So, I'm a noob in almost every way, other than crashing in turn 1 (i just wait until the pack is through )

I always try to learn a track with the basic setups, and then if someone is helping me usually they send a setup over. The setups always make a huge difference (for the better) but I never feel like I really earned the better times as I'm using someone's hard work. How can I move from borrowed setups to knowing what the hell is going on? I look at the differences between basic setups and the setups I get, I read about the settings, but overall I just am lost. Maybe it's because I'm not a consistent enough driver to test small changes - any tips?

thanks

You could try to mix setups, like using spring settings from set "A" and gearbox setting from set "B" and see what you prefer. Or just stick with 1 set, drive as much as possible with it untill you think you're not improving anymore, and then start to change little things, if it doesn't get better, make sure you remember the old settings though
Also, there are some good setup tutorials around. And most of the basic car handling tutorials might help you too, it's no rocket science, it just takes a bit practice

Try reading a bit in Bob's Advanced Setup guide (the link is in Bob Smith's signature).
After that you will know what option influences the car's behaviour in which way. When you become consistant enough you will notice that the car as some handling-issues you'd like to change and you'll remember the setupguide. Then you can modify your setup and see how it works out.
Learning how to setup a car is a long process and needs a lot of consistancy, knowledge about car-dynamics as well as feel for the car - in other words practice.
It's perfectly okay to use someone else's setup. They wouldn't share the setup if they didn't want to support you, so why not accept the help?

Vain

Quote from Michel 4AGE :

You could try to mix setups, like using spring settings from set "A" and gearbox setting from set "B" and see what you prefer. Or just stick with 1 set, drive as much as possible with it untill you think you're not improving anymore, and then start to change little things, if it doesn't get better, make sure you remember the old settings though
Also, there are some good setup tutorials around. And most of the basic car handling tutorials might help you too, it's no rocket science, it just takes a bit practice

That's what i do... I always hope that i can make it better and one day i can be asked for a setup that i can take credit for!!

Quote from spsamsp :

That's what i do... I always hope that i can make it better and one day i can be asked for a setup that i can take credit for!!

just practice a lot with ONE set. after 500/1000 laps u can drive much more consistent, so u can judge sets. till that u wont be really able to notice any differences, since u take every corner different. btw, try to spectate sum1 faster, and get his racing lines, and try them. if they dont fit for u, take sum1 elses. just keep practicing

I can`t see the problems, asking for a setup. I seldom do that, because people is very kind to offer me one, when they notice your slowness or problems driving the car, on the combo.

Usually I ask once, for a set, if I really need one, and it is very seldom, I dont get a set this way. NEVER EVER BEG !!! NEVER !!!

One of the other answers, in this thread, says : combine two or more sets. That I have been doing for years now and it is a good advice.

One thing I have learned over the years, is that unless you can consistently run times on any track, no ones setup will produce the results people look for. Like Revenger said, 500-1000 laps will produce that. Some people I have met in the rooms freely share there setups. Some people also just jump in a room, almost demanding setups from people. If youre not willing to invest the time and effort to learn tracks, or how setups work for you, I would see why some people who have invested hours if not days wont share a setup. There are some great guides, Bobs from thefloatingwidget is awesome.

There is also the psychological aspects of using somebody else's fast set. If you are running 5 seconds slower on the same set, then you know its the driver.

I'm not consistent enough yet to develop setups, but I'll use a known fast set and them maybe tweak it suit my driving style. I'm getting better at setups just be doing that.

And I've started simple. If I'm understeering in the FOX in a particular corner I'll add more front downforce, one click. Obvious enough, right? Maybe it helped, maybe not. If not, I'll either change it back and leave things as they are or change it back and try a small adjustment somewhere else. But at the end of the day, I still know that it is primarily driver skill that is holding me back.

Just keep playing with the settings you have. You will get really frustrated when you just destroyed a setup that was working for you and you cant get it back again, but that's all part of leaqrning. But once you get to a point where you know what is happening to the car and what the track is doing to the car then you can setup a car for anywhere anytime.


