rec.autos.simulators

Monaco was my worst track (in terms of percentage versus refererence
time), but now down to 1:28.76 (not quite a sub 99%). Kyalami will
be next.

How does overall spring / shocks stiffness affect the cars in GPL?
I've been typically using 120/90, and Alison Hines setups are even
stiffer (but outside the range of what the game allows). What setups
do you recommend?

I'm using two joysticks (left for throttle/brake, right to steer),
which so far seems to be ok for me (and I've read that there are
a couple of real fast GPL players using joysticks). I have a momo
racing wheel and pedals, but it's a hassle to setup.

Setups is a bit of a personal prefernce, but at Monaco I'd run much softer,
something like 60/80 (front/rear). Is your 120/90 front/rear or rear/front?
At the Ring I run a bit stiffer, perhaps 80/100 (exact setting will depend
on car), at the 'Ring there's a bottom out issue to deal with, so you may
want to run a bit stiffer than you would otherwise. Generally, shocks and
dampers affect the car a lot in GPL. Spring stiffness is usually set for
the track, and most drivers will have similar stiffness, but damper
settings are very much individual. In most cases you'd set them to balance
the car the way you like at the corner entry and at the exit. It is related
with your differrential settings and toe-in/toe-out.

Generally, there're 2 schools of thought. Some drivers prefer to have
baseline setup and use it everywhere with minor modifications and other
drivers run very different setups on different tracks. I am more of the
latter, I have 4 different types of setups. If you're looking for setup
collections, check GPL ***s: http://gpl***s.speedgeezers.com/
If BRM is your car of choice I strongly recomend Michiel's Pompert who is a
renown BRM master. For all other cars I usually try Paul Jackson's setups
if I don't have my own. But you can try setups from other guys there too,
you may find them more suitable to your style. Though when I was starting
GPL I was struggling at first even at Monza, but then I've found Wolfgang
Woeger's setups and suddenly the car was handling nicely and I've quickly
beaten all benchmarks using his setups. In fact, I was using mostly his
setups until I got into -30 or -40 range.

Alex.

Huttu is an alien, I find his GH2 setups virtually undriveable (not because
of springs but general instability - you need to be an alien to go fast
with those setups :>)

Alex.

The GH setups were just an example. It seems that most of
the later setups used stiffer spring settings.

I actually quite like Huttu's setups.  Of all the aliens, I find his  
setups to be the most drivable for me.

And after that everybody switched to super stiff suspensions because it
was faster.

I can presume that this was the reason for Greger to switch to stiff
suspensions as wel..

---A---

What's the issue with this curve?

That's first time I hear about it. I'm checking collection of GH setups,
his original one (GH1) are marked GH and the new ones GH2. Are we talking
about the same GH [=Greger Huttu]? They are 60/75 at Monaco, GH2 is 60/80.
At Silverstone, GH1 is 80/90, GH2 is 70/80. At Kyalami GH1 is 85/100, GH2
is 80/75. With stiff suspension you lose traction, but gain faster
response. So the alien tendency seems to be to go softer and deal with
unresponsive car. I don't know if realistically you're supposed to lose
even more traction. In any case, different stiffness is optimal for
different tracks.

Something is definitely wrong in GPL tyre model. Try to slam the brakes in
the middle of Monza straight and wait until the car stops. Save replay and
look in replay analyser from what speed you've stopped and how long did it
take you. Then you can easily calculate friction coefficient of tyres.
AFAIR, it comes to something around 1.2, which is similar to
characteristics of modern slicks and probably too much for '67 tyres. At
least it's definitely not compatible with tyre durability.

Alex.

Sorry, I picked the wrong example, it seems that other, later setups
used stiffer springs. Alison's are very high, over 150. I haven't
tried them though. Will take your advice and try softer springs.

I usually set swaybars around 160/160 or 170/170 for the Lotus,
should I try softer, like 150/150?

How sticky the tires are depends on the weight of the car. In the
case of Caterhams, Formula Vee's, Formula Fords, ..., the bias ply
racing slicks for these cars allow them to pull around 1.4 to 1.5gs in
corners, and I assume braking g forces are a bit higher. At around 1500 lbs,
the 1967 F1's should have been able to use fairly sticky soft compound
bias ply racing slicks, 1.2 doesn't seem like too much to me.

Bias ply racing slicks have a characteristic that grip barely lowers
when exceeding the limits, they are very forgiving tires. This is why
they are still very popular on non-downforce racing cars. You can
still spin, but the tires really let you push the limits much more
than a standard (non-racing) radial tire would allow. If you look at
the slip angle / force curve of a bias ply slick, after the peak force,
the curve is almost horizontal. With a conventional radial tire, the
curve drops off significantly beyond peak force. Racing radials are
designed to have less of this drop off in grip, but it's still there.
The bias ply tires need more slip angle, and this isn't good for
a downforce car, since a slip angle of around 5 degrees means that
the aerodynamic drag is also pulling the car outwards when turning.
The radial racing tires max out around 2 degrees of slip angle
(maybe 3, will have to do another web search on this again).

I think Alison's setups are mostly targeted for novices. I don't know any
fast driver who is using them. I know only one reason to run very stiff
setup (120+) - that is if you expect to jump a lot. But there aren't that
many tracks that require it. It was a useful method in GPLRallies though.

Either sounds reasonable. I usually run something within 130-180 range,
depending on the track. You use front/rear ratio to adjust the car balance
in a long corners.

Alex.