Quote from delray25 :

You have received a lot of valuable advice already in this post. I like the advice from stigpt (go for really long runs, try doing 30 laps without crashing) and make sure you heed the warnings about WR setups.

A possible strategy to shave off thenths (sometimes half seconds): Use the Replay Analyser (by Wsinda, I think), load the WR lap and also load your best lap. Make sure that on a long straight your top speed is near the WR top speed (within 2 or 3 km/h). This is just to ensure your wings settings are not wildly off. Then, in the Analyser graphs, use the time view, so that the WR time is flat, and yours is not, then find the first substantial loss of time (will probably be entry to first corner). Check how much time you lost by the time you exit that corner (lets say 2 seconds), now get back on the track and try to concentrate on that corner.

Fuel up for 3 or 4 laps then extract and load your fastest lap into the Analyser, compare again with WR. If you lost 2 secs in that corner you will want to be looking for a 0.2 to 0.4 sec improvement. If improvement doesn't happen, start checking out the WR braking and throttle points, and compare with yours. Look at the amount of breaking done as well, not just the point where breaking starts.

The aim is to loose less time on just that one corner. Analyse it to death. Make sure you succeed, don't give up. What you learn on this one corner you'll be able to transfer to all the others in much less time.

Also, make sure your setup is somewhat appropriate for the track. Maybe your breaking force is too much? Maybe your break balance is too far back?

All the performance indicators you see in the Analyser software show a picture of how a quick lap was done. You may not be able to transfer this to the way YOU drive a car, for example you can't necessarily match the breaking and throttle points if your setup parameters don't match sufficiently, but the aim really is to learn to understand how setup parameters and driver inputs inter depend and what effects they have on your performance (indicators).

Lastly, the Replay Analyser gives you a lot of setup details that you may like to compare with your own setup.

It takes a fair bit of practice and work to try to get close to a WR time. If this analytical method is not for you, give stigpt's advice a go.

As others say, try not to get hung up about WR times.... hmm, then again, you'd wanna be well inside the 103% bracket if you want to clock up regular wins on CTRA, for example...

Anyway, good luck

Hey, long rant, I know, just at work procrastinating over an unloved project... :sleep1:

You should put this post in a Wiki because now I understand how to use the analyzer. The one for graphs that you mention, is that Analyze for speed because that's the one I've got and didn't notice it had graphs.

This thread has been very helpful to me and I hope others that are trying to learn from all you vets.

Wow, more good info and at the right time. Just tonight I was wondering what the Damp and bump percentages meant in Bob's tool. Now I know I want to keep them between 50 and 100%.

Should I make adjustments to start with them at about 75% or is having the fronts near 100% and the back closer to 50% ok?

Thanks for the replies guys. I have been driving online and have been enjoying it a lot. I'm just using the WR to try and find where I am losing time. My one big beef with online racing is that I can't use the analyzers on the replays so I can't study what other cars are doing compared to me so I have to use the hot laps to compare.

Quote from Intrepid :

download the data software. There you can compare, and reveal all the secrets of a WR lap

I've done that but the data isn't very useful to me. The WR enters turn 1 10 KPH faster than me and exits 15 KPH faster. Since he's faster at turn in his breaking points and turn in point are different. Where did that extra 10 KPH come from? The straight before the turn of course. It seems too cyclic for me to find just one place to start analysing. I'm about 2 seconds off in each segment so I can't really say this corner or that corner is the one that needs work. It seems to be the whole track in general. Its kind of the can't see the trees in the forest type of thing.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Generally the benchmark value is 103% of the WR, though depending on the server this can be competitive or laughably slow. If you're running unusual combos, you might have good chances at winning, if you try to go on a 24/7 AS3 GTR server with 103% WR times then you're pretty much a joke.

Try to improve your time up to 103% - such a time is not really fast but there are lots of much slower racers in LFS, so it should be good for a few wins especially if you manage to simply not crash

Excelent, thanks.

Quote from LiveForBoobs :

oh btw when trying to know how good is your time i think its better for you to think in % instead of seconds. For instance, a second more than WR could be a lot in a small track like SO sprint, but on a long one like KY Long its nothing.

