GP4 100% Race Ultimate Career Mode

nice, I don't want to use setups so that I am driving the same car as the AI does (except when it rains). Difficulty is between Pro and Ace.
I don't do FP, but I just do a quick race, let the AI get ahead of me and pump in some practice laps.

to Andy: standings are already in the video description. Williams should also be ahead of McLaren on countback.

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2015 05:32PM by miki2000milos.

miki2000milos Wrote:
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> to Andy: standings are already in the video
> description. Williams should also be ahead of
> McLaren on countback.

Ah okay.

miki2000milos Wrote:
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> nice, I don't want to use setups so that I am
> driving the same car as the AI does (except when
> it rains). Difficulty is between Pro and Ace.
> I don't do FP, but I just do a quick race, let the
> AI get ahead of me and pump in some practice
> laps.


I'm not really into setup work either, but I resolve myself to do it when I'm not quicker than the Ace AI out of the box (with the standard setup). Which is usually the case, haha.

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My workthread - [www.grandprixgames.org]
Full of classic F1/non-F1 track layouts

My blog about F1 performance analysis - [thef1formbook.wordpress.com]

lol

anyway, as Andy posted the tables, and we are on a new page, I will do the short recap.

Quali went well, we had pace, for 2nd place (that even rhymes ), but i felt like we could've got pole just the backmarkers decided to be total idiots and block me.

Race went good too, I had a bunch of wheelspin, going automatically to the right to squiezze Hakkinen to the edge of the race track, but while he still had room, he backed out. DC tried a dive, didn't work, he had to back out after my agressive defence. That could've ended in tears.
Later DC was attacking me, as Schumi was gone. I had a nice ding dong battle with him, overtakes on the straight than me back into turn 1. But then, Mika got past DC, and got past me into turn 4 this time, I tried to hold it but the car understeered wide, I hit him off. Stewards investigated the incident after the race and decided to give Adam a grid penalty for San Marino, so we will get a 10 place grid drop next time out, at one of the hardest circuits to overtake. Will be fun indeed!
But back to Brazil, Rubens joined the action, we all went 3 wide into T1 at one point. Rubens backed out though. Hakkinen was making his way through the pack, before he hit Alex Wurk and spun to the rear again.
First stops, Schumi did a massive undercut, Adam managed to lead a lap in all that, after pushing to pull out a slight gap to DC just in time for his stop. Crew doing a great job and we rejoin in P3 14 seconds behind the 1-stopping HH Frentzen, which became 2 seconds once he pitted. Later into the second stint we spin the car at turn 9, lose about 4 seconds and two places to DC and Rubens. We needed to overtake Rubens to get back up to P3 and a podium, as Frentzen was slow. And then. He had a bunch of straight line speed, I couldn't get close to him. I had to do the move into a corner. It was hard keeping up behind him for an overtaking spot as he was giving me dirty air through the fast corners. But we get one chance on lap 36, into turn 10 and we get the overtake done for a brief moment - we run awfully deep and just about keep the car on the edge of the track. Aand Rubens back through.
Then my tyres started falling off, but Rubens got held up in traffic. On lap 43 I tried the same move but braking a bit earlier this time, yet I still broke way later than him and managed to get the pass done for good. Then I pulled away an 8 second lead after the 2nd stops, rejoin in P3, and got a 8 second gap, just to touch the curb too hard at turn 2 and we lose all that. I got a 2 second lead again before getting held up in traffic, that put Rubens on my gearbox again, but Mika, who was following me and Rubens a lap down, overtook Rubens and that sealed my podium. It was 2nd place as Couthard had a weird glitch and later even retired with a Water Leak. Teammate retired with an oil leak, so 6 points for Williams.

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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miki2000milos écrivait:
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> nice, I don't want to use setups so that I am
> driving the same car as the AI does

Don't forget that AIs use simplified physics, so they can drive smootly even with a crap setting.

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EricMoinet Wrote:
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> miki2000milos écrivait:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > nice, I don't want to use setups so that I am
> > driving the same car as the AI does
>
> Don't forget that AIs use simplified physics, so
> they can drive smootly even with a crap setting.


Also, the track-specific default setups of GP4 always understeer heavily - the manual openly acknowledges it (well, it says "slight understeer" but I found it heavy enough).

