Here we can discuss the temporary car balancing. This balancing is supposed to just improve two of the racing classes, the "TBO" class and the "GTR" class. As we know, the TBO class has been totally dominated by the FXO turbo, leaving no chance at all in online racing for XRT and RB4 drivers. The GTR class was dominated by the FZR, making it the best choice in almost all circumstances.

The temporary global class balancing is supopsed to get them to a more average standard, so different cars will be slightly better on different tracks. The balancing will be made permanent when we release a physically imcompatible patch, though they will also be balanced by other means, like giving the FXO slightly narrower wheels like the road car it is supposed to be.

Currently we have :

FXO : 70 kg added mass and 3% intake restriction
XRT : 20 kg added mass
RB4 : -

FZR : 100 kg
XRR : 50 kg
FXR : -

The GTR class probably needs some adjusting - we did not test that in detail before W9's release. If you have suggestions for adjustments to these, and you feel that you have researched them enough, you are welcome to state them here. It is unlikely that we would want to balance any other classes, by the way. It's these two classes that needed urgent attention.

From my limited experience with tbo class:

It seems to me that fxo is a tad slower than the xrt or rb4 almost on every track. But the extra weight on xrt has really made it uncompetive against rb4 on tracks where rb4 already was faster.
I tought that rb4 and xrt were pretty equal, on a single lap at least, around the most tracks, other having the edge on some tracks whilst the other having the edge on some other tracks, before the extra weight.

But I´m glad this is getting into the right direction at least

hm.. i think its a good idea to level the performance of the cars in the different classes. But as far as i tried, the FXR is now as fast as the FZR, now uses even less fuel and is still much more stable (4WD). So before, there was the tradeoff between speed and stability when choosing your car.

Now there is only one reason to keep driving FZR and that is less tirewear (for me at least). In races the guys driving FXR just push themselves alongside you and stay there, not having to worry about being thrown off the track. A collision, even a little one is more likely to throw the FZR out than the FXR.

I would propose to put a little less weight on the FZR so that its still faster but not so much to leave the FXR and XRR drivers far behind.

Since my technical abilities aren´t that good i can´t propose definitive changes but i just wanted to tell you about my problems. I am also not that good a driver that i can drive all three GTR-cars at the absolute limit so my comparison is somewhat flawed. I would leave the real testing to better drivers :P

We ran a league series with the xrt and rb4 recently - we selected tracks where the hotlaps were as close as possible. They were roughly equal for qualifying, but in the cut and thrust of racing over a course of laps the rb4 had a significant advantage. I think the rb4 should get the 20kg instead of the xrt...

edit: We typically run multiple 15 minute races for the league.

Maybe it's me but I find it hard to do more than 2-3 laps with RB4 at full speed until tyres overheat too much. Perhaps I don't have good setups but RB4 only seems to be competetive in very short races.

i found the rb4 a little bit faster than the other tbo's now, the fxo is too slower IMO, the XRT seens to be fine, just need a little tweak to be equal to the rb4

on the GTR class its the same thing, AWD is the fastest, the FZR now seens to be the slowest car
the FXR seens to be the fastest on most circuits, the XRR is between the FZR and FXR

sorry for bad english

The way i see it is that alot of FZR drivers are going do switch to FXR . I personally love the new patch , but the weight is a mess . All of us that drive FZR´s are going to have alot of trouble against FXR´s in the future . I will still be driving the FZR in the future , but not with as much fun as i used to . I think we should leave the weight out or think of something else to add on future patches , but unfortunatelly i cant do nothing about it . Scawen and CO. are doing a great job no dought about it , and i really apreciate how quick everythings going with all the patches but ...... the weight , the weight !

greetz

Quote from D4RK1 :

I would propose to put a little less weight on the FZR so that its still faster but not so much to leave the FXR and XRR drivers far behind.

That's a good idea.

the FZR will be faster than the FXR because the FXR is AWD and has drive-train losses - it should be the easiest car to drive, and therefore the slowest (but not by much), in the same way i think the FXO will probably end up being slowest because it's FWD and therefore the easiest to drive (aparently, it may not oversteer so much but it's still got a limit!)

i kinda made a post thingy about the XRT's weight here:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=22849

not every one will agree with me, and its kind of hard to see what im saying.

but every ones entitiled to a oppionon tho right?


but still tho. i love the other new things like the false start systems thats awsome

Yeah the FZR has always been faster than the FXR and the XRR which means practicly everyone uses FZR.

