It has been a few weeks since the online ballast on the XRR was reduced by 10kg and as srdsprinter asked I thought I would look at what affect this has had using the stats collected on Conedodgers’ CD2 server.
I am afraid I didn’t keep a record of total usage last time but for the record the current number of drivers (many will have drive more than one) recording a time under 1:44.00 is:
No. %
FZR 476 41%
FXR 547 47%
XRR 137 12%

This shows that the difference between the best car (the FZR) and the worst (FXR?) is not enough to put people off driving the FXR. From driving the server my feeling is that half the field is usually using the FXR.

Looking at the change to the fastest laps gives the result:
Old Now Diff
FZR 100.95 100.90 0.05
FXR 101.70 101.68 0.02
XRR 101.75 101.28 0.47

I terms of the fastest lap nothing much has changed for the 2 F cars but would suggest that the XRR has been given a big boost by the loss of the 10kg. I think this is a bit misleading however as the top XRR is an amazing lap that leaves even the second fastest even way behind. Using 2nd fastest would show 0.00, 0.08 and 0.26.

Looking at the changes to the averages for the top 15 gives the results:
Old Now Diff
FZR 101.38 101.18 0.20
FXR 102.26 101.97 0.29
XRR 102.40 101.82 0.58
This shows all cars improving even though for two of them there has been no change to their ballast levels. This is presumably because setups are getting refined and people used to the ballast.

As a result of the change the XRR has gone from just behind to just ahead of the FXR. The usage level of the XRR has in my opinion gone up very slightly but is still a very rare sight on the server. I have done some graphs this time is it is easier to see the relationship of the various stats that way.

As it stands the XRR has a very slight advantage over the FXR and shares the big deficit to the FZR. The XRR is still a difficult car to drive compared to the FXR and any advantage is may enjoy is not enough to warrant the learning curve for new drivers who may as well use their time to learn the FZR as the rewards are far greater.
My own opinion is that 10kg is about 0.2-0.3 seconds and that we need to try taking another 10kg off the ballast to move it closer to halfway between the two F cars and see if the useage level can be moved closer to 25%. Actually that’s not true as I think it needs 0kg ballast to put it even with the FZR but I know that isn’t going to happen.

I am not going to repeat all the stuff about this being one circuit one length etc as that got discussed last time and no-one could produce stats from anywhere else to back up their arguments and give my analysis some balance which I would like to be able to do.

Maybe we should look at this from another angle. At the moment the FZR enjoys an advantage over the FXR. This is not enough though to stop nearly half the field using the FXR due to its driving characteristics so that gap is probably about right although both sides would probably argue for a change. What reduction in the XRR ballast would it require to see it appearing in every race where say 8 people gather?

Maxim

Great job with the info.

Interesting the XRR is within .4 of the ultimate pace, but the usage still lags.

Has it been suggested that the lack of available setups (setup sharing due to low XRR participation) may be contributing to the slower adoption of the XRR's popularity?

From my experience, you can almost always get someone to send a FXR/FZR setup if you need one on the CD server. If there is no-one using XRR, then how will you get one on CD's? I'm fairly rubbish at creating setups from scratch, so I'd be out of luck. I imagine if there was a server-side command/option that could give people on the server a couple fast XRR setups that it would be more encouraging to pick up for the average Joe LFSer.

On XRR starts, max boost clutch drops never saw me loosing position to either the FXR or FZR.

As far as pure balance goes, possibly another 5-10kg off the XRR and it would be very close XRR/FZR wise. I doubt this would aide the popularity of the car much though...

Being an XRR driver by nature, I feel that it's the unforgiving and generally difficult nature of the XRR that keeps people away from it, especially since the easiest to drive GTR is (now) only a tiny bit slower in ultimate speed.

You need to take all weight from XRR to be fast as FZR on AS nat. But when you look at other tracks 30kg should be perfect. I believe XRR can be faster then FZR on some tracks, but it's natural that XRR is slower by lap times , but that doesnt means that it's slower in enduro race

Hi Maxim
Great report thanks
Its my car of choice because I love the the way It corners and handles, what I did notice after a break from Conedodgers Is the big increase of FXR drivers since patch X was released and how I can't seem to catch them.. or anyone.

They could add 50kg and I would still drive it, Try the XRR next time, you may like it

I would use the XRR more, if it was not for the horrendous turbo lag! You pretty much have to left foot brake every slow corner, and that can be difficult to do sitting in office chair.

Quote from N I K I :

You need to take all weight from XRR to be fast as FZR on AS nat. But when you look at other tracks 30kg should be perfect. I believe XRR can be faster then FZR on some tracks, but it's natural that XRR is slower by lap times , but that doesnt means that it's slower in enduro race

You might be right but no-one has yet produced any evidence to show this is true. Even if it is true, why shouldn't the XRR have a slight advantage during endurance racing? There is no reason why the FZR should be the fastest car in all situations is there?

