Bitter Sweet Red Candy?

In an attempt to become "Ride Height Compliant" for the upcoming GPL 1.1 patch, I have tried out Alison's Ferrari setups, and I am struggling with them. First I tried out the Monza setup. Following her recomended warm up laps, I found that the setup pushed so bad that I could not drive anything close to a competitive lap. Next I tried Silverstone. I tried the neutral setup, and again the car pushes. So I tried the loose setup, and after a few laps I could allmost go fast, but I still can't seem to apply throttle to steer the car, the nose just seems to washout of the turn. I adjusted my steering ratio and linearity slider to find something that resembled responsiveness, and I just can't seem to get the car drift through a turn. The best I can do is approach a turn, brake and coast through, then get back on the gas when I have enough straight stay on the track. If I try to trail-brake, the car snaps out. I find that the window of throttle position to pitch the car through a turn is far too narrow for my taste. This Ferrari is more work to drive than my Lotus, and thats saying something. I am open to any input on how to get this car to perform. It must be something I'm doing wrong.

Sounds as though you are of the same opinion as myself. I can only surmise that for stability in Allison's set-ups, the trade off is lack of front end grip and understeer. I believe that Alison has done an excellent job with all of her set-ups.They have certainly got a lot of people up to reasonable speed and provide a good base to work from. However, I also think there comes a point where you simply have to break loose and start thinking of developing set-ups to suit your own style. Personally, I can handle (and prefer) all the front end grip I can get and controlling oversteer is not a problem to me. Having said that, I have given some of my set-ups to other people who have reported back, saying that they were difficult to control, to the point of being undriveable. There is no such thing as a magic or perfect set-up. Compromises are always necessary and It all comes down to personal preference at the end of the day Mark

I only got a chance to run about 5 laps and was within about .75 seconds of ALison's best lap at Monza. But yes, I did notice some push to them and you can really tell the setup has some push if you transfer it over and run it in an Eagle (in her article she stated that very similar setup (and I would think it would be minus tran setup. :?) worked with the Eagle...). Reread the article in regards to trail-braking. She said she specifically designed these setups not to have to trail-brake, and that maybe why the car snaps out like that. From what I was able to get the time to try them out, these setups need to be driven SMOOOOOOOTH, not pitched through every corner in a 4 wheel slide :) Probably not, different driving styles.

First, I have to concur that Alison is probably single-handedly responsible for getting more people up to a reasonable speed in GPL than any other person I can think of. Her Coventry setups were responsible for getting me past the "pitching the car off the track EVERY LAP" wall, and for that, she has my undying gratitude. I recently "graduated" to the Lotus, mostly running Doug Arnao's setups (no low-riders), and have bettered my personal best times at the Glen (about 1s quicker than the Cov), Monza (almost 3s quicker), and Spa (almost 4s quicker), so I was curious about the new Ferrari setups. I put in about 40 laps at the Glen yesterday, and found the car very composed and smooth, particularly under hard acceleration. I didn't better my personal best (a 1:06.91), but was able to run comfortably in the 1:07-1:08 bracket consistently. The car is dramatically different from the Lotus - as has been said, this setup wants smoothness and composure, not theatrics. My Lotus hotlaps are much more dramatic, but not much quicker, and I'm pretty sure I can get down to my Lotus times without too much difficulty (I'm less than .5s off at this point). What's interesting is that I think these setups point pretty directly at the complaints voiced over the last few days about the really quick laps being too dramatic and untidy compared to "reality". I think what we might find is that, with the cars set up more like their real-life counterparts (and Alison's Ferrari is probably the first setup that consciously tries to emulate "real-life" setups), they demand more smoothness to be driven quickly, and all of the "tail-happy" speed we've been seeing is really a relic of the flawed setup theory that most of us have been working with since the game's release. For me, the Ferrari has (so far) produced its speed in a much smoother, realistic fashion than the Lotus I'd been driving, and I'm curious to see if this holds true as I test the theory a bit more. Rick

Hello Doc; Your detailed explaination just about parallels with mine using Alison's Ferrari setups! Usually I've had tremendous success with all Alison's setups but not these! I thought it was only me but now your post tells me I am not the only one! One thing though I rarely run the Ferrari. My cars of choice now are Lotus & Honda. I use to run Eagle alot too but Ive stopped for now! Maybe it is my driving style is way off for Alison's Ferrari setups?? I hope you get many good solutions to your post Cheers Thom_j.

