SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone

Part one of the damage discussion concerns itself with the damage sustained and any mechanical consequences thereof. In other words, if you crash hard, do you bend steering arms, riddle radiators and cripple the handling? Part two of the discussion relates to the graphical aspects of damage you incur, and we will pick up on that subject a little bit later.

This part of the physics engine is somewhat reminiscent of GTL where I find that sometimes your car survives seemingly big crashes with very little mechanical damage. The similarities are not coincidental as GTL and GTR2 share the same ISI-developed engine.

A collision and a few extra seconds of flight time credited to my logbook apparently only cost me a broken headlight in the Maserati MC12; I was able to race on for the ultimate crash test: Going straight on and into the tire barrier at T1 at Barcelona; at the end of the long long straight. That did kill my car and caused the bonnet to detach itself from the chassis. This was at 120% damage.

I did encounter setting my car ablaze from another heavy impact, and due to watching the endless re-runs of the move ”Grand Prix”, I can't help voicing in my mind the immortal words from that movie, ”He's on fire!”

"Chunx" reports, "I also had a shunt in a race that left my car's suspension damaged. To go straight I had to cock the wheel to the left. I could still drive the car, but I was about 2.5 - 3 sec off my pace. The right headlights were smashed in, and there was damage around the right front fender. Seemed pretty right to me."

I'm wondering if full damage, some 200%, will add more resolution to different states of damage, or if it will only result in the damage received being calculated as having consequences earlier. Based on experience from other gMotor powered sims, I doubt the first and suspect the latter.

If you race online with drivers you know well, you could experiment with setting the damage at more than the 100% for added realism. Note that the dedicated server will only let you go as high as 100%. For racing the AI however, I would advise against upping the damage.

In conclusion, we'll have to consider that the damage might vary between cars and therefore is not equally developed in all cars. But from the testing we've been able to do, we've had differing results pointing perhaps in the direction that SimBin have done their best with the basic damage engine. Mind you, would we really enjoy having to make repairs to the under tray each time we'd been hard over the curbs?

Graphical Damage

Part two of the damage discussion relates to the graphical damage, or how realistically can you smash up the car. Not that we deliberately crash violently all the time, but we do need to crash test these things you see.

In my pursuance of beating the Anderstorp instructor to the checkered flag, I did crash the TVR heavily into the Armco once, and it bounced away from the Armco, rolled over several times while traversing the width of the track. The bonnet, bits of bodywork and assorted parts flew off in a rather convincing rendition of a high speed crash. Very nice watching while it happened and quite nice, but why the wings and wheels didn't come off in this crash is a bit of a mystery to me.

Huge accident

Wings, wheels and bonnets do fall off on occasions, I'm just at a loss explaining which kind of fuzzy logic determines when stuff falls off and the logic seems a bit random to my critical eye.

Looking at my AI driver who drove a stint for me in the 24 hour race at Spa, it was apparent that the guy liked to run into other cars when coming up upon them. As a result of that, the bonnet on my expensive MC12 was bent rather inwards.

This is in the nitty-gritty department again, but these cars are equipped with body parts of ultra light carbon fiber and it will not bend, but rather break and shatter. The damage to the nose of a Ferrari 550 however looked very convincing with just about the right sized holes and razor-sharp edges.

Go To Page 4

Click here to go to top of this page.