rec.autos.simulators

   What a great article Allison Hine wrote with her Ferrari setup
page.I have been away from GPL for 8 months and when i come back I
stumble onto this excellent article about car settings in GPL.I find
it hard to believe that Dave Krammer and the crew at Papyrus did not
know that the excessivly hard to drive cars were due to a screwup in
the setups.Allison's Ferrari setups are unbelievably stable and for
the first time I can really feel the difference between a
loose,neuteral or push setup.It makes me wonder if Papyrus
re-releases GPL with Allisons setups as default.Will its sales still
be bad!  

    One thing I think Papyrus should do is write another patch that
can add a thump sound whenever a tire hits a bumpstop.This way we can
hear when it happens when in reality we would feel it.Anyone have
comments on this?

My only comments are that I like these ideas!!

I also think that Alison's Ferrari setups are fantastic... But I've had
people in this newsgroup state that they are fundamentally flawed.
They've also hinted that no serious sim racer would use them.  It's
opinions like these that turn many people off to GPL and sim racing in
general.  Apparently anything that makes life easier, is a bad thing in
the eyes of the purists.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

: I also think that Alison's Ferrari setups are fantastic... But I've had
: people in this newsgroup state that they are fundamentally flawed.
: They've also hinted that no serious sim racer would use them.  It's
: opinions like these that turn many people off to GPL and sim racing in
: general.  Apparently anything that makes life easier, is a bad thing in
: the eyes of the purists.

  I think that Alison's set ups are absolutely great to learn with.
When I practiced a bit more I found that the understeer and weight
transfer characteristics did not suit me one bit.  Compared with the
original 1.0 default set ups or with hotlapper set ups they are
superb to learn with.  I don't think I would be very happy to go
back to them now.

  It's not that they're a bad thing - it's that once you've learned GPL
enough to develop a style of your own you might prefer something else.
I loved them at the time and I don't think I'd have continued with GPL
if I hadn't found those or something similarly easy to work with.  Now I
prefer other people's set ups.  Particularly Gregor Huttu - who has a
fine collection on line for the ferrari with, for many tracks, long
race, short race and qual set ups.  

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
    www:  http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

Allisons setups are great when you are learning GPL...
The more advanced drivers generally race more oversteered and with complete
asymectrical setups... I never liked Allisons setups very much, they are
much to understeering for my style...

--Pierce

And that says it all, really - once you get good enough to tell the
difference between setups, you'll have your own preferred style, which
you can reflect in your setup.

For example, I think Gregor Huttu's Silverstone Lotus setup is great,
but I hate his Spa Eagle setup - far too much understeer until the back
suddenly breaks away. I much prefer nice-and-slidey oversteer with a
slightly less vicious kick.

To be honest, I think there's a bit too much attention paid to garage
work - once I've got a half-decent setup sorted out, I prefer to spend
the time on the circuit.

--
David.
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll,
really."
(Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh)

Where can I find these setups?

I tried Alisons site, but it seems to be closed.  Anyone know anything?

--
Tor Eide, DoD#2178

:>
:> prefer other people's set ups.  Particularly Gregor Huttu - who has a
:> fine collection on line for the ferrari with, for many tracks

: Where can I find these setups?

  http://www.racesimcentral.net/

  Can't vouch for them all but I won my very first online race using his
Monaco set up for a league race on Sunday.  I'm practicing Zandy now and
I'm not sure I'm happy at all with the set up there.

  As someone else pointed out, garage work is no substitute for track
time.  I learned far more when I stopped ***ing around with set up
and just drove for a long long while.  But GPL is so difficult with a
really bad set up (like the initial defaults) that I couldn't get
consistency at all.

: I tried Alisons site, but it seems to be closed.  Anyone know anything?

  Was working this afternoon.

