As this needs to be organised in advance, #15 will be published already today.
I know, it's a long post, but it contains all information directly, so I hope everything is clear after reading it.
Please take some time to read it. Thank you!

F1 PROJECT in the AbuDhabi-Titlepack 2014
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Hello all!
Finally, everything is ready to start the project.
In this post you'll find all information about it.

What is it about?
The idea is to drive a F1-race, which looks as realistic as possible. That means:
- Don't slide in turns.
- Don't touch ghosts of opponents.
- Drive safe. Don't crash too often.

The aim is in the end to have a video of the race with english-speaking commentators.
The advantage to F1 in TV is, that we can save the replay after the race is finished and work with MT on it, so that we won't miss any overtakings or battles in the video. People participating in the race should of course try to get a good placement in the end (by overtaking or good strategy), but the most important thing is always the realism of the race.

I did such a project once already in Coast. You can watch the video here:
http://www.tm-tube.com/video/28134/F1+Spa+Grand+Prix+|+Trackmania+United+Forever

Main information
Date: Monday, 15.December 20:00 CET
Titlepack: F1 AbuDhabi Titlepack
Server: F1 AbuDhabi Project (18Laps)
Track: F1 - Abu Dhabi
Time per lap: ~ 1 minute 20 seconds
Password: f1project (until 15.December no password)
Teamspeak: 178.33.71.193:9987 (Mania-Actu)
Car: Valley-Car

Why Valley-Car?
To make it look realistic this car has 3 big advantages:
- compared to all TMUF-environments your car doesn't slide when you go too fast into a turn
- compared to Canyon and Stadium, intended drifts are not (so much) faster than noslide
- the speed of the car is not too fast

Why Titlepack?
Like I was building the map in Coast myself, it wasn't possible to do the same for Valley, as it didn't look like a real F1-track. No chance to rebuild the exact turns of the circuit with the blocks Valley offers and also not the environment beside the track. But darkpuddle managed to create a very realistic look of the AbuDhabi-circuit by using a large object. Multilaps and Checkpoints are included, but invisible, which makes this wonderfully realistic. So big thx to him, as it wouldn't have been possible without his help! For this realistic-looking track we need to play in the Titlepack.

Why Monday 15.12.
There are no other big competitions in Stadium, Canyon, Valley or TMNF/TMUF. So I hope this day fits many people. 20:00 is also usually the best time to start. People finished dinner and it won't end too late. The more players the better! Please try to come!

Procedure
Before 20:00 Joining
Password is f1project on that day. Try to join as early as possible. This makes it easier to organise. But if you can't come before 20:00, you can also join during the qualification.
Join Teamspeak!

20:00-20:17 Qualification
17 minutes TimeAttack on the server. The best placed drivers will drive the race with the skins of Mercedes, RedBull, Williams, Ferrari:

Place 1&2: Mercedes, Hamilton & Rosberg, colour: $0ff
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1352#top
Place 3&4: RedBull, Vettel & Ricciardo, colour: $a0a
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1396#top
Place 5&6: Williams, Bottas & Massa, colour: $008
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1392#top
Place 7&8: Ferrari, Alonso & Raikkönen, colour: $f00
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1378#top
Place 9&10: McLaren, Button & Magnussen, colour: $aaa
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1384#top
Place 11&12: ForceIndia, Hülkenberg & Perez, colour: $f80
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1343#top
Place 13&14: ToroRosso, Vergne & Kvyat, colour: $404
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1358#top
Place 15&16: Lotus, Grosjean & Maldonado, colour: $ff0
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1360#top
Place 17&18: Sauber, Sutil & Gutierrez, colour: $444
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1382#top
Place 19&20: Marussia, Bianchi & Chilton, colour: $600
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1364#top
Place 21&22: Caterham, Kobayashi & Ericsson, colour: $080
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1368#top

Download the skins and their locators and put everything in the folder
Maniaplanet/Skins/Vehicles/CarCommon

If we have more drivers, what would be really cool, the next drivers can take as well the skin of Caterham, but name themselves "Driver 23", "Driver24" in black (colour: $000). I'm sure I find someone who would make more skins afterwards, so that we have more teams in the video.

