PITS Bath seems like a short but hellish ride

Good work with the Pearl Izumi Tour Series

Well after looking over these races I need to comment a bit.

First using MarghNorways tip on unclick Merge is the key to fix the business end of races. BUT I need you to look at the stuff under the Merge, the issue on hiding certain things at the finish line.
This has proven to fix the problem you have with the truck that pops up halfway in the road.
This thread handled the problem, as many others old ones.

https://pcmdaily.c...ost_758464

Also on hiding some of these things brings a more natural real life feeling to a smaller race. How many in-city races do have a TV camera crew in a truck over the road at the finish (the grue), and even some of the fancy VIP buses (the VIP). In most cases both the Grue and VIP should be ticked to hide and leaving perhaps only Tribune and Booth.
IMHO the Tribune looks as the much more single object in smaller races that should be unticked.
Ticking the other makes these blocking object gone.
Some small problem to put a great finish to a great stage. Then it's time for Generate Borders, and it's all fixed. (I think)
This issue is what so sad when finding old pre-2014 races that doesn't include zcts-files. No way to clean them up and upgrade to pcm14.

So I have been trying out these PITS races and have this to comment on them

Barrow = Having this problem with a truck with VIP stand sticking out in the business end of the race. Easy to fix.

Bath= for unknown reasons I can't load this stage. Crashes at Road Intersection Geo, but it opens up in Stage Viewer.

Croydon = all really well and nice

Motherwell = got some spectators on the road and that VIP stuff at the end. Also some "flags" by the roadside is right smack in the middle of the road. You need to move the 1km,5km or 10km banner a bit so the flags move from the corner.

Peterborough = Nice race indeed, but hide the Grue (TV-truck) and that intersection in the race is murder when the sprinters heads for home they run right through the back end of the peloton. We would have had a HUGE pile-up, but how to fix that I am not sure.

Ryde = got the TV-truck (grue) and some VIP problems.

So the races are fast and furious, and fun to play. If these small hick-ups could be fixed I would be happy. Not easy to make these short races in PCM, and getting the very narrow roads as in RL is alomst to hard for the AI I believe.
Very nice contribution to the game, so many thanks.

If anyone would like to get the appetite going for these hectic races have a look

https://www.youtu...o4dlgg5D8R

Thanks for the comments. Nice to see someone offering up genuine advice, it's been a while since i did stages so it's useful for me.

Thought i'd cleared up Barrow, will give it a check over. Bath works fine for me, so not sure there. Motherwell i'll look over, shouldn't be any other banners apart from the 1km one and i did check over spectators, will go and look at it again though.

Peterborough does have a bit of a unique route where it loops across itself. It does look weird if the peloton is big or way behind, but that's just kind of the way the game works. I just thought it would be cool to try and as a race it works fine.

On the TV crews/vip stands and stuff... Tour Series does have some very good TV coverage. Ok there isn't an overhead camera like the one in the game but there are static finish line cameras irl, so i don't see a need to get rid of them.
Equally there arn't big stands like in the game, but there are sometimes raised seating areas or slightly cordoned off VIP areas. No exactly replicable in the game but it's nice to have some extra atmosphere.

If i were to go 100% realistic there would be 20people at the roadside total and some very different cities. Instead i've gone for something a bit more fun and engaging when playing the game. It's the playoff between realism and in-game fun, and i will always side with fun! But i will check and clear up the actual borders issues where objects are in the road.

I remember there being an overhead camera at the Tour Series event I went to around 5 years ago - so it's not as if it is unheard of, even if they don't have them any more.

Of course Izumi got good TV coverage. It's that camera-crane that interfere like the VIP truck with houses and stuff.
The VIP truck is the biggest problem in races with tight corner at the business end, so you should tick it no matter if they got nice stands in the city or not.
The game suffers if the riders will ride into the truck and through it.

I have tested and think the Tribune is the best and doesn't interfere that much.

I've seen steep hill finishes where all VIP and TV-crane hanging not only over the road but also out of the edge. Looking terrible indeed.

Test out with only Tribune, and you see how it looks...

I know it's hard to get these short circuit races to work, and I think you made some cool races. (Only to clean up the disturbing)

Perhaps you could publish your zcts-files, so personal thoughts could be included.
I for one will be happy.

@themanxmissele can you re-upload the PITS Bath (Cobble)
because i can't ride that stage,
all the others can be ridden but the Bath crashes on Road Intersection Geometries or what comes after it

I don't really think that Cavendish would be hapoy if he has to climb Cavendish road haha Good work!

The same as you seen for me. Something is wrong with Bath
(probably the water !!)

There's no water in Bath
I'm still waiting to get around to it, got busy with MG stuff. Keep an eye out as i should get an update up later this week.... although that said i can open it fine in the editor, viewer and in game....

on the second stage of this pits series, i somehow managed to get an 20 minutes lead.
on just a 42km race?

LOL?

NO Water in Bath.
Good Heavens mate, what have all those blokes been sipping all those years. Probably something else in the pubs I guess

That's why it crashes then.
Seriuosly, it's still a big Q on why it crashes....

For those not knowing the story on the water thing...

https://www.therm...thspa.com/

Looking nice after a day on the bike doesn't it ??

if there is no water in the bath than you need to go look at the shower

So mate,
I had a go at your GP Herning and it looked good.
The only critic I could bolster up is the very wide roads. I can handle wide roads on tarmac, but surely you could narrow the dirt roads.
As it is now you got 4 !!! lanes on them, very wide. The roads in this area are very narrow, when it's the dirt roads.
Have a look at this picture from the race.

Perhaps you could release the zcts, please

OK I know playability is better with wide roads, but it's like having 4 lane pave on Paris-Roubaix. NO-WAY

There's the entire reasoning for why the cobbles are 2/3 instead of 1. It's not something i'd even consider changing because PCM AI just cannot deal with narrow roads decently. If you want 100% true to life realism i suggest you don't ever download my stages because that is not something i care about. The stage works, the gameplay is good, it looks solid and i am happy with that. Any true to life realism is just luck/a bonus from there.

Meaning no disrespect mate.
I like your stages, focusing in the many cases the forgotten races.
Sorry
As you say it's always a toss-up between how it looks and how it works. You know best, since you create the stage. And doing a very fine job of it I might add.

No hard feelings I hope...

No it's cool.

Also been looking into Bath and i'm completely clueless as to why it won't work in-game but will work in the Editor and Viewer with no reported issues... I'll re-build it from scratch at some point but it's at the bottom of my priority lists for at least the next month, so don't hold your breath

Was cleaning some files off my laptop and came across a stash of old stages i'd made for PCM12 and 13. Thought i'd publicly upload them again here incase anyone wanted to download them either for the old games, or if they wanted to convert them to PCM14!

Feel free to go nuts with the stages however you want. Some migt contain zcts files, and you are free to use them however you want. I just ask that if you do convert any of them to PCM14 that you give me a converted copy to post here. Also if you want to use a zcts and edit it just give me an appropriate credit.

pcm 12 is can be used for pcm 13 and 14 already.
dont need to convert

But if they are converted then things like wind and cobbled difficulty can be changed and some minor mistakes could be fixed (not that i make mistakes ). Plus they would just work better.
But yes they will work straight up