Sim-Lab Direct Drive Wheel Base To Feature Up To 35 Nm

I think the takeaway for me personally is that these companies cant hope to survive specializing in just one thing. I.e. Track Racer only selling rigs, Simlab with their rigs and now pedals...
I think its becoming apparent that as popular as our market is, you cant sustain unless you can offer it all and bacome a "one-stop-shop" as TR is aspiring to be. I dont see any of the news from the Expo is suprising, I just see it as the compaines trying to offer a full line of things and have their own ecosystem like Fantaec, Thrustmaster, Logitech.
The claims that any of these new bases are "better" than SC or any other established brands is pure hype speak. These motors are largely the same and the key difference is the software controlling it, thats where the magic happens and what I personally value the most.
While I get the motivation for selling it all, I dont know whos going to be buying this stuff. Anyone who has a DD at this point likes it. Granted I have some gripes about mines particular software, but no-one with a DD Pro, SC1 or 2, Asetek, SimMagic, Bodner, ect....is going to run out and buy your new lineup of untested bases.
1)I hope you have a bunch to send to the streamers....youre gonna need em
2)I hope we have a huge influx of new sim racers looking for a complete pachage, otherwise these are gonna move pretty slow.
3)I hope you guys plan to offer something cheaper in terms of rim options. Youre never gonna get a new person to drop 600 for a rim and QR. And No-one established in this wants to spend money into your ecosystem just cause its new.

Neilski said:

But the point being made was taking the market size into consideration (hence "village"). Hundreds of car models from tens of makers is fine given that there are over a billion cars on the planet. If there were a billion sim racers, having dozens of FFB wheel makers would be of no concern. But there aren't.

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Are there hundreds of sim wheels on the market today? I really don't get your point. Do you generally despise choice, or what's the gripe here? Have you actually checked some simgear sales figures during the last 5 years, to understand why companies decide to spend in order to join the party? Because you definitely can. That is if you don't think this kind of decisions are taken by 12 year old CEOs with no clue what they're doing.

It is difficult to correspond the player numbers on steam with the amount of "high-end" hardware companies trying to make money from them.

It seems a very small pool, especially as I would assume the vast majority of players are using Logitech and Thrustmaster if they are using a wheel at all.

Granted, there is a large difference between what is assumed and what is known, where are the hardware sales figures we can definitely check out?

Spinelli said:

No amount of torque is realistic...not until A) FFB hardware undergoes a revolution (they've basically been the same for the past 10+ years) and B) FFB "software tech" undergoes a revolution - Windows Direct Input was created in the 1990s, barely updated since, and not designed with high powered DD devices in mind.

It would be ignorant to simply look at some "on paper" Nm #s of FFB wheels and compare them to real life Nm racing situations. They're 2 incredibly different systems. For starters, real life is simply a passive ie. reactive system whereas FFB wheels are active systems. That simple fact alone is a humungous difference in how the steering feels/behaves/responds.

Not the perfect anology but it's kind of like throwing a ball to bounce against a wall and holding a ball in your hand while moving it towards the wall mimicking as if it was in free flight then making the ball touch and then un-touch the wall while still holding it in your hand mimicking as if the ball bounced off the wall in free flight.

In the first scenario, right after the ball is thrown and therefore leaves the thrower's hand, the situation is purely "natural" & passive/reactive, the 2nd situation is an "unnatural", active scenario that constantly has the person controlling & forcing the ball around.

FFB uses an active method in an attempt to reproduce passive (ie. reactive) forces therefore the entire system, from it's very basics & fundamentals, is just wrong and the complete opposite to real life (not to mention other limitations on top of that such as Windows Direct Input and more).

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Most sims' FFB output is just 0-100% CW/CCW, one way data communication, has no way of knowing how many nm the base is, unless it’s iRacing which lets you input your max FFB so it can calculate the output. The clipping in the sim is just when it exceeds 100%, so is railed at 100%, the sim has no way of knowing if the base itself is clipping.

scubaboy3c said:

Most sims' FFB output is just 0-100% CW/CCW, one way data communication, has no way of knowing how many nm the base is, unless it’s iRacing which lets you input your max FFB so it can calculate the output. The clipping in the sim is just when it exceeds 100%, so is railed at 100%, the sim has no way of knowing if the base itself is clipping.

