Apex Modding GT3 - 2012 (v1.09 )

Discussion in 'Vehicles' started by yoss, Jan 25, 2014.

  1. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    I'm very happy to know your impression after a few laps, I made around 600 laps with it during the tuning process, so my opinion, even if totally wrong, may differ from yours.
    Yes, it is possible for you, or some friend of you, to make as many setups as you want.
    This is why RF2 (unlike Mario Kart) has all those tuning options in the garage, as someone says, just do it!

    Cheers.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 9, 2015
  2. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    I deleted my post because I didn't try V0.930 at the time, but v0.928, but I just gave v0.930 a go...

    I played with a VLN #114 Porsche (bright yellow and green one) @ a medium-ish rubbered Lime Rock No Chicanes. I hardly ever played this mod until today (v0.930) and two days ago (v0.928) and have hardly ever played any fast cars @ Lime Rock regardless of sim (mostly Clios, skippys, etc.). With v0.928, the default setup, I was in the 47's by hotlap 11, and did a 47.586 by hotlap 19 (practice session) (same sort of times with some quick setup changes as-well) so, although I'm definitely no alien, I'm not exactly the slowest guy around either...

    I have to partly agree with what some others are saying here about sliding around as-well as general oversteer of everything but I think we cannot point the finger solely at the mod-makers...

    I believe the issues ppl are experiencing are only 50% a function of the mod but also 50% a function of the core ISI engine. In any car, even pre-RF2, you can approach a corner, add quite small amounts of braking, add small amounts of steering lock, and that technique makes the car turn into the corner and want to continue turning. Sometimes, especially if you're inexperienced, you can find yourself all of a sudden on the very inside of the corner/road as if you have the quickest steering ratio ever (but it has nothing to do with steering ratios). Or you're gingerly, easily making your way around the track, and all of a sudden the car starts oversteering and sliding even though you're not braking hard, not carrying a relatively lot of speed, not yanking the wheel hard. It's as if the front has hundreds or thousands of % of extra grip once you apply a touch of brake with a touch of steering lock, or as if there is no forward momentum but rather any piece of mass (object) is willing to switch direction and travel along a new direction on a dime. As if there is no momentum that wants to make the vehicle keep traveling forward but rather it is able to turn into a corner as if a hand from above is literally grabbing the car and turning the direction it points too.

    In short, in real-life, everything wants to naturally go straight, in ISI physics engines, everything wants to keep turning and turning (which can then lead to actual oversteer sliding instead of just turning-in more and more).

    All you need to do is add just a small amount of steering lock, hold or dab small amounts of brake and you'll see that you can get any car around any turn without hardly turning the virtual tyres, without hardly applying any steering lock. You can get (eg.) Corvettes and Porsches around the final hairpin turn @ Adelaide, or the tightest turns @ Bathurst without hardly turning the tyres of the car or your steering wheel due to this core behavior of all iterations of the ISI physics engine. It's a far cry from reality. Just watch any video, of any driver, with any car setup and you'll see how much they actually have to turn the tyres of the car - the real-life cars don't just keep turning into a corner more and more for you from just dabbing a touch of braking combined with very, very small amounts of steering lock.

    I was playing the ISI Nascars at Indy - and even selected the slowest steering ratio of all in the tuning menu, "20:1 Slow - and was getting around corners using maybe 1/4th the amount of steering lock real-life Nascar drivers apply to make the car turn - regardless of setup. (P.S. I was doing 49.3s - to 50.0s, no draft, 55% tape, and 33 L fuel even though I've only played ovals maybe 5 times in my entire life in any videogame/sim, so I'm not exactly super slow).

    This natural, very long-standing behavior in any ISI physics engine, combined with a car, setup, or driving style that is just naturally more pointy and/or oversteery (as Lgel stated he personally likes his cars [post 1675]), and...well, the issue becomes even more magnified.

    You can always induce understeer yourself by turning the wheel more and/or through your car's setup but then you're ultimately purposely adding understeer and sliding your front tyres, and wearing them as a false-cure for a core physics behavior issue. You can also make the steering ratio on the car very, very slow so that you need to turn your physical wheel more but, again, that is just you doing stuff to "hide" the issue from your end - another false-cure.

    It's a far cry from not only real-life but most other sims too (although real-life is, of course, the most important comparison, not other sims).


    +1

    [HR][/HR]
    On a separate note, Steam Workshop's (SW) auto-update of the mod didn't work correctly. Instead of updating the mod, SW literally just installed a second, separate copy so I have 2 of every car (v0.928 and v0.930).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 9, 2015
  3. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    Yes I can brake and downshift as in the video, by the fact did you notice the super fast counter steer the driver has to do mid curve quite often ?

