The Bench (Old)

[Blooze]

I fergit what it was I was posting to, but right in the middle of it, it dawned on me what I do in Forza.  There's folks that race online to the exclusion of all else.  According to the GB on Forza.net, there's folks that count pixels and look for "jaggies" so they can bitch.  I've caught on to a number of the cronic bitcher's scam... they are looking for a job.  They are hoping that if they find all sorts of dim bugs, Turn 10 will admire their prowess with video games and offer them a job.

There's others that haunt the leaderboards, got to be number one.  They can recite the names (and the times to the thousandth) of those who are near them.  I would probably be one of those if I could drive that good.  I have settled for every time in the upper 1000.  At the very least, the time should put me in the 100% leaderboard level.

No, there is something else that intrigues me, that drives me, that captures and enamours me to the point that all forms of normal existance are compromised for the sake of...

... The Perfect Garage ...

Each car tuned to within .001 of its life.  There are 10 D cars.  There are 10 C cars...  there are...

The only time the population varies for a given class is when a car is trying to break into the top 10 - to be included.

Each car painted -perhaps not a racing livery, maybe just Friday Nite at the Sonic flash.  There will be more on this later.

Each car is documented, with notes, in a spreadsheet.  This includes a paint shop picture, or track side for the cars that do not offer the paint menu.  Each car has a decal for my shop, BBB Racing Ltd.  This is a professional looking decal, unique like the Hooker decal.  Recognizable...

"Hey man, is that a Blooze Ride?" 

"Yeah." 

"Cool, I wish I could catch one when he is selling them.  They're sposed to be tuned pretty good.  How does yours run?"

"Like it is one rails.  You can feel it pull in your gut..."

"Oh man, I gotta get me one of those..."

That kind of logo.  At first there are just 5 per class, but the eventual limit is 10.  Ten classes, Ten per class, with recognition that the R# ranks may be limited.

Each car has a build sheet.  Each car has a time for every track in the Real World Tracks.  The riff raff and flotsom from winning races in the career are sold, either on the Auction House or back to the game.  A car in my garage is either one of the Elite, or striving for it.

I have looked in the Auction House.  I will buy my paint.  That in itself is a "game".  I will create a logo or two...  but I will search and monitor the Auction House looking for a particular car with a decent paint job, hopefully unlocked.  Either that, or I will have traded tuning for paint.  In some cases, the paint will be a gift.   However it gets done - each car will be painted.

In the end, at the end - 10 cars, ranked, run up to Level 5, tuned to the max, documented and painted.

The documentation is not helter skelter or catch as catch can, either.  It is organized, with common documents.  These are all linked to the class time sheet.

...the perfect garage...

That is what makes Forza such a fantastic game... that a dip shit like me can find a weird assed hole like that and spend most every waking hour trying to accomplish...

...the perfect garage...

This latest MInc Challenge has brought my lack of grafic art design to the fore front.  I have determined that rather than me put in what is required to turn my complete lacking of talent and gift into something presentable, I will contract with those that have the skills, they have the eye.  We will dicker and cajole, just like you were a body shop and I was trying to figure out how to get my car repaired for teh damages minus deductable.

Right now, I have snazzy paint jobs from friends that tickle me.  I look at them and remember where and why I have this paint.  Those sorts of stories are infinitely more intrigueing than, "I was just noodling around and just came up with the design..."

Like yesterday.  I built out my A class with 10 AWD cars.  I have the RWT completed and am sitting at position 520 based on these cars.  My ranking is based on a rollup of 29:46.338.  All tracks have a time.  I am scrambling for the tenths now, for the hundreds...

The perfect garage...

There will be the Porsches, the Ferraris, the ALS Muscle cars all vying to be one of the top ten spots.  The population will change.   Right now, if you were to see my A class time sheet it would be very obvious that the Corvette GS is not going to lay down and let these damned Jeeps run him off the track, no Sir!

The perfect garage...

