USDMFTWs Car Reviewing | Deader than a Doornail

Sure

55/45 huh? Must be the DAOHC plus the relatively high weight. One could try an MOHV, that would be like chucking a crate block into an MX-5 :wink:

MOHV would probably lower it to 53/47 or so.

That’s an interesting design… not very good performance wise, but interesting at least :sweat_smile:
If you wanted a cheaper light cheap miata thinggy, maybe you shouldn’t use a flatplane v8, just my opinion.[quote=“USDMFTW, post:78, topic:6697”]
your foot just goes to the floor while you recite bible verses hoping the car stops before you start your offroading adventure
[/quote] I lol’d

A couple of questions @USDMFTW do you use a formula for your scores? What would be a 10/10?

Yea, formulas are used, you car has to be near perfect/godlike in a specific category to get a score of 10. The scoring slightly varies between each car i review because of the class of the car and its real world counterparts. Each main category has individual sub-categories that are also scored out of 10, then averaged to get the total score for the category.

There was one question I had actually, about the assessment of handling, specifically the steering balance.

It was very true that my car had a progressive understeer bias. In current game modelling, it is impossible for a midship car to do anything else unless it has bad terminal oversteer problems, which is the last thing you want on a midship because it’s nearly impossible to catch unless you countersteer almost before it goes out. Torque vectoring and stability control goes a long way to fixing that obviously.

But the game will significantly penalise one for using an oversteer balance by reducing its drivability score. It often decides that the maximum static lateral acceleration of the car is also a lot lower, so it also penalises sportiness, and track times get worse because you can’t hold the car on the edge.

My point there is in essence, your reviewing system will automatically preclude MR cars from getting 10/10 handling. Only FR cars will be able to achieve this based on the steering balance curve. Is that fair? Well, I don’t think life is fair, and not all formats were created equal :laughing: so maybe this isn’t the right question to ask, but at least we should be well aware that your system carries this caveat.

Note also that it is impossible to actually tell how the car corners at high speed using the high speed cornering graph, when a car has active aero. I believe killrob confirmed this some months ago but we’re not sure how to address it yet because if UI clutter. So for high speed cornering I would suggest you simply use the 250m circle test.

Reviewer bias/opinion is always present in a review, but your car didnt get a 10 in handling because of your design choices. You had much thinner tires on the front (255mms) and 345mms in the rear. If you would have put 295s or 305s on the front the car would have still had a slight understeering nature, but would be much more neutral. Also, laptimes would have slightly improved on both base game tracks, as well as skidpad g forces at 20 and 250 meters. Same before goes for the extremely odd and ineffective brake setup. If it was not for the silly brakes, you had a 10 in performance and sportiness also.

Your design choice is what earned you that 9 score. Put better brakes, and wider front tires to make the car more neutral handling and you would get a 10 in those categories, the car you submitted did not earn in a 10. If you want a 10 in handling, do better design choices, not say there is a bias in the review against MR cars where they cant earn a 10, because i did “fix” your car with what i said in this post, rescored it and it got a 10.

But your car still scored extremely well and it was interesting to see a reproduction of the high feature V6 in automation, and in a hypercar.

You’re going to think I’m giving you a hard time again :stuck_out_tongue: trust me, I’m not challenging the score (I would have not given it a 10 myself), but something you’ve written doesn’t seem right.

I haven’t run stable build for a while and I’m not 100% sure that the car I sent you is the car you got. But I’m fairly sure the handling model hasn’t changed and what you’ve said here is… Completely false. Did you verify your claim before you wrote that???

I will check it myself when I get back to my PC, but I’m not under the impression that using wider tyres would have achieved a better balance between driveability and better track times, not to mention the slight understeer would end in terminal oversteer unless I reduced the negative camber which would have undermined cornering anyway.

Consider also the weight distribution was something like 67:33, so you’d have to consider the loading versus contact patch of the tyre. 305 fronts makes sense (sort of) in a front heavy pig of a muscle car, but then as a road car it becomes heavily compromised due to a combination of heavy yet twitchy steering and horrendous tramlining.

I am definitely going to go back and check your claims as if you’re right I’ll retract what I said above and probably learn something new in the process. But as it stands, it sounds wrong.

You also have to remember weight shift when braking. Which is where i believe most of the improved track time is from.

When you change to 305mms tires to the front, you get around .2 seconds faster laptimes on both tracks. Only 255mms to 305mms on the front.


The previous 2 images are for tire size change only, like above, no other changes were made. The image with the more neutral graph has the larger front tires. These graphs of course, are not 100% accurate but the change
(and do i say, this game does not like swapping between tabs with your car XD)

Also, do remember these reviews are ran in steam stable build, so open beta will produce different results.

