Hi, i guess it would be a great thing if the cars were more equal.
This thread is for talking about this thing and for suggestions, what changes are reasonable to reach the aim of equal cars and as a result of this races with mixed up startfields.

I´ll begin with the big GTR´s.
The FZR is faster at the start and at straights if you compare it with the XRR. And the 3rd thing is, that it is possible to get out of mud with the FZR, but not with the XRR. Is this just fair. I guess i don´t have to say any words about the FXR, if he would be a little slower, he could mess with the XFR ... .
I love driving XRR, but if i see, that e.g. on AS National, I´m 1 sec faster with the FZR, it doesn´t make sense to drive my favourite car as it´s just too slow.
The result is, that the whole field drives FZR just because the other cars are to slow, no matter what the favourite car of the racers is.

My suggestion:
Making it possible to get out of mud with the XRR and making it a little faster could solve the problem. And the FXR should get more speed, too, as hes the slowest of the big GTR´s and as he doesn´t have other big advantages.
bd

Mhh, I don't think it's nescessary to make the XRR faster at the start, but I agree with all other suggestions you mentioned.

Quote from bright devil :

Hi, i guess it would be a great thing if the cars were more equal.
This thread is for talking about this thing and for suggestions, what changes are reasonable to reach the aim of equal cars and as a result of this races with mixed up startfields.

I´ll begin with the big GTR´s.
The FZR is faster at the start and at straights if you compare it with the XRR. And the 3rd thing is, that it is possible to get out of mud with the FZR, but not with the XRR. Is this just fair. I guess i don´t have to say any words about the FXR, if he would be a little slower, he could mess with the XFR ... .
I love driving XRR, but if i see, that e.g. on AS National, I´m 1 sec faster with the FZR, it doesn´t make sense to drive my favourite car as it´s just too slow.
The result is, that the whole field drives FZR just because the other cars are to slow, no matter what the favourite car of the racers is.

My suggestion:
Making it possible to get out of mud with the XRR and making it a little faster could solve the problem. And the FXR should get more speed, too, as hes the slowest of the big GTR´s and as he doesn´t have other big advantages.
bd

the GTR class may look like totaly unbalanced, but don't just look at the single lap times - if you run in a 40 or 60 lap race, tire wear and fuel consumption becomes also a huge factor - and here, the XRR is miles ahead of the FZR

i think a few slight adjustments would be great but i wouldn't go that far and call the car unequal

like back at RSC everybody has his own opinion about this and you will neer find solution that suits everyone, but here's how i'd like to have it with the full release

a class system that can also be used for the serverlists (some quicklinks as addition to selecting every single type of car)

TOURING DIVISION 2 (up to 1.8 litres, no turbo)
UF1, XFG, XRG (just give the UF1 15 more Hp and make it lose 30 kilos with a little lower fuel consumption and tire wear)

TOURING DIVISION 1 (the turbo class)
RB4, FXO, XRT (no real changes needed here - maybe a little less tire wear and a little less weight on the RB4)

SPORTSCARS
LX4, LX6, FZ5, RAC (make the LX4 lose 30 kilos and use a little less fuel and tires than right now and it might be a challenger on some tracks)

GT2
XFR, UFR (no real changes needed here, kind of like the turbo class)

GT1
XRR, FZR, FXR (also no big changes needed here - maybe a few more HP on the FXR and a little less weight on the XRR , but the class is not that unbalanced)

MRT5 - single car class

FOX - single car class

FO8 - single car class

Sien, i didn´t mean the start but the top speed. I like the way the cars are starting. :9.
DasKlee: But the "problem" ist, that the most races (also in leagues) aren´t long enough so that the XRR´s and FXR´s Advantages could be useful. If you have a 20 main race and mustpit on, it doesn´t make sense that the XRR has advantages in tire wear if the FZR is 1 sec (per lap) faster nevertheless.
But i like your classes and suggestions.
bd

I think they're good as they are, xrr better in the long runs, especially when it can finish a race whit less pit stops. Just look at Endurance league and the first race top3, xrr,xrr, fzr. And xrr is easier to drive, at least in my opinion.

