Sim Rigs - Let’s see yours

[charltjr]

Yeah that’s a massive vote of no confidence in him from the bank right there.

“We’ll give you another few months to get your s**t together, but only if you fire this useless berk.”

 

[mace¬]

Interesting that they seem to be in a standstill agreement too.

What does that mean? They are skint and need the bank to bail the out?

 

[boultonn]

What does that mean? They are skint and need the bank to bail the out?

ChatGPT to the rescue.
A standstill agreement between a bank and a company is a legal contract that typically occurs when a company is facing financial distress or is in default on its loans. In this agreement, the bank agrees to temporarily refrain from taking any legal action against the company, such as initiating foreclosure proceedings or demanding immediate repayment of loans. In return, the company usually agrees to certain conditions, such as providing regular updates on its financial situation and making efforts to improve its financial position. This agreement provides the company with breathing room to negotiate a restructuring of its debts or to implement a turnaround plan.

 

[mace¬]

ChatGPT to the rescue.
A standstill agreement between a bank and a company is a legal contract that typically occurs when a company is facing financial distress or is in default on its loans. In this agreement, the bank agrees to temporarily refrain from taking any legal action against the company, such as initiating foreclosure proceedings or demanding immediate repayment of loans. In return, the company usually agrees to certain conditions, such as providing regular updates on its financial situation and making efforts to improve its financial position. This agreement provides the company with breathing room to negotiate a restructuring of its debts or to implement a turnaround plan.

Thank you.

Looks like this could go a few ways.
1) They need to sort their finances out, but doesn't look like the banks have fully given up, will take time to resolve operational issues.
2) They need to regain trust in the customer base. Might be my blinkered view but the quickest way for a new CEO would be to halt new orders and get some good feedback fulfilling back orders.
3) They go bust, everyone loses apart from the newer brands.

 

[boultonn]

Several people have pointed out that they have entered in to some big sponsorship deals across motorsport which seems stupid if they are having cash flow problems.
Some have speculated that they’ve been blowing money on sponsoring things instead of paying their suppliers on time which is what’s led to the bonkers backlog.

 

[N0ddie]

If they did go to the wall someone else would buy them. There is value in the brand.

It’s just been run badly.

 

[charltjr]

I imagine they've run into some fairly mahoosive cashflow problems because their entire shipping chain collapsed. Will have been chargebacks a-plenty from people who paid on credit cards for a start.

Then you've got the reputational damage which will have impacted new orders too. All forseeable and preventable, so someone has to carry the can. It's usually some poor spod further down the chain so it's quite refreshing to see the big boss take one for the team.

 

[McGherkin]

Well, week one with the Moza. Been interesting!

So first things first, the actual quality of the thing has been spot on, no complaints there. It’s clearly well made, the resolution of the wheel is really impressive and I’ve already mentioned the flipping power of the thing.

What I wasn’t expecting to be so long was the setup of actually having it working as I want it. First of all you have to map the buttons and that’s not exactly difficult but it takes a while! Then comes setting up Assetto’s effects. There’s overall gain for AC but then there are four ‘effects’ you can tune. Slip, road, kerbs and ABS. Slip gives that kind of ‘brr’ feeling you sometimes get with a sliding tyre, road is supposed to add road noise and texture, kerbs obviously give you a whackwhackwhack when you hit one with a loaded wheel and ABS I honestly haven’t used.

What I was expecting was to get a kind of ‘audio track’ feeling through the steering - the wheel is alive and it tells you everything right down to the different types of tarmac you’re driving on. I suspect this is what ‘road’ is supposed to provide, but unfortunately I found it to add a vibration to the wheel at very high frequency at low speeds which would decrease until about 150mph where it would violently wobble the wheel. Very weird when you’re accelerating and there’s a vibration which is slowing down.

Assetto talks to me but it’s not particularly precise, I feel like it’s a bit vague and you’re just turning the wheel, it weights up, it starts to tremble a bit and you just hold it there.

However, I think that this is all setup and needs adjusting. I’ll talk about BeamNG later and it has a lot more feedback that I would expect from Assetto so I suspect that the wheel is getting garbage in.

