Change the "enhance understeer effect" to an assist

Oh no I didn't mean it that way. I thought I was clearer before but it seems not. I would be ok with a proper amplification of what's happening in real life for low torque gaming wheels.

The reason why I see the enhanced understeer effect as a driving aid is because it simulates something that doesn't happen in real life. A drop off RIGHT AT peak slip angle.

Sure you feel a drop off in your E30. But it's not aligned with lateral forces, it never is. AC is not giving you THAT drop off with enhanced, it's giving you one that is right on target.

 

Ok, I am sorry. That is my fault for not paying more attention. I can see why you would want to call it an assist. It still wouldn't be right in my opinion to make it an option that can be disabled by server admin.

If they change it so that it is "proper," and perhaps only an option for lower force wheels, then I think everyone would be happy and no one would feel the need for an option to be disabled by server admin?

I think/hope everyone can understand why I have a strong reaction to the OP and am against it rather vociferously. It's rather terrible to drive without it for me.

 

I had to disable it to pick up speed. It doesn't quite have the desired effect if your already comfortable at peak performance of the car. It falls off too soon removing the margin of slip angle and the drop off can mess with the force you're putting on the wheel, leading to exaggerated effects.

Perhaps it's better on lower end wheels, but on a CSW v2 it might be a bit much. But I've never tried it on street cars...

 

It might also be useful to consider that the control API that all of our wheels use is quite old and was designed long before the existence of modern hardware. Just because such API doesn't include certain features, it shouldn't exclude the use of additional effects that may be effective in simulation - whether it be for realistic or immersive reasons IMO.

Some hardware manufacturers have said that they wish an updated standard existed today that added more features to drive FFB wheels, motion and tactile. There could be many effects added such as grip-loss, rear-traction loss, wheel lock-up, etc. Some things have to be canned effects or faked by other means but, ideally, they would be directly supported through a more robust API and driven purely by simulation physics where possible.

 

I think you are correct about the timing of the effect, it does seem to occur too early. Also, it seems to me that AMS has a gradual building of resistance as it nears grip-loss instead of a sudden fall-off over the edge; when combined with more variable tire-scrub or squeal, it is much more effective - at least with more dynamic wheels. The variability of the tire noise is a key component to make it very convincing and may be the main reason I find AMS FFB so effective at defining the edge of optimal grip.

 

IRL data shows that aligning torque generated by the tire drops earlier than peak slip angle - although most cars have some amount of caster reducing the effect of this.


This is a synthetic pacejka picture (although fitted to real tire data) you can see that at peak SA (red) the self-aligning torque (green) is already 1/3 or less of the peak. The actual aligning force on the steering rack is this plus mechanical effects (trail and so on)

Whether this feels 'right' to sim drivers is a different question, I'm speaking only of how an actual car handles. In early versions of AC where SAT was exaggerated in comparison to mechanical effects, this is what you felt - maximum grip was slightly after the maximum FFB resistance. I'd guess enhanced understeer does roughly the same thing, makes SAT a stronger component in the overall ffb.

When considering if Kunos would add a 'canned' effect you should ask: would it be easier to do it physically? In this case, they're already modeling SAT, so the answer is yes, it's easier to make it a physically based effect. Arbitrarily cutting FFB strength during understeer is going to be more work so why do it?

 

Probably most people didn't want a simple amplification that would still make sense physically. They wanted the steering to go light at peak slip. So Kunos gave them exactly that even if harder to code?