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Ya, the sim has no way of knowing hardware clipping, it only knows software clipping. You can enter in the Nm amount in some other sims too if you'd like to scale the FFB to a particular in-game torque number. However, I never mentioned anything about clipping so I'm not sure if your reply was actually supposed to be for me or another user but, anyways, I agree with everything you said

Spinelli said:

No amount of torque is realistic...not until A) FFB hardware undergoes a revolution (they've basically been the same for the past 10+ years) and B) FFB "software tech" undergoes a revolution - Windows Direct Input was created in the 1990s, barely updated since, and not designed with high powered DD devices in mind.

It would be ignorant to simply look at some "on paper" Nm #s of FFB wheels and compare them to real life Nm racing situations. They're 2 incredibly different systems. For starters, real life is simply a passive ie. reactive system whereas FFB wheels are active systems. That simple fact alone is a humungous difference in how the steering feels/behaves/responds.

Not the perfect anology but it's kind of like throwing a ball to bounce against a wall and holding a ball in your hand while moving it towards the wall mimicking as if it was in free flight then making the ball touch and then un-touch the wall while still holding it in your hand mimicking as if the ball bounced off the wall in free flight.

In the first scenario, right after the ball is thrown and therefore leaves the thrower's hand, the situation is purely "natural" & passive/reactive, the 2nd situation is an "unnatural", active scenario that constantly has the person controlling & forcing the ball around.

FFB uses an active method in an attempt to reproduce passive (ie. reactive) forces therefore the entire system, from it's very basics & fundamentals, is just wrong and the complete opposite to real life (not to mention other limitations on top of that such as Windows Direct Input and more).

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The fundamental difference is that DI uses the wheel position to decide the torque, while real systems end up at a wheel position due to torque.

The former is dramatically safer from an user perspective, less likely to snap people's arms off. I don't know how the latter could be made as safe in a high-torque application without constantly cutting the torque when the wheel is about to deflect quickly.

scubaboy3c said:

Most sims' FFB output is just 0-100% CW/CCW, one way data communication, has no way of knowing how many nm the base is, unless it’s iRacing which lets you input your max FFB so it can calculate the output. The clipping in the sim is just when it exceeds 100%, so is railed at 100%, the sim has no way of knowing if the base itself is clipping.

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The base and sim don't know how much torque the base is making in the iR example either. CSP can do the same in AC. All you're doing is scaling the sim physics to output 100% at some specific sim output torque. It has nothing to *actually* do with the base's output.

honestly, for 32nm I want a simucube 2 ultimate nothing else.
Simlab are very good products, not at launch, they always refine it after discovering a issue, then they fix it.
I will wait for a couple of years before buying a DD simlab.

Oh boy. This thread has been painful to read due to the vast amount of misconceptions going on regarding FFB and Direct Input.

First lets tackle Direct Input.

Direct input doesn't actually do anything other than facilitate communication between the wheelbase and the sim. It's job is simply to relay messages between the wheel and the sim - that's it. It's like me when I speak to my mate in southern Switzerland. He doesn't speak any English, and I don't speak any Italian but we both speak German so that's how we communicate. Direct Input is exactly that, a common language which both software and hardware speak - nothing more and nothing less.

Aside from a very few effects, which are typically not used in modern sims (aside from dampening, but most people turn that off anyway), Direct Input itself does nothing to actually create FFB - It's all created by the sim. This is how it goes:-

The wheelbase tells Direct Input that the wheel is in a particular position, Direct Input then tells the sim that the wheel is in this position. The sim then knows that with the wheel in that position then the front wheels are also in a particular position and then does it's physics calculations. Once those calculations are done the sim then tells Direct Input that it needs this much force, and then Direct Input tells the wheelbase to exert that force. There's nothing added or taken away by Direct Input.

Also this process makes it a reactive system as opposed to an active system. Sure the wheelbase has active components, but this in itself does not make the system active. The only difference here is that the forces are calculated from a virtual physical system and then a device is told to replicate them, rather than the forces being gleaned directly from an actual physical system.

Now lets consider whether Direct Input is relevant in this modern era of high torque wheelbases

Well after doing some digging into the Direct Input data structures seems that it is.

If we concentrate on the constant force, which is by far the most important DI effect for FFB, it appears that it can have values of -10'000 through to +10'000 where the extreme values represent the maximum force that can be applied by the device in question.

