Rally-specific forum sub-section?

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I know for a fact there are plenty of rally-minded individuals floating around on here. I'm sure the idea has been brought up in the past, but it seems the progression of the game, as it has been out for a while, has left many players feeling bored and expanding their horizons into the rally portion of GT5.

Now I know the dirt physics are a joke and don't even get me started on the snow, but at the same time any rally-specific information on this forum is so scattered that someone interested in the subject may search for hours and be no closer to the information they were looking for.

I'd be interested in starting a sub-section where rally fans could organize events, share tunes, share tracks, and generally promote what seems to be an underground portion of the community. I personally make tracks, tunes, and even have some replica tunes to modify street cars to rally-spec (old Mini Cooper, working on a Quattro, etc) so I can provide some information to get the section off the ground. I have been a forum moderator before and I have enough free time now that, if it were necessary, I could moderate this new section on either a temporary or permanent basis while it's planting its roots.

This just seems to be a forgotten and splintered community inside Gran Turismo and I think the fans would really appreciate having the information consolidated, not to mention the furthering of the sport for us enthusiasts!:sly:
 
If it would be used then I'm all for it. Rally frustrates me though, so you won't see me in there.
 
Seems cool, but I see no use in it... yet.
Though speaking about rallies, I have one starting soon in June. (PM me if you're interested)
Though being a BIG rally and WRC fan, I find this to be a cool sub-forum, that is when there is one.
~ENNDURANCEGUY
 
Seems cool, but I see no use in it... yet.
Though speaking about rallies, I have one starting soon in June. (PM me if you're interested)
Though being a BIG rally and WRC fan, I find this to be a cool sub-forum, that is when there is one.
~ENNDURANCEGUY

I used to spend only 10% of my time on the dirt/snow tracks, however in the past 6 months I've been developing rally tracks and tunes. Now I'm spending 50% or more of my time in the dirt, often in street cars, and while it certainly isn't replacing Dirt 2 and 3 in my collection, I have to say that the dirt/snow physics aren't as bad as most people would have originally believed after driving a few laps in a WRC car. The physics are odd and both the tuning and the driving are worlds different than their tarmac counterparts, there's no getting around GT5's steep learning curve when it comes to rally.

I'm sure there are others out there who like rally racing just as much as many of us "dirt kings" do, but with the odd nature of both general tuning and dirt handling in this game make it so that it's pure frustration and no fun at all to try and rally race. Just from my own personal observations, it seems that the learning curve made for an elite group of experienced rally drivers and left very little room for amateurs to get comfortable or even stay motivated to stick with rally. I absolutely see a need for it! Not to mention it's a rather large part of the GT5 community, with sub-sections for things like photos, drifting, tuning, etc it would only seem appropriate for there to be one devoted to an entire racing genre inside GT5.

I really want to start the sub-section to make it easy for the entry-level GT5 rally fan to find good, accurate, useful information. I think GT5's rally mode has achieved a "red-headed stepchild" aura, if we were to take it from its underground lair and make it more visible with its own sub-section (that is friendly and supportive to the newbies) then I wouldn't be surprised to see its popularity go up as all of those formerly anonymous dirt lovers come out of the woodwork!👍

To be honest, I'm not shocked at all that there is so little interest in rally-style driving on this forum. Why should there be? What kind of message does this forum send to the GT5 player interested in rally? This person could be an avid tarmac racer with a serious level of skill of wheel time on this game, but where do they go to find some GT5 Rally Racing 101 tips and tricks? When we have sections for drifting, making tracks, tuning cars, race reports, posting videos, and on down the list but not a single mention of anything rally, does it surprise anyone that there is such little community interest in it?

I once heard a great quote about less popular racing series and making them more popular. This grizzled old race driver said, "You want to find out who wants to race against you? Well, in order to GAIN interest you have to SHOW interest. Let everyone see this is what you love to do and how much you love it, people are drawn to that and will wonder why you're so crazy about driving your car that way." I agree with his logic, the way to get people into rally racing is to show them why we love doing it so much!:sly:
 
I generally create sub-forums if there's going to be a demand for them, and unfortunately, as much as I love rally racing myself (not necessarily in GT5...), I don't see rally as a popular topic of discussion. What threads would you suggest moving to a Rally subforum, or what threads would you create in there that would not be better suited in an existing sub-forum?
 
I generally create sub-forums if there's going to be a demand for them, and unfortunately, as much as I love rally racing myself (not necessarily in GT5...), I don't see rally as a popular topic of discussion. What threads would you suggest moving to a Rally subforum, or what threads would you create in there that would not be better suited in an existing sub-forum?

I've been seeing it slowly gaining momentum. I think people are becoming bored with certain aspects of the game and for a large number of players the off-road racing arena is something they never spent much time with.

I'll admit I see your point about there being designated sub-forums that do encompass most aspects of rally, I debated the same point in my head while making this thread. I'll be honest and say I have no definitive criteria for what belongs in this theoretical rally section versus an existing one, just I think it could bring a quiet part of this community into the open. Right now it seems any rally-based discussion gets the attention of maybe one or two people, then it quickly gets lost in the stacks and a lot of people who may have been interested were never even aware it existed.

