Category: Gran Turismo

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Triumphant

I suspect there are going to be quite a few of these communications as we go through time. I have found the photograph mode in Gran Turismo and it is gorgeous. I need more time to get used to the settings and options. Of, course I’ve downloaded the extra Scenes pack from the PlayStation Store.

Triumphant
Triumphant

I need to re-take the above photograph so the cars are the same size. Also, to get all three rear lights on the RHS I had to angle the car a little unnaturally.

Touring
Touring

St Pancras station is where my usual train to London terminates so I like this view.

Cromwell Place
Cromwell Place

I lived for two years, and worked for four, around the corner from here.

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Sport Edition

IT arrived on Thursday. The day I had to spend 13 hours in work making the place look lovely and welcoming. The packaging was lovely, even though it was a day late. I had spent some money on the collectors edition, mostly for a pretty box, a book and a toy car.

GT Sport Edition
GT Sport Edition

Once I got home after circling the village a few times to find somewhere to park I turned on the entertainment centre and popped the disk in. Instantly there was a 13GB update file to download. This was slightly annoying. It would take me 25 minutes or so for it to complete and so I watched some TV, all the while becoming more and more tired. This was at the end of a very long day!

I did enter some bonus content codes in the Playstation Store and got my extra goodies delivered when the game did eventually start.

I can confirm that this game looks absolutely lovely. I know there will be critics out there, but I’m not fussed. People take what they want from a game. I’ve been playing GT since 1997 [yep, I’m old] and still enjoy it. The aim of getting faster lap times or winning a hard race, thinking about pit stop strategy and over-taking tactics pleases me. I just like it. It’s also a game you can spend ten minutes on or a few hours, when you start it up you aren’t locked in to playing for a certain length of time.

Nice Car
Nice Car

I’m not convinced about the photo mode within the game. I’d rather spend my time racing but I probably will end up spending some time within it as there are bonus points to be got!

Did I say it looks lovely?

Screenshot
Screenshot

I’ll keep posting communications on this topic, as it’s a handy conversation for me. I can also track my progress.

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Sport Demo

I’m not sure how I found out about the Demo Version of Gran Turismo Sport but I did. The full version is due out on what I call Gran Turismo Day.

My Calendar
My Calendar

In the mean time Polyphony have released a demo version available for about four days. I suspect this is to test the network architecture they have in place and to spot bugs. I’m not sure how quickly they can change and fix code for the Blu-Ray disk run but my guess is they will release a fix patch at the release date to fix known issues.

I have to say this game looks incredibly gorgeous as they always have. There are new tracks and I can’t wait to get driving around some of the tracks I have already learnt. I’ve taken part in a few races online and enjoyed it. I notice that the clutch doesn’t work in this version on the Logitech steering wheel but that isn’t a problem. I try to drive with flappy paddles when the car is designed that way and use the gear stick when the car has one.

My second online race meant I had more time to qualify and I managed pole position. The race was the Suzuka East circuit which I did go on to win. My first race I qualified in tenth although I do not know what that time was based on. It would appear that GT is going to have races that start at a fixed time and then however long before that you join in you get practice and qualifying time.

I think it is worth pointing out that the quality of the resolution and video doesn’t really matter that much. I concentrate on the road, corners and braking points so much that the background is incidental. I know they put a lot of effort into it but I suspect it is mostly for people watching alongside or for overall sales, people probably buy these games based on overall graphics whereas the eye and brain doesn’t see things that way!

I’ve been messing around with the share function on the PS4 and even uploaded a video to YouTube. I couldn’t use the native app to do this, I had to copy the file to a memory stick and then upload from my PC. The quality of the shared video isn’t at full resolution so don’t be put off by the video:

I am looking forward to spending time playing the actual game soon.

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Not Dancing

In trying to keep my reputation as a very boring person I have here what is most likely the dullest video on YouTube. While I wait for Gran Turismo Sport edition to be released on the PS4 I have been driving Drive. In terms of games and realism it’s not brilliant but it has enough play and racing within it to be fun.

