Ballast System has a "Glitch"

[budious]

Update: Apparently, this glitch not only affects endurance and online, but also regular offline practice mode and A-spec. It can also be activated by setting a 0kg ballast at -50 for more grip on the rear tires, or at +50 for more grip on the front if preferred.

For drag racing, put 0 weight, and ballast position 50. This is a easy trick to gain a little bit better traction. Depending how your suspension is set up, you will either feel much better traction, or just slightly..

---------------------------OP Below----------------------------

I've always noticed that despite any adjustments I make to my car, that it will always post peak lap times at around 75% fuel capacity on fresh tires in endurance mode. So how can this be?

The thought occurs to me that PD must utilize a fixed ballast system that is implemented to add approximately 25% of a tank of fuel weight to the car. Why would they do this? If cars were tuned and only optimized by drivers when tire wear and fuel consumption was off, then all cars would ideally be nearest their potential and become progressively worse as the tank emptied; despite even some reasonable tuners who make have take into consideration, the easy fix is to implement a single idiot proof handicap to maximize the range of the expected handling closer to 50%.

How is this achieved? Consider your car is optimized with tire wear and fuel consumption off, then it should be produce identical lap times on the first lap of an endurance race at curb weight. However, it does not. The best lap times will be achieved after a pit stop for new tires but not filling the tank near 75% tank capacity.

Why does this occur? PD has implemented a fixed ballast weight (assuming 19KG of 75% of 100L or ~76KG of fuel) at the same position as that of the fuel cell on the car. What is the benefit on this? This produces the illusion that handling is slightly under expectation between 76-100% of fuel capacity, that peak occurs around 75%, and handling remains predictable if not a little off pace from 74-50% fuel capacity. If this ballast was not in place then equivalent (not necessarily peak) lap times with non-endurance mode should be produced.

So what is the "glitch" you speak of? The fixed ballast implement by PD appears to have an override when a user defined ballast is in place, if you install a 1KG ballast at any position on the car (0 to +25 recommend) then the car will immediately gain back a significant portion of the time difference at 100% fuel capacity in endurance mode in comparison to curb weight in non-endurance mode.

A small time discrepancy still exists but the gap is much smaller, indicating that an offset ballast is a large influence on the differences in handling and lap times between the modes. The other factors probably have to do with tire wear physics; and additionally, when online, network update frequencies.

So example car A:

51.3" lap times on Tsukuba with tire wear off in My Lounge.
52.3" lap times on Tsukuba with tire wear on in My Lounge.
51.7" lap times on Tsukuba with tire wear on and 1KG user defined ballast in My Lounge.

I'd be interested to see if others can replicate this phenomenon or if it is just me looking too hard for ghosts in the machine. Let me know if this works for you.

 

[Disavowed]

Now this is interesting. I've noticed some of the discrepancies but I never thought about using ballast... this could be good. I've been running a lot of B-Spec endurance races lately since my wheel broke. I'll definitely be giving your theory a run. XD

 

[HKS racer]

So the 1kg ballast in the rear could reset or glich the ballast which simulate the tank fuel? Could be true, good find.

 

[Disavowed]

Well, budious, it does seem to make a difference. I put a 1kg ballast in position 0 on a Audi R8 LMP (Team Oreca version) and had it run the 24hr Nurburgring race. With the long laps in the ring, lap times varied considerably but with the ballast, the lap times stabilized a lot. I'll be trying this out a few more times with different cars but this initial test shows promise.

 

[budious]

Well at least I wasn't imagining it then, so it does work. Not entirely sure if my explanation on why it works is anywhere close, but interesting none the less.

 

[Morgoth_666]

That seems very interesting, will have to check it out. However, do you really think that the 'Tire/Fuel off' condition should actually simulate a full tank of fuel? A full tank is a real handful, especially in a light car. I'd assumed that the offline / option disabled mode is set to be at half or quarter fuel, with full tires. Either way the ballast thing seems a very interesting theory. If that's true, I wonder if they do anything to approximate fuel sloshing about(assuming they even bother with that when there IS fuel).

It'd be nice if you could start a session with the fuel you needed, instead of an automatic full tank. Would certainly make testing things like this easier.

 

[budious]

It'd be nice if you could start a session with the fuel you needed, instead of an automatic full tank. Would certainly make testing things like this easier.

Add it to the list of things that should be available. I'd like to see user defined checkpoints on courses in practice mode so I just restart and repeat a particular segment of a course for a time check.

