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Patch X car balancing
(62 posts, started )
Patch X car balancing
Patch X has now been out a while and I would think some meaningful statistics can now be drawn regarding the car balancing being attempted online. I thought I would try to start the ball rolling by presenting the results of the GTRs on Conedodgers 2 server. This server runs lapper and therefore keeps a record of the best lap times recorded by each racer.

This is one circuit and represents only the fastest laps driven on a 10 lap race. We need to collect stats for other circuits and possibly distances but we have to start somewhere. If you know of other circuits running GTRs and lapper then highlight them here even if you don't want to present the stats.

Ok, I have taken the top 16 times for the FZR and FXR as these cars are by far the most popular to have been used on the server. I have taken the top 8 times for the XRR on the basis that if it was driven by twice as many people the 8th position time would drop to 15th. This improves the XRR average by 0.35 seconds but is probably more representative.

The fastest recorded times on the server are:
FZR 1:40.95
FXR 1:41.70
XRR 1:41.75

The average times for the top 15 times (or 8 in the case of the XRR) are
FZR 1:41.38
FXR 1:42.26
XRR 1:42.40

For this one circuit the results show that the FZR is still much too fast compared to the others. If the aim is to balance the field then the FZR needs more ballast and the ballast in the XRR is too much. Personally I feel the XRR and FZR are generally harder cars to drive in that they require better throttle control and put a wheel on the grass and you are in trouble. The FXR on the other hand lets you get away with clipping the grass and seems to plough through loose tyres with little trouble which would end you race in the other two. For this reason I would rather see their ultimate speed slightly greater than that of the FXR as the FXR driver is likely to be able to drive closer to its limit for the average driver over the course of a race.

My personal experience is that the FZR has lost about a second as a result of the ballast and the XRR has lost about 0.5 seconds. I don't know what the current ballast levels are (80kg & 40kg?). Doubling the FZR ballast would reduce it to where the FXR is now. For the reasons above this would seem too much as everyone would just drive the FXR so maybe a 50% more is what is required to just close them up? The XRR seems to need to loose it's ballast, or at least most of it to return its slight advantage over the FXR and get it to a similar speed to the FZR.


This is one circuit though so we need more statistics from other layouts to make an informed judgement. There was some talk about the endurance advantages of the various cars. To me endurance racing is a tiny part of how these cars are raced and endurance racing is much more organised. Given it is organised then the voluntary balancing can be employed by the organisers if they feel there really is an imbalance over longer distances. In my opinion, the cars should be balanced over the most commonly raced distances and this seems to be 5 - 10 laps.

The current useage of the cars shows that even with the imbalance, people drive the FZR because it is clearly the fastest and they drive the FXR because it is the easiest to drive near the limit. The XRR just isn't used that much because it has the handling troubles of the FZR but not the speed advantage. If nothing else is changed it seems to me the XRR ballast needs to be reduced or removed so that the mix in the field is more even. I will declare my bias here as I am traditionally and XRR driver on the verge of jumping ship to one of the others.

Lets get some other circuits analysed so the guesswork can be removed from the current ballast levels. It might be that AS3 just favours the FZR and the current levels will be seen to be correct across the full range of circuits. We won't know until we start checking.

Maxim
#2 - Slopi
Not sure if you participated in the test patches, but this was discussed quite a bit during testing. The final result seemed to have plenty of people pleased. I would suggest that what you're looking at is a very small sample of drivers on a single circuit, and that's it.
Quote from Slopi :Not sure if you participated in the test patches, but this was discussed quite a bit during testing. The final result seemed to have plenty of people pleased. I would suggest that what you're looking at is a very small sample of drivers on a single circuit, and that's it.

That's why I said it was one circuit and we need to analyse more.

I did run the test patches but the fields were very small prior to X as most seemed to stay with W. I have tried to present figures to support my views. The discussions during the test patches were unsupported feelings. No harm in looking at it using real figures. Like I said maybe nothing will change.

Maxim
Even though the pre-X balancing was discussed, I think it still merits discussion. Scawen can reset the ballast at any time without patching, so every effort should be made to finalize things sooner rather than later.

However, I think there are two things that really need to be done before we can fully balance the cars:
1) Turbo modeling needs to be updated.
2) We need more stats from more tracks

But, this is a good start. Hopefully Patch Y will fix the turbo modeling, which should move things closer. I will say that I agree about the FXR needing to be slower than the other two cars, though. It's easy to drive nature needs to be tempered by slightly slower lap times.
there are looong straights on aston national so that is why fzr is bit faster, but if you drive those cars on fernbay i dont believe fzr would be fastest one

edit: I think XRR should have 35kg
we drove all cars on kyoto gp rev 24h race and xrr was slowest one!
IGTC just had 4 hour WE GTR race.
12 entrants ~2 top tier entries, some decently quick, and some relatively new drivers.
1 XRR
3 FZR
8 FXR

XRR ended up winning, but with the right driver, the pole-setting FZR was faster.

The decently quick FXR's were about even with the decently quick FZR's.

The new FXR drivers were a bit quicker than the new FZR drivers.

It appeared to be even on this track, coming all down to driver skill. Without more entrants its difficult to gauge the impact of tire wear/fuel consumption due to ballast.

Agreed that improved turbo modeling is critical before finalizing the balances.
Quote from N I K I :there are looong straights on aston national so that is why fzr is bit faster, but if you drive those cars on fernbay i dont believe fzr would be fastest one

edit: I think XRR should have 35kg
we drove all cars on kyoto gp rev 24h race and xrr was slowest one!

Agreed on FE being a good test. The AWD is such an equalizer there. IGTC is going there next, same cars though :/
Quote from srdsprinter :Agreed on FE being a good test. The AWD is such an equalizer there. IGTC is going there next, same cars though :/

Nah, FE Black is the best one as it has some rather fast bits, fast corners, slow corners, bits that require balls of carbon nanotubes ...
Sorry, I meant FE_all in general.