: What's interesting is that I think these setups point pretty directly at the : complaints voiced over the last few days about the really quick laps being : too dramatic and untidy compared to "reality". I think what we might find : is that, with the cars set up more like their real-life counterparts (and : Alison's Ferrari is probably the first setup that consciously tries to : emulate "real-life" setups), they demand more smoothness to be driven : quickly, and all of the "tail-happy" speed we've been seeing is really a : relic of the flawed setup theory that most of us have been working with : since the game's release. As chief "whinger" about this I would be majorly impressed if that turned out to be the case. I'm really looking forward to heading home and giving those Ferrari set ups a go. By the way, I hope that nobody misinterprets my remarks - I think that GPL is a great sim - a marvellous piece of work. I do worry that, amongst other things, if, for whatever reason, GPL is harder to drive than is realistic then it will prevent other people developing racing sims of comparable depth. -- Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York. www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

> In an attempt to become "Ride Height Compliant" for the upcoming GPL 1.1 > patch, I have tried out Alison's Ferrari setups, and I am struggling with > them. [...] I aslo tried her setups and found them very good, but not suiting my style at all (I must be one of the oversteer junkies she mentioned). I took her Spa setup - and the car understeers way to much ... nevertheless it was controllable, but only by backing of and applying less throttle. But I managed to drive a new personal best in the fifth lap ... Next I tried to apply the suggestions of AH in order to get more oversteer - it did improve the situation, but by far not enough. So I my old 'low-ride-height'-setup for Spa and started to adopt it ... Driving a short race, I was within 0.2 secs of my new personal best ... So I will try to alter my setups to AH suggestions (especially ride-height) in a step-by-step, trying to do so without changing the behavior of the car ... TAL -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A-8223 Stubenberg, Vockenberg 108; Styria - Austria - Europe ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Alison's setups have too much understeer for me also. I fix it in the following manor; Go up one step on the rear sway bar. reduce toe in on front to 0 or -.25 at Monza add one clutch to the differential This makes a really big difference. This should get you close, then do a lot of testing by changing only one setting at a time. buzard

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> In an attempt to become "Ride Height Compliant" for the upcoming GPL 1.1 > patch, I have tried out Alison's Ferrari setups, and I am struggling with > them. > First I tried out the Monza setup. Following her recomended warm up laps, I > found that the setup pushed so bad that I could not drive anything close to > a competitive lap. > Next I tried Silverstone. I tried the neutral setup, and again the car > pushes. So I tried the loose setup, and after a few laps I could allmost go > fast, but I still can't seem to apply throttle to steer the car, the nose > just seems to washout of the turn. I adjusted my steering ratio and > linearity slider to find something that resembled responsiveness, and I just > can't seem to get the car drift through a turn. The best I can do is > approach a turn, brake and coast through, then get back on the gas when I > have enough straight stay on the track. If I try to trail-brake, the car > snaps out. I find that the window of throttle position to pitch the car > through a turn is far too narrow for my taste. This Ferrari is more work to > drive than my Lotus, and thats saying something. > I am open to any input on how to get this car to perform. It must be > something I'm doing wrong.

Adding more clutches to the diff will result in a more pushy car, which does nothing to create more oversteer, in fact it will add to your problems if you are allready suffering understeering tendencies. As the rear wheels are locked tighter together, they will tend to try and push the car forward, rather than allowing the outside wheel to turn at a higher rate than the inside wheel. This helps promote understeer. Cheers, Ron