Discussion of rally-oriented topics like driving techniques, which non-WRC cars are our favorites off-road, track creation, car tuning, etc. could all go in this new forum, or at least that's my rough idea of it. I've often thought about doing a tuning guide for rally and many times I've wanted to post threads about a certain car being unexpectedly good off-road, but I never do. The bottom line is that the tarmac-based threads are more popular and soon it will be doomed to be unseen on page 2 and beyond. I'd post such topics in a rally section, the people there want to see and read such threads.
 
Enzo_Guy
I've been seeing it slowly gaining momentum. I think people are becoming bored with certain aspects of the game and for a large number of players the off-road racing arena is something they never spent much time with.

I'll admit I see your point about there being designated sub-forums that do encompass most aspects of rally, I debated the same point in my head while making this thread. I'll be honest and say I have no definitive criteria for what belongs in this theoretical rally section versus an existing one, just I think it could bring a quiet part of this community into the open. Right now it seems any rally-based discussion gets the attention of maybe one or two people, then it quickly gets lost in the stacks and a lot of people who may have been interested were never even aware it existed.

Discussion of rally-oriented topics like driving techniques, which non-WRC cars are our favorites off-road, track creation, car tuning, etc. could all go in this new forum, or at least that's my rough idea of it. I've often thought about doing a tuning guide for rally and many times I've wanted to post threads about a certain car being unexpectedly good off-road, but I never do. The bottom line is that the tarmac-based threads are more popular and soon it will be doomed to be unseen on page 2 and beyond. I'd post such topics in a rally section, the people there want to see and read such threads.

Any chance you can release that tuning guide regardless of whether or not a rally subforum is created. :D
 
Any chance you can release that tuning guide regardless of whether or not a rally subforum is created. :D

It would be a while before I could get to it. I'm already deep into a rally track creator guide thread. I'll post that here probably before the day is out so people can see it, it'll only be half and I'll edit the other half in probably tomorrow once I get it typed out.

Then I'm about 90% done with writing the rules (shooting for this weekend to post it here) for an FIA-style historic production car rally. No rally cars, only street-legal cars from 1983 and before, divided up into a lot of fun classes and tuning levels. It's heavily modified from the true FIA rules, but the structure and concepts are similar. There are also some specialty rules straight from several FIA rulebooks of the era like a turbo/supercharger means your displace is multiplied x1.4 and that's your car's new class, the minimum weight charts are straight from the FIA, homologation rules got ditched, and some other stuff to make it fun.

The 2 exceptions to the '83 cap are the '98 Mini Cooper and '04 Delorean. The Delorean was made in '81-'82 just put together recently. Pretty much same engine/chassis just with fuel injection, couple less ponies, hair more torque, almost exact same car and this is a classic rally so the old Mini Cooper was getting in somehow!:sly:

I've run these classes and this racing style countless times with friends in my online rooms, we've got it down pretty well and most of the glitches are long gone. The big deal is this won't by side-by-side racing, it's a single file time trial basis like a real rally. The courses are randomly regenerated every time and between classes, no one has seen the track. There's no practicing, courses are regenerated on the spot with no pre-made tracks allowed, and you can't go on the track to tune so you have to do it blind. It follows the GT5 lobby timing style: one practice lap and then you get one timed lap and that's your time. You can't leave the track once you start your practice lap, not even if you messed up your tune, and only one person on the track at a time. It's uses no aids and NO ABS, the cars didn't have it so you don't get it! In my online lobbies this style has never been taken seriously, it's a competition but we have more fun trying to just keep the cars on the road than we do tracking times and points. It's quirky, a lot rides on chance, and it's all in good fun!

The breakdown goes like this:
Group 1 (5 Groups, Group 1 is stock and range up to Group 5 where the only rule is go fast)
X.1 body style (displayed as Group 1.1, X.1 for sedans and X.2 for sports cars)
Under 1000cc (all cars must be under 1000cc displacement)

The displacement classes have evolved into what's below; each has been tested numerous times to provide a good range of options that can win races.

Displacement classes available:
Under 1000cc
I merged these all as X.1 sedans
1000cc-1599cc
Very big class, lots of solid names and choices that are a lot of fun
1600cc-1999cc
Fairly small list, X.2 has exciting names like the Alpine A110 and Renault 5!
2000cc-5999cc
There were a few high-performance sedans here but I lumped everything as sports cars. This is a bar brawl full of American muscle, turbocharged sports cars, and rally homologations. My absolute favorite class where anything can win and full of fireworks!
Over 6000cc
Only sports car was the Cobra, it's not allowed and the class is now only sedans. American big-block muscle cars go rally racing, only suggested for experienced off-road drivers with some serious stones.

I've already made the Car List that shows the exact body style and engine class of the cars. It kind of helps since I own all of them haha! Well, the one exception is the Beetle 1200, otherwise I really do own every single car qualified for this series. I need a life.

Obviously we won't use every Group and class. I figured I'd just post all of them as well-organized documentation along with the rules, people would tell me which ones they'd be interested in running and which Group modification level they wanted to do. We'd just go with the ones that people were interested in.

Just as a teaser, since it's already finished, anyone interested can check out the Car List here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sMbWOPUC86-w0Nmm6Zpb2dOrFGFbQajX4gDcCDS3TEA/edit?pli=1
 

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