F125 - EA Sports F1 Games (F124, F123, F122, ...)

[DieGrootHammer]

Oh damn people. One thing you guys seriously need in your lives when you play this game is this:

F1 Game Setup | Online setups database

Last night I had to do the Monaco GP. And we all know this track is a difficult bastard. I played around with setups as I thought it should be and managed to get so frustrated and ending in the wall so much that I literally rage quitted out of the game during FP2. But I had a lie down and a mild tea, and started looking at car setups. Found this website and decided to just try out some of the setups.

And it…was…AMAZING!!

It was like the car instantly became drivable. As in I instantly cut down 1.5 seconds on my lap on the track. With the same car! I immediately saw first hand why drivers spend so much time to do the setup of the car, and how little changes can have such a big and profound difference in the performance of the car on track.

So with the car setup properly and feeling great, I had the best Monaco race I’ve ever had. It was fun from start to finish. I was competitive, and could actually catch cars in front of me. I actually made 2 passes on track and one pass during pit stops, and ended up in 10th! Another points finish for the plucky Torro Rosso.

[Solitude]

Thanks @DieGrootHammer, will have a look tonight.

[oltman]

Wow! This is a good find! I will test their accuracy on Austria as its the track I have spent the most time on and where I can see / feel improvements the best.

[GregRedd]

@DieGrootHammer

a lie down and a mild tea

Oh, hello Ms. Brontë

Nice find. I very briefly used the app from there way back for F1 2017, and it was still very thin on detail. I actually think I still have the app installed on my phone somewhere - I’m sure it’s the same site, the icon looks vaguely familiar. Glad to see it’s still around and proving useful. Will definitely check it out to see if it can solve my Baku wall bashing as easily as it helped to solve your Monaco wall issues.

(Like you, I quit in FP1 for my Baku career GP. I didn’t go back though. Maybe I should have had a mild tea and a lie down too )

[DieGrootHammer]

Yes while it may not be a silver bullet for all your problems, at least it will take you into the right direction that you can play around with for a better feel of the car.

There was no setup for the Torro Rosso on the site, so I looked at some of the highest rated setups and changed the car to that, or a combination of the top setups. But it took me into the right direction.

For example, at Monaco it seems like all the setups opens up camber a lot, whereas I added camber in my first go. That change already made a huge difference. I also got introduced to the wonders of 80% front break bias. Sounds like lockup-city, but on Monaco worked wonders. One hard stomp on the breaks and then let go and the car slowed down exactly like it should’ve.

[Solitude]

Guys, I have a very big announcement to make. I’m not as bad as I thought I was.

Decided to skip the no traction control for a while. Pretty happy with the result. Getting better.

[DieGrootHammer]

Well done Soli!! You’ve only just started driving with the wheel and you are already that quick. You are much better than you think my dude!!

Speaking of which, I had a really weird Canadian GP. Apparently I am incredibly quick on the track. Like in super quick. I pushed that Torro Rosso way higher up the grid than it should’ve been. Albon qualified in last place, and me, in the same car, qualified in 5th. 5TH!!! I beat Gasly in the game (okay sure not the biggest achievement) but still. I guess for Canada I am driving on way too low difficulty, which is weird, because all other races I’ve been performing where the car should be, and not that far off my team mate.

So naturally after qualifying I thought that this game is easy and I am a driving god. Queue the first lap, and I cross the line for lap one in 11th. Jip, that damn car had absolutely shocking race pace on the soft tires. On the lap that I pitted I was in P13. Lost even more places. But getting off those horrible soft tires gave me back some race pace and managed to end up in 10th place for my 3rd points finish in a row.

[Solitude]

This weekend is the multiplayer aspect of the weekly event. That will be an interesting one. I don’t normally do multiplayer but this time I’m quite keen.

I still have to go read up about how the whole weekly event thing works.

[oltman]

My career so far:

After the F2 “intro” I signed with Mclaren.

In Aus I qualified in pole. The race was tight and after the pits I was in 4th! Struggled had and passed the 2 leading Ferraris on the last lap. First victory done!

Bahrain was even harder. Qualified in 6th! Tussled with both Red Bulls for most of the race. Gasly pulled out, I pass Verstappen and the road was clear. Eventually caught Bottas in the lead. Second victory done!

I upped the AI slightly for China. I know the tracks from here on and figured its more fair. Qualified in 4th. Race time was a nightmare. Lost about 4 places after a bad start and the Orange Bullet was more of a Nerf dart in the straights. Eventually caught up to 4th again and ended up in no mans land for the rest of the race. 4th across the line.

I am enjoying this difficulty level more and fighting around the tracks in close formation is awesome!

[Solitude]

I did it! I raced in my first multiplayer race as part of the Grand Prix event. I started in the middle of the grid. As the race started everyone flew off and I just sat there.

