0.17 Discussion thread

shut off ESC
the cars are great after that
and besides, they are working on it

 

Set the SBR4 to sport mode. Without ESC the SBR is very bad at anything over 140mph (use google to convert to kph).

 

I don't know, it does get slippery of course, but then again it is slippery even at 100mph, still manageable as long as you don't throw it around too much.


SBR is kinda sensitive, even more with the speed and without tire noises to warn about increasing slip it gets bit difficult to drive hard, there is not much warning before it starts to go sideways.
Choppy revs etc. I did not notice, I think zesty has had ESC on and TCS is causing throttle to be cut off which causes oddities with rpm he experiences.

SBR4 TT S RWD has rear tire size of 265/30/R18
Porsche 911 Turbo S has rear tire size of 305/30R20
Porsche 911 GT3RS has rear tire size of 325/30 ZR 21 (520hp RWD, 1454kg, from that 897.5kg is at rear wheels, real car on scales shows that much)
Also GT3RS has 450kg of downforce @ 193mph / 310kph

That is considerably larger contact patch with Porsche cars, for some reason BeamNG cars tend to have bit narrow tires, which might contribute to challenging nature SBR4 has.

Hillclimb variants have quite narrow tires indeed when considering they put some 1000kg of downforce at 310kph, even at lesser speed they are putting quite bit of load to those skinny tires.

Road going variants are not putting quite so much downforce, but still I would like to see wider tires, especially for SBR4.

 

This is also a problem with the ETK i-Series including racing variants and may... ? have something to do with its somewhat funky cornering (actually think it was you that told me that in the first place). I don't have any historical reference material in front of me right now but I do sort of feel like 195 is a little narrow for a car of that size and type.

 

The SBR4 has incorrect downforce, at 0mph the SBR4 is tail-heavy but at 140mph nose-heavy.

 

1983 BMW 528e had 195/70R14
1986 BMW 535i had 220/55R15 | 1370/1880kg
1992 Mercedes 190E had 185/65R15
1990 Mercedes 300E had 195/65R15

Now those are not very high performance vehicles of course

We can compare those to this:
1990 Mercedes 190E EVO II had 245/40ZR17 That has 1340kg Curb weight and 1840kg gross weight, only 232hp
https://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1990/1479110/mercedes-benz_190_e_2_5-16_evolution_ii.html

Contact patch increases quite bit in percentages when moving to that size.

Etki Evo has 225/45R16, 330hp and 1454kg Curb weight, it is heavier, more powerful and with skinnier tires, for MB EVO II there are also alternative tire sizes that are wider.

There is considerably gap between model of hub and model of rear wheel, brake disc is sitting almost at inner edge of that wheel, so it is like if car would of designed to have wider wheels, but for some reason is using narrow ones. It could be because track is set up so wide, but clearly there are differences to real vehicles.


Not sure why tires are consistently narrower than comparable high performance IRL vehicles, but I guess there is a reason for that.

Especially modern ones seem to have narrow tires compared to IRL modern ones, tire sizes has been increasing since 80's quite a bit and with SBR4 tire sizing is somewhat odd, but there could be perfectly good reason for that of course.

 

I was thinking more of the base models. Even the 3000i has kind of weird dull-yet-oversteery handling with not much grip. I mean, 195/65-15 is what my Sunbird had from the factory and in typical GM fashion they did not fill out the wheel wells at all; that's at least one size class smaller than the ETK 3000i.

 

Etki base models are quite well in line with comparable IRL models, imo, those Mercs and BMWs had quite skinny tires by today's standards and compared to US cars they had bit narrower tires I think.

Higher performance models are ones that have more of difference to comparable IRL vehicles.

I don't know about brake balance of 3000i, seems to lock rear wheels quite same time as fronts, soapy comes to mind.

 

I've had the rear wheels lock first going downhill...

 

Yeah it does, pretty unsafe for a premium vehicle.

When braking, front end squats a lot, when accelerating, rear does not squat much, so weight is not transferred to rear when accelerating as much, but when braking lot of weight is transferred to front.

I guess that is part of the reason thing handles like soap or more like feels like soap.
Haven't checked numbers, but I would think actual grip level is kind of ok for such car.

It is older somewhat luxurious passenger sedan, not made to handle corners too well, what it does well is to go sideways.

In palette of cars it has it's place and I think it does fit to that place quite ok, but brakes need sorting I think, comfy passenger cars probably should lock fronts quite bit before rears for safety reasons.

 

I tested it and got 0.76-0.77g at 60 MPH (96.5 km/h) which seems... OK? for a car of that type and time.

 

Could be, or might be bit on high side actually.

Late 90's Passat was something like 0.65g I think, there just is so much more in real car that keeps you from going to insane speeds, especially older cars really made you scared much before reaching the limits so while limits were not so high it was quite easy to stay away from limits.

In game that does not translate so well as body roll and g-forces is not trying to eject you trough the door or to passenger seat.

Driving older passenger car hard is a challenge already because how you really have to fight in order to stay in seat, despite seatbelt you slide so much on that comfy non support offering seating that steering and braking becomes issue before car reaches is limits.

Well, that is at least my experience, sure some car models might be better in that regards, but some are really really poor in how you stay in seat.

