In the Paddock at Racetrim - March 2025
The "In the Paddock at Racetrim" blog series communicates what I'm working on and where the platform is going. Your feedback and input are highly encouraged and appreciated.
February review
Changes:
- Launched on 02-15!
- Made improvements to responsive design and layout for mobile screens.
- Fixed inconsistent behavior when using the back button on the launch page.
Platform growth:
- Total number of users: 3
- Total servers launched: 2
- Total settings saved: 3
March strategy
This month is all about two different and important outcomes.
- Expand the offering toward the needs of leagues and large event organizers.
- Offer useful features that don't require a purchase.
Capabilities for league and event organizers
I'm engaging in as many conversations as I can with organizers and players from large communities that run custom events. I want to understand the nuances and problems these folks face when operating servers for their communities. If you organize, or participate in, a popular league and are reading this, please please please email me, I'd love to chat more with you. You can also reach out to me on discord @nackjicholson5643.
Below are a few things I know I can do to level-up Racetrim for league use cases.
More powerful servers
The current "Small" server offering on Racetrim is exceptional for use as a practice server or multiplayer public lobby. However, there is an opportunity to use the platform to provision high-end servers that meet the needs of the most serious leagues and professional sim racers. We'll be offering two new high-performance servers.
- HP0: 2 CPU Cores, 8 GiB RAM
- HP1: 4 CPU Cores, 16 GiB RAM
BOP and Entry lists
Settings for advanced use cases are still missing from Racetrim. BOP (Balance of Performance) allows players to adjust car performance settings for field leveling. Entry lists let server admins define the car models in the race, configure multiple drivers per car, and limit the players that can access the server by STEAM ID. These features will open up Racetrim servers to be more usable for leagues and special events.
Launch into more regions
I haven't forgotten about you Aussies, Kiwis, and South American drivers. I'll get ACC server infrastructure going in more places. Here are the new regions I want to bring online in March.
- US East (Ohio)
- EU West (Ireland)
- EU Central (Frankfurt)
- Australia (Sydney)
- South America (Sao Paulo)
No purchase necessary:
The majority of ACC players don't need to rent a server. I'd like Racetrim to be useful as a companion app for all players, and so we'll be adding a few features to be used by anyone.
Online ACC server browser
Currently, only servers hosted by Racetrim are listed on our site. I will integrate with the full list of in-game ACC servers and allow players to browse, share, and connect to any ACC server available via the in-game lobbies. I've received permission to use the API provided by https://acc-status.jonatan.net/. I'm exploring how to integrate with the ACC Connector protocol too.
Download JSON server settings
If you want to use Racetrim to edit and store ACC server settings, we'll allow you to download them for use off-platform in your self-hosted server. This idea came from a commenter on reddit, and I think it is a great idea! I've said before that the mission is not to make money off of server rentals, it's to build companion tools and technology that sim racers can use to great effect. Making our features more compatible with self-hosted servers is fully on mission, and I love that. Thanks for your ideas!
I appreciate your continued interest in this project, and we'll see you on the grid!