One thing that’s been bothering me is the plethora of reviews from people who:
A.) Have no idea how to set up their wheel
B.) Have never driven a kart in real-life before
C.) Are comparing the handling/feel to that of CAR sims
Obviously karting is going to be an entirely different driving style to any car sim, so the game is going to feel totally foreign to anyone who isn’t familiar with karts. I’ve seen a few videos of guys who say “the karts oversteer too badly, they’re undriveable” as they pour on full-lock into every corner.
Exactly. That’s why I’m waiting for a fair review from one of you guys.
Took quite a bit of tweaking on graphics to get it to run smooth. Not really the game’s fault, but something to be mindful of. The back section of PFI was particularly tough and caused the screen to freeze frequently until I experimented with detail settings.
The brake/rear axle assembly intertia modeling “feels” very natural and controllable. It’s very nice with a broad envelope to control.
Turn in feels a bit strange… it starts off as you would expect, then there’s a momentary dart for a short period of time then it goes back to normal response. It makes it a little difficult to manage. This might be related to how the jacking/rear end is modeled or maybe over zealous slip angle simulation, my wheel (G29 I think), or just shitty driving in my part
I tried various settings for the wheel and it helped some.
The driving line in challenge mode is interesting as it shows the line incl braking points of your opponent. Ultimately though it’s distracting AF. My vote is turn it off.
It has elements of forza/GT4 with points to buy things like canopys and stuff like that. I get their purpose, but I could care less, I just want to drive something that feels like a kart.
I say this with some reservation because I think it could be my wheel… but the rear end handling on exit is very strange. What you would expect to be minor correction turns into a debacle. It almost feels like 80lbs (laterally, not in the sense that it dumps the inside wheel) gets added to the rear end once it starts. It feels like the inertia changes.
Now having said all this, there’s folks running seconds a lap faster than me at this point. So clearly folks are able to drive around the issues I experienced.
I didn’t find any options to change the setup of the kart chassis.
Overall, I still say pay $19 just to give the team some funds to develop it further. It’s fun and gives a decently immersive feel.
James, three days later, do you still feel the same way about KartKraft? Are you able to drive (or setup) around the issues or are you still experiencing the 80lbs lateral load?
I got my sim rig built and set up last night, so I downloaded KK. The graphics and detail are beautiful. Truly well done. Right down to the caster and camber, the tie-rods moving, and the ride height washers… Literally everything on the kart in real life is there in-game.
Wish I could comment on the handling but only just realized I lost the cable for my wheel/pedals so I can hook it up just yet…
I’ve got about 120 laps on it now. It’s better, but I think more through a combination of lines, wheel settings and adapting to it. It still slides a little more than you would expect… another way of explaining it is that it goes “full duro” in that it’s like the tires changed
I’m having problems with my G27, long story short I have a dead center for FFB which means the wheel has not resistance for about 5deg either side of center. The response is fine, but as you can imagine, with a kart, the wheel “going dead” for about 10 degrees about center is challenging.
For now, I’ve got FFB turned off in the game and setup a strong centering spring in the logitch profiler. Shaved off two tenths out of the gate.
The G27 is working fine for some it seems, so there’s hope.
It’s fun though, I can say that for sure. I’ve been enjoying it.
I got my wheel working and put in about 150 laps this morning at Geelong. The game is addicting! There’s only hot lapping modes for now but it’s still a bunch of fun. Got up to 15th on the US leaderboard at Geelong. I saw you @KartingIsLife on my way up through the ranks, looks like you were 28th or so?
Took some fiddling with the control setup to find something I liked. The biggest thing that helped me was turning down the max brake power. I couldn’t find the sweet spot at max braking, I kept locking up too easily and just spinning. Brough the brake power down to about 70% and now it really takes a good punch on the pedal to lock up. I also lowered the braking linearity so that they are initially more sensitive but are harder to lock up. With the long soft pedal on my pedal setup it didn’t feel very realistic.
My biggest issue right now is consistency just because it’s hard to feel the tire limits, and everything happens so fast that it’s easy to go over the limit or be under the limit. A bit like when you start out in real karting!
Best lap at Geelong right now is 32.8, but my optimal is a 32.6. I figured out a few things in the final sector, if I could just nail the first sector I could get there. US record is 32.0 I believe at the moment. The curbs in this game are vicious… I flipped a few times on the fast turn two curb.
Regardless, it feels similar to a real kart, though not perfect yet. I think once we can tweak setups and maybe with some more control tweaking, it’ll start to feel closer.
Also, it’s intense! I was sweating after those 100 laps.
After playing for about 4 or 5 hours this past weekend, I actually started to feel sick. I have been sim racing since about 2013 and have done hundreds of races on iRacing, including 4 hour+ stints and have never felt this before. Maybe it was just a coincidence but last night after finally breaking through the top 10 leaderboard at Geelong and the top 15 at …(the middle track which name escapes me) I couldn’t do it anymore. I tried going in and reducing the motion blur but it didn’t seem to help much. I had to lie down and call it a night.
There’s some great things about this game that I love, and some things that I really don’t like at all.
While it does a great job representing karting, and the graphical models of karts and tracks look spot on, I can’t get past how it physically feels driving.
First, the sound in my opinion is all over the place. At idle it sounds just like an x30, but at speed it sounds like someones shooting rocks at my ear. I know the same guy who does the audio engineering for iRacing previously worked with KartKraft so I’m sure there’s some complex leveling in there, but it just dosen’t do it for me.
The physical feel of driving still needs some work. As mentioned you can’t really compare it to a car sim, because the physics are completely different, but I haven’t been able to dial in any of the real kart feel yet. The rear end feel (where you would naturally feel with your…uh rear end) is a major factor. It’s very hard to feel the back end coming out before it just snaps and your gone. Same goes for braking. I’ll have to try turning down the Max braking strength as TJ mentioned and see if that improves it.
Overall I think there’s a lot of potential for a great sim console once it’s polished.
Also, I haven’t done much searching for this yet, but is anyone able to drive any other brand of kart during the ranked time trials? I’m able to buy and drive any kart, but as soon as I drive anything other than the default black x30 it immediately looses gravity and starts doing front flips through the ground…not sure if a bug, or feature
I have been experiencing a wierd “the world is rotating around me” feeling while playing f1 2018. I don’t get dizzy but it’s as if the vehicle stays put and the world is moving. I Sympathize and am really thankful it doesn’t happen on the real racetrack.
The flipping karts is a bug with the IPK karts (Praga, OK1, FK) because of an issue with the rear brake rotors bottoming out on the track. It should be fixed in the latest update. I’ve been driving the Deadly/Arrow and found I like it the best. The Sodi is fine too but seems to lack rear end stability. The CRG feels really weird, like there’s some odd physics going on. It makes my wheel shake like crazy at speed.
I tried my Rift for the first time in Assetto Corsa the other day and got sick after 3 laps… No issues with a normal monitor doing KartKraft though. It’s strange, I actually get car sick pretty easy, but sim racing or video games or actual racing are fine. I think it’s something to do with not being in control of the vehicle. It happens a little on planes for me as well during take off or landing.
Regarding your comments on the sound Will, I actually thought it sounded quite good. My main issue is the levels between tire squeal and engine noise, and how loud the opponent karts are. The sound itself seems good, just the levels are off for me. Opponent karts seem waaaay too loud, as does tire squeal. But I find myself needing that loud tire squeal to compensate for the lack of braking feel so I can tell when I’m locking up.
