Ballast: simple question. (hopefully)

  • Thread starter Negrumir
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Negrumir

Negrumir

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Negrumir
I love that they added ballast to the game, it's one of the things I think was missing. But uh...
There's no explanation for positioning. My question is this.

The rather uninformative -50 - +50 slider for ballast positioning does not tell me which is front and rear. I assume that negative (left on the slider) is toward the front and positive (right) is the rear.

Is this correct?
 
TheFlyingKiwi
Yup - is forward. + Is rear. Tip for next time read the help. =).
Click to expand...

What, the in game one? I hit the yellow [?] icon and don't recall seeing anything about which was what. It only said how ballast was good for fitting in weight restrictions.

Anyway, thanks. Mainly needed confirmation.
 
For anyone searching ... Ballast is best at the front for FF, at the rear if an FR spins wheels easily (otherwise over the front) & in the middle / slightly forward for an MR.

For a nicely balanced car I've started to put 5Kg of ballast at -50 (front bumper) to aid turn in.

For cars that lock the rear under braking (the no ABS way) I put about 10-20Kg at about -35,-40 to keep some weight on the rear wheels so they don't lock up as easy.

I think the above is about right, feel free to correct me though :)
 
although I agree a bit about the above mentioned the truth is that all of those attributes are much better achieved through suspension settings and that in almost all instances race car manufactures attempt to achieve a true 50/50 balance and that it is my understanding that F1 moves ballasts towards the rear middle if rain is expected.

So what I find EXTREMELY unfortunate is that they do not have a weight distribution display that I can find. Which also sucks since you would expect weight reduction to have an uneven effect on balance for example a 60/40 car before removed 300kg isn't going to be 60/40 after removing 300kg since it isn't going to come off evenly also by adding a carbon fiber hood it is going to change the balance very slightly so why don't we have a system in place to tell us the weight distribution.

I actually wanted this before the ballasts where available since the way you set the springs and sometimes the dampers is based off of weight distribution at first and then adjusting the front or rear to change characteristics.

So anyways my point is PD needs to pick up a copy Forza 3 which even though they have years less experience than PD it seems they are nailing it in the easy parts (career mode, mods, saving mod set ups, and so much more) where the only thing PD is doing a good job is the hard part which is the game engine/physics engine.
 
I wanted to use the ballast to overcome some mid-engined cars' understeer caused by their lack of weight in the front, doesn't seem to work.
 
defaultoasis
I wanted to use the ballast to overcome some mid-engined cars' understeer caused by their lack of weight in the front, doesn't seem to work.
Click to expand...

You could try putting it in the back, then close the throttle. Depending upon the car set up more weight in the rear will induce understeer when opening the throttle, and the opposite when closing it in theory, if i remember correctly. Then again i'm not the best at setting up cars, but i'd at least try it. That or you could try making the suspension a bit stiffer in the front.
 
We need a displayed value in order to quickly and exactly determine the car weight distribution in that screen. Then, adding ballast will become truly useful.
 

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