HomeEdit Messages & Buddies My World RankingWR Table My GamesJoin Public GameJoin Mid SeasonPrivate GamesInterested TeamsUpload Helmet [ List All Documents ] This guide will help learn what you need to know to quickly start racing. The website navigation help can be found here. Joining Public Game The first thing you must do in order to race is join a public game. The process is similar for private games, but you will need a game number and password for that. Locate the Game menu on the navigation bar, and select “Join Public Game.” Selecting this option will bring you to a screen listing the currently available carsets. Select the carset you would like to compete with. Current carsets include 2006 GP, 2002 GP, BTCC, and Champ Car Racing. Read the accompanying description for some more information on the series, as each presents its own challenges. After selecting a series, you will have to choose a team from the available selections. Some may be taken already, others may have a single opening, and some will be completely available. The first person to select a car from a team, will be designated Team Leader. After car selection, you will be able to choose your home race. A home race will give you a slight increase in speed, and offer 50% more practice laps, so pick wisely. Next, you will choose a Flag. This will be your flag in this series, and can not be changed after you select it. Some Carsets (A1 GP) will match the flag to the car. After Flag selection, you get to choose your Driver's Characteristics. You may pick between 1 and 2 Characteristics, depending on the series. The instructions on that page will tell you how many you can choose. Not all Characteristics are available in all games. Picking more than the allowed amount will result in the game picking which of those selected you will get, so it is wise not to pick more than suggested. Each Driver Characteristic will add something to your drivers abilities, and you should adjust your Driving style to take advantage of them. **No one knows exactly what each Driver Characteristic does, but you can find further information about them in the BATracer Forum** The following is a list of all the available Driver Characteristics. Not all are available, and vary depending on the Carset you are racing. Mechanical Sympathy. You are able to gently stroke and convince your car home to the finish line. Wet Weather Warrior. In wet conditions you really shine, able to put in a fast lap and attack the competition regardless. Pole Sitter King. One off fast laps are your speciality - enjoy a healthy bonus during your fight for pole and find speed when you need it most in a race. Speed Demon. You don't shine in one particular area: but instead are generally fast be it dry, wet or going for pole. Consistent. Being able to setup a good rhythm allows you to stay within your limits: and on the track. Super Fit. Taking personal fitness to the extreme gives you great stamina throughout the duration of an entire race. Concentration. When out on the circuit on your own you can turn in a steady state of speed without the visible benchmark of another car. Lucky. More often than not, you always seem to avoid the worst share of luck in your team. Committed. You have full belief in yourself, your car and your team - and this shows in your ultimate results. Cool. In the thick of the action you are at your best, being able to overtake and pull off difficult manouveres. Aggressive. Battling for position your opponents should beware - you won't think twice about letting them know who is boss. Thinker. Correctly analysing your car and it's setup is a great strength to have. Charisma. People love you and just want to help out: you always get the most attention from your team. Control Freak. As the lights turn green your opponents can't see you for dust as you perfectly judge clutch, throttle and available traction. Wisdom. Experience from countless competitive events makes you a formidable foe to your rivals. Spatial Awareness. You are able to judge your car perfectly allowing for every inch of the track to be used, and every overtaking opportunity to be exploited. Bender. Bending the rules is your game - if there is a loop hole you can and will exploit it! Finally, you will need to choose a Driver name. This can not be changed after you select it. However, in Private Games, you may change the drivers name from the Your Desk page. This is a feature only available in Private Games. Names can not be changed in Public Games, except by the Developers, and usually only for cosmetic reasons. Names in PUBLIC GAMES not conforming to the rules, will be changed! Car Setup Page and Practice Laps For each race you need to tune your car to a particular circuit. Fast circuits need low drag settings, and bumpy circuits need more supple suspension. Check your engineers report for initial advice, and note any adjustments that may be needed for changing weather conditions. When rain is forecast, the Engineers will provide advice on how to adjust the car for Full Wet conditions, and should