Gran Turismo 7 Custom Race thread

[Voodoovaj]

...they said this forum has not vocation to promote other YT channels. That's why I'm not sharing anything anymore, I just dont wanna be banned.

Well, sharing an issue is not going to get you a ban.

This isn't a surprise to me. I'm seeing Sophy lose control in places that the regular AI handles fine. Remember, Sophy isn't thinking about everything "on the fly". If it did, we would not have to wait for it to be trained on the other tracks and cars.

To me, this looks like an edge case and no big deal. It doesn't break the game. Heck, how many times have we seen professional drivers, at the highest levels of racing, make this mistake?

 

[Dena RACING]

Well, sharing an issue is not going to get you a ban.

This isn't a surprise to me. I'm seeing Sophy lose control in places that the regular AI handles fine. Remember, Sophy isn't thinking about everything "on the fly". If it did, we would not have to wait for it to be trained on the other tracks and cars.

To me, this looks like an edge case and no big deal. It doesn't break the game. Heck, how many times have we seen professional drivers, at the highest levels of racing, make this mistake?

thanks for your comment. I did this specific race 10 times, 2 pits during the races, and it's always the same issue. every time they leave the pit and enter T1, they all go outside the track. I will study this with other cars and see if it's specific to Porsche (or rear engine). But I thought it will be interesting, because to me it breaks the race, even with Sophy pro mode (and weak boost), that's gives me the victory every time, so there's no challenge and ruin the fun. At least with this track.

 

[Gingerale]

Remember, Sophy isn't thinking about everything "on the fly". If it did, we would not have to wait for it to be trained on the other tracks and cars.

Yes it is. This is not how trained AI works.

 

[Theufcveteran]

Yes it is. This is not how trained AI works.

I think @Voodoovaj means it’s not learning on the fly, which as far as I know, it isn’t.

It knows how to react to situations that it’s been trained for, but outside of that, it couldn’t drive properly.

If it could adapt without extra training or self-train quickly the new cars would be available for Sophy to use when the update dropped.

 

[05XR8]

Especially on all tracks available to SOPHY. We still have cars that SOPHY can drive, but not at all locations.

 

[pabloprp69]

Absolutely. You guys are doing us a tremendous favor. I've been exploring with Sophy and would love to see more suggestions and recommendations of what works best.

Regarding road cars, how do you go about balancing for PP? Anything I should prioritize? Or just trial and error?

Thanks for all the awesome information you have been posting here, I like to see all the videos about experimenting with Sophy

 

[05XR8]

Absolutely. You guys are doing us a tremendous favor. I've been exploring with Sophy and would love to see more suggestions and recommendations of what works best.

Regarding road cars, how do you go about balancing for PP? Anything I should prioritize? Or just trial and error?

Thanks for all the awesome information you have been posting here, I like to see all the videos about experimenting with Sophy

Depends how you like to play with your cars. Bone stock you’ll have to check tyres first. Some cars may be in the same PP range, but may move more grip with a specific compound that come standard on that car. Since the game debuted, there is no way to equip all cars with the same compound for treaded tyres. It’s only the Racing Hard tyre that can be equipped to all road cars for even grip.

The rest is trial and error for what race you want to build.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Yes it is. This is not how trained AI works.

I think @Voodoovaj means it’s not learning on the fly, which as far as I know, it isn’t.

Exactly. The "learning" is done outside the game and then added during updates. That's why it is not available for all cars and all tracks.

Like I said earlier, if you find this happening, you can try to tune it out. The stock suspensions tend to date back to the game's launch and you can (sometimes) fix the issues yourself. It's a pain, but it is possible.

Regarding road cars, how do you go about balancing for PP? Anything I should prioritize? Or just trial and error?

I pick a limit (550, 600, 650, etc) and target the cars for that. Straightforward, simply adjust the PP. I allow 0.02 over the target. So a 650.02 is ok, since 649.98 would also be ok. Just play with power and weight until you hit it as close as possible without going over by more than 0.02.

IF you want custom suspension, all the street cars benefit from roll bars set to 7, instead of the default, and rebound rate set to 50. Other than that, it's a lesser gains. This is the bare minimum and should be fine for most applications.

If you REALLY want to push the performance of each car, you can deep dive into perfecting the PP. Watch the performance numbers on the setting sheet. Set the target once, then make a copy of that sheet and fiddle with the power and weight to try and improve the performance. I've been able to vary the performance of a car enormously while maintaining the same PP.

I also put everything on RH tires to make it as balanced as possible.