20:17-20:30 Skins+Names
When you know your placement, you leave the server and do 2 things:
1) Choosing the skin of your team in your Profil.
2) Change your nickname to the name of the driver that you drive. (only "Alonso", "Button", etc.. and in the colour of the team with the given colour code)
3) Then you can rejoin the server.

The names and colours won't be seen in the video. But they help us in the race to identify our opponents easily. As I will mention later, we should try to be together in Teamspeak and warn each other when we're close and trying to attack. So we can easily say: "Magnussen, I'm right behind you" and so on.

Before we restart, I tell you your starting positions!
When all are present on the server, I change the password for driving.

20:30-21:30 Race
Starting-Grid
Once we restart the map, we have 3 minutes to do following things:
- place ourselves on our starting position as quickly as possible (max. 45 seconds)
(The car stands on position 17 when the map starts, so place 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15 are directly in front and place 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16 are on the left side in front. From place 19 to the last place there are no lines on the asphalt. Just try to hold same distances to the next car in front of you like it is in the top positions)
- doing the formation lap after "GO" from race-director (45sec-2min30)
(do some zigzag do warm up your tyres in the formation lap (for the realism))
- park on the same position in starting grid again (2min30-3min)
- at around 3:00 the race director writes in the chat the start signal: "READY", "STEADY", and after a few seconds "GO!!!!". Then the race starts!
- let each other room in the first turns! left side players stay left in the turns, right side players stay right. This shall help to not collide.

About the starting positions:
They will be random! I will draw them by lot, but I will definitely try to have a few slower drivers in the top and the very best drivers a bit back in the pack, not too far back, but the aim is to produce an interesting race. If the best driver starts on pole position this might be boring to watch. The commenators will say, that the qualifying was under wet conditions, which formed this chaotic starting grid.

Pit stops & Strategies!
Important point here! The race length is 56 laps (1 formation lap + 55 race laps). When we start after 3 minutes, everybody has fuel for maximum 10 laps. So we'll have to do pitstops. The fuel-graphic during the race shows you exactly, how much fuel you have left. When it shows: "PIT NOW!!!!", you definitely must drive into the pits when you visit the pit entrance again. If your fuel gets empty, you get strong fog. In that case you must slowdown and park your car beside the asphalt, near a wall. You're out of the race then.

The pit is beside the start/finish-straight. When you enter it, you must slowdown a lot! The speedlimit in pits is 100! The points from where to where those 100 counts are shown in the Intro, so better watch it. If you go over 100 in the pits, you get a camera which forces you do drive straight through the pits. You have a 3 Laps penalty, so you must pit again in the next 3 Laps, otherwise you get fog. In the pit you have 3 different places where you can stop the car. Stop it behind the white barrier. Stop = 0km/h and you'll get fuel again. You can choose if you get fuel for around 13Laps, 18Laps, or 26Laps. Just park under the big red number which is on the tribune above the pits. It is also shown in the Intro. Wait until the tank is full, then you can continue to drive. If you take fuel for 13 laps, you have to wait 5 seconds, for 18 laps 15 seconds, and for 26 laps 25 seconds!

You can win positions not only by overtaking. You can also overtake others by a good strategy. You are faster, when you have no battles, and no slower drivers in front of you, so you can try to avoid those by taking different strategies. Yes, there are differnt strategies! From 2-stops during the race, till 4 stops! All strategies are theoretically same fast. A pitstop costs around 15seconds (cause of speedlimiter) + xxx seconds (which you stand) time, compared to driving over the start-finish-straight.