Oh noes! There was no start assist and I had no idea how to start the car. So had a tremendously hilarious bad start. Plus ERS was on manual and the pits were on manual. I always have these things on automatic.

But once I got the car going I didn’t do too badly. Made up some places and then I managed to break the front wing a bit when I tried to take a corner too quickly. Luckily it was on the same lap as when I had to go for my tyre change.

After that pit things went really well. Some people disconnected and I overtook some people and ended up in the points! 10th place.

I’m very happy. It was a fun experience and next time I’ll make sure to know how to do all these manual things.

[oltman]

I just did my weekly challenge Austria Grand Prix Event. My qualifying time saw me 4th on the grid. I had a solid start and barely escaped the first corner unscathed. I was in 2nd position when the Safety Car came out in the first lap. When the front guy caught up to the SC he hit the brakes so hard I drove into the back of him and got a 5 sec penalty!

3 laps of SC was really testing my patience! I stayed behind number 1 for the first lap of real racing to see how agressive he might be and he seemed like a legit racer, So on lap 5 I came out of corner 1 with enough momentum to overtake him… and he tries to drive me off the road! With both of us on the grass just past the pit exit, he loses a bit more time than me, and I take him into corner 3.

The rest of the race I just tried to build up a 5 second lead to make sure the penalty does not cause a Vettel incident The same guy later disconnected as he must have spun as his name dropped from the list. I ended up winning by 21 seconds! That a feeling!

I recorded the whole thing but there is no sound, DOH!

[Solitude]

Wow very nicely done @oltman! That’s very impressive.

[GregRedd]

Did the Weekly Event GP thing too last night. Not nearly as enjoyable as the others though.

Qualified 7th, so right in the middle of all the T1 kak. Got a great start (for a change!) moving up to P5 and, expecting first turn chaos, went very wide on the outside of T1. Didn’t help. Got rammed by not just one, but two over eager drivers from behind and side on, spun around back onto the track and had a third clip my front wing. (Not his fault really, he had nowhere else to go.)

Managed to get pointed in the right direction, limped round to the pits. Got there just as the leader lapped me. Slow stop to change tyres and the front wing, back on track in P18 and lapped by the P7 car.

Did the rest of the race on that set of Mediums. Managed to catch and pass one on the track and one more while they were in the pits. Was keeping pace with and then unlapped myself when P6 and P7 both ran wide in T5/T6. Pretty lonely mid-race with 30s to the car behind me, 10s to the one ahead for most of it.

Tyres were shot for my last 3 laps and was very slow and gentle. Played nice with the blue flags (assume you get warnings and eventually penalties if you ignore them?) even though I was gaining 2 seconds per lap on the car ahead of me - his tyres must have been in worse shape than mine, or he had a different problem.

Didn’t notice it but I guess a car somewhere ahead of me retired as I eventually finished the race in P15. 153K points, rank #3040, top 29% at the time.

Was going to try it again, (the event thing said there was still 7 hours remaining) so went to spend 20 mins doing TT laps to practice. But when I went back to the event the Race button was disabled and said “no more races”.

So either I miss timed it, or once you leave the event screen it locks in your result, which was a bit of a downer. I’m fairly sure I could have done a little better given another shot at it,) and with a fair bit more luck through T1!) but a good bit of fun nonetheless.

Didn’t make me anymore eager to try public multiplayer though. Why are online racing games always such a cluster fuck in public lobbies?

[DieGrootHammer]

Well done @oltman and @Solitude with the event. Unfortunately I did not have the same luck with the multiplayer.

I ended up both my tries on the front row. The first time I as in pole position, and got yeeted into another dimension on turn one, broke a wing, and in the spin got black flagged for causing a colision. But I was a passenger and couldn’t do anything.

The second time I was in second place on the grid. Got a good turn one, only to be hit from the back at T3, ending the race again before it properly started. It sucks that I got such a shitty lobby with a bunch of asshats that don’t know what breaking lines are.

I’ll try the next event, hopefully it will be better.

[GregRedd]

On the subject of shitty braking…

After the let down of the weekly event last night, I went to retry Baku in my career game again and realized that part of the reason I’m losing a lot of time is because I’m finding I have to brake very early into a lot of the tighter corners just to make the corner. Way earlier than the AI even in most corners.

My braking action is pretty smooth, no lockups generally, and I checked the brake pedal response does register to 100% when fully pressed.

So I went looking for brake settings to adjust and got hella confused. Should I be changing things in the car set up - brake bias or brake pressure? Or should I be making changes to my FFB settings - brake saturation or dead zone or the other one I can’t remember?

Any suggestions anyone?

[DieGrootHammer]

@GregRedd, on the topic of breaking.