I get sort of excited about that.  I have mucked around in a murky area up until yesterday.  Now I know what it is, what I am striving for.  This is why I played Sega GT 2000, why I played Forza I, why I play Forza II.  To organize and create...

...the perfect garage...

I think one of the most significant changes in my personality due to older age and a reality check is that I am soliciting help with this project.  There was a day when I would be fully determined to do it all myself or not at all.  Now I recognize and can live with the idea that I canNot do it all.  I need the help of a painter type cat.  If any of you have painting skills and would like to enter into a symbiotic relationship with a tuner... let's exchange PMs.

Okay, where was I.  Brain has run amok here... 

Bimmer's tight track Scooby holds the road real good, it also holds 2 or 3 of my top A Class times.  I got to build it a transmission, then I think it will be a major player in the hierarchy of my garage.  The biggest surprise is a Nur drivetrain S15 reject from B Class.  When I finish tuning that, it may run over everybody.

At any rate... I'm excited.  The Garage revelation.  And more "proof" for the Wb build.  The Mines Evo displays a 58% Wb, but the springs are set to a 53% bias.  It keeps popping up, 53% - 55%, this is what the game sets cars that it wants you to think are the result of a Pro "tuner".  I think we have something here.  It is not a plug an play short cut.  You can use this to delicately balance any vehicle - the way YOU want it balanced.

So now I look at the class timesheets... I am building virtual task lists.  I ramble through my garage.  Lots of Flotsum.  I want to get rid of them, but I can wait until it is varified that a car has no place in my...

...perfect Garage.

In between washing dishes and laundry today, I hope to improve my Camaro SS MInc Car in the latest challenge.   I am also going to add a second horse to the challenge, my Boss - I have a reason.

But most of all, I will be watching for opportunities to improve my garage, opportunities to take yet another step toward the...

Prefect Garage.

$

[Fit4aking]

Good one Blooze, a perfect garage, huh.  I decided that since I had more money than I could spend I want the "all cars" achievement.  I have almost all of the american cars unlocked so I've been buying the ones I'm missing.  I thought I was beeing smart when buying the paint jobs I wanted I tended to only buy the ones that were on cars I didn't have.  Some people want all of their paints on one certain car, like CLK-GTR's, or Lingenfelters.  There is no need for 100 of the same car so I've spread it out a bit.

My perfect garage would only have a few cars in each class like you've suggested.  I have enough cars I never drive as it is.  Award cars, painted cars, gifts from friends, etc.  I'm going on a buying spree tonight and then a massive sale.  C-class is a serious weak spot for me.  My two best cars were sent overseas to win a challenge and never got returned.  Most of the other good cars have been bumped to B or A class and I haven't made it out of D-class yet resetting my hotlap times.  The main problem with my mindset is that there are cars that I want to drive and there are cars that are smart to drive.  My A-class CTS-V for instance is a real challenge for me and a car that I have spent hours tuning and rebuilding, then retuning.  I finally broke 90 seconds on Laguna Seca and that was a chore but its still several seconds off of the fast times on that track.  My Panoz is another example as is my S-class Sagaris.  It clearly can't compete with Enzo's and CLK GTR's but I like it so its staying.  So far the only competative car I own that I really like is my Solstice, but even that can't run with a MkII or my 500KR  so if racing gets tight its goin on the trailer.\

I never had the patience to run spreadsheets but I do take notes, unorganized notes but notes none the less.  I think I have an empty envelope from junkmail saved for each of my MI cars.  Scientific, I know.  I don't quite understand the 54.5 equation and I don't have a QR for any car but the C2.  I'm all over the place with this game and it shows in my lap times and finishing positions when racing you guys.  I think I need some organizational help in this matter. 

[Open2nd]

I know what you mean Fit.  I just don't have the organizational skills to build such a perfect garage.  I also lack the tuning skills and the Wb thing still confuses me.  I think for me, it comes down to the fact that I'm a better racer than I am a tuner.  Plain and simple.

