Another $0.02 on N4

Default setups -- Pushed so bad it was 10 laps before I could make a complete lap Setup options -- Not to sound like a lamer gamer, but this time, it almost seems like too much . . . esp. shock compression/rebound. When I bought my late model last year, the original owner took off the adjustable shocks and replaced them with non-adjustable saying "more people tweak themselves into the wall with these things" because of the complexity of getting all the settings just right. That's something I would rather not screw around with and I do NOT trust the papy default to get it right. The graphics are pretty but the only thing that has really improved is the crashes. Because of the terrible handling in the default setup, I ended up heading downhil straight toward to the infield at Dover. When the car came off the banking, the relpay showed the sparks from the chassis scraping the track. Nice touch, but does not appreciably improve the racing. Pull to the left. Realistic as hell. Look at the front straight at Indy at the end of the race . . . the rubber marks show that the cars always drift to the left (Arie Luyendyke says that when you are racing 500 miles, that is your only chance to relax by letting loosening your grip on the wheel). This should not be as much of a problem on short tracks like Bristol where you are always balancing centripetal force with track banking. Assessment. I bought the magazine, which was pretty expensive, to get the demo. No real regrets there, but don't expect to see me in line the first day N4 hits the shelves Uncle Joe _____________________ Complaints? Can't hear you over these engines! ______________________

"Diamondcutter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:3a2a6d50$0$30007$[email hidden]... > Default setups -- Pushed so bad it was 10 laps before I could make a > complete lap Sounds like you may have just been driving too hard into the turns, can't do that like we could in previous N- titles, which was unrealistic.

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> > Setup options -- Not to sound like a lamer gamer, but this time, it > almost seems like too much . . . esp. shock compression/rebound. When > I bought my late model last year, the original owner took off the > adjustable shocks and replaced them with non-adjustable saying "more > people tweak themselves into the wall with these things" because of > the complexity of getting all the settings just right. That's > something I would rather not screw around with and I do NOT trust the > papy default to get it right.

Yes, setting up a car is quite different now, and the setup jockeys surely will love all the tinkering. While I love to tinker, I am not very good at setting up a car, and prefer to spend more time driving, thank goodness there are teams and websites out there that make decent setups available for download.

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> > The graphics are pretty but the only thing that has really improved is > the crashes. Because of the terrible handling in the default setup, I > ended up heading downhil straight toward to the infield at Dover. > When the car came off the banking, the relpay showed the sparks from > the chassis scraping the track. Nice touch, but does not appreciably > improve the racing. >

I think the graphics are a huge improvement, just mho of course. I actually thought the default was pretty stable once you get used to how to drive these beasts.

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> Pull to the left. Realistic as hell. Look at the front straight at > Indy at the end of the race . . . the rubber marks show that the cars > always drift to the left (Arie Luyendyke says that when you are racing > 500 miles, that is your only chance to relax by letting loosening your > grip on the wheel). This should not be as much of a problem on short > tracks like Bristol where you are always balancing centripetal force > with track banking.

Agreed. > > Assessment. I bought the magazine, which was pretty expensive, to get > the demo. No real regrets there, but don't expect to see me in line > the first day N4 hits the shelves Certainly to each his own, -- Don Burnette Dburn in N3 and Legends ICQ# 74084566

Anybody remember the default setup that came with the original GPL demo 2 years ago? 'Nough said. You can "play" with the setup a bit. I use the "online help pop-up windows" (it may be annoying to most of you: I'm sure almost everybody turned that off (specially since most people dont read the readme.txt file)) to learn of the different effects. I've learned that changing the compression rate of the front shocks seems to help under braking at Dover. Diamondcutter wrote:

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> > Default setups -- Pushed so bad it was 10 laps before I could make a > complete lap > > Setup options -- Not to sound like a lamer gamer, but this time, it > almost seems like too much . . . esp. shock compression/rebound. When > I bought my late model last year, the original owner took off the > adjustable shocks and replaced them with non-adjustable saying "more > people tweak themselves into the wall with these things" because of > the complexity of getting all the settings just right. That's > something I would rather not screw around with and I do NOT trust the > papy default to get it right. > > The graphics are pretty but the only thing that has really improved is > the crashes. Because of the terrible handling in the default setup, I > ended up heading downhil straight toward to the infield at Dover. > When the car came off the banking, the relpay showed the sparks from > the chassis scraping the track. Nice touch, but does not appreciably > improve the racing. > > Pull to the left. Realistic as hell. Look at the front straight at > Indy at the end of the race . . . the rubber marks show that the cars > always drift to the left (Arie Luyendyke says that when you are racing > 500 miles, that is your only chance to relax by letting loosening your > grip on the wheel). This should not be as much of a problem on short > tracks like Bristol where you are always balancing centripetal force > with track banking. > > Assessment. I bought the magazine, which was pretty expensive, to get > the demo. No real regrets there, but don't expect to see me in line > the first day N4 hits the shelves > > Uncle Joe > > _____________________ > Complaints? > Can't hear you over these engines! > ______________________

-- Philippe "Philster" Sergerie

On Sun, 03 Dec 2000 12:24:02 -0500, Philster <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>Anybody remember the default setup that came with the original GPL demo >2 years ago? 'Nough said. > >You can "play" with the setup a bit. I use the "online help pop-up >windows" (it may be annoying to most of you: I'm sure almost everybody >turned that off (specially since most people dont read the readme.txt >file)) to learn of the different effects. I've learned that changing the >compression rate of the front shocks seems to help under braking at >Dover.

