Tuning and out of the box Tunes.

[Brit999]

When GT5 and GT6 came out the cars that you obtained were tuned really badly. To make some of the cars anything close to driveable they needed to have their setup changed. I spent many hours looking for good tunes on this forum, and even got a couple of programs for my tablet to help me out. I have no idea what I was doing in most cases I was just inputting numbers and getting results. I do not have unlimited hours playing time and so I cannot spend my time going around a test track for hours when I could be racing instead.

So regarding Project Cars my questions are:

Do the cars come "out of the box" with a tune that will get them around the track?

Will I have to change anything to be competitive?

Can I change things to become even more competitive?

Do these answers work on all platforms?

PS sorry for so many questions!

 

[JohnScoonsBeard]

When GT5 and GT6 came out the cars that you obtained were tuned really badly. To make some of the cars anything close to driveable they needed to have their setup changed. I spent many hours looking for good tunes on this forum, and even got a couple of programs for my tablet to help me out. I have no idea what I was doing in most cases I was just inputting numbers and getting results. I do not have unlimited hours playing time and so I cannot spend my time going around a test track for hours when I could be racing instead.

So regarding Project Cars my questions are:

Do the cars come "out of the box" with a tune that will get them around the track?

Will I have to change anything to be competitive?

Can I change things to become even more competitive?

Do these answers work on all platforms?

PS sorry for so many questions!

I'm guessing that the stock setup will in general be better than in GT5 and 6 as the smaller number of cars means more time can be devoted to getting them either realistic for road cars and at least a balanced/neutral setup for race cars. I don't have the game though so pure conjecture.

The fact that cars are not upgradeable will help keep things level to a point. Where cars allow adjustment in real life they will be adjustable in game, specific to each car.

I guess what might work for a controller might not be so good for a wheel. It's also down to playing/driving style too. As I understand it with the same player, control device, track and car the behaviour should be similar across platforms.

I would love to see a tuning shop where tunes can be submitted, downloaded and rated within the game.

 

[Willfred_1]

When GT5 and GT6 came out the cars that you obtained were tuned really badly. To make some of the cars anything close to driveable they needed to have their setup changed. I spent many hours looking for good tunes on this forum, and even got a couple of programs for my tablet to help me out. I have no idea what I was doing in most cases I was just inputting numbers and getting results. I do not have unlimited hours playing time and so I cannot spend my time going around a test track for hours when I could be racing instead.

So regarding Project Cars my questions are:

Do the cars come "out of the box" with a tune that will get them around the track?

Will I have to change anything to be competitive?

Can I change things to become even more competitive?

Do these answers work on all platforms?

PS sorry for so many questions!

i was going to do a video explaining it all but the latest patch has broken my game
yes they do come out with tunes that are pretty good
So heres a detailed explanation
In the tuning tab there 3 sub section one for front one for rear and a misc tab
within front and rear tabs there are 3 further tabs on for the left side one for the right and one for the overall the overall section controls downforce toe angle and anti roll bar stiffness.
in the setup you can also make it symmetrical or asymmetrical as you might have track for instance silverstone national due to the setup there is really only one left turn meaning that the right side of car get barely worked because of this the pressure might have to be changed to make sure the tyre works well. you can then do all usual gear ratios and brake balance. the diff can be adjusted as well.
The difference to other games are sliders like restrictor opening, duct opening, brake pressure fine tuning and centre of gravity as well as wastegate pressure. these can be adjusted to fine tune your vehicle. for instance you doing a sprint/hillclimb around the california highway. as the race is not long you increase the wastegate pressure. this can do two things increase bhp and increase the chance of a broken engine if mechanical failures is set on. to counter that you might open the ducts up a bit more.
so to be more competitive you will need to learn the effect each of the adjustments make on your car. however it will go quicker just by adjusting a few sliders
i believe it will like this on all platforms

does this answer your questions

 