This is what my feet do while I’m playing the game. It’s not strictly necessary to use the clutch pedal but it adds to the fun of playing. In this video I am left-foot-braking to settle the car in the corner and also heel-and-toeing while changing down through the gears.

I had gotten to the point that while driving the beast that I would heel-and-toe when slowing down. There’s absolutely no chance of doing that in Bora Horza Gobuchul as it’s automatic and also CVT which gives a lovely drive but is pretty boring.

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Compensation

Since getting rid of the Beast and buying a new car I have missed using a gear stick and doing things with my feet and left hand. I now have a hybrid car which has a stick I move into Drive position and then into Park position. That’s it. My left foot operates the manual parking brake. I really like the car. It’s comfy and drives really smooth. But I need my fix of gear stick work.

Fortunately I have a decent steering wheel for the PlayStation and I can use the gears on that. It’s not the same but it keeps the coordination going a little bit I guess.

There are a few things to note. I have the gear stick set up on the right of the steering wheel to mimic racing cars.

G29 Driving Force Wheel
G29 Driving Force Wheel

I will say that without really thinking about it I was heel-and-toeing the game and doing it quite well while using the clutch and steering. I’ve been playing Drive Club and while the game play and feedback about handling isn’t as good as Gran Turismo it will have to do until the PS4 version of GT comes out, which given that they said 2016 is quite likely to be 2025 knowing Polyphony.

It’s possible that not coordinating feet and hands in a real car anymore means I am going to get better at it on this gaming device. I will still get to drive manual vehicles, most likely minibuses at work for taking people places. I feel slightly sorry for them as I remember how to use a clutch!

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Broadband Move

At some point this year I decided to change my broadband supplier. The main reason was to get a higher bandwidth and then, with this bandwidth for viewing moving picture content I could get rid of the dirty money I pay to Murdoch’s media empire.

Over the years I have watched less sport on TV and much less “normal” TV. I am pretty sure I can live without those things. I do still watch Formula 1 races but I either watch them live on C4 or there are always sites that aggregate the streaming content. So I took the step to get rid of Sky TV and broadband and move over to BT Broadband and Netflix along with the NFL GamePass.

The audio-visual entertainment is now mostly Freesat which I don’t really watch, Netflix, Amazon Prime or catch up TV services. There’s enough content on all of these that I don’t have to record anything on a HDD or similar. I don’t miss live TV and although people at work seem to like talking about it I am happy not knowing who managed to operate an oven correctly.

My broadband service has moved over to BT and my village has FTC (fibre to cabinet) which means I get much improved bandwidth but without the need for cables into my house. As I live in a small village it would never really be economical for a cable company to connect the place up. So my internet traffic travels down copper from the cabinet in the village. I am getting a pretty decent 50Mbs which is far better than the 5Mbs I was getting before.

It is now possible to stream music services to all the rooms in my house and also video to the PC and TV while at the same time play games on one of the consoles. This is great news. I no longer have devices buffer or cut out while I am doing stuff elsewhere. The PC used to max out the bandwidth when uploading files to OneDrive and I never quite figured out how to limit that. Films I download take 5 minutes instead of over an hour. It’s a rather grand new world I inhabit.

I also have no money directly leaving me and heading to the evil media corporations. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Dirty Digger has shares in many companies and I still use them, but for direct contributions he gets none. I don’t pay anything to Sky and I most definitely do not pay any money to his newspapers (scum of the Earth).

I am currently watching a few series on Netflix:

  • Scorpion [terrible “spy” / “homeland” series]
  • Archer [brilliant spy series]
  • Black Mirror [brilliantly odd series]

I watch plenty of NFL and have seen all the Saints games so far. I do have to cope with american adverts but these are quite amusing and I can see how the ex-colony has dumbed down, although I see us heading that way very quickly at the moment.

I still have to finish Babylon 5.

I play the Playstation and I am so looking forward to the latest Gran Turismo version. I am quite disappointed that GT6 never really included all the features they said it would. I was hoping to record my own race tracks using an app on my phone, I guess I’ll just have to wait for that in a later full version of GT.

I am watching Haven on Amazon TV when I exercise on the erg.

