Physics discussion thread

Just tried it and wow. It feels so much better now, I don't know how the default setup doesn't do that. It drives so much more naturally, and it is actually possible to keep the tyre temps under control if I drive smoothly enough. Not perfect, but actually really enjoyable now. Really thank you for this, these changes are game-changers for anyone who tries the Valkyrie.

In a completely different topic, I remember someone said, either in this thread or in the Dev Update one, that the dirty air is now very strong, and well, it might be too strong. I just tried a race with the GTPs at Watkins Glen, driving the BMW, and it was completely undrivable at the last two corners, instantly all grip disappears and I either spin or go straight. The rest of the track was tough, but manageable, maybe a little too difficult, but I'm not a hypercar driver, so I can't say for sure. Same thing happened with the Valkyrie there, but interestingly, I also raced the Aston at Sebring, on that track, it was barely even noticeable.

 

I actually haven't done these yet, but now that I see you like it, I will! (I think sometimes Reiza sabotages its own public 'sim' image by having default setups that are all drifty/floaty).

 

Well I think each setup should leave a little bit of room for improvement, otherwise it would be useless to have all these options.

 

That's the million dollar question, why the default setups are like this. In every car I get in there's 2 things I do, even before I drive it. Engine braking to 8 and clutches to 2. This is a lot better starting point than the car being locked up. The engine braking and diff make a huge difference in the overall feel of the car. I would suspect even too much of a difference but at least it's changeable. Now it's the cars in which you can't change these parameters that had more open settings. We're stuck with wild engine braking and locked up diffs.
That combined with tire pressures (usually) up about 3-5 clicks on front and rear, of course after checking temps, and you get a way better feeling car that has more rotation in corners without it constantly coming loose on mechanical grip. That coupled with throttle control on corner exit and all this "slidey" talk doesn't exist anymore. The cars can drive good and feel planted.

 

unpopular opinion…

I don’t find the default set ups too bad , you need to be smooth with your inputs .
But through either hardware limitations or being used to the way other sims handle throttle and the various braking models it can be a step change that feels over reactive , it’s not easy to adjust and I have as much trouble as anyone in some cases , I’m not trying to stand on a pedestal or anything, but if you commit to just leaving a car in default which I do often , then perseverance and natural self adjustment can yield good habit benefits and you start to understand the characteristics of the car better and can focus on tuning to either add drivability or performance.

The default configuration will expose aggressive early throttle and abrupt hard braking and then abruptly lifting off brake .

I think the perception that lowering clutch’s and reducing engine braking “fixes “ the problem, is that it’s just allowing more room for error , it’s more input tolerant and helps stability to a point , but it is generally a less optimal result for absolute performance.

It’s not really a noticeable thing when your racing Ai as your not really on an equal footing anyway, but it’s noticeable when racing against same pace online opponents. The top guys that have good throttle feel and control the corner transitions with delicate brake and throttle habits using more locked set up will nearly always exit a corner with more drive and acceleration.

I personally like a slightly understeery race set up , because I don’t trust myself more than anything.
if aero and other straight line performance aspect are unchanged , my race set ups are nearly always no faster than my best default lap, but definitely can be more consistent and confident.

but either way is correct. You and only you can set it up to suit your own hardware and techniques.
The default set up is generally in the middle.

 

I'd agree with this on a general racey setup, but not necesarily on a default setup, default setups, specially in Enduro machine should IMO be safe, since thats the easiest way to start understanding the car's behaviour, then once thats understood then you can start making the car faster by making it more pointy, but IMO Reiza's default setups are very aggresive right from the start, some of them are good enough to get you laps that are close to WR pace in some tracks.

 

I am talking in balance general terms of default setup of the overall catalog of cars which is vast.

there will always be some exceptions that are determined by the individual.

I race with some guys that find default not aggressive or dont turn enough for them , i try there set ups and struggle to drive consistently. even if i can tame it for a lap or two or a qualifying lap , it’s not comfortable.
so it’s all relative.

The fact i can get very close to them with default or even battle over a race with them with a slightly less aggressive set up shows that it’s not one size fits all.
it comes down to the individual and how they achieve performance.

There is only one default and it has to cater to a wide audience and i still believe it’s pretty much a middle ground.
but like i said it’s more sensitive to heavy foot syndrome than quite a few other sims and in relation to cars with aids it’s also perhaps how TC is applying. i’m not going to get into the debate of which sim is correct s how they simulate throttle as well, but you have to adjust to what you’re got regardless.

sometimes i find that the default TC value is a bit too much in the middle. and it can be smoother on exit if it’s a couple of clicks lower to allow more slip before it affects the acceleration after turning phase or increase it to eliminate all slip . but at default it’s often a momentary slip while still in turning phase then slip reduction abruptly which feels a little jerky

 

I wish the rear of the car wasn't so slippery in slow corners, quick changes of direction, and especially when accelerating out of corners. A little bit of gas and the rear end slides out.
The oversteer just feels way too strong in all the classes I've driven.
I love this game so much, but this really bothers me.

 

If the setup makes the car oversteer relatively easily on any phase of a corner, it's not safe. Understeer is not very fun, but it's safe and current default setups for many of the most popular cars/classes aren't understeery much at all and a lot of them can get really light on the rear and you can end up with oversteer especially on corner entry (especially on downhill corners, Nurnburgring first corner is a good example) and also on a lot of them, you get on throttle rotation, which can be problematic for some drivers.