Possible strategies are for 56 laps:
4 Stops| Lap 11 24 37 50 | Fuel to Lap 63 (7Laps) | 4x13Laps=4x20sec=80sec
3 Stops| Lap 11 29 47 | Fuel to Lap 60 (4Laps) | 2x18Laps+1x13Laps=(2x30)+20=80sec
2 Stops| Lap 11 37 | Fuel to Lap 63 (7Laps) | 2x26Laps=2x40sec=80sec
3 Stops| Lap 11 37 50 | Fuel to Lap 63 (7Laps) | 2x13Laps+1x26Laps=(2x20)+40=80sec

As you see you lose with all strategies ~80 seconds by pitstops. They are very equal. You can ofcourse also switch the order of stops in the 2nd and 4th strategy. You can do strategy 4 for example also like this:
3 Stops| Lap 11 24 50 | Fuel to Lap 63 (7Laps) | 2x13Laps+1x26Laps=(2x20)+40=80sec
3 Stops| Lap 11 24 37 | Fuel to Lap 63 (7Laps) | 2x13Laps+1x26Laps=(2x20)+40=80sec

Also, I don't want that everybody pits in Lap 11! But for most of you it would be senseful anyway to pit earlier. "Fuel to Lap xx (xLaps)" shall show you how much room you have to do some stops earlier, to avoid losing time by battles with opponents. Eventually you see while racing that this makes more sense to you:
4 Stops| Lap 7 20 32 45 | Fuel to Lap 58 (2Laps) | 4x13Laps=4x20sec=80sec
2 Stops| Lap 5 31 | Fuel to Lap 57 (1Lap) | 2x26Laps=2x40sec=80sec

But watch out with only 1 Lap left!!!
There might be Safety-Car for example, which will cost a lot time, so that you can't do the full laps you got fuel for. Eventually it is even senseful for some fast drivers to avoid losing time in battles by pitting so early that they lose 90 seconds in pits overall. Those 10 seconds which they lose, they might win again by having some clear laps. Example:
3 Stops| Lap 4 21 39 | Fuel to Lap 57 (1Lap) | 3x18Laps=3x30=90sec
3 Stops| Lap 6 17 42 | Fuel to Lap 60 (4Laps) | 1x13L+1x18L+1x26L=20+30+40=90sec

I hope I showed you enough possibilities! Different strategies can bring slower drivers into the top positions for some time, which might help to get a cool and interesting race!

Safety-Car
But don't forget, a Safety-Car can destroy all your strategy plans easily. Players can also do long pitstops for 26 laps in around lap 31 or 32. If a Safety-Car joins afterwards they will come close to other drivers and won't have to do any pitstops anymore. That might also help to achieve a good placement.

The Safety-Car-procedure:
If someone crashes hard (that will happen to somebody probably), he is out of the race. Crashing hard means: The car flips over or you crash with ultra-much speed into the wall. Then please be so kind and don't move your car. Don't continue driving! When your car is being on the track/asphalt after the crash and the race director sees it, he will write "SAFETY-CAR" into the chat. From that moment on NOBODY overtakes/overlaps somebody else! The Safety-car driver will start driving behind the pit exit and roll slowly on the side of the track. Once the leader arrives at the Safety-Car, he stays behind it. After 1Lap the race director writes "OVERLAPPED CAN PASS". This means overlapped drivers are allowed to overtake the Safety-Car and drive quickly until they reach the end of the field. After 2,5 laps the race director writes: "SAFETY-CAR IN THIS LAP". That means the Safety-car driver goes a little bit faster and drives into the pits while the leader stays same slow, so that he gets some distance. Then he can control the speed until the start/finish line. After that the race continues!

- Don't overtake someone during the Safety-Car!
- Drive zigzag to warm up your tyres behind the Safety-Car.
- You are allowed to do pitstops during Safety-Car.

Safety-Car to download:
http://www.maniapark.com/ressource.php?id=1927

(Disconnected players where cars stand on the track might also lead to Safety-Car. Also if someone has to leave suddenly he can do like he would have a damaged engine. But that should only lead to Safety-Car, if he stands on the track. You don't need to provokate it.)

Rain
I'm not sure, if we include it in this race, as it is AbuDhabi, and also not easy to do well. Look, how it went in the last laps of the Coast race and comment here what you think about it.

