Various unrealistic balance observations

[Phos]

I’m just going to put what I’ve noticed/think of here for things that are currently unrealistic about balancing:

• Aluminum bodies have the “no mass production” flag for too long, Jaguar was mass producing aluminum XJs since 2003. I assume in the final game mass produced aluminum bodies is going to be something you have to unlock/develop?

• No Aluminum space frames at all? I get that they’re harder to make, but they’re not unheard of and it seems like enabling this would be quite easy.

• A single model of pickup (particularly heavy duty) will typically be offered in multiple wheelbases, currently wheelbase appears to be chosen at the family level making this impossible, unless I’m misinterpreting something.

• Suspension balance is incorrect in many places. Here’s all the ones I can think of:

1. Solid axles shouldn’t be best/tied for best for cargo volume as you need room above the axle for the axle to rise, and obviously can’t place anything between the wheels. The offroad ability of the two types of solid axles should be tied.

2. Macpherson strut currently have a higher off road rating than double wishbone, which is incorrect. Double wishbones is superior offroad, but as a google search just taught me, you can make long travel macpherson struts. Macpherson strut should also have at least good cargo volume. Not sure why they have such lower engineering time than double wishbone, seems that the compromised nature of macpherson struts should cause them to have higher engineering time. Possibly reflect this by increasing quality coming with a bigger engineering time hit?

3. Multilink is not very well represented, the idea behind it was not to make a more advanced sports suspension (although I think Jaguar and maybe some others have, jaguar keeps coming up in this list for some reason), but to combine the the advantages of multiple suspension types. A case study seems like the best way to explain this: The 911’s rear engine didn’t allow for double wishbone to be used, so for a long time they used semi trailing arms. Multilink fit into the same space and offered similar or better performance. It’s basically a more compact but expensive version of double wishbone.

4. Pushrod suspensions have the capacity to be one of the best offroad, they allow much more travel without having to lengthen the shock. Their advantage for non open wheel sports cars seems to be exaggerated considering the sort of pushrod suspension on display (conventional ARB, no heave spring). It should also outweigh double wishbone, considering that it’s basically double wishbone with more parts.

Make sure the quality slider on the page where you pick suspension type describes what it does/doesn’t do.

• Billet crankshaft has lower material cost than forged. Considering you’re buying a billet that can contain the entire crank, this seems wrong. Sure the shavings can be melted down, but that only pays back so much.

• The Mercedes AMG project one is a production car with an F1 engine. Can we have hotter cams now? It’s currently impossible to take advantage of the entire allowed rev range, even if the engine can run that high the AI driver will always (correctly) shift short to have the most power

• “Sequential” is incorrect. A Sequential gearbox uses a drum (which is fascinatingly similar to one on a music box) to pick gears, while the description is describing an “automated H pattern”/“automated manual”. You can have both manual and automated Sequential boxes to varying degrees, such as auto throttle cut/blip, automatic clutch (which isn’t always used). I do think they should be included, if you want to roleplay a company that focuses on making racing technology kind of work on the street, or build a track only version of a production car.

• Geared LSD should offer some offroad bonus, the hummer H1 uses three torsen differentials. They can be made to work off road by employing the same left foot braking technique you can use with open diffs to get a bit more traction.

• Are clutch pack LSDs missing?

• Carbon Ceramic seems to become available too late, I believe these first made it onto a production car in 2003.

• More aggressive pads should just have a sportiness bonus rather than just a potential sportiness bonus, they offer better bite, and better modulation when up to temperature. Or would this be driveability?

• Standard springs should be better offroad than progressive, they allow better articulation, and progressive springs should be the most reliable, as they offer protection against bottoming out.

• If a car is making lift with current “downforce” underbody settings, adding more downforce should reduce drag as less lift is being created, aka, “induced drag”.

• Can’t change the rake of the car?

It’s coming together well!

[TrackpadUser]

@Phos

Solid axles shouldn’t be best/tied for best for cargo volume as you need room above the axle for the axle to rise, and obviously can’t place anything between the wheels. The offroad ability of the two types of solid axles should be tied.

Solid axles suspensions can be setup to not take any space within the cabin, for example here is a picture of the leaf spring suspension for the Fiat Ducato

As for offroad, coil suspension is defintively better than leaf springs. While leaf springs work decently well and can easily be set-up for good offroad performance (which they already can in game), a good 3 or 4 link setup will offer better articulation. From a balance POV the current setup also has the advantage of offering two valid choices of suspension when it comes to vehicles with a high weight to offroad.

