I have a cold tire temp of 15 or 15.5.
You must be getting up into the 20s after 25 laps. Does it get greasy?
Yes it does, so not ideal for a race. But normally I have problems with heating the rear tires. Probably related to driving style. They don’t get much higher than 18 psi
So I played with pressures. I recommend you try as well because how it feels is unusual. It’s not like being on cold tires, you aren’t slippery. What it feels like is that you have good grip but on a wider line. If you push the turn a bit, it feels like the sidewalls roll over and you go wide like on casters. Sort of crab walk. If you go down to 7 lbs, you will see what I mean.
I am still not sure what the correct pressure is. Rather, there’s an acceptable range. The kart seems to like 11-18 lbs. it drives differently at lower pressure but very grippy, still.
It never ends
S1: 9.378
S2: 20.872
S3: 16.662
Good things. Fastest s2 by a long shot. I am running s3 well now, but not consistently as fast as I’d like. I can and will speed this up in S3 by 2/10. I regularly land .5x and have landed several .4x.
S1: 09.376
S2: 20.950
S3: 16.540
More. 3 solid sectors but nothing fantastic. I’ll take it for now.
S1: 09.376
S2: 20.950
S3: 16.468
Further. Let’s mine the heck out of this one. Went to 9-67 from 9-68. Meh. Sorta similar across the board with no discernible sector difference. And yes, those first two sectors are identical.
End of Road. US 1 and (effectively) GLB 1!
S1: 09.311
S2: 20.992
S3: 16.395
So looks like I drove myself out of a virtual job, here, as I just drove the fastest time, yet. The reason why I say “effectively” GLB 1 is that on launch day, when he selected Minimal mode in X30, under some odd condition, it dropped Chris into the KA100 leader board. Oops. He ran a few x30 laps and set a time we won’t catch in the KA, most likely.
Thus, with the caveat that if you exclude that lap from the LB, I pulled it off. Pretty efficiently, too. I am rather proud of that. I am also rather happy that I was able to go faster than a few folks who previously I have not been able to beat. I am getting faster.
This lap features a very capable S1 followed, again by a very strong but wobbly S2. The thing that sealed the deal is something I had not expected (or even had an inkling I was capable of) which is a .395 S3. I am able to hold a hair more speed at the top, and as he peels off, I undercut and get the better exit.
I messed with gearing and ran this on 9-65. I had temps cold as follows: 11 LBS F, 12 LBS R. However, since the R side runs hotter, -1 LB to RF/RR.
I included 2 laps since I ran a pretty decent lap just prior. Enjoy!
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Ooh, we have exciting drama. This guy DIG dumped a bunch of global 1 laps the other night. A bunch of the drivers think the laps are sus.
So here’s the thing…
At pfi you can cut the final loopdey-loop and make a beeline for the start. This allows you to hit limiter way earlier on x30, and, in the case of top end starved KA100, get closer to it.
So, if ya wanna go for a screamer of an S1, you gear for the lengthened run to turn 1, just past the bridge. This allows for BIG speed. Thus, DIG posted a .6 S1, about 4/10 faster than GLB 2.
His subsequent sectors are strong but not crazy strong. His final sector is actually weak by the standards of the top of the board, a slow
.60. But, mid sector is a respectable .9, which is difficult to achieve with (presumably) reduced teeth on the ol’ sproket.
So, on a general level it all makes sense. He geared for s1 and that’s that. But, Zycos couldn’t recreate an s1 run like DIGs at any gearing. If anyone can, from a driving perspective, Gillian (Zycos) would be able to recreate. Therefore sus.
It could be a glitch, maybe, some gearing/parts combo that allows for something extraordinary. We’ve seen that in the past. But, that seems unlikely because his lap behaved normally. He was not unusually fast everywhere. His lap followed the pattern you’d expect, sector time wise, with a fast s1.
It’s possible it’s a tire pressure thing. I have babbled on about the power line in the past. As the ffb model and tire changed, I noticed that the power line had become more pronounced in some ways, a bit different.
