Does the pp system work?

Does the pp system work?

  • Yes, I think it works perfectly. I have no issues with it.

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Not perfectly, but to me it works well enough to be usable despite it's flaws.

    Votes: 37 53.6%
  • I'm not really sure, so I have no opinion on it.

    Votes: 5 7.2%
  • Sort of, but it doesn't work well enough for me to use it.

    Votes: 11 15.9%
  • No, I don't think it works at all. It has too many flaws.

    Votes: 15 21.7%

  • Total voters
    69
92
United States
United States
RedSwordfishGAME
We all know that the pp number is essentially supposed to represent the overall performance level of a car. Sounds good, but I've witnessed several debates about whether or not the system actually works. So what do you think?
 
Nope, doesn't work at all. I always had my doubts but then one day...

I was cruising around in my Mazda Kusabi on Sierra a couple weeks after it came out. Just a nice cruise around, rarely getting to 100 MPH. My Kusabi (FF drivetrain) had 526 PP, SS tires, 289 HP, 791 KG. A Viper flew past me and then slowed way down to wait for me. He wanted to race so I said I'd race but I'd probably lose. We started on a straight and he took off but in the corners I passed him every time. I eventually outran him and went back to the pits to check the stats for his car. What I saw changed my mind about this PP system forever... 650+ PP, 1100+ HP, around 1250 KG and RS tires... I quit playing GT6 for a few days after seeing that.

So, you tell me. Does this PP system seem like it works? Because from what I've seen it's just a random number that means absolutely nothing.
 
Nope, doesn't work at all. I always had my doubts but then one day...

I was cruising around in my Mazda Kusabi on Sierra a couple weeks after it came out. Just a nice cruise around, rarely getting to 100. My Kusabi (FF drivetrain) had 526 PP, SS tires, 289 HP, 791 KG. A Viper flew past me and then slowed way down to wait for me. He wanted to race so I said I'd race but I'd probably lose. We started on a straight and he took off but in the corners I passed him every time. I eventually outran him and went back to the pits to check the stats for his car. What I saw changed my mind about this PP system forever... 650+ PP, 1100+ HP, around 1250 KG and RS tires... I quit playing GT6 for a few days.

So, you tell me. Does this PP system seem like it works? Because from what I've seen it's just a random number that means absolutely nothing.
If the guy driving the Viper had been taking the car to it's limit, I'm pretty sure he would have left you very far behind. I don't know if he was going slow on purpose or just driving poorly, but I wouldn't necessarily attribute the outcome of that race to the pp system. A 650pp Viper on RS should be quite a bit faster than a 526pp Kusabi on SS...
 
If the guy driving the Viper had been taking the car to it's limit, I'm pretty sure he would have left you very far behind. I don't know if he was going slow on purpose or just driving poorly, but I wouldn't necessarily attribute the outcome of that race to the pp system. A 650pp Viper on RS should be quite a bit faster than a 526pp Kusabi on SS...
Well I'm not sure why he'd go slow and he didn't look like a bad driver at all. But yes, I agree, it should be faster but obviously wasn't there. I've had quite a few of these experiences though, not just that one.
 
Well I'm not sure why he'd go slow and he didn't look like a bad driver at all. But yes, I agree, it should be faster but obviously wasn't there. I've had quite a few of these experiences though, not just that one.
Well, that's very interesting.
 
In the process of testing my Kusabi (stats in the story) against a Viper GTS '02. RS, 652 PP, 1134 HP, 1225 KG. I honestly believe this viper would be faster with less power (which means a lower PP.)

Edit: Well, 45 minutes of testing later... Yes, the Viper is faster as should be expected but that still leaves us with the question... Why was I faster? I guess he might have just been going slow. But I was correct in thinking the Viper was faster with less HP. 1134 (652 PP) is a bit much to handle around a track for most. I took the supercharger off to get 988 HP (634 PP) and much more predictable control. Which in turn, made it faster.
 
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Different cars will never be equal. You have to take everything into consideration: Power, power-to-weight, drivetrain, power curve, gear ratios, aerodynamics, wheelbase and track, weight balance, downforce, suspension settings, brake balance, etc.

The pp system is just a rough estimation, providing a more detailed index than power alone, or power to weight.
 
The flaws in the PP system is actually what made some aspects of Shuffle racing in GT5 so good. Same goes for Tuning Prohibited racing in GT6.
 
In the process of testing my Kusabi (stats in the story) against a Viper GTS '02. RS, 652 PP, 1134 HP, 1225 KG. I honestly believe this viper would be faster with less power (which means a lower PP.)

