Family Cup complaint

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ktaylor57

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I don't know about anyone else here, but I've found most of the "supercars" (Ford GT, VW W12 Nardo, SLR McLaren, Cien, etc.) little fun to drive on Sports tires without significant suspension tuning. Bad brakes, understeer in turns and at the same time, general twitchiness. It's been determined Racing tires help solve of these problems.

Here's my beef - I was bored and did a Family Cup race at Grand Valley with my XJ220, on R3's and with +10 difficulty, and won by like 15 seconds. Was never challenged at all. Then I tried again with the same field, on S2's, and had a closer race, but I had to put up with an XJ220 that met the sand on every turn because I didn't apply enough brakes. The XJ220 on R3's was an enjoyable car to drive, in my opinion.

This flaw basically gives these cars no place to race competitively. Sure, you can have fun matching them up against the Dream Car Championship or whatever, but how hard would it have been to make the AI actually realize you're running Racing tires and they're (assumably) not?
 
i agree that most of the 450bhp+ cars on sports tyres handle like theyre on a track covered in slugs. and why must they insist we need to use sports tyres in the professional races! i dont like sliding my GT '05 into walls on new york because it has crap tyres.
 
I love the N3 tires. The character of each cars is clearer. I want to feel how each cars behave different. I just love lapping nurburing in differnt cars on N3 tires, and compare lap times and handling.
 
That is the point of using sports/normal tires. A supercar in real life has to be road legal. Race tires are not road legal so you should be using road legal tire otherwise it will be just a race car.
 
Mr.Slow
That is the point of using sports/normal tires. A supercar in real life has to be road legal. Race tires are not road legal so you should be using road legal tire otherwise it will be just a race car.
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But if you were taking a car to the track, you wouldn't be running around hotlapping on WAL-MART brand tires, now would you? You'd be using racing tires, or at least very grippy high-performance road tires, which offer predictability and reasonable cornering grip.
 
Majarvis
But if you were taking a car to the track, you wouldn't be running around hotlapping on WAL-MART brand tires, now would you? You'd be using racing tires, or at least very grippy high-performance road tires, which offer predictability and reasonable cornering grip.
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hahaha, wel said 👍
 
Well..............the racing tyres are totally unrealistic (PD has said so themselves) - they offer far more grip than a RL racecar would have. But it's a personal matter - I'd rather drive on N2's or possibly N3's if the car would have hig performance tyres in RL. Also it has been suggested that the tyres grip levels are not the same for each car - an M3 CSL which comes with high performance tyres has more grip than a normal M3 even if they are both on the same type of tyres in the game.

N tyres bring make the handling differences between cars more obvious and that's what I want - I'd expect a 500hp MR Ford GT to be alot more trouble to handle than a honda civic (not that I'd drive a Civic, I hate Civics)
 
As far as easily beating the family cup, the problem isn't your tires. In the family cup, the other cars all mount the same tire you do, as far as I know.

Nope, the issue is car selection. Namely... the difficulty level slider is used to select cars that may challenge you. Settings higher than 0 pit you against cars which are faster than you are. But the problem is... if you have entered the race with a car which is already the fastest car... and tuned it up no less... the game has nothing to select which can challenge you.

And it will never choose cars of a different type. That is, it will never pit a race car against a normal car.

The actual level of challenge is shown as A-spec points when you start the race. If the game was able to select cars appropriate to the level of difficulty you asked for, there should be approximate 20 A-spec points per difficulty level. That is, if you select level 7, there should be 140 A-spec points or thereabouts.

I would guess in your case, it just says 1 A-spec point... because your tuned Ford GT will trounce any stock normal car the computer has in its arsenal.

That does mean, btw, that it only beats you when you're on sports tires because... ummm... you can't drive... it's defeating you with weaker cars that your own...


As to the tire discussion... yes, if you take this kind of car to a track, you'll probably put DOT legal race tires on it. Here's the thing though... the Sports Tires _ARE_ DOT legal race tires.

The stock tires that come on those cars would be equivalent to about N3 tires in GT4.

You don't see folks putting the full slicks on their super cars unless the cars are severely modified as race cars. I've only ever seen them run the DOT race tires. And its not uncommon to see them run on street tires.


There's also the idea of simulating what it would be like to drive these cars aggressively on the street. And for that, you gotta run on the street tires.

While technically, DOT legal race tires are legal for use on public roads... these tires can't really be run there. They're too soft, and they'll get wrecked very quickly by road debris and irregularities.


Personally, I think it's fun to drive those super powerful sports cars around on regular street tires. You gotta have a lot of patience with the throttle, but these cars go make it around the track awefully fast even on street tires.

- Skant
 
Mr.Slow
That is the point of using sports/normal tires. A supercar in real life has to be road legal. Race tires are not road legal so you should be using road legal tire otherwise it will be just a race car.
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Actually, almost all production-based classes in the US run on R-compound racing tires that are molded with tread and then shaved to the DOT-legal minimum of 3/32" (about 2mm). These tires are technically street legal but have a useful life of under a thousand miles (or less if you cook 'em).
 
route_66
Well..............the racing tyres are totally unrealistic (PD has said so themselves) - they offer far more grip than a RL racecar would have. But it's a personal matter - I'd rather drive on N2's or possibly N3's if the car would have hig performance tyres in RL. Also it has been suggested that the tyres grip levels are not the same for each car - an M3 CSL which comes with high performance tyres has more grip than a normal M3 even if they are both on the same type of tyres in the game.
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I think the issue there is varying tire sizes. Wider tires offer more grip using the same compound.

