Offline Series General Chat

Mystical

Test Rank
Staff member
Admin
Joined
May 28, 2022
Posts
721
Reaction score
528
Points
93
Website
adracingdesigns.com
Chat thread to talk about anything random related to offline series (whether you run one, several, or none) and like to talk about them. This thread is not where you post your series race results (create a thread in the official or unofficial sections for that) but rather brainstorming, behind the scenes operations how you think up series to create, suggestions, work in progress ideas, and other fun topics. For example maybe you are thinking about making a Fictional Truck Series and don't know what mod to use, the name, or making a points system. This thread can also be used to share things like your highly detailed excel/libre office sheets where you calculate data, new series ideas, or just general frustrations of a series you started and find it may not be going as well as you thought.

I've found seeing how others run their series or just brainstorming fun ideas has allowed me to incorporate intricate details in the ones I enjoy running. Offline series run in NR2003 are very much like the people who enjoy RPG's or DnD for example. You set up the stories, the drama, watch the simulations unfold or actually participate as a driver(s) in your series. Unlike Online series which is more about real people management, offline series delve into the fictional storytelling world and total control of entries and more about one or a few people running it.
 
I've been trying to do a 2005 mock season for about 3 years now. It started well, hard drive crashed, got it back up and running, another hard drive crash series killed all momentum, around Texas weekend. Since then I have made a few halfhearted attempts, but never get anywhere, with the furthest being the Daytona 500

A part of me is OCD about having all the accurate schemes for the first season, which is a chore in and amongst itself. I've dabbled with Cup only, Cup + Busch, and even adding Trucks in there, but have never been able to truly get it off the ground since my initial attempt.

Also I have never been happy with the presentation side of things, have thought about videos, but that requires me to do editing, which adds more work.

Offline series take a lot of overhead and right now I'm just not feeling it like I used to, but a part of me still wants to get one done just to prove to myself that I can.
 
I've been trying to do a 2005 mock season for about 3 years now. It started well, hard drive crashed, got it back up and running, another hard drive crash series killed all momentum, around Texas weekend. Since then I have made a few halfhearted attempts, but never get anywhere, with the furthest being the Daytona 500

A part of me is OCD about having all the accurate schemes for the first season, which is a chore in and amongst itself. I've dabbled with Cup only, Cup + Busch, and even adding Trucks in there, but have never been able to truly get it off the ground since my initial attempt.

Also I have never been happy with the presentation side of things, have thought about videos, but that requires me to do editing, which adds more work.

Offline series take a lot of overhead and right now I'm just not feeling it like I used to, but a part of me still wants to get one done just to prove to myself that I can.
I have this same problem. I actually started a mock season with just a couple of fictional drivers added for starting in 1999, then 2000, then 2001. I used already made schemes and either made the schemes I didn't have or just used close enough alternatives. But then I started getting into the backstories of my fictional drivers, and the seasons they had before 1999, and the fictional teams that they drove for, and their seasons before that driver, and so on, and so on, which led me to 1989.

Restarting the series, I went to 1989 doing the same thing, using pre-made cars and either making cars here and there or using close-enough alternatives. But, while making some schemes I didn't have, I started to realize the schemes I had that were made by others were actually very inaccurate. I was doing great up until this point, but as I went on that started to bug me. I was actually done with the 1989 season and preparing for 1990 when I started the whole thing over again, making all new schemes from scratch. I did this for a while and then started finding more resources, which meant updates to the cars I had made. Then I started realizing that several teams had changed their schemes subtly over the year, and I started mounting the crazy task of creating race specific versions of schemes. And finally, the point I am at now is that the original cars I made were 1024, and I want to make them as accurate as possible on 2048, which means I am starting over, yet again.

I went from no OCD to gradually more and more crazy OCD over a very short period of time. I feel like it made me a better painter though.
 