I will NOT be watching the Grand Tour. Mostly because I don’t care for low key “acceptable” racism. I reached a point early on with Top Gear when I realised it was childish and silly. It coincided with a set piece on the “boys” camping in a caravan and setting it alight. So scripted, annoying and purile. I’ll give it a pass.

So, overall the broadband move went well. The new equipment / router is OK although I had to re-route the power cable for it. All the wired and wired connections seem to be generally OK. The router doesn’t seem to like me trying to set Static IPs for my devices so unless the device can request it, I let the DHCP do its job. I turned off the 5G channel as its range was quite restricted and a normal channel has enough bandwidth for the mobile devices in the house.

There are a few features of the router that are silly. Why do I want to control the lights on the front? What purpose does that serve? It’s just an extra layer of firmware that can go wrong. Every now and then the router blocks out the wireless devices for connecting. I first noticed this when my iPhone couldn’t join the network. This seemed strange and because the router claimed it was working fine I ended up resetting my iPhone wireless settings. This was not necessary as in the end I figured out it was something to do with the router. I don’t know what but turning off the wireless, rebooting the router and then turning the wireless back on seems to work.

I have a Raspberry Pi working away in the loft sending data to a Multilateration Client for aircraft ADSB signals. This is connected wirelessly and I also have a Dynamic DNS pointing to it. This way I can see what the Pi is recording and check the aircraft flying overhead. When the router needs to be reset the external IP is changed and the router automatically updates my DDNS, which is nice.

Overall, I am happy with the change. No Sky makes me feel superior. The series on Netflix aren’t really watched by others so that makes me feel more exclusive and the NFL is great in HD, streamed, on a big TV.

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PSVR

On October the 13th the Playstation Virtual Reality headset was released and I had ordered a set. I wanted to experience an immersive game and be able to look around the world properly.

I was very excited although it took a little while to set this up as there was a new unit to be powered and cables. None of the cable work was onerous which was what a BBC report had suggested, in fact the BBC report was bollocks, very annoying. The reporter ended with the statement “I just wish it was wireless”. This in a device that needs power and two sets of HDMI cables for the screens. Anyway the experience was pretty good, the headset was comfortable and the headphones worked fine.

PSVR Headset in action
PSVR Headset in action

There was a mild sense of unease and sickness but I thought that would pass so I bought the game Drive Club VR. This downloaded and I was looking forward to driving around in the headset. I managed about 2 laps of a 3 lap race and the sickness hit me. Badly. I felt rough. Now this coincided with a bout of quite harsh cold so I decided to wait a couple of weeks and see how it affected me once I was better.

It was the same. I felt ill after about two laps. Now, I am quite susceptible to motion sickness; I don’t like ferries and aerobatics can make me incredibly ill but is always worth it. However, this time I knew I wouldn’t get any better at the PSVR and so I decided to get rid of it. There is no point me having this reasonably expensive piece of kit when I can use it minimally.

However, GT Sport will be released soon and my steering wheel set up isn’t PS4 compatible and so now I had some cash to buy a new wheel. There was only one to go for and that is the Logitech G29 with gear shift stick. It arrived today.

G29 and Stick Shift
G29 and Stick Shift

This took a short while to set up on the steering wheel system but was completed and then some GT6 played. The stick shift doesn’t work with GT6 but the flappy paddles were fine. There is quite a refined feel with this wheel.

I then connected it to the PS4 and played Drive Club and used the stick shift and clutch. That was good fun and I am looking forward to playing some more when my USB extension cable comes. The one connecting the wheel to the PS4 is a little short.

G29 Driving Force Wheel
G29 Driving Force Wheel
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My Favourite Brands

This afternoon I went to Brands Hatch to see some Club Car Championship races. It was very agreeable and a good way to spend the afternoon. I had forgotten the smell and sounds of the place!

As usual I took the camera to this place and got a few shots. There are a number of communications within this site with pictures of cars, but if that’s what you like then so what!

A Supermarine Spitfire flew over twice, once on the way to a show and once on the way back. It was lovely to see even though I couldn’t hear it!

This is the sound of Lotus cars, mostly Exige, racing down the Brabham Straight.