Back to topic, if the tank was filled to less than capacity than I would think that the fuel gauge should represent that... but of course, then again why would PD make anything that obvious.

The other thought is fuel mixture, I'm not familiar with what is used on race courses, maybe our more experienced real world tuners can enlighten us as to any differences for potential fuel blends for short track racing and endurance events and differences in engine output. Though, that would not explain handling differences.

Ballast weight could be the addition of a driver ballast to the mix, since this would offset the weight of the car to either the left or right for none center cockpit race models. Perhaps next step should be to run tests on high speed ring in forward and reverse and note the differences in tire wear rate from left to right to explore that possibility.

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

This is indeed an interesting find. I'll give it a shot myself at some point, and if it seems to be true, then, I and Greycap shall add it to our tuning setup sheet as standard addition.

 

[Phelyx]

Speaking of Glitch.... I think my results will resolve this issue.

I'm running nurb ring a-spec 24 endurance using the solo glitch. As the gas decreases the times after full tireware decrease by .002-.005 every lap.

This is in 2nd gear full turning radius at 111mph.

 

[Disavowed]

Speaking of Glitch.... I think my results will resolve this issue.

I'm running nurb ring a-spec 24 endurance using the solo glitch. As the gas decreases the times after full tireware decrease by .002-.005 every lap.

This is in 2nd gear full turning radius at 111mph.

I wouldn't call that a glitch. The weight of the car is supposed to affect tire wear (amongst other factors) so if tire wear decreases as fuel is consumed, I'd say this is being simulated correctly. When I used the 1KG ballast, it seems that the lap times were affected but not tire wear.

 

[polizei]

This helps explain the crazy variations in lap times we were noticing in our Monday night endurance races,

 

[budious]

For drag racing, put 0 weight, and ballast position 50. This is a easy trick to gain a little bit better traction. Depending how your suspension is set up, you will either feel much better traction, or just slightly..

Interesting, I had noted a similar flaw with setting a 1KG ballast which had shown significant improvements in endurance mode. I should have been more thorough with my testing though, as even using your method showed a significant improvement in offline practice mode.

Endurance Physics has a "glitch" thread. Think'll just change it to "Ballast System has a "glitch"...

I have been working the on the McLaren MP4-12C for the tuning contest and had my build down and running pretty consistently on R246. X:YY:ZZZ" lap times all within a range of 1" on a 10 lap run. Trying the 0KG ballast at -50 I set my new best lap time record with the car and the cold runs (first two laps) showed the most gains. Once the tires warmed the advantage of the ballast glitch was less obvious but it still got the best lap time award, consistently about .5" faster on average for laps. Good find and thanks for sharing.

Bumping this thread with new info as it applies to topic.

@budious: It's not really a glitch, the weight placement slider has effected weight balance without any actual ballast since its introduction in GT4.

That sounds like a glitch, and I was about to repost with the same conclusion.

I took my tune for R246 to Trial Mountain, and it drove like crap. I put the +50 0kg ballast on and it drove even more like crap. However, I slide change it to +10 0kg and my car suddenly became much more balanced for Trial Mountain. So I completely agree it is manipulating the natural weight distribution of the car's stock weight. Whether that is intentional (I find that hard to believe) or a glitch, it should be banned either way. I'd be inclined to say glitch as GT5 did not ship with the ballast feature; and bowing to pressure, rushed a copy paste job of the broken GT4 code back into GT5 as a patch feature.

If a driver uses a test car online in a weight restricted room and then removes the weight rather than defaulting the ballast and then drives one of our tunes it could either have a beneficial or detrimental impact on the outcomes.

Adrenaline should probably start including a "Use the 'return to defaults' button in ballast" notice line along with the tune distributions. I'm not even sure manually returning the position to 0 has the same effect as returning to defaults because it still feels a bit off.

 

[TT3AZ]

Well, if you think like this, you add 0 kilogram, but instead you transfer objects in your car to the back, hence you dont add any weight. Its like taking your back seat and other things and put them in the trunk so the weight is over the rear axle.

 

[Motor City Hami]

Well, if you think like this, you add 0 kilogram, but instead you transfer objects in your car to the back, hence you dont add any weight. Its like taking your back seat and other things and put them in the trunk so the weight is over the rear axle.

I agree. It's not a glitch. It's the way PD programmed it.

 

[Counter_Z23]

What if you add 1kg, instead of 0kg?