@Phos

The Mercedes AMG project one is a production car with an F1 engine. Can we have hotter cams now? It’s currently impossible to take advantage of the entire allowed rev range, even if the engine can run that high the AI driver will always (correctly) shift short to have the most power

That’s not really a cam setting issue as much as an issue related to the inability to adjust valve size. AFAIK that will change with the engine designer rebalance.

@Phos

Are clutch pack LSDs missing?

Yes, but the reason why is that they weren’t deemed to be different enough to viscous LSDs from a game balance POV. I do think however it would be nice to have clutchpacks instead of viscous which would allow for a much earlier unlock date.

@Phos

Can’t change the rake of the car?

I don’t think that’s really required. It would mainly add a layer of complexity to suspension tuning, which is already fairly intimidating for the newer players.

@Phos

“Sequential” is incorrect.

It’s still a sequential gearbox, just not the same sort. As for race (and motorbike) style gear gearboxes, those aren’t planned since they were pretty much never used in production cars.

[Phos]

@TrackpadUser

Solid axles suspensions can be setup to not take any space within the cabin, for example here is a picture of the leaf spring suspension for the Fiat Ducato

But that’s not a driven axle, and the floor could still be lower if it were, for example, a trailing arm suspension.

@TrackpadUser

As for offroad, coil suspension is defintively better than leaf springs. While leaf springs work decently well and can easily be set-up for good offroad performance (which they already can in game), a good 3 or 4 link setup will offer better articulation.

This is true, but it seems as though the vehicle in question needs to be well into purpose built rock bouncer territory before you hit their limit.

@TrackpadUser

It’s still a sequential gearbox, just not the same sort. As for race (and motorbike) style gear gearboxes, those aren’t planned since they were pretty much never used in production cars.

The method of changing gears is still quite different, robotized manuals still had multiple shift forks translating forward and back, there wasn’t anything mechanically stopping them from skipping gears. A sequential transmission has a single drum that rotates to select gears, there is no neutral between gears.

Oh right, I almost forgot another one:

There are two types of two piston calipers, the more common floating piston where the pistons are side by side (pad area similar to a four piston caliper), and the fixed piston, where the two pistons oppose each other (pad area similar to single piston). Two piston opposed calipers seem best thought of as the sportier alternative to single piston floating calipers, and in high performance road cars, they are typically used on the rear when a four piston caliper would be overkill.

[Leedar]

Not 100% OT, but I wonder whether wheel camber will affect acceleration and braking performance in the future. Also, whether the running cost penalty for extreme camber is considered properly balanced (it’s very minor at the moment).

[Phos]

@TrackpadUser

It’s still a sequential gearbox, just not the same sort. As for race (and motorbike) style gear gearboxes, those aren’t planned since they were pretty much never used in production cars.

Wait quoting this again because I remembered something: I can just stick a bunch of trumpets on something and call it an intake but I can’t build track only variants of street cars? Ferrari’s been doing their challenge cars for a while now.

[findRED19]

I just want to set the record straight on one thing: clutch pack based lsds

They are in-game, and are called “automatic lockers”
They are the old clutch-based lsds that were heavily used by American manufacturers from the 1960s to late 1980s.

[Phos]

Oh interesting, I thought that meant an automatic differential lock like you see in land rovers, or perhaps the 4 auto setting in some newer pickups. This more what it seems to be describing though, as clutch type LSDs are still used in motorsport sometimes. A poorly tuned one can definitely behave as described, but properly set up they can help put power down.

[RobtheFiend]

Isn’t “Locker” diffs 0% OR 100%? Never anywhere in between?

Locking differential

Therefore NOT a clutch pack LSD.

[abg7]

Also, titanium conrods are only available from 1997 onwards, whereas in real life they were introduced in the late 80s/early 90s. Launch control, meanwhile, is unavailable around about 2011, again several years later than it was in real life.

[NormanVauxhall]

Remember that the “unlock date” is when the technology is tested and common.

The fund allocation in research & development will help you to unlock earlier the technology, in the campaign of course.

For the sandbox, I think it is fine as it is.

[Phos]

Really? I’d think in the sandbox everything should unlock in the earliest possible year, or at least in the earliest year it was on the market in the real world.

I add that qualifier because otherwise you might have cars in the late 40s with turbocharged intercooled fuel injected engines, as those all exists on airplane engines at the time. Hmmmm, it that a bad thing though?

[Killrob]

I’m also going to address a few points here.

Aluminum bodies have the “no mass production” flag for too long, Jaguar was mass producing aluminum XJs since 2003. I assume in the final game mass produced aluminum bodies is going to be something you have to unlock/develop?