I have this same problem. I actually started a mock season with just a couple of fictional drivers added for starting in 1999, then 2000, then 2001. I used already made schemes and either made the schemes I didn't have or just used close enough alternatives. But then I started getting into the backstories of my fictional drivers, and the seasons they had before 1999, and the fictional teams that they drove for, and their seasons before that driver, and so on, and so on, which led me to 1989.

Restarting the series, I went to 1989 doing the same thing, using pre-made cars and either making cars here and there or using close-enough alternatives. But, while making some schemes I didn't have, I started to realize the schemes I had that were made by others were actually very inaccurate. I was doing great up until this point, but as I went on that started to bug me. I was actually done with the 1989 season and preparing for 1990 when I started the whole thing over again, making all new schemes from scratch. I did this for a while and then started finding more resources, which meant updates to the cars I had made. Then I started realizing that several teams had changed their schemes subtly over the year, and I started mounting the crazy task of creating race specific versions of schemes. And finally, the point I am at now is that the original cars I made were 1024, and I want to make them as accurate as possible on 2048, which means I am starting over, yet again.

I went from no OCD to gradually more and more crazy OCD over a very short period of time. I feel like it made me a better painter though.
Yeah, I totally get it, I've tried 2005 on 2 different mods, potentially working on a 3rd set, as suddenly I'm struggling to access my external hard drive. I've tried Cup_05, NNC07, the Original Papy Cup, but never seem satisfied.

I really want to get the whole mock season thing to work, but ATM I'm short on time, energy, and motivation. Don't know how people manage through large projects, painting or racing, without burnout.

Also I have conflictions about what year I want to start with. 2005 sort of sits in my head as that is where LabonteFanboy started his, and that was a huge inspiration to me. But I've considered various other years as well, ranging from the 80's to early 2010's.
 
I started the whole thing over again, making all new schemes from scratch. I did this for a while and then started finding more resources, which meant updates to the cars I had made. Then I started realizing that several teams had changed their schemes subtly over the year, and I started mounting the crazy task of creating race specific versions of schemes. And finally, the point I am at now is that the original cars I made were 1024, and I want to make them as accurate as possible on 2048, which means I am starting over, yet again.

Yeah this is the rat race I got tired of too. My offline Armory Digital Series that I literally started in Nascar Racing 2 and ported those drivers and schemes to N4 then to NR2003 since late 1990 (like actual year 1997 lol) used to use the latest Cup mods few years once I got to NR2003. Every 3-4 years I then had to repaint every car and alternate scheme which would easily end up being 300+. Then as the noses on some of these cars got more complex the fictional manufactures I wanted to keep got harder to mold on those mods. I eventually stopped my super long almost 20 year running offline series due to fatigue.

This was the sole reason I went into mod making and the ICR mod was born, a mod finally 100% the way I wanted with all the features I'd want for a mod made for offline racers lol. I plan to paint on ICR for many years and won't have to worry about repainting every 3-4 years anymore. Instead maybe after 10 or so years I'll have an ICR Gen 2. But by then I'll will be satisfied with all the schemes I've put on the first mod.

The other rat race is physical yearly 'seasons'. Trying to keep up with every year running full seasons in each literal calendar year while dealing with real life got impossible. So I designed a stress free method where in my Series a 'season' isn't time constrained, it starts and ends whenever and the next one will start when the season previous to it completes. Instead of like a 2022 Season I just have each one named Season 1, 2, 3, in each division for example. Pretty much all the work I did making the ICR mod I also did just as much thought process on a new offline series structure that would work for me that was freeflow and very much jump in and jump out whenever where every race I did, whether a random quick race or a 20+ season schedule of races, and every car I painted has a purpose. Back in the day I painted many cars that never hit the track as they might not have been in my fictional series. But now every car I paint can join in so even if I don't personally race that car it'll be on the the track regardless gathering stats and progression.
 