I just started from the beginning very rarely taking and using sets from anyone. But there does come a point (Espeically with some idiosyncrasies like the old high nose bug) when you just need a some reference material. Someone elses set might still not work for you but you can factor in some of their attributes and gop from there. Making your own setups can be a bit time consuming at times but for me that is as much a part of LFS as the raceing is.

Quote from Funnybear :

Just keep playing with the settings you have. You will get really frustrated when you just destroyed a setup that was working for you and you cant get it back again, but that's all part of leaqrning. But once you get to a point where you know what is happening to the car and what the track is doing to the car then you can setup a car for anywhere anytime.


I just started from the beginning very rarely taking and using sets from anyone. But there does come a point (Espeically with some idiosyncrasies like the old high nose bug) when you just need a some reference material. Someone elses set might still not work for you but you can factor in some of their attributes and gop from there. Making your own setups can be a bit time consuming at times but for me that is as much a part of LFS as the raceing is.

I have taken that to new heights many times. Once I find something "comfortable", I usually click new and continue my path to destruction on the new one.

About requesting setups, I usually will try to run what I have and see how I fare vs. others times (usually slower ), then I might ask to see what differs. But to no avail I have been finding. Not too many people offer them up freely, which I understand, but frustrating all the same. They know I will not be as quick as them, but like you mentioned, its nice to see what they do differently and try to interpret it into my own settings. Such a learning curve, but fun all the same.
If you can get in a room with a bunch of good players, its awesome, even if Im in last.

i've started to merge setups too.
meaning change your set in small steps to the other setup.
drive a few (50) laps and let magic happen.
when you recognise the small differences you're set to understand a bit more.
since everyone has to follow the physics, there aren't that much differences the faster the times get.
Once you realised that, you start thinking about how the best line for a certain corner would look like.
then you start experimenting with that corner-line, you'll notice that you'll get faster each time you drove that corner.
it helped me very much to "see" (measure) the tyre-patch, to asses the amount of tyre actually have the most contact with the street.


just keep on reading everything you can get to that matter...

happy experimenting.

micha

If people offer you a set its polite to accept anyhow
You dont have to use the set, and more than often you can learn from them (and also most likely the set is not their hard work )
Just try making changes to other people's sets and see what it does to your car (well that helps me ). Oh and what alland44 said about begging, dont beg nah. more than likely to never get sets then, ask once nicely. If nothing is said then leave them to get on with racing .
I dont ask for sets anymore really (unless one looks VERY good and i have to have it ), there are so many sites like http://setupfield.teaminferno.hu/, play about with the sets. Who cares if you ruin them, its all good fun

i often will ask the quick guys for their setups if im not totally happy with mine for that car/track combo mostly to look at how theirs differ from mine to see how i can improve

and i have no problem giving people my sets if they want em (god knows why they would tho lol)

If you really want to understand what all those settings are doing, prepare to read and study. The best basic info is a book (one of a series) by Carroll Smith called "Tune to Win". Tons of great info from basic to details. Some will be worthless to a sim racer, but the basic engineering stuff will allow you to understand what your doing when you fiddle with rebound, roll, and stiffness settings, not to mention caster, camber and brake bias!
Racing engineers work for years to get really good at this. You have several advantages...you don't have to spend millions or wait for the next nice day and/or available track time to test your settings. You also don't have to try and interpret what your driver is telling you!
The book can be dry, but it's exciting the first time you make a change to fix a problem...and it works!
On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ ... 2-1717836-4119328?ie=UTF8
Cheers-
M.Weisman
ID, USA

Quote from Spiffae :

So, I'm a noob in almost every way, other than crashing in turn 1 (i just wait until the pack is through )

I always try to learn a track with the basic setups, and then if someone is helping me usually they send a setup over. The setups always make a huge difference (for the better) but I never feel like I really earned the better times as I'm using someone's hard work. How can I move from borrowed setups to knowing what the hell is going on? I look at the differences between basic setups and the setups I get, I read about the settings, but overall I just am lost. Maybe it's because I'm not a consistent enough driver to test small changes - any tips?

thanks

Heh, the only way I can make a setup is to merge 2 into 1. And while I'm merging them I have to chant "don't make any adjustments on your own, don't touch suspension, stay away from the diff settings"

The most important setup is your driving, if you can't do 2 good laps in a row, it will be quite hard to setup the car. (that's why I...)

