Season 12 Race 2 Melbourne Setup Thread

Alberto Casado · Mar 18, 2014

I though it was funny to share. My practice event went quite bad, but I guess I spent all my luck on lap 1 of race 1 when I got out of this without a scratch:

And indeed the HUD (car ahead, car behind), did not know what to make of it either.

Bob Luneski · Mar 18, 2014

I think we've beaten the discussion of T4 to a pulp. It's time we agree to disagree on the specifics, but agree on the need for all to exercise caution particularly in the first few turns with cold tires and full fuel..

I'd like to end the discussion on a positive note. This incident identifies a second race ending anomaly on this track:

1) If you slide on to the outside curb after T3, you will become high centered in the F3K. You will be unable to move until someone comes up behind and pushes you off.

2) The wall after T4 isn't necessarily all there. There was no impact, no response from force feedback, no lost wheel, no suspension or areo damage. My car simply continuously rotated 360 degrees alternating between a black screen and a brief rotating view of the track. There is no choice but to hit escape to end the race.

It's reasonable to assume that the are other issues with the track still to be discovered and therefore additional reason to exercise caution.

David Turnbull · Mar 18, 2014

well we know about the grid problem (is this version the one where someone drops onto the grid from a great height?) and now we know about this problem too.

wouldnt worry about getting bottomed out on kerbs though, we have supervale!!

Kennett Ylitalo · Mar 18, 2014

Lets see that turn in more detail.. Note, i hid all the unnecessary stuff outside

Pretty unfortunate to hit that gap. Pretty stupid for track builder to leave gaps in the fence. There are ways to do it right, this is not one of them.. Proper way is to disable visuals but leave the panel as invisible and collideable. Would take about 1 minute to fix it. And that's not all, it's track design 101 to make sure player never ends up in illegal zone, that's why in SimBin default track there are invisible track borders that should ALWAYS encompass the legal area, high enough that the player can not get over it and access roads / gaps between it and the track... I use 30m to 40m high borders slanted towards the track and the space between the track and border is always driveable with proper gaps in the walls.. It might take a player 5 minutes but there always should be a way back. One way is to use one direction collision panels so that players hit them from the track but can drive right thru them from the other side.. These are not always obvious, they are hidden holes in the wall.. Makes testing track a lot easier.. My solution when being thrown off track and wrong side off the wall is to drive towards the wall until the devs hidden escape road appear.. They are not always there, Melbourne is a conversion and you should know by now what is my opinion on conversion makers... 90% of them are crap and don't know what they are doing and NEVER properly test the track, they convert and release blind...

Grid: Nothing unusual. All slots look allright, there's no sudden Y axis offsets (cars spawning inside the track, making them jump in the air, that jump is often happening before visuals are even appearing making the car drop from ~5-7m, it actually jumped up first. No slot overlappings either, ie no two slots in same coordinates either.. Have no clue why it's happening, i can't be 100% sure if some slots could be a few cm below the ground (i'm using 2D AIW editor for quick checks, it shows them in coordinates but i have no reference plane on it... Not gonna convert to rF and check it with full 3D ISI AIW/CAM editor..)... But in all my experience, if it's just few cm, the car will settle just fine. It could be that the one slot that has that Y axis offset just happens to sit on the vertice, the collision algorithm works on face-to-edge and edge to edge.. It could be just a freak occurrence, i've hade some instances where just moving the object/slot/whatevs by 1mm fixes the issues.. And those issues are not repeatable, track can have 100 races and one them bugs once..

David Turnbull · Mar 18, 2014

nice work sherlock

so this is a diffrent version that weve used in the past? i seem to remember there always being at least 1 person dropped onto the grid, maybe im wrong and it has only been once, we'll soon find out anyhoo.

Kennett Ylitalo · Mar 18, 2014

I think it's the same.. The starting grid formation is not the strongest thing in the game engine, and there's one function especially that causes odd bugs,, There's a grid autogenerator that jumps in if the game can not find a right slot.. It's a backup mechanism so that the game doesn't hang on between join the grid and actually being on the grid.. It just puts the car in relation to the centerline somewhere after first grid slot (that is special slot, the track does not even load without it..). It uses the first grid slot parameters (offset from center, orientation) but there no way of the game knowing what is the average distance between slots or if the surface is not perfectly smooth... In Alpine Hills the back of the 40+grid is at a slope, autogen grid caused some hilarious glitches where 12 cars were flying...