 

[pabloprp69]

Depends how you like to play with your cars. Bone stock you’ll have to check tyres first. Some cars may be in the same PP range, but may move more grip with a specific compound that come standard on that car. Since the game debuted, there is no way to equip all cars with the same compound for treaded tyres. It’s only the Racing Hard tyre that can be equipped to all road cars for even grip.

The rest is trial and error for what race you want to build.

I pick a limit (550, 600, 650, etc) and target the cars for that. Straightforward, simply adjust the PP. I allow 0.02 over the target. So a 650.02 is ok, since 649.98 would also be ok. Just play with power and weight until you hit it as close as possible without going over by more than 0.02.

IF you want custom suspension, all the street cars benefit from roll bars set to 7, instead of the default, and rebound rate set to 50. Other than that, it's a lesser gains. This is the bare minimum and should be fine for most applications.

If you REALLY want to push the performance of each car, you can deep dive into perfecting the PP. Watch the performance numbers on the setting sheet. Set the target once, then make a copy of that sheet and fiddle with the power and weight to try and improve the performance. I've been able to vary the performance of a car enormously while maintaining the same PP.

I also put everything on RH tires to make it as balanced as possible.

Thank you both for answering my questions. I will start experimenting with the tires first and see how Sophy behaves. I have lots of ideas for WTC races that I'd love to try.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Thank you both for answering my questions. I will start experimenting with the tires first and see how Sophy behaves. I have lots of ideas for WTC races that I'd love to try.

Don't make the mistake I did. Sophy will either be on their default tire OR Racing Hard. In other words, if you don't want them on their defaults, the only other choice you have is RH.

I chose RH for everything so the street cars are balanced. Given the street cars are on everything from Comfort Hard to Sports Medium, it's too difficult to balance them unless you set a common tire, IMHO

 

[2cam16]

Had a fun 10-lapper at Sardegna with an all Civic TC race. Pretty much even battle with quite a few lead changes. Won by less than half a sec.

 

[Voodoovaj]

This Sophy custom race addition is the best thing they ever did for this game. Before this, I would barely touch these cars. Maybe, I'd make a livery for fun, but that's it. Now? There's a purpose to have and tune all the cars.

650pp

600pp

Those 3.0 CSL are MONSTERS once you figure out the diff (I went completely open 5/5/5). And those 73 Skylines are also a force!

And, I put myself on pole in that second race, made a mistake, and end up 5th

 

[05XR8]

Revisited Classic Trans-Am racing and indeed it’s incredible with SOPHY. I’m still, going to recommend PSVR2 whether you’re a wheel or controller user. The rendering is so clear and just the visuals of seeing that scoop on the Boss 429 and dials on the 901 and sound of the Alfa GTV at 8000 rpm. A grid full of cars rumbling and screaming through the ear buds and me wanting to pull the sun visor down when that glare strikes, are crazy. Still amazes me after two years of it being added.

 

[Marty_KAR]

I am so glad that I have found this Thread as I love custom (endurance) racing, with pit stops, as race strategy adds to my enjoyment of GT7.

However, all this time in my Custom endurance (at least 1-hour) races I've been using "No" Boost, and I had no idea what SOPHY is, so I've never used SOPHY either.

During my endurance races I got so fed up with the AI appearing to "wait" for me to catch up, I would purposely start these races 2-minutes behind the leader. But within half a lap I had caught the pack (WTF? ). Then I'd put in some fast lap times to get some distance between me and the pack, and some of the AI are now staying with me. 5-laps later and I'm not making much of a gap on the pack at all (WTF?? AGAIN ). This "rubber banding" has ruined my endurance racing (race strategy) experience, ...however this Thread has enlightened me into the rubber banding phenomenon, Boost to Weak not Off, and what SOPHY is all about.

Thank you, guys and gals; ...your comments here are very much appreciated 👍

I'll be back home from work next week, and I can't wait to setup a Custom Endurance Race with Boost set to Weak, and against SOPHY AI (for the first time). This has rejuvenated my interest into GT7 😁

Thank you,
Marty

 

[Yard_Sale]

Don't make the mistake I did. Sophy will either be on their default tire OR Racing Hard. In other words, if you don't want them on their defaults, the only other choice you have is RH.

I chose RH for everything so the street cars are balanced. Given the street cars are on everything from Comfort Hard to Sports Medium, it's too difficult to balance them unless you set a common tire, IMHO

So glad I read this, and other posts. I was sitting here trying to balance grids based on solely on PP numbers with each cars individual stock tires. I could get the racing close, but it wasn’t optimal.