On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 00:33:38 -0700, "5th Doctor" >I am open to any input on how to get this car to perform. It must be >something I'm doing wrong. The only thing you are doing wrong is expecting someone else's setup to fit you like a glove - it generally won't. Thus far you have been driving a low-rider Lotus with your own setup, and you are changing to a standard ride-height Ferrari developed by someone else. Your driving style has been developed to hustle that Lotus around the track as quickly as possible, so it's no surprise that the Ferrari will sometimes resist your intentions. FWIW I also tried Alison's setups over the weekend, and while I set a personal best at Watkins Glen after about 15 laps, at Silverstone I struggled to get around at all. I think the important thing to take from Alison's setups is the _concepts_ introduced, not to expect a tailor made car. Then, using the supplied file as the raw stone, you can sculpt and hone the setups to suit your own style. One other thing which may be important is that GPL setups, of necessity, have been developed to be fast "out of the box". Races are typically short, with little or no warm up time and race are lost in the first few corners. For that reason setups generally don't care about tire temps beyond the basics. Alison's setups I have found to perform MUCH better when properly warmed up, and indeed the Ferrari was sweeeeeeet around Watkins Glen, very sweet indeed. Cheers! John

what time at the glen with alisons ferrari setups ? McKafre De La Rosa

I've found that lower ramp angles promote oversteer. Ben

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> Adding more clutches to the diff will result in a more pushy car, which > does nothing to create more oversteer, in fact it will add to your > problems if you are allready suffering understeering tendencies. > As the rear wheels are locked tighter together, they will tend to try > and push the car forward, rather than allowing the outside wheel to > turn at a higher rate than the inside wheel. > This helps promote understeer. > Cheers, > Ron > > Alison's setups have too much understeer for me also. I fix it in > > the following manor; > > Go up one step on the rear sway bar. > > reduce toe in on front to 0 or -.25 > > at Monza add one clutch to the differential > > This makes a really big difference. This should get you close, > > then do a lot of testing by changing only one setting at a time. > > buzard

Where do I meet her, or where can I get the setups :) I need this! -Larry > First, I have to concur that Alison is probably single-handedly responsible > for getting more people up to a reasonable speed in GPL than any other > person I can think of. Her Coventry setups were responsible for getting me > past the "pitching the car off the track EVERY LAP" wall, and for that, she > has my undying gratitude.

On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 12:36:39 +0200, "McKafre" >what time at the glen with alisons ferrari setups ? 1:05.5x - I can check tonight and tell you exactly if you like. That was "out the box", completely unmodified. Cheers! John

On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 00:33:38 -0700, "5th Doctor"

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>In an attempt to become "Ride Height Compliant" for the upcoming GPL 1.1 >patch, I have tried out Alison's Ferrari setups, and I am struggling with >them. >First I tried out the Monza setup. Following her recomended warm up laps, I >found that the setup pushed so bad that I could not drive anything close to >a competitive lap. >Next I tried Silverstone. I tried the neutral setup, and again the car >pushes. So I tried the loose setup, and after a few laps I could allmost go >fast, but I still can't seem to apply throttle to steer the car, the nose >just seems to washout of the turn. I adjusted my steering ratio and >linearity slider to find something that resembled responsiveness, and I just >can't seem to get the car drift through a turn. The best I can do is >approach a turn, brake and coast through, then get back on the gas when I >have enough straight stay on the track. If I try to trail-brake, the car >snaps out. I find that the window of throttle position to pitch the car >through a turn is far too narrow for my taste. This Ferrari is more work to >drive than my Lotus, and thats saying something. >I am open to any input on how to get this car to perform. It must be >something I'm doing wrong.

Sounds familiar to me as well, even though I believe I have setups that understeer more than most other top drivers. I have tried a few of her ferrari setups, and have found them to be highly understeery. Not that this is a problem, it just means that the car is easier to drive, but not as fast as it could be. And that's the whole aim of her setups. Driveability. Most ppl like my setups, but as with any low-rider, they have a fine line between in control and out of control. Alison's setups however suit many, _many_, more drivers than any of the hotlap setups currently available. To answer your question, to get alison's ferrari setup to perform better for your style, the first thing to do is adjust the tyre pressures. They are the primary reason why the car understeers. Alison runs a 3psi difference between front and back. Lower this to a 2 or 1 difference and it would probably suit you better. (i.e. lower rear psi 1 or 2 clicks) As for the trail braking snap oversteer thing. I think it's something to do with the fact that the ferrari has alot of weight in the rear, and is thus harder to trailbrake than the lotus. I've yet to find a ferrari setup that doesn't get rid of the snap oversteer. Now I have a question for everyone <EG> Alison's setups have spring rates set to max on most setups, does this class them as "unrealistic" in terms of 1967 gp cars? Food for though ;) Ian Lake /\ 1m27s27 monza,3m14s77 spa, with a 2.5inch setup, set in races :) /\