be adjusted according to the prevailing weather conditions. See Weather Conditions below. Most of the Engineers advice is self evident, however the following may be helpful when setting brake bias: safe = fore, loose = aft. Advice given is for the current condition Weather Conditios The following are the weather icons             bone dry - greasy - moist - drizzle - light rain - rain - wet and slippery - steady rain - heavy rain - treacherous rain - monsoon - storm ***For more detailed information on setup for weather conditions please see How to Change Your Setup for Different Weather *** Question? What does "The perfect setup lies X points beyond the capabilities of the car." Mean?? Answer: You may get this message, in some situations. The reason for this, is that your car can not be adjusted to a 100% Setup, due to the limits of the adjustments available. Typically you have one or more slider that are set to either 100 or 0 that should be higher/lower by X. If X = 1, then the spot-on setting for a 100% setup is either -1 or 101, depending on which slider is at its maximum of minimum. This information may change with the weather, and may help in changing weather situations. Tire Choice You have several Tires to choose from. Cut Slick Soft, Cut Slick Hard, Intermediate, Wet, and Monsoon. Each provide you with multiple sets denoted by Tire Number.Total in Set (eg. 1.3). Tires wear is also noted: Green - unused (or nearly unused for hard tires) Heat Cycled - tires have only done one or two laps Light/Moderate/Heavy Wear - self explanatory. Currently, Green Tires are always faster than Heat Cycled This may change in the future. You may change tires after each test or Qualifying lap. In addition, initial tire choice for the race may also be selected. The pit crew will always put on the best tire available of the selected type. ***For more information on Changing tires for changing weather conditions please see The Guide to Tyre Sliders and the When on Wrong Tyre slider*** How To Tip: How do I start the race on one type of slick and end on the other? To do this, you must do four things: 1. Select one compound (eg. Cut Slick Soft) from the drop-down box, to start the race. 2. Make sure only the "use this tyre" box is checked for the compound (eg. Cut Slick Hard) you want to complete the race on, and not checked for the one you want to start on. 3. Drag both the soft and hard tyres to maximum dry on the race strategy page (eg. Zero). 4. Make sure you don't have your "change when on wrong tyres" slider set very low (or at zero). In theory If your wet/dry settings for hard and soft are the same as stated in point 2, you should never pit for being on the wrong tire. ***You can not switch back*** Compound change occurs on the first pit-stop only. (eg. 2 Stop dry race: Start on Soft, 1st stop Hard, 2nd Stop Hard) Experimentation Slider You can control the amount of information you get back from a lap by adjusting this slider. Be warned though - pushing too hard could result in an accident or loss of laps! 50 is considered high, by some, and will not prevent the loss of laps. Certain Drivers Characteristics can improve your testing results. Please see the BATracer Forum for more information on Drivers Characteristics Driving Laps and Fine Tuning Each time you take to the circuit you will gain more information about the car and which parameters you need to change. The ideal setup lies somewhere between the indicated "lo" and "hi" (Low/High) values. By positioning the slider for each parameter within this range you can fine tune your setup to perfection. The biggest performance gains are usually made within the first few laps. Remember, the Engineers will give you advise on how to best set up your car. You should use this as a starting point for your testing. When you are ready to drive your first lap, click on TEST. Make sure to select your tire choice prior to testing. The status of your tires will update, after each test lap. Team Work Team work is an important part of game play, and working with your team mate will improve your game play experience. You can access your team mates setup at any time, using the load button. Use Team Talk to collaborate on setup information to make the most of your available laps. Driving Style These parameters apply to your behavior in a race. There are usually two parameters for both dry and wet conditions. For instance, you can decide to take it more easy in wet races, or perhaps push harder because everybody else is being cautious! It's up to you. Please remember, 50 is considered High by some, and high settings may result in a greater chance of a DNF. Your Drivers Characteristics will effect how hard you can safely push certain sliders, however, in BATRacer, nothing is absolute, and "bad things" can still happen, even with low sliders. Please see the BATracer Forum if you have questions about Driver Characteristics. Overall Speed/Pace - The faster you go the greater the chance of an accident. Aggression - If you are more aggressive it is easier to pass, but there