Observations on suspension settings

  • Thread starter Stotty
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Stotty

Stotty

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GTP_Stotty
I probably should post this in the GT5 forum, but that place is a bit of a mad house and seeing as most people there are using 300bhp street cars on racing softs, I doubt I'll get the same sort of informed or considered replies I expect to get here!

So here goes; This is likely to be lengthy, so bear with me, but I'd be really interested to get other people views and thoughts on this...

Yesterday I spent a whole heap of time in the week 11 NASCAR... almost 6 hours. Most of this time was invested in to trying different settings, with the objective of getting the car to turn better.

In previous GT games the classic way to tune a car was drop the front and rear ride height to minimum, then raise the rear in small increments until the front end became really 'pointy' as the rear became unstable. You then have a few choices... lower the rear a touch to get the stability back or control the instability with LSD decel or rear toe/camber... for those less experienced in settings, this combination puts more of the weight on the front tyres and helps limit weight transfer off the front tyres so aiding front end grip.

So far in GT5 I've been struggling to get anything other than MR cars do anything other than understeer... the old trusted method of tuning didn't seem to work. Then during an off line conversation with Ramon (GTP_Eclipsi), he mentioned something he'd written here some time ago with regard to the alleged 'ride height bug' (max front height, min rear - the opposite of the accepted tuning method)... Ramon said that he thought this wasn't a bug but in fact the front and rear were swapped round in the GT5 tuning menu... so if you set front at min, you were actually setting rear at min!

So I thought I'd try that on the NASCAR and see what happened.

As soon as I set the rear (in the menu) to min and front to max the car immediately did what I thought it should if I'd set front to min and rear to max... it turned really quickly, to the point where it was very unstable and would half spin in to turn 5 and 7. Which supported Ramon's view that front was actually rear and vice versa in the menu.

At this stage I was still using my previous springs and damper settings, and in addition to the instability, the rear of the car now had very little traction and would spin the rear wheels really easily with even small throttle openings.

As I continued to try different settings I found that if I softened the rear of the car (to try and get some traction back) the front of the car flet softer and started to lurch in to turns. So I stiffened the rear back up and started softening the front... and guess what? The traction came back!

Over the next couple of hours I played about with various spring and damper rates and I ended up with the following conclusion...

It's not just ride height that's the wrong way round in the menu... it's all the settings.

So when you're adjusting front settings, you're actually adjusting rear settings.

So far, I believe this is true for all settings on the left side of the menu (ie; camber and toe are the right way round but I haven't tested this yet).

Here are my current suspension settings...

Ride +15 -30
Spring 9.7 15.0
Rebound 4 6
Bound 2 4
ARB 1 3

As you can see, these are pretty much what you'd expect for this sort of car if the left column was rear and the right column front.

Thoughts?
 
Mate, it's a very very interesting observation you've put forward, and one that i've been pondering for a good month or two. I do remember the ride height bug in Prologue and i think that the thoughts on the ballast position were tested to in this weeks WRS by either Ramon or Zoky..... with seemingly no discernible difference in feel.

I've pretty much run a custom mix of Ramon's my own and Vagabonds settings this week, and the NASCAR, along with most of the vehicles in WRS since the inception of it within GT5 to me have displayed a tendency to understeer stock, and even tuned the tendency remains. I never thought to swap the front to rear in the settings, but i think i might head back now and see what happens.

Your first session Stotty this week in the NASCAR, i assume it was with the settings "backward" and the last posted splits were with the settings reversed?
 
osrg
Your first session Stotty this week in the NASCAR, i assume it was with the settings "backward" and the last posted splits were with the settings reversed?
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Yes. I switched to Ramon's tune early on, which sort of uses reverse settings (other than his spring rates) and improved striaght away but I didn't realise fully at the time what was going on.

Then I had a free day yesterday and decied to experiment.
 
I've been struggling with this myself. Small_Fryz pointed out that front toe seems back to front, and testing his suggestion, it seems like a plausible theory.

This is likely the reason that those weird ultra-tall front end settings that some of the time trial Gods use actually work. Though I always thought that was because such settings increased rear weight balance...
 
I started playing this game as a member of Team_Skills, and when PD started releasing the seasonal time trials Davey_Skills and the rest of the team were taking part in these events and quickly came to the same conclusion as you have. Everything like you say apart from Toe and Camber are backwards and before long in the time trials a lot of people were realizing that Davey_Skills was in fact setting the car up properly. It does look pretty ridiculous when you watch a replay seeing the rear of the car slammed to the floor with the front pointing towards the heavens, but surely it is just another small bug that can be fixed, because it is confusing a lot of people. For some reason they also found that a stiffer car was a lot faster than using softer settings, strange indeed.
 
Thanks for sharing this Stotty, somewhat confusing and I wonder how many people knew about this....

Makes sense now why Eclipsee's settings work better than mine
 
I'm not saying 100% I'm right... just my observations.

What I'd really like is for others to test the theoy and see if they agree... at the moment it's only one persons view based on one car :)
 
Stotty
I'm not saying 100% I'm right... just my observations.

