Where have all the condors gone? Long time passes...

Hi all.

I just upgraded to Condor version 2 (glider racing simulator), but no one appears to be flying in the races anymore (see gliderracing.com). When I had Condor version one a couple of years ago, usually about a dozen pilots would be in each US nightly race.

I wonder what happened, especially since Condor 2 with Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset is so amazingly realistic compared to the old Condor 1 with a simple pc screen.

Where did all the Condor pilots go?

Ben

I second VR in Condor 2!!! Incredible.
I remember things always slowing down in the summer but I agree, the last few times I've logged on at 9pm it's been crickets with no race updates.

I'm ready to try out racing in VR. If you haven't tried Condor 2 in VR, it's worth the $400 for the goggles but you'll need a good computer setup...

On Thursday, September 26, 2019 at 7:10:31 AM UTC-4, Turkey Vulture wrote:
I second VR in Condor 2!!! Incredible.
I remember things always slowing down in the summer but I agree, the last few times I've logged on at 9pm it's been crickets with no race updates.

I'm ready to try out racing in VR. If you haven't tried Condor 2 in VR, it's worth the $400 for the goggles but you'll need a good computer setup...

Some of the people who admin the races are the same that put a lot of work into the clubs. My 7pm Tuesday (Condor 2)/Thursday (Condor 1) GGC races stop at the start of the flying season (early May) and start at the end (hangar pack 9 Nov). I found I was getting one or two people, not enough to justify the effort. Our V2 server is up, running a rotation of mainly Ridge and local area (Eastern Ontario) tasks.

I agree Condor 2 is very good, haven't tried it in VR yet. I did start using the TrackIR system (head tracking), which allows you to look around, after flying Condor 1 for about 10 years, and wish I'd done it earlier. I do wish that they had the option to put 80mm ASI's in every glider - a step back from Condor 1's excellent instrument presentation. I don't buy the new add-ons since I bought the V3, which is great, but the ASI is too small for me. I run a 3 year old i5 with a medium performance video card at home (1060 3GB), and a more recent refurbished HP laptop Ryzen 2500u with Vega 8 graphics (~700CAD on Amazon) on the road, and get acceptable performance with medium settings on that.

If you're not sure your computer has the performance, check your video card (or integrated graphics) at https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php . Score of 1000 is minimum, 4000 very good, 8000 'perfect'.

Winter is coming...

US Nightly Soaring and Monday Night Soaring tasks are supported.

All the best,
Daniel

On Thursday, September 26, 2019 at 9:20:14 AM UTC-4, Daniel Sazhin wrote:
US Nightly Soaring and Monday Night Soaring tasks are supported.

All the best,
Daniel

Thanks, Daniel, for keeping the race tasks going, but...

I learn way more by flying with the ghosts of the really good pilots who fly your races. Example would be JSmiley's flight tracks from the races (available in www.condor-club.eu). I don't feel that I'm quite good enough (yet) to fly the actual races...not that I can't make it around the task myself, but if I fly behind a ghost glider I just learn way more coz it visually points out all the mistakes I make compared to him, and I can try it over and over again until I start making fewer mistakes than he, and beat him. Then I download another racer's flight track on another race, and start all over with the learning.

If the really good racers simply aren't going to fly in Condor anymore, then I'll just start flying the race tasks you put out there by myself, but I was just curious why they all left, especially when the simulator is so much better than it used to be. (I'm sure it's NOT because they don't like your race tasks - you always did a great job with that in my Condor 1!)

I just bought a pickup truck so I can move my PW-5 up here to Georgia soon from Miami. Here I can start flying cross-country in real life. Condor 2 is helping me greatly with that learning, especially since some nice person put out a Georgia landscape for Condor 2.

Of course, if you (Daniel) didn't upload the tasks then the great pilots couldn't fly them and consequently, I wouldn't have your ghosted tasks to learn from...so please keep doing that and hopefully the condors will return in force some fine day :-)

As for the Condor 2 and the Oculus Rift S VR, for those of you who haven't purchased yet: I bought a good gaming pc from Costco for about $1200 (ASUS "Republic of Gamers" with an Intel I7 processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card). This was what Condor 2 recommended and works great for me, i.e. no lags in the display, even when I move my head quickly from side to side or up and down to see the cloud above). I hear that one can get away with a less powerful processor and/or video card, but the extra money I paid I just chalk up to "life insurance" since I also fly in real "life", and want the best simulator I can reasonably get.

Originally Posted by Charles Ethridge

On Thursday, September 26, 2019 at 9:20:14 AM UTC-4, Daniel Sazhin wrote:[color=blue][i]
...

If the really good racers simply aren't going to fly in Condor anymore, then I'll just start flying the race tasks you put out there by myself, but I was just curious why they all left, especially when the simulator is so much better than it used to be.

...

You can also try he

https://sites.google.com/view/teamxc/

Regards,
Brad.

Most competitions are northern hemisphere, so its quiet in the summer with RL flying taking up pilot's time.

Now fall is here, expect it to get more active.

On Condor News, we expect to release the next update and 2 new planes in the coming week.

Chris
Condor Team

It APPEARS to me that they have mostly moved to Europe. Condor Club EU appears to be quite active, with several upcoming races:

http://www.condor-club.eu/comp/competitions/202/

There may be other such virtual race clubs, but this one and gliderracing.com are the only two of which I'm aware, except now the one from Brad Alston above (thanks, Brad).

Condor Club EU is a paid membership. I'm a paid member and I'm fine with that - not very expensive for what I'm getting in return (landscapes, flight tracks of great pilots, flap settings dials for various planes, etc.).