I think another part of my problem comes from the fact that like Fit, I too try to run the cars that I deem fun, with the more competitive "scoreboard cars" and that usually winds up in more frustration than fun.  But that's why I like it here.  This place, to me at least, is about more than just the scoreboards.  I'd rather race competitively with friends in something I'd like to drive than against someone's lap time in a car I'd rather not be seen in.  This keeps me from being able to organize such a garage, because my cars are all over the place.  I also like being able to choose from a wider range of cars, so I'm constantly trying to add something to the lot.  Maybe though, I should limit that somewhat, I just don't know that 10 per class would be enough for me.  Maybe something like 15-20 for the street cars, as I still haven't made my way to the R# cars yet.  Anyways Blooze, I like the idea of trimming the fat so to say.  My garage is in need of some serious shaping up.  I've got all these unmodified or half-modified cars that are craving some attention.

I suppose I'll get to this once I'm back from Hawaii.

[Fit4aking]

(pulls up a stool) 

Alright Blooze, I've been reading through your "Manipulate the Weight" thread and I either missed what I was looking for or its just not there.  If I understand correctly your 54.5 determination is based on an equation that used vehicle variables.  I just can't figure out what they are.  Best I can see is you set up the springs, sways, dampers etc so that they are in 54.5% proportion to one another.  I think that it is so they increase proportionally to each other to change weight transfer.  I just don't know how they all get together.  My weakest area is the initial set up of a car.  Changing the spring rate helps a ton and I don't know how to determine what they should be.  Next I assume sway bars get adjusted and finally dampers.

I came to this order based on my understanding of how suspensions are structured.  Springs determine the amount of transfer.  Sways determine the amount of lateral transfer.  Dampers determine the rate of weight transfer front-to-back.  Quantifying those factors is another matter and, well, thats why I'm here. 

I ran several of the Factory Spec races to win cars and I was amazed when I was ranked 53rd in the Tuscan S challenge.  I can drive the cars stock well but when I go up against CPU cars in my tuned cars I find I'm having a hard time.  Car choice is an issue but if I'm correct the PI system shoudl help level it out.  I had to race the CPU in my C6 ZO6 in order to win the A-class series apples to apples.  No other car I had could beat it.  I blame the tunes and the fact that it I wasn't ahead after 2 laps I would start making big mistakes tying to catch up.  Nothing is more frustrating than watching the CPU pull you down the straight, enter a turn faster and get on the gas faster in the SAME EXACT CAR.  It has to be the way the car is set up not the car itself in that situation.

Any help in this matter would be, well, helpful.  If nothing else it can move me out of last place in all the challenges.  After I liquidate the garage I'll be going back through the builds on most of my cars.  If I could get help setting up one car I could then apply it to all others.  Hopefully on my own.  Thanks.

[Blooze]

If you are looking for an explanation automotive here I am afraid you are going to be sorely disappointed.

The whole Re-Bias thing is based on Game Decomposition and an assertion that the weight bias (Wb) presented to the physics engine is that which can be generated from the spring settings.

Then, working with other items that seemed to be working off the Wb, the ARB and the Dampers, we came up with a formulaic method for the initial setup for a car.

• A new bias is declared.
• The sum of the spring settings is redistributed according to the new bias.
• The sum of the ARB is redistributed according to the inverse of the new bias.
• The sum of the Rebound dampers is redistributed according to the new bias.
• The Bump dampers are set to half of their respective Rebound Values.

All this re-distribution takes place after all the parts have been purchased.

In the beginning of this experiment, I would set up a car this way, then would go about tuning it in my normal fashion.  This meant adjusting the springs, dampers and ARB to manage the car the way I wanted it managed.  After about 3 or 4 cars I noticed a trend, and checked the resulting Wb after my tuning.  It invariably was somewhere between 54% and 55%, so I decided to start out at 54.5% and see how that worked out.  It worked quite well, and other than perhaps a bit of stiffening for the springs or ARB (added evenly to protect the Wb) no further tuning was required of the suspension. 

This has proven out in all drive types and engine positions.  Vagaries of engine placement have been handled with Caster and Toe and what I call Damper agents - formulaic alterations of the dampers according to a specific behaviours.  These are added to the dampers after having been set to the new bias.

