FIA European Truck Racing Championship - July 18 2019 (PS4, XOne, Switch and PC)

  • Thread starter er185es
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^Weird that they use the motorcycle layout despite running the track forwards. Haven't driven that variant since Grid Autosport.
 
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Pfei
Bigben commented on YouTube that console versions will be released August 20th.
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That can't be correct. It says that the game is in stock at one the local retailers.

Any (english) reviews of the game yet?
 
I’m not sure. I think at one time we had to wait on the WRC games after they were released across the globe.

If you have a second PSN account in the EU, looks like you can get it.
 
TheHun99
CTMP is great but WTF is Hungary Speedway?? Never seen the Hungaroring called this way...
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Licensing probably. Though it's weird if that's the case since the series license usually also includes everything within it including track names.


Anyway, any impressions on the physics? Preferably from those who have also played Reiza's Formula Truck/GSCE/AMS as a baseline reference.
 
LeGeNd-1
Anyway, any impressions on the physics? Preferably from those who have also played Reiza's Formula Truck/GSCE/AMS as a baseline reference.
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I've played Formula Truck, although not for a few years. The trucks in ETRC don't feel radically different from what I remember of Formula Truck. The simulation here clearly isn't on the same level as an RFactor or Project Cars; there's no tire temperature effects, track conditions don't seem to evolve over the course of a race, or any of those sort of in-depth details. However, the basics seem pretty solid. Understeer, on-throttle oversteer, and lift-off/braking oversteer all manifest themselves pretty much how you would expect, and the trucks move around pretty much the way they do in the real ETRC races I've watched online. You can slide them around a bit, and catch slides pretty well (because they spin out so slooooowly), but to drive fast you have to be smooth because it's easy to scrub off speed if you over-drive the truck, and then it takes forever to get back up to speed.

Overall I'd say it's not the most in-depth physics simulation ever, but it's definitely not an arcade game. IMO arcade racers always have way too much overall grip, and never seem to exhibit lift-off oversteer. On those counts ETRC makes it into "sim" territory.

One disappointment is the lack of some licenses. MAN and Scania trucks are debadged, and as previously noted the Hungaroring is missing. There is, however, a fictional "World Series" championship which lets you drive the trucks on some non-ETRC tracks. Laguna Seca is included — the Corkscrew is as epic as you'd expect in a racing truck. The "World Series" also includes several trucks not present in the ETRC, including branded trucks from Freightliner, Mack, and Western Star.

The other main disappointment is that the AI is pretty weak. I'm a decent driver but not the very best, maybe 10th-15th percentile in most sim racers, and I find the AI pretty easy to beat on the hardest difficulty level (of which there are only 3). Maybe they can patch this later, but I'm not sure what level of post-launch support to expect from this developer.

I haven't really messed with tuning yet, as I find the default "balanced" setup pretty good. I glanced at it and the amount of tuning options seemed pretty limited, but I'm not sure how much is adjustable on the real racing trucks. Oversteer under braking seems to be my biggest difficulty, so I might try to see if I can tune it out without making the truck too understeery.

The game lacks polish and the graphics are dated, but if you're looking for a pretty solid driving experience in a very different sort of motorsport, I'd recommend it. I'm sure I'll play through the full ETRC championship at least once, and then decide whether to do the fictional World Series. The full race weekend format of the ETRC is simulated, with practice, qualifying, superpole, race, and top-8 reverse-grid race on each day of the race weekend, so there's plenty of driving to be done. You can choose 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% race distances.
 
Great write up, thanks 👍 Sounds pretty good to me. I'm not expecting a full sim with tyre temps and what not, but as long as the basic driving experience isn't wildly off the mark then that's good enough. It's disappointing to hear they didn't get all the truck licenses. What's the point of getting the series license if you still have debaged vehicles. It's weird. Anyway, it won't be enough to put me off this game so I'll still be getting it at some point. Just gotta work through my back catalog first which never seems to get shorter :lol:
 
Further impressions after additional play time and 3 race weekends completed:

The fictional Hungarian track is fun to drive. It's still disappointing that they don't have the Hungaroring license, but at least its stand-in is good.

AI driver performance is obviously not pegged to their real-world namesakes, as two of the top drivers in the real ETRC are currently 10th and 12th in my fictional season.

Weather is variable (wet conditions are available) but not dynamic. There is a difference between dry and wet conditions but it's surprisingly small.

Only 12 trucks on track at a time, which means some members of the real ETRC field are missing in action. 18 is the number IRL.

I'm enjoying the driving experience, but the AI is really, seriously, completely too damn slow. It's too easy to win the reverse-grid races when starting from 8th place. I got bumped from behind and spun out at the 1st corner of a Nurburgring race, managed to gather it up and rejoin in 8th, and got back to the lead by maybe lap 3 or 4. They need to add at least 2 more difficulty levels, or just give us a 0-100% slider, where at 100% the AI should be doing realistic lap times. This is the #1 thing I hope they address in a patch.

The torque and power characteristics of the relatively low-RPM turbodiesel engines are represented well enough. It took me a little time to teach myself to short-shift all the time since optimum acceleration occurs in the middle of the rev range, and seriously tapers off at high RPM. There are shift lights that I should pay attention to.

There is apparently some degree of damage modeling, because there's an option to turn it off, but I have no idea how good it is because I'm usually nowhere near the AI and haven't had any big wrecks. I've had plenty of rubbing & jostling while overtaking in the reverse-grid races, and you can get the cracked-windshield graphics pretty easily, but I haven't had any damage that affected performance. The AI doesn't seem to be intentionally crazy or homicidal, but sometimes s**t happens. The real ETRC races I've watched have featured plenty of contact, so I can't complain.

Tire wear is apparently a thing because there's an indicator on the HUD that turns yellow on me after several laps, but even full-length races aren't long enough for it to matter much.

I'm glad I bought this, it's a great change of pace from most other racing games, but it's probably a 50-hours-played maximum sort of game, not a game I'll still be playing after 300+ hours played (I'm looking at YOU, DiRT Rally 2.0!)
 

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