    I suggest you reduce your throttle sensitivity and brake sensitivity to around 50 % in the control panel (this hint was given to me by a very fast sim driver for F1, and I use it for all cars).

    Adjust the tires level sounds from the audio menu to be able to hear what you are demanding to your tires, drive with the tire temp widget visible (optimum tire temp is 99,5 ºc, grip decrease above and under this temp).

    Check your wheel and pedals setup (there is a specific thread for Fanatec wheels in this forum).

    I adjoin a setup I adapted quickly for Sebring, that I can drive confidently.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/93l421qrl0x97em/AM_GT3-F858.svm?dl=0

    Cheers.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 9, 2015
  4. Diogo Oliveira Falcão

    Diogo Oliveira Falcão Registered

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    Let's not forget that two drivers from the same team, using the same car will have different setup according to their driving style.
    Me for example, I like cars with tendency to oversteer. They are faster and hard to control but with the time you get used to it.

    Try to be smooth and remember that brake earlier is better, late braking are mostly used for overtaking.

    Some tips:
    If you decrease front ride height, it will give more grip to the front and decrease grip on the rear.
    If you decrease rear ride height, it will give more grip to the rear and decrease grip on the front.

    Try messing around with diff pre-load also, very important if you get oversteer while accelerating or braking.

    Anyway, if anybody needs some help to adjust the cars setup, remember that we are always willing to help.
    These cars has been tested hundred of hours by the Apex team and I can say to you that there are no bug on the physics.

    Two great videos for those trying to be fast:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwA1q63dIxM
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQRmYMlmdqM
     
  5. Spinelli

    Spinelli Banned

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    That video itself explains major problems of general vehicle behavior in the ISI physics engine. Look where he draws the diagrams and even shows the direction of travel (the path) the car is traveling relative to where the car is pointing (especially during oversteer). This hardly exists in ISI engine relative to, not only Netkar Pro, Live For Speed, iRacing, and Assetto Corsa, but, even more importantly, to real-life. In the ISI physics engine, the car's direction of travel wants to almost instantly vanish/stop and almost on a dime "transfer"/continue towards where the car's front-end points to. That's why oversteer, or even getting the rear slightly, slightly light, equals the car turning sharply into the corner more and more as if it gained 1000% front-grip and as if you don't need to apply hardly any steering lock to make the car turn and go through corners, rather than like in real-life (as-well as other sims) where the rear simply rotates around but the direction of travel doesn't instantly change as if there is no such thing as forward momentum. It's why 90% of oversteer in ISI engine results in you being sharply to the inside of the track or so far inside the track that you are off the track, but in real-life the car keeps travelling forward or to the outside of the corner/track even if the rear rotates because that is where the momentum is making the car travel. In real-life, only if you don't apply any steering correction, and then eventually the car re-grips, do you then all of a sudden drive towards the inside of the track (which obviously makes perfect sense).

    Not an Apex Modding issue, just a general behavior of any vehicle in any ISI physics engine going back 15 years to at-least F1 2002. Compared to ISI physics engine, this exists to a much, much, less degree in Assetto Corsa, and even less so in iRacing, Live For Speed, Netkar Pro, and Driver's Republic Alpha, and is almost non-existent in real-life. It's actually eerily close to real-life in some of those sims.
     
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  6. BazzaLB

    BazzaLB Registered

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    Groans....
     
  7. Tosch

    Tosch Registered

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    In my opinion the problem with the Ferrari oversteer is related to the engine brake map. There is way to much resistance in the drivetrain in off throttle situations and the fact that the setting is fixed in the setup options doesn't help (differential is fixed too). We had similar problems with SLS during testing. As a left foot braker it's not a big problem for me to adjust my driving style to it. Similar to the Skippy I can always keep a bit throttle under braking to stabilize the car (and blip at every downshift) and when I have the feeling I need a bit more oversteer for turn in or mid corner I just lift the throttle and voila, tail is coming around. When you are used to it, you can do very fast laptimes, because you always have an option to make it through the turn. It's a bit like the modern unstable fighter jets that can only be controlled by a computer. If you have a different driving style it's just horrible.
    My proposal would be to add the setup option to adjust the brake map and with a wide spectrum of possible values and see what happens.
     
  8. Emery

    Emery Registered

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    @Tosch - yes, I suspect you have a good answer for the Ferrari.

    For a demonstration of how our driving expectations are set by experience, drive your favorite Apex mod car (McLaren for me) brilliantly for a few laps and then jump to the Brabham BT20. "Turn, damn you, turn!" LOL, it took me about two laps to finally come to grips with driving the BT20 again.
     
