After driving a bit more I think I have fugired out why to me it feels like there is still tons of drop off in grip. It's not the lateral grip curves. It is the longnitudal grip curves. It basically drives like lfs S1. Relatively good handling but at times it just snaps away from you. And when it does snap away you go off in full lock screaming like iracing fanboy in tire physics convention.
I think the fault is in the longnitudal grip curves simply because when you get power oversteer you can not control it by throttle but only by steering. And even then it is pretty much useless effort unless you reach the steering lock that is bigger than the yaw angle of the car and then it regains grip. But when exiting corners it is almost like binary traction system. You either have grip or don't. There is very small area where you can "dance with the car" (just felt like mentioning senna in this post) and it does feel very nice there. Better than rf1 where no such thing ever was possible.
But tbh. I don't feel huge difference to rf1. Of course it is worth remembering that I'm comparing beta rf2 to the best mods for rf1... and of course the isi content was never anywhere near the top quality of the mods for rf1 and I think this will be the same for rf2 as well. But with those small improvements that are there in rf2 beta (four wheel slides for example work better) it can only mean the best mods will get better. And if there are still updates coming to the tire model then it can only get better still. It still feels though that the biggest improvements can be had simply by using better data...
One of my biggest gripes with rf1 was the four wheel drifts or slides that were really really hard to get going. Not because they were hard but because they were impossible to do. The car always just resets into understeer when you feel like jim clarking a corner. If you give it tons of throttle (gerhard berger it) then you can get over that "resetting point" but then you will in most cases have tons of oversteer to worry about.
It was never possible to do small four wheel slides like you could do in iracing with he first solstice or skippy for example. You turn the car into the turn by coming out from brakes and by steering. Car yaws and you keep steering pointing into the turn. At the apex or little before the apex you get back on throttle and the yaw angle stays there. Smoothly you go up to full throttle and start reducing the yaw on the exit of the turn
With rf1 it is always more like this to me: You turn the car into the turn by coming out from brakes and by steering. Car yaws initially really well and you keep the steering pointing into the turn. Once you get fully off the brakes the front washes out. Sometimes it doesn't but when you try to get back on throttle, smoothly or abruptly the front just washes out. So the technique on rf1 was more like what you see if you watch niels' videos. Early braking, turn in bit later and sharply and try to get on power as early as possible.
For me that is pretty unnatural style to drive because I like to drive the car hard into the turns. With rf2 this seems to work little better for me but as a whole I'm still struggling a lot with feeling the cars. As a whole rf2 feels very vague on the limit to me which makes me slow and also makes the cars hard to drive.
So overall I'm thinking that rf2 was good purchase. Eagerly waiting for the first good mods to come out but not all that impressed with the isi stuff.
What cars are you driving by chance? The Megane and F1 cars can be thrown in and around quite a bit. The 3.5 is about as nimble as anything.
I have found it hard to just compare tire physics and behavior with this beta, because the environment is hardly ever the same. So sometimes you might feel like you have no grip, but then you race online or with a bunch of AI and the track gets all rubbered in and suddenly you are racing on glue (in comparison, not really glue).
All the cars so far by ISI have been cars we normally don't get in other sims. The Megane is a mid-engine RWD for example, and IMO feels like one. The 60's cars aren't found in this generation of sim racing, so its hard to do a comparison. I know for a fact though that race it around Spa sometimes feels like I'm driving RBR, absolute insanity which is why I love it. Then finally the F3.5 is the closest to other sims we have, a modern Formula that is. I always hear real life racers talk about the SS' in other sims as "being too soft". At least the setups for them. However I noticed the F3.5 is really stiff, which apparantly is more accurate. After adjusting the setups for it (the ISI's one are meh) it actually feels quite decent, and I no longer have problems with big bumps etc.
The best times I have had was Megane at Mills in the rain with a bunch online. The track kept changing and people were just trying to keep up with it. Then the F1 at Spa driving like an absolute mad man because that's the only way to actually drive it. Coming off corners inches away from houses, fences, posts, etc just make it so much better. And then finally not too long ago with the F3.5 at Estoril. Jumping the curves a bit and having the car "bounce" some and watching the tires deform and bounce was just epic.
See, this I don't totally agree with. What I WOULD say is that currently very little throttle is required to accomplish the same adjustment you would get in say LFS.
Especially in the F1s, I can feather all the way through a turn using only throttle steer, but when I first tried I would lose it way too often. Now, I can do exactly what I want by throttle steering but the throttle input is quite a bit less than I'm used to from LFS... Seems that the force combining could be more sensitive, or just the engine response to throttle input, engine inertia or who knows what - bottom line is that it's more sensitive for some reason.
