So most logical choice for hotlapping attemps is of course a Pickup truck! Something around 1:39, unless I calculated it wrong from video: It does have Corvette motor, Tremec DCT and tuned suspension with racing tires, it's too loose for my liking and laps were far from perfect, but it is good there is room to improve, it's horrible when you run out of room. Oh, you can post your attempts here too if you like. Update: My controller tips: https://www.beamng.com/threads/hotlap-attempts-road-atlanta.52480/#post-799307
Here's my poor attempt on doing it. I'm still getting used to my Logitech G29 wheel. I was too cocky that I went with a 454 CUI Barstow with too much power for its 215/65/R15 Grip-All tires. This car is very scary as you can see from the pedals & axis app that I don't have the nerve to give it too much throttle or else I risk spinning out. Driving with an Xbox Controller is really different from using a steering wheel with clutch and H-Shifter... Car spec: Gavril Barstow 454 CUI - 380 HP, 615 Nm High Performance Radiators 4-speed MT; no throttle & clutch assist 3.08 open final drive ratio Alder Magnum 15x8 w/ 215/65/R15 Grip-All Radial T/A (30 Psi) Stock front and rear suspension setup Front & rear ventilated discs w/ premium Brake Pads
Looks like you did cook your brakes at the end Wish that my wheel would of not self destructed, now I'm too poor to afford a wheel, so have to do with a gamepad Limit to 35% or what is barely enough for car/track helps a lot with gamepads, 36mph might be bit much, but idea is to have more steering when going really slow and to have constant steering amount available when driving normally around the track. With wheel you have 2.5 turns, not sure if some other setting can be used to limit steering lock, but if car's steering wheel turns 3.2 turns then limit to 78% would give 1:1 steering which is desirable.
I prefer to change the linearity instead of using limiter. I just remembered that on Xbox controller I set 3 linearity with 0.1 deadzone on steering, 3 linearity with 0 deadzone on throttle and brake. Sheesh no wonder I was better... On steering wheel, I set all linearity to 1. It was very twitchy, I wonder if I should set it to the wheels and pedals (might bork FFB).
Problem with linearity is that you get that sudden ramp of steering at some point and near center area there is not much responsiveness, so it becomes kind of digital control. Setting lower steering limit via speed sensitivity gives you more resolution to steering axis, you get to use more of movement range for useful inputs, but I find it must be set so that it is constantly same, not decreasing slowly by speed so you know that 4mm of movement results same thing every time. This might be of course different with different gamepads, I have seen people using equivalent of linearity with Xbox controllers in other games too, but for me that does not work so well as there is huge area at center that does nothing and at near end of movement range steering all of sudden moves very quickly. It can very well be different with Xbox controller. I'm still using also linerity setting, but I try to keep that at minimum possible so that I get just little bit of damping around center to avoid steering inputs when starting to brake. I could of course have other thumb control for steering and another for throttle and brake, but I'm not sure if my brain would be able to operate two hands to different directions Anyway that is one thing I need to test as it would allow more precise steering inputs and linear setting for steering. For wheel, I think that you should get 1:1 steering, speed sensitivity is one setting that could be used, there was setting of wheel rotation too, but I don't know if that does steering limiting, for gamepad that setting didn't do much. It's quite simple to get needed percentage for 1:1 setting of speed sensitivity. 900 degrees is 2.5 turns and to get turns car's steering wheel turns from lock to lock, just use keyboard to steer and count turns from lock to lock. Then 2.5/turns from lock to lock * 100 = speed sensitivity percentage. It just takes experimenting to find best working combination.
I think the real problem that I encountered is that I still don't set the force feedback strength right. I get a funny feeling where the steering wheel is very light when centered up to some point where it gets heavier (about -6 to 6% of input) so that the steering is very twitchy. I'm not a fan of using speed limiter with a wheel, the real limiting force in real life is your own hands in a sense that you won't make huge turns on high speed. I'll try this when I test using speed sensitivity. Thanks! We are going way off topic by the way...
