A Low-Skill Driver's Guide to the Cars of AMS2

Good to see you here and I'm glad you enjoyed my post! I've been exploring the Lancer myself recently - it's on the short list for the cars in a DIY career mode narrative I'm constructing for myself (inspired by your Caterham Challenge). I think I'm going to go with these:
CCB Gol
Caterham Supersport
Lancer RS
MCR S2000

The concept is basically to simulate local and regional club racing, starting out in the Gol and then adding other hobbyist cars with different characteristics. Londrina will be my "home track," and I'll go visit other circuits in southern Brazil from time to time for regional championships.

I'm planning to keep the AI on the same high difficulty and see how I move up through the places over time. At 110, I'm having epic battles for 29th place. I'll keep my races on a spreadsheet to track my progress - no restarts allowed.

Since I'm tracking everything myself, I can also use the Lancer do a crossover rally career in Dirt Rally 2 and Pcars2

 

Sounds great!

 

I'm 110% with you on this one! i cannot recommend P3 cars enough, to anyone! I was never into prototypes and stuff like that, but maaan, P3 MRX quickly became my favorite car in AMS 2.

F V12 was the first car i learned to drive in AMS 2, when i started sim racing. I had 0 throttle control at that time, couldn't barely link 3-4 turns together without spinning. After a few days of practice, i got much better at it, and i still love manhandling this car on short tracks like Londrina or Taruma. But what i ALWAYS found very weird is that even though it has some big ass slick tires, and it should have SOME downforce, being an actual F1 car, it feels pretty slidey. On F Classic Gen 4, you can feel that amazing grip, it feels awesome, but for some reason, F V12 are very, very different.

Also, my mind is blown from finding out that Puma is an actual car manufacturer... for some reason, i always thought it's some made up brand name, in order to avoid licensing some real cars, lol.

 

Haha, I suspected the same thing at first. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they are real cars. Reiza has made some great fantasy cars so far, with their various Formula cars - I would be interested to see their take on other fantasy cars.

And I love Londrina too! The Thelonious Monk tune Brilliant Corners was written about this track (not really). I've been getting into Curvelo lately also - it's a great track for powersliding FWD cars and the Lancer.

Unrelated: I was messing around today and I found out what the TSI Cup and Street Camaro have that almost all of the other cars lack: a handbrake. So, you can actually fling them around corners sideways pretty easily. The only other cars I've found with a working handbrake are the Caterham Academy and 620R (other cars, like Vintage Touring 2, have a handbrake shown visually but it doesn't activate when you push the button).

 

There's something special about these old school tracks, they remind me of the 80s-90s eras of Motorsport, they're just bad ass. Guapore and Taruma are also pretty cool. And Velo Citta, oh, man, the elevation on this track is soooo awesome. That's a proper race track, not all the new, flat F1 tracks, with the same corners everywhere, designed by Hermann Tilke, all colored up, that look like a scaled up version of some Matchbox toys circuit.

I saw the Handbrake input in the settings, tested it on a few cars, and it did nothing. I thought it might be just for the upcoming Andrenaline DLC or something.
So TSI Cup and Camaro, definitely something to keep in mind next time i start up AMS 2.Really good to know!

 

We need such descriptions, or info text for cars and tracks INGAME! like a Wikipedia, where u get all facts and get even more excited to drive it on ur own.

 

T. Monk rules.

 

Footnote:

Modern cars have electronically controlled hand brakes that won't apply if the car is moving faster than about walking pace. I am 99% sure this would apply to the latest gen Camaro; not sure about a Brazilian economy car. The Cats should still use a mechanical one, though. Most race cars, even if based on a road car, would have had it removed.

But please, let's not ask to have this added to the UI screen

 

You should try GT7, that game is an encyclopedia. Enough info and history to fill a book, really like that about the game.