So that's 10'000 values clockwise and 10'000 values counter clockwise. This means that a 35Nm wheelbase can be controlled to a "resolution" of 3.5 one thousandths of a Nm. On a standard 30cm wheel This would translate to a felt force of 0.0116 newtons, or around 1.2 grams. This is not enough force to even begin to overcome the internal friction of even the lightest and smoothest DD wheelbase. Even if we have a 100Nm wheelbase (god forbid) Direct input is still more than good enough.

And what about wheelbase hardware clipping?

A wheelbase itself doesn't actually clip, well, unless it's very poorly designed, which would be very rare these days amongst the main manufacturers, or the wheelbase in question is failing and not able to supply the motor with required current/voltage for a given input signal

If you give a wheelbase a 100% FFB signal it will deliver it's maximum rated torque, or the maximum torque the wheelbase has been set to - there is no clipping. We could go into peak vs holding torque but in the vast majority of normal situations this won't come into play.

However, what can happen is that the torque ramp is not linear. For example at 50% FFB signal the base actually delivers 70% of its max torque, at 60% FFB there's 80% of max torque, at 70% FFB there's 90% torque, at 80% FFB there's 95% torque, and so on.

Here's a graph showing what I mean for a 5nm wheelbase. It's just a simple sin wave but it serves to illustrate the concept - FFB signal % on the bottom (x-axis), Nm at the side (y-axis)


Ideally this should be a straight line, but this is still not really clipping as such - I suppose you could call it soft clipping. This is actually often by design on lower torque wheelbases as it allows the wheelbase to appear more powerful than it really is while still allowing detail to be perceived, albeit if somewhat attenuated. In fact I believe that certain sims apply a similar nonlinear ramp to their FFB output signal as well.

In any event any wheelbase clipping that may occur is insignificant when compared to the clipping of the FFB signal which is a hard cutoff.

So that's my take and I'll bugger off now.

Slapped said:

So that's my take and I'll bugger off now.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this post, wanted to write something similar, but was too lazy.

There aren't any inherent issues with DI, that when solved would "transform" your FFB into something greater as some people claim here. You have 2 simple functionalities, "get position", "set force". There are some minor issues, that would be nice to have, but that can be workarounded (like the fact that the software doesn't know the max torque of the wheel). But again, solving those properly would not transform your FFB in any way. Some sims (iRacing, rF2, LMU) can have this set manually.

Having those 2 functionalities you can implement (in-game) any FFB you need. If the hardware keeps up (and current hardware definitely does) you're set. There isn't any paradigm that needs to be shifted. The API could be better, but it's more a matter of convenience rather than any revolution.

The only thing that is indeed obsolete are simple baked in FFB effects (spring, waves) but no respectable FFB implementation uses them (AC and ACC do for frinction when car is stationary).

Don't think that your €1500 base is held back by 90s API and developers are too lazy for it to spread its wings. It's simply not true.

Windows Direct Input uses a set of effects, I believe there's 12 but I can't remember for sure. The API definitely has limitations and is one of the things (not the only thing) that potentially holds back FFB technology.

For starters, Windows Direct Input doesn't even have a way of querying how strong the wheel is.

Also, current FFB systems don't even use an external force/torque sensor to measure the human input force.

Our FFB systems (a combination of API, hardware, etc.) are not even close to being optimal.

I've even read posts from simracing developers themselves such as those from iRacing and Simucube (along with other highly informed FFB people) who have all said that Windows Direct Input certainly has limitations especially when it comes to trying to make high-powered direct drive FFB devices behave as good/realistically as possible.

jonelsorel said:

Are there hundreds of sim wheels on the market today? I really don't get your point. Do you generally despise choice, or what's the gripe here? Have you actually checked some simgear sales figures during the last 5 years, to understand why companies decide to spend in order to join the party? Because you definitely can. That is if you don't think this kind of decisions are taken by 12 year old CEOs with no clue what they're doing.

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I'm not sure what you're unclear about. You may want to re-read the (short!) sequence of messages and replies that brought you to this point, because you seem very confused about what I actually said.
But here's an even shorter recap, paraphrased for brevity/clarity:

@VFXPro cautioned that the market isn't big enough for the number of DD wheel makers, with a "too many barbers in tiny village" metaphor.
You replied that variety is good and that if his argument was valid, the planet couldn't support hundreds of car models from tens of makers.
I pointed out the pretty enormous difference between the sizes of the car market and the FFB wheel market.
The end.

