Are AC street cars too easy to drive on the limit ?

Catching a slide in real life isn't hard either, though.... You guys make it sound like it's surgery....

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Surgery isn't hard either, you just have to know your anatomy lessons.

 

This is me during my first 2 laps in ordinary BMW M3 e92 (Street tires) on Nordschleife (slow track, 14*C air, 20*C track temperature)


I have never driven this combo before that, although I did some laps (not many) in BMW on other tracks and did few laps on Nordschleife in AC (under 5 I think). But my main knowledge of the track comes from iRacing, where I've done many more laps in Ruf C and Lotus 49.
There is 1 offtrack during these 2 laps.
The time is 8:26.196 (street tires on slow track).
I've found, that the record in real life for this combo is 8:05 done (although I haven't found conditions in which it was made)by Horst von Saurma who has done many laps on Nordschleife.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nürburgring_Nordschleife_lap_times

There is one big moment on Schwedenkreuz (At least it would be seen like big if it happened in real life) at 1:33. Here is just business as usual, put some lazy countersteer and drive away. In real live almost for sure it would be a big crash.
I don't know if anyone in real life could drive so aggresively in real life (during his first 2 laps considering his experience with given combo, especially on Nordschleife) without crashing.
In real life any time under 10 minutes is considered very good in any car, when you drive in nordschleife for the first time (even if you know it from sims), but I managed to do 8:26.
I know 8:26 probably is miles behind WR's for this combo in this these conditions in AC, but these were my first 2 laps. For sure in real life I would be few minutes behind WR's, not 20 or so seconds (if these conditions are comparable with real ones).

If someone thinks, that first drive of average Joe in real life in a street car on Nordschleife could look like this and drive without a scratch, is crazy.

 

If it is too easy, then it is not much. I like AC so much more since 1.2 or 1.3 I don't remember which version made cars easier to catch slides. I think it was FFB improvement. However, some aliens wasn't happy that more people could drive effectively and they became less special.

As for realism. I don't think that it is realistic to fail in 1 out of 3 "edgy" oversteers, but in 1 out of 6, I'm not talking about gentle ones. But I guess data guys, or somebody who can drive identical combos, in identical pace, can tell exactly how it is.

If it is easy for you, then maybe you are simply good at this ? God bless not to be naive.

 

You can't compare first laps in sims and real life AT ALL.

In reality, your life is on the line so you don't even go near the limit. In a sim you step on the paddle and if you crash, you'll live.

 

Funny thing is, it looks like he didn't even consider that.

 

Same here, AC feels way more natural to me now after the latest updates and as such it gives me tons more driving pleasure in return. I remember when i first bought the game that i felt like i was driving on eggs all the time, and each time the car got a bit unsettled it would end in a tankslapper. That was more frustrating than fun+ it felt disconnected also.

 

Everything about the car is dictated by level of grip though - with lower grip you have less weight transfer, lighter throttle can spin the tires. Faster or slower changes the aero balance, really the inertia (and thus amount of time you have to catch a slide) is the only thing that stays about the same.

Lower loads do change the tire model; you have less deflection so the same static camber has different slip curve.



Obviously the people for whom AC's countersteering 'just works' have way faster steering wheels than my DFGT, I guarantee you if I let go of the wheel during a slide I will continue to spin.

 

Yup. The sense of speed in real life is incredible compared to sims. And there's a real sense of self preservation where even if you know it's possible to make a faster sweeping turn without lifting, your body takes control and you slowly lift off the gas even though you try to fight it with your mind.

That's why I use sims as a car control tool and not a replacement for real track time. The physics in AC are good enough that all the muscle memory generated in the sim loosely translates in real life. But there's no sense of speed and fear in the sim. The craziest part for me is how good I am in Assetto Corsa right after spending the day at the real track. Makes me fall completely in love with AC because how how real everything translates.

 

Fear of pain or death does some pretty extreme things to your brain.

Did you know that when you are terrified that your ears produce more earwax? it's a self defense mechanism for your brain to try and snuff out the stimuli causing the trauma.
Your eyes also change pigments rapidly in hopes to soften your senses; all in order to protect the wiring of your brain.
Try playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent with some top rated custom stories, by yourself, in the dark, with surround sound during a thunderstorm. Really try to play the part of your character. The next day, be ready to clean out your ears. It's a natural defense. (well I'm one who loves to allow myself to feel emotionally connected to games that request such indulgence.)

Apply this to real life driving.