For instance, if WR is 45s and you do 47s you're doing 104,4% which is +-, but if WR is 2:00 and you're doing 2:02 thats 101,6% which is very good.

So what is a decent percentage? Right now I'm 4.5% slower WR is 136 seconds my time is 142.

Quote from The Moose :

...Exactly why i wouldn't take much notice of the WR at KYGP.

If you try taking those curbs like they do in WR runs during a league race your going to ruin your suspension in 2 laps, even if you can get across them in a stable manner.

In the CTRA layouts those big green curbs have tire barriers so you cant cut them anyway.

I haven't driven it in a FOX, so i cant really help with specifics.

Unfortunately for qualification I'm sure people will be cutting them so if I want to compete I will too. I'll definitely make note that I don't want to do that in the actual race though. Thanks for the information.

Thanks for the response. I'm driving the FOX in the OWRL (had a blast last race). I'm a full 6 seconds behind the WR at Kyoto GP Long. I'm guessing to be competitive I need to be within 3.

That track is very fast and has three tricky corners before and after each long fast stretch so not taking any of them well really hurts. I'm about 2 seconds slower in each sector so I know its not one specific corner its pretty much all of them.

One thing I noticed while watching the WR is how many curbs he hops. The curb at that first turn he hits very hard but has no control issues. If I try and hit that curb I either spin or get airborne.

Is there any documentation on the general way to approach a specific track? I realize I can just watch a WR and see what they do but sometimes I have a hard time telling exactly what they are doing.

For example, I'm trying to get faster at Kyoto GP long but for the life of me I enter the first turn (quick right then left) about 10 kph behind the WR, and exit about 15 kph behind. If I go any faster I either don't make the turn or skid so bad I lose way too much speed.

What types of things should I be looking for as I try and improve my overall lap times?

Quote from [GR]Evolution :

Just a question: does wheel torque plays a role in LFS or this conversation is about real life?

By the way, really informative thread here guys. I learned a lot of new things .

I agree. They've been very helpful and despite my dumb questions not flamed me once

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I see what you're saying though. In the context of the previous definition of the word "powerband" though I had nightmares of Jarmenia tuning each shift to land near the torque peak :scared:

edit: I still think that's what he was indirectly asking or pondering - if that's the case - don't do that!

Jarmenia, remember wheel torque is what matters. Consider the result of whatever torque the engine is generating being multiplied by the reduction gearing of the transmission / differential.

Well you were right, that's what I would have done. Hmm, just when I thought I was beginning to understand.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Only indirectly, the real "driver setup" comes from practice

Yeah I've been sleeping with that under my pillow. Doesn't seem to help LOL


Thanks again for the help. I'll get this thing figured out eventually,

Quote from AndroidXP :

Yes, that would be the optimal case, though it might not be always possible for every car and every gearbox. However, that's not a disadvantage, since everybody suffers the same bad car design then

Great. Since I've got it close now I need to work on the thing between the wheel and the pedals. Is there a setup guide for that?

Quote from AndroidXP :

Actually the original wording was wrong, the last gear should not reach redline at the end of the straight, but instead it should reach a value that is a bit beyond the powerband. If you had a car with a powerband from 3k to 5k revs, it wouldn't make any sense to wait for it to redline if that one is at 7k RPM.

The powerband can generally be considered from max torque RPM till a bit over max power RPM, both which can be found out in the garage > info screen (look that the power/torque listing, to the right of them you'll see at which RPM they occur).

The red light is indeed the optimal shift light, however a slight deviation from it doesn't generally make any significant difference. What you need to consider when watching WR replays is, that these people don't use the tacho and speedo gauges at all, they're fully focused on the track and only shifting by sound. If they'd actually divert attention from driving to the shift light, they'd not be driving WR times

Thanks for the info. So to go a step further. Once I know the powerband, when I shift, I'm going to want the next gear to drop me at the low end of the power band again correct?

