Reaper's "ReDefault" Custom Setups

All setups will definitely need to be looked at and revised once 1.6 comes out, but as I've said before I'd still rather have to retune a setup from 90% than start completely from scratch. I'm not sure what exactly the 1.6 physics improvements entail, but I'm very excited to find out - especially in regards to GT3's.

Yeah, I can understand the tone being interpreted as argumentative/aggressive. I'll take care in the future to avoid this.

Hey, those are some good questions and indeed important information to disclose!
1. I use a Simagic Alpha Mini at its maximum rated force (10-12 Nm).
2. I'm not sure what exact settings you'd like to know about. I use VR, legacy camera, head movement at something like 65-75, authentic assists, full damage and tyre/fuel wear at 1x. If you need any other info let me know.
3. No. I use a custom FFB (that's not very well known here) that removes all extra effects and forces except the "pure" steering rack ones. Link HERE. I never could get the Default/Default+ feeling quite right on my wheel, but perhaps it's worth doing testing with them in the future when the 1.6 revisions will come.

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.

 

Thanks for your information! I tested it, unfortunately it doesn't meet my expectations and taste. I find the standard setups from Reiza more balanced and accessible and less aggressive. But thank you for your hard work and sharing it will definitely help some people understand setups better

 

That's fair, can I ask what cars you tried out of curiosity? User feedback is always important.

 

Yes, of couse. The Mercedes GT4 /Sprint Race and Formula Vintage at Brands Hatch and Long Beach.
For me personally, Ams2 means lots of different cars, lots of different tracks, lots of different track surfaces. That's why it's important to me to have a balanced car setup where I have the option to correct downwards or upwards. As I said, this is my personal taste and may work well for other people. Thanks again for your sharing

 

While I did not use your setups in the end I was amazed by how much the alignment can really mess up a car in this game. Even just a bit of toe at the front or rear can really cause some strange behavior some times -- great observation there.

I was wondering if I were turning crazy or if this game had something a bit weird with it, glad I'm not gonna be admitted to an asylum Now I can actually turn laps comfortably without the car doing an insane kick out of the corners.

 

Indeed, and I highly doubt a tenth of a degree of toe should be having this much of an impact on a car's handling. It's weird as toe being is so commonly used in other sims and IRL, and yet in AMS2 it seems to have such a massive negative impact.

Not that I'm complaining, it makes my job a whole lot easier when it comes to tuning as it removes another variable.

 

100% agree on the differential part, most of the cars I drove become suddenly driveable when increasing preload and decreasing clutches. When I understood that, the game experience changed a lot for me. Driving the 24 stock cars without spinning out in 3rd gear on a fast sweeper corner is finally possible!

Once you understand how setups work then the driving experience becomes so much more rewarding and less frustrating, so I agree that some default setups could be changed for beginners like me, but I also think that setups are a huge part in racing and so this need to tinker with them pushed me to know a bit more about how things work and proved to be useful, even if a bit frustrating.

Anyway thanks for the setups I will try them next time I play!

 

How much do you increase the pre load by and how much reduce clutches?

 

I have to check but for the preload I put it between 110 and 130 and I reduce the clutches to 4, I tried putting 2 but I had just a lot of inside wheel spinning on corner exit. Then I also lower the power ramp to 35. This way the car still feels lively but you can put the foot down way more easily

 

Cool, might try this out tomorrow night, cheers

 

Just to throw my 2 cents in as well, generally you should stick to 4 or 6 clutches, depending on the car. There's a few that can use 8 but it won't be a common occurrence.

Preload is really the main value to adjust, and this one really depends on the car (on its torque and the rear tyre grip). If the car is naturally stable under braking you can probably go for 120-180 Nm. If you need stability under braking / throttle transitioning, or want to keep the diff more locked, you can try 180-250 Nm. Usually I end up adjusting it in increments of 20-ish until I find something that feels good.

You can also have cars that go below 120 or above 250 - but similar to the 8 clutches, you won't see that often. You know you've gone too high with the preload when you start understeering when coming into the corner.

 

Just wanted to update everyone who's given this project a try: I've decided to massively overhaul the ReDefault setups, and I've started to build every setup back again from the ground up.

After a lot of useful feedback on the setups (thank you everyone who took their time to comment on this thread ), as well as some personal (horrifying) revelations about setup setting values in AMS2, I've decided a complete overhaul of the ReDefault setups was warranted in order to fix some massive issues and inconsistencies with them. Additionally, I wanted to better future-proof these new setups for the upcoming 1.6 tyre changes, as well as aiming to stick closer to the original philosophy of creating "new default setups".

