True true. However, one does wonder if the KK gang could have made better/faster progress with money at their side. It was a shoestring budget and that might be the primary reason it took a decade. It was like 3 guys and a Labrador.
Bit that takes us back to the idea of is it worth it to spend the cash to hire proper team and the like. Would it turn a profit? Probably not is what seems to be the consensus.
Which again is why it would be interesting if the Iracing folks decided well f it? Let’s do this right because we want to represent all motorsports… including karting.
Optional add on… iKart and coming soon, iSupermoto…
AFAIK as I know they are the only ones that have the capability and endless cash flow to make it happen. I mean how many racecars can they personally buy with all those dollars that are inconveniently piling up?
Hol up… how about iracing branch out to the real world and open racing facilities and their own series…
Poor guy who wrote the gg article was simply saying “kartsims need motion”. And here we are off on a spectacular KK tangent.
Oh yea I’m not -ing on anyone! It’s very daunting and has taken me quite a while just to build something that moves in a straight line in a game engine. They have scanned some really niche tracks that no one wanted to race and then made them free… So someone had to do an ROI analysis and missed the boat.
I don’t believe this to be true. I have partial sim motion and have been on a buddy’s crazy full-motion rig. It’s more of a gimmick and fun to have. I turn it off when I’m taking it seriously. Many of the top e-sports teams don’t run it.
Ran it for KartKraft and another kart sim I can’t remember the name of on my motion rig. It wasn’t what swayed my decision to keep using those sims.
Not trying to be the contrarian here, but this sounds like a fud reason kart sims aren’t popular. Something tells me Connor the writer hasn’t raced sprint karts much or at all.
Zach from KartKraft was a very passionate karter who wanted to transform karting into the Sim World. Having seen his work from the late 2000’s, he never wanted to release anything until he believed was realistic.
Money was a hurdle in the early days, but he did get funding to help him and had a fantastic crew working on all different areas to bring his idea to reality.
So that’s the main question I have. Is it abandonware? Do they have some non compete clause. Can we get it back in their hands so it starts making progress again. Looks like it had some good forward progress 2-3 years ago.
I’m really not meaning to come off as mean with this statement, but, I’ve yet to play a karting game which simulates the physics accurately, that includes KartKraft, the one that’s on RFactor and the really bad ones (Gran Turismo had one once).
They just can’t get it right. It might be the feel you inherently need in a kart, maybe you don’t need that as much in a car. I suspect it’s the black art of tire modeling and it’s interaction with the frame (should be fairly simple) and the track.
Back when I was at university I helped a PhD student with car simulation and the driver in the loop system, it might have been leading edge at the time, 2007-8, I dunno. And he and his professor both agreed karts were too difficult to model due to the tire model (also the most difficult part of a car). The difference is there’s a willingness to invest in car tire models, not so much in kart tire models.
That would be a best case scenario for KK. KK imho seems to be better that Kart Racing Pro. I’ve been involved with iRacing since before the release. Even if the orig dev worked it into a service like iRacing. I would probably use it more than iRacing comparatively.
Yeah. Unfortunately they wanted something from the game for their failed nascar or Indy thing that they were supposed to make. My understanding is that they don’t have any plans for KK and that it’s likely to die in the MG portfolio. The original dev had to sell as they ran out of funds in pandemic time frame.
I tried launching it the other day and was met with unplayable lag. Not sure what changed.
If you check the steam KartKraft forums their is a fix to get it back going, I bought it last month not knowing that they had been defunct for years. I got it to work after posting on the forums. I would say I enjoy what they developed better then what Rfactor 2, Assetto Corsa, Automobilista 2, project cars 1 & 2,Gran Turismo ect… However I have never felt that simulations are the exact same thing as real racing in any discipline of racing. I use it for the enjoyment and learning a track.
It’s quite good but requires setup changes to find your happy place. And, the setup is unlike irl, in many ways. For me, the one major variable that seemed to have the most impact was seat position. I’d try slammed forwards and back, up, down, etc. We arrived at many useful and quick tunes.
Feeling wise I really liked it. The KZ hopping under braking was quite a thing, visceral.
I used shakers to liven things up. I found that of the various sims, this one had the best feels.
Thanks for the heads up, I’ll look up the fix. I have avoided sim for a few years now.
I have iRacing, and a triple monitor setup with moza wheel and pressure sensor brakes. I find the FW31 formula 1 car with no assists to be a great training aid for shifter driving.
I have always found that open wheel downforce cars are the best feeling cars in sim. Dunno why but they are the only ones that don’t feel wooden to me.
For racing in the sim I like slower stuff just because you can race really close with less consequence. I raced Alonso one time in Miatas on iRacing and it was a blast, but the formula cars feel more “real” somehow, I agree. I always hot lap in a fast single seater.
-ing on anyone! It’s very daunting and has taken me quite a while just to build something that moves in a straight line in a game engine. They have scanned some really niche tracks that no one wanted to race and then made them free… So someone had to do an ROI analysis and missed the boat.
