PP Racing and Tuned road cars

[gkgamer]

So here's my question about the PP system in GT7.
What PP range do you think is the most revealing of the PP system failure to level the field when racing tuned road cars?
I host almost daily a PP420 CM lobby and I find that the PP system is working relatively fine at these levels.

What tickled my curiosity is that I once again got myself in a PP600 lobby and got my @$$ kicked by cars that were much better set.
Although I understand, as I've been doing PP racing since GT5, that all PP levels have their unicorns and all cars have their small tweaks/secrets to reach their optimal performance; at least in previous games, you'd never be miles away in performance if you tried to match the said PP level.

I find that from PP550 to PP650 the inconsistency of the PP ratings is appalling. You can enter cars roughly on the same PP level that will perform like if they were more than 100PP apart.

I think that including tire compound in the calculations wasn't the best move by PD but it's true that GT5/6 PP system had its flaws as well.
So I think that the PP racing in GT7 needs a set tire compound to be able to use the PP system to its maximum efficiency.
Some people I know even add a power limit and minimal weight to their race specs but I find that to push the field towards using the same couple of cars and I don't like that too much.

I'd really like to hear what the PP racing specialists think.
Cheers

 

[Meythia]

The lower you are, the less likely there can be any flaw or glitch contributing to a large difference in performance.
I guess the problem is most obvious when you can reach the points of downtuned cars that usually would be used in races with much higher PP, but Tokyo 600 deifnitly puts it to the show.
Can be won with cars of ~530 PP
Can be dominated with cars of 600 PP to such a degree one would estimate them to be actually in the range of 700 PP

 

[PlanetJanet]

From my experience of hosting lobbies ranging from 300-800pp, there are massive variances in performance across all ranges.

To be honest I don't mind this, because it encourages you to test and tune cars to make them competitive. I've found that most cars have a sweet spot where they can perform well, you just have to find it and understand that some cars will always be better than others. If you want to win every race then sure, get your Skyline or your Escudo out, if you fancy having a midfield scrap then pick something else you like.

I've found adding a tyre restriction is the easiest way to level a playing field, i.e. 600pp + SS and you'll find the field much tighter.

 

[eran0004]

The performance of a car is determined by:

Power
Brakes
Weight
Center of mass
Chassis geometry
Tyre compound
Downforce
Aerodynamic drag
Gear ratios
Suspension

Those are all independent variables, which means that the performance of a car is at least 10-dimensional and it’s physically impossible to boil that down into a single value without losing most of the information.

In order to achieve a level playing field you need to regulate more than just PP. At the minimum, you need cars with similar power, similar weight, similar aerodynamics and similar tyre compounds.

 

[MarionJ13]

The performance of a car is determined by:

Power
Brakes
Weight
Center of mass
Chassis geometry
Tyre compound
Downforce
Aerodynamic drag
Gear ratios
Suspension

Those are all independent variables, which means that the performance of a car is at least 10-dimensional and it’s physically impossible to boil that down into a single value without losing most of the information.

In order to achieve a level playing field you need to regulate more than just PP. At the minimum, you need cars with similar power, similar weight, similar aerodynamics and similar tyre compounds.

^This^ 100% Keep in mind the track is also a hugely important variable. You can also leverage these differences to your advantage to create interesting races as well. For example Mustang VS Mini races irl. Basically horsepower VS handling. I personally don't think it's really plausible for one number to take all these variables into account.

 

[BangsMcCoy]

All of them, or none of them, depending on how you look at it. The PP system is garbage across the board, regardless of what PP restrictions there may be on a race. Even moreso when you factor in engine swapped cars and that every car you can really tune has that weird spot where you can move, say downforce, up or down one point with the right parts selected and drastically lower the PP rating without affecting actual performance to warrant that new low PP rating and you can go in and take 1st place before turn 2 on most tracks and end up winning by a huge margin the AI simply can’t overcome.

 

[RCKakashi14]

PP isn't the only thing one takes into consideration when making an equal playing field especially on lobbies.

I often host 700 pp, Sports Soft tires Road Car only events and I noticed that it makes the roster equal somewhat, engine swapped or not. Tire compound restrictions make a huge difference.

Though to be honest, the PP system is better than the N class system that GT Sport had. The horsepower classification simply doesn't work considering that there are cars that performed above the power class (i.e. 911 GT3 RS in the N500 dominates everything and even the classes above it).

 

[hawkeyez]

I think their entire PP system and lobby settings is flawed. Would be nice to set it so nobody gets HUD, nobody gets brake assist markers. Maybe allow weak ABS. Full damage and proper penalties. Everybody runs same car, tune and tires with only suspension, lsd, downforce and transmission settings allowed. Older sims that’s what it was. Here’s a class of cars to choose from, set it up to your liking. Race.

Theres a few of us that race together regularly and 9/10 times when we run the exact same car and tune and tires, we are practically driving around the track together, sometimes three wide. If we just set a pp limit and tires and grab whatever, sometimes it s still close but most of the time somebody is just walking away with it leaving the other two battling or we are basically just out running laps on a track together with 5-10 seconds between each of us.