I just noticed you upped the Alpine's difficulty rating from 'average' to 'pro.' Why? The car is unflappably predictable--no oversteer, no understeer--and brakes wonderfully. It isn't
really fast in the straightaways, either. It's very fast in the long run, and I'm not saying it's safe to the point of being boring, (though I don't know that car's potential...) but it's almost foolproof to drive. I think you should move it back. In fact the only reason it shouldn't be a novice rating is the remarkable pace of the calm French lady.
But, that is just a short rant based on a car I drove ages ago, not something I'm trying to pass off as a review. However, I've got one of those as well...
I was in love with my Le Mans Quattro before any of this started. The engine note is the most beautiful I've ever heard; not lazy and off-beat like a huge--but somehow not too potent--American engine, and not as ear-shatteringly high-pitched as a tiny--and hairdryer-assisted--Japanese engine. No sir, this engine is loud, making sure everyone knows just how hard it is working, but deep, hinting at the massive displacement. And when all 5000 cc's work hard, wonderful things happen. But this car's acceleration is more than just acceleration: there's a feeling of being involved in the motion, (And what a motion!) that I'm not just watching it get progressively better and better fuel mileage (lmao). Admittedly, the cornering is technically horrible, but I just love it. I'm not sure why, really, but the surefooted and unique understeer combined with the infinite traction (
how do I spin the wheels?) just give the car a charisma that I'm just blown away by. Even better, I've noticed that an enthusiastic braking feint into tight corner produces a perfect drift, with high angle, no wheelspin, high speed, and 700hp. Wonderful! The car had but one flaw: the brakes. I could never seem to brake early enough, the clamps just never seemed to fin(n)ish the job. It kind of ruined the whole thing, but I easily fixed that anyways. I honestly didn't think the car could be improved upon; What's better than perfection?
But, if I've got the car, It would be rude not to test it out. So I gave it a whirl at Infineon, and... nothing seemed too amazing. It's RWD(er) layout actually made it worse in hairpins than before, and the gear ratios gave even more amazing acceleration than before, which is theoretically great, but simply kills it in low-speed turns. Furthermore, I couldn't even begin to do the braking-feint drift in the corner #7 without spinning the wheels and losing my momentum. Sure, it seemed a bit swifter in the quick corners, but not by much. Furthermore, the handling had lost it's defining surefootedness; every time I turned, the tail was out just a few degrees. Sure, it's a bit better than total grip, but so much less remarkable. In other words, there's no real adjective to describe this new behaviour--It's... nothing.
It's a huge car, maybe it just needs an equally huge track. So, it's off to Germany we go!
It worked. The power actually means something here in the land of high-speed technical courses, as opposed to Infineon, which has a grand total of 1 segmented straightaway. The car's glorious sound system actually made the car move quickly here, while it just made me nervous at Infineon. The new cornering attitude, as well, showed it's bright side here; I've gotten over the understeer I somehow loved, and just appreciate the sheer pace of the thing. I know it's got 700hp and S3's, but I was able to go full-speed in every single turn from the very first lap, never feeling a sense of clumsiness or excessive power. The second lap revealed one supremely interesting characteristic of this car, though: It's amazingly confident in its motions, even while airborne (which is more often than you'd think with 700hp and no downforce). In the turn immediately after the jump in the first section, I got briefly distracted and forgot to slow down so I could actually clear the turn without embedding myself in the outside wall. As I mashed the square button and grimaced, the car, while being tossed around, did not even hint at faltering. No, this car is faithful to my decisions, it just cleared the turn without any drama whatsoever, undoubtedly a product of the gargantuan wheelbase. Honestly, I'm astonished it behaves so nimbly with such a legendary wheelbase.
In summary:
- It's nimble and controllable, in no particular order.
- It's power, though not your work, is still worth mentioning.
- I'm delighted you didn't give it R tires, even though no wing is possible.
- Equally amazing is that I can't notice the lack of R Tires.
- But it's basically useless in small courses. Though, 700hp probably shouldn't be in small courses anyway...
I see that it specializes and excels amazingly in high-speed courses, but I'm much too in love with my technical courses to fully appreciate that. Also, I didn't see much of a problem with the original car's cornering. I get a feeling that, while it's undoubtedly an amazing tuning, that I may not be noticing that it may not be a very amazing car. 8.5/10
[/Review]
I don't really want to request anything right now, since you said you have an old Evo on the back burner; I hope it's a III!
I'm not really very into the idea of request cars; It kind of feels like it's a rushed product that you don't feel is quite good enough for the general public, but you didn't want to break the deal from post #8 or so. Don't get me wrong, the request cars you and Leo have built me are very fun, and much more agile than untuned, but I always just find myself asking "Why wasn't this published?" and "How much better could this be?"
MFT Evo III
But, if you someday released an Evo III to the public, I would be simply delighted. But, no worries if you don't, I'll still be as loyal a customer as my schedule will allow, and wouldn't be disappointed in the least. Given the quality of the setups here, I presume that a request for a public-caliber car is a huge favour to ask, so I'll not. I'd like to just stick to subliminal messages instead
Also, the mention of mileage increasing makes perfectly awesome sense. If you're doing full throttle at 70 mph, you're using x amount of gallons of fuel per hour and going 70 mph. If you're full-throttling at 190 mph, you're still only using x amount of fuel per hour, (It's called a gas pedal for a reason) but now you're going 190 mph. If you only had one hour's worth of fuel, you'd go 70 miles at 70 mph (Though I must ask, why are you redlining at full throttle?) but 190 miles at 190 mph. Same amount of fuel, greater distance, means better efficiency. You can see it in action with some acceleration tests in the new Toyota Prius in arcade mode (You didn't actually
buy it, did you?) and note the correlation between the speedo and mileage readout. The special HUD makes it feel like the Starship Enterprise!
MFT Evo III