the ai is the only driver that we know how it behaves. everything else is down to an individual. the ai drives when it has reached its limit more then 200 laps without any change in split and laptime. this kind of stability you won't find in any human driver.

the ai sucks when it comes down to racing, thats true. but when it comes to the fact to have stable laptimes then you are on the right way. i don't know much about the AI on circuit tracks and it wasn't what i was testing at all. to compare cars you need either the perfect driver or one that can drive 250 laps and each is the same.

but yep it does not help US to balance the cars, because WE are not programing the game. it is up for the DEVS to decide which input they think is helpful and which is not. i was spending 5 hours now doing tests and stuff, trying out different setups and different AIs and what were your results?

there is not "a way" to get balanced cars. you need to collect as much data as possible and then THE DEVS decide what to do. so these were my 50cent of data to it...

Just because the ai drives 'stably' doesn't mean they are relevant in comparison to human drivers.

I've always thought that the obvious way to bring the FZR back into line with the other two is to make it a good deal peakier. A NA engine making that sort of power to capacity would have a very narrow rev range where it's making good power. So by doing this you'd wind up with a car that, relative to the other two, is fast down the straight but will burp and fart a bit until it gets on cam out of corners. You can get around that a bit with careful gear selection but it would still give the others the advantage out of corners and suchlike. I've always liked racing cars that are essentially equal in laptime but with different strengths. On some tracks in S1 racing MRT against LX6 gave very similar laptimes but because they managed it in different ways there was a heap of overtaking and the racing was really interesting.

Quote from Blowtus :

Just because the ai drives 'stably' doesn't mean they are relevant in comparison to human drivers.

they are not relevant in comparison to humans. but we ain't comparing humans to AI but FZR agains XRR agains FXR. to se how the top-speed and behaviour on full throttle turns is and fuel consumption compared among the cars it does not matter who is driving. and imo this counts also on circuit tracks.

to compare different cars you need at least one stable factor. a human isn't stable unless he can drive 250 laps without any change in laptime the AI can allthough you won't get any information about the "feeling" of the car which we are aware of i think because it hasn't changed that much with the weight penalty. the fxr is still the tank, the fzr still the easier car to handle.

[QUOTE=KeiichiRX7;402358]the laptimes HAVE dropped a lot in testing, but the racing is more competitive.

[QUOTE]It's a bit of a trade off really i suppose. When the next patch goes official i want to run a league with the 2 classes, the GTR's and thier limited counterparts (much like the JGTC has GT500 and GT300). [/QUOTE]

There are some rules other than different engines - the GT300 cars actually have to be remotely like the road cars, you could probably put a Toyota body on a Nissan and no-one would be any the wiser.

Keiichi, how do these cars relate performancewise to the XFR and UFR? A league with restricted FXR and XRR, with the UFR and XFR as one class - if the balancing was right - would be good. It would loosely resemble the BTCC, with some bigger cars (The FXR would be a little like the Vectra, the XRR like the 3 series) and some smaller ones like the Civics and Rick Kerry's BMW 120d which in the right hands and prepared properly would be as good as the 320si but it's badly prepared.

The bigger cars would be better on the faster tracks, but put them somewhere twisty the little cars would shine. Like the days in the BTCC where there were Minis that got past Detroit's finest on the turns only to get gobbled up on the straights (ad infinium).

I have spotted a potential problem with ballasting the FZR - surely the extra weight could be stuck at the front to solve it's weight distribution problem.

Another thought. The MRT has an air restrictor (FSAE rules), would it be possible at some point to take that out? It would get 260 HP IIRC.

Quote from duke_toaster :

Another thought. The MRT has an air restrictor (FSAE rules), would it be possible at some point to take that out? It would get 260 HP IIRC.

260hp! From a 600cc engine? The turbo charger is only quite small you know.

The CBR600 (which I think is the engine used in the MRT5) is rated at 117hp for around that age. A far far cry from the 260 you quote. Remove the restrictor and keep the turbo and you'll maybe see 150hp.

[quote=duke_toaster;404107][quote=KeiichiRX7;402358]the laptimes HAVE dropped a lot in testing, but the racing is more competitive.



There are some rules other than different engines - the GT300 cars actually have to be remotely like the road cars, you could probably put a Toyota body on a Nissan and no-one would be any the wiser.

