do real racers set the brake so they push it full way or just a portion
i set brakes to full force so if i overpush it skids, i do it because if irl i need to emergency brake i have the habit of the modulation needed for a real car
im pretty sure real racers do the same than me, they set it so they lock the brakes if they over push the pedal
there's no point have more brakes than you need for a specific track. maybe tweeking your brakes for the hardest braking corner. i know that what i do in LFS.
I don't really know how I stack up amongst "good" racers, but I actually back off my braking power a bit so it is not easy to lock the brakes. This means I can brake fairly aggressively and late without too much fear of flat spotting my tyres. I also use engine braking in sync with heel/toe to aid the slowing-down process, so take that into account when analysing your own racing style.
I think a driver can get used to almost any brake config with practice, but as with most race settings a compromise is required to get the most out of a given lap for a given track.
In general, if you are locking your brakes all the time try shifting the bias slightly towards the rear wheels and/or reducing braking power overall.
Additionally, if you find it hard to turn while braking; bias your brakes more towards the rear. Once again, try small increments at first - a small change can make a big difference.
If you are willing to tweak your setup, make sure you back up your set each time you make a significant change. It's a real bitch to lose a good set from over-tweaking, and not being able to remember quite what you had before you screwed it up.
Tweaking sets is a lot of fun, and can be quite rewarding: as long as you back up each time you make changes.
Personally i like to go for hard brakes and then just use my foot to gauge how much of that i need to use. I don't think i ever put my foot entirely to the floor, but the option is there if i need to.
AMEN to that. i don't think you're alone using that technique gunn. i do the same (except heel/toe) thing. i engine brake alot too. brake bal is usually around the F60/R40 mark. but usually when i notice i'm locking up i try to brake earlier and if that doesn't work, i reduce the brake power.
I think I actually engine brake a bit too much for my own good in LFS, but that's how I drive IRL on the road (much to the fear and anguish of my poor wife). In LFS there seems to be a slight advantage in staying in a tall gear (4th, 5th, or 6th) and braking hard - only changing down to 2nd or so at the last instant.
In real life I am (seem to be, comparatively) very successful in changing down early while blipping aggressively and shifting early and am able to make a lot of ground on my 'opponent', even the 22 year old heroes in faster and more able jalopies. In LFS this wrecks my engine after a few laps (except in the FO8, I seem to have that beast more or less in the pocket: hey, what a great LFS car is the FO8!), In real life such behaviour just cleans out the cobwebs and the motor ejaculates its appreciation in smooth BHP's.
Currently in LFS I feel that the cars and tyres should be more forgiving earlier in the stint and handle a bit more punishment before becoming gradually a liability: and therefore a pit stop becomes a requirement to maintain consistently good leading lap times. If a car is repeatedly punished, sure it should be handful to drive fast.
I can recall punishing real cars very thoroughly, and still being amazed at their potential.
Anyway.... what was the topic again???? What ever it was, I'm going to think about cheerleaders for the nest ten minutes or so.
Not comparable at all... RL and computer pedals work completely different unless you have an expensive pedal set, as sinbad said...
In RL, the brake rotor and pad have a specific stopping force, and it's not about how far the driver pushes the pedal, but how hard - that pressure (modified by a booster) is then used to press the pads onto the rotor... That's the reason you hear commentators only saying "the driver is pressing the pedal with about 70 kg (not really a pressure measurement, I know) every corner", not "he pushed the pedal right to the firewall there"...
In a sim, we're adjusting braking pressure in the setup... Nuff said...
I set my brakes so that you can press them full for the first, say, 50ms or so of braking (or less), then as I turn the wheel, I gradually let go of the brake pressure
ie, 10% steer for 90% brake pressure, sort of thing.
If I leave my foot flat to the floor, or even more then half way down as I start turning in, my inside front smokes to all hell
I usually have the brake balance set slightly to the rear, but not so much. Just enough that I can slide it into the corner if needed, or I can drive it in normally.
In a real racecar on a real track, it's nearly always possible to lock up the tyres (unless its a F1 or IndyCar with full downforce going at max speed). This is because the breakforce in a car is created by the pressure on the break pedal, and not by the distance it travels. Unfortunately, 99% of sim-pedals work by measuring the distance traveled. (For that reason, braking experience in LFS is not very useful for a real car)
So the decision very much depends on: 1) controller setup 2) car/track 3) driving style.
If you have a cheap set of pedals, it can be very hard to precisely modulate the brakes at the treshold of locking. However, Progressive Brake Mod (an impressive name for a piece of rubber which you put in your pedals), makes it a lot easier.