Hmm, time to read the Bob's manual (TM)...

You have to play with the settings, you will never learn otherwise.

Make a new set up file and called it experimental. (This was my trick. I had my race setup and my experimental) Any thing that I 'm not sure about or didnt' want to implement into my race set without thorough testing went onto the 'experimental' setup. I would play with the Diffs, the gear ratios, everything that I didn't understand or wanted to know how its effects the car I would mess about in experimental. Even go racing with experimental just to see what happens. Anything that I liked, or worked would get transplanted into my race setup. But even then that thing might change the dynamics of my race setup so I would have to run tests and change that setup too. But the system worked quite well for me.

I also had a different setup for each track, but thats for a bit further down the line when you are comfortable with setting up yourself. You can't use an Aston setup on South City and get the most from the car. So many fundemental differences that you have to take into account.

But again. Thats all part of the fun.

Quote from Funnybear :

You have to play with the settings, you will never learn otherwise.

Exactly, one of the tricks i used when got started in making sets was to create a new set(like FunnyBone said) and then just take one of the settings and max it out. Then go drive around for a little and see what effect it has on the car. Then put that one back to default and max out something else, etc., etc. This way it is very obvious as to what a setting does to the handling of the car. Then once you understand what each setting actually does, you can go in and start making small adjustments to suit your driving style.

You can read about setups until your nose bleeds and your face turns purple, but you won't fully understand it until you actually play around with it.

I'll be happy to help out with anything if i see you on the track. I like it when newcomers ask legitimate questions about improving their skills. Newcomers i will gladly help. Noobs(the setup demanders, the 1st turn crashers, etc.) are the ones i will not help, simply because they expect everyone else to do the hard work.

Lots of good advice here! Bob's setup guide is a great way to get introduced to all the settings, always good to have it within reach. I like to keep a notebook, writing down changes as I go, and my perception of those changes on my driving. I'm not a pro, I can't effectively tweak the suspension yet, but I fiddle around with everything, and try and write down as much info as I can. Paying attention to things like, tire temps, corner entry speeds, apex speeds, exit speeds, and over/understeer tendencies in certain corners.

From my experience, it's a good idea to start out with a specific goal. I'm sure you could use 'go faster!', but something a little easier to gauge helps to break things down into smaller chunks. I spend time working with my tire pressures and camber, making sure that my tires will stay at some consistent temperature for decent length stints. Nowadays I play with pressures first, and leave fine tuning the camber assymetrically til later in the process.

My next goal is to look at my corner entry speeds, compared with others, and see where I'm losing time. I don't like being passed, so I try and make sure people aren't much faster than me entering the corner. To achieve this I play mostly with coast differential, roll bars, and wings. By reading the guide and playing with these 5 settings, you'll be able to figure out which ones give you over/understeer, and in which ranges they work.

I don't worry about mid corner, because I find that if I can get it turned in, I can usually hold on for the ride. My solution for mid corner is pretty much practice practice, of course this advice goes for everything I've written

Corner exit is mostly by feeling out where I want the power differential. I like a little bit of oversteer, so that's what I aim for here.

Then there's the straight parts. I'm don't have much advice here. The one thing I do know, top speed is less important than cornering speed, usually

I wouldn't consider any of this real advice, but I remember being in the same spot you are now, a good intention of going faster, but no idea where to start. You've just got to find a method that works for you, set some goals, and practice alot. Patience is key, usually I don't have enough of it though!

Quote from sweetreid :

Then there's the straight parts. I'm don't have much advice here. The one thing I do know, top speed is less important than cornering speed, usually

Just remember, slow in, fast out. You don't want to go screaming into a corner just to be ahead of someone and then having to stay on the brakes halfway through the corner. You should be off the brakes before you turn in. (Unless you trailbrake, like me) Because the sooner you get off the brakes, the sooner you can get back on the gas, 99% of corners are all about exit speed. Because that is where you make up a lot of time, on the straights between corners. And the faster you can exit the first corner, the faster you can go down the straight .

And good call with the tire temps! I totally forgot to mention that