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GT BD

Gran Turismo is a wonderful game. If you log in on your birthday you get a car from the year of your birth. Me? I was born in 1972. This is the car I got. Sheer beauty.

GT Birthday
GT Birthday
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Simulation

If you are a regular reader of these pages you will know that I love playing Gran Turismo on the PlayStation. I always have. My relationship with GT goes back to when it was first released and playing it with my landlord when I lived in Gillingham. GT and Crash Bandicoot are two reasons I bought a PlayStation, or PSOne as it is now known! You can see other communications about GT here and my gallery here it’s been a while since I added new photos to the GT gallery and I should try and do that soon (it’s a quite lengthy process).

Gran Turismo defines itself as The Driving Simulator. Which is probably about right. It’s quite likely to be the most realistic driving game on the market, especially in terms of the physics model it uses. I haven’t played any other driving games really and so I can’t comment. I am also not a racing driver so it would be hard to me to comment on the realism. It amuses me when people describe certain computer games as unrealistic. How would you know? If I was a real racing driver I probably wouldn’t be playing GT.

I recently bought a new home PC. See this communication and the follow up to that. this made me think I could have a flight simulator and I tried installing FSX – The Microsoft Flight Simulator, last version. It turns out that FSX hates Windows 8.1. Some people got it to work and some didn’t. I didn’t want to spend ages digging into why it wasn’t working and the only way I got it to work was to turnoff some graphics function which made it look pretty rubbish on the big screen that I have. So, I had to turn to the only other alternative AFAIK.

X-Plane [I could link to the official site but then you could JFGI]

If you want to see why this is a good program then go no further than Randall Monroe’s What If? blog and see how he used it. I downloaded the demo version and played with it a bit. It is pretty good. You are stuck to the Seattle area in the demo but most of the rest of the game functions well. If you want you can use this program properly and use it professionally. Also around the time of doing this I ordered the X-Plane 10 Global edition. It contains the scenery of the world in it. All of it. I ordered this from the USA website as I didn’t want part of the profits going to a third party seller. It seemed the fairest way to buy it. I didn’t read the small print as I ordered it though. It could take six weeks to arrive. Customs issues apparently.

Here are my tweets.

It looks like I ordered it 8th December and it was waiting for me after I got home on the 28th December. I guess that’s not bad. I’ve also installed a Saitek joystick and throttle (HOTAS) comnbination. I’m currently getting to grips with all the buttons and programming some functions into the joystick.

Here’s a gallery of some of my screen shots so far. I have been tweeting them so you might have seen them before. I’m trying to work with real time and weather in the program so far hence my flights are taking place around the world. I also need to work on my landings. Currently the Sabre is my favourite plane. It’s fast enough to be fun but easy to handle.

I spelt “Harbor” the American way, for accuracy.

I’m quite curious as to whether there is another type of simulation game I would like. On the Megadrive I played a submarine simulation but I would get bored quite quickly and send out a “ping” just to liven things up. I think a nuclear power station simulation would be a bit of a laugh, but then you’d try to recreate the “big ones”, Three Mile Island, Windscale, Chernobyl and see if you could have stopped the outcome. It’d probably take up a bit more technical knowledge than I have and then I’d get kidnapped by some dodgy regime to set up their nuclear program [Oh, no, that’s what Imperial did in the 80s, teach various countries their nuclear knowledge].

I don’t think I would find playing the Sims that exciting. Much like PlayStation Home doesn’t really bother me. I’m not that sociable in real life I don’t what to spend “virtual” time being sociable. I like games that challenge just me. I’ve played SimCity, but I played it once, for about 12 hours, non stop. And then I stopped.

With racing cars and aircraft you can make things happen fast. It’s about getting the timing correct. I’m not that sure that any of the following would bother me much:

  • Train Simulator
  • Fairground Simulator
  • Farm Simulator
  • Goat Simulator [it exists]
  • Car mechanic Simulator

Also, I don’t have the time.

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Time

I’ve been feeling that I don’t have time to do all the things I want to. I’ve been adding to the “things what I do” list and unfortunately I don’t see a lengthening of the day to allow me to do these things. I think this means that I have to give up or lower my priorities of “things to do”.

