I have started to do this, @tjkoyen. I now use a little app that shows me the field and their ar and ir. If the driver has a higher irating, I assume they won’t panic going 2 wide and will get around me eventually. So, I bear that in mind depending upon where we are in the races evolution.
Basically, I am not defending much against solid drivers until last 2 laps. Even then, if I am responsible for losing pace, I will concede the corner, likely.
Sheesh. So, my braking stinks and I am shifting mid turn. So sayeth Tanguy.
He’s seeing pedal overlap and he’s seeing me be too hesitant with initial bite. Agreed. He also says I am downshifting too late. He says this compounds the problem. I’m not getting engine braking, and I’m scared of losing back end, so I stay in throttle.
He wants me to rethink all of this. Brake like you mean it, right up front. Downshift before the turn. Change the timing, simplify.
All right so the idea is to downshift and brake straight line. I started doing this more so last night and it did yield results.
What’s happening is that I think I have been using throttle as a stabilizer. I use the throttle to lean into grip and keep the rear from letting go. But, if I upset the car mid turn with a shift, with car all loaded up and leaning into the rubber, I can lose traction briefly and sometimes I lose speed or spin.
Anyways I made the effort to brake harder and also downshift more or less at the same time, so that the brief hop of the tires occurs with wheel straight and slowing.
Even if you lock up the rears, briefly, the car remains pointed and stable. It’s interesting in how imperfect you can be so long as wheels are straight, it’s more forgiving. Getting the car turned in ends up being easier and the exits calmer and faster.
It’s a bit of a reach trying to be more assertive with braking in context of racing, but I am doing my best. I will revert to my earlier softer braking if I feel pressured in a race. I must say that announcing your intention to turn in with a puff of smoke certainly gets folks off your butt in a hurry.
A long ways to go but changing this up has yielded immediate results. I was slower at first but seem to be back to previous pace and getting faster. Had a nice 2nd last night.
This is fun, starting again. So far, I have learned a bunch and been challenged in my thinking. Driving appears to be endlessly entertaining, and each new thing I learn makes me happy.
First Win in Iracing
Here’s my first Iracing victory. It came about from a bit of luck and Tanguy’s thoughts as to why I was “very bad”. I have become more assertive with the initial bite of my braking and am also trying to shift properly. Consequently, over the past couple days, I have shaved off a few seconds and this morning, I landed a new no-draft personal best.
As my laptimes got faster, I started to see more podiums, but I also started to have more crashes. As a consequence, my SR went down and fields got a bit easier. I got two seconds and then landed in a decent (for me) field and, surprisingly, won a race!
I qualified well, so I managed to escape significant carnage in lap 1. I then battled it out with another guy for the rest of the race and ultimately prevailed. I am proud of how I used my head and did nothing stupid. I deliberately let the mistakes happen to him, not me.
I am glad you guys got me to do this. You were right to suggest this. I was indeed too comfortable racing against time in KK…
Oh, and it looks like my future Margay has arrived from Daytona! Maybe we can get a parallel sim-karting series going on.
Congrats Dom. I had a wonderful battle in GT4 the other night, even though it was justt for 5th place. Lots of hard, fair defending and attacked, with a little rubbing. My second race of that night was a disaster, as I jumped the second to last curb on the first lap, and spun into the pits. So I fell to last and then got a penalty for unsafe pit entry stacked on top. I decided to wait it out and go log laps a lap down. First lap out I jumped the same curb and totaled it into the barriers. 0.79 SR drop and -78 iRating. Painful. But Okayama is a good track for me, so I’ve been trying to get a few races in this weekend. Hope to do a few more and I’ll recover that. My times are competitive in the top 5 for top split so that is encouraging.
Has the tire grip model in KK been updated/fixed yet?
Oh that stings. I love the whole system in iracing. It’s pretty fair and is a good compromise. The one that always gets me is crossing the blend line on the way out of the pits!
How long did it take to move up in splits? I seem to be on the verge here as I am placing well.
Sounds like a fun race. I find the safety rating stuff changes the game. If you want to progress, you can’t have incidents, even if not your fault. I keep seeing my sr go up up up followed by a period of wiping out the progress! You really do have to be careful of how you “race”, particularly since no quarter is given, ever!
@WheelSpin I haven’t played in a couple weeks but there is no announcements on the discord.
My guess is not yet.
It depends on the class. For me, I had about 1700 iRating for a while jumping series to series and once I did GT4 I found I liked it a lot and stuck to it, so my iRating climbed as I got more and more comfortable in the car. That’s why I think it’s good to stick to one class for a while instead of jumping around. For GT4 it didn’t take me long, just a few weeks of racing and getting the feel for the car. There’s usually only 2-3 splits for it. I’m sort of the bottom tier of top split, as my iRating has been hovering around 2k. I only do one or two races a week though. If you pounded out a lot of practice and got quick you could jump in and move up 200-300 iRating in a couple days of racing with good finishes, moving you up the splits.
Hehe. In the USF 2000 it looks like we get 3-5 splits, generally. I am experiencing a series of good results or punt followed by pit and try again.
As a consequence my rating move a ton. I’ll swing 200 points easy in a night. Podium, punt.