Edit: Well, 45 minutes of testing later... Yes, the Viper is faster as should be expected but that still leaves us with the question... Why was I faster? I guess he might have just been going slow. But I was correct in thinking the Viper was faster with less HP. 1134 (652 PP) is a bit much to handle around a track for most. I took the supercharger off to get 988 HP (634 PP) and much more predictable control. Which in turn, made it faster.
He was a terrible driver, that's why you beat him. Terrible as in awful if he couldn't beat you in that car.

The PP system was a good start in GT5, problem is they never really refined it, nor paid any attention to the outliers. They should have been gathering feedback from the communinity and making adjustments to provide a more competitive mix of cars at the top of the pile. It seems more like a throwaway feature, never intended for serious racing, but more as a general guide.
 
One of the things that is taken into account by the physics engine but not by the PP system is tyre width, it makes a massive difference to performance on track but is not factored into the equation so therefore balancing is impossible. This comes up a lot when planning tuning contests, cars that seem otherwise identical are worlds apart in performance with no obvious reason why until you take them into photo mode and look at them closely. Without tuning options for altering tyre width the system will remain broken
 
One of the things that is taken into account by the physics engine but not by the PP system is tyre width, it makes a massive difference to performance on track but is not factored into the equation so therefore balancing is impossible. This comes up a lot when planning tuning contests, cars that seem otherwise identical are worlds apart in performance with no obvious reason why until you take them into photo mode and look at them closely. Without tuning options for altering tyre width the system will remain broken
The fact that they don't currently allow tire width changes and don't take tires into consideration in calculating PP should in fact make it more accurate, not less. Less variables = more accuracy.
 
It works in a way in which you can get to cars that drive similar to each other. The problem is that it doesn't calculate all possible variables that contribute to a cars performance. I think I read something on here where some one said that aerodynamics isn't calculated correctly. For example, The Red Bull X2014 Junior has 728 PP, which is way too high.
 
The fact that they don't currently allow tire width changes and don't take tires into consideration in calculating PP should in fact make it more accurate, not less. Less variables = more accuracy.
How do you figure?

If the tire width had no effect on performance then removing them from the equation would make it more accurate but because it does have an effect it needs to be taken into consideration for the system to be accurate. Either the tires need to be given equal min/max grip levels regardless of size or they need to be put into the ratings equation as a variable, can't just ignore your own physics and hope no one notices
 
Have a look at @SuzukaStar 's testing of hundreds of cars at multiple tracks. The results clearly show a good correlation of PP and equivalent lap times. Now for example 500pp normal cars on SH tires there is one "best" car, a first among equals, we all know what it is; while there are many other 500 PP cars that will give very similar performance and winning is more driver than car. PP works.
 
I had to go with no but really only for one reason. That reason would be the power limiter. If not for the power limiter the system would be fairly decent but given that you can take a higher powered car and flatten out the peak hp and torque with the power limiter causes a massive advantage to higher powered cars with low power limiter settings.

A 300 hp car may not reach 300hp until it gets to 6k or more rpms where as a 600hp car limited to 50% may reach 300hp at 3k rpms and sustain that 300hp to 9k rpms giving it a massive advantage over cars not using the power limiter. I have always felt they needed an option when setting up a online race to be able to limit how much limiter could be used or not allow it at all.
 
Have a look at @SuzukaStar 's testing of hundreds of cars at multiple tracks. The results clearly show a good correlation of PP and equivalent lap times. Now for example 500pp normal cars on SH tires there is one "best" car, a first among equals, we all know what it is; while there are many other 500 PP cars that will give very similar performance and winning is more driver than car. PP works.
Since you mentioned it, here is a sample of some cars from Suzuka. There are big variations in the PP levels of cars around relatively equal lap times. If the system worked well, there would be a minimal spread in PP in each of these three lists but as it turns out, not only is the spread fairly large, but you can always find a few outliers that are simply unbeatable in their PP ranges and those are the cars the are seen over and over in any open lobby with PP limits.
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Since you mentioned it, here is a sample of some cars from Suzuka. There are big variations in the PP levels of cars around relatively equal lap times. If the system worked well, there would be a minimal spread in PP in each of these three lists but as it turns out, not only is the spread fairly large, but you can always find a few outliers that are simply unbeatable in their PP ranges and those are the cars the are seen over and over in any open lobby with PP limits.
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If you plot the points on an x-y scatter chart as I did for the Suzuka results, check the thread, you can clearly see how close the pattern is, 2 seconds is not much out of 120 sec lap. If the scatter chart looked like a shotgun blast then I might agree PP is random. There's a good match but it doesn't have to be exact. There's a lot of good NFL QBs who can get similar ratings but only one Brady at a time.
 
