One of the things i like best in playing with F1GP is trying to get the CC
performance as realistic as possible. This can of course be done by varying
the BHP settings, the driver skills for qualification and race and the amount
of grip. I remember that some time ago people were complaining about the fact
that it was almost impossible to create a performance difference in the
game, like there was in reality in the 1994 season, between Michael Schumacher
and J.J Lehto/Jos Verstappen. I think I know what caused this problem. The
troublemaker is the amount of AI-grip if it is set higher than 1. I let
my computer drive two different championships: one with AI-grip set at 1 and
one with grip set at 11 (my usual setting). In the first case it was very easy
to create a big performance difference. It seemed that the driver with better
skills could take corners faster than those who were less skilled, and so
driving faster laps. In the second case there was no telling which one of the
drivers, with equal BHP, was faster. I even got the impression that higher
skills were a disadvantage. In some races Verstappen finished ahead of
Schumacher and at the some time Coulthard outperformed Hill, Alesi did the
some with Berger and for instance DeCesaris finished ahead of Frentzen. In all
of these cases the first driver was higher skilled (in my gp.exe) than the
second. When I looked at the diffence in car performance of Schumacher and
Verstappen I noticed that Verstappen had a higher topspeed and had better
best laps than Schumacher. By the way this pattern was visible throughout many
races of the season.
My conclusion can only be that the AI-grip editor messes up the driver skills
in qualification and race. I didn't check this for every AI-grip setting but I
did check it with grip set at 2 and I noticed the same as with grip set at
11: drivers with lower skills very often outperforming drivers with higher
skills. Maybe the only remedy is to reverse these skills, for instance
Schumacher: 40,40
Verstappen: 1,1
Of course I would like to know if somebody noticed the same and managed to
get realistically performing CC, while using AI-grip.
BTW i'm using the PC version of Formula One Grand Prix with adjusted gp.exe
created by Tom Kellaway's GpEditor 2.0 (I think this man should get an award,
I'm not worthy!!))
Wibi Larinipaldi