Keiichi, how do these cars relate performancewise to the XFR and UFR? A league with restricted FXR and XRR, with the UFR and XFR as one class - if the balancing was right - would be good. It would loosely resemble the BTCC, with some bigger cars (The FXR would be a little like the Vectra, the XRR like the 3 series) and some smaller ones like the Civics and Rick Kerry's BMW 120d which in the right hands and prepared properly would be as good as the 320si but it's badly prepared.

The bigger cars would be better on the faster tracks, but put them somewhere twisty the little cars would shine. Like the days in the BTCC where there were Minis that got past Detroit's finest on the turns only to get gobbled up on the straights (ad infinium).

I have spotted a potential problem with ballasting the FZR - surely the extra weight could be stuck at the front to solve it's weight distribution problem.

Another thought. The MRT has an air restrictor (FSAE rules), would it be possible at some point to take that out? It would get 260 HP IIRC.[/quote]


Actually by JGTC rules the basic engine (pre tuning the hell out of it) has to hail from the same manufacturer as the unibody. Thus Nissan could build a skyline that sports the big nasty V8 from the Titan, but not one with an old supra engine.

We actualy tried dropping the GTR's down to the level of the CGTR's, but it turns out with the big downforce and wider tires that the cornering speeds of the GTR's are a bit faster, while with similar lap times the compact GTR's tend to pull away on the straights.

i dont think thats a good way you are working atm to make cars more similar. LFS is a 99% online Multiplayer game. it is not good to give a car 490 ps with 1100 kilo, and in multiplayer the cars weight is 100 kilo more. its the worst solution i can think about. there must be better ways to make cars similar and the races exciting.
my suggestion is to give the FXR more power and reduce weight from XRR because the engine from this car is smaller than FZR and the weight is atm the same. i think, that would be more realistic. the weight from FXR should be the same as FZR because its is a smaller engine but 4 WD is more weight then 2WD.

thx for thinking about that, and i hope there will be changes, whatever they come.

I don´t think he will think about that
The cars were build from real models with those values.
Give them a handicap is the best way. Also the difference in offline <-> online is only temporary because the hotlaps shall be stay compatible

The rwd cars should perform better than fwd and 4wd! It is harder to drive a rwd. The driver is more likely to do a mistake. If all the cars perform the same everybody's gonna drive the 4wd cause it 's easier!

Second i would prefer the balancing to be optional with the posibility to enforce it on servers that want to use it!

Just my opinion

Quote from Maelstrom :

The rwd cars should perform better than fwd and 4wd! It is harder to drive a rwd. The driver is more likely to do a mistake. If all the cars perform the same everybody's gonna drive the 4wd cause it 's easier!

Second i would prefer the balancing to be optional with the posibility to enforce it on servers that want to use it!

Just my opinion

4WDs are easier to dirve for people who are new to it stays within the limits of the tires' grip. But do you have the slightest idea what it takes to master 4WD?

For a FWD, if you use too much throttle on exit, the worst that could happens is terminal understeer. With RWDs, its either understeer or oversteer. With a very well balanced mechanical 4WD(e.g. RB4), if you overstep it, it'll drift radially (i.e. crab walk) into a 4 wheeled drift, the hardest state to control, as all 4 tires exceed their limits simultanously. Most mistake it as massive understeer, but it's not.

In short? With 2WD it's possible to overstep quite a bit and still save your butt. With 4WD, get significantly over the limit and it kills you without hestitation as it drifts radially towards the telephone pole/wall/tress/etc.

Quote from Jamexing :

it kills you without hestitation as it drifts radially towards the telephone pole/wall/tress/etc.

You're talking out of experience?

you have to be pretty clumsy to do that telephone pole trick with a 4wd. in a rwd you would have spun seconds ago in a fwd you would have hit the tree 20 meters in front of the pole HEAD ON.......AND you just have to kick the brick from the throttle and you 4wd is stable again.....again, try that in a rwd.

driving a car at its limit is always difficult, but 4wd is definately the easiest choice.

changing tyre size, weight ratio or early toque curve will alter the behavior "personality" of the cars.
As i consider this the one thing to never change from any car we already know how to drive, i highly recommend to change things not linearly.

- limit how high a engine revs due to, say, increased engine resistance or aerodynamic resistance, but leave the early torque/hp curve intact. Not linearly.
I would try to save how the current cars enter, turn, and leave the corners, and change only the facts that dont alter this.