The idea is, that the Race-director suddenly writes "RAIN RAIN RAIN for xx Laps" (minimum 3 Laps, maximum 6 Laps). From that moment on, everybody will have to slide in the turns. The sliding must be slower of course, so we keep the same braking points, but keep braking when we start to turn. So we slide at very slow speed. This will cost time at acceleration. I am around 10 seconds slower per lap with that. If you make a pitstop after rain started, you are allowed to drive normal, as you have rain tyres now. So you will lose time by pit stop, but win a lot time on the track. When the rain stops drivers with rain tyres will start to slide (until they pit again) and drivers on slick tyres can start to drive normal again. The race-director writes "RAIN STOPPED" in that case.

The rain will be added later in the video. It brings many interesting battles and more strategies. The fights in the Coast-video were nice. But it needs fair play of all drivers and you must learn to slide. When you slide just a little bit through a turn, it looks quiet nice, but it's difficult.

Teamspeak & Overlapped drivers
We all join Teamspeak together. That helps us to warn each other. You can tell somebody, that you are right behind or beside him and tries to attack him, so he knows that he must let you some place. If you can't communicate with each other, you might crash, Teamspeak can help here! Also the race director can also tell us the things that he writes into the chat, so that we definitely don't miss them. And when you come closer to an overlapped driver, you can tell him that he shall let you some place (like blue flags). As you don't know his name as he is 1 Lap behind you can tell for example: "Marussia, at beginning of long straight, blue flags, thx".

Race finished
After the 1st place crosses the finish line, all other players cross themselves only one time the finish line and their race is over. Then they can do one slowly driven lap of honour. At the end of this lap they drive into the pits.

Everybody safe the replay then, please!
Escape - Options - Safe Replay

The way to the video
When we all safed the replay, following things will happen:
- I edit the replay and show all battles, overtakings, important pitstops
- If necessary, someone makes skins for other teams, if we are more than 22
- 2 english-speaking commentators will commentate this edited replay
- A video maker renders the replay and the commentators and adds a few little things like sunset+night mood near the end of the race, advertising during Safety-Car and rain, if necessary.

------------------------------
For the Drivers:
- Don't slide!
- Don't touch other cars!
To achieve both I made a video to show you the lines. Please watch it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5v7I3z2EMw&list=UU8UleWiRsSlAefWeFLXkmPA

To make battles not ending in total chaos, we need to have similar braking points!

There are 4 braking points:
- End of start/finish straight: start brake at end of white sign on the left
- End of fs-part after 1st turn: start brake directly after the little left turn
- End of straight after 180°: start brake at end of violet sign on the right
- End of following straight: start brake before shadow ends
In other turns you only need to release throttle and let the car roll. It is also explained in the first lap of the video.

If you ask yourself, how to overtake then:
Braking slightly later can work, but it forces you a specific line through the turn and the opponent has maybe no place to go in the turn without hitting you. But well working is to overtake others by taking more speed out of a turn. Such overtakings also look pretty nice and are easier to avoid hitting each other.

You just have to learn to be patient! Imagine this is a real race. If you touch the other car, your car would be damaged. If you drive side-by-side to a braking point, the next turn belongs to the driver on the inside line. If you're outside, just don't brake too late and try to get much speed out of the turn.

Should you touch another car, try to take over the positions from before the crash. Imagine if P1 and P2 change positions, but we can't show it in the video cause they touched each other. That would be sad.

Other tips
- Drive safe! I don't want the half field to be out because of crashes. They also look unrealistic.
- Watch out at the curbs! Don't go too much over them, and especially watch out at the beginning of a curb: There are edges which make your car flip over. If this happens to you, you're out.
- Let interface on! To see who are the drivers around you and to see race-director chat.
- Download skins and locators before the project already eventually. This makes it faster.
- Make Downloads and Uploads on in your Maniaplanet settings.
- Watch the Intro!
- Read the points under "20:30-21:30 The Race" for your tasks in formation lap, Safety-Car and rain
- You're out of the race, if you do a big crash, a crash where your car flips over, if your fuel is empty, or if you have a disconnect. Empty fuel= roll out beside the asphalt and stop, flipping over= don't move and wait until Safety-Car is out. After around 2 Laps Safety-Car you can press delete.
- Train the map a bit! Practice the lines and braking points & the pit stops a bit
- Be fair! Don't forget to win is not main importance! It shall be fun and realistic.
- No cuts ofcoure (removed them from July-version anyway), and no reverse driving.