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I don't despite choice - for sure it's a good thing. Along with plenty of others, I simply doubt that the market can support what's now happening with the explosion in DD wheels. We'll find out in due course. If indeed the market can't support it, the effect is likely to be harmful to simracing in general (investors don't like losing money), but heck, time will tell on that too.

Experienced CEOs screw up every day of the week. Surely you've witnessed companies misjudging markets and trends, and investing heavily after a demand spike only to regret it a few years down the line. Growing a company is hard but it's a damn sight easier than shrinking it.

How big do you feel the global market is for DD wheels?

Spinelli said:

Windows Direct Input uses a set of effects, I believe there's 12 but I can't remember for sure. The API definitely has limitations and is one of the things (not the only thing) that potentially holds back FFB technology.

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The only one that counts today is the constant force effect, which is not an effect as such, just a direct communication of force to the wheelbase. Sure dampening and friction are used by some sims, but it's rare.

I'd also be curious to know in technical detail why you consider Direct Input is detrimental to FFB. And no, I won't accept the answer that it's old - MIDI is old but it's still the standard for music production simply because it just works exceptionally well, and there's nothing better to replace it with.

Spinelli said:

For starters, Windows Direct Input doesn't even have a way of querying how strong the wheel is.

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When the sim offers it the just feed the value into the sim. For many of us we simply want a level of FFB that's comfortable - I don't want software making a decisions for me unless I explicitly ask for it.

I can understand it could be a QoL feature, but it's really not the most important thing, is it?

Spinelli said:

Also, current FFB systems don't even use an external force/torque sensor to measure the human input force.

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You don't need a torque sensor for this. Most, if not all, wheelbases are calibrated accurately meaning that they know exactly how much torque is being generated by how much voltage and current is going to the motor. So if the wheel isn't moving, and the calculated torque is 8Nm then the wheelbase knows that the sneaky human is inputting 8Nm of torque. This also applies when the wheel is moving as well - the wheelbase can tell by the wheel's acceleration, or lack thereof.

Spinelli said:

I've even read posts from simracing developers themselves such as those from iRacing and Simucube (along with other highly informed FFB people) who have all said that Windows Direct Input certainly has limitations especially when it comes to trying to make high-powered direct drive FFB devices behave as good/realistically as possible.

Click to expand...

The big question here is by how much are we missing realistic FFB. Are we only 20% of the way there? Or are we already 95% of the way there?

In any case the FFB between sims is so varied that it means that the sim's FFB implentation is responsible for the vast majority of FFB differences we feel, not Direct Input.

Besides, I've just done a quick session with a high torque wheelbase, and it feels very much like steering a real car, so I'm guessing we're a good 85% of the way there, if not more.

Slapped said:

The only one that counts today is the constant force effect, which is not an effect as such, just a direct communication of force to the wheelbase. Sure dampening and friction are used by some sims, but it's rare.

I'd also be curious to know in technical detail why you consider Direct Input is detrimental to FFB. And no, I won't accept the answer that it's old - MIDI is old but it's still the standard for music production simply because it just works exceptionally well, and there's nothing better to replace it with.


When the sim offers it the just feed the value into the sim. For many of us we simply want a level of FFB that's comfortable - I don't want software making a decisions for me unless I explicitly ask for it.

I can understand it could be a QoL feature, but it's really not the most important thing, is it?


You don't need a torque sensor for this. Most, if not all, wheelbases are calibrated accurately meaning that they know exactly how much torque is being generated by how much voltage and current is going to the motor. So if the wheel isn't moving, and the calculated torque is 8Nm then the wheelbase knows that the sneaky human is inputting 8Nm of torque. This also applies when the wheel is moving as well - the wheelbase can tell by the wheel's acceleration, or lack thereof.


The big question here is by how much are we missing realistic FFB. Are we only 20% of the way there? Or are we already 95% of the way there?

In any case the FFB between sims is so varied that it means that the sim's FFB implentation is responsible for the vast majority of FFB differences we feel, not Direct Input.

Besides, I've just done a quick session with a high torque wheelbase, and it feels very much like steering a real car, so I'm guessing we're a good 85% of the way there, if not more.

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FFB is miles away from real life behaviour. You can always feel it's an active rather than passive/reactive system. Lots of forces are way out of proportion to eachother. Band-aid fixers (or rather "hiders") like a blanket-damper effect, blanket-friction effect, blanket-inertia effect, etc. are highly sub-optimal. There are differences between games but also commonalities regardless of game.