I designed a stress free method where in my Series a 'season' isn't time constrained, it starts and ends whenever and the next one will start when the season previous to it completes.
This is why I don't work on current seasons, only older ones. There is much less time constraint and it fills a niche that is typically incomplete in the NR2003 archives
 
I use a lot of randomizes when making my fictional drivers. Especially for all the new drivers that start in the lower series. Other than the color palette and base design for those cars I usually let Excel choose everything else from randomizer lists I made. One of those lists is a driver ratings range. After I have the cars imported in NR2003 I fire up NRatings to apply the ratings quickly. I know that tool has a 0-99 randomizer but I like choosing the specific # range randomizer in it instead so I have deliberate buffers for ranges. This means a car could literally be the absolute worst driver on the track that truly belongs in the lowest division and the only miracle they get out of the lowest division is the rest of the field is equally bad ... and on the flipside the story of a lifetime a driver so good they literally could dominate in several lower divisions rising from nothing to even being better than some of the tenured drivers I created (I most likely would get beat as well racing against them if I am not having a good race lol)

Pretty much I reshuffle the list randomly and I just go down the list adding the ratings to each car in NRatings until all cars have a rating, so there is know knowing until I'm literally applying the ratings how good or bad that driver will be.

I use excel's built in random number function to resort the list of ratings numbers each time I filter from largest to smallest number:
1665650912287.png

The full range of possible ratings (currently just sorted by the lowest to highest ratings for organizational purposes here):
1665651053516.png

And when I do an actual shuffle how it would look like:
1665651137040.png

Of course some of these ratings are quite good and will make the driver gifted those ratings quite competitive. However one range stands above all else. The coveted 94- 99 range. The potential a driver will have no rating lower than 94 and they could all be as high as 99, truly a Legend in the making, one day it'll happen and I can't wait to see how the racing unfolds lol

Almost like some rare Pokemon I have the cell a special gradient for fun lol:

1665651094360.png

Of course in special cases drivers I find too bad but then have a good race I may reward them some extra ratings to give them a new 'momentum' dynamic like they have gained some experience. Also on the flipside (not occurred yet) if I find a driver is just truly unstoppable I would find a balance so the racing is fun for me and the other fellow AI on the track lol. With all that I can always go back to my ratinggs scale in the sheet and add more ranges or alter the future range #'s given but so far it's been working really well. Already saw drivers that started out well and dominated in lower series but then got humbled when they met the better drivers. Also seen cars I thought would do so so and make it way higher and manage to stay there.
 
Last edited:
Ratings have always been my bane when doing my offline series. It feels like any time I find a new formula it splits the field into "tiers" and there's a huge gap between each set of ratings. I don't want crappy cars and backmarkers to have a chance to win, but I do want them to be able to get good finishes and top 20s. It's so hard to strike that balance and have it look and feel realistic.

It also doesn't help that my racing product has always sucked... one time I ran a full-length Coke 600 and it had like, four lead changes. But that's more on my track selection. :p
 
Do you guys use a specific points program/calculator for your series'? I've been using Race Points manager. Its decent enough but a little clunky for how old it is. I'd say other than the extra data breakdowns, that I honestly don't view that much, I'm thinking about just using excel instead.
 
I use the NR2k3's Weebly points calculators to get the points standings and then fill out the race breakdowns by hand in Google Sheets. Right now I'm looking for a way to make data transmission from race results to driver pages easier.

 
I've used Score4 almost exclusively, but I am debating on whether to switch to Race Points Manager or not.
 
I found a cool way to hook up the race results html files in excel as data connections. So I don't have to manually import/copy the table data from each html each time and can easily have an entire seasons worth of race results. So for example after I run a season I just put the new race results files in the same directory where I linked the previous data connections and the sheet will automatically refresh the data. Then I can copy paste all those to a more permanent sheet where I tally up all the points and can sort the standings real quick.
 
I found a cool way to hook up the race results html files in excel as data connections. So I don't have to manually import/copy the table data from each html each time and can easily have an entire seasons worth of race results. So for example after I run a season I just put the new race results files in the same directory where I linked the previous data connections and the sheet will automatically refresh the data. Then I can copy paste all those to a more permanent sheet where I tally up all the points and can sort the standings real quick.

