The Bench

[Blooze]

Wow, what a week!  So much Forza-cating, and so much more to do...

This weekend was BucksToon's - he more or less busted his ass getting everything up and running on his GSX project.  In fact he found a snafu in the P2P/Targa system that was costing us around $600, per PASS!.  So, that's what they got me on today - get this fixed.

An interesting bit of Forza Trivia - running the Targa against a fresh leaderboard knock approx 21,000 seconds off one's aggrigate - that is around 40% complete.  In the case of the GSX in B Class the resultant position was 512 - with just the Targa completed.  That means that there 300,000 troops out there that don't have that much done, and there are only 511 who have done more...  It is sort of sad, I think, that doing less than half the work gets you into the top 1% of the class.

They also have me working with B2 Engineering on the GSX B Class transmission development.  So far, their new set is two tenths and 1 mph faster than the previous set.  And Buck is working with yet another set.  Our GSX's are identical except for the gearing.  It will be interesting to see how that works out.  The Scirocco has the Blooze whipped right now, so the results are not going to show up on the Leaderboard, only in my spreadsheets - I'll keep ya posted.

$

[Fit4aking]

Ran Catalunya in the FIL last night to commemorate the recently watched DVR session that F1 left me over the weekend.  Instead of running one car on a bunch of tracks I decided to run a bunch of cars on one track instead.  A-class is weak at the moment so I decided to start there instead of at the bottom.  Guess I was in the mood for speed and not momentum racing.

I already have a time set on Cat in my freebie Nightmare R8 from Turn 10 so it was the benchmark for the rest of my garage.
-Panoz Esperante
-TVR Tuscan S
-Porsche 997 GT3 RS
-Shelby Series 1
-Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X

Ran all of the cars listed against the R8 and came within 0.200 of toppling the time.  No dice though.  Oddly enough the Panoz and the Series 1 were the closest contenders.  Who'd a guessed that!  Then I reran the R8 in complete Freebie trim, no changes at all, and used the experience of running 25 laps back into the top car and knocked my overall time down almost two seconds on that car.  A rerunning of the Shelby and the Tuscan put them back within 0.300 overall but the Panoz needs some work to go any faster.

I think I'll retune that car and continue on with the rest of the Cat ribbons in the near future.  I could use a little break from saving Cocoon and leveling up my Final Fantasy tribe.  Still a fantastic game but Forza frowned at me and I needed to spend some time running laps not just watching them on TV.

[Blooze]

That is one of my most favorite intramural contests to get involved in.  I call it Vertical Hotlapping, or a Leap Frog challenge.  Like with you, it is usually associated with making a decision about a Horizontal challenge, in my case, it was picking the next car to run the snakes with.  Since I really want to hit them hard and there is a chance I won't be back this way (B Class Snakes) again, I wanted to make sure I was using the best car for the job.  There were six cars in the event...

• 1983 Audi Sport quattro
• 2009 Alpha Romeo Brera
• 2009 VW Scirocco GT (+a)
• 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX
• 2007 Peugeot 207 RC (+a)
• 2007 SEAT Leon Supercup BTC

The Seat is the only FWD car in the bunch, the rest are AWD, most by design.  The Peugeot is one of the fastest in the bunch, but has issues with stability - the backend is just a tad too lively.  I thought the GSX would score higher here, but then, that is a pretty strong group of cars.  At least they are in my B Class Stable.

That is pretty much the order they finished in after completing a Leap Frog challenge on 3 tracks: Boomslang, Copperhead, and Inland Taipan.  I was more or less in favor of the Quattro, for a number of reasons.  First, I wanted to do something with it.  I am upside down on the car, and its top end and middle of the road grip keep it out of normal competition.  However, its very fast 0-60 time, and high G@60 make it ideal for the low speed twisty stuff.  I bought the Toon for this car from Fender and between the car itself, the parts to get it to B, and the cost of the Toon, there is a quarter of a million invested.  I am serious about these cars paying for themselves...

I have been working on a new technique (for me) lately and it is proving to be pretty handy for setting lap times without getting all frantic and squirrelly to do it.  I call it Higher Gear Roll Out, or Coasting.  I don't know what the real world term for it is.  I got the idea from listening to the video of the Ferrari setting the record on the Ring, and from listening to YouTubes of the Takata hotlappers.

Instead of downshifting and trying to power my way through every turn, I have found that coasting through the turn in the higher gear, then down shifting, if necessary, on the exit is faster.  I knocked 1.5 seconds off a top 500 Boomslang time using this method and I coasted most of the way to the hairpin that starts the backside of the track doing it.  It is fun to work and I seem to be screwin' up lots of laps lately trying to find places to make it work...