[Johnnypenso]

i was going to do a video explaining it all but the latest patch has broken my game
yes they do come out with tunes that are pretty good
So heres a detailed explanation
In the tuning tab there 3 sub section one for front one for rear and a misc tab
within front and rear tabs there are 3 further tabs on for the left side one for the right and one for the overall the overall section controls downforce toe angle and anti roll bar stiffness.
in the setup you can also make it symmetrical or asymmetrical as you might have track for instance silverstone national due to the setup there is really only one left turn meaning that the right side of car get barely worked because of this the pressure might have to be changed to make sure the tyre works well. you can then do all usual gear ratios and brake balance. the diff can be adjusted as well.
The difference to other games are sliders like restrictor opening, duct opening, brake pressure fine tuning and centre of gravity as well as wastegate pressure. these can be adjusted to fine tune your vehicle. for instance you doing a sprint/hillclimb around the california highway. as the race is not long you increase the wastegate pressure. this can do two things increase bhp and increase the chance of a broken engine if mechanical failures is set on. to counter that you might open the ducts up a bit more.
so to be more competitive you will need to learn the effect each of the adjustments make on your car. however it will go quicker just by adjusting a few sliders
i believe it will like this on all platforms

does this answer your questions

At this point is there an option for a "tuning prohibited" online lobby for those that want cars that are more equal?

 

[Brit999]

i was going to do a video explaining it all but the latest patch has broken my game,
yes they do come out with tunes that are pretty good...

...so to be more competitive you will need to learn the effect each of the adjustments make on your car. however it will go quicker just by adjusting a few sliders
i believe it will like this on all platforms

does this answer your questions

Of course this answers my questions! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer.

I have been watching every video I can of Pcars, so if you did make a video SHOWING the differences I would be watching it for sure.

And to other members of the community please remember that there are loads of us non racers out here ready for any knowledge you might be prepared to give us to make us a little better.

 

[Willfred_1]

At this point is there an option for a "tuning prohibited" online lobby for those that want cars that are more equal?

as mentioned i can't play at the moment however is suspect it would possible but i haven't played with lobby settings much.
to be fair pcars has a troubleshooting guide to help with setups if not and you fancy doing a bit of reading
heres some brillant books i used during my motorsport engineering degree in my chassis module
competition car suspension
this ones more expensive but its brilliant
Tune to win
and if you want a suspension setup bible you can find a pdf online (free)
of this book which i own and swear by
Race Car Vehicle Dynamics

 

[Brit999]

...
The fact that cars are not upgradeable will help keep things level to a point. Where cars allow adjustment in real life they will be adjustable in game, specific to each car.

I guess what might work for a controller might not be so good for a wheel. It's also down to playing/driving style too. As I understand it with the same player, control device, track and car the behaviour should be similar across platforms.

I would love to see a tuning shop where tunes can be submitted, downloaded and rated within the game.

I completely agree. I will rate any tune that is shared that I use.

I am glad that all the racing parts I need will already be fitted and I do not need to go and grind so that I can buy that special widget!

 

[JohnScoonsBeard]

At this point is there an option for a "tuning prohibited" online lobby for those that want cars that are more equal?

It would work well so long as there is always the ability to use a one button default setting unlike the faffing about you have to do in GT6 for non tuning races.

 

[Willfred_1]

i forgot to mention you can save the setups to all track or a certain track
and you can set pressures in pit stops

 

[nepal road]

as mentioned i can't play at the moment however is suspect it would possible but i haven't played with lobby settings much.
to be fair pcars has a troubleshooting guide to help with setups if not and you fancy doing a bit of reading
heres some brillant books i used during my motorsport engineering degree in my chassis module
competition car suspension
this ones more expensive but its brilliant
Tune to win
and if you want a suspension setup bible you can find a pdf online (free)
of this book which i own and swear by
Race Car Vehicle Dynamics

sorry to say but I am dismayed by this. Isn't this the reason for having engineers and drivers, different folks for different strokes. I have neither the inclination nor capacity to get into serious engineering of cars and lengthy testing sessions, so how will that affect my enjoyment and success within PCars? I know deep tuning is fun and satisfying for some people but I am not one of them. It has become a PATA within online racing of GT6 for me and increases the disparity between racers and IMO makes for boring races.

