Managing Setups

In the last article we mentioned the importance of metadata to create a network of pools of data. This time we look into setups and the challenges of managing them optimally with the power of metadata.  

Until now, if you wanted to keep a setup for future reference in rFactor 2, you needed to save it to a file every time you use it. If you didn’t save it, you wouldn’t get it back. If you played around with setup changes, you might’ve ended up saving the same setup twice, which just makes it even more difficult to then go through the list of setup files and load the right one. How do you even search for a setup?

We solved all of these challenges by recording unique setups, and creating related metadata on the sessions you use them. All the setups you use are automatically stored in our data platform. Including the setups used in a new stint after a quick pit-stop (that was a challenge :) )! No need to remember to save them anymore. With this data structure, you can access Fidgrove’s Engineering Station to see any setup you’ve ever used. Just go into the Garage corner of the Engineering Station, and you’ll be presented with a list of cars you’ve used. Once you select a specific car, you’re presented with the list of setups you’ve used. This table includes information on total km done with each setup, as well as some key setup variables such as tires and fuel load. Oh, and you’ll also see when it was last used and where. Yes, you can edit the name of the setup for easy reference. When you select the setup you want, you can see its details, download the setup file, and view a list of all sessions where the setup was used. 

You can also get to a setup in different parts of the platform. For example, when looking into a session details, each stint will have a link to the respective setup. Another example is when looking at track records, where each lap also has a link to the setup, so that you can quickly go into the setup related to that performance. 

We are very happy with how this feature turned out. We aimed at creating an easy flow for setup information, so that’s not a hassle anymore. We hope you agree with us. This also sets up nicely for building on top of this structure ;)