Sim Racing Design

What to the driver ratings actually mean? I know they dictate how the driver performs, but how does the rating effect how they perform, mainly how the car performs? If I set the engine rating to 90-95 for say Joe Gibbs cars, and I use that as the measuring stick to what I use for other teams, would it be the same if I did 80-85 and then changed every other car to be accurate by using JGR as the measuring stick? Also, I set every car aerowise 84-86...should I maybe lower that? And reliability (this is the big one)...I had reliability ratings pretty high, but then I lowered every teams minimum to somewhere between 60-70. How does reliability ratings work?

Also, how come my pit crew is always slow no matter how fast I make them on my ratings? I've got a 90 min speed and a 96 max speed for my pit crew, and i'm still getting 15-16 second pit stops.

Sorry if my post is confusing.

Not confusion at all. After reading your post, i do think you have already figured it out. The different ratings work for offline cars,In our NR2003 Offline car set at SOAR I have adjusted all the cars with similar but not the saem settings and the Offline drivers think it is great,you ahve to work to run with them not just pass lap after lap.
As far as what you set the settings at is what you want to run with.Trial and error sems to be working for you.
The pit stops not sure there.

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Bergie
Soar-Racing
BMsports

I also would like to see what other people have their drivers ratings set at, could you please post perhaps your best and worse drivers ratings so we could have a rough guideline as what to set ours at in the game. Im fed up with the good drivers finishing in the bottom half and vise a versa . I have tried myself but dont seem to be havin too much luck .

Thanks Andy

Um...I set the top drivers (the Jimmie Johnsons, Tony Stewarts, Carl Edwards, etc etc) minimum ratings really high. For example, for intermediate tracks (speedway), I set JJ's rating at 90-98. For a guy like Stewart, I've got it 89-97. A guy like Kevin Harvick would be 86-94. You just have to set the top runners minimum rating high. Then set the lower drivers lower. For me, I have Dale Jarrett set at 70-85...so just try to make the top drivers at the top all the time, by setting their minimum ratings high. It works really great for me. I ran 4 races, 3 intermediate tracks, and Johnson and Edwards were both the big frontrunners.

Hey all. I've messed around with this stuff too. My thought is to "overlap" the ratings somewhat to allow for good drivers to have an "off" day and so-so drivers to have a good day.
Example: if good (A) driver like the 20,18,48 etc are set say 90-100 then I might set an intermediate driver (B) to say 80-100 etc.
(2,12,29 etc)
I tend to group them into 4 groups A,B,C, and D are the occassional runs. I always overlap though, so once in a while I get a driver who may perform well who otherwise might not. It really is personal preference and trial and error.

Anybody figured out a good way to set qual. rating to reflect top 35? Easy to get the top 35 in, but how can I get the qual-on-time drivers spread out instead of always in the back?

Ratings are a really fickle thing to deal with. They exist in order to ensure a realistic race, meaning ensure the guys who theoretically should run up front run up front.

Problem with that is, those guys are ensured to run up front! It'll happen every race to the point where it's totally predictable. They become a victim of themselves in a way.

So a while back, I found a solution. I basically said "Screw this...in reality these teams are on their own...why should this game be any different?" So I changed EVERY driver's rating to minimum 40 maximum 60. It made for a really fun race! There were some surprises, some guys ran up front that ordinarily wouldn't, but it was a really fun, unpredictable race. I run every offline race like that now. Love never knowing who's going to run strong when!

-- DF28

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"I think Davey had a way about him that made people feel special when he spoke with them. When he was around them he had just a rare quality that was truly a star quality. I think people were drawn to him because of that. It has really lasted all of these years. He was a great guy." -- Liz Allison

"What kind of man would live in a world where there is no daring? I don't believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all." -- Charles Lindberg

Your solution gives pretty much the same results as what I described. And I agree it makes for an unpredicatable but fun racing experience.

Here's what I do.

I have two roster lists, 1) 2008 Sprint Cup Series [which right now is just the top 35] and 2) Go or Go Home cars. What I do is i'll start a race weekend with the go or go home roster, and i'll just run qualifying. I then take the top 8 qualifiers (granted I have no past champions who would use the champions provisional) and add those 8 cars to the 2008 roster file. Then I just run a regular race with the 2008 roster and that's how I get my top 35 deal...but I do top 30 locked in. But I also do my own points on paper and with a calculator.