Fxr is also good choice for long runs, very tire friendly. Haven't tried it yet, but I'd assume it's r2 tires can last about 45min of driving, if you have enough fuel. And it's the most easiest to drive.

I like i that the cars are all very different, so we can see different tactics on longer races, which make it much more interesting than seeing 10 fzrs pitting on the same lap. They're not equal, but well balanced.

Especially Aston National for example the xxr isn't ttat much in advantage for longer turns. I've already seen races where a FZR drove 1.43 every lap oder a 45 laps distance , he had to do one pit stop more thats true but he was able to gain the time for it on track, the fastest xrr just drove 1.44 so the fzr wins a second per round.

Regarding the FXR, i like this one for real but he is simply to slow The FXR is the best starter, starts even better than the FZR but this is senseless for longer races therefore the gap to the other GTR's is to hugh.

The FXR has a loss of 10 km per hour on the long straight at Aston National against FZR and XRR this is simply to much.

And the XRR ist more tire friendly than the FXR, just try it, you have to push even more if you want to be fast with the FXR so you're ruining the tires much faster than the XRR!

quite honestly.. i think it should be that the FXR shouldn't be able to get out of the sand traps. with all cars.. (well besides rally cars duh), its impossible to get out of the sand traps, thats what they made them for... so you slow down and cant move so you dont slam into barriers

i think right now the GTR's are quite close, especially in endurance (not so much short), mainly because the FZR eats up gas like a hog with its whole 12k rpm, whereas the turbos dont eat up as much.. but are a tad slower (FXR atleast from its weight)

in the short run.. with many turns, the FXR is the champ, but on short runs with few turns.. FZR is champ because of its great speed.. so.. personally, i think the FXR should just loose some of that weight

current thing im trying to solve; if FXR is AWD.. meaning it accelerates and turns faster, why is it that even on U turns, that the FZR and XRR fly out of the turns.. shouldn't it be the FXR that.. so im guessing that its just that much heavier

I do not know why every one still thinks the FZR is the car to beat. While it is true that is is a litte faster on the hotlap charts is is a much more diffacult car to drive ont he edge. Touching the grass in a corner or under breaking and its all over, not to mention it can't run R2s for more then a few laps befor they are melting. The FZR has the same HP, Less Torque and a peak power 2k RPMs higher then the other cars yet uses 20% more fuel. It weighs the same but eats tires at 150% the rate of the other cars. The only situation where the FZR has an advantage is in a short race on an open track & on the hot lap charts. In every situation its has more disadvantages then the other cars.

The NAL, ESL and other leagues are starting to prove that the FZR is not all that great, but it is competitive. The XRR is the base line as the XRT was before it. The FXO is just like the RB4 and is a little low on power but once we have varying weather it will come in to its own and trash the other cars. Scawen has always maintained that the classes were being ballanced fr longer races not sprints. I think the FZR is easier to drive well with int he performance envelope, but once you start approaching the edge the other two are easier to handel. If that was not the case the top drivers in the leagues would all be driving it, but they are not. They are in the XRR.

Quote from XCNuse :

quite honestly.. i think it should be that the FXR shouldn't be able to get out of the sand traps. with all cars.. (well besides rally cars duh), its impossible to get out of the sand traps, thats what they made them for... so you slow down and cant move so you dont slam into barriers

True the sand traps aren't as savage as real life, but i reckon their current form is pretty good. However i am confused why you think the FXR shouldnt be able to get out? It's the only 4wd GTR car, if anything it should get out of the traps the fastest. Considering how much slower it laps than the other RWD GTRs - i reckon the FZR and XRR should take alot longer to get out than the FXR.

Quote from XCNuse :

if FXR is AWD.. meaning it accelerates and turns faster, why is it that even on U turns, that the FZR and XRR fly out of the turns.. shouldn't it be the FXR that.. so im guessing that its just that much heavier

it seems to have quite a laggy turbo also.

http://www.esl-europe.net/eu/lfs/ESCC/season1/results/

I guess the esl just shows that the FZR is the car to beat! Maybe the distances aren't long enough but show me a XRR winning in ESCC.