But im sure whatever changes you make to the game will only improve it!


As long as you DO NOT add Nitrous lol.

I feel that the FZR has gained a bit to much weight. The handling is okay, no problems at all - it's just gotten slow. To be able to keep up with the fast FXR drivers you'll have to drive the wheels of the car. I'm not sure but I think it consumes more fuel per lap with the added weight.

The FZR should be slightly faster than the FXR so that in the end of a long race (after pitstops and such) neither car will have an advantage. As it is in W9 it feels like the FZR isn't fast enough to complete more pitstops than the FXR and still finish close together.


I think about 70-80 kg extra for FZR would be better instead of the 100 kg used now.

Quote :

Since my technical abilities aren´t that good i can´t propose definitive changes but i just wanted to tell you about my problems. I am also not that good a driver that i can drive all three GTR-cars at the absolute limit so my comparison is somewhat flawed. I would leave the real testing to better drivers :P

I would also not give an absolute comparison (when they said about modifying the Bus Stop chicane at Monza, they were planning on having me in a tank instead ) . IMO for the GTR's we should penalise the FZR the current 100kg, bear in mind that whilst it has inferior fuel economy, it doesn't have turbo lag coming out of corners.

On the drivetrain efficiency, is the figures in LFS wheel horsepower or measured at the flywheel? If the latter, what are the wheel figures?

One point which I don't think anyone else has mentioned about the lead ballast is that it can be positioned. Mounting it right at the front or at the back would help solve handling issues, maybe on some cars (I'm thinking FZR) there should be a combination of intake restrictor and ballast.

Bear in mind - especially for the TBO's each track is different. I suggest that the ballast amounts are different for rallycross tracks (which wil naturally give the RB4 a massive advantage due to its four wheel drive system) and paved circuits.

Just a few ideas, we need to test this online more (with decent drivers, not cockup artists on wheels like me). I suggest that until later this week the ballasts don't change, but then have a further look and then take ballast out of the XRT/ballast in to the RB4/restrictor plates in the FZR.

Quote from W1ldPort75 :

The way i see it is that alot of FZR drivers are going do switch to FXR . I personally love the new patch , but the weight is a mess . All of us that drive FZR´s are going to have alot of trouble against FXR´s in the future . I will still be driving the FZR in the future , but not with as much fun as i used to . ...

Well in my first post I did say that we had not refined the GTR handicaps, and the purpose of this thread is to get the weights right. I can change the handicap on any car at any time by typing in one line of text. Then within 90 seconds, all cars of that type online at that time, will have their handicap adjusted.

Quote from duke_toaster :

Just a few ideas, we need to test this online more (with decent drivers, not cockup artists on wheels like me). I suggest that until later this week the ballasts don't change, but then have a further look and then take ballast out of the XRT/ballast in to the RB4/restrictor plates in the FZR.

Yes, no rush, let people adjust their setups and see what the good drivers can do on some different tracks.

Anyway it doesn't even have to be refined in test patch stage, because that's the whole idea of this system, I can change the global handicaps at any time.

Scawen maybe we can give the FZR 50 k´s instead of 100 ? Maybe it will work then . And the XRR 25 ? The FXO with 30 k´s and the XRT with 10 hehehe . Who knows But please do not change anything else , i love the false starts etc etc , keep doing the good work you guys are doing .

Quote from W1ldPort75 :

Scawen maybe we can give the FZR 50 k´s instead of 100 ? Maybe it will work then . And the XRR 25 ? The FXO with 30 k´s and the XRT with 10 hehehe . Who knows

Well no-one knows if what we have already done is wrong, that's why I'm not changing it for I guess at least some days. We need real race data and results now by good drivers racing each other on different tracks for several days (as I said in my previous post) not just various numbers you can think up.

i didnt say that what you guys have done is wrong , but youre right lets do some testing before jumping or changing things . The good thing is that the FZR is now a little bit better to drive , easier then before , but also slower . I raced on BL1 yesterday with my FZR vs FXR and it was amazing how he kept behind me the hole time . I was doing 1.07-1.08 but he still kept behind me . The good thing is that all FXR drivers now have a chance to keep up with the FZR´s . I have been driving offline and online testing both cars and i must say i changed my mind . Lots of fun and good battles coming up

1) should we try with clutch pack or with older setups (locked diff), as I'm not sure I will be quicker with the clutch pack (wich is a lot better than before, but I'm still not so confident when braking)?
2) will tire physics change in the next patch (for the FXO mainly, 'cause FWD are a bit too much oversteery on throttle, giving it a crazy advantage compare to what you can have irl)? and will the rear tires of the FZR still as large as they are now or not?