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
    www:  http://www.racesimcentral.net/

http://simracing.com/alison/gpl/index.htm
http://www.kolumbus.fi/ghuttu/index.html

BTW, I have never been able to get to terms with either the Eagle or the
Lotus
despite great effort with the latter. Upon re-reading her comments on the
Ferrari-setups I noted that she said "that the Eagle responds extremely well
to
settings virtually identical to these Ferrari setups".
So I decided to have a go. Off to Monza, copied the Ferrarisettings in
everything
but the gearing and set a pb (1.30.34, don't laugh now you hotshots!) on lap
4!
After a few days of minor adjustments (gears mostly) I did a 1.29.60 today!
To finally get below 1.30 feels soo good.
The Woegers and Huttus of this world of course have completely different
ideas, and their times does prove a point, but for us mere humans these
setups are certainly worth a try.
?ke

My name is Richard. I'm a serious sim racer & I use Alison's setups <g>

The reason that I use them is because Alison's setup approach produces a
much more forgiving car that gives me enough confidence to drive fast.

Cheers,
Richard

PS: Transfer her Ferrari setups to the Lotus and you have a dream of a car
that is capable of running with all but the very fastest drivers ;-)

Can't vouch for Greger's road course setup's but his oval setup's ROCK.

I took the oval setup's he has and moved them into all the GPL ovals.  
What fun.  It feels like my front wheels just dig into the corners with
my back end on the edge of adhesion.  Extremely fast.

In N3 without his setups I feel like Jeff Gordon without Ray Evernham ;)

I wish I knew enough about all this to figure out how to get my N3 cars
to handle like the Eagle with his GPL setup's on the ovals.  I'm really
not even sure if it's possible with the mediocre physics in N3 and all...

--David Cook

I personally love her Ferrari setups - on my Eagle!!!

I'm good at GPL, but not to the point where I really want to change the
setups much (if at all)...

Last night I raced online in a BRM/Coventry/Honda only game and used a BRM
with her setups...it was amazingly stable and not too slow (tho I'm not used
to having that many gears on a lever on the wrong side :) compared to the
Eagle with slightly (mostly gearing) modified Red Candy...

--
Kirk Lane


ICQ: 28171652
BRT #187

"Yeah you won't find me
I'm going MIA
Tonight I'm leaving
Going MIA
Getting lost in you again
Is better than being known"
                     -Foo Fighters, "MIA"

Oh, and another thing - depending on the track/setup, you CAN feel the
bumpstops hit.  Run Dega with a setup that purposely rides on the bumpstops
100% of the time (full stiff is the fastest setup I have right now...however
the setup degrades SEVERELY after lap 8 since the tires cook...goes into an
extreme push) and then try it again when dropping the bumpstops down a
little.  The car will start to go all over when it slams onto the stops the
first time - and it won't ever come off of them at Dega :)

--
Kirk Lane


ICQ: 28171652
BRT #187

"Yeah you won't find me
I'm going MIA
Tonight I'm leaving
Going MIA
Getting lost in you again
Is better than being known"
                     -Foo Fighters, "MIA"

A car that is easy to drive is not necessarily fast, in fact more
often than not the opposite is the case. For that reason people may
say a setup is "fundamentally flawed" when you consider that purpose
of a racecar is to lap as quickly as possible.

Generally the best way to do that is to set the car up to be as quick
as possible and for the driver to adapt his/her style to cope. Where
that is not possible the setup has to be backed off from the optimum
such that the driver can keep the car on the road, and the more
erratic or inexperienced the driver, the more the setups are backed
off.

I've never tried those setups of Alison's in question, but in general
I've found Alison's to be a nice compromise between out-and-out speed
and predictability. It's just that a setup can be described as
fundamentally flawed without necessarily being "bad", it just depends
on the driver.

Cheers!
John

: A car that is easy to drive is not necessarily fast, in fact more
: often than not the opposite is the case. For that reason people may
: say a setup is "fundamentally flawed" when you consider that purpose
: of a racecar is to lap as quickly as possible.

  (Grin) That's certainly true from my experience.  I'm not good enough
at GPL to muck about with set up yet.  But when I tried it, I spent ages
making a set up more and more comfortable.  Eventually I developed
something that was 2 seconds off my normal pace at Monza - but boy was I
consistent with it.

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
    www:  http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html