I done declared X Class to be a part of the game like the Oval and Drag leaderboards; Been there, done that - no need to return.  Other than a space holder for its times, X Class on my spreadsheets is an inert object.

I spent a good part of the week working on a new spreadsheet/program that I call "Gaposis".  It assumes that the class definition and Pi system is well designed and the performance of the cars is distributed equitably amongst the 10 classes.  The software will either prove this to be so and take advantage of it, or it will prove the entire business in need of more drawing board time.  

Here is how it works.  First I subtract the R1 Agrigate for an environment from the F class agrigate.  I then divide the result by 9 (the number of gaps from F to R1)  I can then use a class' distance from the calculated gap to flag cherries that need to be picked.  Right now the program has identified 23 of them that are out of spec by more than 5 seconds, some of them seriously so.  For instance, the B Class Snakes were 33 seconds out.  Offender-wise, C and S are the worst of the classes - and le Mans and the Snakes are the worst of the environments.

Mostly, it is just fun to goof with... but it has got me headed for F Class next - my mission to pull the lowest possible aggrigate, up to and including using the Golf Mk II (+a).  for shame...  

And besides that, I have 3 friends that have breeched my lead in F Class.  Need to do something about that...

$

[Spiny Anteater]

Just a little question on the Gaposis. The gaps between the classes aren't equal (75 up to B class, then 100PI above that). I'm just wondering if that is playing out in the analysis (i.e. larger time gaps appearing between the higher classes) which would suggest that the PI has a logical progression, or whether that isn't happening which could suggest that the PI value is a bit more arbitrary (although obviously still in order).

[Blooze]

I think I am just looking to see if the result times between the 10 classes are equidistant.  What you are talking about would amount to relating Pi to Elapsed time, and I don't know if that would work out very well. 

Note that one of the reasons I dropped X from my considerations is that it produces times almost equal to the R1 class.  The Pi range for an X car is 1 to ?, and I imagine most of them are in the very low 1000's   The Acura is a 1000, or at the most a 1001. 

Interesting comment though... It needs some more thought.

$

[Fit4aking]

Ran some more "leapfrog" in A-class last night on Catalunya National.  I had high hopes that one of MY cars would topple the Nightmare R8 and my 997 GT3 RS came damn close but in the end the R8 crushed the fastest car in my garage by over 1.4 seconds.  *sigh*

I'm starting to think that my A class garage is a giant stink hole.  Nothing comes close to that damn R8 that Gearbox tunes way back in the begining.  Sheesh.  All of my careful balancing and biasing just can't contain the Audi.  Grr!

I think I'll finish out Catalunya Short with all of the chosen contenders and then go back to the shop and rework the Panoz a tick.  Then I'm going to tear into my Evo X and find out why the heck it has so many issues!!  Found out it has an off throttle push followed closely by an on throttle oversteer issue.  However trying to compensate for the off throttle issue just magnifies the oversteer.  I had more drift points on the first turn of Cat Nat than I knew what to do with and then slid out onto the front straight every lap.  Not ideal but going easier on the throttle only sent me off to the dirt.  Not having fun in that car. 

Do you think it's time I scrap the non-aero philosophy and tuck some wings on these cars to help out??

[Blooze]

Do you think it's time I scrap the non-aero philosophy and tuck some wings on these cars to help out??

Heavens to Betsy...  I guess I wasn't aware of that part of what you were trying to do.  You know my little mantra, "Grip is King"?  In my A garage, the only car with higher G@120 is the Exige at 1.34.  The R8 has 1.30, and it has the wing.  I pretty much have called off the operate without Aero by the time I get to C class.  I have it on some lower cars with the settings dialed all the way back.  I have found that it has more postitive impact on the handling than it does negative impact on the top end.

As for the EVO, you might want to try a build that amounts to a 50/47, specially if it is continually trying to escape on ya...

$

[Fit4aking]

I've been toying with the idea of adding aero to a couple of the cars.  I do have front aero one of my Porsche's but that was out of absolute necessity.  The rest I hoped to bring in line with bias tuning and patience.  I'm pretty sure that I've taken both as far as they can go.  I may keep one or two "unaided" chassis around for the really fast tracks like LeMan's and Sunset but for the most part I can't deny that the Aero R8 can run upwards of two seconds faster around Catalunya GP and National.  Take that to Mugello and it would be a fools wager on anything but the R8.