All we see here is that most of the competitors decide for FZR after testing both cars. And its possible to drive more than an few laps with the FZR on R2, thats for sure.

Yes, but even the main race in escc is quite short actually (about 1 hour), only one pitstop is needed. There's sprint race also, where fzr really shines. So overally fzr is better for the whole race night. (Did I forgot to mention qualifying, where fzr is better?)

I like xrr more, but then noticed I wouldn't have a chance agains fzrs in those quite shortish races. I decided to pick fzr, and it's much much harder to drive, especially when rear tires are at their hottest state, after couple of laps. They will settle down when they wear though.

But when races are about 2h long like in endurance league, they're quite balanced (don't know about the fxr, didn't see one in my div). I was able to finish with only 3 pitstops in my xrr, when some fzr guys had to do 5. The track was Westhill.

i know it's an old thread, but i just want to mention that the fxo again is unbeatable in the TBO-Class.

i hope this will be adjusted.

Bumbity bumb.

I think I got finally fed up with the FZR superiority in GTR class races. Went online for a couple of hours and witnessed the same old show seen countless times: FZR beats the other two GTRs down like there's no tomorrow.

The patches for S2 Alpha haven't addressed the situation and neither have the Devs shown much interest in fixing the car class balance issues. I fully agree that the Devs needed and deserved a long break, but since S2 Alpha has been out quite a few months already, I think it's safe to say that the situation has only grown worse as the setups and drivers have gotten better.

But why should we care? No-one is forcing me or you to drive an inferior car. Why don't we all drive FZRs and be happy? I say it's all about the wonderful thing called diversity.
Different cars make races more dynamic as they don't perform identically, making the game enviroment richer just as custom skins and setups add depth to gameplay. But the problem is, when you are given a choice within a car class, you are basically signing your death-certificate (or should it be lose-certificate ) if you pick XRR.

Some examples:
Even if I qualify for pole position with XRR, it's next to useless because you will lose at a minimum 2-3 places right in the start and get stuck behind traffic in T1 while the FZRs hit cruise-mode and enjoy the scenery. It's always a catch-up race for XRR drivers. If the drivers are on an equal skill level, there's not much of chance to pass unless the FZR makes a mistake.

(Which sometimes seems like a long shot, as the FZR is easier to drive on the limit - thanks to better engine.)

Of course we could race 20 laps on AS Historic Rev without forced pit stops and watch the FZRs (hopefully) crumble, but that doesn't solve the problem. Every car within a class should have equal chance of winning performance-wise.
Most certainly that won't be possible to perfectly achieve due to differences in track layouts and car designs etc., but I'm completely sure that some balancing adjustments could and should be made in the future.

Long post I must say, sorry if something didn't come out right. I know I left alot of stuff out like the FXR and TBO class too, but hopefully you'll get some universal points out of this.

Peace and see you on the track!

Well, if you're fed up with the imbalance of the GTR class, then *gasp* drive something different then the GTR class. Of course Scawen & Co. do care about this imbalance, but 1) he's still polishing the multilanguage support and 2) physics updates have to be carefully planned and are relatively long drawn out because if such a patch is released, EVERYONE has to update. Not like the testpatches where much stuff can be added without actually making the versions incompatible, thus allowing for much more frequent updates of the "less important stuff".

Class imbalances will be polished, tyre physics will be updated, but frankly, Scawen may be a genius but he's no wizard. Coding needs time, especially if you're the only one doing the hammering.

I remember in the first "class/car imbalance" discussion at RSC someone made a point that let's wait for a while and see how things turn out (S2A was just released back then). It's been quite obvious that there is a pretty devastating performance advantage on some cars, but I wasn't shouting "NOW! NOW! NOW!" for those fixes, don't worry!

I have, and probably will be, racing with GTRs almost exclusively. Mainly because I'm not a fan of open-wheelers and the slow cars just seem so... slow... Blasting away with GTRs is like a good solid kick to the crotch!

