Question about autoclutch

[Lars Rystedt]

In Sweden we have a saying, roughly translated into: " Be quiet and people take you for a fool, open your mouth and you prove them right"... This is of course situational but I'll take my chances anyway.

I have been running with autoclutch since i got the wheel, with paddle shifting it seemed kind of logical. But lately I've been wondering if it's such a good idea, especially when down shifting and the cars actual speed is a bit to high. It usually sends me spinning of the track while I'm cursing myself for doing what I just did.

So I suppose my question is, do modern race cars with paddleshifts have and use clutch and what about sequential shifters? Should I relearn my left foot not only to break but to use the clutch aswell?

 

[Keith Joyce]

No. I'm quite happy with you spinning off the track

 

[natedogg1867]

So I suppose my question is, do modern race cars with paddleshifts have and use clutch

As far as I know, almost all paddle shifted cars have some form of a clutch pedal/button (F1 cars have a clutch, but I dont think it is a pedal). However, you will never use the clutch when you shift. It is solely used for starts. And even then, some series have rolling starts, so the clutch isnt even used for that

what about sequential shifters?

Dont know sequential shifted cars very well. I think they are like paddle shifted cars where you never use the clutch. On these though, you will want to blip the throttle when you downshift though, so you rev match and have less chance to lock up the rear end. You can look up rev matching for a better explanation of what that is and why it is necessary for downshifting.

The only real time Im aware of that you need to use the clutch pedal in the game is if you use an h-shifter and want an authentic experience. Heel/toe shifting is something you could use in that case if you turn auto-clutch off.

I have been running with autoclutch since i got the wheel, with paddle shifting it seemed kind of logical. But lately I've been wondering if it's such a good idea, especially when down shifting and the cars actual speed is a bit to high. It usually sends me spinning of the track while I'm cursing myself for doing what I just did.

Hmm, Im not sure using a manual clutch would be of benefit to you here. The cars do have downshift prevention that should prevent you from downshifting too early and locking up the rear like you say because the revs are too high. In any case, it may be more worthwhile to practice your shifting habits and learn to not rapid fire downshift on every class of car like they are an F1 style car

Take the downshifts a bit slower and you wont have any problem with the rear end spinning, and you wont really be any slower either. Much safer to drive like this during a race for instance, where you need to drive a lot of laps in a row in a clean manner, compared to a time trial where you are going balls to the wall for 1 single lap.

If you want to know more in depth about clutch use for paddle/sequential/h gate... Im not sure I can offer much more.

Cheers

 

[Lars Rystedt]

Thanks Nate, a very nice answer and I do have a tendency to downshift a bit to fast. Working on it but will probably continue my mistakes much to Keith's enjoyment

 

[UMC 22]

I've had to learn to slow my shifts down as well since switching to R3E. I seemed to get away with it in other sims, but R3E's engines are somewhat less tolerant of my aggressive (read: inept) style.

 

[Caramidaru Andrei Bogdan]

@Lars Rystedt In R3E in most modern cars auto-clutch is just fine, if you lose the back from down-shifting to fast try to increase preload or, what helped me more, is the last downshift like into 2nd or 1st, make it really late and the firsts downshifts fast
In some other cars, like DTM92, KTM and probably a few others, having manual clutch is faster but a mistake will be so much more costly to engine and gearbox, so depending on experience choose what is most comfortable to you

 

[Marc Collins]

If you lose the back end you are simply shifting too early. Use the brake pedal to slow the car, not the engine. Brakes are designed for that and are relatively cheap. Engines are not and are very expensive. If the sim is modelling things thoroughly, each downshift that upsets the balance of the car is also causing excess wear and tear on the transmission and the engine.

 

[Marc Collins]

If you lose the back end you are simply shifting too early. Use the brake pedal to slow the car, not the engine. Brakes are designed for that and are relatively cheap. Engines are not and are very expensive. If the sim is modelling things thoroughly, each downshift that upsets the balance of the car is also causing excess wear and tear on the transmission and the engine.