Got pretty close to you guys, my time is 2.19. Especially considering my car and controller. Sorry, no video. Car: Jargl Trysil 2.4 I5- 141 hp, 230 Nm, naturally aspirated 5 speed manual FWD Racing wheels+tires, sport struts, sport front and street rear swaybar, stock brakes and steering Controller: Lenovo Thinkpad's keyboard
That is not bad at all, with keyboard! It is nice to have more people joining here @440cid I do not understand what you complain about FFB, that sounds pretty realistic with old US product like which you were using, if there is no 1/4 turn at the middle that does nothing, then something is wrong with such vehicle, feature But if we look this seriously, then maybe check that you have negative camber and good amount of caster, also bit of toe in should help centering when rolling, toe out would kinda make bit vague at center if my memory serves me right. I have to re-learn lot of stuff as I have forgotten all the things I once knew I think that some controller setup information is good to have so other interested can do some testing and perhaps find hotlapping more enjoyable, then they might participate to this odd club I wrote too much, I put spoilers for rest of the post that has information. Hotlap app: Spoiler Just add it and then at starting line click start hotlapping, DO NOT PRESS STOP, because after that it does not work right, also if you manage to wreck your car and reset car to starting line, wait until clock shows time longer than your best lap, if you don't then you get too fast best time and you cant really remove them easily without restarting level as it is bit buggy in many ways or then I'm just using it wrong. However if you don't select free roam mode, but select Time Trials mode, then you have timing, you can select from few layouts, amount of laps etc. About controller setups Probably worth to read: Spoiler Filtering slows down controller input Linearity change controller response curve, bigger values are slower at middle, but ramp speed back at accelerating pace near the edges. Speed sensitivity is just way to limit how much wheels can turn that is tied to used speed. So with speed sensitivity set so that begin and end speeds are really low and within 1mph each other (does not work if set to same) you have steering speed of what you manage to turn controller, but amount of steering is bit less, so it takes bit more to turn controller to make action. In BeamNG it is very possible to have faster steering than 1:1 with default settings which makes car hard to drive as near center wheels turn more than excepted and as by nature first change to wheel angle has strongest effect in BeamNG. That has something to do with how tire nodes go from stable state to sliding state or something, idk, but I suspect some update will address this in a future.
I don't really know how to describe it either, maybe you got it wrong because I can't explain it. The steering in these old American cars are supposed to be sluggish. Instead of that, my steering is too twitchy at low input as the steering wheel is too light, then suddenly gets heavier at a point. Let's say at 0-6% of input, it is super light and effortless to turn but it is still registered. Then suddenly from 7-100% of input the steering gets heavy. To combat twitchiness at low input, I added 0.3% of deadzone which is up to the point where the steering wheel starts to get heavy so that the car only starts to turn where my steering gets heavy. Also this time, I chose an engine more suitable for my skill level; a 350 CUI with 280 HP
Oh yes, deadzone is indeed needed for authentic feeling But somehow I suspect there being something more troubling here, if modern ETK behaves same, then there is something else that needs adjusting, if I would have a wheel it would not take long to figure that out, but without wheel it is kinda difficult :-/ I did watch the video and it clearly did show how you could trust the car much more now. I will try to get new video made bit later, ETK K-Series, but before that need to few things.
Somehow too understeery today, but I did try something 1:34.319 (in first post truck is DokuDoku, that is bit faster than this k-series if I could just drive properly, despite it weights 2 tons and still it is more agile than k-series): Mods: Street oil cooler by MarkosRuiz Supercharger NOS 6th gear on and 5000rpm in settings 50kW shot size, engine can't take more. Rear wing Clockwise 533 with wide racing tires F 17x10 R 17x12 Lot of suspension tuning and lot of that needs to be done until it is how I want.
