• Like our community? Become a contributor -> here

Admin GTPC BMW M1 - SR4L League Edition Spotlight

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
Those of you who don’t participate in the Wednesday Fun races might miss this - but we really want you to give the car a go and provide feedback even if you cant make Wednesdays…

GTPC have made a cracking job in converting/developing and releasing a number of historic vehicles from rf1 See here, linky style - and for that, in itself, we are thankful…

…but GTPC’s Arnaud has extended a significant courtesy to us in allowing SR4L to further modify vehicles to our taste. Thank you Arnaud (and the SR4L organiser who arranged this - wasn’t me!).

Even if you’re not a Wednesday driver, would you do us the great favour of giving the car an honest appraisal - it might not (yet) be your cup of tea, but we’d hate ‘to lose the ship for a pennyworth o’tar’.

And it might be your next League car - so if you don’t like the direction it has taken but don’t give it a proper go, you‘ll only have yourselves to blame;)
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
I don’t know about everyone else, but I quite enjoyed the track/car combo tonight! Some good dicing, quite a few overshoots when the combo of drafting and P2P overcame braking ability…:eek:

I was expecting the draft effect to be stronger from my AI testing - but it felt ok. A definite effect but not comic-book.

Would very much welcome feedback on what is liked /not-so-much…

I think the car is good enough to continue to run as-is for now - but the aim was always for it to be an accessible championship league candidate, so if it needs work, feedback will be essential.
 

DJCruicky

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Modding team
League Member
Joined
May 15, 2012
Location
England
The push to pass button turned out very good :). I think everyone was equally paced so this turbo button helped spice up the races.
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
The push to pass button turned out very good :). I think everyone was equally paced so this turbo button helped spice up the races.
I thought so too. I’ve deliberately allocated a very small allowance so it needs to be used tactically. I used it at one point to try and recover a gap after a spin - something that would’ve been pretty much race-ending. 5 seconds per shot (I believe you can manually stop the clock with a second push within the 5 secs) was also enough to set something up but not enough to make it indefensible…

I did wonder if we should disable it in Qualy though (doable I believe).
 

bullwinkle

New Member
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2014
I liked the car it was fun I am not the one to go by but its my opinion. I think it is a bit tail happy but others love that. It was fun
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
I liked the car it was fun I am not the one to go by but its my opinion. I think it is a bit tail happy but others love that. It was fun
Thanks. This is why we need feedback!

Try increasing the diff settings and pushing the bias forward a bit - see if a that helps - explanation further down!

There’s always a risk that development will just favour the developers‘ taste - and I prefer and can live with more oversteer than many. I also run a DD wheel and can perhaps feel more feedback.

An earlier, abortive, iteration of the car (where I tried to fix all of the things that were ‘wrong’ with the original - aero, suspension geometry, tyres, fuel-tank c-of-g… - ended up being far from the intended goal of an accessible (but tuneable) league car and DeeCee persuaded me to restart with a clean(ish) piece of paper.

For me, the car in default setup (which wasn’t just thrown together) exhibits initial understeer that you need to plan for. Once you’ve pushed through that and the car starts to slide - for me thats when it comes alive and seems to adopt a ‘set’ or poise where it becomes fully adjustable by throttle, brake or steering.

For Okayama, I did personally increase both diff settings from 20% to 40% to help with both traction and stability - but gearing aside, that was the only change I made (I think - I might have pushed brake bias forward a little too). I can see that if you pile into a corner too hot with more open diff settings, more rear brake bias and are them trying to stay on the road *and* get back under traction, it might feel a little tail happy!
 

bullwinkle

New Member
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2014
thank you for help
 

DJCruicky

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Modding team
League Member
Joined
May 15, 2012
Location
England
I did notice at Okayama there was little grip on the kerbs. Not tried with other cars but felt wheels spin on them easy. Don't know if car was bottoming out on them.
 

JimmyC

Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Location
Northern California USA
Good fun! Thanks for the effort and work. It seemed very responsive to setup changes. I bumped the power diff to 40 for Okayama and fiddled with camber. Made a difference in the times and my confidence. I like all the liveries available, too.
 

