PC2 Inconsistencies from car to car - why?

[Nick Hill]

So, one of the things I like to do fresh off of a real life track day is to take a survey across the sims I own and, with the real life lapping experience recent in mind, sort of reflect on each one with "fresh eyes".

PC2 is a real puzzler to me. Obviously, it's beautiful. The VR implementation may be the best out there. The car and track list is enough to make racing fans and car guys/gals alike slobber all over their shirt fronts. I have never been dedicated enough to give it a serious go, but there's at least an attempt at a career mode for those of us who are primarily offline racers and get bored with and endless, disjointed string of hotlapping sessions.

Some of the cars are really, really good. More than good enough that I start to feel like I could get sucked in. But then I pull the next car from the menu, eagerly leave the pitlane anxious to see what challenges it holds and...blecch, almost undrivable! Is this even the same sim???

You may or may not agree with my assessment that the car library is uneven, but for those who DO agree with me (and I know you're out there), have you ever heard an explanation or developed a theory as to why? My own best theory is what seems to me to be an obvious one: a relatively large team of physics devs with varying styles and attention to detail. But then why not, after all these patches, go back through and clean up some of the cars that consistently raise complaints?

I don't feel like it's something fundamental in the physics engine, because I can seem to find good/bad examples across all classes of vehicles. If it were the case that the open wheelers were good, but the tin tops were crap...or anything on race tires were good, but road cars were crap...or any other predictable pattern, I think I'd be a lot less flummoxed.

What's everyone think? Wait for PC3?

 

[Miguel Batista]

So, one of the things I like to do fresh off of a real life track day is to take a survey across the sims I own and, with the real life lapping experience recent in mind, sort of reflect on each one with "fresh eyes".

PC2 is a real puzzler to me. Obviously, it's beautiful. The VR implementation may be the best out there. The car and track list is enough to make racing fans and car guys/gals alike slobber all over their shirt fronts. I have never been dedicated enough to give it a serious go, but there's at least an attempt at a career mode for those of us who are primarily offline racers and get bored with and endless, disjointed string of hotlapping sessions.

Some of the cars are really, really good. More than good enough that I start to feel like I could get sucked in. But then I pull the next car from the menu, eagerly leave the pitlane anxious to see what challenges it holds and...blecch, almost undrivable! Is this even the same sim???

You may or may not agree with my assessment that the car library is uneven, but for those who DO agree with me (and I know you're out there), have you ever heard an explanation or developed a theory as to why? My own best theory is what seems to me to be an obvious one: a relatively large team of physics devs with varying styles and attention to detail. But then why not, after all these patches, go back through and clean up some of the cars that consistently raise complaints?

I don't feel like it's something fundamental in the physics engine, because I can seem to find good/bad examples across all classes of vehicles. If it were the case that the open wheelers were good, but the tin tops were crap...or anything on race tires were good, but road cars were crap...or any other predictable pattern, I think I'd be a lot less flummoxed.

What's everyone think? Wait for PC3?

As for waiting for pcars3, I can have fun with pcars2 as is. Just avoid certain cars (make sure to disable engine braking in the setup screen) half the meh cars begin to be drivable after this). The reason is slightly different. Too many different cars updates missing out sone of them and so later DLC cars are generally better than earlier cars. But yeah, it sucks that you can go from one of the best SIM racing experiences around to one of the most frustrating in 5 mins. Try the latest ffb files. They improve the game substantially.

 

[Kurupt CDN]

Multiple tire compounds, not running optimal tire pressures, dynamic weather, dynamic track, ffb that is subjective to each user, too many cars and not enough time to optimize etc. etc.

 

[Nick Hill]

Thanks for the feedback!

I'll tell you one thing - this game looks SO good and runs so smoothly. Hot damn.

As sim racers, I think sometimes it's fashionable in our community to claim to be totally indifferent to visuals - after all, we're all too busy with camber angles and tire pressures and spring rates and so on to be paying attention to something so trivial as what the sim looks like, right??? Well, whether we like to admit it or not, the visuals are a major factor in immersion. PCars2 gets that right for sure.

 

[bmanic]

Some cars unfortunately have very non-optimal setups so a few of the "bad ones" can be saved. Especially some of the race cars that have all tune settings available (hint: rake and aerodynamics are _super_ important.. it can make a massive difference and to get that working over a whole track is tedious tweaking of virtually everything ).

However, having said that, the simple fact is that there is indeed a huge quality difference between a vast array of cars and modeled tire compounds. Some are downright buggy.

Another very important point is this: ALWAYS disable the 'Stability Control' on cars that have it. It is completely 100% bugged and is constantly fighting the player and causing tons of weirdness in the FFB. I also suggest always running the 'low' ABS and traction control settings, not the 'high' ones. Finally, to minimize bugs, I suggest keeping the driving aids setting in the menu at 'authentic' and then manually disabling the stability control with a mapped button. That's unfortunately the only way to guarantee that it has been properly turned off.

Just like in pC1, SMS seems unable to get these 'menu setting' bugs to go away.. so you can't always be sure everything is running smoothly.

Same with saving car tunes.. make sure you always save a new file. In the save dialogue, if you want to save a file with the same name, make sure you manually delete the previous file first, then hit the 'save to new preset' button and save with the same name. That again is the only way to 100% guarantee that it gets properly saved and reloaded to the car.

Finally, make sure you test some of the newest FFB files. I've been running the "newly discovered missing forces" since way before the release version even hit the shelves.. thus have always been confused when people dismiss the FFB as bad. It's not. It's really good but apparently the extra My and Mx forces indeed make a big difference to the overall feel. I've never driven without them so I haven't realized how sorely they were needed and how many people have been running without them.

.. but yeah, the gist of your original post is definitely correct. There are unfortunately quite a few weird cars in the game. I'd say about 10% are severely bugged and maybe 40% suffer from bad default setups. Still, that leaves over 50 cars that range from good to amazing. Not too bad overall.