However once you’ve set up Assetto in general… you need to then set up each car. I’ve been using FFBClip which helps. You tell it the maximum torque the wheel can provide, you tell it what torque you want to see when cornering in that car, and it adjusts the gain to hit that target. For road cars like the C30 I’ve been using 4nm, supercars 5nm, Lotus Exige 6nm, GT3s 8nm, Prototypes 10nm and F1 the full 12. I never really used to worry about this with the G27, but I realised quickly that the reason I didn’t was because it could never produce enough feedback anyway. There was no point turning it up for more demanding cars because it was already clipping with road cars.

Whilst I think there’s definitely a way to go with setting up AC, it’s still a massive improvement.

I’ve also had a go in EA Sports WRC and BeamNG with it. Very chalk and cheese, with EA being pretty pants (unsurprising tbh) and Beam feeling really good with lots of detail. I want to spend more time with them though.

Issues, well I’ve had two. Sometimes it would get a bit befuddled when going ingame and forget what buttons I had mapped on the steering wheel. You’d start a race, pull a paddle to put the car in gear and nothing, you’d have to quit the race and restart for it to start working again. Also I occasionally hit a wall or tripped the hands-off protection (stops the wheel going bananas after a second if you take your hands off) and would lose all FFB including the soft lock stops at the end of the steering travel, it would just become a free spinning wheel. By chance I checked for updates tonight and there is an update that addresses both those issues, so evidently they patch stuff quick.

Overall good so far but getting into a direct drive wheel isn’t simple.

 

[charltjr]

That’s really interesting, thanks for the feedback. I was hoping for way more plug and play than that, a bit of tweaking is fine but not tons of messing around.

Maybe that’s a benefit of Fanatec, is their compatibility a bit more mature?

 

[McGherkin]

That’s really interesting, thanks for the feedback. I was hoping for way more plug and play than that, a bit of tweaking is fine but not tons of messing around.

Maybe that’s a benefit of Fanatec, is their compatibility a bit more mature?

I would say that it’s not a Moza thing, just a decent wheel/DD thing. You definitely notice when the FFB is too heavy in a road car when you have a wheel with decent torque, but you don’t with a G27.

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Dear lord, f**k that! If I was going to all that effort, I'd rather just build a real car

 

[McGherkin]

Dear lord, f**k that! If I was going to all that effort, I'd rather just build a real car

Why not both?

Although to be fair I don’t think I’ll be building a modern GT3 or F1 car any time soon….

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Don't get me wrong, if you're really into sim racing, I can see why it might appeal, but I just want something plug-and-play.

I would kind of expect the companies making and selling the stuff would do the setup work for me, rather than me having to figure it out myself. They're the computer geeks after all.

 

[McGherkin]

Don't get me wrong, if you're really into sim racing, I can see why it might appeal, but I just want something plug-and-play.

I would kind of expect the companies making and selling the stuff would do the setup work for me, rather than me having to figure it out myself. They're the computer geeks after all.

The way I’d put it is like having decently adjustable coilover suspension.

You could stick with your stock suspension and it’d be meh across the board. It just works in every situation. But when you have adjustable suspension you have the hardware to perform a lot better, but you can’t just set it up once, roughly, and then expect it to do its best.

To be fair it sounds worse than it is - I’ve just set Assetto up once, then all I have to do is one slider when I get in the car and then that’s it for every time I drive it since. The thing is knowing how to set Assetto up in the first place.

 

[mace¬]

The way I’d put it is like having decently adjustable coilover suspension.

You could stick with your stock suspension and it’d be meh across the board. It just works in every situation. But when you have adjustable suspension you have the hardware to perform a lot better, but you can’t just set it up once, roughly, and then expect it to do its best.

To be fair it sounds worse than it is - I’ve just set Assetto up once, then all I have to do is one slider when I get in the car and then that’s it for every time I drive it since. The thing is knowing how to set Assetto up in the first place.

I was under the impression that they had predefined setup for each game that you just apply in the Moza configuration software?

Can you not just download the best settings that people have exported in community forums to get it setup correctly?