Quote from AndroidXP :

See, that's why I posted this:

Obviously your judgement of what seems ok and what not is not yet fully tuned in to LFS dynamics/physics, otherwise you'd have noticed the engine struggling due to being over/out of the powerband, not because the top speed in general was reached

As you can tell by the many noobish questions I don't really know anything about racing. I'm just determined to figure this all out.

Quote :

Though granted, this also depends on how far the powerband is away from the redline. If the gap between max power and redline is very small, it's easier to notice when you gearing is too short. However if the gap is a bit bigger, then you can miss that you only redlined at the end of the straight because the engine was totally out of power, taking much longer to reach redline.

So how do I know where the powerband is and when I want to shift to the next gear or down shift to get max performance? Watching the WR he never waited until the red light when on to shift, he always shifted before which seems to be wrong based on what was said earlier (that the red light was the shift light).

Quote from tristancliffe :

And how much difference did the gearing change actually make? Half a second?
How much difference did watching where the WR brakes and accelerates make? 10 seconds?
How much difference did the rest of the setup changes make?

Sorry, but unless your gearing was WAY out it wouldn't make that much difference to lap times. I think there are other factors at play.

Actually I cut 5 seconds off my lap time after the change. The driver is definitely part of the problem but it appears so was the gearing. It had to be a case where I just wasn't getting enough acceleration out of the corners onto the long straights.

Here's a good example of why I asked the question. I started running some laps at Kyto GP Long last night to start practicing for the next event in the OWRL. I left my gearing the way I had it set for Blackwood. This "seemed" ok to me in that I was just beginning to redline at the end of the real long straight. The problem for me was that my lap time was 15 seconds behind the WR.

So I downloaded the WR and watched what he was doing. One thing I noticed was he was going almost 15 KPH faster than me at the end of the longest straight. I knew there had to be something wrong with the car (I'm not THAT bad am I?). I went into Bob's tool and changed the final to 3.2 (kept tweaking until I got the speed I wanted), then hit the auto adjust button. Now my top speed was much faster (still a few KPH below but that is because of the driver).

So, had I not looked at the WR and saw his top speed I would have never thought there was a problem. Is they only way to find something like that by watching the WR or is there something in Bob's tool that I should have seen telling me there was more speed available if I had better gearing?

Quote from AndroidXP :

I think you're putting a bit too much weight on the importance of the gearing. It's really just a very rough thing and there's not a lot to optimize.

But for a start do this:
- Set your highest gear to 1.0
- Adjust final drive so that the highest gear's top speed matches the maximum speed achievable on the track (watch a WR lap or something to find this out)
- Set the first gear ratio to a value that produces a usable first gear top speed. Aim for a speed between 40 and 80 km/h (25 and 50mph), depending on how powerful the car is (more power = longer first gear)
- Click on "Auto space gearing" and select a method that produces a nice looking curve. Progressive to zero linear/exponential might actually be a bit too harsh, try using the adjustable one and generate a curve that is roughly in between the "progressive to zero linear" and "equally spaced" one.

This is really only a rough base, and you can only find out what to adjust when actually driving on the track. Bob's VHPA can only tell you the optimal gearing for a certain distance on a perfectly flat piece of road, which isn't going to help you much outside of drag races

Seriously though, the time lost or gained due to non-perfect gearing is insignificant unless you can consistently drive in the 103% WR region or faster.

Maybe I am, but I've read several articles that say gearing is often over looked so I figured I better take a closer look at it.

Quote from tristancliffe :

If I had time I'd love to, and I'd write a little tutorial. But time is not something I'm gifted with at the moment. I'd suggest PMing Bob himself, as it's his tool and he knows it best.

If, next week, you still haven't sussed it I'll try and help. Until then I can only really offer advice to specific questions...

Once you have a top gear and a bottom gear set in it, can't you click a button to optimise spacing or something, which I think spaces them on a simple exponential scale?

I appreciate all the help you've given me already. I've learned a ton from you guys in the short time I've been working on this.

