PP not really even?

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XDesperado67

XDesperado67

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XDesperado67
Okay my understanding of PP was to give us an idea of cars with similar performance. How come this doesn't work?

Example I have Kei car with that the game rates at around 515 PP that's defiantly not competitive with most cars in that range.

Thoughts or explanations anyone?
 
youre tune youre tires and the aids you have selected are not part of the PP calculations. That can all factor in. also i have found that if you take a car that you have to kill the power on to make the PP limt vs a car that maxes out at the PP limit, The one you have to tone down will be faster. It also seams that race cars are normaly faster than a street car of the same PP.

It dosnt seam to work as well as it did in prolouge, but i still prefer it to the hp and weight restrictions. If you stay with the "spirit" of the room it will keep things close. AKA if everyones running supercars dont take youre riced out honda, if there running race cars pick a race car ect...
 
TeamOrecaViper
maybe at a kart track the kei car can win?
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Consider its easy to get a Lotus 111R to around 515 PP and it will destroy the Daihatsu Cuoro XX on even the tightest track.

Granted these are very extreme examples but I see it to a greater or lesser extent amongst a lot of different cars.
Not saying cars at identical PP should have identical performance but seems they should be a lot closer than they are.

Just call me crazy :crazy:
 
Not all cars are identical at any given PP level. Some of it depends on the track. The Lotus Elise for example, excels at smaller tighter tracks, but take it to Monza and it runs out of breath while the bigger, higher powered cars are still accelerating.

Some cars, just don't live up to their PP rating at any track and I think some of that has to do with their power curve and torque levels and also with their handling. Some cars just don't handle as well as others at given PP levels and the advantage in power given to them as a result, often isn't enough to take the checkered.

I have noticed several threads about what cars are good at certain PP levels. You might want to check that before making any purchases for online racing.
 
Thanks for the input zodicus and johnnypenso. I haven't raced online other than the seasonals because of connection issues and psn being down. Already figured if/when I do race online I'd use a car inline with what others in the room were running.

Just wish the PP was a little more accurate indication of a cars potential performance as I find it fun to drive more offbeat cars.
I don't want to be the 12th skyline in the race but that SRT4 or whatever :sly:

Just call me crazy :crazy:
 
Yes the PP system is flawed but the bigger flaw is how little control you have over restrictions in an online race. No matter how you set restrictions it always opens up the door for some jerkoff to use a non approved car. We can be smart about how to setup a room with competitive cars for competitive races but the game just isnt thorough enough.
 
I'm running a GT500/GT300 championship, and we are at the moment testing out different cars to make them equal when season 2 kicks off.

And the results speak for themselves:

GT500
Lowest pp: 608
Highest pp: 618

GT300
Lowest pp: 533
Highest pp: 551

This is tested by concistant and wery good driver GTP_Aderrrm. At these levels, the cars are very similar in performance. And keep in mind that this is cars that are supposed to race eachother IRL. Definetly something terribly wrong with the pp's.

I think that pp works out pretty well with "normal" cars at around 500 pp, when the cars are somewhat close to that number as stock.
 
I don't think PP takes into account mechanical efficiency.

Yes, you can get a Diahatsu to 515 PP. While you're at it, polish another turd.
Yes you can get a Lotus 111R to 515 pp, but that won't make it handle any worse, unless you strap the ballast to the outside of the car.
... or it's a reliability test.

Tuning a crap car may cover up some or most of it's mechanical deficiencies/flaws/weaknesses, but you won't get them all because the car will still remain inherently flawed.

The reverse, I assume, to be true. You can tune a fast car to run slow, even handle like crap (comparatively speaking) but unless you change geometries and major parts, you can't make a good car bad, because it's inherently well designed and good.

So, the next question is: "Is this car good or bad"? To answer that, compare both the PP and the power-to-weight ratio, pick a car, and test, test, test. Just because a car does better on paper doesn't mean it will feel any better/worse, but with testing you can find something that fits your driving style and habits.

Performance Points have never, and will never be the end-all-to-be-all. Like every other measurement in this game, it's meant as a guide. A general rule of thumb.
 
PP is not fair if you look over one track.

When you take into account all the tracks, things begin to even out.

Eg a 560 PP elise '96 is murdered around the Sarthe by a 532 PP esprit turbo HC. But will whip it's backside on more twisty circuits.

A good example of how different cars handle/PP is when you play shuffle racing. On the right track some of the total lemons are unbeatable.

Also the power limiter is the most unfair part of the system. It really should be 'limited' to 5-10% maximum.
 
