I never realized flatplanes gave better performance. I wondered why so many people used them over the crossplane which is smoother (its all about that comfort stat right?).
Actually it depends on balancing. XP is also slightly heavier and may or may not give lower peak output. Iāve found setups where XP would beat FP and vice-versa.
Flatplane v8s can rev higher, since they donāt need balancing shafts. So they engine is lighter and has fewer moving parts. The downside is worse smoothness.
ā¦well, I just looked up locking differentials on Wikipedia, and I think I see why I chose not to put an automatic locker on my car:
[quote][ul][li]Pros: Automatic action, no driver interaction necessary, no stopping for (dis-) engagement necessary, continuous driving even in unforeseen road condition changes[/li]
[li]Cons: Increased tire wear and noticeable impact on driving behavior. During cornering, which half-axle is uncoupled is dependent on torque direction applied by the drivelive. When the torque direction is reversed, the speed of the driveline is suddenly forced to change from the inner to outer axle, accompanied by tire chirping and a large jerk. During cornering, the automatic locker is characterized by heavy understeer which transitions instantly to power oversteer when traction is exceeded.[/li][/ul][/quote]
ā¦Iām really mad about this. 32 cars out of 40 entrants used automatic locker differentials, and I didnāt because I saw - correctly! - that there was no physical way in which they could make my car faster on the racetrack. No. Physical. Way. A car that switches abruptly between heavy understeer and massive oversteer on cornering cannot be faster on a racetrack - it cannot pull higher cornering gs, it cannot burn less of its tyres, and it cannot have anything approaching the driveability of a car with a simple open differential. Real life racing cars of this era either had primitive limited-slip differentials that would be a lot more expensive than the automatic locker or they had heavy-duty open differentials, and the same should hold here.
This needs to be fixed for the 1965 BRC. The Automation devs need to fix the cornering gs model (no way an automatic locker should pull 1.2 gs in a tight circle test) and Der Bayer needs to fix the BRC tyre wear model. And if the cornering g issue is not fixed in Automationās cornering model in time for the 1965 BRC, locking differentials need to be banned from the competition.
[quote=āPackbatā]ā¦well, I just looked up locking differentials on Wikipedia, and I think I see why I chose not to put an automatic locker on my car:
[quote][ul][li]Pros: Automatic action, no driver interaction necessary, no stopping for (dis-) engagement necessary, continuous driving even in unforeseen road condition changes[/li]
[li]Cons: Increased tire wear and noticeable impact on driving behavior. During cornering, which half-axle is uncoupled is dependent on torque direction applied by the drivelive. When the torque direction is reversed, the speed of the driveline is suddenly forced to change from the inner to outer axle, accompanied by tire chirping and a large jerk. During cornering, the automatic locker is characterized by heavy understeer which transitions instantly to power oversteer when traction is exceeded.[/li][/ul][/quote]
ā¦Iām really mad about this. 32 cars out of 40 entrants used automatic locker differentials, and I didnāt because I saw - correctly! - that there was no physical way in which they could make my car faster on the racetrack. No. Physical. Way. A car that switches abruptly between heavy understeer and massive oversteer on cornering cannot be faster on a racetrack - it cannot pull higher cornering gs, it cannot burn less of its tyres, and it cannot have anything approaching the driveability of a car with a simple open differential. Real life racing cars of this era either had primitive limited-slip differentials that would be a lot more expensive than the automatic locker or they had heavy-duty open differentials, and the same should hold here.
This needs to be fixed for the 1965 BRC. The Automation devs need to fix the cornering gs model (no way an automatic locker should pull 1.2 gs in a tight circle test) and Der Bayer needs to fix the BRC tyre wear model. And if the cornering g issue is not fixed in Automationās cornering model in time for the 1965 BRC, locking differentials need to be banned from the competition.[/quote]
Thatās not a complete universal problem with the auto lock, it depends on the type. If you have a basic one then yes they do. But then you got the diffs like Gov-Lok and the ZF on volkswagons that act as a open diff until you apply enough power to get wheelslip at which point they lock. I think the game is simulating the 2nd type over the first.
