Mirfee

Awesome find, Perry! Thanks!

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munchkin

1) Setup Guides:
* http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbarnett/SetupMatrix.html
provides a good base to begin with
* http://phors.locost7.info/contents.htm
* http://virtualracersedge.com/driving_tips.htm
*http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.p...ferential+pump
* http://www.tsscc.org/images/handling.pdf
* http://forum.rscnet.org/showpost.php...1&postcount=24
* http://revzalot.zapto.org/
(Sign up and go to articles section)
* http://www.gpladdicts.speedgeezers.c...etupguide.html
* http://www.racelinecentral.com/RacingSetupGuide.html
* http://www.setup-guru.com/
You need to sign up here coz if you don't you will regret it
* Motec Beginners Guide Part I 19-June-05.pdf
* Motec Beginners Guide Part II 19-June-05.pdf (Should be available on the Motec site)
* http://www.insideracingtechnology.com/techstart.htm
If you wanna read this, have at it!
* http://www.longacreracing.com/articl...at.asp?CATID=2
* http://www.advancedracing.com/chassissetup.php
* http://www.auto-ware.com/setup/2.htm
* http://www.bimmerworld.com/techtips/...UP%20SHEET.pdf
(This'll help you keep track of previous settings)
* http://racingarticles.com/article_racing-9.html
* http://racingarticles.com/article_racing-24.html
* http://www.specmiata.com/setupguide/...ing%20Tips.pdf
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_handling
* http://www.miata.net/sport/Physics/

Racecraft Guides:

* http://virtualracersedge.com/driving_tips.htm
* http://www.getfaster.com/Techtips/Physics23.html
If it weren't for Brian Beckman ...
* http://www.homestead.com/redlinerenn...iversEdEd.html
* http://www.928oc.org/tip/tip193.htm
Just in case you're interested
* http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=245941
* http://www.simhq.com/_motorsports3/m...orts_076a.html
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...ing_techniques
* http://www.miata.net/sport/Physics/

Enjoy. That's a fair bit of reading, although not all of it is GTL specific. Courtesy of rFactor Central for the links.

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Mirfee

You too, Munchkin?!?!?!

Bunch 'o gearheads at TG! Who knew?!?!

Thanks much.

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xTYBALTx

How about using the slider bars to change vehicle performance? Any good?

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

Mirfee

Hmmm. Never tried. Think I might, given all the complex physics and math that's been spilled out here.

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xTYBALTx

After extensive adjustments to my setup, I was able to qualify at :41 flat on the first Mini race (the first race overall) and finish first as well. However, I've been trying to crack the second Mini sprint for hours and am a full 3.4 seconds behind the pace. I don't even know where to make up the time or what I should be doing better... is there anything which shows the quicket routes or which highlights the apexi for the GTL tracks?

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

Wulfyn

Tybalt - I really do advise not using the sliders but using the advanced options. They really are not that complicated and after a while you will get a feel for them. I used to play Grand Prix 2 (still do sometimes tbh) and I sucked until I dived into the car setups. It's all about the first step.

The other important thing is that if most of us are also using specific setups we can relate them to you with specific numbers which you can mimic. Much easier than saying "make sure it is 3.8 cm from the left on my 19" monitor on 1200x1024 resolution"


The best setup I have found so far on this track is:

a) Drop your gear ratios right down again

b) The track is very flat - take your dampeners up to 4 for all wheels for better grip.

c) Let 10kPa of pressure out of each tyres *1

d) Try to kill the oversteer, front roll -0.20, rear to +0.40

e) Adjust the brake balance 3 clicks to the rear

Oh - and don't forget to reduce your fuel load!!


Anyway a lap of this with a keyboard would go something like this:

Accelerating down the pit straight you should hit 3rd gear comfortably before the corner. Just before the turning point take a short half stab at the brakes to ease your speed off as necessary and turn in as early as you feel comfortable. *2 Cruise your way around this and as soon as possible get the car straight (with a keyboard you often need to stop turning before you are lined up to convince the computer AI to accelerate you, and the just tap the key slightly to align yourself as needed).

