Hi, Driving the karts is much fun but very difficult. Especially the braking. I lock up too much, the kart slips sideways, bleeding off all speed. What is the trick with kart driving? B.
Recently I fiddled with button assignments and all of a sudden throttle and brake where totally off, especially braking was way too locky. re-assigning them did the trick for me. For the rest its settings I presume like Hany said, and there is much more to be fiddled with. Mind you, you cannot/should not drive a kart as you would drive other vehicles. its a tad different in approach and can cause issues when not addapting. Read post 274 & 276 here: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...rack-available?p=262964&viewfull=1#post262964
The trick is to brake well before a corner, then get back on the throttle progressively as soon as you turn in. If you try to trail brake, you'll bog down or lose the rear and spin, losing a huge amount of time. Kart placement into the corner is extremely important as well, you want to make the turn as shallow as you can instead of sharply turning in. Finally, try to smooth out your steering inputs...the less you have to fight with the wheel the better.
My friend came over on friday, he doesnt own any racing sims, he doesnt own any racing games, not semi-sims, not arcade racers, no real-life experience, nothing, not even rental karts. Only experience he has is the odd time playing for a few hours at my house, probably less than 10 times ever. And we go at it once in a while on GTR2 with a gamepad controller with almost full aids (stability, tc, abs, auto clutch, some steering help), the only racing game that he has quite a bit of experience in is when we used to play a lot of Project Gotham 4 (xbox 360)..... He was lapping very nicely after just a few hours in the junior karts and then in the f1 kart. By the end of the second day he was lapping very fast for such a new guy and beating people online. I believe the key, other than his natural talent and understanding of race lines, car control etc. was the "friendly" setup I gave him.... - Steering lock to 300 degrees rather than auto vehicle set - Brake bias was somewhere between 67 and 70 front (ill check the exact setup later and post it in the setup section) - Brake power was around mid 80s % - Toe was 0.00 Try around those settings for both karts (Yes, I know, there isn't brake bias for the f1 kart). One last thing, get really into the zone and stop moving your hands like you are driving a taxi. You need to move your hands quick, correct quick, don't be scared to use as much force and/or speed as you need to to correct the wheel / car. Make sure your wheel is bolted down hard as heck. If you are worrying about ruining your wheel, or trying to consciously think about not putting too much steering force / speed into your wheel than you will always be driving too "lazy" and sluggishly especially when it comes to the karts. I had to tell my friend 3 or 4 times to not worry, the wheel wont brake, correct the car as hard / quick / much as you can. As soon as he stopped worrying and stopped thinking about it that is when major improvements came to how hard he could push and explore the limits without spinning/crashing, etc. He gained a real sense of control after that.
Start out with the Junior Kart and remember, only the rears brake, more or less like if you could only use the handbrake to stop. If the rear end steps out, you are about to / have locked the rear tires and you better correct that quick or prepare to smash into something. Relax the brake pressure a bit and correct the slide if you can. You can use the brakes into the corner if need be, but you have to use very, very, very little pressure or you will go sideways with ease. A little goes a long way.
Braking can be rather difficult in either category, the Junior kart, having only rear brakes, requires a constant watch for snap oversteer on account of locking rear wheels. Trail braking is of limited use, as this can lead to excessive oversteer upon corner entry, which on account of only having a single speed gearbox, with grippy tires, can bog you down right out of the power band. The ideal corner is to brake in a straight line, very limited trail braking on turn in, and then keep the kart in a shallow and consistent slide with high percentages of throttle input to ensure the engine does not bog down. http://rfactor.net/web/rf2/cars/karts/