I have since found it is a simple matter to resolve some issues with a slight adjustment to the weight bias.  I have yet to use more than .5% - say a change from 54.5% to 55%.

Another thing we are currently analysing is conditions where the springs, ARB, and Dampers are not all using the same Bias.  I am accumulating data on that right now.  The "tuners" are presenting some rather interesting data - and it all points toward the original SWAG being not too far off.

Let me ask you a question.  Of all the "Tuner" cars that are available, which one would you say is the best handling, easiest one to drive?

$

[Fit4aking]

(tries to get comfy on my stool)

I'm not so disappointed as I think I had an epiphany.  I assumed that you had stumbled on to some majic equation on suspension tuning and weight biasing based on a more "Real World" level.  I tend to get so deadlocked in my belief that these cars represent thier real counterpart that I forget that they are just a long line of code, programed to work in a certain way by another long line of code.

(picture me as Neo getting my a$$ kicked by Morpheus in "The Matrix".  'Thats not air your breathing, there is no air in this place')

Now that I change my perception on your take of the game I may be able to understand.  I'm gonna go through your previous post and sort of restate things as I see them for you to ensure I'm getting all of this as intended.  As an example I'm going to be making up a fictional car as I go, bear with me.

A new bias is declared- I'm assuming in this (and most) cases that would be your 54.5

The sum of the spring settings is redistributed according to the new bias- I assume your adding the two spring rates from the front and rear (ie 500ft, 400rr  500+400=900 total) and then redistributing the weight by multiplying 900 by 54.5% (900*.545=490.5).  Assuming I'm getting this correct so far the new front spring rate is 490.5 and the rear would be 409.5.  This would ensure that the sum of the spring rates stays the same.  Total spring setting is still 900, however the front is a bit softer and the rear is a tad stiffer.

The sum of the ARB is redistributed according to the inverse of the new bias-  Same goes here I assume accept instead of using the initial figure to adjust the front, apply it to the rear.  (ie. 15ft, 10rr  15+10=25 total)  Multiply the total ARB by 54.5% (25*.545=13.625)  This value goes into the rear of the vehicle??  Making my new ARB setting (11.375ft, 13.625rr)  In my head that makes the entire front of the car soft sprung and, assuming its a front engine car, moves the pivot point of the car a tad rearward. (Most likely a small amount of oversteer)

The sum of the Rebound dampers is redistributed according to the new bias-I'm beginning to determine that this isn't rocket science in application only in determination.  Back so applying the equation to the front first. (ie 10ft, 8rr  18 total)  Again multiply by 54.4% and end up with a new front value of 9.81 making the rear 8.19.  Removing .2 from the front and adding .2 to the rear.  This re-enforces the theory that stiffening the rear of this car and loosening the front will "fix" it.  (New Values  9.8ft, 8.2rr)

The Bump dampers are set to half of their respective Rebound Values-This seems pretty straight forward and I have applied it to an F-dog set up with mixed results.  I pay no attention to the original sum of the ARB's and only look at the calculated values from the Rebound dampers (9.8ft, 8.2rr).  Dividing this by half makes my new settings 4.9ft and 4.1rr.  This seems to make the vehicle rebound from a bump half as fast as it compresses from one.  This should make it more stable over bumps and less jittery over rumble strips.

Assuming all of the above is correct I'm probably only a year behind in terms of tuning.  I'm not going into changing values until I apply this to a fresh vehicle.  I have one in mind that I like to drive stock as well as a desire to compare this tune to a previous tune on a good handling car.  I'll try to apply it this week or this weekend as I have a wedding to attend Friday night.