Yes, I can put in the top and bottom gears and let it auto space but there are three options and I don't understand what the different auto space options are for.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Bob's tool will optimise it within certain constraints, but whether or not it's right for you is a different matter. You might find that with the gearing Bob's tool suggests you are having to change up right on the exit of a corner (or use the next gear up, which might be too much).

Bob's tool can only tell you an initial estimate, but it doesn't know YOUR apex speeds, or YOUR throttle application methods etc.

The little red light is the optimum shifting point - i.e. where the torque curves cross in each gear. Some will say shift a bit after it to cope with the speed loss, but I think it's pretty negligable - you'll have have a bit less torque before or after the shift depending on the speed of it, and I think it cancels out.

As far as I can remember ALL the cars have it - the outermost lights on the BF1 for example as it's 'optimum' shift lights (which occurs at too high an rpm iirc). I'm hoping that along with restrictions on the gear ratios and spring selection (we have a near infinite amount between the limits) that Scawen also removes or dumbs down the shift light (so it's configurable in the garage to work at a specific RPM perhaps), and include more data to work out the optimums oneself).

Great info. Would you mind walking me through Bob's tool on how to use it to configure my gearing? As I know that as I move the sliders back and forth the graphs change. How do I know what is good vs bad?

Quote from tristancliffe :

What he said.

With the gear sliders in game, rather than having a straight line between bottom and top have a nice curve

E.g.

1st ..........|
2nd .......|..
3rd .....|....
4th ...|......
5th ..|.......

Behold my amazing ASCII art that probably won't work on different computers

The rev drop will just be a function of the gearing, so if your gear spacing is good, and you're not running out of revs on the straights, or over/under revving in the slowest corners, then it's okay. To work out where to shift just watch the little red shift light in LFS. In real life it's a slightly more complex process and you have to know torque curves (or power curves).

Hm, I thought the gearing tab on Bob's tool would tell me what to set my gearing at rather than just guessing. I thought the red light was the rev limiter is that really the shift light?

So I imagine that there is also a peak RPM you want to drop into when you go to the next gear right? Say from 7000 to 5500? How do I figure out where I want to drop the RPMs to for the next gear?

When you say " Then set the in-between gears until you have fairy even spacing, but smaller spaces in higher gears." how do you go about this? Do you just take the difference between 1 and 6th gear, divide by four and increment each gear by that?

Quote from KSheppard :

So I had some time to kill and thought I'd give this a try. I've attached a screen shot of an excel file, it shoudl fit a B5 sheet nicely or keep it open and fill it in digitally. The excel file needs a little readme to help explain how the formulae work for the Timing Statistics section but I don't feel like doing that until I'm ready to release it (if I ever do :P)

I'm gonna print a few of these, toss them in a small binder and see if it's helpfull or not. If a few others could do the same and give me some feedback I'd appreciate it. I'm looking for thngs like layout / content etc...I think I'll add some check boxes above Track Name for Setup type:Sprint, Endurance, Drift, Drag

Another thing I'm going to try is the language bar, it will perform speach to text in word OR I'll get a free voice record prog. so I can "dictate" my comments on the setup as I drive. (Hopefully this will get around the fact that I loose all my tire heat data as soon as I leave the track)

----------------------
edit: updated image w/check boxes

This looks good. I think I'll give it a try.

I'm trying to set up my gearing. I did a search of the forum and found a few things and I've also read a few articles and I'm still not clear on how to go about setting up my gearing.

In one post Bob said he always has his highest gear set at 1:1. Why is this? I'm also assuming then that you adjust the final drive to make the highest gear work effectively?

Then in first gear, I've read you want it to be as tall as possible without wheel spin? What exactly does this mean? No wheel spin from a standing start or no wheel spin with the engine revved for a drag start?

Finally all the gears in the middle, I've see where you should evenly space them, then adjust them for each corner. Bob's Vehicle Analyzer has three ways to set the gear spacing but I don't understand when I would use one method vs the others.

Talking about the highest gear again, I think the only thing I understand about gearing is that I want to be between 150 and 300 RMS above max power when I hit the end of the longest straight.

Can you guys clear some of this up for me please?