I'd point out that the 'slot cars' quote is from Jeff Gordon, an extremly experienced racing driver who has actually driven the FW25, not some random guy attending an F2000 school, so that'd be the 'relative' point. Nobody was suggesting that they drove themselves or that they were easy to drive, especially considering any car at its limit is in balance and the higher the speeds generally the finer the line. Pretty basic stuff. That aside F1 cars are almost as poweful and way torquier today but have shorter gears, produce less downforce, are heavier and have poorer tyre compounds than in 2004, don't have traction control as they did then and have far more complex braking systems so are actually quite a bit harder to drive these days from a technical perspective. Numerous drivers past and present have confirmed this, though a good few feel they need to go further by upping the physical strain. Honestly whilst I appreciate F1 cars are less user friendly as a viewer these days it is sad that 2004 was the peak of F1 car speed. Weird too to think current F1 cars are around 7 - 9 seconds a lap slower now than they were then. Whilst power peaked in the turbo era, clever electronics ruled in '93 and overall downforce, according to Newey at least, peaked in 2010 the magic mix of power, weight, rubber, drag, downforce, torque and so on came about in '04 and we're now a long way off of that laptime wise. Back on topic I think that feeds in to people's attitude on driver aides. Legal or accurate or not we, at the very least, as viewers tend to want to see the best drivers in the world challenged to their limits and, in turn, want to know what such a beast would feel like. It can be easy to forget that some want a slightly different compromise between racing and simply driving.
With or without TC, there will always be that dancing on the limit of what car, tyres and track allows - as long as it's "same for all", you'll be beaten by the better driver. But disallowing TC in cars fitted with tyres which are designed to run this spec. can mess up wear and car -balance.
That. Many racing cars that have TC are using different maps not to help them drive per say but to control temps and wear. For example using less TC when you have difficulties with rear tyre temps and as the tyre wear gets worse you can increase TC overwatch to allow less slip. Many drivers that have had opportunities to drive different cars when they drove GT3 cars they said that a teenager with ok-ish coordination and basic know-how car dynamics work could drive GT3 car with ease like it was a family saloon (compared to other racing cars). Mainly due to sophisticated electronic aids that make this car very forgiving. However you can find on the internet some quotes (I've read them a long time ago, can't remember where they were) that some cars are so well built with fantastic tyres that even with aids turned off they wouldn't be horrifying to drive. Aids are basically there to make driving faster easier rather than just possible. Some cars need aids to be driveable so need them to be foolproof. And just like WiZPER said, if you push hard enough (nearly overdrive) you can make a car dance like you said even with electronic aids.
The problem for me with RF2 driving aid, is that for now, it is not part of the physic of the car... it is an assist from the engine to add grip when needed... just like Invulnerability or steering help... When they will be integrated directly to the car, that we will be able to adjust them in garage and in-car that will be perfect. Having said that, the fact that we now see some option in the garage UI show me that we are closing on that part.
Only if adjustability is based on real data sent by the teams, so we won't get with generic tc maps for each car rather than actual maps based on real data. Then it will be fantastic!
I know who Jeff Gordon is and what is credentials are and I've seen that entire segment a few times. All I was trying to say is that people would hop in many cars, not just early-to-mid 2000 F1 cars, and say they're on rails (especially an early-to-mid 2000s F1 car, let alone a top one). New comers with much more open wheel experience than Jeff Gordon have often said the same thing too on their first day ever in an F1. I hate the new F1 cars, started disliking them when the V8s came in 06 where the power went down dramatically but the grip only got higher which made the total grip to power ratio way too much in favour of grip. But in the 2014/2015 F1 cars' defense, as much as it pains me to say this because I hate them, you have to admit they are more "beastly" to drive in than the 2006 - 2013, not overall (they haven't lost any grip from 2013) but in terms of power-application situations due to about 4x more torque. Other than power/torque though, they are pretty much just as grippy (and have probably even more overall downforce) than the 2006+ cars. In qualifying when they can push those relatively junky tyres, and with low fuel, they are pretty close to 2004 laptimes. It's just the races where they are slower due to the nature of the tyres plus high fuel. Anyways, I'm not a fan at all of the engines or the looks or the tyres or...not much. Looks wise, F1 needs to go back to cars that actually look like something exotic - basically anything in F1 history up until 2009 where they began looking like blown-up children's toys. F1 needs to lower aero grip, raise mechanical grip, and raise power, and they need tyres that can be pushed. Pirelli just announces they can't make tyres as grippy for the 2017 rule changes as they originally planned (look it up) because of something about pressures and safety which blows my mind considering there have been very grippy tyres for tons and tons of seasons before Pirelli recently came along. The cars also need less sophistication to make the drivers' lives less easier and consistent. All these super complex and fancy programs to perfectly customize throttle maps, customize torque output, etc. There's too much of all this stuff. Totally off topic, sorry, I love talkin about this stuff.
