GT Sprint Cup - Season 2, Round 6, Spa - Jan 17

[Simon Gymer]

Your right about the traction - the 550 is a joke, but you seemed to be struggling a bit too, some good catches there in Eau Rouge 

Wasn't too bad tbh until the tyres went off. I wasn't quite full throttle in 1st/2nd out of La Source but almost (when the tyres were ok at the beginning). Glad I chose soft wets even if they were shagged at the end and like driving on ice. Hard wets would have been awful whole race I reckon.

[fozzmeister]

Yeh Lambo on Softs was good.

It def has its good moment on lap 2-3 but doesn't seem to descend into a mush. Of course Shark is a little quicker than me tho :-)

[JonM_uk]

It was a nice change to race in the wet. Well except for when I s**t myself at the bus stop, eau rouge and prolly every other corner on everylap   Good result for the penguins, we got ourselves a shark sandwich too  

[LEUVEN]

I was at my Grans, doing some painting  , Can't really say I'm sad I missed it tho TBH 

How come a Penguin is faster than a Shark around a wet Spa?  ..........................

<picks up coat, walks away quickly>

[[ZiP]Tyf]

I was at my Grans, doing some painting  , Can't really say I'm sad I missed it tho TBH 

How come a Penguin is faster than a Shark around a wet Spa?  ..........................

<picks up coat, walks away quickly>

Believe it or not... Penguins are quite fast in real life too, by which for me I mean the racing ie. TrueTom and JonM, for other more geared towards real life people I mean that in real life Penguins are quite fast as well...

Get it? 

Neither do I, but when I started to type this I'm sure it had a meaning, a goal and an end... LOL!

GG ZiPpers! Soz I missed it, fell asleep an hour before race or so, trying to mentally prepare me for the 'wetness'! 

T

[Rich_A]

Wasn't too bad tbh until the tyres went off. I wasn't quite full throttle in 1st/2nd out of La Source but almost (when the tyres were ok at the beginning). Glad I chose soft wets even if they were shagged at the end and like driving on ice. Hard wets would have been awful whole race I reckon.

Yep they sure were, I used Hard Hard and it was difficult.. even on the first few laps the eight cars infront slowly pulled away. But then I got some pace and slowly started catching Nikano [is that right, not sure]. Anyhow, he spun off as did four other cars to give me an easy fourth. I had only one spin so there was some grip but really not enough round the turns..

My car wasn't too great either, understeer on braking and lot of oversteer on exit.. so had to nurse that to the finish.

[Mark J]

Surely, it is a glitch/bug within GTR that the tyres have such little grip in some instances, like low speed complete loss of traction or a set of wets not even lasting 40 minutes ? I have watched quite a few GT races and havent noticed cars having to change tyres every half hour just to get through the race !
Also, whilst i havent driven a GT car on slicks or wets, i dont believe that its right that the car has so little traction no matter how slowly you go through bus-stop or other slow speed turns...i was almost having to go walking pace through bus-stop and still the car lost complete grip and gave me 3 low speed spins, which i find infuriating when i have just wrestled the car around 2km laps of fast twisting turns without dropping it on any lap.
But then again, you alien types dont seem to be suffering the same thing so perhaps there is something fundamental in your setups that prevents the low speed loss of traction?...any pointers chaps? I find the GT3 the worse for this (slow speed spin) phenomenom.

ps,...is there a reason why you dont use 'changeable' weather in the championships as opposed to pure 'rain'? Surely changeable would be more appropriate for Spa where it can be raining one minute, dry the next or even raining on one part of the circuit only. Plus it could really mix the grids up ala F1 if it started raining/drying during a race.

[PaulW]

There's a definite problem with low speed grip in GTR (or lack thereof). I don't think the fast guys will disagree with that but are  just better at driving around the flaw!

[fozzmeister]

Low speed grip is a historical ISI thing I believe. Although I think the problem is quite small in GTR, I have nothing to compare it with really.

As for rain, if you set the weather to changable its totally random, the first Endurance race was destoyed by it, dry practice, dry qualify, dry warmup, monsoon race, no forecasts, no nothing, it just rained. This is IMHO very unrealistic, as I've never seen a race when they had to change to a wet setup in 30 seconds with no warning what-so-ever. Most people just banged wets on and prayed, I did, it destroyed my race.

In Endurance we use the dice method, its probably explained in the rules somewhere. Sprints run dry everwhere, except Spa.

[Simon Gymer]

ps,...is there a reason why you dont use 'changeable' weather in the championships as opposed to pure 'rain'? Surely changeable would be more appropriate for Spa where it can be raining one minute, dry the next or even raining on one part of the circuit only. Plus it could really mix the grids up ala F1 if it started raining/drying during a race.