To answer your question about tuner cars, I haven't spent much time in any of them.  All of the cars I had (before my mass purchase) were all wheel drive and I dislike them immensely.  I hate the fact that you have to remain somewhat on the gas to make the vehicle rotate through a turn.  Also I dislike how upset the car gets in off-throttle situations on sweepers.  Its most likely how I drive them but its no fun for me so I leave them alone.  I did like the Border MR2 and I believe I ran it stock in some challenge early in the game but haven't revisited it at all.  I really enjoy the Foose Project IS430.  It handles the power of the bigger engine well and completely stock I can scoot this thing around.  I used it online one night when nothing I had fit the restrictions of the room except that particular car (for me only) and I was very impressed to end up 3rd out of 8 in an untuned car. I've run it a bit on Mugello short just for fun and I have not modified it at all.  Other than those two tuner cars I was flying the other night in a stock Tuscan S.  I obliterated the AI unnassisted on Hard.  Like I said 53rd fastest in that career challenge.

Thanks Blooze, Spanky will appreciate it as long as I make some progress.

[Blooze]

By Jove, I do believe he's got it...

Correct - there's nothing rocket surgery about any part of it.  The numbers have been there all along.   Of course, there is a bit of subtrifuge, or gamesmanship if you will, that has helped obfuscate the picture.

What is sort of funny is that I had most of this figured out way back when, (I got to see if I can find that post), only I wandered off in a sort of "no direction" with the information.  I have thought all along that there was something that could be done about the weight bias, I just hadn't taken the time to figure it out.  In fact, if Ske's set up hadn't looked so wierd with the caster setting I still wouldn't have stumbled on to it.

As for the Red Herring - check the spreadsheet attached to my last post in the Wb thread.  The only reason they have for posting those invalid Wb settings on the tuners is to keep from making it obvious that the 54-56 range is somewhat ideal for the physics engine.  Or at least, that is my take on it.

The thing is, you don't have to go with 55% - you can use any value there that you are comfortable with.  Try various settings until you find one that you like, then use that.  What is cool is that you can use it for all types of cars once you get a handle on it, i.e., once you know what you need to adjust to modify for turn in and and transition "whip" for the various engine/drive placements.

I said at the beginning that this was "unautomotive" but let me carp on that a bit - all that is happening really is that we are actually doing what we would do in real life when setting up a race car.  We are moving crap around on the car until we have the weight distributed the way we want it.  In Real Life it means really long battery cables and stuff like that. 

$

PS:  I have company coming in for the weekend and am going to play hell getting any Forza time in myself... 

[Hoplee]

that's pretty much what I have on my spreadsheet. My original version did not invert the ARBs, so the Jag tuning I did with it needs those values reversed, but your formulas are identical to what I put in mine.

Basically, I record the default ARBs, springs and dampers then plug them into the formulas. I have alternate boxes that spit out slightly stiffer ARB and spring values than stock.

Blooze, you were saying that the dampers never vary in their relationship to the sring values? That means that we wouldn't need to record and enter that bit of information. We could just cover it with a formula. Figured the calc out yet?

[Blooze]

What I meant is that the dampers don't change no matter what you do to the springs once they are set.

You still have to calculate what the settings are for the new bias.  But once that is installed, you don't have to mess with it again.  Or the ARB for that matter.  It behaves the same way. 

Once set, those values don't change, no matter what happens to the weight of the car.  But if you want it biased properly you have to complete and implement the intitial calculation.

$

[Fit4aking]

(leans back from bench and wipes brow)

Well, I r knot dumm after all.  Being a visual learner that requires manual reinforcement was a drag in school and you can see I'm not quite over it.  I have a bit of work to do but I guess I knew that too. 

Thanks for hangin in there and I'm sure repeating it for the thousandth time.  I did search but it wasn't spelled out for me like that so I didn't find it.

I'll give it a try and then come back to determine what I can do to get better at building cars.  The high power/high gripp builds are easy but finding the inbetween sweet spot is a little harder.

[Big Mooing Cow]

To answer your question about tuner cars, I haven't spent much time in any of them.  All of the cars I had (before my mass purchase) were all wheel drive and I dislike them immensely.  I hate the fact that you have to remain somewhat on the gas to make the vehicle rotate through a turn.  Also I dislike how upset the car gets in off-throttle situations on sweepers.