Actually I personally find the ballast to be more unbalanced in regards to the PP than the power limiter.

Take for example my Hommell I use for the French seasonals.
I get higher power to weight ratio with ballast than with the power limiter, plus by shifting that 45 kg of ballast the cars handling is greatly improved making it as quick if not quicker than its full PP version.
 
well they way the power limitter is programmed is the problem. it should reduce the whole power curve not just flatline it at the peaknumber. you also shouldnt be able to drop the car below its original hp, in my opinion.
 
Some cars are naturally faster than others. As said earlier, some cars do better on some tracks than others.

In another thread, I posted my times for 10 cars tuned to 550 PP on Nurburgring with Sports Soft tires.

The fastest car was more than 20 seconds quicker around the ring than the slowest.

I personally think it would be silly if you could make all of the cars perform exactly the same just by changing the PP. If you could do that, there wouldn't be any reason to have more than 1 car in the game. Of course it would save PDI a lot of time to just create 1 car with 1000 different skins and colors.
 
From what I can gather it's unbalanced for a couple reasons

1) You can cheat the torque curve with the power limiter feature (I have no idea why they would implement this..)

2) Tires don't play a factor in the points system, so someone on racing softs can be racing someone with sports softs, and be braking later and taking corners at higher speeds. However, even with the tires adding some amount of points I suspect there would be imbalance because of reason 1.

3) A number of factors don't play a role in this number.. I have some cars 20 points apart, and they get similar times.. not only that, but cars with less PP can be drafting the ones with more PP in a real race and win it even though the PP says a car is potentially better, it sometimes isn't :\

4) Also, newer cars have less PP, and more horsepower, so even same make races differ by a couple horsepower sometimes.

so yeah PP is not really even..... in fact, I've abandoned this system and have a new system for finding even-race cars.. Math + Daytona + SSR7 + a more rigorous course (custom, with lots of different types of turns, including a near-perfect 90 degree bend mid-way through the course) although there's no way to implement strict enough rules on a public server to have the cars in the same race, because there's no way to have no one use the power limiter, or prevent them from installing parts - it's good to race trustable friends though.
 
Love the idea Corpsey for trying to get a more accurate comparison of cars potential.
I don't mind losing a race at say indy with a given car that would beat the same competition at say lagunaseca and the two cars would run very close at say Daytona road course. Each car has its strengths and weaknesses but you can get a competitive idea with a working PP system, and I thought that was what the current one in game was supposed to be.
Oh well guess we'll have to go back to doing the work ourselves.
 
In real life if every manufacturer had the same hp and weight do you think they would all set the exact same time round a track?

Only thing the PP needs to change is the power curve when de-tuning!
 
phil_75
In real life if every manufacturer had the same hp and weight do you think they would all set the exact same time round a track?

Only thing the PP needs to change is the power curve when de-tuning!
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Isn't this called NASCAR? :D

I'm not asking for exact same bhp and weight for cars but for an easy way to determine if two cars with radically different bhp and weight are even close to being competitive with driver skill and tracks being the major variable. Shouldn't have to do single make races to have fun on track. It makes it more interesting to me to see a various makes and models on track running fairly close.
 
lol my caterham seven fireblade has 626 pp and it stinks :yuck: :grumpy:
 
luisgo98
lol my caterham seven fireblade has 626 pp and it stinks :yuck: :grumpy:
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How did you make that profile pic? I've never seen the X2010 even off the ground, regardless of speed of crash! Maybe at the trial mountain bump, but thats at daytona.
 
PP is obviously based on power and weight. However pushing the system to its extremes will not yeild even results. Would you race a go kart (low weight, low hp) against a tank car (high weight, high power)? No. So dont run a keicar against a supercar.

I run a nightly 450 pp room and if you keep cars to specific classes, you will find the pp system works perfectly. You will have to tune cars and install pp-freebees like transmissions and suspensions but once you do, it all comes down to driver skill.
 
SoCal Senator
How did you make that profile pic? I've never seen the X2010 even off the ground, regardless of speed of crash! Maybe at the trial mountain bump, but thats at daytona.
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My wife does it everytime she drives x1 on daytona. I have video of that. x1 drives faster on fence than most cars on road. Drive across the grass and smack into the wall at high speed at a slight angle. The x1 can even drive on the fence for a few seconds. I managed overturn the x1 on the cape ring as well. Takes some exceptionally bad driving on my part out of the ring to the curb just outside to flip it.
Wonder if anyone try x1 driving backwards to win race.
 
You'll never get cars of different weights and powers to balance out.