Tire pressure seems to have a very subtle effect on grip, particularly cold tire laps to warming. I have experienced s1 at pfi classic on cold tires that was very fast and I swear I got sucked into the line and fired around the corner.
I bet DIG figured out a thing. He did all the laps on different tracks quickly. I’ll bet they all were at a similar oddball pressure.
The PFI cut trick didn’t work though for him on PFI-C. He beat me there but I took it right back. The likely reason is that the classic layout requires you to turn into a big 180 where at PFI regular you’d still have hundreds of feet left to get to limiter. So, low teeth kart path launch doesn’t work there, really.
However, if you look at my footage above, there’s a couple places where he pulls on me in a way I would not expect if he were geared the way his sectors play out. So, this part confuses me.
In both laps of the video I run strong s2 but yet, even with my gearing of 9-65, he keeps pulling ahead on corner exits that I have pretty much nailed. Not right at exit, but as we go to next turn, he keeps gaining speed down the straights where I can’t keep up. This doesn’t make sense unless he’s found a way to have the benefits of lower teeth on exit while having more top end. Hmm. It’s so subtle. The more I look at the laps, the more it looks like he has additional top end, though.
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And, here we go again!
S1: 09.374
S2: 20.931
S3: 16.341
Well Dig figured out his thing at PFI-C as well so back I went. Here is me almost passing Sheenu down the start/finish.
Good fun. Hopefully Dig will ultimately reveal his trick as no one seems to be able to replicate it.
This is too cool! Back to back, Identical bombs!
This doesn’t happen every day. I ran exactly the same laptime (to the thousandth), back to back. And, if that’s not unusual enough, they were also within a couple hundredths of Sheenu and GLB 2.
Also Drama solved. Zycos figured out that the trick was setting the tire pressure as low as possible. That opens a brief window before the tire heats up of oddly powerful grip. Once that became known, DIG shared the setup with the devs and the gang. Good fun.
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I join Eric at the Top
S1: 9.311
S2: 20.777
S3: 16.445
I absorbed a part of DIG’s idea/glitch from the setup. I moved the seat all the way forwards because there is more grip to be had on exit than we thought, due to how the tire behaves warming up. Long story, won’t bore you with details. But, if you got a lot of rear grip, might as well slam the seat all the way forwards!
This is a heck of an S2. This puts me effectively at 1 US and 2 GLB. The times of DIG and BOBBER are glitched.
I have another lap to put up. It’s starting to be a bit too much, really. It seems that of late, every time I sit down to the rig, I am successful in improving my previous time. Yesterday I did it three times. 
This thread kind of turned into a blog about the laps I do, which isn’t really the point. It’s nice and all, but the laps are largely proof of concept, that sim has value and that it makes me a better kart pilot.
I think what I have been experiencing In the past couple weeks is the floodgates opening up, driving wise. I used to agonize over my laps, spending weeks trying to improve by a few hundredths. Now, I seem to be able to better guide myself and figure out the how’s and why’s of the laps. Progress comes quickly and for the first time, I feel like I have true control, agency, even.
GVKC-R flow factory
S1: 15.771
S2: 12.717
S3: 15.828
Yesterday I set a new fastest lap (for me) at GVKC…
S1: 16.247
S2: 21.673
S3: 05.940
… And, today, I just did it again, exactly!
S1: 16.323
S2: 21.565
S3: 05.972
That was unusual, but rather cool, once I realized that I had run the exact same laptime, matching my new personal best.
We are currently exploiting a tire pressure/Temp glitch that allows us to get unreasonable grip. The laps look a bit odd due to this.
Anyone else have massive issues with the new update? KK has literally been undriveable since I downloaded the new update yesterday.
Was doing 30.8s at Geel in X30 before the latest update. Now I can’t get below a 45…
Kart has no acceleration below 90kmh. From 6k rpm to 11k rpm it just does not go. Same gear as before the update. And there is no grip… and no this is not a “you just need to warm up your tires” thing. If I go full gas at 40kmh and turn the wheel, kart gets uncontrollable wheelspin and I fly off the track like the X30 has 500 lb-ft of torque… which is a little odd considering how slowly it accelerates now.