Edvvc

Well-Known Member
League Member
Summer League Champion!
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Location
UK
At Okayama I assumed using auto clutch would be faster, but at Rouen I'm trying manual clutch and the additional feeling of connection to the car seems to be faster.
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
Great, thanks. I‘m quite pleased that it responds to setup changes.

There is one issue I (re)discovered over the weekend to do with aero that we initially found affected only AI cars in the very early development days. I was playing around at the Top Gear test track (Tigermoth?) and— not knowing which way the airfield track went next - did a high speed sweeping turn/drift.

The car tried to roll!

I suspect that the aero loads in yaw can reverse and create lift - and we don’t have NASCAR-style roof flaps to stall it! Pretty extreme situation but I’ll look into it at some point.

Good fun! Thanks for the effort and work. It seemed very responsive to setup changes. I bumped the power diff to 40 for Okayama and fiddled with camber. Made a difference in the times and my confidence. I like all the liveries available, too.
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
At Okayama I assumed using auto clutch would be faster, but at Rouen I'm trying manual clutch and the additional feeling of connection to the car seems to be faster.
The auto-clutch (an option in the Customize screen at the point of car choice) is something I’m not overly keen on.

It’s different (I think) to the in+game ‘auto clutch’ assist and just sets up different clutch grip and shift-speed parameters. I have a gut feeling that something between the current setting and the ‘manual’ option might make the gear shifts a little more involving without making the car a pig to drive…
 

Edvvc

Well-Known Member
League Member
Summer League Champion!
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Location
UK
What is the requirement here regarding auto clutch? Wanting to drive historic machinery like this seems at odds with a desire to have a fully automatic clutch. Is the requirement that we need to allow drivers with two pedals and paddle shifters? If so then manual clutch in both Customize screen and in-game gives a good experience in my opinion. You need to lift off the throttle on upshifts but that's how it is in real life, isn't it? On downshifts give it a blip and the car stays settled. If you map a button on the wheel to manual/auto clutch when you can use auto clutch for the start.
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
What is the requirement here regarding auto clutch? Wanting to drive historic machinery like this seems at odds with a desire to have a fully automatic clutch. Is the requirement that we need to allow drivers with two pedals and paddle shifters? If so then manual clutch in both Customize screen and in-game gives a good experience in my opinion. You need to lift off the throttle on upshifts but that's how it is in real life, isn't it? On downshifts give it a blip and the car stays settled. If you map a button on the wheel to manual/auto clutch when you can use auto clutch for the start.
We do need to differentiate between the auto-clutch assist and the ‘auto clutch’ config option for this vehicle, you can (and I do) drive two-pedalled with the assist off (but I do have double hand+clutches for starts).

I’ll have a look at the Config and work out what the car-specific customisation is trying to do.
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
Just checked the config file.

The car specific ‘auto clutch’ customisation gives the clutch a very-high ‘baulk torque’ - which means that the clutch will not slip due to engine torque - so a gear change request will always be successful. It also sets the gear shift time/delay to a fixed interval.

the manual clutch customisation sets a much lower baulk torque - 240Nm compared to 700Nm - so if you just force a change under power, there’s a chance that the engine torque will overwhelm the clutch and it will slip. In addition, the timing becomes a little bit variable (I think) and you’ll need to lift and blip. You *can* run the auto-clutch Assist on the manual clutch customisation which probably makes it a bit more realistic and a bit less of a rev-matching lottery.

I can - of course - modify the baulk-torque settings and basic timings so that the manual-clutch is easier to engage. I can also rename the customisation to avoid confusion with the Assist!
 

cookie

Member
League Member
Joined
May 25, 2012
weird ive been using the same log in here for :p ....gosh i dont know maybe - 10 years - yep 10 years
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
weird ive been using the same log in here for :p ....gosh i dont know maybe - 10 years - yep 10 years
I know Fergy tried to fix yours some time ago but maybe didn’t try what I did. Or maybe the software was updated at some point. Dunno!
 

Myles (Mr Fox)

Server Admin
Staff member
Site Admin
Moderator
Modding team
Race Director
League Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2016
Location
Scottingland
Join us on Wednesday for the last outing for a while in the M1…;)
 
Top