After more time with the setups and the tracks, I agree with you 1) the popups are VERY useful and helped me a lot with the setups 2) shock adjustments were the most important change I made to the car and improved lap times significantly, especially when braking for the turns (but I am still saying "hello, mr. wall" in turn 1) 3) This is excellent training for setting up a real car 4) somebody PLEASE post setups for these tracks and also an update for the "Jan's Quickfix Guide" that I found at US Pits. -Diamondcutter > Diamondcutter N3, DTR user No. 32 Swiss Hutless/Yamaha 100 kart No. 45 Howe/Chevrolet late model _____________________ Complaints? Can't hear you over these engines! ______________________

On Sun, 03 Dec 2000 10:48:36 -0500, Diamondcutter <[email hidden]> wrote: >Pull to the left. Realistic as hell. Look at the front straight at >Indy at the end of the race . . . the rubber marks show that the cars >always drift to the left (Arie Luyendyke says that when you are racing >500 miles, that is your only chance to relax by letting loosening your >grip on the wheel). I've always heard that the drivers use that line (away from the wall down the straights) to reduce turbulence. They do the same thing on every lap of qualifying, too -- you wouldn't think they'd need to rest before ten miles would you? :) "But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

On Sun, 03 Dec 2000 10:48:36 -0500, Diamondcutter <[email hidden]> wrote:

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>Setup options -- Not to sound like a lamer gamer, but this time, it >almost seems like too much . . . esp. shock compression/rebound. When >I bought my late model last year, the original owner took off the >adjustable shocks and replaced them with non-adjustable saying "more >people tweak themselves into the wall with these things" because of >the complexity of getting all the settings just right. That's >something I would rather not screw around with and I do NOT trust the >papy default to get it right. >

You don't sound lame, but, like it or not, shock adjustments are critical in Winston Cup these days. Can you imagine the flaming Papyrus would get for leaving them out? It's just not an option for them. Set 'em in the middle if you want, that's what you would have gotten in a game w/o adjustments. I would have some concern about buying the late model from that guy, his lack of sophistication may bite somewhere else :-).

> You don't sound lame, but, like it or not, shock adjustments > are critical in Winston Cup these days. Can you imagine the flaming > Papyrus would get for leaving them out? It's just not an option for > them. Set 'em in the middle if you want, that's what you would have > gotten in a game w/o adjustments. > If you get ESPN 2 they "used" to show the last practice before the race, it was called Happy hour. Most of the practice was shock work, They had one hour to run some laps, pit, swap out the shocks in the garage, run some laps, pit, swap out the shocks in the garage etc. Til they got what they felt was the best setup. (you'd be suprised how quickly they can change those things.) And THIS is also why we should have access to the garages in ANY nascar sim. We should be able to drive to and from the garage "just like" they do in real racing...{especially if we get wrecked[never do we cause our own damage right?] we can run to the garage and salvage a few hundred laps possibly pick up an extra 3 points or so...) \\ Sentence within a sentence, within a sentence, no extra charge \\ dave henrie

The other issue is that due to stagger, the cars really DO pull to the left . . . therefore, when you let up on the wheel, you are reducing rolling friction and getting your max speed out of the car. That's why N3 lets us know about increasint the rolling resistance with the skidding sound. Tintops don't seem to mind being near the wall but the aerodramatics of the open wheel cars are more sensitive to the turbulence. -Diamondcutter On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 01:04:56 GMT, [email hidden] (Jeff Vincent) wrote:

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>On Sun, 03 Dec 2000 10:48:36 -0500, Diamondcutter ><[email hidden]> wrote: > >>Pull to the left. Realistic as hell. Look at the front straight at >>Indy at the end of the race . . . the rubber marks show that the cars >>always drift to the left (Arie Luyendyke says that when you are racing >>500 miles, that is your only chance to relax by letting loosening your >>grip on the wheel). > > I've always heard that the drivers use that line (away from the >wall down the straights) to reduce turbulence. They do the same thing >on every lap of qualifying, too -- you wouldn't think they'd need to >rest before ten miles would you? :) > >"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was >nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into >a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

Diamondcutter N3, DTR user No. 32 Swiss Hutless/Yamaha 100 kart No. 45 Howe/Chevrolet late model _____________________ Complaints? Can't hear you over these engines! ______________________

>We should be able to drive to and from the garage "just like" they do >in real racing...{especially if we get wrecked[never do we cause our own >damage right?] we can run to the garage and salvage a few hundred laps >possibly pick up an extra 3 points or so...) I always wanted a garage, too. In real life, when the car breaks down, you don't always start smoking, pull it into the pits and get "No, that's it. It can't be fixed." They get it into the garage(a lot of the time it doesn't die all the way) and they go at it. I've also always thought Victory Lanes would be pretty cool too - when I'm done with my races I generally like to do some donuts and a victory lap or two. Why not have a victory lane for me?.