Really nice the way you explained. Thank you. Such a pity that is so hard to edit those 1K values by hand to get a fantasy map to play with. Even with a table and a surface chart I think it would be a pain to keep changing one by one. They are these right? RPMBase=(10500,-68.66,241,0,0.853) VolumeFract=(0,0.142,0.267,0.365,0.466,0.553,0.64,0.727,0.814,0.901,0.988,1,1,1,1,1) Hope they will implement a function to change maps in-car when the new F1 from them is released to at least get some few different shapes for personal preference or for wet.
As far as Im aware or thought, any TC or ABS that exists IRL, is built into the cars by creators, much is the case IRL too in a lot of cases, where its built in and not controlled by a switch, as far as "aids" go Ive always viewed them as solely for people lacking the hardware to drive properly, i.e controllers or even keyboards, without trying to sound elitist (Im slow too), the day I got a wheel is the day assists have never been turned on in any sim even just to try,if anything they will teach terrible driving habits,hinders the fantastic physics and gives you the wrong feedback on how the car is truly behaving.
I think to get TC going on a car you need to actually enable the 'aid'. In the case of a car that's meant to use TC that aid will usually be made to work without any weight penalty, but you need it turned on to make it happen. (the HDV lets you configure TC at the different levels (low and high), but off is off) Obviously as the user you need to be made aware that you're expected/allowed to turn TC on *Sorry, and obviously the same applies for ABS.
Interesting, so if a series\car runs TC as a set rule, it will still be turned off if not enabled in "aids"?
I believe that to be the case, yes. ISI's comments/documentation (!) can be a little unclear at times... but here are the HDV lines that let a modder adjust the effects of TC and ABS: TractionControlLevel=(0.33, 1.0) // effect of grip on throttle for low TC and high TC ABSLevel=(0.31, 0.93) // effect of grip on brakes for low ABS and high ABS (these aren't the only related lines... though the configuration of these things isn't as complex or capable as some might assume) Meanwhile, slightly confusingly, the aid penalties section includes this: 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. Note it says typically... but I don't know if it's actually possible to have "TC off" in the car to mean something else.
Unless they are garage options in the future. Then all aids can be turned off, but you can still use what electronic aids the car itself has. At least, this is what I expect and hope for. For example, in our league, we could for example only allow auto clutch as an aid. All the other options would be depending on the cars we drive. Tim, can you elaborate on this? I'd really welcome more user/in car garage options and this is a step in the right direction
You're right wgeuze, that would be good and would avoid some confusion and argument about what should or shouldn't be used
That is exactly what I want in the future... And like Lazza point out, the value of the TC has an effect on GRIP, and not an effect on the engine/diff like a real TC.
As far as I understand, those descriptions are misleading as they don't affect grip levels, but just modulate throttle & brake pressure.
I really doubt that... ABS being the worst... you can brake so much later using ABS. that's definitely adding grip
There is another variable what the grip of the other variable refers to, but there are reports that it doesn't add any grip http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/596-TC-and-ABS-how-does-rF-use-it But to be 100% sure, we should measure it. TractionControlGrip=(1.0, 0.2) // Average driven wheel grip multiplied by 1st number, then added to 2nd ABSGrip=(1.0, 0.2) // Grip multiplied by 1st number and added to 2nd But if they do add grip, setting their first parameter to 1.0 and the second parameter to 0.0 should definitely rule out any grip gain. http://wiki.rfactor.net/index.php?title=Hdv http://yoss.free.fr/rfactornfr/Modding_Tutorial_Website/PhysicsGlossary.shtml
Seriously doubt that actual grip levels are being manipulated, especially as RF2 tyre model handles this in a very different manner than RF1.