As far as RWD goes my Tuscan S can still give the R8 a run for its money to a point and I built that one out with full grip and downforce early on.  A retweak of it's settings may get me really close but I doubt it will overtake the Audi.  Something tells me the Sagaris and Esperante won't come alive until S class as long as I don't go and build me an AWD Viper to compare them to.

I'll give the 50/47 a shot with the EVO and perhaps wipe off my '04 WRX and give it a proper build for A-class.  There's still a few empty slots on the spreadsheet and I'm still on the first track so it won't be too daunting to add another chassis to the mix.  I guess trying to build all-arounders is only going to work so well and I need to start working on specialists.

[BarbecuePete]

I've been toying with the idea of adding aero to a couple of the cars.

If you watched the F1 Fit, you'll know they were running pretty high levels of downforce at Catalunya. I can't say much really though as Catalunya is my bogey track and really I need to spend a lot more time there learning the track to get it right. Though now I don't know if i'll get the chance, I've finally been able to afford to move out of my parents (house prices / rents around here are ridiculous!) and am now sharing a house with a mate so Forza has taken a bit of a back seat.

Anyway I think a medium / high downforce car should go better than a non aero car, the sweepers of turn 3 and turn 7 at Catalunya are where a lot of time can be made or lost, being able to carry speed through those corners is vital to a good lap time. Then it's just that damn last chicane, I think i've maybe got a good exit once out of that chicane but also you need the downforce so you can just keep full throttle out of the chicane and all the way through the last corner, that should more than make up for any speed loss down the main straight because of the aero.

[Blooze]

Ah, Tuesday morning.  The start of a new Forzacating day.  Got a fresh pot of coffee, a fresh pack of smokes, and a fresh project - spreadsheets to test, cars to build.  Hog heaven, that's what it is... Hog heaven.

The B Class project was a success, primarily - running the GSX in B.  I moved the class up to 4th in standings, it was 9th.  I knocked almost 6 minutes off the overall in Circuits, and something akin to 60 seconds off the P2P (I recently cleared the Delta column in the P2P sheet so I must rely on memory... yeah I know... good luck!)  But, at any rate, the GSX held itself proud, and it made me $1.2 million in the process.

I have two new pieces of software, both of whom's purpose is prognostication and scheduling - one at the class level, and the other at the environment level.  There is one thing about both sheets that is an issue of sorts, not really, just the nature of the beast really...  anyhow - both sheets are based on the aggrigate times of the F and R1 classes.  Basically, a slope is established between F and R1 and then the rest of the classes are tested for how close they are to that slope.  The end of it all is that it behooves me to have the very best times in both F and R1 before I take off on the cherry picking crusades.

So up first is F class.  A full tilt T totalled all out assault.  Yessirree Bob!  I don't think I've done any concerted effort towards F since the game came out.  I have 14 F cars, 3 are Vintage cars and probably won't figure into this fracus... another 3 have never been built - I don't know if they are going to be involved in it or not - got to build them.  The other 8 have been built pretty well (we had a leap frog party on Amalfi last night - pretty close, but the Fiesta won) from what I can tell, but most were built out while on their way to higher classes.  I had to spend a not trivial bit of time locating them all and getting the F Class Toon in place.  I only seem to have lost one, the Citroen will have to be rebuilt from my sheet. 

Today will be spent updating class and car speadsheets (seriously out of date - everything) and reaquainting myself with the builds.  I plan to use a Private Race leap frog event on both of the Atlanta ribbons to do that.  Since the Prognosticators are both live, I will be checking and analyzing after every time change to see if everything is behaving as I expected.

Like I said, fun fun fun.

But first, another cup and a relaxed smoke...  what are you guys up to Forza-wise lately.  I imagine, like BBQ, most of you have Real Life messing with your Forza time.  From a Forza Time standpoint, I do feel pretty lucky about my circumstances.

$ 

[Fit4aking]

I'm still recovering from Monday night, not even looking forward to Tuesday morning.  The wife was out last night so I had plenty of time for Forzacation.  I sat in the menu screen and stared blankly as the camera floated around my Panoz.  I imagined what it would look like decked out with a fresh aero kit and how to improve on the tune once it was in place but I couldn't get excited about heading back out to A class. 