Cars aren't hard to drive. They are difficult on the limit, but they are not unbelievably ridiculous.
There's even times when someone does really well in simulations, and knows the "know-how" overall. Best example is understeer. Most sim racers know pretty well how to battle this. Add in fear that you're about to take out a mailbox, or hit the track edge hard, and ALL of that goes out the window. Even the world's best has this problem. Otherwise, why would some of the most iconic drivers in history only exist in history?

AC's physics feel spot on overall, but only if you are in a situation where fear and adrenaline isn't affecting you much. Because with fear and adrenaline, you are probably only noticing about 3% of what you would without it.

The amount of time it takes to say "oh S***!!!" at 160 mph is close to 30 feet of distance. Let that sink in alone.

I suppose it would be cool to know what translate to what better. Does track time in real life improve your sim experience further? Or does the sim experience improve your real life track time further?

 

You can be pretty slow with your inputs and even then it is kinda hard to get into tankslappers. I have fanatec 911 turbo s which is not a fast wheel by any means and it is fast enough to catch slides almost on its own. Of course there is a technique to it, you can't just release your hands from the wheel and hope it will sort itself out perfectly without any input at 150mph.

Big slides at high speeds are pretty easy to catch. If I'm lazy I'll just release my grip of the wheel (but hold my hands on the wheel rim) when the rear steps out. The ffb then turns the wheel to about 60-120 degrees to countersteer and then the wheel stops there. This is basically the angle where I feel the sim stops the car from rotating and holds it there. So I grab the wheel again and hold it there. Now I can drift infinitely. If I want to straighten the car I just lift the throttle some much and the car straightens out kinda slowly and predictably. Or I can straighten it with the steering. Works 100% of the time in about 95% of the cars. In some cars you need to lift the throttle. In most cars you can just floor the throttle and keep going sideways with very minimal inputs.

And to straighten the car you can be as lazy with your steering as you want. No tankslappers. In any other sim coming out from these high speed slides is a delicate balance of throttle and steering that is pretty much the hardest thing in driving a sim car fast. Catching fast slides at racing speeds. In ac it just gets easier the faster you go. It is not just that in ac it happens extremely slowly and smoothly and predictably but the goal area is much bigger. Generally you need to get the car to something like 15 degrees of yaw angle after the slide and it straightens out smoothly. In other games you need to be inside 5 degrees. And it is not just about the yaw angle but the car roll and yaw motion as well. Even if you catch a car perfectly the yaw/roll motion can cause a small tank slapper on its own. Not to mention aero.

The strange thing about ac is that the faster you go the easier big slides are to catch (unless you drive something like 98t). The faster you go the slower you can be with your inputs. Which is completely the opposite from real life.

 

Could you create a video comparison between drifting or doing big slides in AC and other modern sim where you find is difficult? But try with equivalent cars and tyres.



The parts with Flugplatz and Schwedenkreuz are from 1:25 and on, but watch from the start since the whole video is with drifts and slides.

 

At racing speeds. Not drifting. I'm not talking about drifting. I'm talking about saving big slides when the rear steps out when you are going though a fast corner at racing speeds. Not driving into the corner slowly and the powersliding out on purpose.

Here are two replays. One with the bmw I get little tap from behind and I get into this wide slide. So I floor the throttle hoping the car will spin around but it doesn't spin around. Even with the throttle at 100% the car is about to straighten just before I hit the wall.

The other replay may not work but I added it anyways. Basically with the miura I get oversteer going into corner. So first I get the effortless drift going on. Hold my wheel and pedals = car holds a drift. Then I decide it is the last lap so let's do a burnout. Add throttle = car straightens itself out.

Now these are not the best cases of the phenomena because I mostly drive online and when I get into these slides I want to get out of the slides because the slides slow the car down. So I don't have any of the infinite slides on replay that I can remember.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/uwqsx8qshvo9t5n/replay.7z

 

To me the source of the whole problem is how rapidly tyre regains grip after the slide in AC vs. real life.
In AC this happens very progressively and that's why tank slappers don't happen when you miss your time to unwind the steering wheel after counter steering.
You can be too late with this and still the car won't tank slap on you, whereas in real life especially in high speed corners you have to do it at exactly the right time.

Couple of examples.
2:30

6:24



I believe it wasn't like that previously but after some whining of some frustrated users, who couldn't catch the slides, this was changed to the form we have now, where you can be half asleep and still catch the slide.

