Looking for a track and challenge to test Gr.4 cars (daily marathon)

[KAlex122]

Hi,

i want to drive all Gr.4 cars under the same conditions. There are only 2 Gr.4 cup race events, Brands Hatch and High Speed Ring.

As there are now better payouts for custom races i want to try that for the first time. I know most tracks pretty well. This could be a chance to get to know Sainte Croix Layout C. With more than 10 kilometres 4 laps would be enough to get the daily marathon checked.

I am thinking of: no rain, no tire wear (easier with FF cars), no fuel.

As i am not familiar with custom races, what do you guys advise to get a good, consistent challenge? BOP on/off? Creating a field of, for example, 630 or 650 pp cars,...? Doing all enemy and own Gr.4 cars completely stock? Boost/no Boost? Etc. What would you do?

Thanks for your ideas!

 

[Meythia]

PP is biased AGAINST the FF cars, so I guess BoP would be better suited overall.

I do like to have to pit, this evens out data instead of favouring cars that rely on power (I think of Gr.3 Human Comedy: if without pits, the Supra would always lead the AI no doubts at all, and because of pits, the Supra isnt guaranteed to be the fastest AI)

As for the track: whatever feels best for you, I would personally go for Tokyo or Willow Springs.

 

[Race2Much]

I pretty much only do Custom races. I focus on GR3, Gr4, and a few tuned road cars across various PP levels. These are a few items that I find make a big difference in terms of getting better performance and race craft from the computer (I hate to call it AI).

BOP ruins the experience, you will get the most rubber banding and there will be two rabbit cars that take a big lead and then slow down half way through the race.

I don't pick a specific PP and set all the cars there. I pick a track (I like Dragon Tail Gardens for this with GR4) and run all the cars I want to test at their stock PP. Once I see how different all the times are I pick a car in the middle of the pack start tuning the other cars to get the cars close to that time, in my very average hands. This way you have truly balanced cars and I feel that the computer performance is better this way. The computer does worse when there is too much variance in performance difference, the computer struggles to balance all of this.
From here I run a few races to see where I need to tune the car I want to use.

Boost - this gets interesting, about half of my custom races use boost and the other half don't. I use boost in cases where it enhances the computer performance and can only be determined through trial and error.

Couple of other thoughts. In my GR4 settings I get good races say 60-70% of the time, a few tracks I struggle to break the top 10 coming from last and then some I win way too easy so the track does make a difference as well as different tracks favor different cars.
For fun I took a few GR3 cars and detuned them to around 690 PP (varies by car per above) and had some really good racing, I feel the computer handles a detuned car much better than a car that has been tuned well above the original PP, one of the reasons I am selective in my road car custom races, the car can't be tuned too much beyond stock and still get good computer performance.

Curious to see what other have experienced

 

[KAlex122]

Wow! Seems like a lit if time you need to get a good field.

 

[BadBoomerang]

I spent many hours a day for a couple of weeks trying to balance a GT4 field.

My goal was to get super close racing, no cars pulling into huge leads, and to eliminate as many signs of rubber banding or other manipulation of cars performance etc.

It would get close to 'perfect' some races then with zero changes I'd notice ai start doing bizarre things and the field would start to fall apart.

I came to the conclusion that there is so much behind the scenes meddling from the coding that my goal was basically impossible.

Recently taking another shot at trying to get worthwhile races and about the only way I've managed to eliminate all the signs of manipulation is to run 1 make fields.


Front 6 cars get significant weight added to stop them running away. Each row on the grid get less weight the further back they are with the idea that (hopefully) less weight will force ai to try and overtake.

My car is then power matched (to adjust for AIs 90% throttle bug), weight matched with front row, and then detuned 1 extra notch on the ECU.
That 1 extra detune notch seems to put my car so underpowered that the front runners will always stick with the pack and the race doesn't turn into so much of a chase the rabbit. If you don't do that and have an 'equally powered car', your pace always means the front 6 will pull away to make a "race" for you for later laps - often slowing down for the last few laps of the race so you can catch up for a photo finish.

Race settings are; boost to weak, slipstream to strong, tire wear to 10x, and around 30m of laps. Aiming for tires to be worn to just before the pit triggering level, that way cars with more weight should struggle even more at the end, allowing cars further back to keep thr pack close.

With the races I've done so far at various tracks, the entire field doesn't get much more that a 8-12 seconds split, front to back, after 8-15 laps/30m.

Doing it this way introduces 2 issues though: you need (imo) at least 11 copies of the same car (10 teams, 2 cars each team, with the extra 1 to detune for yourself), and it also means you have to manually go in and adjust every single cars set up. Super time consuming and annoying.

It is the closest I've come to accomplish the kind of race I like though, and makes each race feel far less rigged.


I'll often get top 6, but don't always win, and one mistake will often result in losing many places or ending my race.


The biggest issue other than the ones I've mentioned is tuning the suspension etc to a point that the ai like to drive it, and don't break at stupid moments etc.
That, and the fact ai will defend practically every corner no matter what, which often results in that car losing several places.
They like super stable set ups, with high rotational Gs.

I'll likely do some races later and I'll try to capture a good one to upload/share.

There's also this thread which lots of people discuss custom races in general that might be of use:

Gran Turismo 7 Custom Race thread

Just a Central hub for what tools are made available in GT Mode and Sport Mode Lobby

www.gtplanet.net

 

[Race2Much]

Recently taking another shot at trying to get worthwhile races and about the only way I've managed to eliminate all the signs of manipulation is to run 1 make fields.