Done by server:
- Respawns are not possible.
- Cars are forced on. (Let the opponents shown full and not just as ghosts)

For the Safety-Car driver
- Download the skin!
- Place yourself on the left side of the second braking point behind the house
- When race-director writes "SAFETY-CAR" go start driving
- Drive slowly on the side of the track until the leader is behind you
- Then start driving normal, and aim a lap-time of 1:50
- Nobody will overtake you, except overlapped guys when race-director writes that
- Drive smooth. No sudden brakings. That would lead to chaos in the back.
- When race-director writes "SAFETY-CAR IN THIS LAP" drive a bit faster.
- Enter the pits, drive through pits (watch out speedlimit 100) and when the field has passed, move to the same spot again, where you had been standing before.

Otherwise, as you must be awake all the time, be in TS, and spec the race with cam7 a bit. Maybe you can help the race-direcor and tell him crashs that he missed. (for example)

For the Race-director
- Watch everything with camera7, so you won't miss anything.
- When all drivers stand on their positions, give the "GO" for the formation lap.
- When all drivers stand on their starting positions after the formation lap, and nobody moves anymore, give at around 3 minutes the start signal: "READY", "STEADY", and after a few seconds "GO!!!!"
- During the race, follow everything with cam7 to spot crashes and disconnects.
- If there is a car not moving on the track, bring the Safety-Car out by chat "SAFETY-CAR"
- After around 1 Lap write "OVERLAPPED CAN PASS"
- After around 2,5 Laps write "SAFETY-CAR IN THIS LAP"
- If you want rain starting, write "RAIN RAIN RAIN for xx Laps" (xx= minimum 3, maximum 6)
- After xx Laps write "RAIN STOPPED"
- But do rain in the 2nd half of the race, or in the last laps letting it finish in rain.
- You can use colours for the commands if you want. Like red with $f00

Other helpers
- We could need somebody who paints the skins of some old teams. But the same model have to be used of course. Also, we definitely need someone, who paints the 2014-skin of the team Williams!
- With Commentators and Videomaker I will speak after the race.
- We drive the race in Day-mode. Videomaker could add a change to Sunset and Night for the video.

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So, that's it.
I know that was long, but all information are included in this post, so I hope everything is clear. If there are anyway still some questions, please ask me.

This project is not only for German players (like in Coast earlier). Everyone can join it. I would be also very thankful, if some non-Valley players join the project. I tried hard to find a date without Canyon and Stadium competitions to give more players the chance to take part. And the more players we have, the more fun!

The track is currently on my server (without password yet). It's set to 18 Laps at the moment. So you can train the map in short races with one pitstop. Please look the video and try the lines and the braking points and practice the pit, so that you don't get penalties too often. Watching the Intro might help as well.

On Monday, the 8. December I plan to do a testrace! Simply join at/before 20:00 and we try a race. Also all players who can't participate on Monday, the 15.12. can join the test race.

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So, please tell me here, who wants to (and can) drive the race on Monday, the 15. of December?
Also, who would like to be the Safety-Car-driver or the Race-director? Who could make some more skins of Williams 2014 and eventually also older teams (Jordan, Arrows, Benetton, Jaguar, Prost, ...)? Who would like to commentate the race afterwards in English (need 2 guys) and who would like to render it and finish the video? And what do you think of rain?

Thank you all, and now let's make this a cool race and a fun evening!

If you want to take part, comment on one of the following sites under my post:
MX, TMX, ET, dore2cuo, ManiaActu, ManiaPlanet-Forum
(whereever you have an account)

These players are currently planning to participate in the project:
Drivers: Lars, Riolu, Marius89, Voyager, firestorm, Orion, Quentin, Mario, Edster, Realsalvador, Schumi, Lorino, Minuit, Dengel, milmas, Sora, Tona, Minato, Mazer, Wurstbraten, Joyako, embql, anxiety

Safety-Car: darkpuddle, Danneboy
Race-Director:
Commentator: Edster, (Laurens, anxiety)
Video:
Skins:
--------------------------------------------
Additional points, not mentioned in the post:
- It's helpful to drive with the Behind-camera (Cam1), as you have a better overview around your car.
- One lap has 9 Checkpoints (8CPs + 1Multilap). The race is finished in Lap56 = 504 CPs.

