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Test Race: Patch Y Balancing
We will be using Patch Y. It is going to be out before X-Mas as the devs have stated, so we want to get the GT1 & GT2 cars balanced before the 24 hour race is underway. It's a shame we have to do this all over again mid-season, but it has to be done sooner than later.

To test this as much as possible, I think it would be best if we could organize a few test races in late December and then early January. This should give you all plenty of time to get accustomed to the patch and balancing settings, and be ready for the race on January 19th.

Since it is the holiday season, would December 30th (Sunday) be ok for the first test-race? New Years is Monday evening.
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(need) DELETED by Tweaker : ok correction fixed, thanks
not sure what im doing, but im a boring f*cker this time of year so i'll probably be indoors being billy no-mates, so chances are i'll be around.

For GT2, seeing as we have no FZR, why cant we just insist on sticking the +30 on the XRR and +10 on the FXR, the cars havent changed otherwise, they just had their respective weights modified (in a bizarre way!).
GT1 i can understand, thanks to the changed gearboxes, but that doesnt screw the GT2 cars over.

Still, i dont think the series should be jumping to patches that change (rebalance) anything from how it was when everyone signed up for the season, but whatever, better its balanced to keep it fair than going with Y and ignoring how it f*cks things up. Its all a bit bizarre though isnt it, the GTR class gets rebalanced for Y, and yet for X it was considered fine, now they've 'improved' things and we have to start ignoring the global values and find something that works... kinda like it used to?
I'll try to make it and bring some teammates.
If there is a date for a test race, we will try to participate.

For the live-broadcasting i will take that race for checking cams and stability.
Quote from Andreas Grauel :which track? time and so on would be some nice infos :-)

We aren't exactly sure what we track want to try, being a bit too focused on what we really need to balance with restriction values. For now, practice on Aston GP.

What we need all your help with is figuring out of GT1 is really balanced like the devs have made them in Patch Y. GT2 shouldn't change much since the only cars in that class are XRR and FXR --- and they both have sequential shifting and not much changes (other than FXR being a bit lighter). We understand now that with the new rev limits, the XRR and FXR have a bit better power at higher RPMs, and the FZR is a bit more restricted. Weight differences are back to normal, so handling characteristics should be a bit different... it is just power delivery has changed considerably.

So for as a first test, we might as well test the GT1 and GT2 cars with default settings in our first test (GT2 using old restriction values). And extend testing with some hotlapping next week... and maybe have another test next weekend. We don't expect many people to turn up this Sunday for the test, so that is why we are kind of unsure what track to use, and what time to race.

If anyone is interested in helping, please post here --- and post any thoughts you have on this. We'll try and see if we can arrange a time and track to have a 2-hour race with. If not, we'll possibly try and do some hotlapping in preparation for a race on the 5th (Saturday). If all goes well, that would give you 2 weeks of preparation for the 24hour race.
Certainly makes more sense for the test race to be held on AS5, it should help a little with the numbers, at least those who show up get a bit of benefit from it by coming away with a little extra knowledge of the car round there after (at least) a full stint, rather than going somewhere random. Its also a nice length track with a good mixture of corners out there, so i dont see why it wouldnt be a strong candidate for any testing, whether its the next round or not.
We'll probably hold a test race next Saturday on the 5th...

2 hours @ Aston GP.

Going to have to confirm this over the weekend, but this is a definite outlook for a testrace.
Is that as well as the 30th, or instead of? cant tell by 'a test race' rather than 'the test race' but im guessing its instead of
Testrace for the 30th is not gonna happen. Not much interest in it around these holidays, and I want to give a chance for some internal/offline testing so teams can come and be ready with fairly developed setups for the 5th. I'll post a new thread this weekend for complete details.
hmm

I think we'll have some kind of gt2 practice session on sunday evening, 20:00 gmt (probably a 1 hour race or so).

Feel free to join us on the T7R|Teamserver, password will be the current MOE one
bugger, just realised today would be sunday, and 20:00 would be 93min ago
we are still there...
hmm, so we did a 1 hour "sprint" race, and it was closer than I expected it, still the xrr is the faster car from the middle on the stint on...

replay to big to uplaod now... maybe tomorrow... so for now just the result which says nothing...
Attached images
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If you guys are up for doing this again (and i remember), i'll drag a couple of the others along too, we've done a few 1hr stints before & after the patch and will undoubtably be doing plenty more leading upto the race.