Also, to brake efficeintly in a downforce car, you need to decrease your brakeforce as you slow down. If you set your brakes too low, you are loosing precious time in the 1st part of the deceleration.
Then, on some tracks, where there is a braking section is on uphill, or downhill-going-into-flat, you can gain quite a bit of time by setting your brakes stronger than normal.
Basically, if your setup allows you to, its a good idea to set your brakes slightly above the locking treshold at max brake force.
You will NEVER find a real race car anywhere in the world where you can floor the brakes. It would put the driver in real danger because as the brakes heat and fade they would be stuffed.
If you watch a foot cam of a real racer they will jab the brakes well before each corner to test they still have brakes
When LFS gets brake heat/fade it will put a stop to this bad sim racing technique of setting brakes so you can floor them and force people to modulate brakes or lock the wheels. Then we will see the forum full of people bitching the can no longer get their good times because they keep locking the wheels
Only race XFG, brake balance is like 74% front, set so the wheels are just about locking when using full braking force and engine braking combined. Works for me and very few can outbrake me.
It's fun, I guess. So long as you stay away from the idiots and towards the top half of the field. I guess with the size and traffic flow of the server it's to be expected.
Would it also be fun if you set up your car so that it navigates a perfect line through a corner by turning full lock, or makes perfect starts by flooring the gas?
I only meant the steering thing as an analogue to what you're doing with the brake. Exploiting the possibility of making something hard a bit easier because of imperfections in our software and hardware. I just wanted to ask would it be fun if you could also tweak your other inputs so that you get a good result out of poor input.
here's how schumacher brakes for herpin. Pretty much the same we do. As Duck said we just do it little bit harder in beginning and stay on that hard little bit longer, because we have that option in setups
I'm always with huge brakes and trying to brake as later as possible.
For example I have 2020Nm brakes on Aston GP with fzr
Or 1050Nm with XRT on most of the tracks.
After one lap at pace most brakes are up to temp, in fact you can see the disks glow. If anything the real battle is to stop them failing due to heat. Unless you have felt the effects of brake fade you will not understand
BTW: A quick jab before a corner will do NOTHING to bring cold brakes "up to temp", if it did you would kill the brakes after 1 corner. Race brakes will not actually lock up if they are not to temp, they have far less braking force until they reach temp, this is why race grade pads are not fitted to road cars. Most people would never get the required heat into them.
They jab the brakes to:
1) Pump them if needed, you can feel the effect in road cars where after a few pumps the pedal is more "responsive". It has an effect with less travel.
2) Make sure they have brakes, no way you can commit to a corner and late brake from high speed unless you know the brakes are working.
Believe what you want though. But glowing disks do NOT need more heat in them
Since all brakes are hydraulic, you are trying to compress a fluid, which you can't compress. At a certain point, brake travel should stop for the most part as the slack in the system is taken up. Then you are basically pushing on something solid that shouldn't move any more. Sim pedals, even the best ones, are terrible at this. I have great pedals from ECCI and they use a nice cam system to simulate better brake action, but it still relies on motion, not on pressure.
If the pedal continues to move, you have a bad master cylinder, a leak, or air in the system. The latter is the most common. The brake fluid will start to basically boil at a certain temp and this will introduce gasses into the system. The gasses are compressible and this is what causes the pedal to start moving towards the floor. Drives will have to "pump" the brakes up to be able to apply an braking force. That is why they check before a hard braking corner to make sure they have some pressure.
I don't think simulating the brake heating will do anything to stop people from setting a low brake level insuring that they won't lock up. Longer, slower braking will definitely add more heat than short, hard braking, but I don't think that the settings we are talking about here will make any real difference. Modulating brakes in a simulator is tough. The best thing anybody can learn is how to slowly back off on your braking as the car slows down. This will help you get a lot faster in most situation and allow you to trail brake more effectively. Setting your brakes really high and "modulating" them can make you a lot faster, but it will lead to more lock ups and difficulties. Lets face it, there is no tactile feedback with most sim pedals. There is just motion travel. It is hard to modulate based off of that.
All I know is neutral bias [on most cars, although i favour driving TBO's] is about 60% front and from there I move it toward the drive wheels if i'm locking up so that I can use a bit of throttle whilst i'm braking to release them. If i'm locking up all over then I reduce brake force or use less pedal depending upon if I can be bothered to go to the pits. Sometimes the car is set such that I dont need to use throttle at all, I find this less interesting to drive, if my brake and throttle trace doesn't look like a 3 year olds scribble then i'm just not driving properly !