I really, really wanna see this in action. I love having stats for drivers, teams, tracks, etc but the data entry and reentry just kills me.
 
oh yeah in Excel you just go to Data tab in the ribbon then choose XML file (It allows you to import HTML's this way):

1668320339442.png

Then it will load your HTML race results and you choose the tables you want it to import. After the data connection is set you can change the properties on refresh and all that good stuff. So say you have 30+ race results to import all the time, just have a dedicated folder directory for them then make sure the files are named something easy to import (so when you replace these files its easy to rename them each time to replace the older HTML files. The most tedious part is doing the first import for each individual file but after that if you paste over one of the file excel will then re-import and replace the old data.

From there you just can copy paste the results in a more permanent sheet or copy the sheet and remove the connection data.

I own a copy of 2021 excel (local copy version) so it has these options, assuming if you use office 365 or free version it has the same features.
 
Time for some more fun questions:

- How do you guys decide which team(s), car(s), driver(s) become part time or share a seat in your series? Especially if your series is fictional so you are not going off of any real life series or drivers.

- Do you guys create rivals by random accidents drivers have on track (or if you are driving when a car hits you) or do you pre-plan some of the 'drama'

- How do you decide when its time to 'retire' a fictional driver? Personally I have a hard time with this becasue I make such iconic diver names associated with a brand I don't want to let go even if the amount of years going by would be more realsitic to have them pass the torch soon lol

- Do you guys have any drivers sit time out due to injuries (or even deaths) depending on how bad a wreck was?

- For drivers who have bad ratings to you eventually adjust them or have a method that decides if they 'get better' or 'worse'?

- What about 'cheating' or 'controversies'? Do you have teams that get docked points for cheating or something else on-track related that could cause points/race suspensions? How do you/would you find a team cheating or determine if one was? We know in any form or racing the grey line is always pushed to the limit. Would be interesting if you noticed a car was doing too well in a race you could 'inspect' it and find out if its car ratings were higher than the default ones. Only way I could think of this happening was you created a 'cheater' car file with the cheat ratings with a random file copy command could add that car file to your roster at a very very low chance or something (or maybe there is another way to do it). Then if that driver happened to be cheatign you'd have to notice as the race control too so sometimes a driver/team could get away with it lol
 
1. This is the first year I'm doing part-time teams at all, so I have no answer to that.

2. Haven't had a need for rivalries since the AI don't really wreck each other, intentionally or otherwise, and all contact is more or less incidental.

3. Depends on the driver. Are they an accomplished and established driver in the series? They go out gracefully, irrespective of their results at the end of their final season. Are they just a field filler because I couldn't get more people into the league? Then they're just another footnote in the history of the sport. Whether they accomplish anything in the season or two they're racing in the series is up to the game.

4. I have had drivers sit out due to injuries, though I usually reserve that for the especially bad wrecks that you know would cause injury in real life. There's only one "death" that I've had to handle, and even then it's been decanonized at this point.

5. Sometimes I will adjust a driver's ratings if they're too far off on the fringes of performance, regardless of which end. This is so that "backmarker" drivers do have a shot at a decentish finish while front runners don't pull a Formula 1 and just run away with every race.

6. The only real penalties that come down on a driver or team is if the AI does something especially egregious on track (such as causing multiple wrecks at a superspeedway race while multiple laps down, for example), and these are usually suspensions. Being that my series leans more into the "league" side of things more so than just a mock series means that I feel like I can't just randomly penalize a driver or team without risking making a member of the league angry, even with the roleplaying factor thrown in.
 