1:31.866, setup got bit better, but it still has bit of issues and my driving is terrible as ever, I would be so much faster with a wheel, once upon a time I was able to keep up with some slower aliens, but that was really long time ago. Setup is attached, if someone wants to try, you need street oil coolers mod from repo, or then just let it run hot. Perhaps reducing bit of rear camber and ARB setup are next things for that setup, could be that optimal front camber is something that needs more guessing, it can be too much currently. I did calculate damper settings, it is bit on soft side, but I like to drive over things, so it is better as soft, only 2.25Hz, stiffening rear end might also help with understeer, but then low speed exits suffer, which might be helped a bit by tuning dampers a bit. I could use -140% rear wing setting though, at -100% it still is bit much which is main cause of understeer, but there is no lesser wings for K-series that I know of.
Using the 454 but this time on Xbox Controller instead of G29+Shifter. I was baffled looking at the time.. 7.051 seconds faster using controller than wheel. That says A LOT about my driving skill with wheel. On the other hand, I tried to remove the steering wheel in game while playing with my G29 and I got somewhat better. Maybe having to look at 2 steering wheel is too confusing for my poor brain.
Now you are driving it! For wheel, try this, half FFB strenght that you have now, then when grabbing a wheel think that it is a potato chip you are squeezing, try not to brake that potato chip and turn wheel really fast, practice that. Faster I had to drive in past, more I opened my fingers, you should turn wheel with palms, not by grabbing with fingers, that made big difference for me, well that was a long time ago, but this comes from a guy that once felt random online races were boring as everyone were so slow. Movement catches eye, definitely keep ingame steering wheel off, even better is to use hood view, you don't need speedo to go fast, but maybe hood view would be cheating? Key to go fast is brake 100% or none, early brake, make turn, fast 100% throttle, any babying is going slow, but to achieve that perfection is not so simple and easy, also there are exceptions to rule, but this fast time of yours, you were much braver with throttle and brake, also steering was a lot faster. I think that best times I got with FFB turned off, that was because when I turned left, then back to right at chicanes, when I had turned back to right, FFB started to be at left turning phase and wheel just fought against me. But we are talking about two turns of wheel in less than 0.5 seconds, when you get into zone, you start seeing how long that input lag really is etc. as 0.1 seconds is suddenly a long time to wait. One of my laps is 10 years old, still at nation's top 10, wish I would still that fast
Fun fact that nobody might care: that Xbox controller driving footage was taken in 1 attempt. While the G29 was repeated for so many time because I either kept spinning out, braked too late and mossed the turn, put the shifter to wrong gear (G29 shifter sucks), or went off track. I really like the cockpit view, I always play Beam (or other driving game) in cockpit view because it's the closest feeling to driving. The tip that you have makes most sense because that's the closest thing to how I drive in real life. I find it really hard to get used to this G29. It feels really fake as I can't feel the sense of speed, force, car body shifting, etc. It doesn't feel like driving a real car but my brain is expected to operate like it. On the other hand using a controller feels fine as it feels toyish and nothing in real life that I am already used to feels like it.
Also it does not help when over 2 meters is cramped to less than 1 meter, that is your cockpit in your monitor's flat plane, where you need to get seat of pants that does not really exist in game With controller from lock to lock it takes a lot less time, so you are more confident of catching small slides on time, with wheel that is 1.25 turns instead of small flick of thumb and then 2.5 turns to get to other lock with FFB fighting against you, so that kinda makes hard to trust your abilities of catching that slide. Then it is natural to be cautious and that actually can cause more spins than just gunning it. It works same IRL too, riding MTB downhill, chicken out and you will crash, just go and stay relaxed and there is no trouble. I have fallen down much more from chickening out than anything else, it is kinda weird thing, but that is how it works out.
And the shitty setup that I got doesn't help either. I'm sitting on an office chair if I press the brakes too hard the chair moves backwards lol. I will try without FFB on my next upload. Is disabling FFB in a wheel considered cheating?
Certainly not, there are many of those wheels without FFB at all! I did put V10 in K-series thinking it would be a good idea, but it was not, Vanos kicked in and car was sideways all the time, so that had to use sissy mode (TCS) and it was utterly boring to drive after that, and slow: I did put engine here if someone wants it, I don't have interest of making 3d model for it though, so better keep that hood intact!: https://www.beamng.com/threads/etk-s85-v10-engine.52538/
