Steering and brake assists

130
United States
Hawaii
Atomic_CTS-V
I imagine this would have been talked about (and maybe has, but didn't see much in search). But curious what the consensus is regarding the advantages gained when people have steering and brake assists enabled when they are racing online. I assume most lobbies are allowing it and I can't help but notice most opponents online are able to brake later, and get away with very sloppy entries into corners. I also notice the cars will corner a bit funny (even looks as if the front of the cars are sometimes being dragged back toward the apex in an awkward manner).

I realize I'm not one to pick the easier cars to be fast in, but when I go over the replays, I see some obvious areas I'm at a disadvantage (mostly braking). When I'm having to brake at the 100 meter board and others are going to the 50 and still able to get the car in the corner, that's significant.

So I'm wondering; just how much of an advantage does this give? Or am I just that bad at braking in a sim? I will never enable those assists. Just like the driving line or external views, it breaks the immersion that I want in sim racing. But just wondering what disadvantages (if any) I'm up against when opponents seem to be using it.
 
TC will obviously slow you down, SC will make understeer and will block any slide, ABS does not reduce breaking distance. You can use them if only you really struggle with raw car or you need to make authentic feel of some autosports. Personally riding much better without it, the only problem that SC in some situations will drag you out of some awkward midcorner spin outs, and that probably is.

To add, those better use for testing purposes, their indicators will help to understand when extreme oversteer occurs, or a moment of wheel locking. At least I have used them successfully to improve car set up.
 
TC will obviously slow you down, SC will make understeer and will block any slide, ABS does not reduce breaking distance. You can use them if only you really struggle with raw car or you need to make authentic feel of some autosports. Personally riding much better without it, the only problem that SC in some situations will drag you out of some awkward midcorner spin outs, and that probably is.

I'm referring to the options of steering assist and brake assist, not TC, ABS and SC. In terms of those, I understand those and use authentic settings, so if the car has those in real life, I use them in game, and often turn them down a touch.

But I specifically mean the very unrealistic options called steering assist and brake assist. Even in their descriptions, they say they're basically like having training wheels on.
 
I'm not sure that many lobbies would allow those more unrealistic aids. I'm presuming they can be disallowed. The authentic car aids I would think are more commonly used.

I've never actually tried them but I imagine steering assist and brake assist would generally slow your pace down. Certainly they wouldn't be so rewarding to drive. I might give them a try just to see if I become a superstar driver. :)

And yes I use the authentic setting without any compunction.
 
Didn't know those exist in game.

Yes sir, they do. They are described as follows;

• Steering Assistance
This setting will help you to both steer the car in corners and reduce lateral movement on straights. The assist will apply minimal steering corrections over and above your inputs to help you corner: for example, if you use a keyboard for driving, or your controller makes it hard to work with subtle adjustments in the approach to a turn, this setting may be helpful for you.

• Braking Assistance
Just as the Steering Assistance, this will assist you in braking before a corner. This is useful for learning new cars and tracks, as it will help you slow for turns and counter any initial exuberance.

They are in the Gameplay menu, under the Authenticity tab

Project-CARS-2-Digital-Manual-06b-gameplay-01-authenticity_orig.png
 
I'm not sure that many lobbies would allow those more unrealistic aids. I'm presuming they can be disallowed. The authentic car aids I would think are more commonly used.

I've never actually tried them but I imagine steering assist and brake assist would generally slow your pace down. Certainly they wouldn't be so rewarding to drive. I might give them a try just to see if I become a superstar driver. :)

And yes I use the authentic setting without any compunction.

Actually, it seems to me, most lobbies are set to the lowest-common denominator. U100 minimum rating or something close to that, everything is allowed, and no damage. Nothing that would make it realistic or maybe keep away the rammer trolls. There seem to be so few lobbies with better settings.

And when I go about creating one myself, I get no one that joins me.

But to the topic, at least in terms of braking, I can't help but feel like many are using this to help reduce their braking distance in online lobbies and clean up some corner sloppiness.
 
I might have to try that steering crap for a laugh as an investigation into whether we can get through rivers (I mean puddles) like the AI are able to.

I do like an investigation in this game :)

Investigation completed, results as follows.....

Test done using 2x weather slots (1 sunny & 1 thunderstorm) @ x60 (so the weather rotates every minute & gets completely saturated).

Car used was the Porsche GT3 (these do like aquaplaning)

Track used was none other than........
Le-Mans 24hrs, oh the Mulsanne river (I mean straight) :)

Anyways onto the conclusion, using pretty much all aids available

Steering assist on
Braking assist off (on was a hindrance)
ABS low (high didn't make a difference)
Stability Control on
TC low (high killed the power to much)
Opposite lock assist on (this actually helped, but you can't turn this on mid race) so I turned it off again.

Bare in mind I was using my wheel so the forces fighting with these aids on was more intense than actually driving without them.

What did make a big difference though in collaboration with the above settings was locking the power diff to 90° & raising the preload very high (to about 250) so the car was a bit more balanced going on/off throttle through the puddles.

I actually made it down the Mulsanne River without hitting a single barrier at the same speed as the AI @ 100/100, however then you hit the Mulsanne corner & you simply cannot get around it quick enough because of all the aids on so the AI drive off again (but you do catch them up again (until the next lap)

Have fun :)
 
Last edited:
Back