We're doing FE3, so a good bit of the curbs/grass there.
Haven't read the thread yet; but keep in mind that people are still new to the feeling of the handicapped cars. The FZR and XRR will get quicker as people get used to the changes the cars have had, leaving the FXR at the bottom, again.
fe is probably the worst test since its simply not gtr territory ... theres hardly enough space to put 2 gtrs side by side and overtyking is nigh on impossible at fe

fe is one of the no1 prooving grounds for tbos but not for gtrs which should be balanced on tracks that were built for them (ky as bl)
I think, that the balancing can be made when the weights are the same in hotlaps and online.
Hotlaps are the best and easiest way to compare the cars, it's just impossible to do it online, because you need many laptimes on most of the tracks in lfs.
Quote from MrSkill :Hotlaps are the best and easiest way to compare the cars, it's just impossible to do it online, because you need many laptimes on most of the tracks in lfs.

well what do you want to balance them for
are gtrs really in lfs for hotlaping an 5 lap sprints ? i personally think they were made for 24h races and the like and as such have to be balanced considering a whole bunch more variables than hotlaps
One thing to consider about the FZR being slightly quicker is that it eats up gas quite a bit more quickly than the other two as well. Over long runs, this will balance things out a bit. Doesn't help the XRR and FXR in the sort of sprint racing that 99% of LFS pickup races consist of, though.
Quote from DeadWolfBones :One thing to consider about the FZR being slightly quicker is that it eats up gas quite a bit more quickly than the other two as well. Over long runs, this will balance things out a bit. Doesn't help the XRR and FXR in the sort of sprint racing that 99% of LFS pickup races consist of, though.

True, but how long of a "long run" does it take for it to even out? How many laps would a race need to be before stopping for fuel is even a concern? And how many laps would it take before the FZR needs at least one stop more than the other cars, in which it would lose any time at all? I think, not only is this not a concern in most pick-up races, it's not really a concern on anything less than a multi-hour race. If anyone has solid fuel stats for the three cars (post patch X), that would be interesting to see.
and do not forget that the XRR is the only car that gets stuck in gravel beds... the other cars in 95% of all cases get out... the XRR once stopped, does not get anywhere...
The FZR can get stuck too, but not quite as often as XRR perhaps.

In the run-up to the 24h KY3R race, there was some stats posted on fuel usages, I think it was in the test patch folder though
You can pull your way out by steering back and forth, but it takes forever.
Quote from Chaos :and do not forget that the XRR is the only car that gets stuck in gravel beds... the other cars in 95% of all cases get out... the XRR once stopped, does not get anywhere...

While you're right, that's something that needs to be addressed on a global basis. NONE of the cars should be able to drive out of the gravel traps.
Top car classement for all tracks:

Patch W:

FZR
XRR
FXR

Patch X:

FZR (80kg ballast)
FXR (no ballast)
XRR (40 kg ballast)


Since patch X was out we can see more FXRs and it's good cause with patch W it was oftenly a full grid of FZR's. But now the XRR is very under represented.Maybe the ballast is too heavy (35 or 30 will be better.Tests on all tracks needed)

XRR has less torque and we can see at start Xrr's are always overtaken.
Maybe the make-up of the grid is the better judge of when the cars are balanced?

The fact that on AS3 the FXR and FZR are now about equal numbers on the grid might suggest the balance is correct between these two. To make the XRR compete with the FZR would require the removal of all of it's ballast although even then it would still be 0.5 seconds shy. I don't think even then you will see 1/3 of the grid in XRRs but it would help to get it back on the circuit.

What about it Scawen? Remove all the XRR ballast and see what it does to the grids?

And +1 to all cars getting stuck in the gravel although this will need to wait for a patch with physics changes.

Maxim
#22 - kbrn
I agree, the XRR needs to lose its ballast all together to make it competitive. I drive the XRR a lot on AS3 and I think it’s a really fun and difficult car to drive, but I don’t really understand why it has 40kg ballast in the latest patch.

The XRR has the following downsides compared to the FZR / FXR
-It’s slow off the grid (you’ll lose 3-4 places every time)
-It’s slow out of slow corners.
This is because the car is heavier in the front, it results in a lack of rear wheel grip during acceleration. And to make it even worse, it has turbo lag.

Also, while the absolute best XRR lap times are fairly close, it’s difficult to do those times consistently. The XRR’s handling is extremely twitchy compared to the other cars, make the slightest mistake and you’ll be 2-3 seconds slower.

All these downsides of the XRR are fine with me though, I like that the car is a challenge to drive fast.

What I don’t like is that the car that has the most weaknesses, and the worst handling before patch X, is still given an extra 40kg ballast to make it even slower. It’s no wonder that out of a 30 car grid, there is usually only two or three XRR’s.
I dunno. In our most recent race a XRR qualified second just off the pace of the leading FZR. It won too.

Granted thats a 4 hour race, but it had outright speed and endurance...
Quote from MaximUK :And +1 to all cars getting stuck in the gravel although this will need to wait for a patch with physics changes.

Lucky for us, the next patch will be chock full of them.
#25 - kbrn
Quote from srdsprinter :I dunno. In our most recent race a XRR qualified second just off the pace of the leading FZR. It won too.

Granted thats a 4 hour race, but it had outright speed and endurance...

Well, my guess is that the XRR driver would have won with an even greater margin if he had raced in any of the other cars

Also, I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to balance the cars based on results from pro leagues. That will simply not translate to the average race on a pub server. Leagues can always make their own rules about ballast and so on.

Patch X car balancing
(62 posts, started )
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