Not sure if narrow tires are to keep lateral G-forces in check, but developers certainly do lot of tuning to these cars and they have lot of other things to consider like balance between different vehicles etc. so it is not always as simple to know why difference to IRL happens, but there most certainly is good reasons for that.

Having slippery car is not really the issue with tire width being bit narrow, it is more related to balance of things, more to how well you can put power down than how fast you can corner, how weight changes upset car, etc.
Tires really are too complex for my brain, but devs have certainly made considerations and for reasons have come up with choices.



Also ETK is not Merc or BMW, it is ETK, while devs do a lot of research and bring lot of familiar aspects to vehicles, they are their own design, which they do improve constantly too.

I don't want anyone to think that devs have done something wrong for choosing narrow tire sizes for higher performance models, there is probably reasons for that which we just don't know about and performance with wider tires might not be more accurate to IRL, might be even less accurate, who knows.

 

Sunburst rear trailing arm does have a small visual problem:

Spoiler

Same thing in 2gen Pessima:

Spoiler

https://i.gyazo.com/8004f01194f153255476fb5abb4d0499.mp4
https://i.gyazo.com/bcd648b34c65941f563662150334f341.jpg

Tested this and no problems cold starting cars. But there is more exhaust smoke

-33C for example:

Spoiler

 

I know the early 90's Chevrolet Lumina Z34 pulled 0.79, but that was a sports variant. Late 90's Passat did 0.65? Please tell me that's a typo; that's like worse than pickup truck levels of grip right there.

UPDATE: I went searching and this Car and Driver comparison test from 2001 claimed that a US-spec Passat GLX V6 4Motion wagon pulled 0.81g on all-season tires (have to look through the article to find it as C/D seems to have trouble importing g data into online versions of their older reviews), though its sproingy suspension made it a handful in rough or consecutive corners. (Audi's similar wagon with dry-oriented performance tires did 0.82, the Subaru Outback with the offroadiest suspension and tires managed 0.76, but then these cars are all nearly 10 years newer than the newest ETK i-Series). Later, in 2004 (still the same chassis!), they got 0.88g out of a W8 with a sports package. A couple years before, a non-Sport-Package sedan with the same engine and all-seasons got 0.80. But, once again, these are all a good bit more modern than the ETK so whatever, I guess it seems reasonable.

 

I don't claim that my memory would serve me perfectly, but that number is what I remember and I remember thinking that being piss poor, even Muscle cars of 60's got better numbers with handling package than what number I saw for that Passat.

V6 AWD 2001 Passat is not exactly same as their entry level models at 90's though, tires are quite bit different, afaik.

Honda Accord 0.69g here:
http://carranking.com/performance/13/?page=7

There used to be a web page that had hundreds of cars listed, normal cars, it was very crudely made page that was old more than 10 years ago already, I thought I had data saved from that, but could not find, but site was really great source and did show how random results with normal cars could be.

Skidpad test is very much a tire test, with 80 profile tires or something like that and very understeer front heavy setup you just can't get very high results.

Normal passenger cars, not V6, but small I4 engined versions with their skinny tall profile tires did not pull 0.8g that was sports model numbers at 90's, at 80's even Ferrari's had 0.8xg numbers.

Tires have improved a lot from those days.

Then issue with skidpad numbers, 140ft skidpad is not 300ft skidpad and quite often they don't use 200ft skidpad, numbers will be different by that fact alone.

0.83g for BMW M5 (2006/2007?) and 0.79g for 1993 Toyota Corolla Wagon by Car&Driver, like would one really trust these numbers as absolute truth?:
https://www.caranddriver.com/review...-corolla-dx-wagon-archived-instrumented-test/
https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/29803-Skidpad-Numbers-Roadholding

Also there is mentioning of Acura MDX being 0.84g on same magazine as M5 test. You can't really put certain number on certain class or age of vehicle, those numbers vary quite a bit for number of reasons, even same model of car with different trim levels gives quite bit different results.

 

Yeah, they are really random from test to test, ambient temp, amount of dust etc. alone can throw things off big time, maybe in some tests there was little shower and to save time they did test with slightly damp skidpad etc. Variation happens a lot.

 

That would have to be the case with the 2003 Accord because good grief there is no excuse for a result that bad. You could probably find a better number for my 1996 Escort LX wagon somewhere.

 

I'm well that this is totally insignificant as it is about to be totally overhauled, but the H-Series' manual shifter currently has no mesh.

 

@fufsgfen After taking a 3000i to a racetrack instead of a canyon for once, I think I can confirm your theory about the brake bias being messed up. The instability under hard braking (especially trail braking) gets worse as a run goes on and the front brakes start to heat up. If you increase pedal pressure from, say, 70-75% to 80-85% to compensate for the fading front brakes, then the rears lock up and you go off into the sand (even with sustained hotlapping the rear brakes never get hot enough to start fading like the fronts do). The handling can be stable and predictable once you figure out how to drive up, but the lack of grip takes some getting used to, and the oversteer bias is real, though it can still understeer if you avoid quick moves near the limit.

Fading brakes and discombobulated chassis tuning; I think the devs made the most un-German German car ever!