Before joining the server some tips for graphics: (in Maniaplanet-config / advanced options)
- Put off: 3D-textures under Graphics
- Allow "upload" and "download" under Peer-to-peer
- Under "Game", put "show always opponents" and make no "opponent limit"

2 RULE CHANGES/ADDITIONS
- No rain, definitely!
- If you crash hard, or flip over, and you land on your tyres, you can continue the race. (Otherwise we have too less people finishing). You are only out of the race, if you land on your back or when you are stuck, or when you have no fuel.
- If you touch other people, just continue driving. But remember the best result is a good video, for which we need battles without cars touching. If you touch, we can't show the battle in the video.

I should be able to drive. Just wondering about the lag of other players. What I mean is that opponents are displayed slightly earlier in Rounds. How can a player know for sure that he has overtaken another driver when there are no cams to see backwards with?

I find that it's very easy to get back on the road if you get on the gravel. It's not very realistic, though. Any idea on how to handle this (e.g. keeping the brakes on if all wheels are on gravel, wait for players to pass etc.) ?

As for placing the best players further behind, you could also say that some teams chose to skip the qualifying for some reasons

However I can't use the exact same braking points as shown in the video, because I can't enter the corners by shift-steering and get a sharper turn than usual. I guess I will learn that later on.

Voyager006 says:
I should be able to drive. Just wondering about the lag of other players. What I mean is that opponents are displayed slightly earlier in Rounds.

Till now I experienced no lag. I hope that is also the case when the server is full.

Voyager006 says:
How can a player know for sure that he has overtaken another driver when there are no cams to see backwards with?

Ah, thx for this point. Ye, a backwards-camera would be awesome. I spoke about it often yesterday in skype with Riolu and Lars. Anyway, driving with Camera1 helps, as you see a little bit behind your car. I might add this point with Cam1 in "Other Tips" at "For the Drivers".

Voyager006 says:
I find that it's very easy to get back on the road if you get on the gravel. It's not very realistic, though. Any idea on how to handle this (e.g. keeping the brakes on if all wheels are on gravel, wait for players to pass etc.) ?

The real race track has only asphalt beside the track. In reality they don't lose much time as well. I think that is pretty good here.

Tested it but im sorry its simply to hardn crazy for me ....... im out

Marius you're in luck, as I've been working on a Williams FW36 Martini skin, but for the Formula Raceroom car model, not the stadium car. I've also made the different numbers (77 for Bottas, 19 for Massa) and I've also done the same for Ferrari (14 for Alonso, 7 for Raikonen) and I'm currently working on a Mercedes skin. If you want I can upload them to Mania-exchange?

Also, I've spoken to Realsalvador from UF1R, Schumi from NGM and Lorino from F1 team, and they all expressed interest in taking part, and so did I.

@Edster:
I'm not sure about this. On the one hand that would be ofcourse better to have real 2014 skins and then even with the correct numbers for each driver, but I spot 2 problems:
- With the other model we have already 11 skins for all teams, and ofcourse the drivers have to drive the race with the same model. So if you don't finish skins with all 11 teams before the race, we will drive the race with the "old" skins.
- Of course we can give the ghosts in the replay your new skins afterwards, but could it make problems perhaps, that those skins have not the same length? Which might lead to the case, that drivers don't touch each other in the race with the "old" skins, but when we take your skins afterwards they suddenly touch?

Looking forward to the testrace today

Are there any prizes (candy) for the participants? Also, considering we shouldn't touch each other, what if the pit stops are occupied?

I guess the car is valley, right? Would be cool to join the project but staying even one lap on road with that car is hard to me

gogo wormi, you'll do that

Testrace today at 20:00