Flat-spotting: S397 please include option to disable this!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Rapala, Jan 23, 2017.

  1. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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    I'm all for making a sim as realistic as possible, but I do feel there are some concessions to the reality of driving behind a computer screen that need to be made, and one of them is flat-spotting.

    It completely kills enjoyment of a race to have a lock-up and then have your wheel vibrating for the rest of it. I've certainly never flat-spotted a racecar but it does seem extremely easy to get a flat-spot in rf2, one little lock-up is all it takes. Even if it's realistic the thing to recognise is a real driver has so many more cues to let him know how close he is to the brake limit:

    real life:
    - level of g-force letting him know how hard he's braking
    - vibration in the pedal letting him know how much slip is happening
    - vibration of the whole car
    - force required on pedal completely consistent

    sim:
    - force can be fairly consistent with load cell pedals, but even my my brake modded T3pa's the force required does vary as 100% brake usage force varies from session to session. (it calibrates itself each session according to your first brake input
    - a brake pedal bar

    It's just so much harder to know where the limit is in a sim. Obviously this applies to a lot of the aspects of sim-racing, but when one of them regularly completely ruins enjoyment of a race, I think it should be something that can be turned off.
    In my last 3 years on IRacing, I've never once seen flat-spotting as a feature the guys there want and it could be argued that they're most realism-obsessed crowd there is.

    Another issue with flat-spotting is that if you want to simulate an endurance event and turn the tire wear up, the flat-spot sensitivity seems to scale with it, so at 3x tire wear the tiniest lock-up will have your wheel vibrating.

    For the moment , my 'solution' is turn tire wear completely off which is a very sad solution indeed as I love a race with dynamically changing car handling.

    tldr: Please make flat-spotting an option and/or have a sliding scale for it.
     
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  2. Euskotracks

    Euskotracks Registered

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    This is a duplicated thread. A similar petition was replied not so long ago.

    I can tell that we have no problem in our league with this. You are generalizing saying that it is killing enjoyment which is absolutely false. None of the over 40 drivers in our league have complained about this.
     
  3. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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    ok, if I'm in the minority then fine. But is it a case of others don't mind driving with a vibrating wheel or a case of they're good enough to never flat-spot their car?
     
  4. Euskotracks

    Euskotracks Registered

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    I know both cases. Some people filter FFB to 10+ samlles. In my case, most flatspots, como when I spin at moderate or high velocity. In those cases I will check laptimes to decide if pitting. Vibration sucks, but mainly because I have an old G27 that can't handle such vibration input properly. I mute my teamspeak and suffer thr vibration. I don't have much problem of flatspotting while braking.
     
  5. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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    Just something to note, I'm not asking for it it to be removed completely, I'm asking for it to be a toggle switch so those who don't want it can turn it off. I can't see how this could negatively affect those who want it on always. If it's not a large piece of work for the devs, I don't see the harm in helping out the x% of drivers who want this option.
     
  6. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    So you would say that for you would be fine to race online among people that can flatspot (and suck it) and people that cannot be bothered to not overdrive their tires. Well, to be honest, I would be quite upset if a racing simulator allow different user to customize the game "reality" to their needs. I suppose that I don't like that after a driving error, the hot tires easily induce another driving error if you don't let them coold down, so I think there should be an option for this too. Or not?
     
  7. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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    I'm only talking about offline. If a race admin sets flat-spotting to true on his server then of course everyone has to deal with it.
     
  8. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    In the few rF2 races I did I never noticed a flat spot, but I guess if it is as bad as when I put a wheel on curb or grass I'd have to leave the race
     
  9. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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    I think some cars are more susceptible than others, eg I don't think I've ever flat-spotted the USF2k but just the tiniest lock-up in the URD EGT's will have your wheel chattering.
     
  10. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    Yes, URD T5 and EGT mods have this feature most pronounced. Flat spots are part of F1 (and F1 2013 mod in rF2 correctly). In F1, drivers try to avoid flatspotting, and this feature makes me very concentrated/careful on braking, adding to enjoyment. Although, I am not sure how realistic it is to have flatspots in DTM/GTE cars.