Dunno if you guys have done much in the way of testing & setup building, i know we've done a bit but imo it definately needs more work, was quite happy with the X10 setup too. The FXR also prefers the smaller/slower tracks i guess, theres not many slow corners round AS5 where having the AWD becomes an advantage. Most of the track is done in 4th-6th gear and only 4 corners use 2nd or 3rd, so like SO4 was the worse track for the XRR because it needs a flowing track, i guess AS5 is a track the FXR doesnt like.
This is for GT2 I assume?

Having a look at the old GT2 X-patch specs, the previous power & weight values are not much different... the FXR is only 20kg lighter to match an 1100kg weight across all three cars now. Both XRR & FXR have 356 bhp so I am not too sure that the FXR is still on par, and we might consider the XRR just having a tad less power, but nothing too extreme. I wouldn't consider giving it more weight since it still needs agility versus the FXR.

With GT1, we are still unsure. By the looks of things, the FZR is very quick, but at the cost of having clutch heating problems. I still think it can be maintained throughout a long race with moderate shifting speed... though without its handicaps, it will be much quicker by far. Old Patch-X handicaps were like so (incase you forgot):

FXR: no ballast = 1120kg
XRR: 30kg ballast = 1130kg
FZR: 80kg ballast = 1180kg

We may consider keeping the XRR as is with 1100kg weight, and only putting on a little extra weight to the FZR.

However, this kind of testing before next weekend is just what we need help with. So keep testing, and we'll have to come up with new restriction values (if any) before next weekend.

Thanks
yeah, GT2, the big daddy class
The XRR has effectively gained 10kg from the patch update, if you consider that the XRR lost 30kg, and the FXR lost 20kg, they're now at the same weight but were originally balanced 10kg different for this class.
Still, with that said, im quite suprised its not over a second a lap slower than the FXR, especially considering its as good as a 3min lap on a track which really doesnt suit the FXR at all its quite suprising its able to do those times.

If theres any balancing being done, wouldnt it make sense to put +20kg and +30kg back onto the cars and that way they're mechanically identical as they were before and they weigh the exact same as before too.
Quote from PaulC2K :If theres any balancing being done, wouldnt it make sense to put +20kg and +30kg back onto the cars and that way they're mechanically identical as they were before and they weigh the exact same as before too.

I was thinking that. Just ultimately put the patch-x style balancing back on for the rest of the season. The only thing that I think would be different is to not add 80kg to the FZR GT1, but maybe only a little less, like 60kg. That would at least compensate for the new shifting.

Shame though, FZR and XRR looked so even all season until Patch Y came along We'll be alright though
Quote from PaulC2K :Still, with that said, im quite suprised its not over a second a lap slower than the FXR

Well, to me it looks like its over 1 second, at least when staying on a mercury server...
Quote from sidi :That is down to setup only me thinks the few sets i have tried on gt2 xrr with r3s were both lucky to even get into the high 2.51s so from what i have seen i would say fxr was slightly faster.

I doubt that you would actually race 24hours with the slower set.
Well, if we can do 40 laps on R3s but only 20 on R2s, who's to say what we'd do. Theres a far bigger picture to look at that what it can do at its emptiest point when the tyres are at their thinnest. So yes, after playing more with the setup we've got it going over a second faster when its on petrol fumes and tyres that only Mclaren would tell their driver they had plenty left on them, keep going.

It seems were left with 2 options, we run R3s, have slower laptimes but go further into the race, but run laptimes & stints comparable to the FXR (which is using R3s also) although the car handles like crap.
Or
We run R2's, run faster times but need to pit much more frequently, and because some people see nothing more than its fastest laptime people demand the XRR gets penalised with weight/restrictions because of it.

So, does that mean because of some peoples narrow-minded take on things we are forced to run an R3 setup just so that the times are comparable? to keep everyone happy? If you put R2's on im betting your laptimes would be considerably faster too, but then i know you cant do that, because you wont get a decent stint out of the tyres. But you dont hear us complaining that the only reason your slower is because you've got crap tyres on do you.