Then I remembered there is an ongoing Best Car in the Game thread around here somewhere that stirred up a bit of debate over the aesthetics and functionality of a Mitsubishi.  I don't have that particular car but I do have another prospective jack-of-all-trades making its way up the class ranks.  I'm still in the process of rounding up data on the car and working through the second of it's class builds so I'll keep it on the back burner.  So far it hasn't been a stand out anywhere but it can hold its own everywhere.  Decent acceleration, above average handling, a tick off on top speed but all in all a solid car.  I'll be using it to break up the monotony a bit and spent all of last night prepping the car and running it in the E-class Endurance race, which was coincidentaly on Catalunya GP.

I did watch the Spanish GP Pete and I think that is why I've started up the FIL again.  Running the track while other drivers lines are still fresh in my head does seem to help.  I liked the broadcast and the race between the fast cars and the grip cars.  The difference between the two aren't as great as a Forza setup but it was something I noticed in the different chassis during the race.  The grip cars were slaughtering the back half of the track and the power cars had to make up any lost ground on the straights.  All in all they were running very close and I hoped to get close enough with a non-aero car to make up time on the run up to the finish line.  A longer straight would allow more running room than say LaSarthe where you have to get out of the corner quickly to make the line.  I'm just losing far too much time on the corners you mentioned to be close enough to make a strike anywhere else.  My greatest hope is to get ahead in turn one and stay in the way until I can open up a gap but that doesn't happen often.  Even against the AI I'm in trouble at some points of the race.  I would get slaughtered online in these cars but I rarely play in the hoppers so I'm not stressing about that too much.

Well I'd better gulp this warm cup of coffee and head off to work before I decide to hang in the office all day and get nothing done...

[Blooze]

It is a pretty relaxed state of mind - to know what you are to do, no doubts.  To have a plan and know that there will be no deviations from that plan.  For me it is "Work Class F until it is as good as you can get it.  Then do the same with Class R1."  Though I have all these software projects on the board, none of them matter until I have those two classes honed as fine as I can get them.  And there is no carping on resourses either.  Buy and build what ever you need.  Of course, I think I have everything, but it is nice to know there is a blank check in GICheeze's office if I need it.

I worked up a gap based on the Pi... there wasn't much to it, other than making the decision to cast the gap for R1 to 100 and skip that dinky-doo with Forza wanting to slip in another class and stay out of 4 digits.  At any rate, using the percentages of the Pi gap to the total Pi points (800), the gap for the 75's is 9%, and the gap for the 100's is 13%.  Still the same deal, Subtract the R1 time from the F time.  Only now you multiply that result by 9% or 13%, which ever the case may be...  that is your CG.  How does it compare to your AG?

311  I think that is the largest possible count of people that have finished the Circuit hotlaps.  It is the count for the X Class Sidewinder G (Malayan Crait) Reverse.  311.  So my being 62 doesn't look so puffy using that... 62 out of 311, as opposed to 62 out of 1,978,426.  

That is Two Million troops, or will be in about 5 days by my reckoning.  That is pretty fast I think.  Faster than Forza II I am pretty sure - getting to a 2M head count.

Well, I gonna have me another cup of coffee since I got a fresh pot and all before I head out to France with my little old Civic and see can I knock a couple seconds off my Bugatti lap time...

$

[Blooze]

Monday morning all over again... I was looking around for a morning that was similar to this morning, this Monday morning.  Turns out I didn't have to look far.  Sunday was pretty much the same, so was Saturday for that matter...

Tho not done with F Class yet, I went ahead and moved up to R1 mostly cause I wanted to see what happens when you work that end of the Gaps.  It is exactly the opposite of working the F side of things.  Improving an F time compresses the Gap, it makes the CG smaller.  Improving an R1 time stretches the Gap... makes it longer and the CG gets bigger.

A few notes on Gaps and Gaposis:

• These Gaposis deals are like fingerprints, or snowflakes, they are unique to the individual - no two will be the same.
• People that are more proficient in the lower classes will have flatter slopes than the folks that tend more toward the higher classes.
• The slope is set by F and R1, the rest of the classes are bumps and holes along the way.
• Remember those old score keeper things they had in the Pool Halls of yesteryear?  They were like an abacus of sorts, but mostly like a clothes line with a bunch of beads on it.  That is how I see this gaposis deal.  The F and R1 beads can be clamped into place, then there are 8 other beads that can be moved anywhere between the two "fixed" beads.  Lowering a B Class time moves the B bead toward the A bead, and away from the C bead.  If the Pi system is working as planned eventually the beads should wind up somewhat equadistant, perhaps the higher classes a little farther apart than the lower classes.
• If you graph your gaps then you get an interesting little dealy to play with.  Mostly you look for a "bead" that is out of step with its neighbors, above the line or below, it doesn't matter.  It was a big assed hump in that line caused by B class that caused management to sent me down there on an emergency search and destroy mission.