<Let's see if I can apply what I learned from Carroll Smith's book> In a turn, the outside wheel has to rotate faster than the inside wheel. More clutches will create more corner entry "push" because the tires are locked more tightly and will resist the car in turning. (tires are rotating at same speed) But this may create more corner exit oversteer as both wheels want to break loose together. The lower the ramp angle, the quicker the wheels lock together. Here, what I think I learned from the books doesn't relate to what I see in everyones setups. What I thought I read: Keep the coast side angles high (85) and the power side lower, this will stop snap oversteer under braking and use both rears for accel. What I see: People running 85/45 for their power/coast settings. Sheesh, could it be any more different?!?! Can anyone shed some light on this? I am going to go home and, first, re-read that section and then try out what I learned. Chris

: <Let's see if I can apply what I learned from Carroll Smith's book> : In a turn, the outside wheel has to rotate faster than the inside wheel. : More clutches will create more corner entry "push" because the tires are : locked more tightly and will resist the car in turning. (tires are rotating : at same speed) But this may create more corner exit oversteer as both : wheels want to break loose together. Wouldn't corner exit oversteer occur more ***ly if one wheel broke loose and the other gave traction (that sounds like a recipe to whizz you off to one side or the other). I may be wrong of course... just a guess. -- Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York. www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

No, the non-spinning wheel provides ?lateral? traction, when both tires break loose there is effectively no traction to control the direction of the car. You just aren't going anywhere because neither tire is providing forward accel. Same thing for lockups, ever drive in the snow? I can't count the number of times that I have slid straight through an intersection when trying to turn in the snow. I also remember my father talking about his Covette that had posi-traction, It was great until both tires broke loose and then it all went to hell. I had a Mustang that didn't have a posi rear-end, I could sit there and burn the one tire right off the thing... Chris

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> Wouldn't corner exit oversteer occur more ***ly if one wheel broke >loose and the other gave traction (that sounds like a recipe to whizz >you off to one side or the other). I may be wrong of course... just a >guess. >-- >Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving >Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York. >www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

>First, I have to concur that Alison is probably single-handedly responsible >for getting more people up to a reasonable speed in GPL than any other >person I can think of. Her Coventry setups were responsible for getting me >past the "pitching the car off the track EVERY LAP" wall, and for that, she >has my undying gratitude. Alisons setups are just ok for me. Wolfis Lotus setup has been my favorite. K.S. Br?nnick

But that's the point - Wolfi's Lotus setup is a "low-rider", and thus out with 1.1. Alison's new Ferrari setups go the other way, actually raising the ride height to keep the suspension off the bump ***s.

Yeah, I agree here. I tried her setups at Zandvoort, Rouen and Silverstone. Silverstone's neutral setup was good for me but at Zandvoort and Rouen the car was pushing just too much. Also with the 'loose' setup at Silverstone I was heating up the rear tyres too much and after few laps the car was too unstable. Nice. :) I did pretty much testing at Rouen with 2.5 inch ride heights / Lotus. As always, the car was understeering more and it was really hard to get rid of that. I tried almost everything but I was struggling with high 54's and a best lap of 1:54.57 until I changed the steering ratio. After that, I immediately improved my time to 1:54.33, which is exactly 0.4secs of my PB with a lowrider setup. I don't really enjoy how the car's working with 2.5 inch ride height. Just too much understeer. Sure, the car feels more 'smooth' and better when accelerating but when you enter a corner it just pushes. And one thing more, I don't know if I'm imagining it but the car feels more nervous when braking. Frustrating. :) -- Greger Huttu

