I like that the clutch is simulated quite well, but I find it way too easy. With every single car, as soon as you lift you foot off of the clutch, even a little (99%) on the clutch bar for barely 2 seconds, its enough to get the car moving, and then you can just completely remove your foot and the car will roll. In my experience, with some cars for 1st gear, the clutch is usually a balancing act and you have to ride the clutch a bit to get moving. Some cars have their bite point towards the bottom of the pedal travel, some in the middle, and others at the top of the pedal travel. I would like to see the clutch implemented to the game this way.
I personally haven't tried the clutch simulation in quite some time (in the middle of moving and haven't had my wheel or computer set up in quite a while so I won't comment on that) but I can give a little bit of insight. While you are correct on pedal travel for most cars you have to remember why most cars have their bite points in different spots on the pedal. A car with a very new clutch you will have to push the pedal nearly to the floor to release it enough to shift because the clutch has so much material, while inversely a clutch that is nearly dead will release with only a little movement at the very top of the pedal... or... if you keep driving it like that... eventually the clutch will start to slip on its own. So that accounts for the difference in bit point. If they could do that in game, I agree it would be pretty neat... but I don't know if it would be worth it really... perhaps when career mode comes along, if we can buy cars from a junkyard, then this would actually be really fun to have... buy a car with almost no clutch left so you have to be really careful how much throttle you give it as to not make the clutch slip. Then you go swap for a new clutch and now it is all the way down at the floor again... would definitely be neat. As for difficulty of taking off... again... I will have to try it in game again when I get around to that... but a lot of cars can be very different. I don't know how many you have driven (from the sounds of it quite a few to know about the pedal height difference) or how varied they are in type (has it all been hatchbacks or did you have a couple sedans and trucks thrown in the mix?). I have driven many different types of standard vehicles, so here is my experience. Depending on the type of car, you may have to feather the clutch with the throttle to get it moving, or you may not have to do much of anything at all. My old F150 and my current Chevy K10 for instance... you can literally dump the clutch in those trucks at idle with no gas added and they will not stall. 1st gear is so low in them and they make so much torque that you really have to be a terrible driver to stall one. On the other end of the spectrum, my 1.8L Subaru Impreza needs a bit fair bit of fethering to take off. You dump the clutch in that... even with some revs... and it will instantly die... likely it will not even roll. 1st is still pretty low in that car, but it just has NO torque to get you moving... so sitting on the bite point with some gas for a good 20 feet is the only way you will get moving. The same goes for my Fiero. It has a much bigger engine, but first is also much taller in that car, so while it makes pretty good torque, it is canceled out by the gearing, and thus you must feather the clutch a bit before you can let it go... usually up to about 10mph or so. Then, lastly, there is my Saab 900. Very smooth shifting car with a small engine, but the clutch is almost dead in it. The clutch releases less than an inch off the top of the pedal. Doesn't really matter too much as the car has really short 1st and 2nd gears, so as long as you let out the clutch smoothly, you don't need to even use the throttle to get moving. you can get all the way up to 3rd at about 25mph at just idle in that car without ever touching the gas. So again... as far as in game... it should really depend on the type engine, transmission, rear end, and weight of the vehicle as to how easy the car is to get moving. A good majority of the vehicles in the game are muscle cars and trucks/suv's that all will have fairly low 1st gears and a lot of torque (even with the smallest 6 cylinder engine's... 6 cylinders in real life make a ton of torque). The car that should be difficult to take off in will likely be, oddly enough, the Bolide. It will probably have longer gear ratios seeing as it's a sports car, and (if you use the lowest tier one) will be a bit down on power. Infact, the lowest tier Bolide is almost identical to my Fiero in weight, power, and fairly close in gearing I think... so take that one out and give it a try... it probably won't take off as easily as the rest.
theoretically you could get up to your max gear without ever using the gas if you are a god of clutch control. I dont use a shifter or a steering wheel but i did notice the game was too forgiving with clutches and low RPM not stalling. Specially on older cars where the idle was already the lowest point the engine could be without stalling anyways.
Actually, if you were to go into the clutch settings in game, you'd see the clutch axis is pretty linear which basically explains why you can get away with the 1% clutch release & make the car start rolling. I've seen a thread on the forum by @fufsgfen where he actually made a nice guide on how to set up the clutch linearity properly. You should look through the forum to find it, as it would be quite useful for your situation EDIT: Here, managed to find it https://beamng.com/threads/quest-for-more-realistic-clutch-a-tip-guide.60227/