What I'd really like is for others to test the theoy and see if they agree... at the moment it's only one persons view based on one car :)
Click to expand...

I'll do some testing with this today.... it makes sense though and certainly explains alot when it comes to some of the odd handling quirks I've come across when tuning. Nice work thus far. 👍
 
I don't really need to test to see if you are right as it has already been proven that everything is backwards when it comes to tuning, you just have to watch replays to see how stupid the ride height of the car is on the seasonal time trials, we talked about this with Maz and a few others in the "hello from team skills thread" and all came to the same conclusion.


In my opinion you are 100% right Stotty 👍
 
I know 100% the ride height is the wrong way round... others have already shown that... just want to know if others think the rest of the suspension settings are the same way.
 
Stotty
I know 100% the ride height is the wrong way round... others have already shown that... just want to know if others think the rest of the suspension settings are the same way.
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In my opinion all the other settings are also backwards, as a stiffer car seems to be faster but in theory you are actually using soft settings. I never thought the Toe and Camber were backwards though, thats news to me
 
Rear toe seems to be right, but front toe is almost definitely backwards.
 
What makes you say that?

IME, front toe works correctly... adding +ve front toe makes the car change direction more quickly. Adding -ve front toe give more mid corner grip.
 
Using a lot of positive toe seems to give a pointier front end than when using negative. But then, I've only been experimenting with it on the Mustang GT Premo... on which I'm having a hard time getting any results. Maybe I should test a whole lot more...
 
I though that's how front toe should work... +ve gives more response, -ve give more mid corner grip... but I could be wrong!
 
GTP_Plato
I don't really need to test to see if you are right as it has already been proven that everything is backwards when it comes to tuning, you just have to watch replays to see how stupid the ride height of the car is on the seasonal time trials, we talked about this with Maz and a few others in the "hello from team skills thread" and all came to the same conclusion.


In my opinion you are 100% right Stotty 👍
Click to expand...

I commented in some threads you mention before I was in WRS that I had noticed in the replays of Davey_Skills in london/honda integra and cape ring/kusabi that the back was slammed and the front was to the sky. I thought this since then, but only with the ride height. I didn't think that the whole settings were back to front though.
 
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sidplayos2
I commented in some threads you mention before I was in WRS that I had noticed in the replays of Davey_Skills in london/honda integra and cape ring/kusabi that the back was slammed and the front was to the sky. I thought this since then, but only with the ride height. I didn't think that the whole settings were back to front though.
Click to expand...

Yes, they noticed that all settings seemed to be backwards and also stated that they thought the only tuning options that were correct were the Camber and the Toe, strange how PD missed this, or more to the point, the game testers. This should have been easy to spot and put right.
 
Maybe the game testers didn't know in what way different tuning options change car behavior, and therefore didn't notice the mistake?
 
This is sort or related, since it involves tuning.

I thought setting LSD accel to a higher setting would help with wheelspin. I tried it at 55 - 60 on the NASCAR with no help. I got frustrated and for a lark, tried setting it to 5, it made a world of difference in traction coming out of a turn.

Is this the way it's supposed to work, have I been getting it wrong all this time?
 
Bos' the LSD in my opinion works as expected for accel and brake sides at least. Stock cars have a bunch of power so can go slideways for fun anyway. I'd use your settings for ovals but for a road course as in WRS even, I set my accel side to something like 18 - I tune so that both rears light up at the same time. If the outside goes red first = too much accel value, if the inside goes red first = too little accel value.

I tried stotty's suspension settings this morning, and within three laps I was running almost as quick as I was with my tune. With a little time, I'm sure I could have gone quicker, although I would have to tame the tail a little as my 200deg wheel doesn't give me the fine resolution I felt I needed for a stiff rear.

EDIT - was going to post this in the wk11 thread, but didn't want to piss on peoples parade so though I'd post here instead as the discussion can continue after the thread lock for the wk11 thread...

I'll be interested to see how this one plays out. Clearly PD have got themselves confused on how the set-up changes affect the physics, but then for previous weeks, a "ride-height bug" has been frowned upon. This from week one in the Camaro...

In Event Tuning Settings: Optional - NOTE: Any tuning gimmicks that offer an unfair advantage (i.e. the ride height bug) are not allowed.

Although for this week the text is slightly different...

In Event Tuning Settings: Optional - NOTE: Any tuning gimmicks that offer an unfair advantage are not allowed. These would be things like the Subaru Toe Bug found on GT5 Prologue.

I don't know how you'd police this, guess in extreme circumstances you'd see it in the replay.

For the record, I have no problem with the height glitch or any one using it (my car was level at -25). It's there for eveyone to take advantage of, and Stotty was very gracious in not only posting the setting here, but also starting a separate thread on it as well once he'd found it. Lots have used it and as Plato stated, it's been the subject of discussion previously as well.

Personally, I don't think anyone's times should be DQ'd because of it, but thought I'd pose the question for discussion.
 
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I agreee that no one should be DQ'd for using something like this. This isn't a bug, glitch, or anything else that would give someone an unfair advantage; it just looks like another of the many things PD got wrong.