Also, you're way oversimplifying things and severely dismissing how much the API can influence behaviour as well as other "philosophies" of doing FFB such as using a torque sensor and including the human inputs in the loop.

Furthermore, as I already mentioned, quite a few highly knowledgeable FFB "gurus" as well as developers from iRacing and SimLab themselves have acknowledged there are technically & theoretically better ways to do things (from both an API standpoint and hardware wise) - but it's just not realistic due to cost, research & development, hardware adoption, game adoption, etc.

Neilski said:

I'm not sure what you're unclear about. You may want to re-read the (short!) sequence of messages and replies that brought you to this point, because you seem very confused about what I actually said.
But here's an even shorter recap, paraphrased for brevity/clarity:

I don't despite choice - for sure it's a good thing. Along with plenty of others, I simply doubt that the market can support what's now happening with the explosion in DD wheels. We'll find out in due course. If indeed the market can't support it, the effect is likely to be harmful to simracing in general (investors don't like losing money), but heck, time will tell on that too.

Experienced CEOs screw up every day of the week. Surely you've witnessed companies misjudging markets and trends, and investing heavily after a demand spike only to regret it a few years down the line. Growing a company is hard but it's a damn sight easier than shrinking it.

How big do you feel the global market is for DD wheels?

Click to expand...

Sir, with all due respect, you seem to write for the simple purpose of taking up space with words and your conclusions seem to be based sayings and fallacies more than facts and logic.

Yes, this entire sim market does indeed say something (not just the racing side), especially since the pandemic, if you noticed. And excluding Thrustmaster, Logitec and Corsair/Fanatec, there are just a few brands producing direct drive wheelbases and pedals today, with plenty of room left to innovate, compete, thus lower prices for us, consumers.

How big is the market? As big as the recent ADAC Simracing Expo showed it to be, as big as concurrent user numbers show good sims to be. And with innovation and evolution on the software side - especially from the likes of Kunos, there will definitely be more users joining the game and wanting proper gear for it.

AC has on average 10 times more concurrent users today than it did 10 years ago, and Evo will definitely make the pie bigger for every sim gear manufacturer to grab a slice of. Let them worry about their end.

jonelsorel said:

Sir, with all due respect, you seem to write for the simple purpose of taking up space with words and your conclusions seem to be based sayings and fallacies more than facts and logic.

Yes, this entire sim market does indeed say something (not just the racing side), especially since the pandemic, if you noticed. And excluding Thrustmaster, Logitec and Corsair/Fanatec, there are just a few brands producing direct drive wheelbases and pedals today, with plenty of room left to innovate, compete, thus lower prices for us, consumers.

How big is the market? As big as the recent ADAC Simracing Expo showed it to be, as big as concurrent user numbers show good sims to be. And with innovation and evolution on the software side - especially from the likes of Kunos, there will definitely be more users joining the game and wanting proper gear for it.

AC has on average 10 times more concurrent users today than it did 10 years ago, and Evo will definitely make the pie bigger for every sim gear manufacturer to grab a slice of. Let them worry about their end.

Click to expand...

I don't believe we should over read the market based on what happened before, throughout and after the covid era, sim racing is still a niche market even though many more seem to be playing now than before, the difference is likely the inclusion of those 'gamers' that are broadening what games they dip their toes into, and if Assetto Corsa EVO is the game that we're led to believe it will be* then it will attract perhaps even more 'gamer' players...
but many of those players will not be the ones that spend hundreds on a DD Wheel and all the paraphernalia sim racers choose to commit themselves to, but simply the trusty game pad that serves for their forrays into FPS's and MMO's
So perhaps investing in the future of even more DD Wheels might not be the best investment, so while choice is a wonderful thing, it should be provided with reason... though making some more financially accessable (cheaper) rugged, and perhaps easier and quicker to clip-on install should be an investment of bigger providers to attract customers for their higher ranked gear later on.

