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Page documenting (finally) the stuff to be done to a stock server to make it ovg worthy. Includes some workarounds, some important configuration tweaks, overrides, and overall comfort stuff. This is a work in progress and will be updated as I stumble upon more and more stuff to fix. Focuses on Automobilista, but tweaks should work for other sims based on the same engine.

The Kita Situation

If Kita join times out, but everyone else doesn't, change port to something higher up. Seems to be some network fudge with OVH servers. Troublesome to troubleshoot. Works with 50041 and 500141, as tested with GTR2 OVG500 and AMS OVGARC.

Multiplayer.ini

Query Port Start="50141" // range is 1025 - 65535
Port Start="50041" // range is 1025 - 65535

Escape at any time

It sucks to have to stop before teleporting to pits.

Multiplayer.ini

Must Be Stopped="0" // Whether drivers must come to a complete stop before exiting back to the monitor

Safety car collisions

On some modded tracks, having SC collisions on means massive spergouts (see: OVGF3 S2 Pau) so it's recommended to disable them:

DedicatedServer.PLR

QUICK Safety Car Collidable="0" // Whether safety car is collidable
MULTI Safety Car Collidable="0"

Qualifying lap limit

This is a very important setting in GTR2 as most GDBs use funny lap limits. Always worth a look in the other games. Usually set to a high enough number so people can actually get good laps in, but setting it to 1 means a tense one-shot qualifying session.

Multiplayer.ini

Qualifying Laps="255"

Blue flag penalties

By default they're too sensitive, especially when someone gets bored and starts exploring track geometry, so turn them off

DedicatedServer.PLR

QUICK BlueFlags="0" // 0=none, 1=show but never penalize, 2=show and penalize if following within 0.3 seconds, 3=0.5s, 4=0.7s, 5=0.9s, 6=1.1s, 7=use SRS value "BlueFlags=<0-6>" (default is 3)
MULTI BlueFlags="0"

Pause when no players

Self explanatory. Avoids the possible issue of servers going on their own to Q and R after a driver joins even for a few minutes.

Multiplayer.ini

Pause While Zero Players="1" // Whether to pause a dedicated server (and stay in practice session) if no human players are present

Reverse grid

(untested yet) AMS has a setting to automatically run a race 2 with reversed grid, this can be enabled by adding a second race session.

DedicatedServer.PLR

QUICK Num Race Sessions="2" // range: 1-4
MULTI Num Race Sessions="2"

Warmup

AMS disables warmup by default, and we want warmup so people can get their sip, piss and the admin can reverse the grid.

DedicatedServer.PLR

Run Warmup="1"

Disable Parc Fermé

Defaults to an rfm/srs related setting, worth disabling it altogether in case you're running a funny series.

DedicatedServer.PLR

QUICK ParcFerme="0" // 0=off, 1=no setup changes allowed between qual and race except for 'Free Settings'), 2=same unless rain, 3=use SRS default 'ParcFerme=<0-2>'
MULTI ParcFerme="0"

Everyone can vote

Democracy bitches

Multiplayer.ini

Admin Functionality="3"

Random settings

Bunch of things to allow for either memes or driver swaps.

Multiplayer.ini

Allow AI Toggle="1" // Whether users are allowed to toggle to AI control on the fly
Allow Spectators="1" // Whether to allow spectator clients to join the server.
Allow Passengers="1" // Whether to allow spectators to join a car as a co-driver/passenger.

Spectators in R

Allow spectators in closed sessions for those epic driver swap strategies, will come in handy if the server does an endurance race and driver swaps are required.

Multiplayer.ini

Spectators When Closed="0" // whether spectators are allowed to join closed sessions

Per track things to look out for

GTR2, and probably some other sims using the engine, use the estimated lap time found in the track GDB and calculates the theoretical amount of laps needed to cover the race time. If the time limit is reached before the lap limit, race ends as expected, but if the GDB defined lap time is too slow the race will end early (see: GTR2 OVGT500 Rd2) and everyone will be disappointed.

<track>.GDB

  Qualify Laptime = 204.669
  Race Laptime = 211.867