I have gone to this recently as well but wanted to answer the original question with regards to multiple cars.

I run a one make with the GR4 Aston Martin, all cars are qual with the ECU being set at 96 (as I mentioned in my earliker post I think the computer likes a car that is lightly detuned). If I set weak boost on this with real slipstream it can be tough to beat. The computer uses the weak boost to run my pace so it can be hard to win but the pack stays tight the whole way. In some cases I am in a mid pack battle but that is fine with me as long as it feels like racing.

Big time saver too. I am going to play with @BadBoomerang approach this weekend

 

[05XR8]

Wow! Seems like a lit if time you need to get a good field.

As posted above, lots of trial and error by members, in the Custom Race thread.

I usually start with a One Make to see how programming use the car. However, sometimes, I dive in and just buy cars, set them up and go racing. One case, were the Abarth 500 I tuned to Trofeo specs . The car is great to drive on its own. The AI were way to slow using it, oddly, every track I tested. For me, bad choice.

So many factors in how the AI are competitive. Circuit and vehicle grip are main factors I’ve found in building my grids. If the AI programming “can’t handle” the car, there are lots of brake checking and mistakes.
On the flip side, some cars, the AI use just fine completely stock.

 

[Tommy_D]

When re-starting GT7 on a brand new account I found a few tracks that I typically hated to be much more fun in lower powered cars. So a BOP race with Gr.4 cars would be fun on a track like Laguna Seca (hate this track with fast cars). St. Croix has lots of layouts to try as well. That was a fun track in 600pp cars. Kyoto full course would also be a lot of fun. I enjoy Catalounia with the chicane. Most sport races remove that feature. Tsukuba is a quick one that is right on the edge with Gr.4 cars. Gr.3 would be stupid there.

Maybe some of the lesser used tracks like Blue Moon Infield or Alsace Village?

Lots of tracks could be fun to try out with Gr.4 cars.

 

[BadBoomerang]

I have gone to this recently as well but wanted to answer the original question with regards to multiple cars.

I run a one make with the GR4 Aston Martin, all cars are qual with the ECU being set at 96 (as I mentioned in my earliker post I think the computer likes a car that is lightly detuned). If I set weak boost on this with real slipstream it can be tough to beat. The computer uses the weak boost to run my pace so it can be hard to win but the pack stays tight the whole way. In some cases I am in a mid pack battle but that is fine with me as long as it feels like racing.

Big time saver too. I am going to play with @BadBoomerang approach this weekend

Currently I'm using a grid of Camaro SS - they're super cheap and other than tires (RH is the best you can equip) they have a high ceiling on how much you can tune them. 10 cost me around 1.8m with the tune ups & car.
Weight 1 & 2, rigidity, racing: ECU, muffler, exhaust manifold, crankshaft, clutch & flywheel, brakes & pads, suspension, gear box, hard tires, ballast & power control - plus a livery etc.

I've also adjust the gear boxes for them all too.

It's also one of the few cars AI doesn't really have assists on - just abs & traction from what I can see - so that makes them a bit more competitive.
I'm still fine tuning the suspension but for the most part it handles tracks well - the only times it brakes unexpectedly is when it stupidly defends on corners it doesn't need to.
I've tuned that out somewhat, still some work to do, but you can also stop it from doing that on some corners by altering your racing line.

Also set race difficulty to normal in the regular settings menu, not race - I've found putting it on hard changes the performance of the front cars, and they'll just run away until they chose to slow up again to allow a tight finish - immersion wrecking imo.

Over all this approach is making the offline game enjoyable again.

I spent hundreds of hours trying to balance fields with different cars, and with the manipulation it's impossible to really know what's working and what's not, where as the one make approach eliminates most those factors.

It's certainly not perfect, but it's far more enjoyable very slowly making you way through a tight field and at least having the possibility of ai cars appearing to race you & each other.

If PD just gave us the option for tires, removed the throttle limit from ai, and instructed ai not to 'defend' it would improve things a lot.
As they are so bad at defending, might as well remove it and just force the user to take the inside line - that way they will at least be better positioned to attack you on corner exit. Right now they defend, lose a ton of speed, and get overtaken by the user and probably other ai - or just create a traffic jam which ai will just park behind!

 

[jrbabbitt]

i want to drive all Gr.4 cars under the same conditions. There are only 2 Gr.4 cup race events, Brands Hatch and High Speed Ring.

The answer to this is the WTC700 at le Mans, 30 minute race nets you 825,000 and it is all Gr.4 cars

 

[KAlex122]

Thanks but i don't like le mans and don't have half an hour times 33. ;-)

 

[Race2Much]

Thanks but i don't like le mans and don't have half an hour times 33. ;-)

There are several WTC700 races, most around 10 laps and all use GR4. I don't know how these cars are tuned sine you can go to 700 PP though as I don't do these events. They seem to be preprogrammed and bizarre computer car behavior and generally too easy.
Brands Hatch, Gardens Rev, Deep Forest, Laguna Seca, Autopolis, Red Bull Ring, Mount Panorama

 

[05XR8]

I believe the Gr.4 cars, in WTC races, are BOP Off. However, the tyre choices assigned to certain cars, ups their performance. Some use RS and RM. Also, same as in Custom Races, AI will switch to RS after wet conditions.