Quote from JohnPenn :

Hi Maxim
Great report thanks
Its my car of choice because I love the the way It corners and handles, what I did notice after a break from Conedodgers Is the big increase of FXR drivers since patch X was released and how I can't seem to catch them.. or anyone.

They could add 50kg and I would still drive it, Try the XRR next time, you may like it

Thanks. Check my stats though and you will see I am a one car man (and it doesn't have an F in its name)

Quote from jayhawk :

I would use the XRR more, if it was not for the horrendous turbo lag! You pretty much have to left foot brake every slow corner, and that can be difficult to do sitting in office chair.

I know what you mean but I also find this is one of the things that make it a challenge and keep us hardcore XRR drivers behind the wheel. Removing this completely would just make it closer to being an FZR in a different skin.

At the moment if all cars had the same physical appearance an experienced GTR driver could tell what car they were in after just one lap and that is how it should be. What would be nice is giving all cars a chance relative to their difficulty. The FXR FZR balance is close (on AS3 at least) as both cars make up about an equal number on the grid. The FZR is more difficult to master but rewards the effort with a faster possible lap time. The XRR still needs a tweak to get it to make a regular appearance as the extra effort to tame it and its short-comings just put you level with an FXR.

Maxim (completely biased XRR driver but trying to be impartial)

on ovals the xrr is the fastest car when it comes to longer races, in shorter races it is as fast as the fzr. but the fzr has the advantage at starts. so putting another 10kg off will make the xrr by far the fastest car on this track.

global car balancing does not make sense at all. it should be a server-side option and server admins should be able to choose according to the track they are running, if they want to balance out the cars.

everything else is just a waste of time.

IMO the XRR has the ability to dive into the AS hairpins as fast or even faster than the FXR or FZR. But out of the corner and onto the straights (due to its turbo lag) it stands no chance. But I noticed that on Westhill the XRR can stand way better with both FXR and FZR

Quote from Fischfix :

on ovals the xrr is the fastest car when it comes to longer races, in shorter races it is as fast as the fzr. but the fzr has the advantage at starts. so putting another 10kg off will make the xrr by far the fastest car on this track.

global car balancing does not make sense at all. it should be a server-side option and server admins should be able to choose according to the track they are running, if they want to balance out the cars.

everything else is just a waste of time.

On ovals the weight doesn't make a lot of difference does it? I haven't tried an oval but the weight would seem to affect braking and acceleration and low speed cornering more than high speed corners. I doubt 10kg will make that much difference but how does the current XRR speed compare to pre patch X lap times? 10kg would be approximately 1/3 of the difference.

Personnally I can't see a problem with it becoming the fastest car on ovals anyway. One of the cars is going to be slightly faster and the fact it isn't one car on all circuits at all distances means a balance has been reached doesn't it?

Maxim

FZR should be faster because it always was. FZR is RR car... FZR is harder to drive then any car, definitely in endurance races. Only advantige of FZR is that it is faster then other cars, and if you take him that what will left???

XRR wares tires less, and if you take 10kg more of it, XRR will ware them even less! XRR spends less fuel, so you can start race whit 65% fuel in tank, and in FZR you are starting full, so there is another 35kg difference.

If you race FZR and XRR now on AS nat in 4 hour race whit some of best drivers of world in them, i'm not sure if FZR would win. And if you race them on WE i'm sure XRR wins! XRR might be faster on BL too...
I guess only fast place for FZR is Aston, just because of top speed and long straights!
Masters of Endurance starts in about month or two and we'll see how best teams deal whit this. TBH those cars are made for long races and please don't make Scaven take another 10kg of XRR and everyone jumps into that car in MoE. XRR is fast enought now too (maybe even too fast). And taking another 10kg of it just because ConeDadgers servers would be just foolish.

nice idea there Jack, but how will they give more power to XRR and FXR, nitro? lol i guess you thought on more BHP, but again how to make that happen

I agree with Niki - every car is unique and we should therefor not blindly look at hotlap times.

I never done enough laps with FXR and XRR to see for myself how easy they are compared to FZR - but I'm always hearing here and there that FZR is a bitch etc to drive - so if it's really that more difficult to drive, then I don't see why more effort shouldn't be paid off with faster lap times too - why even drive the FZR if we would be able to get same laps times with easier cars?

The FZR eats away the rubber faster even though it has wider tires, and also uses more fuel - meaning XRR would suddenly dominate like hell if lap times were similar.

Hotlaps and sprint races isn't enough to find the best balance.

I would make it serverside too. Public servers not following any particular scheme would use the present overall handicap settings, but league admins could change them to fit the particular track(s) and race length(s) and/or pitstop rules their league runs.