1. Well, first off, my creation of fictional drivers originally was from my N4 days as a teenager, which was an extension of my days as a kid playing with Racing Champions while watching Days of Thunder, so at first it was basically continuing the history of fictional drivers like Cole Trickle or Russ Wheeler. Later I began adding real people that I knew as drivers, but these were always full time. The need for part-timers really came when I started to focus on keeping teams going in Xfinity and the truck series, trying to figure out how to move them up to cup, and also moving cup drivers to other types of series like Indy, IMSA, etc. I don't really have a set system, I basically just move a higher level driver up, and that creates an open space which gets a driver from a lower series, etc.

2. At first, because I was using DoT drivers, the rivalries were obvious. Later it became a combination of who I or one of my drivers would have frequent run-ins with during a season/major incidents that had a significant outcome at a crucial moment mixed with just generally drivers I didn't like and figured I wouldn't get along with in real life.

3. This is a hard part because once you build up a driver it's hard to just turn that switch off and say they don't race anymore. Some of my drivers are older and it is just time to retire, but mostly I mix things like moving to a different type of racing, becoming injured, losing the drive to continue. etc. I don't usually use things like they did something really bad and got fired, and while I use injuries sometimes to explain an absence or leaving the team, I haven't used a death.

4. Usually just use injury as a way to move them out of the team, rather than it just be a temporary thing, but I have done both on occasion. I don't use death unless I want it to have a meaningful impact on the sport or team. I don't usually base it on how bad a wreck was in-game, as we have seen not so bad wrecks lead to serious injuries and bad wrecks have no injuries.

5. This has been a real struggle for me, as I am bad with ratings. I find that I try to adjust them to be how I want them to be, rather than making a setting and let nature take its course, but I would like to change that policy in my future seasons.

6. Being a person that likes to avoid drama in the workplace, I haven't really messed with this. I have only recently began to develop completely fictional drivers from scratch, so I may delve into that aspect eventually, but I am not there yet.
 
- How do you guys decide which team(s), car(s), driver(s) become part time or share a seat in your series?
Some are intentionally made part time by the person who enters them, but for the most part, I sort out who's running full time first and everyone else gets partial schedules.

- Do you guys create rivals by random accidents drivers have on track (or if you are driving when a car hits you) or do you pre-plan some of the 'drama'
Both, but I admit to being lazy about creating and keeping track of potential rivalries and this is something I need to do better at. The most notable feuds from past seasons were centered around one Allie Riggs. Currently, Joshua Pacer is shaping up to play heel for Team Saar USA in ASCC.

- How do you decide when its time to 'retire' a fictional driver?
When enough seasons have passed for the average driver to call it a career, when people drop out of the group my leagues are hosted in, or based on performance/injury. On the latter point...

- Do you guys have any drivers sit time out due to injuries (or even deaths) depending on how bad a wreck was?
Drivers are squishy in my leagues (except for human tanks like Sgt. Harry S. Enola). One on-screen death has occurred (Race in Peace, Scott Morales) as well as several horrific injuries. Enter your characters at their own risk. That said, I did provide some divine intervention after the Camden Rhodes accident in this season's FARC opener. It was the first race back after the global pandemic and I didn't want it overshadowed by the senseless death of a young debutante, so I may have retroactively padded the exposed pit wall and replayed the accident on the following stream telling everyone in attendance "See? He'll be fine in a few weeks!"

- For drivers who have bad ratings to you eventually adjust them or have a method that decides if they 'get better' or 'worse'?
I don't believe I've actively done this for anybody.

- What about 'cheating' or 'controversies'?
I introduced post-race inspection rolls last season with a crude RNG spreadsheet. This season, it got upgraded to an on-stream "Room of Doom" segment in which a D20 is rolled for each of the top 10 finishers, with a 1 triggering a penalty roll on a D6. This has become a very fun segment.
 
1) If they're a new team, they usually start part time. If they get noticeably worse or they lose a major sponsor, I might make them part time or a seat-share car.

2) Anything on-track starts it, but I like to write drama off the track too.

3) I track drivers' ages. If their results start to drop off in their late 30s-early 40s I'll have them start contemplating retirement. I like to have more older drivers in my series, though, so I'm pretty loose about it.

