288Hz mother of all physics models. While all those rotating bodies are
nice, I would imagine the tire model is the real meat of the thing, and it
gets very little mention. It would also seem to be the Achilles heel of a
good sim, as this will dictate the "feel" much moreso than all those
rotating flywheels, springs and dampers. I have my doubts that Papyrus
actually could "just plug in a few numbers and model whatever car you
want", as we read when GPL first emerged. If you read something like
"going Faster", or if you're a real ***, the SAE bible on racecar
engineering, you'll find that the tire modelling is a monster to get
right. I would imagine that trying to capture the behaviour of a modern
CART slick would take almost as much programming and tweaking as the rigid
body model.
In the interview with the WSC developers, they imply that they have a lot
of work to do to get the tires right. I'd be curious to know how much
work it is taking to get the NASCAR4 tire model working well. Like I
said, I think we underestimate the work that is needed to re-adapt the GPL
model to fit a different racecar spec.
Stephen