Edit:

I’m not convinced that the simulation models this yet, so maybe not. I’ll take a look at the numbers in a couple of hours.

Closed beta will also produce different results again! And then the inclusion of dynamic acceleration in corners will change again, so I’ll be mindful of those changes.

Definitely interested to try this out now, though obviously I won’t convey the results at all as a criticism of your reviewing, it’s now a separate discussion. I’m going to look into what tyres MR supercars use in relation to their weight distribution too. The mid-engined bodies in Automation do tend to favour a strong rearward bias which makes it a bit harder to compare E.g. LaFerrari has 40:60 whereas my cars tend to be anywhere from 33:67 to 28:72!

Alot of hypercars/super cars use varying sizes in there tires as well. I see alot of variation, but the rear are always larger than the front, whether the car is rwd or not. It seems the average difference in size is about 50-60mms between front and rear tires. Alot of factors for this, suspension setup, body shape, cost etc.

Also, browsing around the internet, hypercars/supercars tend to understeer aswell. Most supercar/hypercar buyers wont even get close to the cars limit anyways, so understeer characteristics are indeed safer.

http://oppositelock.kinja.com/the-lamborghini-huracan-understeers-like-a-shopping-tr-1625174349
quick link i found

Atleast this discussion fits into the hypercar challenge hopefully happening soon when open beta finishes.

1 Like

Thanks, and yes, the stagger is there. Salamander’s stagger is bigger than most, and was probably a relic from the abnormal balance found in Mercury (it started off with 235F/395R!!! but with changes in the build the balance has also changed). I’m going to go and check out how the tyre widths stack up in the new build now.

The way I would have phrased it myself, though this is simply a difference of opinion, is that Salamander can’t get a perfect 10 for handling because it’s a road-going hypercar that’s geared for the road, so it may sacrifice some track ‘enjoyment’. And with 800bhp on tap, some might argue that it is still “too much” in a sense, as it may even necessitate the overly understeering balance? Something like that.

On an unrelated note, from a related article about LaFerrari (265F, 345R, 40:60 weight balance)

The supporting act consists of five underfloor flaps – three in the front and two in the rear – which modulate the air >flow for enhanced cornering grip or maximum velocity. At 200km/h, the aero kit increases vertical load by 360kg.

Man, I’m sad we can’t get that much downforce with our aero kits anymore :frowning:

EDIT: Holy shit, I just checked my tyre sizes and you are completely correct. I preserve a little drivability but all the track times are slower with my current setup. [color=yellow]You are therefore perfectly entitled to maintain that it is a limitation by design choices, and I retract all of my prior assertions that the assessment may have been unbalanced/misleading.[/color] Well, this is clearly something I’m going to have to review for future builds.

I reckon it’s to do with the fact that this is the one M-AWD car GG’s built.

Even if its RWD you get better lap times with larger front tires, you have to have a balance of grip between the front and rear. Not enough surface contact on the front, and you get horid understeer, to much tire in the front, you find the track barrier.

My kamala GT-R in my other thread is 315mms front 335mms rear, so ive done my research on tires with that car and many, many others.

Well I’ve always been conscious of appropriate tyre sizing. You should check all of my other cars. They’re as close to the limit as you can get. I still haven’t fully figured out why I left this one so short, because if I’d realised there was more room to move, I would have done so!

Did I build the car in a previous version then forget to retune it? It was last August I initially designed the car.

Issues with submitted car are being resolved.

Resolved
Review released tomorrow(saturday)

Can’t wait to see it!

Hello, today we have yet another sporty and racy car, the Vittalli Vigore GT VM 550RT. This car is more of a GT car rather than pure track or sport. So with this car you get great performance and comfort without axe murdering your bank account.




Quick Stats
Drivetrain Layout: Front Engine - Rear Wheel Drive
Engine: 4.2L DOHC Twin Turbo Crossplane V8
Horsepower : 549 @ 8200rpms
Torque : 410@ 5500rpms
Top Speed : 206.1 mph
Transmission : 6 Speed Dual Clutch
Weight : 3747 pounds
Mpg(US) : 23.9

Driveability
|6/10|
The car did better than average here, but it could have done better, but you have to have tradeoffs for good handling and performance. With that said, the car has quite a bit of power going to the rear wheels. Punch the throttle and expect wheelspin, thankfully, driver assist limit that wheelspin to a slight tire screech as the systems cut power. Speaking of driver assist, the car comes with every driver assist available making the car manageable, but still very tail happy and a bit oversteery, though it will never violently spin out like other cars. The engine does suffer from noticeable turbo lag, but it really is not bad at all compared to other cars we have had our filthy hands on. That being said as a GT car, we feel buyers would prefer an easier to drive car. Would we prefer it be more tame, NO.