As Fozz says in more eloquent fashion than me, yes the reason is that Changeable weather is a f***ing nonsense feature in GTR multiplayer. The dice are much more amusing to use than it anyway and although it doesn't change during the race it gives us a little variety in weather in endurance racing. 

Yes I think the low end grip is a bit funny in GTR, better in rFactor and GTL. There isn't too much of a secret in wet weather compared to dry, basically my setup changes for wet are:
1) Increase wing a notch or two to give more grip.
2) Increase both coast and power differentials a few notches to help keeps wheels spinning at same speed both braking and accelerating.
3) Increase ride height one notch.
4) Reduce gearing a little to cope with more wing, BUT, where 1st is very low in the first place, increase 1st gear so that it's nearer 2nd gear as you don't want a very short 1st gear in the wet. Luckily the Lambo's gears are set to start quite long anyway (if you're using the Lambo)
5) I believe making the car a little softer helps with more grip in the wet, but I don't tend to change the suspension just for wet as you risk losing the good general setup you might already have.
6) Decrease brake pressure. I usuall put it down to 90% for wet as it helps to make it harder to lock the wheels under braking.

Other than setup, it's common sense stuff really:
1) Use less throttle.
2) Only apply full throttle when the car is pointing in straight line.
3) Use less brake, if you hear or feel it lock under braking use "modulated braking" to get yourself out of going straight on.
4) Try to avoid the curbs they are slippery.
5) Drive more smoothly and slower than the dry.
6) Pack an umbrella and waterproofs.

As for Penguins being faster than Sharks, if you had a Shark chasing you you'd probably drive faster to stay away from thuse razor sharp teeth too!  So you have to thank Team Shark for providing you with a reason to keep ahead! 

[fozzmeister]

Sharks can't chase me, I'm a land creature. Penguins look small, I think they should be quite kickable!

Fozz

[popabawa]

I had an idea about weather a while ago that I totally forgot to share with you....

Instead of the dice, how about we use the actual weather conditions from the venue, say 5 mins befiore the server goes up, the Admins check weather.com (or whatever) and set the in-game weather to the real weather at the time.

This could add an extra layer of interest to the race as you'd have to check the weather conditions in the days coming up to the race to decide whether to practice in the wet or the dry! Or gamble on a last-minute change  

Of course, there's a lot more potential weather conditions than 'dry' or 'raining' but I'm sure it would be fairly easy to sort out.

Pops

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Instead of the dice, how about we use the actual weather conditions from the venue, say 5 mins befiore the server goes up, the Admins check weather.com (or whatever) and set the in-game weather to the real weather at the time.

Interesting idea... I'll look into it.

[mo]

Surely, it is a glitch/bug within GTR that the tyres have such little grip in some instances, like low speed complete loss of traction.........

Yeah there is something funny about the low speed cornering but I'm not sure it's a flaw. Modern racecars are not just setup but actually designed for running in the dry.
If a designer makes a car that blows evryone away in the wet then you can be sure that they'll be left behind in the dry. It's a big hint to engineers when this happens and points them in the right direction - chassis  rigidity.
Too rigid and great in the dry but crap in the wet and vice versa.

Shark's response is excellent , very similar to what I did last night with the F575.
Other things to try are :

Most importantly imo are the anti-roll bars, reduce these to take the rigidity out of the car allowing it to dig in. This allows the camber and castor to vary slightly depending on load giving you more of a flat contact profile when in sharp bends.

Increasing the diff preload - makes the car more stable when not accelerating or decelerating, but when in the 'no peddles pushed' part of the corner like in La Source.
So if you find you're hovering (as if the car weighs nothing) in the middle of chicanes or hairpins then increase this.

Also increasing castor will get rid of that horrible mid corner washout understeer in the wet but doesn't really affect corner entry or exit.

Personal pref but I find that increasing the bump and spring settings improve braking and stability. Last night I ran the 575 on max slow bump (which is stupidly unrealistic) and notched up the spring also. This allows better braking and I was able to catch Shark's Lambo last night under braking which shoudln't have been possible in the Ferrari I think.


OK setup rant over

Instead of the dice, how about we use the actual weather conditions from the venue, say 5 mins befiore the server goes up, the Admins check weather.com (or whatever) and set the in-game weather to the real weather at the time.

Good idea but would it mean that alot of the races would be wet at this time of year and all be dry during the summer?
It would be a bit like having a winter season as they do in various formulas.

[Mark J]

Thanks for the input guys, but reading thru sharks 12 points, i did all of them !!

There was a couple of points mo raised that i didnt have, ie castor increase. Also the slow bump being maxed?..is that a good idea at Spa?...i actually lowered my bumps and rebounds to accomodate the kerbing thru eau rouge etc after some tips from JonM (Rain-meister)