I think first and foremost the classes should be balanced to provide optimal racing on pickup races and races that are short enough not to require a pit stop, simply because these type of races happen most often in LFS.

League races with one or more pitstops can then offset the tyre and fuel consumption advantage of FXR/XRR by adding additional weight/handicaps to them. That way everyone should be happy

I have not thested this as turough (spelling?) as I would like, but the main goal with this sim should be to simulate reality, right? And so, handicaps and balancing should work as they do in real life, right? Well then...
Has anyone watched the system used by Dutch Supercar Challenge? They use a simple horsepower to weight system to balance out the cars within the classes, and it seems to work like a charm. No complaints what so ever about that system for several seasons now.

If I do the same in the GTR class, and balance out all three cars so they get the same horsepower to weight, I still end up with an FZR that is fast, an FXR that is stable and slow, and an XRR that is still the underdog cause of lower top speed and its handling. This leads me to think that something is missing in the current physics model, or something is plainly wrong.

I'm off now to try the same with the TBO class.

I think it should be a server side option, as there will be tracks where 50 or 100 kilos are a great disadvantage.

will the extra added weight slow down cars,so all wrs will not be broken again due to reduced speed,sorry if im getting the wrong point here ?

Quote from X-Ter :

I have not thested this as turough (spelling?) as I would like, but the main goal with this sim should be to simulate reality, right? And so, handicaps and balancing should work as they do in real life, right? Well then...
Has anyone watched the system used by Dutch Supercar Challenge? They use a simple horsepower to weight system to balance out the cars within the classes, and it seems to work like a charm. No complaints what so ever about that system for several seasons now.

If I do the same in the GTR class, and balance out all three cars so they get the same horsepower to weight, I still end up with an FZR that is fast, an FXR that is stable and slow, and an XRR that is still the underdog cause of lower top speed and its handling. This leads me to think that something is missing in the current physics model, or something is plainly wrong.

I'm off now to try the same with the TBO class.

FZR is having wider rear tires than the 2 other GTR, and is having a NA engine.
FXR has a lot of power loss in transmission.
So, FZR is always faster (I would prefer some loss in the engine instead of having more weight...or a crap torque that makes it handle not very well), and on fast tracks, the XRR will take too much advantage in top speed against the FXR .
Those are the problems imo.

Quote from 11SuLLy11 :

will the extra added weight slow down cars,so all wrs will not be broken again due to reduced speed,sorry if im getting the wrong point here ?

incompatible means reset
edit: according to Scawen:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=393666#post393666

Can you perhaps use an LFSW script that displays the best current online-pbs for a certain selection of benchmark-tracks to compare the different cars?
Say you take the best 50 XRT pbs from Bl1, Bl1R, So1, So4R, etc. etc. and compare them to the best 50 FXO pbs. that should be a proper measure of the relative pace of the cars.
Then take into consideration that the FXO pays for it's improved handling by a horrible start off the line and you should be able to track down a very good balancing within a few weeks.

Of course there are a couple of tracks where people cut a lot. e.g. KY3, KY3R and BL1R can't be chosen for such a comparison.

Vain

made a little test aroung blackwood rev on TBO class. Did about 10 laps on each car and 30% fuel.
with rb4 and xrt the difference isnt huge from previous patch but fxo is about 1 slower that it used to be.
Extra mass doesnt affect on xrt enough and its topspeed is fastest from these 3. with xrt and rb4 i managed to get about 0.3sec from my pb but fxo toke me more than 1 sec away form my best. this test was made on sets for previous patches.


i think xrt is the dominant one now mostly coz the top speed. fxo and rb4 were ecual i think.

i might be wrong thou