My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Wed Feb 17, 1999

Observations while gathering License Test Criteria for a web page.

Gotta love that IA-8 gold criterion, specified to .001 second. 1:55.43 is not good enough!

While gathering that data I needed to try license tests, to get access to the records.

I passed B-8 and IA-1 on the first try, but failed A-8.

I inferred the IA Bronze times by rounding up my recorded times. I didn't actually try each one.

Later in the evening while trying to work out the used car stocking algorithm, I kept failing A tests. But I eventually passed each one in fairly short order, A-4,A-5,A-3,A-6,A-7 in that order. I actually got a silver on A-7, but didn't save it. I think I can do it again. I passed my dreaded A-3 by a reasonable margin with manual transmission this time. I seem to subconsciously get more speed out of the initial series of turns. One problem with Gran Turismo, though, is it seems to make me tense and nervous when I am driving my real car at highway speeds. I got down to the right second in A-8, but never persisted to passing, since I had stayed up too late already.

By the time you're above 1400 days, used car stock only changes every 10 days, on the 10 days, and all three manufacturers I checked (Toyota, Mazda and Honda) changed on the same day. I think it changes more frequently early in the game. I got that impression when I did a similar experiment from a fresh game, but I didn't take any notes. Gee, I think I wish I had a laptop if I'm going to make those sort of notes in detail. Which I am very tempted to start doing.

I could be chintzy and put in some second-place best laps too, but I think your rule should be that all times shown as 1st, 2nd, 3rd were at one time 1st, if you see what I mean. That is, you should only add 1st place times, rolling down previous 1st times to 2nd and 3rd. Which quite likely means you'll invalidate my times based on submitted but unprocessed data.

Of course I was using highly unsuitable machinery for the races. I gathered the times last night while testing the prize Supra RZ. My wife says it is not really gold, but gold is a good enough description until someone comes up with a better concise colour description. It has orange or copper tones to the colour, and my wife suggested it is sort of an "iridescent pumpkin" colour.

Have you noticed how in some races, especially on the High-Speed Ring, if you leave the action going for a long time after the end of the race, eventually almost every car will come up behind you and bump your bumper before passing, as if it's some sort of congratulatory ritual?

using AltaVista, looking up +Grand +Valley +Speedway, I found

http://www01.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/da2/ncsi/GTIDC/GVS.html

The Gran Turismo manual claims Grand Valley is based on a real track somewhere, but this set of pages is obviously Japanese Gran Turismo pages.

Searching for "Grand Valley" turns up

And, duh. It's in Kitchener, right next door to Waterloo here. And duh. Yes I realize that I frequently go bicycling along beside the Grand River, ie. arguably in the Grand Valley.

Of course, Grand's a fairly common name for a River, like Rio Grande.

But as far as I know the track does not exist around here anywhere.

I should do some radical comparison tests with brake balance controller.

I was reading

http://www.cheatcc.com/psx/sg/gran_turismo_ia_class.txt

and it seems to imply that the "brake balance controller" also affects the total power of the brakes. I.e you are not only affecting the ratio, you also affect the power. If 100% brakes is too much at a particular setting, I guess this is not a problem, since whatever absolute amount you choose above that, you will need to compensate by applying less force. But if you can actually use more than 100% braking, you should raise both settings so as to maintain close to the same ratio, I guess. Default is 7/7 which may be significant.

Of course, the FAQ author could have been mistaken in his interpretation, hence the need for some testing.

The section

http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~albrnick/gt/simulation/modifications/tuning.html#Brakes

doesn't commit itself one way or another on this issue, but, then again, I see it is actually from mailto:chmilnir@worldnet.att.net

Last night I conducted some experiments to try and determine the used car stocking algorithm.

Day 1420, after about 10days of license failures, I was about to give up and think your personal "inventory" (cash+license trophies) needed to change, when, after about 10 days, and, hmm, on the even 10 day boundary, the Honda/Toyota stock I had been checking changed.

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1420
   Toyota stock changed massively
        + 2 more Levin
        + a Trueno
        minus 2 Supra MA70 Turbo Limited Edition
        minus all Supra RZ's
        + Mark II '92 Tourer S (looks like a piece of junk)
   Honda similarly stayed the same but changed on the same day
             cheapest Prelude VTEC went Cr9990 to Cr8630
                  (probably not same car)
             fewer NSX?

   (finally passed A4 on 1422, stock did not seem to change   )
     So I continued, now also noting Mazda  RX7 Cr9770

1430
   Mazda RX& Cr8310, Cr8970, no Cr9770
   Toyota  -1 Levin, +1 Supra MA70, +2 Supra RZ, etc.
         (still no red MA70   )
   Honda, no cheap Prelude VTEC, '91 CRXsi Cr4700
1436 - finally passed A-5, yup, no stock changes

1440, sure enough, changes
   Mazda top RX7 Cr10760, but cheapest Cr9470
     also quite cheap Eunos Roadster
   Toyota - whoa! --didn't even fill screen
     2 Levins, 1  MA70, all that was < Cr10000
     2 Supra RZ still there
   Honda 2 del Sol, and '93 Civic 3dr all that was < Cr10000

1445 finally passed A-3 with manual, cleanly at 43.711
      - didn't keep this, even though it put my total A time under 5:00  

1450
  Mazda
     RX7 FC GT-X top, Cr 8940
     + 3 Eunos Roadster only 4 cars < Cr10000
  Toyota
     - a bunch more
     - finally a red Supra MA70!  yay!  Cr7750
  Honda
     - '91 CRX Cr5310
     6 cars < Cr10000
     (including 1 Prelude, but not a VTEC)
     (aside, watch difference between '93 delSol si and '93 delSol s
                                        125bhp            102bhp

1462    (forgot to stop license repeats)
  Mazda
     RX7 GT-X Cr8870
     Eunos Roadster '90 V-special Cr9950 (pretty  )
     3 RX7 < Cr10000, including lighter 212bhp FC-III (vs 202bhp)
  Toyota
     5 Supra RZ
     only two cheap Supra MA70, none red   
     also 1 Levin, etc
  Honda
     2 del Sol si
     top is '91 CRX si  Cr5290
       one more Civic is all that's under Cr10000
     more NSX ?

1470
  Mazda
     Eunos '89 normal x2 and 1 RX7 GT-X all that is < Cr10000
  Toyota
     Levin, Trueno and black MA70 is all that is < Cr10000
     only 2 Supra RZ
  Honda
     stock looked low
     two Civics is all that was < Cr10000
     a few NSX

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somewhere here, I got a silver in A-7 (whee!) which I also did not keep I should be able to do it again, and should be first silver A