Just curious - how good is this?

[delanvital]

I can see it costs 24 euros. The screenies look very detailed. The car selection is quite limited, but the new Abarth 500 is a nice touch. It is worth the money? :g:

[Katsushika Matsumoto]

Yes it's worth every penny.

Tonight I had some very nice laps on Aosta (the new track) with Moose right up my tail. The new track is of very high quality and has a very realistic track surface, for me it has the same quality as laser scanned tracks in for example iRacing.

Yeah the car selection is limited, but if you're an openwheel fanatic this is one of the best sim you can buy.
To be honest before I bought nKP, I really dind't like openwheelers... but it's changed because in nKP it's just feels right like a real car would behave. And it's only gotton better with the last beta.

The Fiat 500 does need some work in the physics/tyre department but it's already a blast to drive. In the last part of the beta there's gonna be another car addition (Osella : kinda a track car).

You can check a (very old) youtube clip of it. The track is the Trento-Bondone Hill climb track wich will also be released in the final version of 1.1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhEkZt9UVmg&feature=PlayList&p=DAC86A3175E7322E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11

One of the biggest problems with nKP the was the slow development/communication, that has all changed in the last month. There seems to be a team of people hard at work to fix all the problems/bugs that gets submitted.
So you're hard earned cash is a pretty good investment.

[obsolum]

Why don't you just try the demo? That should give you an idea of what the game is like. It's nothing like LFS, IMO. It's way more "hardcore", so to speak. The feeling is superb. I've seen people say on forums that NKP ruined LFS for them as LFS feels dead and sterile in comparison. I tend to agree

If you like open wheelers then NKP is the sim for you. And now with the addition of the Abarth there's even a little something for the tin top lovers That being said, I haven't bought it myself, mainly due to lack of funding :sideways:

[The Moose]

In the last part of the beta there's gonna be another car addition (Osella : kinda a track car).

Actually that's not expected until v1.2

Apart from that.... i concur completely with everything you said

 The more I drive it, the more impressed I get with this version.  For me it's the best feeling sim out there.  Single seater heaven :yahoo:  (and the Abarth aint bad :sideways:)

[Katsushika Matsumoto]

Actually that's not expected until v1.2

Oops oh well, I probably misread something in my enthusiasm :doh:
Still you can't go wrong with this (for 25 Euro).

[Mille Sabords]

On the other hand the development of NKP is erratic at best. These days progress is impressive and it feels that the game is getting better, earlier this year the atmosphere was rather depressing with the aborted 1.04 version.

I do not own the game, only run the demo (current payment methods do not work for me) but would gladly support the (minimal) development team by purchasing a license, just like LFS dev team.

Netcode is by far the worst around, sound is average, low speed grip is a known issue, interface (in progress) is not intuitive nor simple BUT...
The feeling you get from this sim is incredible! LFS single seaters / tracks feel incredibly bland after a session in NKP (FBM, FOX, F08). The "Full mode" dear to Doorman creates a unique level of immersion (spend 20 minutes in pits for a bent suspension - where contact=race over.

Try the demo first, as this game is known to refuse working randomly on some machines.

[delanvital]

Just tried the demo. I am not sure the open cars are me, I want howling engines and tin tops. I can't try the Abarth in the demo.

That said, the handling is quite good and feels right, to me at least. It makes me wish I had a pressure-sensitive breaking pedal. I had some trouble with my clutch pedal not wanting to calibrate right (I use a spare set of pedals for that, DFP works fine) which gave me trouble shifting, but I hope that is just my old spare pedals...

I will get this next month and join you guys

[The Moose]

Netcode is by far the worst around, sound is average, low speed grip is a known issue, interface (in progress) is not intuitive nor simple BUT...

I have to take issue with that, and I'm sure the others that have been racing this version of the beta will agree... The netcode is absolutely fine!  I haven't seen a single problem with it.  It's smooth and stable.  It's no worse than LFS or iRacings netcode.  You can now race very close to others with complete confidence, there's been no lagging/warping cars that have under 250 pings. It's been superb.

The sound in this version is massively improved. Very immersive indeed.

The new interface is fine, what's the problem with it?  It's now perfectly intuitive and very simple.  I cant agree with you at all on that.  People complained about  the old one and this new one is a massive improvement.