P. S.: I didn't know the AI use simplified physics, good to know.

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My workthread - [www.grandprixgames.org]
Full of classic F1/non-F1 track layouts

My blog about F1 performance analysis - [thef1formbook.wordpress.com]

really?
AI, you cheating bastards :P

but that explains why I had less grip through fast corners then.

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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I've seen that in a topic recently and it make sense since rF uses also a simplified one and is more recent.
It also make sense when you think of the amount of parameters available and the need to calculate all of them for all cars at every frame per second if it wasn't a simplified one. (and yes that make them cheating bastards)

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ok. I'll have a look into AI and player setups so I can maybe have equal cornering grip to the AI cars.

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2015 05:58PM by miki2000milos.

umm.. how do I alter the setup to go faster through corners without altering straightline speed? :D

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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This is the great deal of drawing a setup

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miki2000milos Wrote:
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> umm.. how do I alter the setup to go faster
> through corners without altering straightline
> speed? :D


Haha, welcome to car setup 101.

It's hard to find ways to increase cornering speed and keep up the same straightline speed. This is a trade-off usually, at least as far as aero setup is concerned - which is a lot easier to do than the mechanical setup.

First things first, DO NOT start with the values you see once you choose custom setup on the screen where you can choose between your own setup and the 'track-specific setup'. Look up your magic data file (if it's not there, create it with CMagic, see other places for how-tos), and use the wing values, gear ratios and brake balance values you see there to start with. Take note of them and set them in your custom setup.

That way you'll begin with that 'slightly' understeer-y setup Geoff Crammond & Co. devised for any given circuit during game development.

I usually start off with getting my wing levels and gear ratios right - imagine a graph with laptime on the vertical and wing levels on the horizontal axis. It'll always be a bowl-like shape for a generic circuit - too low wings and you won't have enought downforce to get around the track in good time, thus you'll get high laptime values. And too high on the wings and you won't have enough top speed to get around the straights in good time, thus you'll also get high laptime values. The lowest values are usually at a compromise level, somewhere in the middle - they certainly are for Interlagos, for example.

So start off with trial-and-erroring wing values (set front wing 1-2 notches higher then the rear to help turn that understeer-y car better) and find that sweet spot where you have enough wing for corners, but enough top speed for straights. After each and every change, change gears ratios too: 1-2 rear wing goes with 63-64 top ratio, 8-10 goes with 59-60, 18-20 with 55-56 (in vanilla physics). Spread the other gears evenly between 1st and the top gears.

Then it's time to click on the 'Advanced' button on the car setup screen and look at the mechanical setup - remember, I only do this if I'm still not beating the AI, because this is hardcore physics. Your understeer-y setup is most visible here: you can safely go down 200-300 on the front anti-roll bar and some on the springs as well for most tracks (Interlagos, for instance). This will instantly help turn the car better - and crucially, this is the part where you don't sacrifice top speed for cornering speed. The downside is that this doesn't make as big a swing in the car behaviour as the aero changes do.

In general... meh, this is too difficult to explain here. Look up resources on the internet, seaching for stuff like 'suspension tuning guidelines' on Google.

On, and one more thing: Monaco and the Hungaroring are extremities, you can safely max out wings there and find the corresponding gears, it'll surely be the fastest as they are maximum downforce tracks anyway. Conversely, Monza and Hockenheim are usually fine with 1 or 2 notches of rear wing, they are low downforce (don't forget to find the gears). Montreal and Indy are low-to-medium downforce, so your best guess for downforce will be around 4-8 rear wing, while the rest are medium-to-high with 12-16 rear wings. Interlagos, for example is around the 12-ish. Could be 10 or 8, if you want a really slippery car. A1-Ring is similar too.

Good luck and be patient.

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My workthread - [www.grandprixgames.org]
Full of classic F1/non-F1 track layouts

My blog about F1 performance analysis - [thef1formbook.wordpress.com]

Ah, last but not least the easiest things out of the mechanical side are

1) Ride height - set it high enough not to wear out the plank above 1.00 on any corner of the car, but go the lowest you can get away with (too low will wear out the plank and will cause massive loos of top speed after a while), and
2) Brake balance - go rearward if the car pushes its nose (understeers, gets tight) on corner entry (during braking) and go forward if the rear is getting out of shape (oversteers, gets loose) on corner entry (during braking). This is ONLY for corner entry imbalances do not touch it, if you have problems with tight or loose conditions when you hit the throttle (on the exits). I usually set this one last; using it mainly as a fine-tune device.