Things what I have done regularly:

  • Running
  • Rowing [erg]
  • Listening to podcasts
  • Listening to music
  • Playing Gran Tursimo
  • Watching American Football
  • Watching Babylon 5
  • Write stuff on this website
  • Go to the cinema regularly

New things what I do:

  • Write music
  • Play on the PC
  • Play on the PS4 more
  • Watch Hawaii Five-O
  • Listen to more podcasts
  • Learn new music
  • CCF

I’m not too happy. All of these new things have to be prioritised. I could do with about an extra 4 hours a day to myself. I have to work and look after my family so once that’s all done I get little time to do all the things I want to. I don’t even consider myself to be a busy person. How do you get to do things if you are VERY busy? I don’t get it.

Now, I guess I am lucky that I do get time to do these things and I should be grateful and I think I am. I get to do things that I like doing, I just have to ensure that I balance my time successfully.

I have also come to the conclusion that I need at least an hour of “brain dead time” each day, preferably once the house is nice and quiet. I can cope with less than an hour if planned and I extend the time another evening. Oddly enough some things which I really enjoy don’t count as part of that hour. Gran Turismo is great and I play it a lot [not so much recently]  but it doesn’t count as part of the hour, it’s something I have to concentrate on and work at, the rewards are good. Cinema doesn’t count towards the hour but most TV shows do. I guess that means I need an hour of stuff to watch each day, to keep the brain fresh!

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Progress

This is how I am doing in GT6. It’s been a while since I wrote about it so here it is.

GT6 Progress 1GT6 Progress 2
 

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Whoops!

I hit some cones after cutting a blind corner too much. This was then end result!

Kart shifter at Willow Springs
Kart shifter at Willow Springs
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Racing Approach

I probably do it all wrong. I’ve no idea what other people do. It’s not what should be done in real life.

I recently started a line of communications looking at my progress through GT6. There’s a definite pattern to my play. I have made the following conclusions:

  • Try to get a steady lap time recorded to ensure I have an idea of:
    • Control under braking
    • Control under power
    • How much under/oversteer
    • Corner speed
    • Gearing
  • Try to increase speed at the first few corners, normally coming off a lot.
  • Try to increase start speed.
  • Try to maximise corner speed on all corners, normally with one or two bogie corners.
  • Crash a lot.

This approach isn’t what should happen in the real world. No-one could afford to pay me to drive and crash as much as I do. If I was driving in real life I would need to have an innate understanding of where the limit of traction and how to improve speed around a track. I would also, I hope, have better reactions to control the car. To get such a deep understanding I would need to have been driving and undertaking purposeful practice for a long time. It’s no surprise that the world’s best racers in any of the top formats started racing and driving when they were young and so effectively know no different.

To learn to race a car as fast as possible would require a certain number of crashes and offs, but not as many as afforded me in the console game. There’s no danger to life in the game, I just press restart.

There are some of you who might be thinking that I need to change my approach and that you want to tell me I don’t do it the right way. To you I say, “maybe” and “I know”. It’s something to work on in the future.

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GT6 Birthday Present

If you sign into GT6 on or after your birthday you get a present. The car you receive is from the year you were born. I will remain grateful for the present but surely there were other cars released in 1972!

GT6 Birthday Present 2014
GT6 Birthday Present 2014
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Super Licence S-5

The last of the Super Licence tests and it’s to Ronda in Spain and the Ascari race circuit in a Bugatti Veyron. A big heavy car with loads of power.

Times required:

  • Gold 2:14
  • Silver 2:16
  • Bronze 2:20

Here’s the car at the start line [I’ve been playing with the photographic settings within GT6].

Veyron at Ascari
Veyron at Ascari

A map of the track:

Ascari Track Map
Ascari Track Map

The start line is inbetween KZ1 and Rafael.

Progress was as follows:

Lap 1 – 2:30:848
Lap 2 – off 1/4 of the way around (Copse).
Lap 3 – Off at Rafael.
Lap 4 – Off 2/3 way (Sebring).
Lap 5 – Off KZ1, too fast on exit.
Lap 6 – 2:18:833 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 2:16:873.

