rec.autos.simulators

  Boy - with F355 even a relatively simple track like Monza is *not*
easy - even when you have a good line, going into places like
parabolica you have to be real careful on the throttle until you get
onto the straight, otherwise you'll understeer and drift out too far.

I checked the manual to see what the various Car Settings do and it
seems like most of them effect understeer/oversteer; I saw no mention of
downforce or increasing/decreasing acceleration/top speed.  Also, I'm
sure my starts could be better as, just like with steering, braking and
accelerating are all-or-nothing with the regular controller.

I set the ride height to the minimum and didn't see any obvious changes
off the start.  I thought a lower ride height would increase
acceleration or top speed but saw no evidence of it.  I may crank it up
and see what happens...

I love the game.  The Great Driver mode is a lot of fun with one
complaint: it seems sometimes when a car hits me (IMHO), I get penalized
10 points.  One of these days I'll get a wheel.  I have one for the PC
and it's a blast, and totally necessary for F12002/F1C.

     - TN

I put the rear wing deg to 0; seemed to help a little.

I then tried GDC mode and got 980 on Monza (GRRRRRRR!!!).  On a side
note, the game doesn't seem to be saving my GDC results but does save my
  Arcade times.  It does remember that I have a Bronze on Suzuka Short
and a silver on Monza for GDC though.  Odd...

I wonder if 360 Challenge is on the way? :)

     - TN

   For the rear wing configuration, it does indicate this affects
downforce and drag, which makes sense.  I guess in theory more rear
downforce should also tend to make the car understeer a bit more, but
I'm not sure about that.  My experience with reducing the wing angle
was that it definitely gives you better top speed.

   Interestingly though, the wing change definitely seems to give me
better top speed on the straights, and although I am now getting
consistent laps times in the 1'53"s, over the first two sectors I am
pretty sure I am doing even better than that.  It is in the third
sector, particularly in Ascari and parabolica, that I am giving some
of that gain back.  I think what may be happening is that the reduced
downforce has made the car understeer a bit more, so that I can't take
the Ascari chicane and the first part of parabolica quite as fast
without the car getting squirrely and skidding.  I think what I may
try next is to try to adjust camber or ride height to try to generate
a bit more oversteer and see if I can compensate for that.  Part of
the fun for me is trying to understand how the setup affects
performance and trying to come up with setup changes on my own that
work.

   One thing I would have liked to have been able to tune is gear
ratios - when I drive the Monaco track with the F1 car in GT3 I found
adjusting the gear ratios makes a huge difference.

  I find being able to make fine adjustments is critical - that could
very well make a huge difference.  For example, going down the first
straight onto the first chicane, I am full out on the throttle, and
then I am full on the brake to get down to a speed that I can take the
chicane.  Then you are using quick steering movements to get the car
on the right line, and feathering the throttle to get the car through
the chicane.  I find the same kind of thing is crucial on the two
Lesmo curves - once you are on the line, you are really feathering the
throttle to guide the car through the curve as quickly as possible
until you can go full throttle again.

   In real life lowering the ride height ought to increase downforce,
not reduce it, so I would expect it to reduce top speed instead.  That
is because a lower ride height results in faster air flow under the
car, which creates a force which pulls the car into the pavement.
This is why F1 cars ride so incredibly low to the ground - even a
couple of millimeters can make a huge difference in the ability of the
car to corner at high speed.  It is quite possible this aspect is not
accounted for in the physics model.

I will most likely treat myself to a PS2 wheel when GT4 comes out and
see how I do in F355 then.

I still really like it and will keep at it with the regular controller
until GT4. :)

    - TN

It's a good few years since I played it on the DC but I remember it understeered
pretty much whatever you did until you dialed out a bit of rear toe which
sharpened it up nicely, don't over do it though! Too much rear toe out
makes the handling interesting......... (well, do try it once!)

I think I used to run at minimum ride height, if my memory serves it
does handle better but doesn't like the kerbs at long beach much.
I adjusted the wings from circuit to circuit, max at long beach, min
at monza, again it does make a difference.

In fact I think F355 has rather lovely physics for a DC. Rubbish
collision detection though.

    HTH

    Paul

I haven't driven one either but apparently they do understeer in stable cornering.
Of course you can provoke oversteer but the natural tendency is understeer.

    Paul

   By reducing the rear downforce to minimum I managed to cut a few
tenths off - I managed a 1:52:828 lap.  Boy it is not that easy to cut
down lap times - I don't think I've run a perfect lap, but I've run
quite a few solid ones.  I guess I will try adding some further
suspension modifications next and see how that helps.