Ah well, everybody to his own

IMO, you're missing out alot when you limit yourself to the GTR class. Tbh, it was the first thing I started racing regularly, too - but after a while I started experimenting with the other cars and it was way more fun than I expected. Especially the stunt but moreso the rallye driving cured me from the GTR madness and I'm slowly wandering around the other car classes ATM. I will surely start driving the GTR class again, but right now I'm a bit fed up of Aston Nat, maybe if I see a server running a more interesting track I will give 'em a spin again.

We know the devs care - it was obviously their original intentions to create car classes (as was also proved with the LX8/UFR switch), and we also had the uprated engine with the XF GTi (although it's now quicker than the XR GT....)

I suspect the devs would look to alter the car specs after the next run of physics updates, as you never know, they alone could close the gap.

I also suspect that drivers play some part in the times, as way more people drive GTi than GT, so on the whole drivers are going to be faster anyway. The GTR divide is more obvious, since the extra drivetrain loss on the FXR causes it to be slower than the XRR, while the FZR's weight distribution improves rear end grip for slow speed acceleration and gives more even weight distribution under braking (and therefore more grip and shorter braking distances). Oh and the lack of turbo lag improves driveability. Oh and the way the aero works means that the FZR can use more downforce too, while the FXR and XRR get limited by the front wing angle.

I might be odd, but I've always thought the GTR class is exceptionally well balanced. I think DasKlee nailed it right on the head. IRL different makes are not equal. Strategy and skill make up the differences and LFS allows us to simulate the reality wonderfully. I think the FRR is the megagas to drive, but if I *need* the points, I'll wrestle the FZR. Back when I was kid, the 911s and their breed dominated sports car racing. I always heard what exceptional cars they were from the drivers. I also heard they were absolutely evil to drive at the limit.

I don't know. When I first test the GTR class in LFS, and even now, I think it really lends to multi marque races like no other sim I've tried.

The FXR doesn't really seem to be competitive but I think the FZR and XRR should be left as they are. The FZR is not always dominant, the XRR is the better choice in certain circumstances, it all depends on so many different factors that they're never going to be equal all the time.

SIMPLE ANSWER

If you want equal cars, race the same cars!!!!!

the ufr could do with a little more poke, gets left behind the xfr on anything but the tightest circuits.

I agree with "Slartiblastfast" the GTR class cars are very well balanced. I also don't understand the criticism of the FXR as being un-competitive, if you spend the time and really learn how to expolit its handling and "interesting" performance characteristics you'll realise that overall it is on par with the FZR and the XXR.

To be honest I don't know why anyone would think the FZR is inherently better than either FXR or XXR, it has in my opinion more faults than the FXR. It is perhaps the best for low fuel sprints, but it's instability, fuel and tyre :-) consumption, render it close to disadvantaged in anything longer than a sprint race, which can only be compensated for partly by exceptional driving on every lap, which is all but impossible when doing 20 or more laps.

rant over! :-)

I think that the FXR is competitive only in theory. Most people argue with "easy to drive", "good on the tyres" and "low fuel usage", but neither of them does really apply respectively make it keep up with the others.

To be reasonably fast you have to extremely push the car, eating away its tyres and the AWD doesn't really help that either. The low fuel usage is a plus, but is neglected if you're 2 seconds slower per lap than an FZR, causing them to easily make up for the additional pitstop. The XRR is faster, better on tyres and better on fuel usage, so choosing the FXR is kinda pointless.
And being easy to drive is only useful if you race against mediocre drivers who struggle with driving the cars at all. Semi competent drivers mostly have enough car control and feel to drive the FZR without major problems.

The only situation where it really shines is stability under extreme conditions. You can full-throttle that thing over kerbs to no end, without fearing to lose control at any time. But, these situations shouldn't happen too often during racing anyways, should they?

Even the accelleration isn't that great under standard conditions. However, you can redline the engine, bumping on the revlimiter as soon as you're on the grid to spool up as much turbo pressure as possible. This atleast makes the launch not suck. Ugly but effective.