Here is a video about the Gov-Lok locking differential. When it locks, it locks both wheels to spin at exactly the same speed - which is what produces the behavior Iām talking about.
Hereās Automationās pop-up tooltip on the automatic locker:
As for the ZF differentials from the 1936 Auto Union race cars (and early Volkswagens), they were the primitive limited-slip differentials I was talking about - this thread discussing the operation of cam-and-pawl type of differential explicitly points to the way these allow intermediate amounts of torque transfer between the equal-torque of an open differential and the equal rotation speed of a locked differential as a difference between these differentials and automatic lockers. Their major disadvantage over modern geared LSDs (which would seem to be the closest analogue) is that they wear out very, very quickly.
That saidā¦
ā¦the same thread includes someone talking about using an automatic locker in vintage race cars and setting lap records. 
Iām still deeply skeptical of the implementation in-game - I would like to see the logic behind the relative tameness [edit: and cornering g] penalties for automatic lockers and for straight-up snap oversteer - but finding evidence that there existed actual racing automobiles using automatic lockers is enough to make me no longer want to quit BRC over this.
I just want to add that the cornering is calculated off-power. So as long as there is a differential all cars do basically the same.
I do agree that it could have some influence on tyre wear. But calculating why and when increased tyre wear is to be expected is something I currently have no good idea for.
The additional tyre wear would come when cornering under power, and correspond to the rear wheels slipping while locked because they werenāt spinning at the right speed for the turn. I think you could probably measure it in a similar way you measured tyre wear due to understeer or oversteer.
ā¦is it wrong for me to want to have taken a vehicle dynamics course in college just so I could make more informed suggestions to the devs? Because itās killing me that I canāt fine-tune the suspension to ensure optimal weight transfer during corner entry and exit. I literally spent more hours (like, double the hours) tuning my suspension settings in Forza Motorsport than I did driving races, and having nothing but a single yaw rate curve to go by in Automation is agonizing.
But! Big but! 
Currently the track simulation (even my improved one) are pretty simplistic when it comes to combining longitudinal, lateral and vertical dynamics. Basically they are all simulated independently with only little interaction. No where close to reality. Vertical dynamics are not simulated at all on the tracks. And already the calculations are slow as fuck. I want to and will improve the simulation further and further. But if you want to have the effects of weight shifting in the simulation, you really need a) a full scale vehicle model (doable when I find time) and b) PROPER car controlling AI (we are miles away there). No wonder you think you cannot get the weight transfer on corner entry and exit right: It is not simulated at all.
The problem with the differentials is: When is it locked? We donāt have any parameters given. And they should differ from car to car (probably depending on engine power and tyre choiceā¦). I would have to make a really good estimation for the parameters from car to car in the background. Not really possible. Especially because the effect of differentials currently is not really simulated, except for a very basic approach during acceleration.
More yaw rate graphs? Remember: Tycoon game.
I get that itās a tycoon game, really - but when there are spring, damper, and sway bar settings available for me to change, I assume that they will affect handling. Like, if the game had nothing but a slider that went from āwallowingā to ātwitchyā, I wouldnāt be bothered by the lack of information, but I actually know what springs, dampers, and sway bars do in an automobile. And not just in the sense that I could walk into any university and take their senior- or graduate-level vehicle dynamics class - I have the engineering background for it, all I would need is a quick linear algebra review - but in the sense that I can get in a car in Forza 4, drive a lap, and say, āHmm, my car needs stiffer rear sway bars, softer rear springs, and ā¦ mm, maybe a little less front damper?ā As it stands, Automation gives me all the tools I need to make the car handle any way I want it to, but not the information to know how it is handling - and I guess that could be fixed by taking away the tools (in the same way that you donāt give the player full detailed control over the shapes of the cams, just a slider), but it seems wasteful to have all these parts and not make them work.
They do work properly, but for the Tycoon mode (thatās what they were planned for initially, test track was just an additional gimmick). Every slider is a compromise between sportiness, drivability and comfort (and it tells you how good you are approaching that). Itās more complex than wallowing and twitchy. The test track of course is not on the same level as Forza. And the advantage Forza has is that you can āfeelā the car. This is something which is very likely never going to happen in Automation.
