Thursday, November 8, 2012

Donington Park 1937 - Released

Donington Park was once a premier venue for Grand Prix racing during the 1930s. Over that period, the circuit underwent various changes to the layout. By 1937 the circuit was up to a 5.029km length which is what I have tried to recreate for Rfactor.

I have tried my best to bring the era of the 1930s Grand Prix racing to life for Rfactor with what I had available to me. However I have had to make a few compromises during the design process so that cars would actually be able to drive on the track. The real Donington of 1937 had some seriously rough bumps. In fact the approach to the hairpin was so steep that the cars took off and landed quite abrasively just before the braking zone. This was also the case on the run to the start / finish line. For Rfactor, I had to reduce the angle of these bumps as the AI would hit the bumps at almost full speed and the crash practically every time, thus I was one of very few cars to actually complete a lap during testing.

I then modified the bumps ever so slightly to reduce this change of annihilation of the AI cars, though now they brought their speeds right down to a crawl just before the bumps and thus, the following cars would crash into these near static objects in the middle of the road.
Ultimately, what I have done is modify the historical circuit just to a point that the AI can negotiate the circuit without a 100% chance of incident and be competitive. No doubt the purists out there will say this is no good as a result, but I believe it is a worthy compromise.

This is the first track in over two years that I have made multiple layouts for. The GP Course is that of 1937 as it was. While the Special Reverse is one that I found to be just as functional and fun during testing, so I decided to include it. I don't however believe that it was ever used in a reverse configuration during that period.







As per usual, you can download the track from Nogripracing HERE.

What do we have here?!

Can anyone guess what I am about to release from this screenshot?