David Turnbull · Mar 18, 2014

could that have been the problem at some point then? i remember the car that got dropped was always in a sort of inbetween position, never on an actual grid slot and not on top of another car, wierd one maybe we had too many for the grid at some point?

Kennett Ylitalo · Mar 18, 2014

David Turnbull said:
could that have been the problem at some point then? i remember the car that got dropped was always in a sort of in between position, never on an actual grid slot and not on top of another car, weird one maybe we had too many for the grid at some point?

Yes, i think so.

Kennett Ylitalo · Mar 18, 2014

/rant

I hate F3000 gearbox and drivertrain. That second gear is crap.. Have to delay 3rd gear so much that when it's time to hit throttle and 2nd gear, it's too late. Do that before apex: it just snaps.. you can almost feel the whole car jerking front, revs matched as well i can do in any car, wtcc, gt, gp2, f1.. None has that same odd downshift pattern, 5th, 4th,3rd, snap.. My ears hear the same revs on all gears but 2nd is different than any other. I can go to long 1st easier and it doesn't snap.... I lose 1½ seconds on the last four turns, either i brake too soon and speed drops or i take it to the limit and snap, in a situation when i expect none of that.. Maybe i need to revert to autoclutch or take engine brake mapping totally off. Or it's just that these craps don't have the torque needed to make it work, there's something odd about it, somewhere. Testing GP2 2013 mod makes me hate F3000 with full heart..

/end rant

David Turnbull · Mar 18, 2014

/reason

calm down

/end reasoning

up coast

it will help alot but they will always be twitchy when you drop the last 2 gears fast.

Reik Major · Mar 18, 2014

This is my new setup from my first and only test tonight. It's based on latest hungaroring version. Feels not as understeering as Davids setups.

Kennett Ylitalo · Mar 19, 2014

David Turnbull said:
/reason

calm down

/end reasoning

up coast it will help alot but they will always be twitchy when you drop the last 2 gears fast.

Yeah, that's why i left tonights practice session early, practicing while frustrated does nothing positive. I'll think of something tonight, even if it means compromises else where but i need to get that turn-in while downshifting smoother. It's not that bad that i can't do something about it, it's just annoying as hell and i lose confidence.. Most likely i will go with ultra long 1st gear to get the spacing closer, maybe even limiting top speed too..

EDIT: UP COAST! Understood it totally wrong, as soon as i went ingame and checked setup, starting from diff i understood it.. How the hell i didn't figure that out myself, higher coast always stabilizes the rear.. That and tighter gearing pretty much fixed everything, got the nice smooth apex: 1:39.4 first outing, zero lockups, shorter braking distances... It's not good that one has to change setup to fix driver errors but i'm glad there is such an option

Steeve Fournier · Mar 19, 2014

Reik Major said:
This is my new setup from my first and only test tonight. It's based on latest hungaroring version. Feels not as understeering as Davids setups.

Reik, have you notice that your slow bump (front and rear) are not symetrical?

Just wondering if its on purpose or not.

Thanks for sharing!

Valter Ostman · Mar 19, 2014

Smoother downshift if enginebrakemap in the setup is a higher value (if I remember it right).

Valter Ostman · Mar 19, 2014

Good setup advice's that I have copied from a post by Reik Major.

some tips:
All of my posted setups are done for qualifying. The following things should help to make the car stable for a longer stint:

1. - take more fuel (he, he

)
2. - use harder tyre compounds (most likely softs or mediums)
3. - increase tyre pressure a little bit to avoid overheating
4. - increase rear wing by 1 - 3 clicks
5. - decrease (soften) rear ARB by few clicks
6. - decrease (soften) rear suspension by few clicks
7. - move brake balance to the front by few clicks
8. - increase engine brake mapping by 1 or 2
(this is done manually in the svm file by editing the line "EngineBrakingMapSetting= "

Alberto Casado · Mar 19, 2014

Nice set, but dangerous. The problem is that if the q setup is made just so it does not bottom out, the combination of 1 (heavier car), 4 (more aero) and 6 (softer) guarantees you killing your top speed.