 

TSI Cup was a partnership between Volkswagen and Reiza for the official release of these cars in Brazil.
They are sold here as nice cars, but they are only a cheap development over the known Gol.
They killed the Gol in Brazil to have a reason to sell a pricier car that is the same **** with a more modern interior.
All the most known brands in Brazil are doing this so we do not have the concept of a cheap car anymore as all are sold as "premium".
The Brazilian market is doomed with fake SUVs and ****ty road cars.

 

Sounds like your auto market has caught USA disease. There is no known cure.

 

The brazilian Polo is built over a new and much more modern platform (albeit it's not the same as the european Polo's platform) than the Gol, which platform is 30+ years old by now.

The Gol is a cheap car, yes, but a coffin on wheels by today safety standards.

I agree with you the market here in South America is doomed with fake SUVs, almost all of them built on cheap and old platforms and sold at a premium price.

The more concerning brand to me is Ford, they only sell overpriced Pick ups and overpriced chinese SUVs rebranded as Ford :-( No more Fiestas, Focus, etc.

 

So... I think I may have found a common thread with the cars that I really like: an open or loose differential. I went back and loosened up the differential on some of the cars that I found difficult or uninteresting to drive, and in every case it magically transformed them into "my style of car." A loose or open diff seems to make it much easier to feel out the limit, and to catch slides by applying some throttle.

I think the physics explanation is that when you lose grip with an open diff, one wheel is spinning and the other is just rolling along the track, helping to stabilize the car. So, if you apply the throttle it will help to shift the weight to the back, but it won't cause both rear wheels to break traction together, as may happen if an LSD locks. Here's an interesting thread on the topic from an IRL motorsport forum: Keeping on the straight and narrow - Open diff vs LSD Here are 2 quotes from that thread:

I've found that an LSD can tend to grab harder when it gets traction, where an open differential feels smoother when you lose traction. For a less experienced driver, the open diff may be easier to modulate in a slide (I'm assuming RWD here).

Yeah, it's really easy to control open diff sliding because only one rear wheel is spinning. The other is rolling along the road, providing a very stable side to side force on the rear of your car. You might even find it difficult to kick the rear out with an open diff, because if one wheel is already turning faster than the other all the power of your clutch kick will just go to that one wheel.

Well, this would explain why the beginner racecars like the Formula Vee and the Caterham Academy have open differentials (besides ease of maintenance and lower cost). This obviously indicates that I have a sloppy driving style and need improvement - no surprises there.

On the one hand, I'm excited that I found the cheat code to make every car fun to drive. On the other hand, I'm a little embarrassed because it makes my whole big long list just "I like open diffs lol." Has anyone else had a similar experience, and does this make sense at all?

 

I'm still focusing on the Lancer R at the moment and I'm finding the diff to be a very useful tuning tool for adapting it to the specific corner characteristics of a circuit. I'm fairly certain that open diffs will result in lost speed to some extent. I think the trick is to find the right diff settings, such that the corner entry (LSD coast) and corner exit (LSD power) phases are optimized as best as possible, with the correct amount of preload applied. It's quite possible though, that optimal LSD settings may make the car more difficult to handle, but once mastered, you'll be faster overall.

 

You hit the nail on the head. It's a trade-off between stability (easier to drive) and speed (quicker lap times). No surprise professional drivers like a tighter diff and equally no surprise that road cars don't even have adjustments for the diff (with some noticeable exceptions, so don't pummel me like I didn't know...just illustrating the point ).

 

Wonderful analysis.
Happy to read this kind of article concerning cars in ams2.
I love also openwheel cars in VR, especially Formula vee, but not only.

 

@Coldsalmon : 32y of simracing here, still crazy about geoff grammond's f1gp(s). Your post's a star; you're a star. I ended up fool in modern f1 and GT3s (well, more F1 indeed). You are so right. What's the point in playing flight simulator with autopilot all the way? Thank you so much! AMS 2 v1.5.3.5 (so far)'s so good; I'm rediscovering gilera cup and lotus 79. Got a question for you thow: Since your brillant post, there are some news out there. Namely Brazilian racing legends pack - Love it, but would die to ear your point of view about these/// please