Does TCS and stability control slow you down?

[yakapo]

I'm just getting started playing online. It's much harder than playing against the Ai b/c I don't shunt, pit, or block players.

I think I finished dead last in just about every race. Does using TCS slow you down? How about stability control? Automatic or abs? Someone I was playing with online said using a clutch makes you faster too. Btw, I'm playing in the races where you all have the same car and you can't do any tuning. I thought that would give me the best chance since I don't really know anything about tuning.

 

[II-zOoLoGy-II]

Driving with out assists does make you faster. But, you have to actually be good with out the assists, practically run a perfect race, in order to beat someone using all assists.

I run everything off unless I am feeling rusty and I turn on the braking line.

 

[RikkiGT-R]

Any assists like traction or stability control inhibit a car's full power (for obvious reasons) and will slow you down, because they cut power/apply braking force at various times and it's usually exaggerated.
Using manual gears will also make you much faster as you can drive each gear right to the rev limit, whereas automatic will change a lot sooner (and it's usually wrong) - there will also be times when in automatic gears you will have to quickly stab the brakes at the exit of a corner (so the car drops down a gear) just to get better acceleration.

The only assist I use for the most part is automatic clutch as I don't have my steering wheel and pedals yet. Occasionally I will add traction control if a particular car is virtually impossible to drive without it (very high powered MR cars, for example).

 

[yakapo]

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to start out by trying the manual tranny. I can probably leave TCS off on the slower cars.

 

[OG]

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to start out by trying the manual tranny. I can probably leave TCS off on the slower cars.

I use a manual w/o clutch and everything off except abs on A class and under. I am a GT5 transplant and the higher powered cars are much harder to control without aids on when you get above r3.

 

[Luminis]

When you're driving R1 cars, though, TCS will often be very, very helpfull. When you're looking at the leaderboards, you'll see that a lot of even the very fast drivers are using TCS in those cars. Some R2 cars are a good candidate for TCS as well.

R3 and below, though, you'd better learn how to drive without TCS. I usually suck at racing S and R3 class cars, but even I am faster without TCS than I would be with TCS on.

 

[yakapo]

Good stuff. Now I've got to improve my skills and work on staying on the track. The rivals mode forces me to practice driving clean laps.