If you plot the points on an x-y scatter chart as I did for the Suzuka results, check the thread, you can clearly see how close the pattern is, 2 seconds is not much out of 120 sec lap. If the scatter chart looked like a shotgun blast then I might agree PP is random. There's a good match but it doesn't have to be exact. There's a lot of good NFL QBs who can get similar ratings but only one Brady at a time.
Charts don't relate what happens on the track. 1 second in a two minute lap is an unbeatable gap between two drivers of similar skill. 2 seconds, forget about it. A good PP system would have a really large selection of cars within 1 second at most ordinary tracks in the game and that just isn't the case. The potential is there but it requires some manual tweaking of the system to work.
 
Charts don't relate what happens on the track. 1 second in a two minute lap is an unbeatable gap between two drivers of similar skill. 2 seconds, forget about it. A good PP system would have a really large selection of cars within 1 second at most ordinary tracks in the game and that just isn't the case. The potential is there but it requires some manual tweaking of the system to work.
Nice try, I see you are resisting the facts as presented. @suzuka Star's times are not absolutes, only representative of his test method and own abilities, his second may not be your second. Now if you don't think a Ferrari Italia and a Ford GT can have a close enough battle with two random drivers then so be it.
 
Nice try, I see you are resisting the facts as presented. @suzuka Star's times are not absolutes, only representative of his test method and own abilities, his second may not be your second. Now if you don't think a Ferrari Italia and a Ford GT can have a close enough battle with two random drivers then so be it.
You don't measure the accuracy of the PP system with two random drivers. Suzuka's skill level is quite high and I'd rely on his expertise, especially after thousands of laps at the same track on the same tires, to be able to put down consistent lap times for comparison. A single person running hundreds of laps is a perfect testbed for the system and to me anyway, it clearly shows that there are huge variations in PP levels around relatively close lap times.
 
The PP system has its flaws, but it can't possibly be perfect. I wish I could know how PD determines PP.

For example the go-karts have way too high of PP for how fast they are.
 
The PP system has its flaws, but it can't possibly be perfect. I wish I could know how PD determines PP.

For example the go-karts have way too high of PP for how fast they are.
As I see it, the PP system really breaks down with high grip and low weight. Combine the two like in the Elise 111R and you've got a world beater. The system also undervalues grip and overvalues horsepower. This is easy to see because it's all the high grip cars that excel at any given PP and the high HP cars usually suck. The PP system could use a big rewrite but I think it's nearly impossible to try and equalize so many cars.

We'd be far better off if large groups of cars were individually adjusted for closer performance, grouping around certain PP levels and the publication of a group of base settings that facilitate close racing. For example, a list of say 30-40 cars that can be tuned to 450 PP, with a given set of upgrades or detuning, and identical transmissions. This package could be available for purchase in the Garage for a fixed price for all cars and applied to the car in one shot and you're ready to go racing. Engine tuning would be relatively equal between the cars and the applied racing suspension would make the cars more equal in performance, while retaining individual characteristics of each chassis/drivetrain configuration. Sort of like Race Mod but more of a Race Mod Lite.
 
The aero issue in GT6 also lends a hand on how the PP is faulty, imho. Testing cars lap time against it's PP on high speed track like Midfield will only make the aero issue even more pronounced. Above 180kmh, most cars with no aero will have big advantage in acceleration and top speed, while cars with high base aero ( either fixed or adjustable ) will need to compensate in cornering. Tracks with more straight portion and high speed will favor cars with no aero but still have good power/weight ratio and mechanical grip. The PP system in GT6 disregard the aero, unlike in GT5 ( which have better aero drag than GT6 ).

A simple test, get the Amuse/Opera 350Z RS ( it has aero ) and Amuse 380RS SuperLeggera, drive them on high speed track and notice how both cars accelerate above 180kmh, now get the 350Z 2007, set the power and weight similar to both cars and do the same run, and notice how it accelerate at high speed, also make a note of how much PP the 350Z 2007 has ( with closest power/torque/weight )

PD needs to overhaul the PP system, I recently compared my R34 GTR replica build on both GT6 and GT5 ( ver 1.0 ) and the aero issue immediately apparent at high speed track. Tested R34 GTR in GT5 at La Sarthe 2009 no chicane for top speed and acceleration. The R34 GTR struggle above 180kmh and barely went over 270kmh top speed and took a long time to get there, and GT6 .... the R34 GTR pulls strongly above 200kmh, easily reach more than 10kmh higher top speed ( 280+ ) earlier/quicker. Both on same CS tire, same power/torque, same suspension/lsd/gear ratio, same weight and aero ( GT5 uses smaller number, GT6 multiplied GT5 value by 10 ) GT5 aero at 5 is similar to GT6 at 50.