I'll have to do some more playing around with the LSD settings once I can get back into some online racing. I doubt I'll ever be in another NASCAR car though. :lol:
 
Carlos Fandango
Bos' the LSD in my opinion works as expected for accel and brake sides at least. Stock cars have a bunch of power so can go slideways for fun anyway. I'd use your settings for ovals but for a road course as in WRS even, I set my accel side to something like 18 - I tune so that both rears light up at the same time. If the outside goes red first = too much accel value, if the inside goes red first = too little accel value.

I tried stotty's suspension settings this morning, and within three laps I was running almost as quick as I was with my tune. With a little time, I'm sure I could have gone quicker, although I would have to tame the tail a little as my 200deg wheel doesn't give me the fine resolution I felt I needed for a stiff rear.

EDIT - was going to post this in the wk11 thread, but didn't want to piss on peoples parade so though I'd post here instead as the discussion can continue after the thread lock for the wk11 thread...

I'll be interested to see how this one plays out. Clearly PD have got themselves confused on how the set-up changes affect the physics, but then for previous weeks, a "ride-height bug" has been frowned upon. This from week one in the Camaro...

In Event Tuning Settings: Optional - NOTE: Any tuning gimmicks that offer an unfair advantage (i.e. the ride height bug) are not allowed.

Although for this week the text is slightly different...

In Event Tuning Settings: Optional - NOTE: Any tuning gimmicks that offer an unfair advantage are not allowed. These would be things like the Subaru Toe Bug found on GT5 Prologue.

I don't know how you'd police this, guess in extreme circumstances you'd see it in the replay.

For the record, I have no problem with the height glitch or any one using it (my car was level at -25). It's there for eveyone to take advantage of, and Stotty was very gracious in not only posting the setting here, but also starting a separate thread on it as well once he'd found it. Lots have used it and as Plato stated, it's been the subject of discussion previously as well.

Personally, I don't think anyone's times should be DQ'd because of it, but thought I'd pose the question for discussion.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's an interesting situation, as a developer myself, yes getting the parameters the wrong way around is 'technically' a bug. However from a user perspective, it's not gaining any kind of unfair advantage IF it is what we now think. All we are doing is tuning the car as normal, just placing our settings in the reverse order on the screen. One and a half dozen of the other really. I agree, nothing would be DQ'ed because it's not an 'unfair' advantage bug, more just a user interface bug.
 
I guess it's semantics at the end of the day isn't it? One man's tuning gimmick is another man's bug or glitch.

The issue, to me, seems to be around expected vs. actual results. If it's a known quantity from the beginning then everyone can understand it and work with it.

If it's discovered later on, then clearly that isn't the case, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

As I said earlier, I wouldn't want the results to change, but I'll be interested to see how the mods view this. As I read their rules from WRS1, it contravenes the text I posted earlier.

If it is allowed, then it should be explained and posted as a sticky so that everyone is aware and understands how to exploit it.
 
Well, now I want to see how my settings work when reversed. I have noticed a problem before in the wording of the "Apex" book, in that there seems to be an inversion of values when translated from Japanese to English. I mean that they say to lower ride height for this combo, but the chart shows a higher ride height, and vice-versa. Also, I agree with Stotty that the whole left side of the tuning grid seems inverted. It has caused me great confusion when tuning, so I think I'm going to investigate further through testing. We may need a thread for this, but let's see where it goes, as we already have this great thread!
 
I was just noticing on this thread that you stated +15/-30 ride height. On the Week 11 thread I believe EDK posted -10/-30. I used the -10/-30 settings.

Stotty, did you actually use +15/-30? Was this an improvement over the -10/-30 settings? A substantial improvement?

Thank you Stotty for sharing this info. It was neat just to try the -10/-30. It took me a bit to take full advantage of the settings, as I was already used to certain markers for turn in, etc.. But once I got used to the new settings, I was able to run some unique, and faster lines.

I don't understand car suspension settings in general yet. Getting closer, I think. A great insight from you this week.
 
Yes, one of my tunes (in which I ran a 24.829 in) used front +15, rear -30 ride height.

But I say again... this is not a bug!

Due to front and rear being the wrong way round in the menu, it's just running minimum front ride, maxium rear (which has been used in GT games forever)... to put more weight over the front tyres, create more front end grip and reduce understeer.
 
Stotty
Yes, one of my tunes (in which I ran a 24.829 in) used front +15, rear -30 ride height.

But I say again... this is not a bug!

Due to front and rear being the wrong way round in the menu, it's just running minimum front ride, maxium rear (which has been used in GT games forever)... to put more weight over the front tyres, create more front end grip and reduce understeer.
Click to expand...
.

Thank you for the insight. I am new to the GT series, and pretty new to racing games in general. I have been trying to do my best impression of a sponge. I appreciate learning all these intricacies of the setups and driving styles.

Putting weight over the front makes sense with your explanation. Is this something that has been done with all styles of cars? Or just RWD cars? And please feel free to stop answering my questions at any time. Once I get going, I frequently ask too many.
 

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