Personally I would love to see a column on what Wheels and pedals and gearsticks are the ones to go for, and can I change the wheel for an old fashioned (no Button) one, RD seems to cater for the simrace-educated level of player only, my old G29 is cracked and in need of replacement, but what do I go for,??? I haven't a clue, and to be honest @race department hasn't really done any favours to those without a clue, it seems to me that everyone here assumes that we all understand what parts we need to make a rig, and where they go.... well scribes we don't all know, that is why so many just say... "oh crap, I'll just get the same again" or "I'm confused so I'll not bother"

* A game for all, from Hard Core simer to fun gamer.

jonelsorel said:

Sir, with all due respect, you seem to write for the simple purpose of taking up space with words and your conclusions seem to be based sayings and fallacies more than facts and logic.

Yes, this entire sim market does indeed say something (not just the racing side), especially since the pandemic, if you noticed. And excluding Thrustmaster, Logitec and Corsair/Fanatec, there are just a few brands producing direct drive wheelbases and pedals today, with plenty of room left to innovate, compete, thus lower prices for us, consumers.

How big is the market? As big as the recent ADAC Simracing Expo showed it to be, as big as concurrent user numbers show good sims to be. And with innovation and evolution on the software side - especially from the likes of Kunos, there will definitely be more users joining the game and wanting proper gear for it.

AC has on average 10 times more concurrent users today than it did 10 years ago, and Evo will definitely make the pie bigger for every sim gear manufacturer to grab a slice of. Let them worry about their end.

Click to expand...

All of which is a non-answer, provides no factual information, and simply takes up space.

jonelsorel said:

Have you actually checked some simgear sales figures during the last 5 years, to understand why companies decide to spend in order to join the party? Because you definitely can.

Click to expand...

If you could back this up it would be fantastic.

Where is this source for sim-racing hardware sales figures that I can check out?

jonelsorel said:

if you noticed. And excluding Thrustmaster, Logitec and Corsair/Fanatec, there are just a few brands producing direct drive wheelbases and pedals today, with plenty of room left to innovate, compete, thus lower prices for us, consumers.

Click to expand...

Oh let's see, off the top of my head, what do we have apart from the three you mentioned.

Asetek
Cammus
Leo Bodnar
Moza
Simagic
Simucube
VRS
VNM
PXN
Turtle Beach

And now we have Sim-Lab. If you now include Logitec, Fanatec and Thrustmaster that now makes 14 direct drive wheelbase manufacturers all competing for slice of what is essentially a relatively small pie. This is very much looking like it's going to be a race to the bottom.

jonelsorel said:

AC has on average 10 times more concurrent users today than it did 10 years ago, and Evo will definitely make the pie bigger for every sim gear manufacturer to grab a slice of. Let them worry about their end.

Click to expand...

Yes AC has definitely grown, but it still doesn't break into the Steam top 100 24 hour peak, being handily beaten by such classic titles as Russian Fishing 4 and Supermarket Together.

In fact I got curious and dug into the Steam 24 hour peak player numbers of all titles that could be considered sim racing titles - some of these are probably not considered sims but I wanted to give sim racing a chance here. So here are my findings:-

Be aware that iRacing is a special case as it's figures are not reliable through Steam, so it's an average of the lowest and highest estimates I could find for daily player numbers and as such is a rough estimate of the peak players in any one day.


And that brings us to a total of 50313 playing 32 titles. This wouldn't even bring the entirety of sim racing into Steam's 24 hour peak top 30.

jonelsorel said:

How big is the market? As big as the recent ADAC Simracing Expo showed it to be, as big as concurrent user numbers show good sims to be.

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Well In fact there are currently more people playing Forza Horizon 4 than playing all of the above sim racing titles, meaning if you go the by the numbers then an Expo based purely on Forza Horizon 4 would have a theoretical higher attendance than the ADAC Simracing Expo had.

If we include BeamNG.Drive which isn't sim racing as such, but is a sandbox driving sim then we can add another 20652 (more popular than iRacing) to the playerbase bringing the total to 70965. Which places the entirety of sim racing at position 21 in 24 hour peak charts. However this is only around 2.3% of the player base of the top 5 charting games.

So you can see that sim racing isn't that big on the scale of things, and with the number of DD vendors that are now in the market the competition is so high that that we will likely see some agressive pricing in the future. However bringing costs down it not always best for the consumer as it inevitiably invloves cost cutting and corner cutting by the manufactuer, which can and does compromise the quality of the product - cheaper motors, cheaper electronic components, etc. It's all very well to end up with a €200 DD wheelbase but if it's an unreliable piece of junk then the consumer loses out.

simucube needs to update their ultimate version, their motor is capable of 70nm im not sure the pro and sport version