is an increased chance of collision. Tyre Use - If you give your tires a hard life you will go quicker initially, but they will wear out quicker making you slower over a long stint. You should select a setting appropriate to your strategy or tire selection. Mechanical Sympathy - You can a little extra performance out of your car if you are willing to accept an increased chance of a breakdown. Pit Stops - There are two sliders for driver and team. Cautious stops are slower but on the other hand there is less chance of somebody making a mistake and costing even more time. Race Start - Choose between making a fast start or the increased risk of stalling or other calamity. Overtaking is easier on the first lap, so you may want to push harder if you are worried about being overtaken or simply want to try and make up for a bad qualifying session. Qualifying Qualifying is calculated automatically at the end of practice, and is a better indication of true performance than practice. Of course, it also decides the race grid. You can decide which tires to use for qualifying and how hard to push. If the race series you are in allows more than one lap for qualifying, it is recommended that your first lap is taken easy. Some race series also allow you to decide when to take to the circuit. Generally later in the qualifying session is faster, but there may also be an increased chance of getting caught in traffic. The Race Like qualifying, the race is calculated at the end of a live warm-up session. If the race weekend has mostly had consistent weather it is likely that everybody has good setups - so having a good race strategy could swing a race in your favor. Basic Strategy Choose your starting tire, the number of pit stops you want to make and on which laps. This is fairly simple - just make sure you don't pit at the same time as your team mate! Dealing with Changing Conditions If it rains you need to decide which tires you want to be on. Set the sliders to control the suitability of each tire for wet or dry conditions. A check-box allows you to omit some tire choices from your race program entirely. A "changing tyres" slider controls how readily you will pit to fit different tires if the weather conditions change. Pitting too often to change to more suitable tires will always give you a faster car overall, but you may lose time overall with too many pit stops and being stuck behind traffic. A setting of 100 will prevent you from coming in when the conditions change, 0, will change tires, as soon as your selected threshold is reached. You can also configure your reaction to yellow flags, by entering the number of laps within a scheduled pit stop where you will reschedule it because of the yellow flag. Pitting under a yellow flag costs less time than when everybody is racing at full speed, but if you do this too far away from a scheduled pit stop you may be faced with driving a car very heavy on fuel. In addition, there is also a "pit reschedule" parameter. This works a bit like the above mentioned Yellow Flag reaction parameter. If you pit within X laps of a scheduled pitstop (where X is the value you enter), that stop will be deleted and to compensate you will take on enough fuel to get you to either the end of the race, or any other additional stops you scheduled. This differs from the Yellow Flag reaction parameter, as it allows you to influence the pit rescheduling for other pit events (such as for repairs or tyre failures). The Order of Play and Race Results Generally most races start with a live practice session, culminating in qualifying being calculated, and then a live warm-up session, culminating in the race. When the session advances you should receive an e-mail, and when you enter the game you can view the results from the link on the Office or News pages. The race results page features several analysis tools, graphs and maps and a means to watch or replay the race lap by lap. Getting More Help This is only a brief guide. You are recommended to make use of the BATracer Forum for any questions or general discussion. As so elequently stated, by Hayden Albrey in theBATracer Forum
When you complete a race, you get lap by lap commentary of the race with lap times for every lap and gaps to every driver. You get info on peoples pitstops etc. Also at the end of the race you can check a plethora of graphs and charts to measure your success or lack of in the race. You get info on tyre wear, contant updates to the weather etc. The people who enjoy batracer the most are the ones who immerse themselves in this info. [...] Also I thorougly reccomend getting involved in the driver chat screen... Talking, arguing and boasting to the other drives makes the game a lot more enjoyable. Essentially the game is an RPG, so its whatever you imagine it to be! This Help is constantly updated from information and questions found on the Forums. Please submit ideas for additional sections there v.1.0907 Document created by Jerry Ross. Last updated 8 Sep 2006. | |||
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