This is the longest and most crucial straight, and you should get well up into the 4th gear revs. I like to drift left off of the line so that when I approach the cones I am in line with the big airfield road. This is because at such hard braking i do not want to be turning until I am off the brakes and if I didn't align then the corner would be sharper. The brake point is about 30m before the first cone, stab that hard for two cones dropping two gears to second and then turn in hard. Get your line right to hit the apex and look to drift wide to the left for turn 3. Note if you are cocky you can put in an extra little burst of speed once you are lined up, but you will need to brake again soon after to slow for the next turn.

You should hardly need to brake for turn 3, but a small stab doesn't hurt. Corner speed is more important than exit speed here but don't overcook it. Your turn in point has no markers but it is about 1/2 a second longer than feels natural for me. Keep turning through here and on the exit immediately move to the right. Put a small burst of speed in before you head in hard left to turn 4. You shouldlook to cut the inside curb right on the edging just feathering the throttle. Once you are past the apex it's hard down and up into third.

Turn 5 is like turn 1 in that it is a long right hander, but you do not hit it at quite the same speed. Whereas in turn 1 you are likely to keep the turn on and feather the throttle in this one you are likely to keep the throttle and feather the turn. Once the track opens up get as much speed as possible before the lovely sharp left that is turn 6. Keeping right you should look for some nice late breaking here (it's another good overtaking point). Where the road is straight out of turn 5 you want to start braking about half way down it. Drop to second, turn early for the curb, and hammer the throttle asap on the exit and into the pit straight.

My best time so far is 1:00.5, good enough for 5th place, so I need some more setup work!



*1 - I did not mention the effect of tyre pressure in my earlier quick guide, but this should be done at the same time as your suspension. The softer the tyre the better it will grip but the quicker it will wear. As these mini sprints are only a few laps I'm going to experiment with trying to "low profile" the heck out of them. I'm actually also curious to see if one will burst...

*2 - I'm having difficulty with the AI here. I would normally approach this corner by trying to invent my own apex a little earlier by turning in late at a slower speed and drifting wide. I'd then turn in about 1/3rd of the way through the corner and that would allow me to accelerate earlier. Effectively I am trying to extend the exit straight by as much as possible - as this is the longer straight my exit is more important than my entry. Unfortunately the computer AI does not understand this and just drifts me off the track, so I have to adjust my style to hugging the inside the whole way through. Although the time difference is marginal this gives me a faster speed heading into the tight turn 2 right hander - crucial if I want to overtake anyone.

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xTYBALTx

So when I increase the dampener the suspension is harder? I thought that made it softer... I also thought that increasing tire pressure made them grippier, must have misread something else, so that should help as well.

I often find myself drifting out to the left side at the end of turn 5 in 4th gear, which weakens my approach and execution for turn 6. I too have trouble taking turn 1 the way that I want to (I am using a wheel btw).

My best time so far is a 1:02.5 , with lots of 1:04's and 1:03's mixed in - even now.

And finally, the sliders definitely do NOT suffice - unless I missed something big time. My times got much quicker when I took an online file for this track, and have since improved with my own changes as well.

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

Wulfyn

I'm pretty sure that the higher the number the firmer the dampers are - ie the less it takes out the spring. I may have this the wrong way around tho, so maybe someone would like to confirm this.


In hindsight my statement did not come out at all correct. What I meant to say was the softer the tyre the more traction it will have (ie the more it will stick to the road), not the more grip it has.

The car setup was designed to be as stiff as possible to account for the relatively smooth track. I then dropped the tyre pressure to make sure it was not too stiff, hoping to improve overall performance by putting more heat into the tyre.


With the exception of the extremely tame 2nd gear turn 4, and the very short 2nd gear turn 6, all of the corners are right handers, with 1 and 5 being long fast corners. I am wondering if you are tending to slide out if we can adjust the springs to reduce the weight transfer to the outside wheel. What online setup are you using?