Also, do check the car setup videos and texts in the GPAEDIA, they are pretty useful. Pop-ups when you highlight items and texts when you right-click items on the setup screen are helpful too. (Refer these for the mechanical parts.)

If you do one thing (one more, aside from the two above) on the mechanical side, it should be the differential, it perhaps has the biggest impact on grip aside from aero. Refers to the pop-ups.

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My workthread - [www.grandprixgames.org]
Full of classic F1/non-F1 track layouts

My blog about F1 performance analysis - [thef1formbook.wordpress.com]

thanks for that!
I'll have a look at the advanced setups then.

I don't want to suddently gain a ton of straight line speed on the AI, I know I had none in that last episode but that's down to BMW. McLaren and Ferrari are 20 BHP up on my BMW-Williams. I want to keep it realistic in that aspect. Plus it makes for some fun overtakes like the one on Barrichello

Which is why I said without altering straight line speed. I will look at the anti roll bars, and I really hope this will give me more grip in the dirty air as that's where I was struggling in Brazil also, while AI seemed to have no issues with that.

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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okay, the results I feel are massive
Considering Imola is my next track, I can take high speed corners much faster, all just to changing front anti-roll bar and springs
I'll maybe try out the setup in the rain aswell

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 04:12PM by miki2000milos.

but I have two issues now.
It doesn't say in GPaedia how a differential works
Where can I see the inspect vehicle screen? on that screen should be my plank wear, apparently.

edit: setup works well in both dry and wet. But how do I decrease rear tyre lockups? I am getting a lot in the wet, occasionally in the dry aswell.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 04:56PM by miki2000milos.

Game hints on the differential are only available when you hover over the bars (with the pointer) on the diff screen in the setup menus where you actually set them. Be aware that GP4 is very specific in how it draws the variables (the things you actualy change in-game), all the other games I've encountered so far use more simplistic terms, such as a slide with 'Locked' on one end and 'Opened' on the other. F1 teams also use different approaches, e. g. Mercedes is known to use steering wheel switches for high-speed and low-speed diff settings (heard it on the radio).

The inspect vehicle screen is somewhere below the diff button, next to the 'Advanced' button (or on the same row when you are on the advanced screen, I don't really recall). But you can keep an eye on both wear and plank (during free practice when you set things for the latter) in the middle of the bottom of the screen when you use GPxPatch.

Rear tyre locks up when it has too much brake pressure allocated for it - move brake bias forward. It'll also make the car less oversteer-y in principle. (That's why it was Hamilton's rear brakes that failed first last year in Montreal - Lewis likes a more oversteer-y car than Nico, so can use more rearward brake bias which killed those brakes quicker.) Also consider that with keyboard it's always very very easy to lock up, basically no matter what. Luckily, GP4 doesn't really penalise lockups apart from a slight peak in wear.

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My workthread - [www.grandprixgames.org]
Full of classic F1/non-F1 track layouts

My blog about F1 performance analysis - [thef1formbook.wordpress.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 05:39PM by Atticus..

Thanks for that. But I don't understand the brakes, does brake balance forward mean slider to the left or to the right?

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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I believe to the left. (An F1 car will always have more brake on the rears no matter what due to the larger size of the rear wheels and thus brakes that's why you see values like 44:56 for the bias. We are talking about very fine increments here.)

EDIT: Nope, it's to the right. Sorry, that's why I don't really like these setup things - I do mix them up sometimes. It's also the front that gets more bias generally because weight transfers to the front under braking and the bias compensates for this.

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My workthread - [www.grandprixgames.org]
Full of classic F1/non-F1 track layouts

My blog about F1 performance analysis - [thef1formbook.wordpress.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 05:47PM by Atticus..

thanks for everything Atticus. This race will be fun now... 10 place grid penalty for the incident with Hakkinen, plus one can't really overtake at this track

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GPGSL - Yakuza driver

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2015 07:57PM by miki2000milos.