The main focus with these new ReDefault setups (dubbed the Road to 1.6 versions) is tyre management, both in terms of wear and temperature. The old approach of "max stiffness" has been thrown out the window, and now every setup is tailor-made and adjusted individually for each car's characteristics, with a much larger focus on dampers, springs and anti-roll bars tuning. Furthermore, setups are balanced around using 0 TC, where TC is an option.

Right now I'm proceeding with slower, more mechanical grip cars, and working my up the performance ladder to the faster, high-downforce racecars. This is also done so I can gradually get to grips with the new approach and setup variables, especially as the cars will get increasingly more complex.

There are 12 cars in the roster so far, and more are constantly being developed: Puma GTE (Copa B), Passat FL (Copa FL), Formula Inter, F-Vee, Formula Trainer & Advanced, Ginetta G55 Supercup, Mercedes GT4 & Camaro GT4, Kart Rental, Carrera Cup Porsche and the Chevolet Omega Stock Car.

If you've used one of my ReDefault setups before, I highly encourage you to give one of these new versions a go - especially the GT4's, Chevy Omega or FTRS, where massive advancements have been made towards consistency and accessibility.

 

This is a good endeavor IMO. Ideally we would need for all cars to come with no less than 3 baseline setups, but until Reiza delivers this option we need help from the community. It's nearly impossible that one single setup works for everybody, specially nowadays where people seem less inclined than ever to tweak on their own!

I have some setups stored that I share from time to time, and I would gladly contribute to this project if a helping hand was needed. But I have a different method of work for creating setups: I stay away from Time Trial leaderboards as I'm not keen on hotlapping, and build my works after evaluating cars on runs that are of at least 15-20 minutes on Test Day on rather regular race conditions (a very relative term, I know), as I believe that a trustable race setup is the best you can share to others. But then, it is Reaper's prerogative to do it this way, and it's not a bad method either: it's simply geared to achieve a different objective.

 

I hadn't considered making this a collaborative project, but honestly that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. And having more variety in setup choices certainly wouldn't hurt. I was already flirting with the idea of moving the setups to a more user-friendly platform (i.e. something that isn't a ****ing Google Doc ) and this might serve as an extra incentive to do so.

It's worth noting I use TT for two main reasons:

• It cuts out a lot of dead time from the first 2-ish laps you have to do to warm up the tyres in Test Day. Of course the drawback is tyre wear can't be monitored in TT, but engine temp, brake temps and tyre temps still work as normal.
• I can better gauge performance differences in a setup by using a TT ghost as comparison, either my own or someone else's. I can quickly see the differences in handling and speed by having a visual comparator right in front of me, and overall just gives me better feedback when experimenting with setup values.

If TT would have an option to use tyre wear it really would be perfect..

 

I mentioned contributing because the car and track selection is so vast that it becomes quite difficult to create a comprehensive work that serves for every car available in the sim, and you will probably need more than one setup for some cars.

But even IF you decided to open it up and accept inputs from others for quickly increasing the options available, I think that, in this particular case, my method of work would be detrimental because it would create inconsistencies in your job, and it wouldn't be good and fair to you.

 

Undoubtedly. Not only do some cars require more than one baseline setup, but there's also track-specific setups people may have made, there's oval setups which I currently know nothing about, and there's many cars which I'll probably simply never get around to tinkering with.

At the end of the day, no-one says I have to include any "external" (i.e. not made by me) setups into my own series, and you're right that it would be a lot of work trying to verify that these "external" setups are up to the task - but I can always include them in an adjacent way, making it clear they're not my own, but could serve as alternatives for people looking for setups.

Even more generally speaking, maybe it wouldn't hurt having a centralised place where custom setups can be shared. We've seen these sites pop-up for other games (iRacing, ACC), but nothing (to the extent of my knowledge) for AMS2. It's a pipe-dream but something custom-made wouldn't hurt...

 

I think the problem stems from not being able to share files unless you download them from Time Trial. Modifying values one by one from a screenshot is quite the Neanderthal way, but if you don't use TT for some reason, it's the only way atm.

If file sharing was possible for setups, then it would be much easier to create a website or just a well organized Cloud Store folder.

 

TTs are extremely geared towards fast laps. Too extreme for me personally, I would rather have something constant and well-coordinated setup. It would be really great if there was an alternative to the current standards. But as you both mentioned, it should be easier. I would appreciate it if you found a way

 

That's true, but Neanderthal or not it still doesn't change the fact that there's no current websites for sharing AMS2 setups. Pictures are inconvenient, yes, but still work in the end!

Yeah absolutely. Using TT setups is a recipe for disaster, and it's a real shame it's the only way to instantly download other setups.