Corner 1 and 2, Veyron, Ascari
Rafael, Veyron, Ascari

Lap 8 – Off at Copse.
Lap 9 – Off at Senna S.
lap 10 – Off at Copse.
Lap 11 – Off at The Screw.
Lap 12 – Off at Oulton.
Lap 13 – Off at Sebring.
Lap 14 – Off at Brundle.
Lap 15 – Off at Senna S.
Lap 16 – Off at The Screw.

There now followed 6 laps where I didn’t record my progress. I was getting frustrated and just wanted to keep trying rather than write down everything.

Veyron, Ascari, a bit of drift
Veyron, Ascari, a bit of drift, The Kink

Lap 23 – 2:14:526 Silver.

Again, there is a recording intermission of 6 laps of frustration.

Lap 30 – 2:13:583 GOLD.

I have all GOLD for all my Super Licence tests. Good job.

Veyron, Ascari, just because
Veyron, Ascari, just because, Sebring

I did get some reward cars, but didn’t note them down. The next time I turn the PS3 on I’ll have a look and try to remember to write them down here, because you care about that sort of thing.

All the pictures on this page came from my fastest lap. I do like how I got airborne at Rafael (the first corner). After watching the replay I can see plenty of apexes I missed and areas to improve my time if I so wished, but I probably don’t.

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Super Licence S-4

Part of the continuing series in trying to develop a parameter as an example to use in teaching a topic I might not teach for a while. It’s an extremely feeble excuse, I know. This is a record of my attempts to pass the S-4 Super Licence in Gran Turismo 6.

This test is a timed lap of the Brands Hatch GP circuit in Kent, UK. The car to be used is the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4. The only car adjustments that can be made are to the TCS and ABS systems.

GT6 needed to perform an update before I could play. It was a “light” one coming in at 100MB. I had to wait a short while before I could start the game.

The required times were:

  • 1:34:5 Gold
  • 1:36 Silver
  • 1:39 Bronze

Lap 1 – 1:43:258.
Car seems stable in the corners and not too much oversteer on exit when putting the power down. Now time to find where I can increase corner speed, especially exit speed on Surtees and Stirling’s.
Lap 2 – Hit cone on inside of Hawthorn’s trying to cut corner and get power on along the Derek Minter Straight.
Lap 3 – 1:38:825 Bronze.
Lap 4 – Off at Paddock Hill Corner.
Lap 5 – Off at the exit of Druids, too wide.
Lap 6 – 1:37:999
Lap 7 – Off at Hawthorn’s, lost rear of car on inside of corner.
Lap 8 – Off at the exit of Hawthorn’s, too wide, too fast.
Lap 9 – 1:36:428
Lap 10 – Off the exit of Sheene.
Lap 11 – Off at Paddock Hill exit.
Lap 12 – Off the exit of Hawthorn’s, oversteer on the entrance of the corner.
Lap 13 – Off at Hawthorn’s entrance.
Lap 14 – Off at Westfield.
Lap 15 – 1:35:599 Silver.
Lap 16 – Off at Hawthorn’s, oversteer.
Hawthorn’s appears to be my plague corner. It’s a high speed entrance, just after Pilgrim’s Drop and a good exit speed is needed to keep at low time along the Derek Minter Straight. It’s no coincidence that this is the corner I get wrong the most.
Lap 17 – Off at the exit of Graham Hill’s.
Lap 18 – Off on the entrance to Paddock Hill.
Lap 19 – Cut the corner and hit a cone at Hawthorn’s.
Lap 20 – 1:35:241 I was one second ahead until Sheene Curve where it went a little “scrappy”.
Lap 21 – Off along the Cooper Straight [can’t remember what happened there, but it would have been hilarious to watch!].
Lap 22 – Off at Graham Hill exit.
Lap 23 – Hawthorn’s again.
Lap 24 – Sheene Curve caused an exit from the tarmac.
Lap 25 – Hawthorn’s.
Lap 26 – Paddock Hill Corner.
Lap 27 – Sheene Curve exit.
Lap 28 – 1:35:006 a very scrappy lap.
Lap 29 – Druids, the *force* was used to push my car wide.
Lap 30 – 1:33:970 GOLD. Job done.