    You could add FFB filtering, it makes flat spots less punishing.
     
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  11. Comante

    Comante Registered

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    So it's probably MOD related, if your description of the issue fit (never tried that mods) I still don't think RF2 developers should bother resolving a modder "mistake". On the other hand, I'm racing in a league that use a mod very very flatspotting prone, but taking the time to learn how to drive (in my case) without pretending to know how to drive, led to good results, I have a standard G27 , but I rarely lockup tires now, and my softer tires usually outlast those of several other drivers.
    My suggestion is : fill the tank of your car, mount the hardest compound and lap on you favourite track until you dry it up, change tires accordingly, it worked for me.
     
  12. Korva7

    Korva7 Registered

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    Related to this topic: Does people use abs? I have always used abs at low. I wonder if that's normal/realistic.
     
  13. bravotangosix

    bravotangosix Registered

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    In my experience flat spotting has almost become a non issue since i starting using a load cell. It has totally transformed braking for me. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that you get differing degrees of flat spot severity depending on how long and hard you've locked up for. I've not really experienced major shake, rattle and toll since moving away from potentiometer based brakes.

    I would have no issue with it being available to server admins so they can enforce whether its optional or compulsory. You could always go down the route of it only applying to vehicles that don't have ABS fitted as standard.

    As a side note, actual race drivers have been made physically sick from the violent judder caused by flat spotting.

    I don't use ABS anymore.
     
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  14. stonec

    stonec Registered

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    It might be a larger piece of work to edit it considering that the entire tire model is dynamic. There might be hundreds of equations related to deformation of the tire and they'd have to reset all these, or more precisely edit the tire model so that there is on realistic scenario (deformation leading to flatspot) and one unrealistic (no deformation), which again might affect other properties of the tire.
     
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  15. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    It depends on series regulation. You need to check if series that you're racing allows ABS. GT3 does I believe, so in GT3 I use ABS, but nowhere else.
     
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  16. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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    I only use ABS on cars that use it in real life, somehow I feel like I'm cheating if I turn it on in a F1 car for example. Also, I think you get a slight weight penalty for each aid you use that isn't in the real car. eg from the skip barber hdv file:.

    [AIDPENALTIES]
    TC=(0,0.004,0.006) // Weight penalties for using different levels of aids.
    ABS=(0,0.006,0.01) // First value is typically with the aid off so it should be 0.0.
    // Penalties should only be applied to aids that the
    Autoshift=(0,0.001,0.001,0.002) // vehicle would not be allowed to run with.
    Steering=(0,0.005,0.008,0.01) // Penalties should typically only be used if the aid improves
    Braking=(0,0.002,0.003) // laptimes for a decent driver.
    Invulnerable=(0,0.0001) // Values are fractions of the total vehicle mass,
    Opposite=(0,0.002) // and are modeled as extra weight in the fuel tank.
    SpinRecovery=(0,0.002) // Do not use negative values.
    AutoPit=(0,0.002)
    AutoLift=(0,0.001)
    AutoBlip=(0,0.004)
     
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  17. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    I'm all for having Options for certain things in a Race Sim but an Option to take away one of the most fundamental parts of a racing simulator is a big no for me. Each to their own of course and you may have a good point about Tire Wear Acceleration making flat spots worse (maybe that's something S397 can look at), but for me this is a vital part of the sim racing experience and I've learnt to deal with them by learning how to brake properly in each car before I have a race. Should I still get a flat spot then I either pit and replace or if it's only slight I live with it - just as real life drivers do, after all this is a simulation and what we're trying to achieve is something as close as possible to the real life counterpart.

    ...and yes I'm fully aware you can turn Damage Off...that can do one too ;)
     
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  18. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    Flatspots are tied into tire wear. If you really want no flatspots, then turn off tire wear.
     
  19. Rapala

    Rapala Registered

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  20. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    Not a sad solution at all. What you're asking for is defeating how tire wear works in real life, so it would be like going back to the rF1 tire wear model, which is simplistic and unrealistic. All the modern sims are modeling flatspotting now, so get used to it.
     

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