TT002 Rerun: Oreca 03 Nissan @ Catalunya GP [PC/PS4/XB1] CRAP pCARS Event OPEN

I too have old hands (feet, head, in fact all of me)!

 

Reducing camber increases turn in speed, but you lower midcorner grip which is something you dont want in Catalunya because of the 2 long righthanders. Maybe increase (in very small increments) the front toe out (higher negative value) to get quicker turn in. You can try lowering differential preload as well if you think you can handle the increased oversteer

I did a 1:37.1 yesterday but I can do faster so Ill post another time soon

 

Tried again this morning, can't get under 1:38 whatever i try.

 

Did you try @Saidur_Ali 's tune? It's at the end of his video.

 

I did, with downforce at 10/7 there was good turn in but a bit too much oversteer for my liking. 1:38-39 is the best I could reach so far having tuned the car quite a bit. Must be down to my driving style, as my car has a good turn and is stable at the moment.

 

I think @Saidur_Ali must be a fly where these sort of speeds are like driving in slow motion.

My first go is a 1:40.148 and it felt like a pretty good lap. Will have another go soon.

Photo to follow.

 

I'm well behind @Saidur_Ali but I was in the same boat as you, starting in the 38's and 39's and thinking I couldn't go any faster. But the limits of the car are much higher than you expect them to be if you keep pushing. You have to keep the temps up if you are doing repetitive laps to maintain grip though. The last corner is critical and hard to nail. Brake very deep in the hard braking corners, release the pedal and let the car turn naturally, get on the throttle as early as possible. That's for us non-aliens. Whatever @Saidur_Ali is doing is magic beyond my comprehension

 

I find the car quite neutral or more on the understeer side for me. Maybe more smoother inputs, braking a bit later and carrying more speed into corners might help to get laptime down, hard to know though.

It does indeed feel quite slow to me but then again so does the Formula A .

Think my 3rd flying lap would have been still good enough for 1st still IIRC. Yet to look at the temps in this game but get feeling that they start to get really hot towards more end of lap. I generally restart as then I know it should be the same again.

I think the same regarding last part with Formula A but I think it might be due to setup as I lost a huge amount of time compared to the aliens on there but I had really poor low speed grip. This Nissan though seems to have much better balance through there stock.

 

I gave up. You can't win them all.
At least i got a good tune out of this one

 

1:39.688



That's stock and I can see where I can make a bit of time so all hope is not lost (of overhauling @mister dog's time)

 

I ended up with a 1:38:4 though, need to post a pic

 

You've got pretty close to the GTAcademy finals before haven't you? Have you done any real racing? You should

 

Made the top 12 on 2012 National Finals IIRC, wasn't going to go as not much GT5 online racing experience and hadn't driven a car that year but thought might as well see how it is and reached my target of driving a Nissan 370Z race car with no driving aids. Think it was a bit damp and was an interesting experience as first time driving a car that year . Qualified for 2013 but decided not to go as not really prepared for it, didn't try to qualify for 2014 or so far 2015 although this year is quite tempting but think will try next year as rather be ready to take the challenge on than make an early exit with no chance of trying properly again. Rather do it with no regrets.

Only done one kart race many years ago before I had a driving license, managed to lap my older brother a few times though who is into his cars and has a lot of driving experience .

 

Gave this another go tonight and was just constantly hitting 37.5s, good for consistency but not so much for time trials. On the flip side just got my last grades back from university assignments and now have the all clear to buy a new wheel, pretty much sold on the T300 GTE at the moment, should be a big step up from the Xbox controller and before that the DFGT.

Quick question: Are there any negatives to running asymmetric tyre pressures? I've been messing about with asymmetric pressures on heavily one-sided tracks such as Willow Springs, Silverstone National and Catalunya Club to try and close the gap in tyre temperature and I'm finding I'm a little faster than with symmetric (could just be placebo really) but are there any issues it could cause? Looking online at various places I've found people saying it's fine and then others saying you should only run asymmetric on ovals.