As Sidi says, theres more than just ONE fast lap at the end of a stint to take into consideration, and to add onto Sidi's list of variables, i'd like to a big one too, who's to say your drivers are equal to ours?? Maybe if we jumped into the FXR we'd hammer your times in that too? What about setups? Maybe we've spent more time finding a setup that works, maybe you havent hit upon a decent one yet, afterall last week we were struggling to do low 2:50's and now were well into the 2:49's, surely you cant be arrogant enough to know you've nailed the setup & track and you've reached your limit and couldnt possibly close the gap down further.
So, with different drivers in different cars, driving setups at an unknown stage of developement, using different tyre compounds, running different fuel/lap stints, and drivers who've put plenty of hours into practicing before & after Y, is it fair to base everything on who's doing what laptimes?

Maybe the other teams in the FXR are putting in considerably faster times than you guys are doing, i know CoRe were doing faster laps than we were when we did a session with them about a week ago, so maybe its not just the cars.
I'd say that every other night since patch Y came out, we've done 2hrs practice on the combo, we'd also done plenty before Y (I spent the time the others were doing Westhill practicing for Aston GP! time partly wasted) so i dont see why our dedication to do well and be the fastest means everyone else should be given an easy ride and have their cars made faster so they can keep up.
Im all for balancing things out, but knowing how much work we've put into preperation for this round (as with all others) and not knowing how much/little others have put into it, then i'll remain sceptical about how things look at face value, and if need be i'll grab one of our non-participating members and ask them to do a stint or 2 with your current setup and see how he gets on with it, should help ensure that the FXR receives a fair balancing against the XRR, afterall we certainly wouldnt ask him to sandbag so he should produce results we cant dispute and nor could you, right?
Ok so I have reports of some of the GT1 balancing issues in Patch-Y, and it is quite obvious that the FZR is fast once again for overall pace.

What I'd like to propose right now is simply a very last minute test procedure some of you fast GT1 drivers can try. We need help with results using these values before the testrace, PLEASE!!!

Do 2 different kinds of tests with the FZR GT1 using 3 different weight ballast settings:
  • Hotlap with R2's and try to get your fastest time with +20kg, then +40kg, and then +60kg. Find what weight handicap allows you to reach within this target time:

    >>>Target Time: lowest = 2:38.50 | highest = 2:39.50
  • Race with R3's (a half (or full) stint if possible) and try to get your fastest time with +20kg, then +40kg, and then +60kg. Find what weight handicap allows you to reach within this target time:

    >>>Target Time: lowest = 2:39.50 | highest = 2:40.50
Please post your findings here.

NOTE: This is purely to balance the XRR vs. FZR at the moment. If we brought the FXR in the mix, it makes things a lot harder to balance since that car is about 1 second slower in hotlapping and in a race. We will figure out the FXR balancing AFTER the testrace. These target time values are based on XRR test results of both hotlapping and race times, and have a big 1 second margin in between to allow for a variety in times due to the large track.
If you take a look here
you can notice that XRR was 0.5 slower here before Y. Also afaik see XRR can do 30 laps now and FZR only 25, and hot lapps show that FZR is 0.4 faster, so why to balance when it's balanced?
I will try these settings later tonight, though there is something i just can't understand with the xrr.. I believe both hotlaps in the hl charts are quite ok, for both cars, maybe there's possibillities to catch 0,3-0,4 secs for both of them. Therefore we have a 4-5 tenths difference between the two cars which can be more ballanced with additional weight penalties.

However, on a endurance run the xrr seems over a second slower than the fzr for some reason. I know Joona Laurila from mercury has been testing the latest days, and he's been around 1.3 seconds slower than what i know is possible with the fzr. Thats some quite huge difference, allmost 1 second in the change from r2's to the r3's. Say if we put 40 kg to the fzr to make it competitive with the times that the xrr (atm) have in an endurun, it will have no chance in a qualifying run. With 10 - 20 kg's added it will be the other way around.

It might of course be the fzr which handles r3's better, but come on, it can't be a second?

I've seen people in xrr doing good times as well with r3, around 39.0, though on a qualifying lap. I'd like to hear the other xrr teams point of view on this. I'm very open for equally ballancing the classes, so the more said here, the better
Quote from N I K I :If you take a look here
you can notice that XRR was 0.5 slower here before Y. Also afaik see XRR can do 30 laps now and FZR only 25, and hot lapps show that FZR is 0.4 faster, so why to balance when it's balanced?

They are not balanced at all... and not that close in times at all. We'd be stupid to leave everything the way it is right now

Chriskart's post should clarify the difference.

I still would like to have fast drivers at least hotlap the FZR with testing the different weight I posted above. Or else there is nothing to really test tomorrow.
I totally agree to Chriskarts post! All facts are right...

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