 

[Willfred_1]

sorry to say but I am dismayed by this. Isn't this the reason for having engineers and drivers, different folks for different strokes. I have neither the inclination nor capacity to get into serious engineering of cars and lengthy testing sessions, so how will that affect my enjoyment and success within PCars? I know deep tuning is fun and satisfying for some people but I am not one of them. It has become a PATA within online racing of GT6 for me and increases the disparity between racers and IMO makes for boring races.

actually most professional drivers have an understanding of this knowing and how to identify issues through the symptoms displayed in the testing. this is why red bull loved mark webber when doing testing. the engineer not adjust and finalises setups. but at lower levels of motorsport they may affect the strategy. the secret to do well in sim racing is to have a basic understanding of the car handling characteristics.
if you already adjust the setup and gear ratios you're already part way there.

 

[nepal road]

actually most professional drivers have an understanding of this knowing and how to identify issues through the symptoms displayed in the testing. this is why red bull loved mark webber when doing testing. the engineer not adjust and finalises setups. but at lower levels of motorsport they may affect the strategy. the secret to do well in sim racing is to have a basic understanding of the car handling characteristics.
if you already adjust the setup and gear ratios you're already part way there.

yes, I understand that, but I am not a professional driver, just someone who enjoys driving and wants to have fun doing so. I understand car handling characteristic, but what to tweak, how much and why I don't, nor do I want to. I want to be competitive sure, but most importantly have fun. Sounds like you are saying that PCars is not for me?

 

[McKiernan]

I'd imagine that good tunes for various cars will find their way onto, oh I dunno, maybe GTPlanet at some point. It seems to me that although the sim racing community can be quite argumentative at times, they also are very helpful with regard to sharing tunes. At least this was true in the Tuning subforum in the GT section of this here website.

 

[JohnScoonsBeard]

yes, I understand that, but I am not a professional driver, just someone who enjoys driving and wants to have fun doing so. I understand car handling characteristic, but what to tweak, how much and why I don't, nor do I want to. I want to be competitive sure, but most importantly have fun. Sounds like you are saying that PCars is not for me?

There will be plenty of people who will be happy doing spec (stock setup) racing some or even all of the time. As long as the game supports that online then I'll certainly take part.

I'd imagine that good tunes for various cars will find their way onto, oh I dunno, maybe GTPlanet at some point. It seems to me that although the sim racing community can be quite argumentative at times, they also are very helpful with regard to sharing tunes. At least this was true in the Tuning subforum in the GT section of this here website.

This may be an ideal opportunity to use the relatively new Tuning submission system that site owner @Jordan set up. If the community ensure all GTPlanet tunes for PCars are only submitted through there then they can all be rated by users. That is of course if tunes can't be shared and/or rated within the game.

One benefit of a hundred (ish) cars instead of 1200 is that even if you want to go down the tuning route there are less cars to tune. All tunes can be saved and presumably used no matter which car livery is being used.

 

[Willfred_1]

yes, I understand that, but I am not a professional driver, just someone who enjoys driving and wants to have fun doing so. I understand car handling characteristic, but what to tweak, how much and why I don't, nor do I want to. I want to be competitive sure, but most importantly have fun. Sounds like you are saying that PCars is not for me?

im not saying its not for you but like gt and IRL the difference between no tune and a good tune is massive. however i suspect many of the popular gt tuners will get pcars so in theory every car will have 3 or 4 tunes

 

[Fat Tyre]

Im Forza 5 you can share and download tunes/setups in game. There is little description say "max grip" or "nurb" and they get rated by the community. I use that a lot since I'm terrible and very impatient with tuning. Hopefully a similar feature can be implemented in pCARS.

 

[nepal road]

im not saying its not for you but like gt and IRL the difference between no tune and a good tune is massive.

Exactly my point and in such cases it is the tune that wins the race, not the racer. I've raced in series like that and it gets boring and frustrating when you know others have a much better setup than you making your own car uncompetitive and driving around a track on your own. I want to compete on my skills not my machinery.