It seems like we have very different views on what mass-production means where are the millions of XJs? A no mass production flag just lowers production output by 50%, not an issue for Jaguar, but for Toyota. Also, production tech will be reworked for LC V3.

No Aluminum space frames at all?

Not yet, full alloy semi-spaceframes will be in the game.

multiple wheelbases

Not going to happen, that’s a technical limitation of how morphing works. It would be possible but cost us months of work, just not worth it.

Billet crankshaft has lower material cost than forged. Considering you’re buying a billet that can contain the entire crank

Good point, we’ll address that if it is not too much of a hassle (it’s an exception to the rule).

Can we have hotter cams now?

No.

Geared LSD should offer some offroad bonus

Yes, these things will be address in the next big update which will include a rebalance of the car designer.

Carbon Ceramic seems to become available too late

No. Techpool is a thing, as NormanVauxhall points out.

Pad & Spring balance

Probably will be changed somewhat in the next big update, too.

Downforce / Lift

I’d have to read up on that… does a wing (car!) become less draggy by gluing parts too it which reduce its lift? That doesn’t sound right to me. A fully clad undertray would produce more lift and less drag because of freer flow, afaik. You don’t get rid of the overall shape of the car which causes lift.

Really? I’d think in the sandbox everything should unlock in the earliest possible year

Disagreed. But we may have a custom company techpool setting for sandbox eventually.

Thanks for the post and discussion! This is useful stuff

[findRED19]

For a manual locker, yes it’s either fully open or fully closed, but the automation “auto locker” is an lsd in simplest form. It is a basic spring-loaded friction clutch design. In the 1950s the original limited slip differentials were developed, and this is also the time that the automation “auto locker” becomes avaliable.

The auto locker is not an exact on-off like a manual locker would be, due to the inherent design

Here’s a Hemmings article on the early limited slips (great read!):
https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hcc/2011/01/Bringing-up-the-Rear/3694371.html

[Phos]

@Killrob

It seems like we have very different views on what mass-production means where are the millions of XJs?

What I mean is they’re able to make aluminum bodies on a series of presses rather than having to hammer them to shape on a wooden jig.

@Killrob

I’d have to read up on that… does a wing (car!) become less draggy by gluing parts too it which reduce its lift? That doesn’t sound right to me. A fully clad undertray would produce more lift and less drag because of freer flow, afaik. You don’t get rid of the overall shape of the car which causes lift.

The case I was addressing there was specifically sculpted undertrays. A car with a sculpted undertray is basically a big (by car standards) airfoil. If it’s making lift, that means it’s going to be making induced drag, and profiling the undertray for more downforce to make the car aero neutral means there’s now no induced drag.

Let’s take for example, one of those old can-am cars with the giant wing way up in free air: If you were to turn that wing upside down, now it’s going to be making lift but still the same amount of drag.

A more down to earth/street friendly example: The Porsche Panamera’s rear spoiler has a low drag highway mode, and it isn’t stowed. The Panamera’s roofline creates some amount of lift, and with it drag, so by putting that spoiler there they cause flow separation to cut a bunch of the lift causing area out of the airstream.

Or to put it more simply, lift or downforce means the car is applying more work to the air than a neutral profiled example.

[TrackpadUser]

@Phos

A more down to earth/street friendly example: The Porsche Panamera’s rear spoiler has a low drag highway mode, and it isn’t stowed. The Panamera’s roofline creates some amount of lift, and with it drag, so by putting that spoiler there they cause flow separation to cut a bunch of the lift causing area out of the airstream.

The reason it works in that case is because they are fixing the drag inducing lift directly with the spoiler, instead of adding downforce somewhere else to counter the lift.

If you just add downforce elsewhere (with an undertray for example), you just end up countering the lift with some downforce. You still have lift on top on the car, which induces drag, but its effect on car handling are reduced with some downforce, which also induces drag.

[Zabhawkin]

@TrackpadUser

As for offroad, coil suspension is defintively better than leaf springs. While leaf springs work decently well and can easily be set-up for good offroad performance (which they already can in game), a good 3 or 4 link setup will offer better articulation. From a balance POV the current setup also has the advantage of offering two valid choices of suspension when it comes to vehicles with a high weight to offroad.

That has not been my personal experience. When my Jeep was stock it could flex better than all of the stock coil sprung Jeeps. Currently my Jeep flexes better than all but the better custom 4 link setups. The problem with coils is they tend to pop loose, or even out as they don’t tolerate over extension like the leafs do. Yes it is fixed by limit straps, but that also limits the flex. Overall I believe they should be even as far as capability, with the coils being noticeably more comfortable.