4) Yep. I've had a few drivers canonically die or miss a season due to injury. Since I'm working through the 70s right now it's way more commonplace for me.

5) Whatever happens to them happens. Some drivers are busts, some pull a Ross Chastain and drive themselves into a top ride. I'm guilty of boosting drivers I like though.

6) I haven't thought about this, but now I want to do it. I don't like to be too hands-on with my results though. I don't like to directly influence my championships and record books. It just becomes a glorified stop motion at that rate.
 
I introduced post-race inspection rolls last season with a crude RNG spreadsheet. This season, it got upgraded to an on-stream "Room of Doom" segment in which a D20 is rolled for each of the top 10 finishers, with a 1 triggering a penalty roll on a D6. This has become a very fun segment.

Thats a really creative idea incorporating a dice. Virtually I could use like excel to generate a random number but sounds more fun if I bought a physical 20 sided die or something when I just need a quick number to randomize something.

I also had the idea with the power of my graphics programs/screenshots from my races along with like a card generator software I could make almost like a trading card deck of my series where I can use them to draw various scenarios or even use as a way to randomize car fields etc. This is getting more into the more crazy and absolutely unnecessary territory outside of doing the actual racing in the game but hey, I like making up stuff where it can sometimes be a rabbit hole of a game within a game within a game lol. If I end up making one of these cards as a test run or I actually do go through with a whole 1st edition stater deck set I'll be sure to post it of course, pretty tired tonight after hammering out more 3do's for NR2003 so my creativity bank is a 0 for now but this is in my mind and I wanna try it making a NR2003 card now lol
 
I also had the idea with the power of my graphics programs/screenshots from my races along with like a card generator software I could make almost like a trading card deck of my series where I can use them to draw various scenarios or even use as a way to randomize car fields etc.
This sounds fun. I'd keep an eye out for more on that if you do anything with it.
Meanwhile, I thought I'd provide an example of my Room of Doom segment, where the box the die is cast in helpfully explains the consequences. Mister Lightener here just got hammered, and will probably get hammered again at the closest bar.

1673663568249.png
 
I wonder for those of you who create fictional series, how do you start, especially with drivers teams? The hardest part of starting a fictional league for me is creating a believable backstory for each team, driver, etc.

So how do you all establish the "baseline" for your series whether through lore/backstories, sponsor/team/manufacturer lineups, driver names, etc.

I'm personally thinking of taking a page out of FARC and using fictitious makes and models for my series, but I will likely use real sponsors and brands otherwise.
 
I first start with what level is the series at. Is is a local small low budget series? National Series with pro drivers? Or an International phenoomenon? For example with ICR Series in my fictional worlds its F1 + FIFA popularity but cranked up to 10x where like more than half the world is into it and even the lowest of low drivers have thousands and thousnads of fans, kind of like popular eSports as well that are ultra popular.

With that I can build the range of driver skill and the teams sizing. I really like variety so I make small teams that are 1 car operations and less known sponsorships to the absurdly overpowered, over-popular, and throw money infinitely at everything teams.
 
I concur with Mystical with knowing what level your league/series is going to be first. For my league, the NSCA is basically a stand-in for NASCAR in it's universe. However, a lot of the things I've come up with are either based on 2 things:

1. Is based on something in real-life, ranging from being a 1:1 to that thing, to just being influenced by it but otherwise is it's own thing.
2. Just randomly deciding on a whim about something and then rolling with it until I think of something better or realize I was an idiot for rolling with it in the first place. Often both. That's just part of the learning experience when running a fictional series though.

Speaking of which, one thing I've noticed is that you're almost always learning as you go. Whether it's finding out way to optimize painting your carset(s), learning how to tweak settings in the game to make it work to your liking, learning about interesting bugs in NR2003, learning how to be patient with NR2003, learning other programs to enhance NR2003, etc.
 
Who read this thread (Total readers: 0)
    Back
    Top