 

Congratulations on your grades . I've used the T300 GTE before on pCARS and it works well with it. Hopefully you can get a decent pedal set with little deadzone. You will need to secure them down as not as good as Logitech pedals on floors. Anyway will be interesting to see how much you improve going back to wheel .

Don't know too much about tyre pressures, used to be an exploit during development where lowest pressures were fastest IIRC but they fixed that. Worth experimenting though if there is some magic setting, maybe easiest to tell using delta on time trial you already done a decent lap on and if you gain easily then you know you are onto something...

 

Thanks. Hopefully I'll still be able to use my solution from when the DFGT pedals started sliding, just jam an old book between the pedals and the wall . If my GT5-6 times were anything to go by then I don't improve much, I just have more fun and lose all ability to save a slide.

I'll probably try experiment with the tyre pressures and the delta before/after the Le Mans 24, or maybe I'll pull myself away for a couple of hours during the race to play some pCARS. I'll have to run Willow Springs, the only one-sided track I can string a proper lap together on with a 250 F front left.

 

Depending on flooring, maybe need even more to secure it in place. You'll like the T300, it sort of corrects the slides for you .

Best of luck in your testing .

 

Is it ok to join in on this?

1:36.616, PS4, Lanius1984, controller

I had a particularly hard time keeping good speed through the corners with this car. Not sure if the 'speed sensitivity' setting on controllers has an impact as it seems to give less steering lock in a fast car like this (therefore I'm needing to ease off when I feel the car could be pushed further). Problem is, it's way too sensitive with a lower setting.

For the guys with a wheel, is there a noticeable difference in lap time? To be honest, I know my lap wasn't perfect, but I'm stunned that it's 3 seconds(?!?) off the ultimate lap time. Just not sure where I'd ever be making that kind of time up when I'm already on the ragged edge

 

Looking at @Saidur_Ali video he seems to be a lot smoother through the whole track than both of us, if you just compare turn 1 he gets the car turned in and it grips whereas when you arrive at the apex it looks like the car is having to readjust to regain grip (I can't think of how to explain it but hopefully you can see what I mean). Turn 5 (about 40 seconds in) looks like you run a bit too deep and compromises your exit speed and therefore lose time down the rest of that straight. All little things like this will add up to seconds by the end of a lap, but for now my theory is that the last second or so is reserved just for aliens so humans can't get close. But damn you did a good job in that last chicane , I'm constantly on two wheels or facing the wrong way by the end of it and can't carry close to the speed you did there.

--

Couldn't resist another go where I brake only once for each corner rather than braking to slow down and then again when I realise I've arrived at the apex too fast.

1:35.790, Im_Lukas, PC, lukas_akinikiwoowoo, XB1 Pad

 

Yep agreed. There were several times I cost myself at least a few tenths. If I nailed a lap, I might expect to improve by 1-1.5 seconds. Just very hard to be consistent with a controller, as I'm sure you find too.

As for the remaining 1.5 seconds that I'd still be behind @Saidur_Ali ... well, I just can't work it out. I've got no problem being beaten, but I can usually understand where the time is, this is another matter.
I tried the same tune and adjusted my braking points to mirror what @Saidur_Ali was doing, but I simply wasn't able to get the car turned when arriving at the apex with that much extra speed.

This was why I asked about a wheel actually (not as an excuse I should point out, more for a search for answers). I know the controller reduces steering lock at higher speed, if you have it set that way. On some of the apexes, it looks as though a fair bit of steering is used to get the car in the right direction, and I couldn't replicate this.

Another thing that may be inadvertently slowing me down is that I gave in and switched assists on in this car... just couldn't complete a clean lap without them. I'm not sure if you lose some raw pace when the aids are working to keep you on track

 

Steering wheel is easier to keep line for me although it should be possible with to be really fast with a pad, some players on GT have like surgical precision so I imagine they would do incredible times on pCARS if they played it and same goes for wheel users.