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xTYBALTx

I am working off of the "mini plus" setup online. I have since changed it considerably. We should upload our setups online - perhaps attach |TG|Wulfyn to the end of the name? I will add mine this afternoon or evening, depending on when I get home.

I found running the front and rear bars at -1.00 and +1.00 respectively to work as well. Putting the front bar low and the rear bar high reduces understeer, correct?

Wulfyn, we might want to try making the suspension as stiff as possible and see if that changes things. Are you drifting much on the long banked turns? I am convinced that I'm attacking the track incorrectly - I still can't get below 1:02.5.

We also may want to setup a location for uploading and downloading replays. I'd like to see one of yours if possible.

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

Wulfyn

That's a great idea! I just got a wheel, a Saitek R220. I appreciate what Mirf says about having force feedback, but i find my hands just tire too quickly so I'd have it set so low it'd not be worth the extra £50.

Anyway as expected keyboard and wheel setups need to be very different. I had my car setup so stiff that on the first hard braking i did i swear i nearly rolled the thing! Hopefully it was mainly me getting used to the wheel but the car just snapped out. But at least with a wheel we're now attacking the same problem.

As this is a SM only area would it be possible to have a TG resource to keep all of this central but accessible to anyone interested Mirf?

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Mirfee

Sounds good Wulfyn. Glad you got a wheel you're comfortable with.

As for resource access, I'm cool with that. What do you suggest?

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xTYBALTx

Wulfyn - to address the vehicle spinning with hard braking, try radically adjusting the brake bias. I forget what I have it set at, but it seems to have helped very much.

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

RocketPunch

Too bad the replays won't show any timing data like lap times and, most importantly, sector times.

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Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast!

Wulfyn

Ty, I'll definitely try that, but as it turns out it was my posture that was to blame, I sat up a bit and everything felt a lot easier!


Ok, so I did what you suggested and stiffed the heck out of the mini. As suspected really there is nothing to be done about the understeer. It's there to stay I dropped the gear ratios and fuel. Stiffened all dampers to 4 (assuming this is a stiffening of course), added 20kPa to the tyres, and adjusted the rollbars to their maximum of 2 degrees.

Setup:- http://www.maelstromcrew.net/tg/(s_m...tiffa.svm).zip
Hot Lap:- http://www.maelstromcrew.net/tg/(wul...1s775.vcr).zip

*remove the parenthesis and the .zip and put into your game folder - these are not zips, I have just had to use that name to trick your browser into trying to download them and not open them

I got a 1m01.775 - actually the replay is a little deceptive. Ride in car and you can see that there is a lot of room for improvement, pretty much everywhere. Outside the vehicle (either chase or overhead) and actually my lines don't look half bad!

So what did I learn:

a) I should never drive one of these in real life.

b) The first corner feels a lot more natural to me with the line I took in the hot lap. Come in a little fast, ease off the power early, make the turn and then put the power on early as well. I just hit the 4th rev limit as i approached the braking point of Turn 2.

c) I bottle out and turn too early into Turn 2. This is pretty hard tho as it is blind at the turn point and a long way away. In a race condition I'd tend to turn early and lose a little time than risk a misjudgement and plow it into the tyre wall (again).

d) Turn 4 is wonderfully tame, if you get your entry speed right you can be all over it, so don't try and pump for too much speed in the run up.

e) I hit 4th gear in Turn 5. As I approach the turn in point i ease off the accelerator slightly so I'm not asking too much of the front wheels, and once I'm 50% into the turn I bury it back down. You can hold the foot to the floor. and feather the turning. Do not stick to the inside line as the corner sharpens upon exit you need to be a little wide for a consistent turn. As the corner comes into the exit keep the hard right lock and ease the throttle off sliding back into 3rd gear. As you start the exit give the accelerator a quick squeeze and you'll righten up.

f) Make sure you are in a straight line before burying the brakes for the final turn.

g) Yes, if I downshifted that early in a real car the gearbox would fall off


I think there is still a good second and a half to be made up, mainly in the Turn 2-3 section.

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