Baku is a track where you need to have much higher break pressure than normal. On normal tracks you can easy onto the breaks and let the car roll through the corner, hoping to scrub off more speed during the turn and managing understeer.

At Baku, most of the breaking zones are for 90 degree turns, so you need strong break pressure. I changed my setup to have 90% break pressure which helped me dive-bomb a lot of cars.

Also check break bias. Lockups happen if you are not finesse enough on the break pedal on initial breaking. Shifting the break bias towards the back will help with this, but will lower the initial breaking energy. I had my breaking bias on 56% for Baku, and it felt fine.

Finally, when changing these elements of breaking, think about body roll as well. Higher breaking pressure will cause the car to dip on the front suspension more than normal. Either stiffen the front suspension to counteract this, or embrace the body roll. It depends on your driving style and how you feel most comfortable with.

[GregRedd]

Motorsport.com, under their “eSports” category have been playing F1 2019. Their reporter simulated an 8-year career run to see what impact the newly added Driver Transfer feature would have. It’s a pretty long and detailed read, but concludes:

It’s clear that chronicling the driver transfers over an eight-season span in career mode betrays a feature in its infancy. Real F1 is no stranger to shocks but a lot of these moves give off the impression of a random number generator throwing a series of tantrums, rather than an eco-system of numerous computer-controlled organisation that you’d find in something like Football Manager.

This is not helped by the fact the grid remains largely static throughout. None of the F2 drivers that are already in the game make an appearance, and the possibility of drivers retiring - touted by the player character’s agent when she introduces the concept of drivers moving teams - isn’t exactly realised.

Stroll is alone in dropping out, while veterans like Kubica and Raikkonen keep on trucking, presumably well into their 50s. Meanwhile, it also becomes clear that while the stats determining car performance change from season to season, the same cannot be said for the stats behind driver performance.

And yet, does having driver transfers in this form add anything to the game? Absolutely. Though a healthy suspension of disbelief is required, the addition of driver transfers easily makes this career mode the best the series has had to offer, simply by delivering the sensations of change and surprise that are such an essential part of the F1 fan experience - and were so sorely missing from the previous versions of the game. There’s a certain strange delight in seeing a familiar driver in unfamiliar colours, even if it’s just a video game version.

Read the full story here:

https://www.motorsport.com/esports/news/f1-2019-driver-transfers-realistic/4490601/

[GregRedd]

So those who did the Weekly Event - you need to check your in-game messages and Claim your rewards. You get 6 days to do so, so it shouldn’t be a problem, but you must select the mail and individually claim the Coins and the Trophy.

I’m very surprised at my result - presumably a lot of people did not complete the race or weren’t able to try again like me.

My first trophy - pragtig ne?! And “Elite” nogal too.

The new Weekly is live already for Practice and Qualifying - it’s at Silverstone obviously.

[Solitude]

Unfortunately I get an error when I try to access the mail. This one: https://steamcommunity.com/app/928600/discussions/0/1639790664936898262/

But some really good news! I did my event race yesterday and came second! Woohoo! I was so happy. It feels a bit like cheating though because there were only 4 humans in the race. The rest were all AI. Plus I was in third for most of the race and then the guy in first made a mistake and a couple of us passed him.

I just tried to drive a clean race. Had a good start from fourth in the grid and stayed on the road during the whole race. Looked after my tyres and kept my concentration up throughout so that I didn’t spin out again. It helped a lot that it wasn’t raining.

[GregRedd]

Not sure if that error is a temporary glitch or something more serious. Just checked my in game mail and was able to open my rewards message and claim without issues. Hopefully it works for you soon too.

My Weekly GP was similar to yours - with only 4 human drivers. Even so, started second, got a great start, was ahead of P1 and on the inside of T1 well before we got to the corner, but he still felt the need to drive into me Another long, slow limp all the way around the circuit to get back to the pits for new front wing. Made it my required pitstop as well and managed to get out just ahead of the pack coming round to start the next lap. Solid drive from there, easy passes on the AI once I’d caught back up, Safety Car and the other drivers pitting helped me get back up to P3. Was doing 1 second faster laps than P2, caught him on the second last lap at the start of the Hangar Straight, got DRS and was alongside him on the inside going into the braking zone. And of course, he decides he doesn’t want to be passed there and knocks me into a spin off the circuit. Why do these chops have to be such chops? Anyway, badly damaged front wing for the rest of the race, struggled to keep any speed in the fast corners, but did hold onto to P3 at the end.

Scored very badly compared to you, which I’m not sure why as it looks like we had similar Quali times and similar races. But despite that, like last week, my reward was granted as “Elite” and I got the max Competition Coins of 1500? So I really don’t understand it all.

As a heads up - the new Weekly Challenge is Monaco. In Classic F1 cars. How fun is that going to be in Multiplayer? Don’t know if I’m even going to bother…