 

Dauntless I saw both replays and with the bmw I don't think you would be able to recover the car back to center position, the car was mostly being pulled off road without chances to recover safely (hence the car crashed too), unless you were on a big open area.
I don't see that it would be possible to drift/slide infinitely like you said in the previous post. At first it gives the idea that you can slide infinitely because you are able to slide from before the apex to exit, but try to maintain an infinite slide/drift in a big open area, I think the car or tyres aren't capable of such thing. This I would call quite an infinite slide, the driver just got bored after a while. Link

This could be something cool to experiment. But I think is a bit contradictory because in your first video at 2:32, the car went on a slide and then regained quickly the grip. But this grip regain from slide to center was so sudden it unsettled the car and then the driver tried to correct again; now the car went again on a slide and this time when he tried to bring the car back to center, the tyre didn't regain as much firm grip, the tyres were still on a soft grip state and this time the car continued its sliding motion from one extremity to the other, resulting in a 360 spin. In the middle of this soft grip slide, there was a moment of no grip, then soft grip caught again until the end of the spin.

And in fact, in the first part at 2:32, he went into a slide with soft grip, then it seemed the recovery from there to center was with no/too little grip, back to firm grip. So from the center to slide was soft grip, then back from slide to center the grip was much less. Then the car was unsettled because of little grip to rapidly hard grip state. Then he tried to compensate but over did it, because of too little grip state to firm grip state moment, now this time the car got unsettled in a bigger slide which resulted in a spin.

 

https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/drifting-violent-recovery-of-grip.9285/

Just to refresh your memory...

 

Tank slappers happen on grippier tyres much less likely on regular street tyres unless you drive like a proper muppet. The thing that causes a tank slapper is regaining of grip and some cars and tyres will be way more likely to get a tankslapper then others. Reducing grip, temps and using street tyres are pretty much the main things that will reduce the chance of this happening.

Do you know why they put intermediate tyres on for peoples first run in an f1 car even if its dry? Quite simply as its way more progressive and unlike a soft slick that regains traction very brutally you can very easily come out of a slide with less grip from the track or tyres. This is also why they teach basic car control on a wet skidpad.

Many street cars will react very differently at the point of regaining traction. My first car was a Holden commodore fairly heavy v6 not so much power or grip. Lots of body roll and you could get the rear end loose then just ease off throttle with front wheels pointing pretty much anywhere and keep on driving.

I then moved onto an r33 gtst rwd turbo, this has much better suspension and tyres. Also much more power and it could easily spin up the rears when wanted. However getting into any drift or slide if you just eased off throttle to regain grip with any opposite lock it wil violently regain grip. Shift weight the opposite way and be on its way to the proper tank slapper. The first time I drifted it compared to my first car it nearly caught me out as it snapped back.

So in that car to regain traction without a tankslapper it needed the front wheels to be pointing straight ahead and keep some wheelspin until that point or it wouod snap back the other way.

Since then Ive driven many other cars on track from all skyline/gtr models to formula fords, supercarts, aussie racing cars and also some v8 supercars.

These cars all behave very differently at the point of regaining traction. The formula ford was basically running a regular street tyre I think and was so progressive you could drive it like a maniac with no issues. Sure its slower goining sideways but its so easy to catch anything and pretty much need to stuff up real bad to get into real trouble.

Going from that to a race prepared v8 supercars on slicks is so much trickier as its much snappier at the point of regaining traction. So more grip is actually harder to drive at or near the limit then less grip. In between this there are better street cars on trackday semislicks which do give much more grip, but get these sideways they are so much snappier so more likely to actually have a big off if your not carefull.

If your looking for a trickier to drive car on the limit use softer tyres, better track conditions and it will be much trickier then cold, low grip street tyres.

For me AC isnt perfect but feels more natural then any other current sim I have ran. The same inputs and techniques that work in real cars work in AC. Its not so hard to catch slides in most real cars and it shouldnt be at the point where you get the bug wtf moments as in pretty much any ISI based sim and early iracing.

Anyone that can drive for real should be able to drive any proper sim or car, if they cant then id say something is wrong with the sim. After all my first lap in a new car it never even crosses my mind I will crash both for real or in a better sim.

Still getting the most out of any car is always a challenge but simply getting around in any car around any track shouldnt be a challenge unless you start getting closer to the limits.

 

Is it me or the same people who said it was perfect then say it's perfect now ?

Disagreed, not before an adaptation time. The difference (and lack) of certain feedback and perception throw off every single real life drivers at first. Takes a while to get used to things.

 

Catching a slide in real life is not too difficult, the problems start arising when you have more than one slide and you gotta catch em all or pay some bills for parts.

 

Well I can't seem to find the hang of it in iRacing catching slides , and irl I'm not the slowest and know what I'm doing, so I don't think it's a supersim, iRacing.

Cheers
Robin