The inherent problem of having cars balanced via a power-to-weight ratio is that more power will always be faster down the straights, because the PP doesn't take drag into account (at least, insofar as I've observed). Which means that even if you try to max out your "power-under-the-curve" by using the power limiter to give yourself a fat band of torque, a car with a more natural curve and a higher peak power will be faster down the longer straights.

The only way to properly balance everything is to have cars of the exact same weight, nearly identical power peaks, and the same PP. Which is darn near impossible unless they have the exact same engine under the hood.

PP is a good guide. Balance on PP, weight and power together and you can have a field that's reasonably even... but there are always some cars that are more equal than others. More aerodynamic, better weight balance, lower to the ground, better stock tires... and that's something you can't do anything about in the game.
 
SoCal Senator
How did you make that profile pic? I've never seen the X2010 even off the ground, regardless of speed of crash! Maybe at the trial mountain bump, but thats at daytona.
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I went to the grass at daytona then the car was shaking and hit the wall and continued to go up:sly:
 
gtnoobie
My wife does it everytime she drives x1 on daytona. I have video of that. x1 drives faster on fence than most cars on road. Drive across the grass and smack into the wall at high speed at a slight angle. The x1 can even drive on the fence for a few seconds. I managed overturn the x1 on the cape ring as well. Takes some exceptionally bad driving on my part out of the ring to the curb just outside to flip it.
Wonder if anyone try x1 driving backwards to win race.
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Nismo34
I was going to suggest this exact same thread but you beat me to it.

Anyway, The PP system varies from person to person. It all comes down to how its tuned. That thread goes more into depth with it all so I'll let you all check it out for yourselves.
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Actually I have read that entire thread since watermelonpunch posted the link. The thread looked abandoned and most of the discussion tended to be pretty circular on both sides.

Those like myself that were hoping that PP was actually a semi accurate indication of vehicle performance regardless of vehicle type/class, and those saying just run similar vehicles in the same type/class i.e. I run a Skyline GT-R, as long as everyone runs some sort of Skyline GT-R PP works fine and your obviously crazy for wanting to race anything but a Skyline GT-R :sly:
 
XDesperado67
Actually I have read that entire thread since watermelonpunch posted the link. The thread looked abandoned and most of the discussion tended to be pretty circular on both sides.

Those like myself that were hoping that PP was actually a semi accurate indication of vehicle performance regardless of vehicle type/class
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That's the point. What anybody hoped the PP system could do, it doesn't. We can complain, but as it stands, it's best to just accept that.

I think what people really want is a system that can hands down tell you what car is going to do better than what other car.

Well, that's pretty impossible. So many factors go into what makes a car better... and then something as simple as a transmission setting can make the difference on one track as opposed to another...

The game's just a lot more complicated than to be able to just give you a simple system to tell you what car YOU can drive best. Like a difficulty setting or something. LOL ;)

And yeah, what chuyler1 says might seem preposterous. But I happen to know that chuyler1 is just experienced or talented or quick-reflexed enough to take some cars that some people might think are "losers", and actually win against maybe a mechanically advantaged car with a newer player driving it, or someone not as clever.

And someone who's just REALLY good, will just not need much mechanical advantage to blow away the competition.

Expecting some in-game number to tell you something definitive is an exercise in futility, simply because of how many variables come into play with inherent car handling, power, torque, hp, speed, transmission, suspension tuning, and driver skill/experience.
Add into that someone who knows a particular track very well, or not much.

There's no "secret" that's going to apply to everyone all the time with every car on every track. Disillusionment is hard, but once you accept this fact, it gets a lot easier to come up with a strategy for yourself.

Forget about what PP means... and just take what you got & work with it. Just use it as a restriction starting point, and go from there.
 
watermelonpunch
That's the point. What anybody hoped the PP system could do, it doesn't. We can complain, but as it stands, it's best to just accept that.

I think what people really want is a system that can hands down tell you what car is going to do better than what other car.

Well, that's pretty impossible. So many factors go into what makes a car better... and then something as simple as a transmission setting can make the difference on one track as opposed to another...
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The problem with this is that it'd mean that every track would have its own recommended transmission setup. Everybody works better with different cars for different PP levels. If the car you work well with, lacks in PP simply because the way you tuned your Transmission flaws the system and yet you can still win with it, it just makes the PP system alot less accurate.


I personally think the PP works very well. I have a mate who hosts races just about everyday and they are all PP limited. We havent found cars that are exceptionally fast or shockingly slow in that PP level and every race has a different result. I will admit exceptions to the rules are the RX7 and the Elise, but they are more built for 1 make races and such but all in all, I believe the system works well.
 
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