rec.autos.simulators

I've just bought a joystick, and what a difference it made in driving the
ovals!  I'd also hoped for significant performance gains in the road
courses, but have not found the right key combinations for the various
controls.

Which keys have you found to work good for the gas, brake, shift up, shift
down?  

Thanks.

 --
_____________________
 Kevin Lee
 '90 Civic Hatchback
 '94 Civic Coupe
 Rather have a GSR..

Brian Wong                              Product Marketing Engineering

So Brian, do you really see an advantage having the gas as an analog input?
I figure your either flooring it or your off of it, when racing.  I have
mine setup with shifts on the stick and the gas and brake on the buttons.
I thought about swapping them like you have them but there are two things
that bother me about that.  First, the forward angle of the joystick will
effect my steering, and second, you could not power brake (gas and brake
at the same time).  I think I could overcome the first one with practice,
but the no power braking is a big disadvantage to me.  Maybe this could
be overcome by the advantage of the analog gas and brake.  What advantages
do you see?  How often are you braking or throttling below the maximum, and
where typically to you not fully brake or gas at a track?  I know sometimes
I do 180's taking a slow pin-hole turn because I get on the gas too quick,
and maybe being capable of giving partial throttle will help, but by how
much? I would be interested in hearing other peoples views also.

Gary Cousins

I also use the buttons to brake/accelerate an use a "pulsing" method
to get the power on without wheel spin.

However, whilst at design school, a friend and I built a 1:1 scale formula
1***pit and wired it through the joystick port to a wheel, sequential shift
and spring loaded pedal on anolog potentiometers.<sp?>
If its set up right with correctly matched resistances, it give you possible
the most accurate method of controling indycar we've found.
On the first lap with our system we took 2 second off of our best time around
Australia.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I definitely do.  I can feather the throttle while I drift through a turn,
keeping some gas on to maintain or slightly increase speed while not jumping
on the gas and losing traction or going into a wall.  I do this, for example,
in T8 at Detroit and T5 at Toronto.  T8 is the sweeping right-hander after
the long "straight" section called the Strand.  it's between concrete walls
and you CANNOT go full speed through there, but it's a long turn, and you
need to maintain some speed.  I'm sure you COULD do it with a binary throttle,
but it's a lot easier and more intuitive with an analog control.

There are other turns where you can build your setup to sail closer to the
wind and then lift a little bit in the middle of one or two turns so you don't
leave the track.  T2 at Detroit is a good example.  If your setup is very
conservative, you can just put the hammer down and power through.  You'll
never even brush the wall.  You'll also find that if you have enough downforce
to do that, you won't beat 135mph down the Strand and everybody blows by you
there.  If you split the difference and have enough wing to get through T2
if you lift, you can also get down the Strand at 145, and nobody will pass
you there unless they're running an even lower downforce setup.  Again, I'm
sure I could do it with a binary throttle, but why?  (Your comment about
braking affecting steering is a valid one though.)

It's a bit more subtle than this, IMHO.

--

Brian Wong                              Product Marketing Engineering

Actually I tried to remember the numbers from memory.  Even given the
fact that Detroit can be set up differently (I *can* go full bore through
T2 and I run the strand at around 154, I checked now), the fact remains
that there is some place on the scale where feathering the throttle is
a good idea.  Still if nobody else wants to do it, that's fine with me...

Maybe I'll work some more on Elkhart Lake.  It's a lot harder to balance
out the car there.
--

Brian Wong                              Product Marketing Engineering

You really got me thinking about that T8 at Detroit.  I really think that is
my worst turn on the track.  I usually go through there at about 80MPH, but
I know it can be done faster.  I will give the pulsing a try that was
suggested earlier.  Then maybe I will do some testing with your joystick
configuration, if the pulsing does not improve my speed through the turn.

As a side note, my T2 at Detroit is taken flat out and I am getting up to
152MPH down the strand (I saw from other follow-ups, that you knew that it
could be done).  But, you do have me convinced that an analog throttle
can improve some cornering times (mainly because you named one of my worst
corners, amazing).  Do I want to reconfigure my joystick for it?  Probably
not, but I will experiment.  I may even think about buying a wheel.

Gary Cousins

--