I think if I really want to climb splits, I will have to focus hyper-obsessively on staying out of trouble.
<@!791461193461399564> It’s nearly done. Should be this week…
From the mouth of developer Keir @WheelSpin
So we switched tracks today to Long Beach. I guess every week it must change.
I was completely unfamiliar with the track and dove onto a race. Apparently everyone is clueless as well because it was utter carnage. I completed 1 lap at speed (not counting the slow lap with a broken wheel trying to find pits) and finished tenth. Although I barely got around the track once, I finished ahead of 5 other people, lol.
Long Beach is a tough one. No room for error. I did a full week of practice there in the IR-01 and decided it was going to be carnage trying to do a race there so didn’t bother.
Track changes every week. You can go check the series schedule to see what’s coming up.
Ha! I relish the challenge. Such a neat course, Race two was even odder. Somehow I got 5th despite totaling my car on the second lap. The bar is low.
It’s a very fun track for sure. I would imagine in something more manageable like the USF2000 it would be a blast.
I now see why you gave this a pass. Holy heck what a bloodbath. Most of my races have involved major shunts yet most were top 5 finishes, for perspective.
Long Beach is great fun and not at all easy. It should be a fun week.
Big patch:
@everyone
Build 0.1.0.2929 is now live! Please restart Steam if you do not see the update.
We’re back with another update and arguably the biggest change to the handling of the karts since the launch of KartKraft. What began as an analysis of tyre loads when riding over kerbs, quickly became a much deeper investigation into the damping response of the tyres with respect to the rate of change of steering input. This uncovered a bug in the method used to calculate the damping velocity of the tyre and after it was resolved, we witnessed much more consistent loads across varying steering input rates of change. As such, all tyres/classes have been re-tuned with the result being an improved and much more natural driving feel that allows you to lean on the tyres during cornering, trail brake and lap consistently with more detailed force feedback.
We’ve also been working with Valve to investigate and fix the issues causing some players’ wheels not being detected by KartKraft despite Steam Input being disabled both by the player and in the steam game backend. Valve has now released a patch for Steam and we have made changes that should resolve this for all players. Despite the good news however, this change does require all controllers to be rebound.
Changes
Improved implementation of Minimum Force for wheel force feedback
Improved FFB algorithm
Added basic support for Logitech Wheel LED lights
Reduced stopping force of gravel traps
Setup parameters now display the significant digit when set to values below 1. i.e 0.1 rather than .1
Fixed bug where controller would receive force feedback when wheel is being used and vice versa
Fixed tyre damping bug that caused incorrect loads when cornering
Improved tyre and handling model for KA100, X30 and KZ2 classes
Fixed issue where Steam would steal Direct Input wheel control away from the game. This change will require you to rebind your wheel
Added frame identifier to UDP telemetry. Telemetry clients can now validate telemetry frames using KartKraft.Frame.FrameBufferHasIdentifier(bytes)
Fix for wheel input being overridden by Steam when user has Steam Input enabled
HUD now shows vehicle class
Fixed leaderboard not updating after exit of time trial event
Easy/Medium AI retuned to make them easier
Fixed crash when adjusting KZ2 drivetrain sprocket teeth.
Fixed AI vehicles sometimes failing to load
Well this is tempting. Just as I was starting to get the hang of Long Beach. Maybe I can become a 2 sim guy.
I am hopeful that the tire has been truly addressed. While I had a good time figuring out with the others how to take advantage of the temporarily broken physics, I am glad to have normalcy back. Driving the deflated cold tires was a mile off of reality. (But informative).
I tried out the USF2000 at Long Beach this morning since GT4 is at Zolder this week and I don’t feel like buying the track.
The tire feels peaky, but that could be because I’m not used to driving downforce cars. It seems like it’s all well and good to be thrown about in 1st or 2nd gear, with little to no wheel spin unless you drive like an ape, but then in 3rd gear or faster, it feels like the downforce hasn’t kicked in yet and it instantly wants to snap in an un-catchable manner on me at apex. Since LB is like all 90 degree 3rd gear corners, this makes it a little tricky.
Not terrible though, I might give it a run this weekend and see what kind of carnage ensues. I got down to a 1:22.7 or so so on high fuel, so I’m sure I could get into the low 22s with some more practice, which seems to be an okay race pace.
Dom you still haven’t accepted my friend request! I want to hunt you down and jump in a few races sometime.
I’m down 1:24 and struggling like mad. The issue with me is my braking. I am having all sorts of weirdness with hitting the laid cell inconsistently. As a result, I tend to have some turns where the tires chirp normally under braking. Some, however, just keep plowing straight!!!
Anyways. Huge accomplishment. I actually ran a full race start to finish with no crash. I was not fast, but I got 3rd. In the split I am in, completing all the laps is hard.
To your point, it’s kind of a slippery track. Not the grip, exactly. There are turns that require you to not be all in. For example, the right then right after the fountain at the beginning. You go 2nd thru first shift up to 3rd but then immediately back to 2 as you brake earlier to slow down enough to get a strong exit into the fast bit. Most try to shoot thorough there and end up wide.
Same story sorta with the 90 right onto back straight. Rushing through here is not productive.
I honestly don’t know how to. I didn’t see any notification. I will check again. I maybe have to go to forum.