.car and .eng file edits to improve performance

[Caribstu]

I'm running a single make series using two models of the same car. One model lets call it Car A, is around 3-5 seconds a lap faster than the other Car B.
In the .car file for Car B i have replaced the slower engine to that of the faster model Car A. And set the comparative time of Car B as 70.

althought this will allow the slower car B to fill the front half of the grid IF i skip Quali. When i run Regular Quali and in Race mode, Car B is still 3-5 seconds a lap slower. I really want to remove the disparity otherwise i have to scrap all the Car B and re-do the liveries for 30 more Car As to replace them all.

Any tips on what to do to improve the performance of Car B, eliminate the disparity, and get the Car B lap times equivilent to those of Car A?

All help appreciated.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Try reducing the value of BodyDragBase in Hdc file.

 

[Caribstu]

OK, will give that a try thanks.

 

[Caribstu]

Try reducing the value of BodyDragBase in Hdc file.

Good shout. A bit of tinkering, both of the .hdc files and it has closed the whole grid up exactly how i wanted.. Thanks for that Bjarne.

 

[Bjarne Hansen]

Glad it works for you. Don't overdo it or the cars will get crazy high strait-line speed.

 

[Caribstu]

Glad it works for you. Don't overdo it or the cars will get crazy high strait-line speed.

Yep, exactl. That's why i tinkered.

I took drag off until i got an acceptable realistic speed from the slower Car, then added drag to the faster car until the disparity was gone. Now they're lapping at pretty much the same times without either having excessive straight line speed.

Actually. I had been playing about with the comparitive times in the .car files, the QualRation and RaceRation in the .aiw, and the talent values. I've got a grid of 50 cars and the racing was very competitive, but due to the disparity, over a 20 lap race the field would pretty much split into the two makes.

Now you've told me about the BodyDragBase, i've got a grid of 50 cars which is completely mixed and about 2 seconds covers the front row and the back row. So it's a very tight grid. I've tried giving the Talent some specific values that would keep a few cars limited to qualifying in the mid to back of the grid, but theyy have high race and overtaking values.

I did a test race yesterday. I had to drive ten tenths to qualify fourth, and the first eight grid places were seperated by less than half a second. The grid was completely mixed. In the race i had a fraction too much straight line speed, a very small amount but enough to make overtaking on the straight a bit 'un-natural' so i need to adjust that slightly.

The good thing is, if you dive up the inside of an AI, they'll come right back at you and often take the place back with an undercut, or if you make a mistake, go in too deep and run a bit wide for example, you'll lose three or four places, and have to fight like buggery to get them back.

Just needs a bit more fine tuning, one or two corrections to make on the tracks. Got two more tracks im' working on, but hope to have it all finished very soon.

BTW... does anone know how to put animated flag marshalls in? I pulled the marshall.gmt from the GTR2 'animations' file and dropped them into the .trk with 3DsimED, saved the materials and .gmt to the .gtr and map.gtr but the game crashed on loading and the trace error showed a materials problem. I've also tried to put in announcer and crowd sounds but no luck. Same. Cannot find material error.