I think what I worry about is that perhaps you may be "not seeing the fish for the ocean" IMHO GPL does such a great job *overall* approximating what it could be like to race a 1967 F1 car that it seems like a lot of wasted effort to pick apart things like the visual representation of the turn-in angles of the simulated cars versus real-life ones, especially because many of these things can never be proved or disproved since most of us have never driven (or will ever drive) a real 1967 F1 car to compare. Also this is a *simulation* not the real thing, so it shares all the common limitations of simulators -vs- real-life, i.e. we drive without the danger or fear of a deadly crash unlike those 1967 F1 drivers, and we are also deprived of the sensory input of real-life driving which would make it easier to drive these cars realistically through the corners by feeling the car reactions through our body instead of a shaking wheel or tire squeal sound. I think no matter how good the simulation, it will always pale in comparison to it's real life counterpart, and while I do tend to agree with you that perhaps the GPL cars may be harder to drive than the real life '67 cars, I think this is partly due to the inability of *any* simulation to simulate completely the actual sensory inputs of driving a real life car. Personally most of the time in GPL I'm having so much fun chasing down other VROC online racers around the Nurburgring in my Ferrari that I don't have the time (or the desire) to put every little feature under the microscope comparing it with real-life (which it can never match). I'm just happy that GPL online racing is as much fun as it is and that we have this beautiful simulated monster track to race on :-) Wondering if you've given VROC a try yet? if not you owe to yourself to try, and if so, I hope to seeyas on the track soon. --John (Joao) Silva

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> As chief "whinger" about this I would be majorly impressed if that >turned out to be the case. I'm really looking forward to heading home >and giving those Ferrari set ups a go. > By the way, I hope that nobody misinterprets my remarks - I think that >GPL is a great sim - a marvellous piece of work. I do worry that, >amongst other things, if, for whatever reason, GPL is harder to drive >than is realistic then it will prevent other people developing racing >sims of comparable depth. >-- >Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving >Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York. >www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

It might not be right but it works for me! Add/decrease clutches to your own taste. buzard

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> Adding more clutches to the diff will result in a more pushy car, which > does nothing to create more oversteer, in fact it will add to your > problems if you are allready suffering understeering tendencies. > As the rear wheels are locked tighter together, they will tend to try > and push the car forward, rather than allowing the outside wheel to > turn at a higher rate than the inside wheel. > This helps promote understeer. > Cheers, > Ron > > Alison's setups have too much understeer for me also. I fix it in > > the following manor; > > Go up one step on the rear sway bar. > > reduce toe in on front to 0 or -.25 > > at Monza add one clutch to the differential > > This makes a really big difference. This should get you close, > > then do a lot of testing by changing only one setting at a time. > > buzard

Richard, Papyrus could have taken steps to ensure that the ride heights (for one) and the plethora of unrealistic suspension settings (for two) were limited to what was actually "reality" back in the era represented by GPL. I voiced my opinion on this back when the sim was first released and it is heartening to see that others are recognising the fact that fast times are one thing, but the representation of "what was" is entirely another. The ride heights are *STILL* too low and should be limited to a minimum of 4 inches: even at the flattest, smoothest circuits (and "smooth" is relative.....modern F1 cars would grind their planks away on every one of these circuits!) the ride heights were never lower than 4 inches. -- Best regards, Bruce. ====== The Stunned Mullet........seriously satirical stuff! http://welcome.to/the_stunned_mullet =============================================== >: What's interesting is that I think these setups point pretty directly at the >: complaints voiced over the last few days about the really quick laps being >: too dramatic and untidy compared to "reality". I think what we might find >: is that, with the cars set up more like their real-life counterparts (and >: Alison's Ferrari is probably the first setup that consciously tries to >: emulate "real-life" setups), they demand more smoothness to be driven >: quickly, and all of the "tail-happy" speed we've been seeing is really a >: relic of the flawed setup theory that most of us have been working with >: since the game's release. > As chief "whinger" about this I would be majorly impressed if that >turned out to be the case. I'm really looking forward to heading home >and giving those Ferrari set ups a go. > By the way, I hope that nobody misinterprets my remarks - I think that >GPL is a great sim - a marvellous piece of work. I do worry that, >amongst other things, if, for whatever reason, GPL is harder to drive >than is realistic then it will prevent other people developing racing >sims of comparable depth. >-- >Richard G. Clegg Only the mind is waving >Dept. of Mathematics (Network Control group) Uni. of York. >www: http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html