N tyres bring make the handling differences between cars more obvious and that's what I want - I'd expect a 500hp MR Ford GT to be alot more trouble to handle than a honda civic (not that I'd drive a Civic, I hate Civics)
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That's exactly it. People have an expectation that handling and braking scale up with horsepower. But they never do. So as a driver, you have to learn to deal with the fact that your handling and braking is only somewhat better than a Honda Civic... but you typically have multiple times as much horsepower. Oie!


Off road trucks have a similar problem. When novice drivers move from 2wd to 4wd, they often forget that with 4wd they'll accelerate and handle a lot better... but the brakes aren't any different at all. They naturally expect to stop better, too... but they don't... ooops... *SPLAT*

- Skant
 
Duke
Actually, almost all production-based classes in the US run on R-compound racing tires that are molded with tread and then shaved to the DOT-legal minimum of 3/32" (about 2mm). These tires are technically street legal but have a useful life of under a thousand miles (or less if you cook 'em).
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As far as I've seen, it's an iffy proposition just to drive them 100 miles on the freeway to get to the event. They'll often blow out.

Most cars wear regular street shoes on the way to the track, and then switch to the race rubber at the track. Which means you gotta figure out how to bring the race tires along somehow... which is logistically troublesome, to say the least.

(Of course, this isn't an additional problem for non-street legal classes. They already have to trailer the car to the track anyway)

- Skant
 
You're right. I've seen budget guys nurse a set of tires for the better part of a season (not a racer myself, but I know a number of SSB/C guys). But they never drive the car on the R tires till they get to the track.
 
Majarvis
But if you were taking a car to the track, you wouldn't be running around hotlapping on WAL-MART brand tires, now would you? You'd be using racing tires, or at least very grippy high-performance road tires, which offer predictability and reasonable cornering grip.
Click to expand...

You would follow the rules of the competition you participate in . Most amateur and semi pro competitions limit you to street legal tires. Some don't even allow R compound tires or high performace tires. And some just ask you to pay x amount on registration and then go "here are the tires you gonna use".


Besides I said sports/normal... never said anyting about $10 tires... AND he was complaining about sports (which should be 'very grippy high performance road tires") :)
 
Duke
Actually, almost all production-based classes in the US run on R-compound racing tires that are molded with tread and then shaved to the DOT-legal minimum of 3/32" (about 2mm). These tires are technically street legal but have a useful life of under a thousand miles (or less if you cook 'em).
Click to expand...

That was not my experience but then again things may have changed in the 1 1/2 years since I last entered an event. In any case you agree the tires are technically road legal which is the point I was making.

He is complaining about not being able to compete using racing tyres.


SlightlyOT, You don't need to shave the tires if you are on a budget: Getting them shaved adds $20-$100 to the cost of each tire. Assuming we are talking about a production car you can just get a second pair of wheels, mount the new tires in the "street' wheels and do your daily driving on them until they are at 2/32". Then you put them on the "racing' wheels and repeat the process. Saves you the cost of the shave and the cost of running other tires for normal driving... :)
 
Skant
As far as easily beating the family cup, the problem isn't your tires. In the family cup, the other cars all mount the same tire you do, as far as I know.

Nope, the issue is car selection. Namely... the difficulty level slider is used to select cars that may challenge you. Settings higher than 0 pit you against cars which are faster than you are. But the problem is... if you have entered the race with a car which is already the fastest car... and tuned it up no less... the game has nothing to select which can challenge you.

And it will never choose cars of a different type. That is, it will never pit a race car against a normal car.

The actual level of challenge is shown as A-spec points when you start the race. If the game was able to select cars appropriate to the level of difficulty you asked for, there should be approximate 20 A-spec points per difficulty level. That is, if you select level 7, there should be 140 A-spec points or thereabouts.

I would guess in your case, it just says 1 A-spec point... because your tuned Ford GT will trounce any stock normal car the computer has in its arsenal.

That does mean, btw, that it only beats you when you're on sports tires because... ummm... you can't drive... it's defeating you with weaker cars that your own...
Click to expand...

Good points, but...

1) I was using a stock XJ220 with only an oil change. I have no idea where you're getting a modified Ford GT from. On R3's, I won by about 15 seconds, with S3's I still won, but only by 4 or 5 seconds.

2) I got around 40 A-spec points on R3's, but 120 or so with S3's. Of course, this was with the same grid that I just raced with R3's, and the computer likely had R3's (assuming what you say is true), so that explains the difference.

3) I'll admit it's difficult to challenge an XJ220 - the rest of the field included the NSX-R LM Road Car and a few other 550HP or so cars.

My point is, would it have been that hard to make the AI when you're using the best cars in each class (the Group C cars in the racing category and the supercars in the stock cars category) a bit more challenging? PD had no problem making up nonexistant cars (the 400HP Peugeots and Opel Speedsters, and the 493HP Motorsport Elise). It's not a great solution, but still, it would have at least done something to help this.

I guess now I know the frustration of those who try and try to get a competitive race.
 
You're right that it's hard to get a really competitve race in the tip top mad crazy sports cars. And that is a weakness of GT4.

It works quite well with more typical sports cars though. If you use cars further down the lineup, then it can choose suitable opponents for you.

- Skant
 
Brake early, and in a straight line, these power beasts don't like braking in the turns on race tyres, so you have no chance on any of the N tyres.
 
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