Ran a custom grid at Bathurst. All in RH tires with x5 fuel and x6 tires. Even before reading that you could equip all cars with RH tires, I was finding that running higher multipliers opened up different individual strategies from Sophy. Currently I’m trying to mess with tunes to get some of the older Group A and DTM cars to handle (anyone got a ~650pp Mercedes 190 tune?) - but as soon as I balance out the cars individual characteristics, I’m going to run my endurance series. In a test 20 lap Bathurst race, I was only able to get to 9th from a starting position of 20th, and had to undercut and not take tires on one of the stops to make that happen! I was happy to see that I didn’t get the fastest lap either.

Wish there was more expedient options to individually tune cars from the Custom Race menu, as going back and forth in the garage is a bit of a slog, but it is what it is.

 

[Voodoovaj]

(anyone got a ~650pp Mercedes 190 tune?)

This one is engine swapped (not necessary) but I use this same tune on my non-swapped cars.

I add the diffuser as well as the splitter and wing. I find the DTM cars work better that way. My DTM setup only uses Merc Evos, M3 Competitions, and Sierras. They all get the splitter and full aero

I always shoot for 650 exactly, but I allow 649.99 - 650.01. Even 651 makes a car MUCH better if you find they are slow, but I find these three choices pretty balanced.

And always take note of the tire profile, width, and offset effect on PP. I run standard offset on all these cars.

 

[TurboBoy64]

Just getting into custom races but I am a little unsure about how tuning works. For example suppose that in my garage I load tuning sheet “A” to a car and then create a custom race and assign that car to an AI. Then I go back to that same car in my garage and load tuning sheet “B”. Now I go back to my custom race but don’t change any settings and just start the race. Which tuning sheet would the AI be using for that car? I know there is a special rule for tire compounds but hoping to understand how it works for the other settings.

 

[KAlex122]

Just getting into custom races but I am a little unsure about how tuning works. For example suppose that in my garage I load tuning sheet “A” to a car and then create a custom race and assign that car to an AI. Then I go back to that same car in my garage and load tuning sheet “B”. Now I go back to my custom race but don’t change any settings and just start the race. Which tuning sheet would the AI be using for that car? I know there is a special rule for tire compounds but hoping to understand how it works for the other settings.

You could find out fast by having one tuning sheet with minimal front height and maximum rear height and another one with max front, min rear. Maybe a third with plain ride height. Should be easy to see.

Shouldn't take long. I'm currently not home to look at it.

 

[pritchyTim]

Just getting into custom races but I am a little unsure about how tuning works. For example suppose that in my garage I load tuning sheet “A” to a car and then create a custom race and assign that car to an AI. Then I go back to that same car in my garage and load tuning sheet “B”. Now I go back to my custom race but don’t change any settings and just start the race. Which tuning sheet would the AI be using for that car? I know there is a special rule for tire compounds but hoping to understand how it works for the other settings.

The AI will use tuning sheet B in this case.

Slight workaround - if you launch the race while driving this car (sheet A) and THEN change to sheet B in the pre-race lobby, the AI will still use sheet A. Mind that you flip back to sheet A when you’re done, or you’ll have reverted to the first sentence of my answer the next time you fire up the grid.

This ‘swap tune sheet in pre-race lobby’ thing is also useful for maximizing payouts. Launch a Custom Race with a “lowest” tune sheet (CH tire, full front ballast, rear df, 0 front df, 70 ecu, 70 restrictor, maybe a custom diff and/or transmission) and then flip to your real one after the increased payout is locked in.

At one point, a year+ ago, I’d determined that this practice was also necessary for evening the odds against a too-slow-by-default regular AI. It felt different to me to launch a race at (e.g.) 650pp and knock my car down to 640 during pre-race, versus launching the race while sitting in my 640 tune. Like the AI would have their power set to ‘compete’ with mine, despite my working to actually make it a slightly harder challenge, and the latter would end up with me zooming by a bunch of 650s, even on weak boost. I still do this to this day, although last week I accidentally forgot (as I don’t do it vs. Sophy) and still had a pretty solid challenge at GV South and Big Willow. Could be worth poking at as you do your own testing…

 

[Voodoovaj]

If anyone is building a DTM (and who among us is not) I targeted 650pp (because that's close to the power of the real world cars). The one sore thumb is the Alfa, which is so much better than the other cars. So, I fiddled with it and found this to be a great nerfing of the car that brings it in line with the others.