Quote from MaximUK :

You might be right but no-one has yet produced any evidence to show this is true. Even if it is true, why shouldn't the XRR have a slight advantage during endurance racing? There is no reason why the FZR should be the fastest car in all situations is there?

The XRR uses 0.9% per lap on the oval, while the FZR uses 1.4%. Both have the same capacity, so the XRR can go far further than the FZR.

No idea about other combo's though.

Quote from r4ptor :

I agree with Niki - every car is unique and we should therefor not blindly look at hotlap times.

I never done enough laps with FXR and XRR to see for myself how easy they are compared to FZR - but I'm always hearing here and there that FZR is a bitch etc to drive - so if it's really that more difficult to drive, then I don't see why more effort shouldn't be paid off with faster lap times too - why even drive the FZR if we would be able to get same laps times with easier cars?

The FZR eats away the rubber faster even though it has wider tires, and also uses more fuel - meaning XRR would suddenly dominate like hell if lap times were similar.

Hotlaps and sprint races isn't enough to find the best balance.

Agree with a lot said here, this post highlights it.

I think with weight adjustment we're pretty close right now.

I think we've also summed up why XRR is still rarely used.

As for server side options, that would be a can of worms, as settings would need constant tweakings for the ballast weights differing from server to server.

Can of worms, yes, if people expect it to be feasible (i.e. customize handicaps to make all three cars even over a certain set of tracks, race lengths etc) without any effort. But we would find a few effective rules of thumbs soon enough, I think.
The settings wouldn't vary that much.. I don't think any car would be wearing much more than the FZR is now, and the FZR as is can easily cope with (sometimes the positionabe ballast is actually helpful) the extra weight.
At best it would mean public servers where no one car is overly advantaged/disadvantaged, at worst those servers with unplayable handicaps would get no traffic at all. There's plenty of those already.

In any case we are already much better off than we used to be. The biggest criticism I would make is that the turbos are still not great.

The LRF class would next best benefit from handicaps. It would be a shame to see the LX6 lose power, though. An updated (e.g. 2006) RAC and slightly modified (lighter/stronger?) FZ would be preferable. [/ot]

Basing the FZ5 off of the 997 GT3 RS perhaps?

Scawen has stated many times that the global ballast settings are a TEMPORARY method for class balancing and that a future (read: before S2 Final) patch would balance them by altering the cars' fundamental properties. I don't know if this means hp, turbo, tire width or what, but the point is that in the future there will almost certainly be no master server-mandated weight penalties.

The turbo-modelling might be part of it, atm its not really correct (building up boost takes too long), XRR and FXR would defenatly benefit from a patch in this direction.

For short races and for very long endurance races, the fuel burn rate really is not an issue at all. The XRR eats front tires just as fast as the FZR eats tires. You are always lap limited on tires, not fuel. The XRR had to pit at about the same intervals as the FZR during a 24h race for tires.

Power is not really the answer. I do agree that the turbo lag might be a big factor. If you can't get the power down coming out of corners with the XRR, you are going to have slower laps and you will have slower top speeds at the end of the straights.

I also don't see how the FZR could be considered harder to drive than the XRR. They are different, which is good, but they both have their challenges. This is as it should be.

I'd have to say over a long race, fuel burn rate does in fact matter.

If FZR has to use 65% fuel over a run that the XRR only needs 45%, then FZR has an additional 20kg pentalty at least initially.

Each pit stop then requires 20% more fuel fill, which takes additional time (i have no idea the fuel fill rate?).

Quote from Hallen :

I also don't see how the FZR could be considered harder to drive than the XRR.

I'd agree. It perhaps has a greater propensity toward oversteer, which some people may find intimidating, but its throttle response and linear power delivery make said oversteer manageable, if one exercises prudence with the loud pedal.

Also, and maybe it's just me, but I find that the FZR brakes a heck of a lot better than the XRR (which makes sense, as a certain real life rear-engine flat-six powered sports car has always had notoriously good brakes).

Quote from Hallen :

This is as it should be.

Also agreed.

But if we're really in for a more permanent rebalancing with S2 Final, then then maybe the weights are okay where they are right now.

Quote from srdsprinter :

I'd have to say over a long race, fuel burn rate does in fact matter.

If FZR has to use 65% fuel over a run that the XRR only needs 45%, then FZR has an additional 20kg pentalty at least initially.

Each pit stop then requires 20% more fuel fill, which takes additional time (i have no idea the fuel fill rate?).

I am going to show my ignorance here but do we know that they have the same size fuel tanks? i.e. does 100% FZR = 100% XRR. I just wonder because it might be they burn fuel (weight) at the same speed but the FZR has a smaller tank? I doubt it if the FZR is NA against the turbo FXR and XRR but I don't remember seeing anywhere that 100% = 100kg of fuel.

Maxim

Take a look at the weight change with gas in/out.