Rear snapping out is and has been the most common "complaint" about AMS2 since 1.6 and it's something that happens mostly on corner entry. If you are used to AMS2, you usually have adjusted your driving to it, but new players and those coming from a lot of other sims do struggle with that (even good drivers) and very often think it's a "physics"/"tires" problem in AMS2. In the reality you can get rid of that behavior with setup changes (and in many cases, those changes don't even make the setup slower).

As for anybody who claims that on default setup, cars from popular classes like GT3 "understeer" too much... I would like to ask, which cars, where, in what situation, conditions and what are you inputs, because there rotation often is not the problem with the setups. Sure if you go brake too late with too much force and maybe even having brake bias more on front, you will understeer, but that is then definitely more of a skill issue than a setup issue.

ps. the default setups often start to become problematic when the tires get into good temperatures and fronts start to grip up more, before that the front doesn't take over the rear that easily.

 

Even though I agree with the defaults not being optimal / very safe, I disagree with these specific suggestions.

If you open the diff by reducing clutches to so low, you are basically just making yourself slower on corner exit (you definitely lose a lot of possible on throttle rotation, which can be very beneficial when it's not too much) and actually might be making the corner entry / mid corner issues worse. On GT3's and such, I often find the 6 or even more clutches a better option, but on cars like LMDh lowering clutches to 4 might work better.

As for engine braking, reducing it make the car do less "trail braking" off throttle, which acts as a tool to balance the car tendency to oversteer too easily on corner entry. It's just one way to do that, but there are other ways to achieve the same that are more effective.

ps. On AMS2, coasting phase during corner is not very beneficial, you usually have enough rotation one way or the another and with generous slip angles, you want to get on throttle soon, have some of that rotation from it to help and accelerate out of the corner as early and effectively as possible to be fast.

 

Thank you for your kind explanation. I've been playing AMS 2 since December 2022, and even back then, I had the feeling that the rear of rear-wheel-drive cars like GT3, GTE, Stock Car, and similar cars felt too loose.
I don't want to say that AMS 2 feels unrealistic and that others are better; it's actually just the looseness in the rear that really stands out to me.

An example would be the Lambo Super Trofeo on Kansai. Everything's fine up to turn 10, but when accelerating out of the hairpin (turn 11), it's difficult to keep the rear under control, even with high TC and little throttle. Everything's fine when braking. In turns 16 and 17, the problem arises with the quick turns. It feels as if the rear is about to tear out. And the same applies to comparable corners on other tracks.

 

Reducing to half/third of the default value, or even zero out the diff preload helps a lot with this, reducing the rear rebound damper also helps stabilizing the rear, i can and do usually add more diff clutches. Porsche cup 3.8: 60 nm preload, 8 clutches; stock car 2019: 0 preload, 10 clutches with ramps tuned.

 

Thanks, I give it a try

 

Or lower the clutches and slightly lower the preload from default - this is another solution. For me, 6 means oversteer on corner exit, 4 a little but but generally balanced, and 2 a bit of understeer. Of course these depend on the stiffness of the rear, e.g. slightly more stiff rear seems to increase the oversteer effect.

Also, one solution for snapping out on corner entry i find is to lower the rebound (slow and fast) on the fronts... I find if it's too strong that when I come off braking (and i'm not the best at trail braking, being on a wiggly office chair) that presumably the fronts jump up and I lose control. Lowering the rebounds keeps the transition a bit smoother.

 

Are these setting work well for gr3,gt4 and hypercar. Seem to struggle with oversterr and corner entry

 

It's how I solved my problems with GT3 cars... yeah.

 

It should be in the default setup. I know a lot of newcomer they won’t change the setup.

 

I did a video on this using telemetry and I found that AMS2 wasn’t allowing too much slip

 

I wouldn't trust my own driving to produce the best examples on how much slip angle the tires are able to provide as it's clear that the fastest people out there seem to be able to push car clearly more than I can and extract more from the capability of the tires. Like here, in your video, you didn't seen to get more that about 7-8 degrees of slip, but PeterV seems to claim to see 10 degrees or more even.. Not sure how scientific those tests are.

I guess we are talking actually more about cornering stiffness and how peaky it is as described in this picture, where green is example of "road tire" and yellow of a peaky racing tire.
(source:

) but at least in my experience, the peak seems as it would be more flat and the maximum slip angle you still have optimal grip quite big, so maybe something like the pink curve I drew here:



There is cliff there eventually and it's sharp, but after the peak you still have a lot of grip beyond that "dull" peak before it drops sharply. I don't have any data to back this up, this is based more on how it feels myself and how it looks when watching the driving of some really fast drivers on AMS2 on GT3, LMDh and the like.

If you have setup like the default ones often are, it feels more peaky than the tires are and it seems to be related to car pitching, load getting too much to the fronts in the expense of the rears. With more balanced setup, you don't reach that cliff nearly as easily and can really push to a point that it feels like overdriving to extract lap time.

To be clear, I don't know is it actually off that much, at all or a lot. I just have noticed that the better I get, the more it feels I can abuse this with still quite big marging for error (in some other sims, like LMU, the window in which you are in optimal slip angle feels a lot smaller, even if the drop off going past it isn't as steep as it was just before 1.0)

I think the tire wear properties are still lacking quite a bit and even if you could drive IRL like this, you would kill the tires really quickly by doing so, but in AMS2, the endurance tires can take so much wear that you never really need to think about that (I think this applies to all tires actually, even the F-ultime tires last way too much unless you lock up). You can use probably setup options (more locked diff, more toe etc.) that IRL would cause actual problems in tire wear that contributes to the problem.

I would to see some really in depth analysis of this from somebody with a lot of knowledge of these things and time to spend.

 

So why not having a better default setup for gt3 gen2 ?