Side note, I also found that the Sierra should be 653pp

 

[Batschisane52]

Just getting into custom races but I am a little unsure about how tuning works. For example suppose that in my garage I load tuning sheet “A” to a car and then create a custom race and assign that car to an AI. Then I go back to that same car in my garage and load tuning sheet “B”. Now I go back to my custom race but don’t change any settings and just start the race. Which tuning sheet would the AI be using for that car? I know there is a special rule for tire compounds but hoping to understand how it works for the other settings.

If you assign a garage car to the AI it will always use the tuning sheet that is active at the moment you start that custom race...

And it will use the default tires of that car(no matter what the active tuning sheet says) unless it is equipped with racing hard tires.
If you do a custom race on dirt or snow, AI cars will automatically switch to the necessary compounds, even so, if you don't own that tires for your cars

BUT:When the AI cars are equipped with RH tires and the surface is wet at the start of that race they will be on IMs or Ws !(even if you don't own RHs or Ws for those garage cars) or change to IM/Ws when it starts to rain(but not all AI cars are on the same strategy!)
And when it gets dry again, some of the AI cars will change to racing softs(even if you don't own them for that cars!!!)

 

[05XR8]

Just having fun.


Figured I’d check some 4WD cars in the game.

 

[PlanetJanet]

I am so glad that I have found this Thread as I love custom (endurance) racing, with pit stops, as race strategy adds to my enjoyment of GT7.

However, all this time in my Custom endurance (at least 1-hour) races I've been using "No" Boost, and I had no idea what SOPHY is, so I've never used SOPHY either.

During my endurance races I got so fed up with the AI appearing to "wait" for me to catch up, I would purposely start these races 2-minutes behind the leader. But within half a lap I had caught the pack (WTF? ). Then I'd put in some fast lap times to get some distance between me and the pack, and some of the AI are now staying with me. 5-laps later and I'm not making much of a gap on the pack at all (WTF?? AGAIN ). This "rubber banding" has ruined my endurance racing (race strategy) experience, ...however this Thread has enlightened me into the rubber banding phenomenon, Boost to Weak not Off, and what SOPHY is all about.

Thank you, guys and gals; ...your comments here are very much appreciated 👍

I'll be back home from work next week, and I can't wait to setup a Custom Endurance Race with Boost set to Weak, and against SOPHY AI (for the first time). This has rejuvenated my interest into GT7 😁

Thank you,
Marty

Curious to know how you found it?

I just did my first 90 min race with pitstops against Sophy, GR3 with BoP on, boost set to weak. I was disappointed, in the end. It started well, I was 10th on the grid and there was some great racing over the first stint, I couldn't get higher than 5th. It went downhill from there and I ended up winning by well over 30 seconds because they just couldn't compete on strategy. I didn't even change from fuel map 1, but spent far less time in the pits than they did, so something wasn't right. I was hoping for a challenge but sadly it wasn't to be.

Would love to hear other people's impressions on this? Otherwise it seems to me that shorter "sprint" races without fuel and tyre wear are the way to go with Sophy.

 

[Chris30]

Curious to know how you found it?

I just did my first 90 min race with pitstops against Sophy, GR3 with BoP on, boost set to weak. I was disappointed, in the end. It started well, I was 10th on the grid and there was some great racing over the first stint, I couldn't get higher than 5th. It went downhill from there and I ended up winning by well over 30 seconds because they just couldn't compete on strategy. I didn't even change from fuel map 1, but spent far less time in the pits than they did, so something wasn't right. I was hoping for a challenge but sadly it wasn't to be.

Would love to hear other people's impressions on this? Otherwise it seems to me that shorter "sprint" races without fuel and tyre wear are the way to go with Sophy.

Haven't seen you post in a while, but then again I haven't been really thoroughly examining each thread. Cool, you know I've never did any Sophy races when I had my ps5. When I buy another one, I'll give it a shot. Surely it'll be better than racing with the boring A.I.

Even on the hard difficulty, they are still somewhat easy to pass after 1-2 laps on longer tracks. I'll let you know later in the future when I try a small endurance race with the Sophy A.I.

Should be fun, I hope. Well at least you didn't finish dead last. What track did you try it on?

 

[Marty_KAR]

Curious to know how you found it?

I just did my first 90 min race with pitstops against Sophy, GR3 with BoP on, boost set to weak. I was disappointed, in the end.

Hi PlanetJanet, even though I joined here in 2024, I didn't visit this Forum much.
So, when I visited here last week, I saw this Thread (Custom Races) front & centre in the GT7 Forum. it was easy.
I love custom races as I like doing the endurance type of racing, with Pit Stops, refueling, tyre changes etc (race strategy adds to my racing enjoyment).