I think the GTR class is pretty evenly balanced on the whole, but could do with some refinement.

When someone said that the FZR is too dominant, that's not always the case. Remember that a lot of the public servers only hold short sprint races of five or six laps, ten at most. Over these distances, the nature of the FZR causes it to be dominant.

Open up the distance, and the FZR's weaknesses show in the form of the rate it gets through consumables. I recall driving FZR in a 10 lap race around AS4 (ok so it's only ten laps but they're long laps), and I was consistently slightly quicker than an XRR. I thought I was easily going to beat him... until I realised my rears were melting, I'd underestimated the sheer quantity of fuel required, and I had to pit while the XRR cruised past with it's ultra-low tyre wear and fuel consumption. It's differences like this that provide some interesting variety in car choices and strategies; however it's rarely noticeable when most public servers do races that last 8 - 15 minutes.

But I do think there are the following problems with the GTR cars, and what would redress the balance a little so we see more than just the FZR...

FZR
Fuel consumption. I recall reading a topic here where the fuel consumption was compared to real life cars on the track, and the general consensus was that it was close enough. But the FZR (and FZ5, I think) came out as having some totally improbable/unrealistic thirst for fuel when compared to other (real) racing cars. Reduce some of the FZR's thirst - not so much that it takes away it's weakness in longer races, just enough to make it more realistic.

XRR
Starting: impossible. I appreciate there are known tyre physics issues at low speed, but getting this off the line is a black art. If ever a film company needed some pyrotechnics, just get an XRR to start off the line - it provides all the smoke you ever need. I know it will never launch as fast as the rear-engined FZR or the AWD FXR, but it needs to do better than what it can at the moment in order to not instantly lose 5 places. It doesn't make the car very accessible or popular, imho - which contributes to the FZR's popularity.

Laaaaaaag: the turbo spool-up can be measured with a calendar, not a stop-watch. It needs to be reduced a bit - to find a nice compromise between having to be aware to keep the engine on the boil, but not having to drive everywhere with one eye on the boost guage.

Zebidee: Both the other GTR cars are fine, so why does the XRR have the rather curious habit of bouncing up and flipping over if you drive over a tall kerb? In order to cement it's position as the endurance car of choice, it should be somewhat more forgiving.

In terms of forgivingness, you'd expect the FXR to be the best and the FZR the worst. As it stands the XRR (to me) is way down at the bottom with it's awful starts, turbo lag, and desire to recreate an immortal character from The Magic Roundabout.

FXR
Simple, really: top speed. Ok, so the FXR's profile isn't as svelte as the other two, and it has the drag of an AWD drivetrain. But it gets annihilated in a straight line by the other two. And as I'm sure the devs have noticed, the eight most popular tracks all feature a considerable straight/high speed section. Increase the top speed, but give it a few extra kilos or suchlike to (almost, but not quite) cancel it out in terms of lap time.



Of course, all the above is purely my own personal opinion, not fact.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Oh and the way the aero works means that the FZR can use more downforce too, while the FXR and XRR get limited by the front wing angle.

Could you elaborate on that please? I haven't heard about that aspect before.

Quote from STROBE :

Could you elaborate on that please? I haven't heard about that aspect before.

It's simple really, the rear wing provides more downforce than the front wing, and can also be jacked up to twice the angle of attack. Lots of rear downforce is useless if there isn't enough front downforce to actually increase corner speeds - you are just increasing high speed understeer/stability.

Because the XRR and FXR are front heavy, they need lots of front downforce, so in the end even with the front wing at maximum (15 degrees) the rear wing is at very low angles (typically around half).

With the FZR, you need a lot more at the rear, so with 15 degrees at the front, you are also using very high rear wing angles as well. With the aerodynamics of the three cars being IDENTICAL, this means that the FZR can have extra grip on circuits where it is useful over what can be obtained with the other two GTR cars. On circuits where low wing angles are fastest, this advantage disappears.