 

[budious]

So if anyone who speaks Japanese tweets Kaz on ballast and if he says it is deliberate then end of discussion right?

 

[wmwolverines]

I don't notice a difference, even tried both extremes; -50 and 50. Handling, grip, over/understeer was the same. This was only on one car.

 

[budious]

There are a couple prerequisites, like having a finely tuned car not on race softs and disabling any aids except ABS=1. Then you can probably see the difference.

 

[wmwolverines]

All aids are off except ABS=1, only use sports soft or sports mediums. I'll try different cars tomorrow probably.

 

[DiaGTR]

There is a difference between +0kg and +1kg (ballast position 0).. thats for sure.

Just did a test run on NS with a very tail-happy FR setup (used for one lap races). This setup shows his rear in the second lap.

At first the lap times and tire wear.

+0kg:
6:20 first lap with ~95%/~92% tire condition
6:24 second lap with ~80%/~50% tire condition

+1kg:
6:15 first lap with ~95%/~92% tire condition
6:19 second lap with ~70%/~60% tire condition

What changed? To put it simple, the car got more stable at corners, especially at corner exit. I'm sure the default ballast position switched (front tire consumption). But it had no affect at understeer, it just "negated" the oversteer (with +0kg the car showed its read very smoothly, with +1kg it still showed it, but very late and a bit harder). So is it the fuel weight? I'm not sure.. On Indy Speedway there was just a gap of 0,05 seconds between +0kg and +1kg.

Will test it with one of my LMPs.

 

[Camaroyenko]

Thanks for posting this, now I'll have an advantage in race series now. 👍


I'll try it on my Cougar drag car, that thing is LIGHT and spins like crazy

 

[budious]

Thanks for posting this, now I'll have an advantage in race series now. 👍


I'll try it on my Cougar drag car, that thing is LIGHT and spins like crazy

Exactly my reason for doing all this. I'm sure a lot of the tuner's may think I am pissing in some cheerios around here, but public disclosure levels the playing field, and even with my knowledge of the internal workings of the game there is still considerable manual intervention involved at this stage in the process to produce a well rounded tune.

As for everyone else arriving to the tuning challenge late or looking to compete in an online race series, you can rest assure that your car can have the same advantages as anyone else's.

 

[zodicus]

what are you guys using to get youre lap times? you cant expect any thing you drive personally to be remotely consistant? use bob's to drive it?
I havent done any of the "drive off the track" glitch things but i watched a vid of it. i would say thats the place to test something like this. Get the car in sustained turn. Then add the 0 weight full rear position and try again. Youre turn radious should be smaller if it did in fact move some of the weight to the rear. Unless it just adds extra grip to that end of the car then it would be larger and addding 0 weight full front position should tighten the turn radious. i could see PD doing that rly, just add weight to the whole car and add grip to the end you "put" the weight.

 

[budious]

I tune, I can drive consistently with a DS3, I can do 10 laps on R246 all within 1" of each other. I can apply this glitch and see a consistent gain on that average. I think I drive more consistently than Bob actually.

 

[zodicus]

every time? and what about if you run the glitch first then turn it off and run again? not saying you not good or not truth full ect just want to make sure it is what it is and not placebo or just "getting in the groove" kinda thing

 

[01GTP]

The thought occurs to me that PD must utilize a fixed ballast system that is implemented to add approximately 25% of a tank of fuel weight to the car. Why would they do this?
How is this achieved? Consider your car is optimized with tire wear and fuel consumption off, then it should be produce identical lap times on the first lap of an endurance race at curb weight. However, it does not. The best lap times will be achieved after a pit stop for new tires but not filling the tank near 75% tank capacity.

Wait, I'm confused by the wording.
Are we talking 2 different options here?
If you set up your car for different types of game settings (no tire wear, no fuel consumption verses tire wear and fuel consumption) shouldn't it handle different after the first lap?
I say after the first lap because even at the longest track in the game I don't see using 25% of your fuel load and if the setting is off how could you add fuel if none was used.
And what are you comparing the endurance race with, an online race, an arcade race (no settings to change), B-spec endurance, or some other type of race?
I guess the question should be, what do you mean by endurance race?
The biggest difference I notice is that cars online are a lot slicker than offline.
I do sense some difference to the cars in arcade, similar to using the recommended online cars instead of your garaged cars.
They handle differently just like in GT4.


Now, is this what your trying to explain or is it about some ballast glitch??