If you are not using auto clutch, you could blip the throttle on down shifts and get away with higher-rev downshifts. But I am not sure exactly how accurately R3E is programmed. Even cars with fully electronic blipping to prevent transmission damage from mis-shifts should still not have the engine used as a brake when the brakes are there to do a better job.

Just trying to give some generic advice in exchange for someone answering my questions in another thread.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Does R3E have auto-blip? If so that will fix it. If not, just blip the throttle when you downshift, should be fine.

 

[natedogg1867]

Does R3E have auto-blip? If so that will fix it. If not, just blip the throttle when you downshift, should be fine.

It does, but it is not a user adjustable option.

Edit: Meaning, it has it on the cars that have it in real life, but you cant disable it.

 

[Brandon Wright]

It does, but it is not a user adjustable option.

Edit: Meaning, it has it on the cars that have it in real life, but you cant disable it.

Ahh, ok. In AC you can turn it on/off globally so I use it when I drive older cars while using the sequential shifter. But sometimes I leave it off and just lift and blip between shifts, works just as well.

 

[natedogg1867]

Ahh, ok. In AC you can turn it on/off globally so I use it when I drive older cars while using the sequential shifter. But sometimes I leave it off and just lift and blip between shifts, works just as well.

Hmm, ya know... thinking about this a bit more... I dont think this is tied to car, but it is tied to control method. Well, in a somewhat complicated way to try to explain coherently.

It seems tied to the clutch settings actually. If you use Auto Clutch, auto-blip is automatically enabled. If you turn off auto clutch, auto blip is sometimes disabled.

For instance in a group 5 car, if you use paddle shifters (h-shifting seems to not matter here) and auto clutch... it will auto blip. But if you turn off auto clutch, auto blip is disabled and you will have to manually blip on downshifts.

However, in the GT3 cars... If you have auto clutch on, auto blip is enabled... and likewise if you disable auto clutch, auto blips stays enabled.

Hence my earlier confusion with my statement that it is tied to car. It is... but not every car is the same. I actually think this was changed as part of the November update when autoclutch got a big overhaul, kind of behind the scenes.

Personally, I would like to see auto blip as an option to enable/disable for whatever car you want, but I dont see that happening as I have already inquired about it. Be nice mainly for those cars I would like to h-shift, but dont want to heel/toe since that is a lot of work at 2 am. Clutch pedal... heel/toe downshifts with blipping, yikes

 

[Gevatter]

I just ran a few laps and it seems to me that sequentially shifted cars - I drove the WTCC '15 Citroen and the BMW Z4 GT3 - seem to have auto clutch forced on somehow? The car doesnt react to my clutch pedal input and I can't stall the engine.

I triple checked my settings, and it always says manual transmission, auto clutch off. I'm also on "get real" physics settings. It works flawlessly with manual cars, such as the Group 5 Corvette. That one grinds gears when shifting without clutch and I can stall the engine.

What setting am I missing? Or is this part of the auto clutch overhaul @natedogg1867 mentioned in the post above?

 

[Brandon Wright]

I just ran a few laps and it seems to me that sequentially shifted cars - I drove the WTCC '15 Citroen and the BMW Z4 GT3 - seem to have auto clutch forced on somehow? The car doesnt react to my clutch pedal input and I can't stall the engine.

I triple checked my settings, and it always says manual transmission, auto clutch off. I'm also on "get real" physics settings. It works flawlessly with manual cars, such as the Group 5 Corvette. That one grinds gears when shifting without clutch and I can stall the engine.

What setting am I missing? Or is this part of the auto clutch overhaul @natedogg1867 mentioned in the post above?

I think they changed it recently so that all cars with sequential shifters have auto clutch enabled.

 

[Gevatter]

I think they changed it recently so that all cars with sequential shifters have auto clutch enabled.

That's too bad Is there any way to change that somewhere?

 

[Brandon Wright]

That's too bad Is there any way to change that somewhere?

I'm a bit out of the loop on R3E so someone else will have to answer. I seem to recall some kind of change with auto-clutch behavior in one of the recent updates though.