Even out of low speed turns I can put the F1s at normal angle with neutral steer, or just Tiff Needel it around the corner if the mood strikes me (sorry, trying to keep up with your name dropping )
I kind of get what you're saying in some regards on the other aspects though.
With the megane the last corner at Mills is a nice example. It is basically a slow 3rd gear corner where you want to to get on throttle as early as possible. With the megane when I try to do that (online, after driving 10 laps on a server with 20 people) it is just so easy to get on power and unexpectedly lose the rear of the car which just sends the car into spin that can not be stopped (nakajima).
Basically all I can do is to just get full lock and put the brakes on and hope it doesn't hit the walls. Same with the slow corners on that portuguese track. Sudden power oversteer and around you go faster than montoya when surrounded by a group of cameramen... Or the T1/T2 on malaysia. When on power the car sometimes just snaps away.
The main feeling I get from rf2 is somewhat close what I remember my feelings being when gtr2 was launched. Nice feeling on the limit but go too far and thou shalt not come back. Not necessarily because of same reasons and not as severe but still...
You also see many people online spinning off on corner exits at full lock which is usually a telltale that a car is hard to drive. I'd imagine the megane being twitchy and snappy to drive because what it is but I'm not convinced it's all that good tbh... The iracing corvette for example felt much easier to drive last time I tried it. Maybe the meganes cup cars are harder to drive than gt1 corvettes in real life. I'm having hard time accepting that though...
I've been mostly driving the megane. I've changed the setup to make it more predictable but in the end the sudden unrecoverable oversteer just comes and grabs me by the balls at the least expected moment. Full rear downforce, softer rear springs and some damper changes iirc made it feel softer but the problems of unpreditacbility stays... It's not the tires getting warmed up either because the basic problems seem to stay no matter what...
Could be my crap driving skills too. I can't really feel the cars in rf2 which is probably one reason why the driving feels so hard.
Here's the thing, try initially giving 85% throttle and working up to 100% as you "feel there's room for more torque" instead of full boar right off the bat. When I started doing that, I stopped having that problem. I will agree that in that car if you don't PLAN a high yaw angle out of the turn, it can catch you for sure and like you say it won't come back easy. I'm not sure if that's a problem with the tire model or not, since the F1 doesn't act that way and is much easier to "fool around" with. It's a weird car though too, super short wheelbase and mid engine... Like you kind of say, I'd expect it to have the characteristics it has but maybe it's too severe, I don't know for sure. I think it's pretty fun though, and that "limit" zone you describe is, IMO, much much MUCH wider than any other ISI product to date so the least I could say is that they're definitely going the right way.
Here's some snippets from the knownissues.txt file in the RF2 folder:
Tire Model
==========
-Contact patch load distribution model is not final, which means tire pressure does not have the full effect that it should.
-Aquaplaning is not implemented, so wet weather driving is only properly modelled when the track is damp but with no standing water.
-Wear (meaning both abrasion and degradation) is incomplete in several aspects.
-There are other relatively minor loose ends.
-Curbs, white lines have almost no grip in rain
Collision
=========
-Loose objects (cones, haybales, etc.) "fall asleep" inappropriately, sometimes up in the air, and essentially turn into solid objects.
-Sometimes intense collisions cause the simulation to fall out of realtime, which is very unpleasant. This is usually caused when objects manage to get partly inside each other, which unfortunately happens more often in multiplayer due to imperfect prediction.
Weather/RealRoad
================
-Groove build-up and track wetness/drying happen at an artificial, accelerated rate.
-Wind and humidity do nothing.
I remember running you in LFS, your skills were definitely not crap at least back then . Kind of wondering why you're not feeling the cars??
I agree, suprisingly the most un-inspiring mod for RF1 (the meganes) turns out to be one of the most realistic cars I've ever driven on a sim (RF2 Megane). You can really feel what's going on.
I think Hyperactive, you're comparing one sim with another. What you should do is go into a new sim like you never played a sim before. Iracing isnt' a good benchmark for sliding as it's basically impossible. Speaking of iracing, they should really model their grass physics as RF2 has. RF2 got the off track physics spot on to be honest. If only iracing would sort out their shit.....
Anyway, I am convinced you have some different global FFB settings than other people, because I don't see how you couldn't feel the cars with the rF2 FFB.
Again as others said it's a beta, but when driving the Megane I don't feel like any change is needed, it couldn't be made any better to be honest.