Furthermore I run 100's of laps on one track each week and hardly ever run the same lap times (similar though, within a couple tenths at weeks end), that may be in arcade (no settings to change) or GT mode (change what is available).
Hey, that may be my driving but compared to other's in the WRS it seems typical not to do the same lap time lap after lap even without tire wear and fuel consumption.
When I can during qualifying for online racing, I run the gas tank as low as possible, pit for fresh tires then run the faster laps.
No mystery there.
Less weight, more grip, faster lap.

Why does this occur? PD has implemented a fixed ballast weight (assuming 19KG of 75% of 100L or ~76KG of fuel) at the same position as that of the fuel cell on the car. What is the benefit on this? This produces the illusion that handling is slightly under expectation between 76-100% of fuel capacity, that peak occurs around 75%, and handling remains predictable if not a little off pace from 74-50% fuel capacity. If this ballast was not in place then equivalent (not necessarily peak) lap times with non-endurance mode should be produced.

Again, it's the balance of the car that may be allowing slower/faster laps.
Set up the car for balanced lap times for the whole fuel load and your times shouldn't fall off too rapid.
A car setup for no tire wear or fuel loss will handle different than a set up for worn tires and a empty fuel tank.
Try to find an equal balance for the whole fuel load.

So what is the "glitch" you speak of? The fixed ballast implement by PD appears to have an override when a user defined ballast is in place, if you install a 1KG ballast at any position on the car (0 to +25 recommend) then the car will immediately gain back a significant portion of the time difference at 100% fuel capacity in endurance mode in comparison to curb weight in non-endurance mode.

A small time discrepancy still exists but the gap is much smaller, indicating that an offset ballast is a large influence on the differences in handling and lap times between the modes. The other factors probably have to do with tire wear physics; and additionally, when online, network update frequencies.

So example car A:

51.3" lap times on Tsukuba with tire wear off in My Lounge.
52.3" lap times on Tsukuba with tire wear on in My Lounge.
51.7" lap times on Tsukuba with tire wear on and 1KG user defined ballast in My Lounge.

I'd be interested to see if others can replicate this phenomenon or if it is just me looking too hard for ghosts in the machine. Let me know if this works for you.

I'm still not sure what your glitch is or even what you mean by endurance/ non endurance modes.
Online lap times are almost always slower.
That is because the cars have less grip online, for whatever reason.
Laps should be faster without tire wear, so no glitch there either.

Now the +1 ballast. Could be the car needs it where you put it, that's all.
Moving and/or adding the ballast should change the handling of any car.
That's the intention of the setting.

Or maybe I'm missing the point of the OP?

I wouldn't call that a glitch. The weight of the car is supposed to affect tire wear (amongst other factors) so if tire wear decreases as fuel is consumed, I'd say this is being simulated correctly. When I used the 1KG ballast, it seems that the lap times were affected but not tire wear.

Well, if you think like this, you add 0 kilogram, but instead you transfer objects in your car to the back, hence you dont add any weight. Its like taking your back seat and other things and put them in the trunk so the weight is over the rear axle.

I agree. It's not a glitch. It's the way PD programmed it.

I agree to these 3 posts.

 

[zodicus]

so do i except for tt3az, i get what youre saying about moving the weight to the rear of the car. But what about the front? are you suposed to put the back seat on top of the engine?

I did do a little test run with my sti type ra RM, comming out of the second turn at suzuka east i could floor it and not break the back tires loose, when i added 0 weight at the full rear position, i could break the back tires loose. This was full steering lock to the right and full throttle. i tryied it about 5 times with each set up.

 

[TT3AZ]

so do i except for tt3az, i get what youre saying about moving the weight to the rear of the car. But what about the front? are you suposed to put the back seat on top of the engine?

I did do a little test run with my sti type ra RM, comming out of the second turn at suzuka east i could floor it and not break the back tires loose, when i added 0 weight at the full rear position, i could break the back tires loose. This was full steering lock to the right and full throttle. i tryied it about 5 times with each set up.

Well its a game, and the ballast is designed so you can transfer weight to the back, without adding additional weight to the car itself. In reality, taking your back seats and put them in the front isnt posible, but in this game, transfering weight to the front or rear is possible. I wouldnt call this a glitch, not very realistic, but still no glitch. Some things are realistic in this game, other things is just theoretical. Personly i like the idea of transfering weight without adding any weight, because its really good for dragracing.

 

[zodicus]

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