I got a plan for a floating graph where you can select a track and it loads the numbers automagically.  It is pretty easy to do with the Index function.

So, I don't know that I would call the Gaposis program "unparalleled" for indentifying low hanging fruit, put it is pretty good...  and for someone like me who derives at least half of his enjoyment of Forza from goofing with spreadsheets and tracking the numbers, this Gaposis program is as good as a DLC track for extending the game.

Speaking of which, when is the next track due out?  Anybody heard?  Or had anybody heard anything about the next car pack.  That big voting mess at Jalopnic showed a bunch of American Vintage Iron, that would make for a good car pack Theme...

I was looking at this pretty cool looking BMW hatchback on a thread posted by Barumba... I hope that car is in the next pack too... my BTC cars need a BMW.

I figured out how to remove the restrictors from the Acura LMP1 car and stay out of X class.  Along with the restrictor removal, you need to add some heavy wheels.  Boy, the heavy wheel choices are ugly.  I wound up with these things called "Lexani Mystic Spikes", they aren't as horrendous looking as their name implies - I also had to add an inch to the rim diameter.  The car winds up 37 pounds heavier, but and additional 82 horses and an extra 49 torques is your reward.  So far I seem to be running times that are right in there with the X Class version of this car.  One of the reasons I dumped the X class from consideration in my calculations...

Oooo...  the pot just gurgled.  Anybody up for another cup?

$

[Fit4aking]

Working through F-class with an arsenal of cars this time, not just a few that I like.  It's not big news just a quick recap.  The VTi is still king of the hill on most courses in the QR and Extended QR sessions and that has me a bit curious.  Why is it so difficult for me to create a competative car from the choices I have?  I don't know yet, still working that one out.

Here's what I've come to learn so far:
-Grip is king.  The better a car handles the better it will do on all tracks not just on the technical ones.
-Power is secondary, scratch that, not required.  My 96hp 510 stomped everything I had by over a second.
-Stickier tires are a better investment than wider stockers.  Yup I said it, narrow slicks out perform the widest bias plies.
-Weight reduction isn't very high on the priority list either. PI is limited and pullin 200lbs out of a car drains a LOT.

Now back in the days of FM2 you could pullout your D-class Chevelle and toss 6 or 7 HUNDRED horsepower underneath it and skate around the track to top times.  In FM3 the missle theory is lost in F-class.  There isn't enough room to add enough power to a car to have it outshine a well balanced machine.  The VTi is fastest on the power tracks, no matter what I build I can't even come close.  I may need to sit down and build out a MkII or a Rabbit as the power monster but I haven't gone down that road yet.

I have taken my Fit+ and given it as much grip as it can handle and it is currently second on my list of QR'd cars.  However it is still 0.800 slower than Blooze' Honda.  The real kicker is that the pair of Honda's is over two seconds faster overall than 3rd and 4th place.  I took out my worst car, the Nissan 2000GT-R (still RWD) and tried everything I could do to stuff sticky tires, better handling parts on it and I was only able to increase its efficiency by 0.300 over the primary QR tracks.  Not a success if you ask me but it is better so I'll take the progress.  I had to compromise with a Sport trans, sport stiffening and then wider tires as even street tires almost bumped it out of class.  I'll have another run at it tonight and see if I can make any more improvements on the thing but it may be better served in a higher class where I can build it out a bit more.  My other project is a Mitsu Eclipse that was to be my "power" car but the most I can squeeze out of it is 260hp and that is a huge compromise build, no adjustable suspension, only sway bars.  It still won't pull but a few more MPH on the straights due to low cornering speed but it may really do well on LaSarthe, testing continues.

Man if I ever do get out of F-class and move up I'll be on par to finish this version by the time my xBox 720 shows up.

[Fit4aking]

I was able to build the little Nissan up to a respectable grip level and applied the same toon I was using with a few minor changes to it and reran it in the extended QR tracks.  It took over top spot on the Power tracks with no upgrades in the power department!  It is just a tick ahead of the Vti in actual QR but another run through could have these two neck and next with different specialties.  I'll use these to run through the FIL and see where the chips fall.

I was going to see what you thought of the build but then decided to send over the whole car.  I've made over 451,000cr's with my version so it more than paid for itself even with a clone coming from its fund.  I know the toon will likely make you oversteer crazy but if you retune it with the same build it may suit the wheel well. 

Have fun with a classic RWD, should be just far enough out of your comfort zone to be interesting.