What is the issue with low speed grip?

[Doorman]

Let's gang up on Mille.

....The "Full mode" dear to Doorman....

No it's not. So I tried it on a server once. It's far too severe in a computer scenario. No one will wait 10 minutes to repair a car during a 20 minute race! Sure, in real life you prang your car, you're out! But this isn't real life.

Try the demo first, as this game is known to refuse working randomly on some machines.

It's true that in i not dotted or a t not crossed will cause problems but that's not entirely unknown in any game you care to mention.

[Mille Sabords]

Haha some explanations needed

Not raced beta 2 yet (swapping laptop at the moment) so I will try the beta 2 netcode sometime. Beta still had issues (box cars, weird collisions, invisible servers...) but you gave me high hopes it's now solved!

Sound (still beta 1) was not so well balanced / tyres squeal sounds too loud and kind of random, so early in the braking zone? I'm missing information/immersion from these especially. Engine, wind do indeed sound better.

Interface: The shiny new lobby thing is... well, a bit shiny but OK. I was mostly referring to the in-game interface, that is not intuitive nor efficient and did not improve (the different views, how the setup values are spread on different pages a bit randomly - I would expect fuel + tyres to be on the same page for a convenient pit stop for example, silly FFB and FOV that are setup related...don't get me started on skins installation, tracks installation , 10 character length ingame chat)  
The fact that full screen gives you more FPS but refuses to let go when the game crashes (because it does crash ) is extremely frustrating as well.

Low speed - off track grip was very weird as well as damaged car behaviour in Beta 1 + no FFB at low speed. Painful FFB on curbs and under braking. Maybe better in beta 2?

[The Moose]

...... and i'll just add...there are still slightly weird collisions with the Abarth, a tap can feel like a big punt sometimes...so I'm not claiming the netcode is perfect  But it's still no different to iRacing/LFS in that respect.  I've seen freaky collisions in both those sims plenty of times.

Box Cars is not a bug!  it's an anti join lag feature, like rFactors silly version of the same thing.  As soon as you stop your car you will load the model/skin of the box cars.   It looks a bit silly, granted  

 I see what you're saying now about the setup interface...what you say is perfectly true.   I've been playing netKar so long that i don't notice that now though.  I know where everything is instinctively now, but yes, you're correct..it's not laid out in a logical manner.

The FFB seems better to me in this latest beta.  I don't get the harsh curbs any more.

The sounds could do with a way of tweaking to balance them to our preferences, for sure.   I have no problem with getting all the information i need from the tyre sounds though.  I know exactly what the car is doing at all times.  
 The tyre squeal is probably a bit too loud, as it is in iRacing, but then again you get so much information in a sim from hearing the tyres that i always liked it loud anyway (i always had skid sounds in LFS turned way up out of proportion to the other sounds)

Offtrack feel fine to me on grass.  There is definitely an issue with the gravel traps though.   My cure for that is to stay out of them

[Katsushika Matsumoto]

Painful FFB on curbs and under braking. Maybe better in beta 2?

That is much improved in second part of the beta, It was pretty bad in the first one.

To be honest some problems still remain though like you've mentioned some servers not showing up, skins.

[Mille Sabords]

You got me convinced!
I'll download the beta 2 and install everything again. Maybe this new laptop will cope better than the previous one!
Are non-official tracks available for demoers? They were locked offline in Beta 1, but available online...
I'll have to wait for moneyb@@kers access to purchase this thing though. But as a true LFS fan, what's a few more months?

Edit: Maybe I'll wait for the next patch... The tyre temp bug seems horrible enough at the moment. Good luck Kunos!

[The Moose]

Are non-official tracks available for demoers?

I think (not 100% sure..I'll test later) that Demoers can only use Crema and Prato now.   That was probably a sensible decision as far as the devs are concerned, but not as demoers are concerned   They were effectively giving away a full formula Ford simulator for free previously.  Anything that encourages people to buy a license has to be good for the future of netKar.

[Gnomie]

The sounds could do with a way of tweaking to balance them to our preferences, for sure.  

Moose, did  you try tweaking the values in that config file I mentioned? (nksoundcfg) That looks like it might work, but I haven't tried it myself yet.