Tire Traction

I had hoped that with the new race update that the lack of tire traction would have been fixed but no... I still slide around like I'm driving on ice... So how would I go about fixing this myself?

 

It was a MAJOR improvement, but yes it's not fully fixed. They will always continue to work on the tire model. There's no real way to fix it yourself.

 

Darn ... oh well... thanks...

 

From the tech demo to now it feels A LOT better. Now you do get that bit of ice driving but I only really notice it while on the grid type levels that don't have any surface other than that grid. That surface is a lot like ice in the game so you don't really have the grip. On tarmac however the grip feels like it is there properly.

 

I like to bump up the friction values on the car's tires. Doing this makes the Covet actually handle like a FF type car (power understeer, mechanical oversteer), the D15 handles bouncy but firmly, the Grand Marshall handles like a couch (not a couch on ice) all the while maintaining 0-60 times and realistic braking.

 

It's the same groundmodel on asphalt roads and the grid surfaces. I think part of the handling complaints is in people's perception of the maps. The grid maps are not even meant to be realistic, and most roads on both official and addon maps are also quite unrealistic, so it's not easy to judge how fast you should be going or how fast you're actually going.

Of course the tire model can still be improved, but a lot can be done with the current model. I spent hours today tuning the tires and suspension of a '50s sports car with crossply tires. It was practically undriveable at first, now it's still tricky but fun to drive.

 

try driving the detuned bolide 320, but put the race tires on it. handles pretty nice.

 

Would not have guessed that, to me it certainly doesn't feel that way. I feel much less grip on the grid maps than Dry Rock Island. Must just be in my head.

 

Yeah, the traction needs to be much higher.

Also the cars should have more mass. Now even the smallest pump on the road will make car jumping around. More mass combined with higher friction will make cars behave more realistic when driving on the road or rolling down the hill.

 

The cars weights are usually right on, thats the official cars, gabester puts a lot of time in researching. For unofficial mods, they should be close to accurate, maybe not perfect.

 

Search ''moose test'' on youtube. Then try to do that in BeamNG. The cars feel like driving on ice if you compare it to the real cars in the videos.

 

problem is actually that the bumps in the road are much larger than they should be, masses are pretty accurate (and confirmable on one of the debug apps)

 

Ok, good to know. Then it must be the lack of friction that makes the cars feel too light.

 

I'll chime in here and say I too have found myself wanting to adjust tire friction values for more grip. With the pre-race update came transmission and gearing changes that make cars push and slide way too much. Work in progress for sure.

 

Thanks for the reply!

I tested changing g.slidingFrictionCoefficient to 0.9 and it felt much better. I didn't use the G-meter though but compared to how cars handle in real life, it felt much more realistic.

Also noticed that when turning it seems that car rotates around it's vertical center axis rather than rear wheels following the front. Especially in high speeds. I don't know if it's because of the camera (angle) or something else, but that's how it looks like.

EDIT: After couple of test runs, I found these values that I liked most:

Asphalt
g.staticFrictionCoefficient = 1.1
g.slidingFrictionCoefficient = 0.8

Gravel
g.staticFrictionCoefficient = 0.93
g.slidingFrictionCoefficient = 0.66

Rock
g.staticFrictionCoefficient = 1.1
g.slidingFrictionCoefficient = 0.9

Metal
g.staticFrictionCoefficient = 0.8
g.slidingFrictionCoefficient = 0.6

Grass
g.staticFrictionCoefficient = 0.85
g.slidingFrictionCoefficient = 0.5

Sand
g.staticFrictionCoefficient = 0.75
g.slidingFrictionCoefficient = 1.20

 

That might be the case but I rather have unrealistic braking distances than unrealistic traction which can't keep me on the road.

Could the problem be in weight transfer and how it affects the amount of grip? E.g. when cornering weight moves towards the outer side increasing the traction on tires.

And speaking of weight transfer: I can't access my home computer at the moment but if I remember correctly the weight doesn't transfer (or it's very negligible) to front or rear when braking or accelerating. This is the case even with the soft suspension cars. Or is this because the tires doesn't have enough traction at the moment?

This can be seen clearly on this video at 38s: http://youtu.be/8MmIqM9aygs?t=32s The rear of the car moves sideways to opposite direction than the front wheels are pointing when turning which isn't realistic and is a one reason to bad handling. It doesn't act like a real car would it the same situation.

Not saying you're doing something completely wrong but just trying to understand how the game engine works at the moment.

Didn't actually do any calibration, just compared the behavior to what I have experienced on a race track with my own car. But as gabester said it's a problem with entering dynamic friction too easily rather than friction values itself.