This was a very satisfying test to complete.

Here’s a shot of the car coming around Graham Hill Corner on my fastest lap.

A Lambo at Brands Hatch, Graham Hill Corner
A Lambo at Brands Hatch, Graham Hill Corner
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Super Licence S-3

I’ve a feeling these communications will not prove interesting to most of my readership, but then again, I’m not sure what would interest my readers and this website isn’t for them anyway.

This is my progress through the Gran Turismo Super Licence S-3. The test is a lap of the Silverstone Stowe circuit in  KTM X-Bow R. This is a picture of the track with the double blue lines showing where the start and finish line is. The chicanes circled in blue aren’t part of the GT6 circuit.

StoweThe challenge times were:

  • 1:04:00  Bronze
  • 58:50 Silver
  • 57:03 Gold

The car is interesting. Here’s a shot as I headed down the long straight.

KTM X-BOW, Silverstone, Stowe Circuit
KTM X-BOW, Silverstone, Stowe Circuit

As this is a licence test adjustments can only be made to the traction control and anti lock brakes settings. My session went as follows:

Lap 1 – Off, first corner, oversteer.
Lap 2 – Collision corner 2, hit cones placed on inside to stop cutting the corners.
Lap 3 – Off last corner. No time set so far.
Lap 4 – Cut corner 1. Restart.
Lap 5 – Cut corner 2.
Lap 6 – 58:913 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 58:072 Silver.
Lap 8 – Off, last but 1 corner.
Lap 9 – Off at the end of the straight, too fast into the corner.
Insert here about 5 offs which I neglected to record.
Lap 15 – 58:137 Silver.
Lap 16 – 57:370. Close to Gold, 0.07 off.
Lap 17 – Off corner 4.
Lap 18 – Off corner 1.
Lap 19 – Off about half way around.
Lap 20 – 57:437.
Lap 21 – 57:121 Gold.

Job done. Here’s an arty shot:

KTM X-BOW, Silverstone, Stowe Circuit
KTM X-BOW, Silverstone, Stowe Circuit

 

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Super Licence S-2

This is a communication about keeping track of my attempts at timed circuits in Gran Turismo 6. This particular test is part of the Super Licence. I had already completed the first part of this before I started this record keeping and so this is licence S-2. Generally the Super Licence requirements in all the GT games is to complete a single lap within a certain time limit and without leaving the track or bumping into a wall or Armco.

This licence test was at night time (hate it) at Willow Springs Race Circuit in California. I have done some other stuff at Willow Springs in the dark and so kinda knew what to look for in terms of braking points. The time requirements were:

  • Gold 1:27:8
  • Silver 1:29:5
  • Bronze 1:33

The car was an Alfa Romeo TZ3 Stradale. The only adjustments to the car that could be made were the traction control and ABS settings. As it was a licence test there were no options to adjust the suspension or gearing ratios.

Using the standard D-Pad controller for the PS3 I recorded a time of 1:33:857.

The next day I used the Logitech GT Driving Force Pro steering wheel system. Progress was as follows:

Lap 1 – 1:31:548 Bronze.
Lap 2 – Off at Castrol Corner. Adjust the TCS to 1.
Lap 3 – Off at Sweeper about 0.5 seconds ahead.
Lap 4 – 1:30:109 even with a near off where I had to slow to correct the car.
Lap 5 – Off Rabbit’s Ear (-0.2 s).
Lap 6 – Off Budweiser Balcony.
Lap 8 – Off turn 3 (-0.2 s)
Lap 9 – Off, cut the corner at Budweiser Balcony.
Lap 10 – 1:28:802 Silver
Lap 11 – 1:27:692 Gold

Now, you only need a bronze to pass the licence but there’s no fun in that. I feel as though I have to get Gold in everything.

Here’s the Willow Springs S-2 Licence Glory Shot (remember it was a night run):

An Alfa at Willow Springs
An Alfa at Willow Springs
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