Tsukuba would be better track for comparing cars as most road cars will not top around 160-180+ kmh at the long straight.
 
The aero issue in GT6 also lends a hand on how the PP is faulty, imho. Testing cars lap time against it's PP on high speed track like Midfield will only make the aero issue even more pronounced. Above 180kmh, most cars with no aero will have big advantage in acceleration and top speed, while cars with high base aero ( either fixed or adjustable ) will need to compensate in cornering. Tracks with more straight portion and high speed will favor cars with no aero but still have good power/weight ratio and mechanical grip. The PP system in GT6 disregard the aero, unlike in GT5 ( which have better aero drag than GT6 ).

A simple test, get the Amuse/Opera 350Z RS ( it has aero ) and Amuse 380RS SuperLeggera, drive them on high speed track and notice how both cars accelerate above 180kmh, now get the 350Z 2007, set the power and weight similar to both cars and do the same run, and notice how it accelerate at high speed, also make a note of how much PP the 350Z 2007 has ( with closest power/torque/weight )

PD needs to overhaul the PP system, I recently compared my R34 GTR replica build on both GT6 and GT5 ( ver 1.0 ) and the aero issue immediately apparent at high speed track. Tested R34 GTR in GT5 at La Sarthe 2009 no chicane for top speed and acceleration. The R34 GTR struggle above 180kmh and barely went over 270kmh top speed and took a long time to get there, and GT6 .... the R34 GTR pulls strongly above 200kmh, easily reach more than 10kmh higher top speed ( 280+ ) earlier/quicker. Both on same CS tire, same power/torque, same suspension/lsd/gear ratio, same weight and aero ( GT5 uses smaller number, GT6 multiplied GT5 value by 10 ) GT5 aero at 5 is similar to GT6 at 50.

Tsukuba would be better track for comparing cars as most road cars will not top around 160-180+ kmh at the long straight.
I thought the system worked much better when aero was part of the PP calculation.
 
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Here's a graph showing the relationship between PP and standing mile times, using the course maker mile track made by @eran0004. Since PP is primarily a HP/kg metric it's a pretty good and clear relationship. By the way real standing mile times are hard to find to verify against but the Course Maker result is very close to McLaren F1 for instance.

And, the regression formula for the above curve is :

seconds = 16216 * PP ^(-1.003)

Anyway, could be useful if you are in Texas, Mojave or Ohio for the next standing mile events.
 
Good graph, although it's not necessarily a power relationship. There's only a few points at the end that make it look that way, if those are outliers then it could just as easily be linear. Or it could be linear within each tyre type, and the different slopes make it look like a power curve.

Stunning work though, @Polsixe and @eran0004.

If I was Polyphony, I'd have an AI program to run something like this for every car, on every tyre type, for every combination of upgrades. We can see above that the correlation is pretty good, but there are definitely some cars that are significantly slower than their PP should seem to indicate. Being able to pick those out and hand tweak the PP would be very handy if you were Polyphony, and on a graph of every car in the game the outliers should stick out like a sore thumb.

Then there's the issue of cornering, which is trickier, but I definitely think that standing mile testing could be automated productively.
 
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Here's a graph showing the relationship between PP and standing mile times, using the course maker mile track made by @eran0004. Since PP is primarily a HP/kg metric it's a pretty good and clear relationship. By the way real standing mile times are hard to find to verify against but the Course Maker result is very close to McLaren F1 for instance.

And, the regression formula for the above curve is :

seconds = 16216 * PP ^(-1.003)

Anyway, could be useful if you are in Texas, Mojave or Ohio for the next standing mile events.
The scale and size of the dots is deceiving. I can see gaps of what looks like 4-5 seconds over 30-40 seconds. That's as much as 15% difference in times or translated into lap times, 9 seconds in a 1 minute lap. Even a gap of 1 second over 30 seconds, translates into 2 seconds in a one minute lap and 4 seconds in a two minute lap.
 
I would prefer a ranking based solely on power to weight ratio. Handling is a very subjective parameter, much dependent on tuning and driver technique "fit" with the car.
 
I don't think its perfect, but yes it does work well enough.

A great way I use the PP system, is with a friend on single player competition. We both race the same car with the same PP, then we compare times and develop a handicap. the handicap is applied to the faster driver, lowering thier PP. What eventually happens is the handicap plateaus, therefore I believe the PP system works based on the fact that the handicap can plateau. We change cars and tracks and move the handicap across, even to higher and lower pp scales (less workable at higher pp between different driver skill).

I'm not sure it could ever be perfect, but GT6 is better than GT5, GTS will be interesting to see what they bring.
 

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