@Killrob

I’d have to read up on that… does a wing (car!) become less draggy by gluing parts too it which reduce its lift? That doesn’t sound right to me. A fully clad undertray would produce more lift and less drag because of freer flow, afaik. You don’t get rid of the overall shape of the car which causes lift.

There are only a few features that I am aware of that would reduce lift, and not increase drag. One is kind of like a Kammback, but extends past the body so that some of the low pressure air behind the car is under the lip, reducing lift. The other is an air dam on the front that prevents much of the air going under, though it requires the car to be pretty low to work its best.

[TrackpadUser]

@Zabhawkin

That has not been my personal experience. When my Jeep was stock it could flex better than all of the stock coil sprung Jeeps. Currently my Jeep flexes better than all but the better custom 4 link setups. The problem with coils is they tend to pop loose, or even out as they don’t tolerate over extension like the leafs do. Yes it is fixed by limit straps, but that also limits the flex. Overall I believe they should be even as far as capability, with the coils being noticeably more comfortable.

I have been rethinking about it and if you ask me that’s something that might need to be tried. Have leaf springs being the cheapo offroad springs, with coils being the better choice if you have a bit more money since they offer better performance on the road. That would actually add more choices to off-road vehicle design, instead of being coil springs all the way. Especially if we consider that leaf sprung off-road vehicles are quite common.

The only thing missing is solid axle front suspension

@Zabhawkin

There are only a few features that I am aware of that would reduce lift, and not increase drag. One is kind of like a Kammback, but extends past the body so that some of the low pressure air behind the car is under the lip, reducing lift. The other is an air dam on the front that prevents much of the air going under, though it requires the car to be pretty low to work its best.

Like I said earlier, that’s because you are replacing a specific lift inducing element of the car with an other.

An other example would be replacing a rounded boot (think first gen TT) with pretty much any other shape. A rounded boot like that produces a heck of a lot of lift (and therefore a lot of drag)
If you do like the first gen elise and cut-off that rounded shape with a spoiler, or just use a more square trunk design, you reduced the lift by eliminating a part of the shape that was causing lift, which results in a drag reduction as well.

[Phos]

@TrackpadUser

The reason it works in that case is because they are fixing the drag inducing lift directly with the spoiler, instead of adding downforce somewhere else to counter the lift.

If you just add downforce elsewhere (with an undertray for example), you just end up countering the lift with some downforce. You still have lift on top on the car, which induces drag, but its effect on car handling are reduced with some downforce, which also induces drag.

This may be getting beyond my understanding, but I don’t think you can look at the top and bottom of the car as separate like that, thinking about just the top of an airfoil seems like thinking about just one pole of a magnet. If you take a wing and mirrored the bottom profile (or camber) to the top, now it makes less downforce, and because it’s doing less work, makes less drag. Note that for an airplane this makes it a high drag wing because now the wing has to run a high angle of attack, but has the interesting quirk of flying upside down as well as it flies right side up.

In terms of reducing drag, a diffuser fills in the vacuum behind the car and can level out the streamlines behind the car.

[Zabhawkin]

@TrackpadUser

I have been rethinking about it and if you ask me that’s something that might need to be tried. Have leaf springs being the cheapo offroad springs, with coils being the better choice if you have a bit more money since they offer better performance on the road. That would actually add more choices to off-road vehicle design, instead of being coil springs all the way. Especially if we consider that leaf sprung off-road vehicles are quite common.

The only thing missing is solid axle front suspension

They have been switching to coils since about the 00’s, due to the better ride, except for the 4x4 trucks which still run leafs in the rear.

Here are a couple of links
Keep in mind that both the coil and leaf sprung Jeeps are modified, though the leaf sprung are closer to the stock setup than the coils with the long arm conversions. note multi-link = solid coil as far as the game is concerned.

http://www.fourwheeler.com/how-to/suspension-brakes/154-1204-leaf-springs-vs-multi-link-suspension/

http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=87513.0

Also I have seen no significant difference in capabilities between the monocoque and ladder frame, though I imagine the space frame might have a slight benefit due to being able to smooth out the underside easier. I would also like to see the aspect ratio on the tires be changed to a side wall height. Currently in game I can make an off roader with greater than 100 off road using tires just wide enough to not blow. There is a limit to that too due to stability, but I have only heard about people having issues when using 40"+ tires on 15" rims at single digit pressures.

[Zabhawkin]

Just had a thought, leaf and coil solid axle start the same, but coil gains more from positive quality slider. Negative slider would be the same as you can still really screw up a leaf spring setup.