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Camaro SS is broken

Discussion in 'Automobilista 2 - General Discussion' started by Freeway, Aug 4, 2020.

  1. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    You have clearly never driven the real car. "Tippiness" is not a word you would ever use to describe a 2016 Camaro SS, much less one in Track mode. This is the whole point of my thread. Folks who think they know how the car drives or who it should feel.... ugh. I will say it again: This car is a track weapon. It feels way tighter, lighter and way more responsive than you can imagine.

    Here is the long term review on the 2016 Camaro SS.

    2016 Chevrolet Camaro SS Long-Term Road Test

    Excerpt from that review:
    It turns, too. The sport and track modes up its handling beyond what sane people are willing to explore on our roads. There’s a reason the 1LE version of this Camaro is quicker than an Audi R8 V-10 Plus in our Lightning Lap throwdown around Virginia International Raceway: The Camaro is no longer a knuckle-dragging, Cro-Magnon pony car. It is now a wildly capable piece of driving hardware, with the suspension and brakes to indulge those who would push the car to its limits. “It’s easy to feel as if you’re driving it hard without taking any real risks,” notes the logbook at 27,000 miles.
     
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  2. Marc Collins

    Marc Collins Internal Tester AMS2 Club Member

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    You have clearly never driven a real race car. We all know how much you love the Camaro, but it is one of the last cars you would want to take on a track (as is my 400 hp overweight daily driver that some insist on doing so anyway). Even the race prep versions are not nimble machines by race car standards.

    From my perspective, the sim is correctly transmitting the "feeling" of whale-sized and weight car versus smaller, traditional race cars. The g-forces and speeds are close to the real thing. All that is left is the drive train and brakes to be corrected and it will be a very fun car to bang around a track. But it should never feel like a race car, because it is far from it.
     
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  3. John Hargreaves

    John Hargreaves Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    Of course single seaters are lighter and more agile, but something like an M4 is still pretty frisky on track and goes where it's pointed, it doesn't feel like a boat. Camaro is miles off currently but it will get there.
     
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  4. Spitfire1

    Spitfire1 New Member

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    He is talking about the road going Camaro SS and not a race car and since he owns one and drives it almost daily i think he is a better fit to tell us how it should handle and we should use that as a very accurate litmus test as to how the ams2 version should handle.
     
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  5. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    Learned to drive on a 1835 CC Class 2 offroad sandrail. Since then, I have spent hours going sideways on all sorts of surfaces in all sorts of cars including Ferraris and Porsches. Grew up in a shop that built 935s after hours just for fun... So, I CAN definitely drive. The reason I bought that Camaro is because it had transcended the muscle car genre into 911 territory. Oh, that Camaro still puts a smile on my face every day I get into it... The symphony that comes out of the engine bay is wonderful and all, but the cornering up to and over the limit is where it is at.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
  6. Spitfire1

    Spitfire1 New Member

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    Well we just have to wait what Reiza will do but i am not holding my breath.
     
  7. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    Tried the GT4 Camaro and GT4 Porsche today on Bathurst. Despite their undulations and slightly snappy oversteer. they showed real promise. So, there is definitely a very good chance that one day the SS might get fixed as well.
     
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  8. Spitfire1

    Spitfire1 New Member

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    Well that's good. Let's hope things turn up. How many track days have you done in your camaro ss?
     
  9. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    None. The one SCCA track (area) we have on island is in too rough a shape.
     
  10. John Hargreaves

    John Hargreaves Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    GT4 Camaro is great. I would just copy paste the physics from the GT4 version onto the SS, soften the suspension slightly, take a bit of bite out of the brakes and knock a bit of grip off the tyres and we're done. But then I'm not in charge, which my wife would say is a good thing ;)
     
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  11. Spitfire1

    Spitfire1 New Member

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    Ok i see. But i was wondering when you said that when you floor the throttle in the camaro ss and it would be able to maintain a straight line but modulate as not to cook the tires were you talking about like this:


     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2020
  12. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    Actually, I was referring to my own car. Takes quite a bit of practice to go zero to 60 plus and only chirp the tires on the initial launch and the gear shifts. Regardless, of how badly I mess it up, the car stays incredibly straight.

    But, the videos are a lot closer to what I would expect in game as well.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2020
  13. Spitfire1

    Spitfire1 New Member

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    I was referring to your car in the first reply.

    So are you saying videos are closer to your car or ams2?
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2020
  14. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    First video is pretty close to real car.
     
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  15. Spitfire1

    Spitfire1 New Member

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    Nice.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2022
  16. traind

    traind Active Member AMS2 Club Member

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    I get what you're saying and I agree... we should be able to feel the difference between a light purpose built racing machine and a road legal sports car in the sim because there is a significant difference in the real world.

    However, at the very same time, that does not mean that the road legal sports car should feel significantly off from how it does in real life just so we can achieve that feeling difference in the sim. There has to be a way to have both... a very different feel between a nimble open wheel car vs. road car and the road car does not feel too much more ponderous than it does in real life.

