual call: BR+LC (after 2 seconds)
Open Pit Menu: LC

Damage: ON (5)
Full Repair time 20 sec.

Tyre wear: ON
2% hard
4% soft
delays 0,1/0,2/0,3 seconds
Available sets Hard: 5
Available sets Soft : 5 (used Tyre set calculator and added 2 sets of Hard)
brake points : 0 (we use button brake, if someone never brakes and brake point is set to 1 or more, his tyre wear would remain at 100)

Weather RANDOM 1-5 (Forecast 1x sun, 2x cloudy)

Start position by qualification result, all cars in same lane, 1,5 track piece between.

The race was fantastic. I won with 325 laps. Pos 2 - 4 lap behind.

I only won because I had a better strategy. Again Average pitstop time was about 35 seconds, so that is 3+ laps.

I managed to make it in 6 pitstops, the other drivers 7 or 8.

You really have to think what to do with damage. A full repair costs 20 seconds, but if you repair after 1 or 2 crashes it is 8 seconds.

In a 1 hour race I think the average track call / driver was 7. What made the difference for me was;

- I noticed at my first stop for tyres I had 49% fuel left, so decided not to take fuel and do a short repair of 1 damage point. Other drivers choose to refuel every stop, and repair at 1 damage point left.

- I was lucky that the rain started just before I needed to pit for new tyres

It was only the last 20 minutes I took the first position , andt hat was also about the time it started to rain. I choose to fill up the tank completely when I pitted for rain tyres and hope it kept raining. And it did.

What I learned from this race was that for me doing small repairs is better than full repair.
And to keep calm and let the victory come to me instead of chasing it
With some experienced racers this kind of race nights are unforgettable.
And I learn a lot to improve software. Did my fastest lap in lap 250 when it was raining. This will never happen in real life so we need a solution to prevent this from happening. Yes, you have a massive brake delay in rain, but with this kind of races I always watch my tyres anyway and brake less, also under dry conditions. Have to think about this one, maybe limit max throttle during rain.

Thanks for reading again, will share more formats in the future.

Marcel,
Team RCS

[thoefnagel]

Nice data
And those amazing features keep the thrill going.
Average of 7 track calls per driver in a 1 hour race????
I think in my races this is around 10 per driver in a 15 minute race!. Has to do with newbies and R1 combination

[Minardi]

Haha, yes, I have a lot of R1's too, yesterday I was lucky to have only experienced racers. And I must say, the damage feature helps.

[thoefnagel]

Damage will help in my case as well I hope.
I definitely like to come to your place 1 day to see for myself if you're really that good as you say
Would you like that too?

[Minardi]

Would be a good idea. Now I heard someone from Denmark is coming in June. Ready for a race ?

[thoefnagel]

Sounds great, maybe my brother likes to come too.
Only june 1st, 21st and 30th I cannot come, the other dates are ok, if it's friday night, saturday or sunday after 13:00

[Minardi]

I think it will be June 8, end of the afternoon. Let's discuss further by e-mail.

[Minardi]

Race Event: 1 hr Endurance
Track length : 19 m., 2 lane.
Double pitlane/Pit Pro

8 people, 4 teams:

3x NSR Clio
1x NSR Abarth

Change driver every pit stop.
When you don't drive, you marshall. So in this race we did not have to use auto track call, or manual call, and no damage.

Practice 10 min, qualify 10 min., race 60 min.
All cars tank size = 4000 (about 20 min. of racing)
Safe speed = 40

Main Page settings;

Burn fuel, fuel load similation on
refuel speed : 15
fuel warning: 25%

Pit Pro on, advanced light system.

Stop and go time : 10
Stop and go within : 3 laps

auto track call OFF
Manual call: BR+LC (after 2 seconds)

Open Pit Menu: LC

Damage: OFF

Tyre wear: ON
2% hard
4% soft
delays 0,1/0,2/0,3 seconds

Available sets Hard: 5
Available sets Soft : 5 (used Tyre set calculator and added 2 sets of Hard)

brake points : 1 (button brake)

Weather RANDOM 1-5

Start position by qualification result, all cars in same lane, 1,5 track piece between.

IMPORTANT SETTING: for the NSR cars on my home track, for the average user the full NSR power was too much, so we used a linear throttle profile 5063, which means the max power is reduced. Believe me, the NSR's are still very fast with this setting but better to control for the average user, which improved the racing.

This race we had a new driver so it was very good to have marshalls
My team member was the new driver, so winning was not possible. Still, we learned a lot and managed to get at least car #3 a little nervous.
The forecast did not show any rain, but you never know. Very funny to hear people discussing pit stop strategy and talking about the virtual weather
This race had a clear winner, it was very close until 50% but after that it was clear who would win. Car #2 and #3 where close and at least one of them was hoping for rain, but It did not come.
The NSR's performed very well, what a nice cars.

Next event will be GP, for that I will change tyre and fuel settings to adjust to lap limited racing rules.

[hicksy1980]

I really can't wait to have rms going on my setup, just gotta find some mates to play with me as my current mates just laugh at me when I talk about slot cr racing

[Gysse]

Hicksy - your current friends will laugh even more, when you have had a race night with them, using rcs64 - otherwise dump them