Hi all, I haven't seen anyone reporting any findings on this so I thought I'd have a quick go at measuring grip levels on a wet track and see where the RC changes put things. Note I didn't have much time for a test and I haven't done a non-RC comparison, but let's start here. Any corrections or other observations very welcome. Scenario: skip barber in devmode, full brake lockup from 128kph (2nd gear redline), measuring longitudinal G at 60kph. 'Skid Pad' test track with standard 1.0 grip (though absolute grip isn't the focus here). Ran 2 tests each to confirm repeatability. Dry track: 1.03g Dry rubbered track: 1.13g Wet (1.0) track: 0.84g Wet (1.0) rubbered track: 0.84g. Initial impression: rubber gets ignored at 100% wet. Todo: check at 50% wet, check marbles effect.
Pre-RC comparison. I had to go back to B1122 to get proper track wetness controls in devmode, but it's all the same before the RC anyway. Dry track: 1.03g Dry marbled (1.0) track: 0.99g Wet (1.0) track: 0.84g Wet (1.0) rubbered track: 0.90g Wet (1.0) marbled (1.0) track: 0.80g @Coutie I wasn't very clear with my quick post what this was about, and I kind of forget not everyone knows we've been waiting 10 years for progress on wet racing lines (or has been 'actively' waiting). The intention here is to check what happens when the rubber groove gets wet, with the hope that some sort of 'wet racing line' will actually come into play sometimes, instead of the rubbered racing line always being fastest. So while it's true the rubber will wash away over time it's not really the focus here. Happily the RC test does show that the fully rubbered tarmac no longer gives any grip gain, which is progress. It's still not going to promote a wet line since the fastest line is still going to be the fastest/shortest line to take. The rubber should provide less grip when wet (how wet, and how much, is a whole new question - but some modding options would be a good start). The other aspect is track roughness and how to use it effectively, but that really is a whole other topic. I do wonder if roughness (if shown to work adequately) could be supplemented by AIW-line-based in-game adjustments to the track surface (realroad-style, but static) to reduce the burden on track makers, but now I'm really digressing. We've seen some movement, let's see some more! Still todo: bit more testing in the RC to confirm the apparent new behaviour. Marbles. I don't think degrees of wetness are worth testing at this point, as the current effect is very unlikely not to be constant (the effect of rubber on grip will reduce linearly with wetness).
100% wetness in the update simulates undriveable conditions and all surfaces converge to the same undriveable condition. 20 to 50% wetness is roughly what most wet races would run in and you will see a difference in grip levels (groove (less grip) vs non groove) regardless of any washing of the surface.
We also completely rescaled the way the road and grip progresses 50% pre this build does not equal 50% this build.
So, we learn that 100% wet should equal to a thick layer of water on the track, how much these 0.2 G less in braking translate in increased meters to stop the car? I have no idea how to calculate it, but my rough calculation suggest that at 100km/h the car take around 1 seconds more to stop. Is that correct?
More RC testing, despite getting it straight from the horse's mouth above, just to confirm/illustrate for the thread: Dry track: 1.03g Dry rubbered track: 1.13g Wet (0.5) track: 0.93g ("Very Wet" in game) Wet (0.5) rubbered (1.0) track: 0.89g (yayy!) Wet (0.5) rubbered (1.0) marbled (1.0) track: 0.89g (more yayy!) and just for comparison, let's try 0.25 wetness ("Wet" in game): Wet (0.25) track: 0.97g Wet (0.25) rubbered (1.0) track: 0.95g Wet (0.25) rubbered (1.0) marbled (1.0) track: 0.95g So I'll eat my words from earlier, I assumed a simple implementation (let's say what some would call half arsed) because of the "Extremely Wet" results, but as explained by Alex there are intermediate conditions where things look pretty good. We still don't have aquaplaning, so I think any time we talk about a thickness of water on the track we're going to diverge from reality. With aquaplaning you'd need to then also consider the water-clearing capability of the particular tyres and any speed related effects of that. All that said, 100kph is 27.78m/s, so an average braking force of 1g (9.8m/s/s) will take a little under 3s (2.83), while 0.8g would take just over 3.5s (3.54). 39m vs 49m stopping distance. All usual basics physics assumptions apply.
Meh. Very marginal difference just as expected, nothing hardcore and significant, probably won't be worth changing racing line 9 times out of 10, if not every time. Perhaps it is alright without any of the three hydroplaning types simulated.
I wouldn't call that a marginal difference. This could realistically allow for off line braking to be well worth it given you could enter the corner later and harder than those on the rubber. Really we should see a bigger difference at lower levels of rain, since the heavy rubber would hold water on the surface whereas the rougher tarmac would allow water to flow away. I'd imagine that kind of optimisation is something we will see in Hotfix patches before it goes public with the new sound system.
Interesting thread with interesting results. I guess I will test later what this means in terms of lap times. While longitudinal G already tell a story about this, your average joe (like me) can't really "grab that". So a test with lap time differences would be more interesting.
@Alan.RJ.Smith92 Yes for overtaking situation it should be perhaps slightly more than marginal difference. But simply just for faster way around the curve it probably won't be worth to do any exploring of different trajectories. The true smooth surface effect due to wetness should be very significant, perhaps nearly two times less grip comparing wet very smooth to wet very rough surface on same track, same section and same time. It is due to viscous hydroplaning, hydroplaning is not simulated. However, as opposing to dynamic hydroplaning, where water depth has big effect, viscous hydroplaning is basically just low grip because of thin water film that forms due to smoothness of surface. What is needed is detailed smoothness/roughness mapping of racetrack surface, and it would be basically it... But I don't see many people craving to have kind of driving when you send the car through slippery racing line, hoping to get a grip by the edge of the racetrack outside the normal racing line - people say they want to race, not to "fight the car" lol. ACC has introduced this feature long ago, what they did was same thing, they added this effect to simulation, but made it super marginal - so people can race instead of fighting car
@mantasisg I get it, but pulling figures out of your arse must be getting tiring? 4%+ grip drop is pretty significant, and I think would likely lend itself to some experimentation with driving lines. It won't always be best, but it isn't in real life either.
Sorry to post here, but is the wet grip really good ? I struggle with rain/wet road, even with the rain tires, it's worst than the ice, it doesn't feel well represented. With ACC, I can drive well with rain, it's not like the ice at all, there is a more more grip, it feels better represented.
Feel is a fickle thing. Boot up devmode and drive a track you've edited to 10% normal grip as a rudimentary "ice simulator" and see how you get on. Try a normal wet track, drive carefully around without falling off until you get the hang of it, and see how your laptimes compare to dry times. Then look for real life comparisons. You might be surprised.
I did now a little test on silverstone with a GT3 45% wetness and medium rubber build up. Restart session after testing one line so I start again and do not continue on a drying track. I'm still over a sec faster on average when I just take the normal racing line. Now obviously I have no clue about wet racing and wet racing lines so perhaps I just did take very bad lines. So I did look at braking zones, but again no differences. Friction cycle again. No differences. No matter where I look in the logged data I see no real differences expect time. So I either do something horrible wrong, or nothing changed
So did you drive a gt3/gt4 in acc-rf2 and real life at track speeds to compare? Lucky you. I feel plenty of grip when driving my tiny city car under the rain, but I only get to drive it 20kph over the speed limit totally under the speed limit
I have no idea on how to get these accurate data, but I did a test in Daytona with Ferrari GTE. 60% wet and saturated rubber. Acceleration wheelspin and braking block come very easy in rubbered sections, not so much in clean parts.
