What did you do in FM23 today?

  • Thread starter DextroCat
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Did a bit more in the Mid-Engined series yesterday, bought one good car and one not so good. The good? The Maserati MC12. It's exactly how I'd imagined and how it was described back in the day, like an Enzo, but just a little bit better (weird instrument font aside). Just a great car to drive, stable under braking, balanced through low and high speed corners, with great traction and huge power to 300km/h, and just very easy to get consistent, fast laptimes with.

The not so good? Well, I bought myself a McLaren P1 for the next series on the basis that I should try something other than Ferrari V12s. And it sucks. Bulk high-speed understeer, brakes that are only kinda up for the job, and then the turbos spool up and it tries to murder me every so often with almost uncatchable power oversteer. Not loving it at all. And still not really fast enough to catch the GMA T50's even though the performance points would indicate otherwise.
 
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Finished the Mid-Engine Legends series with the F1, then did a few laps around Sunset Peninsula at Sunset
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Well, that’s the first Mustang Series out of the way! What is with the AI and new tracks. On the first lap of the unset Peninsula race the AI got confused on the first straight after the start and got all out of shape for an easy pass.
Not wanting too much aggro from the AI I tend to go for very easy opponents, though why at the start (more often than not) one or two cars go off into the distance only to slow down after a couple of miles to let me pass seems strange.
I had an interesting Practice at the Watkins Glen Mustang Race. There was a Camaro somewhat in the way and we had “contact” nd the Camaro flipped over and went over the top of me ending up facing the barrier behind me!
 
Did the first series of Mustang races - I actually quite like that car for what it is, and it's shocking how much better it is than the 2016 (?) model you can choose for the beginner's series. Much sharper and more balanced. Hate the lazy iPad everywhere dashboard but then everyone is doing that these days.
 
Had a “fun filled” 20 minutes or so doing the Mediterranean Drift in one of the lesser powered Mustang RTR Racers. I managed a couple of frustrating 19,000+ laps, eventually managing 21,574 to get the Formula Drift Mustang. It seemed as if setting one wheel off the track negated your current score. I was eventually scoring 1,000-2,000 or so at a time and easing of to bank it. Less speed was definitely better.

Also completed the B Class Open Series in the Evo III which is now Level 45. I’ll probably do a Free Play Race on Sunset Peninsula Full to get closer to the Challenge to get it to Level 50 (I don’t pay for my levels).
 
I earned the Formula Drift Mustang at the Rivals drift event at Barcelona, and I also did the Rivals event with the Hellcat at a very Silent Hill looking Maple Valley. I probably won't win the Los Muertos suit by beating 15 rivals there, but by accruing more laps at night elsewhere.
 
I earned the Formula Drift Mustang at the Rivals drift event at Barcelona, and I also did the Rivals event with the Hellcat at a very Silent Hill looking Maple Valley. I probably won't win the Los Muertos suit by beating 15 rivals there, but by accruing more laps at night elsewhere.
I watched your Rivals drift ghost with envy...
 
I just did one of the non-drift Mustang rivals events at Sunset and crashed into a wall halfway through the first lap. Once I ragequit the game gave me the Dark Horse and other cars anyway.

Bought yet another Mustang to start the Last Pony Car tour. It's working out OK so far on AI level 6.

Think I'll be giving the drifting a miss.
 
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I earned the Formula Drift Mustang at the Rivals drift event at Barcelona, and I also did the Rivals event with the Hellcat at a very Silent Hill looking Maple Valley. I probably won't win the Los Muertos suit by beating 15 rivals there, but by accruing more laps at night elsewhere.
Judging by the few races I've done in Open Tour and Featured Tour so far, a lot of those 25 night time laps will be accrued just by playing these races.

Once i've done the Tour races, I'm planning to stack some free play laps at Peninsula at night to get the Los Muertos suit and the 50k as efficiently as possible.
 
Finished all of the Open series. But the rewards race wasn't looking good. I know the track has lights on it but you're still driving a car with no lights and I really didn't know exactly where I was going. I think my practice time was 19th after the 2nd lap. But I still won the race.
 
All done with the Open Series. I rather like that old race Mustang. You can upgrade it cheaply as it has a Restrictor Plate. For that final race you are limited to what you can upgrade though. I adjusted the gearbox ratios which made a big improvement to the performance.
 
Got my Lancer Evo III to Level 50 on Sunset Full. Did some further laps of Sunset Full to get the Wurth Ford Capri racer levelled up and collect the 50,000 bonus for 25 Clean Laps. Used the Speedway layout to get the Wurth Caprinto Level 50. More Speedway with the ‘24 Mustan GT and got it to Level 41. If I can get it to Level 50 today, I’ll have 4 Level 50 Fords for an extra 20% discount on the Mustangs available at 15% off for the next weeks of the Mustang Series.
 
Today I completed The Last of Stallions part of the Mustang tour and earned the blue suit. Watkins Glen at sunset with cloudy weather is visually stunning, and in the last lap as the sun sets, the daylight running lights in your car and the others turn on instead of the full headlights. It's a neat touch IMO.
 