As an aside King, you can definitely tweak that behavior out of an AWD car.  Maybe not to the point of making an AWD car lose the back end in steady state cornering, but you can get rid of steady-state understeer by firming up the rear end considerably more than you normally might think prudent, and opening up the front diff.  You can also make the car a ton more stable when lifting the throttle by setting the rear decel diff to 40-60%.  My well-tuned AWD cars handle like a RWD car that has an obscene amount of rear traction... a bit like an F40, GNX, or Viper with their gigantic rear tires.

As for Blooze's question of which tuner cars handle well out of the box, I haven't driven many of the tuner cars, but I was interested to see that the Subaru S204 (one of the Limited Edition cars, which I was gifted a while back) felt notably different than the stock STi on which it was based, even when the STi was built up to a very nearly identical build.  I haven't modified my S204 because its stock handling is unique among my AWD cars and since I can't buy another one I'd rather just keep this one as a stocker.

I will say the car is very well-composed... typical WRX roly-poly, but very balanced and less apt to understeer in transitional handilng than the "normal" WRX.

[Blooze]

You could buy the suspension and ARB and get the readings, then sell the parts...

$

[bimmerlovere39]

To answer your question about tuner cars, I haven't spent much time in any of them.  All of the cars I had (before my mass purchase) were all wheel drive and I dislike them immensely.  I hate the fact that you have to remain somewhat on the gas to make the vehicle rotate through a turn.  Also I dislike how upset the car gets in off-throttle situations on sweepers.

As an aside King, you can definitely tweak that behavior out of an AWD car.  Maybe not to the point of making an AWD car lose the back end in steady state cornering, but you can get rid of steady-state understeer by firming up the rear end considerably more than you normally might think prudent, and opening up the front diff.  You can also make the car a ton more stable when lifting the throttle by setting the rear decel diff to 40-60%.  My well-tuned AWD cars handle like a RWD car that has an obscene amount of rear traction... a bit like an F40, GNX, or Viper with their gigantic rear tires.

Try my Scooby tunes here, see if they work for ya.

As for tuner cars... I have no effing clue.  I need to go drive some stock cars in this game.  lol.

[Fit4aking]

A majority of my time in an AWD car was my B5 S4.  What a turd.  And I drive them everyday at work.  They aren't nearly as pushy IRL.  Hell on our RS4 ride and drive that car was amazing but in game it stinks.  I'll have to try one of the Scooby Tunes and try to mess with the diff settings of my current cars.  I guess that stock handling really turned me off.  A friend of mine has a Delta that is amazing fast but when I drive it hard into a turn it pushes into the dirt everytime.  He says to just give it a little throttle and it will pull on through but I need to adjust my entry speed on AWD's to manage throttle all the way around a turn.

That requires an adjustment behind the wheel.

[Big Mooing Cow]

Diff settings have an enormous effect on the "personality" of AWD cars... much moreso than FWD or RWD cars.  The effect dominates the car's handling so much that it can be tough to reliably tune the suspension, because the diffs mask the car's "true" handling.

When tuning the car I would suggest paying extra careful attention to the effects that throttle have on your steady state handling.  If you have steady-state understeer under acceleration, you could have a suspension that oversteers heavily, but the diffs are set up such that the outside front completely washes out, and the rears are underutilized... there's no way the car will be neutral with the outside front spinning helplessly!  It will go absolutely bonkers when you let off the gas, however! 

I don't want to drag the thread too far off topic, so I'll leave it with a second caution that some AWD cars are absolutely brutal on the front tires, and can be very hard to tune out the understeer.  Those are mostly the heavier cars like the Audis, Bentley, and Volvo.  Expect front tire temps around 240 with these cars, and an overall lack of turn-in feel.  Your feeling of a disconnect with reality might be due to my suspicion that all AWD cars have a permanent forced front/rear torque balance in Forza.  Audi's "brakes are your diffs" system ( ) certainly isn't implemented here, nor is the viscous or LSD systems of many Subarus and Mitsubishis.

And there I go rattling on again.... this thread is called "The Bench", right?