 

[McGherkin]

I was under the impression that they had predefined setup for each game that you just apply in the Moza configuration software?

Can you not just download the best settings that people have exported in community forums to get it setup correctly?

The configuration button makes the wheel work with the sim, for example configuring the sim to output rev info for the shift lights on the wheel.

You can copy other peoples’ settings but it’s also subjective to an extent.

 

[mace¬]

Interesting new update.

Wonder if they are purposely not fulfilling old orders they already have the cash for to keep their heads above water.

 

[Rob]

Interesting new update.

Wonder if they are purposely not fulfilling old orders they already have the cash for to keep their heads above water.

I can’t believe you haven’t actually managed to get your whole order. Absolutely shocking.

 

[Darren S]

Looks like they are shifting direction and looking more towards the entry level setups, as well now?

CSL Cockpit

The CSL Cockpit punches well above its weight. Every part of the aluminium and steel construction is optimised for stiffness and strength.

fanatec.com

 

[mace¬]

Looks like they are shifting direction and looking more towards the entry level setups, as well now?

CSL Cockpit

The CSL Cockpit punches well above its weight. Every part of the aluminium and steel construction is optimised for stiffness and strength.

fanatec.com

Ordered.

 

[Darren S]

Ordered.

"Delivery - due April 2032.............. possibly"

 

[N0ddie]

Looks like they are shifting direction and looking more towards the entry level setups, as well now?

CSL Cockpit

The CSL Cockpit punches well above its weight. Every part of the aluminium and steel construction is optimised for stiffness and strength.

fanatec.com

That looks like flex city right there. That will be absolute trash. Then consider what other rigs you can get for the same money.

 

[mace¬]

Well.... today is day 240 since ordering and after 3 months with nothing I have had a reply.

I'm not sure what it means, First asks is it missing? Then says once the damage is confirmed? And says they'll be in touch which is highly unlikely.

Thank you for your email.

Please accept my apology for the delay in replying to your message. I understand how frustrating this can be.

May I ask if only the CSL DD (5 Nm) is missing now from your order? Upon checking, the claim for tracking 1Z1YF3470451626845 is still in progress. As soon as damage has been confirmed, we we will reach out to you and let you choose between a re-placement or a refund.

If you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Have a great day!
Best regards / Freundliche Grüße
Everlie

Can someone explain?

Wonder since the CEO has gone they are start kick into gear getting the back log sorted?

I'm still pushing on, no refund. I want my product.

 

[McGherkin]

Isn’t it quite simple? They’re asking you to confirm that the only thing you’re missing now is the wheel base, and once they have confirmation from the courier that the parcel is damaged/missing they’ll email and offer a replacement.

 

[mace¬]

Isn’t it quite simple? They’re asking you to confirm that the only thing you’re missing now is the wheel base, and once they have confirmation from the courier that the parcel is damaged/missing they’ll email and offer a replacement.

No, they want the confirmation from me that I haven't received it but that was done about a week after it wasn't delivered when I raised it with them. That was also the last reply I had from their customer service with pretty much the same response as this reply.

The claim is with them and has been with them since about the same time. UPS are waiting on Fanatec from what I understand. Either Fanatec to say it was in the package shipped or it was missed off.

I'm guessing this line is Customer Service waiting on their shipping department "As soon as damage has been confirmed".

Just seems to me that they can't do anything proactively like contact their Shipping department to say I've got this query can you please check the status of this delivery.

 

[McGherkin]

No, they want the confirmation from me that I haven't received it but that was done about a week after it wasn't delivered when I raised it with them. That was also the last reply I had from their customer service with pretty much the same response as this reply.

The claim is with them and has been with them since about the same time. UPS are waiting on Fanatec from what I understand. Either Fanatec to say it was in the package shipped or it was missed off.
View attachment 1689787

I'm guessing this line is Customer Service waiting on their shipping department "As soon as damage has been confirmed".

Just seems to me that they can't do anything proactively like contact their Shipping department to say I've got this query can you please check the status of this delivery.

cancel cancel cancel

 

[mace¬]

FFS. The gift that keeps on giving.