- Easy way out would be to limit the setup capability of x or y car. Putting limits on how much the rolling bar adjusts or how much soft the suspension can get. making the car less hotlappable

Quote from Fetzo :

you have to be pretty clumsy to do that telephone pole trick with a 4wd. in a rwd you would have spun seconds ago in a fwd you would have hit the tree 20 meters in front of the pole HEAD ON.......AND you just have to kick the brick from the throttle and you 4wd is stable again.....again, try that in a rwd.

driving a car at its limit is always difficult, but 4wd is definately the easiest choice.

Used to drive a 4wd at the limit on loose surfaces, so I'm very familiar with their on limit and past limit behavior. The car had 50/50 F/R 4wd and a weight distribution of 51/49 F/R. Still driving it today. I actually learnt to drive in RWD 1st, then FWD before getting to 4WD.

With FWD, you would sense the front end struggling, so there's plenty of warning. With RWD, you could sense the excess change of yaw rate, so there's plenty of feedback to tell you how much to push just to keep it from spinning. Provided of course that it is wisely setup to understeer mildy at the limit.

With a well balanced 4WD, when it does start to break traction, it does so 4 wheels at a time almost simultaneously, so there's relatively little warning and a narrower margin of time to respond. If it's seriously powerful (e.g. Group B monster) AND almost neutral it could kill you without warning. It'll just grip and grip and grip until it suddenly lets all 4 tires go. These traits are what made them REALLY hard to drive consistently at the absolute limit even for top rally drivers. That's why to keep powerful 4WDs easy to drive, they are deliberately set to understeer quite a bit for street use (e.g. older Subarus). Note I'm limiting my discussion to mechanical 4WDs with passive diffs only.

For the EASIEST choice to drive at the limit, choose FWDs. Plenty of warning of impending doom if you don't bother to correct for overcooking corner entry (within reason of course). Choose RWDs to master throttle control and finesse. Then choose 4WDs to drive the wheels off by using every bit of traction all tires have.

yep a group b monster is something different.....because it has more power ,a superlaggy engine, not very advanced differentials and a short wheel base.

put a audi sport quattro e2 engine in a renault 5 turbo maxi and you will have a much more devastating result.

i dont wan't to push this too far offtopic, but i really dont think that 4wd is the most difficult transmission type to drive at the limit. a good 4wd handles pretty neutral while the other car types understeer or oversteer.

if someone does not notice that his car is 4-wheel drifting he should worry about his perception, not his car.

i'll stop now, this is about lfs-balancing not about group b quattros.

I thought: maybe making the FXR a RWD isn't a bad idea, something like the Opel Astra from DTM, a couple years ago, when coupes were used...

Quote from Fabri91 :

I thought: maybe making the FXR a RWD isn't a bad idea, something like the Opel Astra from DTM, a couple years ago, when coupes were used...

Lets make the FZR a FWD

I just wanted to make an equally stupid suggestion...

i have a question: is the global balancing always applied to the car or only when there is a FXR AND a e.g. a FZR on track.
so when i run a server just with XRR available, there is no need for balancing them down with 50kg because everyone is running the same car.

it is always applied fischy!

that is also ONE of the reasons why there are going to be new WR's because of the additional weight of FZR + XRR (+TBO).

Quote from Fischfix :

so when i run a server just with XRR available, there is no need for balancing them down with 50kg because everyone is running the same car.

It is probably easier to apply it always. No need to make complex functions to determine if there are other cars available. Imo it doesn't even matter much, so what if the cars are little slower, but it's the same for everyone. All I am saying it would be too much work for no gain to have the handicaps disabled when there is only one car available.

It would also make lap records completely insane. It means LFSW would need to keep track of PBs with every possible handicap, which is just silly.

Also, depending on the fix and the track, your driving style might need to change, your braking and shifting points move. A royal pain and no mistake.

It would make much more sense to have a permanent fix which would make life easier for everyone, both programmers and drivers.

So are the global handicap settings close to getting agreed on then?

As said in first post, GTR class probably needs some adjustments. Those constraints were not tested. You'll probably see more even GTR class when patch X is out.

Quote from Clownpaint :

The XRR can go much further on fuel without losing out on lap times. In endurance series the FZR will simply not be a contender anymore with this weight.

Yes but keep in mind that turbos do indeed improve fuel economy. (By a significant amount I may add.)