Never had so much in-depth fun on a sim game before, in the sense that I was immersed so intenesly, I subconciously thought I was on a track-day or something.
Don't know what others think for the 60's F1's and the Megane just feel.... real.. Predictable because to me it seems like they got the physics dialed in pretty much perfectly IMO.
The one thing that let RF1 down was the FFB, and ISI obviously were involved, or checked up on what the community was doing because they sure as hell fixed the FFB. Only thing a little bit annoying with the FFB is the clanking and rattling it does with G25 and G27 when you go off track, it's realistic feeling, it's just the god awfully loud noise that's tedious.
Needless to say, RF2 is very promising, and considering some of the mods for rF1 made the game so much better, I can only begin to imagine how awesome rF2 will feel on some classic mods.
The more I run it the more I like it. I'm actually wondering if the intermittent inability to catch the Megane has to do with the fact that the used portion of the track has so much more grip... I haven't read whether or not marbles are involved yet, but listen up:
I noticed last night, coming into one of the tight first gear turns at the Malaysia track, that I actually unintentionally rotated the car into the turn very quickly and initiated a four wheel slide by having the inside tires in the rubberized portion of track and the outside wheels outside that zone. The inside had wheel more grip and the outside started to lock up and try to keep going. So, if you kick the back end out and and it leaves "the zone", I think maybe that could explain the odd time when for some reason the car just doesn't feel like recovering - whereas if I actually PLAN the slide, I never have a problem! That's because I slide it through the racing line I think. I don't know, just a thought? I'm not saying the tires are perfect because I don't know and haven't done any actual testing... Maybe Todd will have something to say some time.
Also, I LOVE how I can feel when there's dirt in the tires! After an off, I can feel very obviously in the next turns the front end struggling and skitting along the track, gradually regaining max traction, it's really really a nice feeling. I think the FFB seems to be extremely well done, color me impressed! The tires also seem to actually dig in a bit on grass, it doesn't just feel like a solid surface that has no grip like other sims.
Also, this is the first sim that I do not have trouble with curbing... I have issues in LFS, iRacing, and NK PRO when putting a wheel up on curbs, it just never behaved like I thought it should... other guys can do it fine, sure, but I was never convinced that the technique they used was realistic. in RF2, they have a little less grip but touching them doesn't cause an over reaction like other sims.
The racing line that gets built up with rubber is more grippy yes, outside of that line is marbles. That's why the grip "dies off" after you go outside the racing line.
Yeah I knew the racing line had more grip, I didn't know marbling was modeled (IE a zone just outside the racing line actually having less grip than bare tarmac because of the marbles) That's good to know.
I have not even noticed that the tires pick dirt and lose grip when you drive off the track. The sounds of the gravel throwing around under the car and hitting the bottom of the car is nice but I never felt any grip being lost
Quite impressed with rFactor2...Unfortunately it's rFactor now which has wet weather and all these cool features and not LFS..but I'm not here to dig that.
I played it for a couple of hours yesterday with all of the cars and GENERALLY felt it was much better than rF1 and infact a very good sim all around. Although unfortunately they impossibility of recovering from a slide is still there and it's very annoying.
The FFB is pretty good, probably a bit too strong if anything; but hey it keeps the arms pumped. I like how there is a distinction between cold and at temperature tyres and how when it starts to rain there's a "decision" period between having slicks and pitting for wets. Driving on slicks in the rain is fun as well haha, especially when it dries out with the wet track but the dry racing line...that's hard.
if only they made it so you could actually control a drift...
That's the one huge change from rF1 to rF2, you can drift the Megane and F1 quite easily. The F3.5 is nimble and shouldn't be able to be drifted, however most slides in it are still recoverable unless you get the momentum to make it snap.
Heh, I'm starting to think you're playing a different sim
The dirty tires are real obvious when a turn you normally take at full throttle, only after bouncing through some dirt on the previous turn the same approach sends me washing out like a dolt... like I said you can really feel it in the wheel too, the tires desperately trying to do something - it actually does a great job of communicating that the tires actually have gravel/dirt impressed into the tread (not sure if that's actually modeled that way, but that's what it SHOULD feel like regardless)
Indeed. At first I reacted like Jamie did on my first few laps, but then as I said on all my other posts I discovered that isn't really the case at all. I probably can't even race the F1 properly now, I think I've trained myself badly to drive it like a psycho because it's just too fun to take seriously.
Is that really true? Is the car comparable to the FOX in LFS spec wise? I kind of thought any car "should" be able to be drifted so the complaints about the car had me a bit worried.
. Kind of wondering why you're not feeling the cars??