    I have never driven the Camaro SS on track but I have driven it on the road (I rented one for 2 days) and I have also driven the ZL1. In that setting, you would be surprised at just how damn good the chassis is for the price. The car feels very big to sit in due to poor outward visibility (and it isn't a small car anyway) but the chassis does not feel ponderous at all. It is very composed. I was thinking of buying the ZL1 for awhile and thus read a lot of track reviews on the ZL1 and SS to get a sense of how it performed there. Most people describe the chassis as very good and that it handles it's weight surprisingly well. This includes two very experienced pro drivers... one who ended up buying a non ZL1, non 1LE package Camaro because he admired the handling so much.

    Freeway:
    First, this whole topic is a good one and I've enjoyed reading some of the opinions on both sides in this thread.

    I do think we tend to overdrive in racing sims much easier than in real life. This dynamic may have something to do with the Camaro SS feeling too ponderous in sim.... exaggerating understeer etc. Personally, if I drive the Camaro SS in AMS2 deliberately a bit slower I think it feels a little closer to what I imagine it would on the race track (and like those two Pro drivers describe it). So Freeway, I don't know if you've tried that? Braking earlier than you sense you should, setting up your turn in more carefully might help a bit. I haven't driven it recently but I do agree with you that the SS should feel sharper than it does in sim but slowing down a bit might help.
     
  17. Marc Collins

    Marc Collins Internal Tester AMS2 Club Member

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    I am glad you get the essence of what I am saying about exaggerated feedback for simulation purposes.

    I take your points about the SS, except the Camaro SS is not a "road legal sports car." It's a regular car that tends to the sporty end of the spectrum. It doesn't have track tires, track suspension, track brakes or track cooling and other stuff required to run it on a track for more than a lap or two just for fun to see how it feels. The new Camaro GT4 in the game is the car with all those race components added and more. *[An example of a road-legal sports car that many of us wish was in the game is the Ariel Atom.]

    The Camaro SS and Ultima street are not finished and do not drive the way they should in the game. But the street SS handles fairly accurately now in terms of cornering grip and braking capability. It has an issue with putting the power down due to the same unresolved differential issues that are causing problems for many cars and it has an issue with low-speed braking that may come down to a copy-and-paste of race brake algorithms--they behave much too poorly when cold compared to the real car which has standard brakes for use on the road in all weather conditions and they work very well even when stone cold.

    I am confident when the diff and braking issues are sorted, plus whatever ongoing tire simulation development occurs, it will be fine. It's already fun to drive in an unauthentic kind of way, so will be even better when it is accurate.

    An interesting thing to note when thinking about tire simulation is the sidewall profile of the SS. It is a dramatically thinner tire than even the GT4 uses! I am sceptical that this incredibly low profile is/can be properly simulated with the current knowledge level of SETA and Madness, but that's just speculation on my part.
     
  18. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    Traind: Wonderful comments all around. My biggest complaint with the SS is the tendency of the car to rotate under hard braking while driving in a straight line. My second biggest complaint is the tendency to rotate under hard acceleration. As such, when I ease up on braking or acceleration, it is indeed easier to control; however, those rotations, as well as the high center of gravity feel of the car, are what make the car feel so unrealistic.

    John Hargreaves: I am with you on the physics. Throw out the Camaro SS physics entirely and work backward from the Camaro GT4r physics (reducing grip and increasing weight and horsepower) and I think we'll actually get there.
     
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  19. Freeway

    Freeway Member

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    Marc Collins: How many 3600 lb plus cars do you know with a suspension that supports nearly 1g lateral cornering on runflats and, at the very same time, 12 second quarter miles, and, at the very same time, brake like they drop anchors (with little to no fade). That describes a pretty special car... albeit for doing a few laps at a time in. So, while you could reasonably call it a high end sports car, I think of it more as a VERY high end sports car available under $50k. But, I do understand your point. Put some decent treads on it, though, and you should find it capable of putting a lot of so called race cars in their place (at least in shorter/sprint races).
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2020
  20. Marc Collins

    Marc Collins Internal Tester AMS2 Club Member

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    It's clear to all of us that you love your car, but you just made my point. It's a 3,600 lb. elephant. In real life, a cheap F-Trainer can run circles around it. It's a lovely car and clearly in a different league from older Camaro's...but they were to be frank, garbage, and not taken seriously by anyone. I think you will discover that aside from the diff and cold brakes issues, the AMS 2 version handles pretty closely to the real thing. If we had a regular (non-sporty) 3,600 lb car in the game to compare, you would be suitably proud of it :) If/when we get the new Corvette, there will be another interesting comparison, but the SS will still be on the lower rung.

    I linked a review of the car pages back. Do you disagree with anything in it? Because it describes what I feel in the game (aside from the identified WIP issues).
     

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