Wheel inputs are working fine. CSL Elite.
Yes. There was a ffb update that messed up the MG yellow tire. As a consequence, the x30 and KZ are on ice.
The mg red on the ka100, however, is quite good. There is a physics glitch, though, that we have been having fun exploiting a bit. It still requires driving skill, but is more of an exercise in seeing if you can figure out how to best use it.
In short: set tires to lowest possible pressure (6psi). Slam seat all the way forwards and put torsion bar at 100. Lower seat and ride height all the way.
When the tire is very cold (laps 1-3) it is blue on the tire widget. When it is blue, you will notice higher speed down straight. You will also notice the tire hopping as it deforms under acceleration.
The braking when the tire is cold has to be de minimis. As tire temp rises, you can brake a bit harder. The objective on cold tires is to carry as much speed and roll the turns. You cannot rotate the kart due to extreme grip. But, since you have crazy grip, you can be on power far earlier than normal.
So, in this scenario. High grip, high speed, high corner exit grip… you have to drive a very precise line, right on the rubber. You also have to avoid upsetting the kart under braking or accel.
So, in order to drive insanely fast with the tire uodate, you have to roll speed as much as possible, avoiding sharp braking inputs.
As the tire heats up, the speed advantage goes away and the grip becomes normal. Once tires are green and pressures have risen, it behaves more or less normally. Here’s my latest lap as an example:
I think at this point they should just nail down what physics they are going to use and focus on the other areas of the game. It makes it significantly less fun when every new build resets the leaderboards, introduces glitches, and changes the parameters of setup for almost zero perceivable difference for the player in terms of kart feel.
There’s no point in me even booting the game up if I have to slap together some glitched setup and alter my technique to do anything worthwhile on the leaderboards. This would be less of a problem if there was more to do in the game other than chase leaderboard times.
To be fair to the devs, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omlette. I am glad they are not settling for OK.
Insofar as glitched setup, I would agree. Ideally we don’t have that. Setup isn’t a glitch. It’s a valid setup for an invalid situation. The setup, in and of itself, does not create an advantage.
I would prefer to not have “variable” physics as tire warms and pressures rise. I have given considerable feedback to this end. I believe they are listening.
Thanks for the explanation Dom. I saw the leaderboard times being a few tenths slower, so I couldn’t tell what was going on.
I’m gonna stay away from the game until that weirdness gets fixed. It was a fairly decent kart sim before so I’d use it to keep sharp after long periods out of a kart IRL. Don’t want to learn a technique that has no usefulness in the real world. Years of playing Gran Turismo embedded some bad habits that I have no interest ironing out again.
Hope whatever they introduced gets resolved in the next update.
That’s probably fair. I would agree.
That being said, there is a rather significant silver lining to the low temp/pressure thing…
You know how when you are racing or lapping, trying to be fast, you are rewarded for being careful about Inputs and how much you ask of the kart? How you strangely pick up speed when it feels like you are trying less?
That’s what the low pressure trick forces you to do, drive as smoothly as possible, mainly in braking and throttle. It forces you to learn how to behave that way behind the wheel.
As the tires warm and your pressures rise, your inputs change with the situation. You carry that initial smoothness into the laps where your tires are warm and the kart behaves normally, too.
Obviously, irl, firm short braking and rotating the kart are how you are principally gonna drive. This is a different version of reality, one that I feel teaches us something we will never access IRL.
At first I was deeply annoyed by DIGs times. As it became apparent, (and he indicated that it was the case) that there was an “exploit”, I came to change my opinion.
Once it was explained, and I tried it myself, it was clear to me that this was not a case of making things “easier”. It’s still very much connected to IRL driving and requires thought and adaptation.
Once I understood this and immersed myself in it, I came to really enjoy and benefit from the experience. I am really, really proud of how I was able to understand what was going on and develop the driving to capitalize on it. I see these fast but odd laps as a developmental accomplishment. They will pay big dividends IRL, in terms of understanding sensitivity mid-corner.
I do have a lot of time invested in this game so maybe my perspective is odd.