Anyhow, I was interested and intrigued to read your comments.
In a few days I'm going to try SOPHY, and Boost set to Weak, for the first time, in an hour-long race. I can't wait to try it.

Up until now, all of my endurance (at least 1-hour) races were against the normal AI, with Boost set to Off. The rubber-banding ruins it.

 

[Chris30]

Well I didn't discover this thread until early this year, don't remember what month. January or February?

 

[Voodoovaj]

Curious to know how you found it?

I just did my first 90 min race with pitstops against Sophy, GR3 with BoP on, boost set to weak. I was disappointed, in the end. It started well, I was 10th on the grid and there was some great racing over the first stint, I couldn't get higher than 5th. It went downhill from there and I ended up winning by well over 30 seconds because they just couldn't compete on strategy. I didn't even change from fuel map 1, but spent far less time in the pits than they did, so something wasn't right. I was hoping for a challenge but sadly it wasn't to be.

Would love to hear other people's impressions on this? Otherwise it seems to me that shorter "sprint" races without fuel and tyre wear are the way to go with Sophy.

Imho, you're better off balancing the performance points rather than the BoP. Granted, I do the Sophy races to get away from the GR3/GR4 so take this advice with a grain of salt, but for everything I have put together, the challenge is pretty consistent as long as the cars are balanced.

That said, it works best with slower cars, and it varies from track to track. Tokyo is extremely difficult, while Catalunya is relatively easy in comparison.

I would shoot for 725pp on Gr3

Edit - 700pp. Some of the Gr3 cars can't get to 725. Also, set all GR3 downforce to 400/700. It will help to keep the balance.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Here's some Sophy tunes. 1 for the RS CS and 1 for the 512BB. I say Sophy tunes because the focus is stability, not outright speed.

Here is what this one looks like in action


And the RS CS

 

[Yard_Sale]

Curious to know how you found it?

I just did my first 90 min race with pitstops against Sophy, GR3 with BoP on, boost set to weak. I was disappointed, in the end. It started well, I was 10th on the grid and there was some great racing over the first stint, I couldn't get higher than 5th. It went downhill from there and I ended up winning by well over 30 seconds because they just couldn't compete on strategy. I didn't even change from fuel map 1, but spent far less time in the pits than they did, so something wasn't right. I was hoping for a challenge but sadly it wasn't to be.

Would love to hear other people's impressions on this? Otherwise it seems to me that shorter "sprint" races without fuel and tyre wear are the way to go with Sophy.

Like others have mentioned, it seems better to balance the cars by PP then by clicking “BOP ON”. The individual characteristics of the cars seem to come out more. I’ve had success in longer races by running higher multipliers - by the same virtue of the different individual car’s characteristics showing up. Some cars drink more fuel than others, some cars wear their tires out faster than others. If you “out strategize” sophy by way of an undercut, fuel saving and/or not taking tires…you tend to get an unfair advantage over her. Sophy takes fuel and tires every stop. Based on my testing thus far, I do believe Sophy can do a bit of race strategy on a very basic level. I’ve watched a Megane Trophy take tires and fuel waaaaaay before everyone, and that car is known for being good on fuel and tires.

Not knowing your skill set (for refrence, my next opinion is based on my mid A+ level pace), but I give all my opponents a 10-15 pp advantage. No matter the track, Sophy is going to be awkward through a couple turns where they over-slow, don’t take the optimal sport mode line or what have you. Giving them that PP advantage seems to balance that out. But YMMV based on your individual skill.




****FWIW, all the longer races I’ve done, whether I win them or not, end up with a spread out field. But that’s fairly on par for long sport mode races too



****** I have been running heavy damage and contact penalties as of late. Sophy will dive bomb you regardless, but it seems to keep me honest 😂

 

[PlanetJanet]

@Voodoovaj @Yard_Sale, thanks for the replies! Very interesting that you both feel PP is better for balancing the field, I've played a lot of PP restricted online lobbies and my overriding impression is that PP is an absolute shambles, the pace difference between two 600pp cars can be extreme.

I suppose the benefit is that you can give Sophy some extra help and adjust things to create a balanced field? I haven't played enough Sport to be A+ but I don't think I would be far off that sort of pace, honestly.

I mostly went with BoP as a shortcut, I assume it would take a lot of time to get it right using PP - or is that not your experience? I used to play every day but tend to hop on only occasionally now, so I am mostly looking for some fun racing without massive effort. I've found BoP just fine for shorter races (I tend to drive at 75% and be smooth rather than aggressive, no dive-bombs etc.).