Well, I went one better. After getting that Capri to Level 50 I worked on the #66 late model Ford GT. It already had some levels so I got it to Level 50 for the full 25% Ford discount on Sunset Peninsula Speedway and Le Mans. Should make for a cheap Spotlight Mustang! A nice by-product is the nearly 6.2 million credits I now have. I was around 5 million previously. That plus my Driver Level is now 944.
 
Another update! Completed this weeks Mustang Event. Saved a reasonable amount on the two Spotlight Mustangs. The ‘65 was 47.8K compared to a 75K list and the GT500 was 67.2K down from 96K. I did a 6 lap Laguna Seca in the Ligier Prototype (figured 420HP wasn’t too excessive) with some weight cutting the handling was 10. I managed the Weekly Track Challenge of getting a segment score of 8 or better on the Corkscrew for 10,000 credits. Just for some “light relief” I did 6 laps on the Old Mulsanne Circuit in the #63 Huracan Super Trofeo to try to get a 4th Lamborghini up to Lv 50. It went from Lv 17 to Lv 23. Bit more work needed!
 
C class Open Tour. This week my weapon of choice is the 1995 BMW CSi. YEEEEEAAAHHHH... no, wait, this behemoth is a joke around corners. Not fun at all.
 
Got my ****box Mustang about as far as it will go in the open class series, putting a Supercharger on the old Windsor engine, winning S Class against various Ferrari 458/488 models, C8 Corvettes, GT350s and ZL1s and the odd NSX. It's not going to be fast enough to win R-Class unless I do an engine swap, and it's not nearly as stable in high speed corners as my old Falcon GT was - feels like the wheelbase is a decent chunk shorter.
 
Finished the Pony Cars series using the 2024 Ford Mustang. Got it to Level 19 (A Class 614), has potential to be a really good car at full A Class but will need every piece of downforce and tuning to keep it on the road.
Did the first three races of the Colt Classics where I'm using the 1967 Shelby 500 - so far up to Level 12 (D Class 375) - Even at these low speeds it's a handful. Like most American cars it struggles to turn corners. Thankfully only one more race to go.
Lastly, I'm taking my 1983 VW Golf GTI through the E class Rival events. Got it as a 4WD and managed to get it into the top 10% of times on Eagle Rock Speedway. Happy with that.
 
A Class tour time and a grippyish setup (4.4 speed/5.0 handling) for the Dark Horse makes it a real pleasure to drive, even on fast tracks like The Glen. This is a keeper.
 
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Just wondering what difficulty and grid positions people choose for career races? Every time I win a race I move one grid spot back (when I win a race from position 24 I up the difficulty level and start at 3 and so on) and move forward if I lose a race (if I finish 4th I'll move forward 4 positions in the next race). So I hover between the back of the grid on level 5 and the front of the grid on level 6. What's your strategy?
 
Just wondering what difficulty and grid positions people choose for career races? Every time I win a race I move one grid spot back (when I win a race from position 24 I up the difficulty level and start at 3 and so on) and move forward if I lose a race (if I finish 4th I'll move forward 4 positions in the next race). So I hover between the back of the grid on level 5 and the front of the grid on level 6. What's your strategy?
I look at the cornering scores I get in practice and subtract one. If I'm only getting sixes or sevens than I can normally only catch up with level 5 or 6 AI. I like to bump up the start position to whatever they predict will land me in 3rd-5th place to give me something to fight against on the way to P1. Usually this is between 5th or 7th place for me.
 
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Just wondering what difficulty and grid positions people choose for career races? Every time I win a race I move one grid spot back (when I win a race from position 24 I up the difficulty level and start at 3 and so on) and move forward if I lose a race (if I finish 4th I'll move forward 4 positions in the next race). So I hover between the back of the grid on level 5 and the front of the grid on level 6. What's your strategy?
Generally I'll start 12th against level 6 AI, although there have been some odd outlier challenge races where I'll have to start higher up and then fight pretty damn hard to get to the lead and hold it. And sometimes when I just can no longer be bothered and want the series to end, I'll skip practice and just Leeroy Jenkins it from P4/5.
 
Just wondering what difficulty and grid positions people choose for career races? Every time I win a race I move one grid spot back (when I win a race from position 24 I up the difficulty level and start at 3 and so on) and move forward if I lose a race (if I finish 4th I'll move forward 4 positions in the next race). So I hover between the back of the grid on level 5 and the front of the grid on level 6. What's your strategy?
I start in 8th and I use difficulty 5. Because the races are so short I think level 5 gives me an honest chance at winning. I've ran free play races at level 6 over 10 laps and it seems the front AI car(s) just continues to pull away and build a huge lead. So instead of there being a 1 point difference between 5 and 6, it feels like there's at least 2 to 3 points difference.

The 8th place thing goes back to when the starts were a real cluster #%@& and there was so much bashing that 8th seemed to be the best chance at getting through that mess and still having a chance for a win.
 
I look at the cornering scores I get in practice and subtract one. If I'm only getting sixes or sevens than I can normally only catch up with level 5 or 6 AI. I like to bump up the start position to whatever they predict will land me in 3rd-5th place to give me something to fight against on the way to P1. Usually this is between 5th or 7th place for me.
Wow, you look at your cornering scores? That is technical, very cool.
 
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