Memo from the DDRS Race Director
Polyphany Digital Screwed the Pooch
I'm going to cut to the chase: Polyphany Digital's Gran Turismo 7 is a flaming piece of crap very disappointing. Until some fairly major features are added back to the game, DDRS won't work on GT7.
MR2RAT, normal804, and I met on-line last night to do some testing, and the results were stunning, and not in a good way. Let me elaborate.
1. GT7 Lacks a "Live Timing" screen
DDRS events begin with a short "qualifying" session. This was easy in GT Sport: changing the event settings resulted in a reset of the lap times. The "Live Timing" screen provided a means of reviewing everyone's lap times, and identify who had pole. This was necessary, since GT Sport had a fairly whacked notion of grid order based on practice times.
GT7 doesn't seem to have fixed that problem. Without a live timing screen, there's no way to know with certainty what the correct grid order ought to be. Sure, we should know who had fast lap of the session, but the rest of the grid would be much like a random draw.
2. GT7 Lacks a "Manual Grid" feature
But even if GT7 had a working "Live Timing" screen, there's no means for manually setting the grid. One could argue that if GT7 had a correct notion of practice times, manual grids wouldn't be needed. In the past, manual grids have been needed from time to time. Without them, DDRS could survive without them, but the starting grids risk not being correct.
3. GT7 Lacks a Race Results screen
But even if all of the above were not issues, the lack of a race results screen is absolutely a show-stopper for DDRS. The bonus point for pole position could be inferred from practice's fast lap, but bonus points for leading a lap and for fastest lap simply aren't available without a race results screen. Race results are shown exactly once, and for a fairly short amount of time -- certainly not long enough for review, let alone recording in the spreadsheet I keep.
What This Means for DDRS
Don't hold your breath. Until these fairly major gaps are filled, there's not going to be a DDRS.