Only one option, at that share price I go for a hostile take over. Then as the new owner I can ask customer service to escalate my order and get my DD.

 

[Hollidog]

Mate honestly you should just cancel and get your money back. If they go tits up and something goes wrong with your equipment what happens then? A warranty isn't worth anything if the company doesn't exist.

 

[mace¬]

Mate honestly you should just cancel and get your money back. If they go tits up and something goes wrong with your equipment what happens then? A warranty isn't worth anything if the company doesn't exist.

At this stage I honestly don't think that a refund is an option. I bought the CSL bundle with wheel, pedals and DD. I imagine that if I want a refund they will want the pedals and wheel back first and refund the full bundle price.

No way do I trust them to refund me anything if I send stuff back.

 

[Matt Cup]

You might have to bite the bullet and write it off in that case then.

Or just find a DD on eBay to use now with the other bits you already have and IF you do get your missing parcel just flog it to make the money back.

 

[mace¬]

Well, as I originally went with the Fanatec because I wanted it for the xBox, I've now sacked that off and I've £1000 deep into a PC build already and I'm going to go down another route. Probably the Moza r9 or R12.

Deep down I think that possibly means I wrote the Fanatec off a long time ago lol.

 

[Matt Cup]

Can you use the other fanatec peripherals with the moss unit?

 

[N0ddie]

cancel cancel cancel

Stop watching this w@nkers videos. You are literally feeding a mongo.

The Fanatec share price is back up to where it was before this dip. They have also just renewed their partnership with the F1 game so ain't going anywhere. If anything, someone will buy them out when the price is right. A very valuable brand with a lot of nice IP.

 

[McGherkin]

Stop watching this w@nkers videos. You are literally feeding a mongo.

The Fanatec share price is back up to where it was before this dip. They have also just renewed their partnership with the F1 game so ain't going anywhere. If anything, someone will buy them out when the price is right. A very valuable brand with a lot of nice IP.

You’re talking shite. I fully agree that the guy is a clickbait wanker but you’re missing the actual facts and just writing it off anyway.

The facts are this - Endor’s share price has dropped like a stone over the last year.

I’m not stupid enough to care about one day fluctuations, but I can see plain as day that the share price is fully tanking. And no, the share price has not recovered to its pre-dip level, it’s down 30% on that.

The most concerning news however is that the company is facing either a recapitalisation program dreamed up by the guy who the banks literally just demanded sacked as CEO, or they enter administration. And since the banks have a big say in what course the company takes, it ain’t looking rosy.

If Fanatec goes into administration then there will be a hierarchy of creditors who are owed, customers are generally bottom of the list.

Oh and LOL at thinking a partnership means anything. Motorsport games bought licenses for both Indycar and BTCC and welched on them, and they were making full fledged games. The Fanatec deal mostly requires them to provide a few setups for F1 Fan Zones and Esports events, hardly a difficult thing to accomodate.

I’m sure that you’re not wrong about someone buying out the name but that doesn’t help customers.

 

[Matt Cup]

A quite interesting video of the turmoil happening within Fanatec/Endor.

 

[McGherkin]

Fanatec have been acquired by Corsair.

 

[Matt Cup]

Is that a good or bad thing?

And more importantly does that mean @mace¬ is able to get his purchase?

 

[Daz...]

Fanatec have been acquired by Corsair.

Good move on Corsair’s part tbf. They’ve expanded their brand well over the last few years.

 

[McGherkin]

Good, I believe. Corsair have basically paid off Fanatec’s debts in return for ownership of the company, so it gets the banks off Fanatec’s back, and gives suppliers confidence that they’re going to be paid for delivering to them. I’d imagine things are still mega chaotic at Fanatec customer service but Corsair are pretty good at that so hopefully they step in and make some changes which should steer Fanatec back onto the straight and narrow.

 

[Darren S]

Fanatec have been acquired by Corsair.

Yey.

So if the new owners produce iCUE software at over a gig in size - I wonder what size of TB drive I'll need just to operate a future driver for my Fanatec wheel?