Help learning to drive - braking

Hi all,

I've player GP2 and GP4 years ago, and I decided to return and do a proper season. So, I tried to set up my car for Melbourne and run a race, but I found I must have the car badly setup or I'm lousy at braking. What happens is that on the highest braking curves, namely Turn 1, Turn 3, Turn 6 and especially Turn 9, I begin breaking at the 100 sign, or slighly before while the computer cars seem to do it at the 50 sign. Even though, I tend to lock the front wheels and if I try to turn the car will just go ahead and onto the grass. At other times, I will lose control of the rear with the same setup, which is kind of baffling to me. Understeer and oversteering with the same setup brake balance seems strange.

Then at Turns 13 and 14 I usually keep control of the car but this is the sector where I lose the most time, I always reduce to first gear in the first of these curves and 2nd gear in the other, but I seem to be constantly overtaken by the other cars even before the curve.

For reference, I'm playing a patched GP4 without any mod except GPxPatch, so it's the original cars and tracks. I'm playing with Car Power Team Dependent on and with the following setup:
Wings: 9 back, 14 front
Brake balance: 43.000 / 57.000
Gears: don't really know by heart, but I guess they go from 25 to 57.
ARB: 3000 / 300
Springs 1400 / 1000
Packers: 24 (front) / 35 (back)
Ride Height: 33 (front) / 55 (back)
Dampers and differencial: default values.

I've watched the car with the outside camera and I can see that braking from first gear locks the front wheels first. I'm playing with keyboard and have no access to pedals and steering wheel, and I tend to breaking pressing 'Z' all the way down while shifting the gears to 1st or 2nd in the curves I mentioned. I can understand the car understeering in the curves, as the front wheels, once locked, will not turn. But I don't understand losing the rear when I tested the brake balance at 43.500. For that reason, I stayed at 43.000 and never tried other values, but after a whole bad race I could notice I'm not braking efficiently. Also, I noticed that the computer cars accelerated faster than I did in the third sector, namely between Turn 13 and Turn 14.

Also, for reference, I'm playing in Ace, qualified within the 1'33'' second and during race I never went below 1'32'', with most of the last laps around 1'35'' and the best laps, just after pitting, around a consistent 1'33''. I managed to defend from Tomas Enge in Prost until the end of the race but my advantage over him swung constantly from 1.5 to 0.2, so it was not a steady drive. Finally, I admit I had to reload numerous times during the race until I got used to the car. Apparently, I made insufficient practise.

Can anyone please tell me where and how I have to improve? Thanks a lot.

Alex

P.S.: I'm posting from memory, so some values may be wrong, notably the qualifying time. But I'm pretty sure of the race lap times as I put them and most of the setup.

I tend to use a higher downforce setting around Melbourne than that, about 15 front and 13 rear.
On some tracks it's best to avoid having too big a difference between the front and rear wings, otherwise the car can oversteer a lot, even with a brake bias towards the front.
Other than that, I used mainly the default setup, except with medium differential (improves low speed cornering) and the same brake bias. I do lock up the front quite often, but it's very stable with no spins.
Using a wheel and pedals and playing as Fisichella with TC on and auto gearbox in ace mode I can get a high 28 in quali.
When coming down the gears maybe you could try to change down deeper into the braking zone.
But I guess that it would be a lot harder if I was playing with a keyboard and manual gears.
How many fingers do you have?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 05:07PM by salvasirignano.

With GP2, for some reason a really high front wing and low rear wing setting was the quickest, but that's definately not the case in GP4. I've not set up a car for years now, but when you're driving on the keyboard, you will have to expect to lock the front brakes all the time, which is a pain if you are doing 100% and on a one stop! Anyways, brake hard at the 100 metre board and start your turn in just as you're coming off the brakes. On the keyboard with the right setup, you can slide into the corners a bit which helps shed the speed, but if done right you'll have enough to carry a lot of speed out.

Thanks for the replies. Let me just add that I do use manual shifting, but since shifting down can be done without pressing brakes as in previous games, it is reasonably easy to do.
On the other hand, I didn't mess up with the dampers, which I thought could help me, because I tried it twice and the game crashed to desktop even before the first turn. And I didn't touch the differential because I found no place that actually explained me what it does and how, including the online help. It was not in GP2, so GP2 manuals also don't help. So, I simply ignore it. Oh, I don't know if I said this before, I'm playing with a Jaguar, taking the place of Pedro de la Rosa.

Thanks again.

Alex

Just a tip, but you can do in-game set up changes with gpxpatch

Your wings are very "optimistic" for Melbourne, which is why you can't turn in when you want. Ideal minimum is 16 on the back, I used to run 20 with GP3. If you can set the front wing and roll bars to induce some oversteer, then that'll make you a bit quicker.

---

Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

My wings:14 front, 12 rear
Brakes R42.125:57.875F

And i fly around melbourne doing some 1m23high but most 1m24 - 1m25 a lap.
Just in case your wondering physics im using: its the original game ones.

Cheers

Jeez, 1m23s that's quick, what cars do you play with (Ferrari, Minardi etc)? Car power team dependent?
Mind you I have only completed around 20 laps round the track, I have been installing mods/problem fixing ( a lot of this!) in the month since I've had GP4, I've barely turned a wheel on it, and haven't yet completed a proper race

I play with an updated 2001 cars.wad and NO "Team power Dependant".
Just the original game with a new cars.wad.
Just for some people that dont know: Changing a cars.wad doesnt affect the physics.
For that you need physics and performance files.

Right, without car power team dependent won't Minardi have the same engine power as a Ferrari. I always have it enabled, so would I be right in assuming I am down on bhp in a Benetton compared to the faster cc cars? I remember in GP3 I think that there was an option in GP3 edit which allowed you to choose between default player grip 16384, or not. Is there an option like this in any GP4 editors, or am I driving with the same grip level regardless of whether I'm a Minardi or McLaren in the original game version?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 06:45PM by salvasirignano.

Human players has the same grip whether he drives with a ferrari
or a minardi with or without a performance file but any case if you have
"Team power dependant" with a performance file then the bhp will be affected.

Cheers



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2008 07:15PM by jcaranti.

Just did a 1:24.3 with the 2007 Mod with keyboard on the penaltimate lap of a 17 lap first stint in the race on Ace

Beardless2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just did a 1:24.3 with the 2007 Mod with keyboard
> on the penaltimate lap of a 17 lap first stint in
> the race on Ace

Yep, those are not the original physics.
Cheers

:|