I also want to add the way car testing (generating the stats) in Automation has gone: It was pretty slow in the beginning, with car testing taking a few tenths of a second (definitely an annoying timespan when you were making small adjustments) in the beginning, too much complexity for the vehicle model was not really allowed. I tried to keep everything as simple as possible while still giving the planned sliders a realistic and significant influence on the stats. I and the devs were pretty pleased with how things worked out (almost no balancing was necessary, the only major change was the additional bottoming out stat), although the lateral, longitudinal and vertical dynamics tests were separated from each other, each building on a model which was just as complex as necessary. Now after some optimisations by Caswal calculations are so much faster that I am thinking about improving especially the cornering model. Currently we are running a single-track vehicle model for that, with a two lane body roll model. A two-track cornering model would be more realistic (giving wheel offset a bigger influence) and could maybe solve the āsweet-spottingā in the cornering calculations (some of you did notice that and Killrob mentioned it in his most recent Letās Play). If only I had more time at the momentā¦ 
Thatās helpful to hear. Iāve been complaining because I love the game and I want it to be better. I think youāve told me some things that make it much clearer to me how this works now, and hopefully that will mean I can be more helpful and less ranty in the future with my suggestions.
Thanks Martin for taking the time to explain this in detail. Considering our current level of the simulation and resources, I think things are just fine the way they are. Racing is NOT part of the game in any way. The strong penalty on drivability when choosing the automatic locker diff hurts the car stats enough already and it seems balanced to me so far (in tycoon gameplay).
ā¦god, this is my foot in my mouth, isnāt it? This tastes awful!
I didnāt understand the tooltip describing the handling of the automatic locker. When I read āThese handling issues make an automatic locker diff a poor choice for any vehicle requiring goodā &c., I thought it meant the car would suffer a 30% penalty to driveability, not a 3% penalty. But that confusion doesnāt excuse my entitled, arrogant, condescending attitude in the rest of my comments on the last page of the thread - especially not my refusal to hear people explain to me (as they have before) that simulating vehicle dynamics is not trivial, however hard I try to make it sound that way.
Iām sorry for being an ass and Iām sorry for derailing the thread.
Someone owning up to their not-so-nice postsā¦ my god, what universe am I in? 
Doing The Right Thing: It Sucks, But Less Than The Alternative.ā¢
(ā¦we really need to come up with a better slogan.)
In the interest of getting the thread back off the subject of my being an ass: does anyone have suggestions for data to analyze in the BRC field of entries? Besides the stuff on the trump cards, I made columns in my spreadsheet for:
[ul][li]Valvetrain Type & Valves/Cylinder[/li]
[li]Fuel System (e.g. triple single barrel carburettors, twin four-barrel carburettors, &c.)[/li]
[li]Max Torque RPM, Max Power RPM, & Redline[/li]
[li]Performance Index[/li]
[li]Peak Economy (g/kWh) & Peak Economy RPM[/li]
[li]Economy & Economy * Power @ Max Power RPM (I figure the latter is probably a good proxy for rate of fuel consumption during a race)[/li]
[li]Engine Weight[/li]
[li]Max Wheel HP[/li]
[li]1st Gear Redline & Top Gear Redline[/li]
[li]Differential (spoiler alert: there arenāt any manual lockers this year)[/li][/ul]
Anything else I should be thinking about when I look at peopleās cars?
Clearly you are missing the most important factorā¦ style.
This āpre seasonā rewiev is gonna be so much fun. Canāt wait to hear what they think of my barge.
Iāll do my best to oblige. 
Dont forget to submit your car for the review (send it to me).
Packbat, when is the best time for you.
This weekend will be tough for me since I record and process all the videos for my youtube channel on the weekend (2 episodes a day for the week). And I usually have a get together with RL friends on Sunday.
Monday I go to take my first flight towards a pilots license.
EDIT
The broadcast I did the other day is being uploaded now.
It will be available at youtube.com/watch?v=Dk_Ol_A ā¦ e=youtu.be.
It was fun to watch for editing so I hope everyone enjoys watching it.
Due to the odd turns the conversation took at times I added a disclaimer in the description.
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