Performance and Sportiness
|8/10|
The car gets great performance, beating some of its rivals. On the strip we got a bit slower than average 4.3 seconds to 60mph, thanks to some traction issues. The launch control was easy to use and provided consistent times, it just that not enough traction was there despite 315mms rear with high performance rubber. Despite a below average 0-60 time, the car more than makes up the distance through the quarter mile. After second gear, the car hooks up and rockets down the strip, putting a car length on the competition. This car completes the Âź mile in 11.82 seconds.
This is thanks to its twin turbo 4.2L V8. Like other turbo cars low rpm power is camry like, but after 3500 rpms the turbo spools and gives you one of the flattest torque curves we have seen in a car to date. Horsepower is also good and linear, but peaky, peaking at 8200, you need to rev it all the way to its 8800 rpm redline to get the most acceleration. Top speed is good, but top speed is limited by a too short gear ratio. Could we ask for a 7 speed here, please!

After your straight line run, be prepared for your face to hit the steering wheel, with a stopping distance of 98 feet, you will stop, get out of your car and grab lunch before the others even stop.

All of the above is done with a car weighing almost 3800 pounds, impressive.

Handling
|9/10|
With a car weighing near 3800 pounds you would expect handling to suffer, but it does not. Body roll is minimal even at high speeds, thanks to the advanced active suspension system. This suspension also helps the car get excellent skidpad results, with 1.23g @ 20 meters, and 1.09gs at 250 meters. In corners the car is very flat and the rear loves to rotate when glorious use of the throttle is applied, the car does oversteer and slide a bit, but we were never able to spin the car out (without just blatantly doing it on purpose), even with driver assist disabled. Power was strong out of corners as long as you downshifted to keep the rpms high. Our drivers got an impressive 1:16:77 time on the airfield test track.

Comfort
|8/10|
The car scores good here, as it should, being a GT car. This car features very high quality plush real leather seats that are heated, cooled and can massage your ass as you haul ass. We also found a leather wrapped steering wheel. The car also has one of the best climate controls we have used. The engine and transmission are very smooth, no complaints there. The only negative thing is that when you hit a bump, you will feel it thanks to the sport tuned suspension, but it certainly will not come close to breaking your ass, even when going over the largest bumps or potholes.

Interior Quality
|8/10|
Like previously stated, the leather seats are very high quality, with yellow stitching to match the paint. The car also contains touches of carbon fibre on the door inserts and center console. No hard to the touch plastics.The stereo system is a 12 speaker system, including 2 subwoofers, for a total of 1200 watts of complete overkill and ear sexual assault. Controlling this overkill system is a 10 inch touch screen, with excellent response and quick loading times, putting other infotainment systems to shame.

Safety
|9/10|
The car scores very well here thanks to a plethora of technology. This car comes with every safety feature on the market, featuring a high quality backup camera, lane departure warning, radar guided cruise control and automatic collision detection and braking. If you somehow still manage to wind up in a wreck, the advanced stiff aluminum construction and 6 airbags will keep you safe.

Cost
|10/10|
This car is dirt cheap, at 80000 dollars, you literally will not find anything better for this price, there is absolutely no comparison when you factor in the cost of this car compared to its competition. That being said fuel economy is good, getting over 24mpg and only requiring premium fuel. Luckily, service cost are cheap as well, a bit over 4300 dollars.

Reliability
|6/10|
The car suffers a bit here, the advanced technology found in this car is not as reliable as more simpler and common technology, expect the electronics to eventually fail. The car is very mechanically sound though. Just pay attention to the valvetrain as it gets abused at high rpms.

Aesthetics
|No Score for this|
Our reviewers all agreed that the car just does not look good, we would call it polarizing at best. The front features grillception, with a grill in a grille, in a grille, which looks silly to us. The car looks like it is squinting. Everything is also awkwardly scrunched together on the low part of the front bumper. The sides are also odd, with a chrome vent right next to the tiny door handle.
The rear would be good, but its simply too much chrome. It features twin exhaust on each corner for a total of 4, and large C shaped tail lights, with another grillception finishing off the rear. We also find nice 6 spoke rims with low profile tires.

Overall
|8/10|
This car is an excellent car for the money. If you can get past the looks, you have a great GT car. Its faster than some of the competition, provides better technology too. All for half the cost of other cars in this class. Our recommendation, buy it as long as you are okay with making women blind when they see al the rear chrome.

1 Like

Great review! :smiley: I am really happy with the score that the car has. I hope to build cars like this in the future that are just as good or better. Also that golden yellowish colour is part of our heritage at Vittalli Auto Sportive. :stuck_out_tongue:

Which is a strange thing to agree on when you’re reviewing the best looking car your magazine has ever gotten it’s hands on.

Looks are in the eye of the beholder.