  9. Guimengo

    Guimengo Guest

    That was my first thought. I don't find the default setup welcoming and maybe the biggest culprit comes from the diffs. If those are the real life values, and they're locked to the teams, tough crap for us. Otherwise, no reason for them to be as that except for individual preference: "the physics reflect my personal feeling of how I would like those cars to behave (I strongly dislike understeer), and I enjoy a lot driving historic cars (BT20, Howston, and Cobras)."
     
  10. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    First of all cars have differential locked as in real life GT3 (it is a GT3 mod, and gears are locked too, but the mod allows you to change them in the upgrades).

    This mod has a variety of cars, it is possible to choose your poison among various cars, some car may better suit your driving style.
    Yes, the Ferrari is tuned for good drivers (someone lapped in 1'58'340 in Sebring after a few laps).

    If not, other cars in RF2 are better suited to your taste or driving skills (ISI Nissan GT1 for instance), URD T5, or EGT.

    Throttle lift oversteer can be controlled by setup options (control of weight transfer), and driving techniques (Tosch described one, an other is to be delicate when going off throttle, throttle is not a two positions switch on-off, it is not reserved to left foot brakers, I am not for instance, and yes, last but not least, anticipating and counter steering).

    Those cars can be dumbed down easily by setup, but default setups were designed to be drivable and able to beat AI at 100 % for average drivers on the test track of Portugal GP.

    As is, this mod can make big difference in lap times between very good, good, average, and bad sim drivers (what a pity). Those cars are easy to drive at 90 % of their capabilities, the last 10 % is more difficult to extract, they demand more than 10 quick laps to master. I understand that for people looking for instant reward it may be frustrating, but then again there are other mods in RF2 designed or dumbed down (for commercial success). I know that most of RF2 players think they could go to a real track, jump in a GT3 car and after 10 laps, lap in the same times as experienced pilots, it is not the case, very far from it.

    How many of the RF2 drivers having difficulties driving these cars, have made their homework, learning the basics of driving with ISI Skip Barbers?

    And yes, someone had to do the final decisions regarding physics, as beta testers (all of them good drivers) had widely different appreciations of the same cars.

    As I said before, Yoss is a very open minded guy, all of you are welcome to design a complete new set of physics for these cars, a panel of testers will evaluate them, and they will be included in the next version of this mod.

    Meanwhile, cheers and have fun racing.

    P.S.

    May be someone, could post welcoming setups for all these cars on a variety of tracks.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 10, 2015
  11. David O'Reilly

    David O'Reilly Registered

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    I did some tests and set up work in the Ferrari today. I didn't test it in the update process
    I have made my report to Yoss and LGEL.
     
  12. yoss

    yoss Registered

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    Thanks david
     
  13. David O'Reilly

    David O'Reilly Registered

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    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 10, 2015
  14. Juergen-BY

    Juergen-BY Registered

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    Object not found :(
     
  15. David O'Reilly

    David O'Reilly Registered

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  16. Juergen-BY

    Juergen-BY Registered

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    Thanks!

    //Edit: on wich track?
     
  17. David O'Reilly

    David O'Reilly Registered

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    I used Suzuka
    It says it in the name of the set too.
     
  18. Juergen-BY

    Juergen-BY Registered

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    Yep...i was thinking wich track this could be...lol.
     
  19. David O'Reilly

    David O'Reilly Registered

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    I think I improved that set again.
    Dampers, rear camber, diff pre-load +1. (edit and rear toe in).
    Brake balance needs to be 51.5 front (not sure I saved that).
    Engine brake mapping can be savage if you don't watch your revs downshifting to lowest gears, but if you do its ok.
    NB I have done little to nothing on brake or engine cooling or brake pressure. My task was really chassis balance.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/o91mzb2c3ne36zp/Apex458v930SUZ_BEST.svm?dl=0
     
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  20. Lgel

    Lgel Registered

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    Thanks David for your setup which drives well as is, at Sebring for instance.

    Suzuka would be the perfect test track (in fact it is a test track also used as a racetrack), I used it at some point but it has three peculiarities that
    make it less than perfect in my view:
    - it is very technical which is both very good and not so good, because it introduces a lot more variability in lap times than a simpler track,
    in the weakest link of the test chain, the driver.
    - at least the version I know, is very smooth, and not perfect for damper settings.
    - and the biggest inconvenient in my view is the fact that it is one of the few tracks with a cross over, so left and right turns are compensated, which is good,
    but is not the case of almost all other race tracks. So, for instance and understeery setup will balance equally wear between left and right front tire, so you must take into account, that this unbalance in wear between front and rear end will be exacerbated on a standard track

    An experienced tuner like you knows these facts and takes them into account, my remark is just a warning to other less experienced tuners.

    Cheers.
     
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