I had a quick look at your video, it seems some corners you are carrying a lot less speed at apex, one I saw at something like 14MPH less, 1-3MPH can be worth quite a lot so I imagine that difference is a lot. I also seem to hold higher minimum speed through the corner and also get better exits which all make a big difference in laptime. You seem to also be overworking the front tyres which causes them to overheat too, if you go with the flow more, braking less and carrying more speed into corners and waiting a bit more for car to be turned in before powering out of corners then I imagine you can improve a lot in terms of speed.

If you are looking at braking points on video, it can be a bit deceiving as reaction time and screen lag can mean you are braking even later so best thing is to do is find a braking point where you make the apex, if you record video then you might see you are braking at the same spot as me. I usually am still braking into apex and on the throttle more or less straight away once I'm about to hit it which helps keep speed up. I made a mistake on start of lap which made me lose about 3 tenths compared to my best, usually I won't have as much steering lock. Didn't spend too much on this, basic setup change from stock and less than an hour of driving so there is a lot of potential to go even quicker.

If you pause video at some apexes in comparison to mine, you can see the difference in speed and also for mid-corner speed and exit speed which should help you figure out where you are losing the most time. Also comparing sector times, most of the time difference is in the second and third sectors.

Aids in this game seem to work well so shouldn't slow you down I imagine especially if you notice a benefit from it than without.

 

I think with most of these points, it really comes down to ability
I think my main issue seems to be flow, and smoothness of controls. This is the hardest game I've played with a pad by a distance, just haven't found the right balance here.
I'd still like to improve from where I'm at though, so will probably give this another shot, trying to work on the bits you've raised.

Thanks for taking the time to give me some pointers here

 

May get this game one day on PS4 so will give it a go with DS4 when I do, personally prefer the controls on this game compared to say GT or Forza as it seems more direct which I prefer. As it has an anologue stick, you should be able to hold lines by holding it steady in direction you want to go a bit like steering wheel.

 

You're right, in that it's nice and direct. I tend to be able to hold the stick on a long bend, but with only an inch of movement, I'm not quite able to apply this to every corner.
I think years of playing Forza and GT has trained my brain to the console way of racing with an analogue stick though, so I'm having to retrain myself to a certain extent. The only problem here is that there are so many settings that can be played with. I've picked something that felt comfortable, but have absolutely no idea whether it's practical
I spent the first 10 hours or more just playing with settings when I got the game.. sounds like a chore, but I'm obsessive by nature, so really enjoyed it!

One thing you mentioned about cornering... carrying more speed in and waiting more for the car to turn before powering out - would this include a period where you are not braking or accelerating at all? Or do you mean a feathering of throttle until you've turned?
I think I'm braking around the right point, but probably too much. However its what I'm doing IN the corner that is causing the issue, as my inputs are not allowing me to turn quickly enough while carrying more speed.

 

I'm still playing with the settings! I haven't getting round to posting a time here yet. I tried last night but I'm not comfortable with the new FFB at all. More tinkering...

 

Still using default settings myself.

If you look at your video about 1:13 in and mine at 1:30, that corner you can carry loads of speed into the apex, wait for it to grip up near apex while turning before powering out. You want to get on power without having to lift again really for that corner with minimal steering input. You can still be using brakes for example while reaching the apex of the corner you are aiming for or a small amount of throttle if you slowed too much for apex already.

When braking you want to make sure car is stable before committing to corner and you are carrying right amount of speed, otherwise it is easy to run wide. That is why it is also good to do trail braking as well, did a quick google search about it just now and this might might help you understand better: Link

 

1:35.319, PS4, Lanius1984, controller

@Saidur_Ali, thanks for the pointers earlier... Watching this lap back, it was pretty messy TBH. I was just trying to focus on carrying speed through the turns. As a result, I've knocked over a second off by previous best
With a better approach here, it seems I've put less strain on the tires as well.

I need a lot of practice to get my head around this different mentality though, seems I've been trying too hard to go quickly up to now.

 

Great to see the improvement, keep it up .

 

Shoot. Didn't see you started another one. Gonna give this a go tonight.

 

1:39:200 best I can do at mo.
PS4 T300 wheel