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RELEASED-wip Mercedes-Benz W125 0.79

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mantasisg

Active Member
Did some testing. And decided that tire is fine, laptimes are good, car is on point, and it is quite managable over the limit, so I don't know whats the problem, am I driving it too well or what, I don't know. I'll just pretend that others can drive too.

The only thing which I am thinking about to "improve" would be slightly more rear wheels cooling. Few degrees cooler rears will help quite a bit to provide a bit more confidence. In general I use teperatures to control the limit of a car, so I can't make the tires to be "green" all the time, otherwise it will be just way too fast, or I will have redesign whole tire again, which no one will like anyway just me, and I'll just waste lots of time, and make myself less happy by making something that I believe less.
 

mantasisg

Active Member
mantasisg updated Mercedes-Benz W125 with a new update entry:

Small update

-Few small texture and material improvements;
-Little bit more fuel tank capacity, and slightly less fuel consumption;
-Small tweaks for tires. They should feel tiny bit less edgy now, but those who terribly sucked at driving this car before, will probably still suffer badly, I can't help you.


^^^One way to hit an apex with W125. In case you wonder, I survived this and it wasn't so hard. But I don't recommend to powerslide a lot.
Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Kondor999

New Member
I went back and tried 0.777. Suddenly I can drive it very well again. I've since done a bit of detective work to figure out what happened, because it's literally night and day vs when I tried 0.777 last night.

The issue I was having wasn't really due to the tires (though they are certainly less tolerant of big slip angles than in 0.5, which you've convinced me is likely the proper choice), but rather due to the rear wheels locking under braking. I have a Thrustmaster TSXW wheel, and on that system you have to recalibrate the brakes every time you reboot (or unplug the wheel).

What was happening was that I hadn't done this (after yet another unwanted Windows update), leading to an excessively-sensitive brake pedal that caused the rears of the W125 to lock up suddenly under any sort of trail-braking. The effect was subtle because I was driving at night, with the sound down very low and therefore I didn't hear the rears locking at all! The result was that the car would step out the rear far too much on corner entry, and that was especially unforgiving on the new tires. But it was totally my fault, and with my brakes re-set, I quickly adapted my style to suit the new tires.

Today, I found myself driving 0.777 just like 0.5 (in fact, I was a bit quicker - the tires seemed to have a bit more maximum grip), but without the lurid slip angles you were talking about. I agree that I have never seen an in-period video of anyone drifting one of these grand prix cars! As you said, the most I've seen is a quick "wiggle" on corner exit (along with big handfuls of steering correction to keep it all locked down).

Bottom line: I stand corrected and I again appreciate your willingness to both engage and also dig into the source material to "get it right". Next time, I think I will check my equipment more thoroughly before I say anything. That having been said, I'm looking forward to trying the 0.79 update to see if it's a bit more forgiving of the occasional error ;)
 

mantasisg

Active Member
Thank you, I am all hoping people will love things i do as much as I love it, even though I know that my prefered "realism style" is a bit sharper, more challenging than it is usual.

It is a bit strange that you had rear wheels locking, it shouldn't really happen, or at least be rather gentle. I don't even use heel and toe with this car, just downshifting. What tracks do you drive ?

Your issue reminds me a period when I had some messed up setting in content manager which resulted in my steering and game steering degrees mismatching, and it took way too long for me to notice, I just though that I was very bad with new steering wheel :D So many online races I have lost then...

0.79 should be more forgiving, but not forgiving in general. You should be able to abuse the tires a bit, but I wouldn't do that for lap after lap the whole time. By the way, full fuel tank should give the car more traction.
 

Kondor999

New Member
I was testing using Donington 2018, and the spot that gave me the most trouble was corner #4 (The Old Hairpin). My usual technique here is to trail-brake a bit into the corner to keep my momentum up as I clip the apex. But my rears were locking up under the combination of trail-braking and lateral G's, so by the time I reached the apex, the car was far too sideways to recover with the steering lock available - leading to a spin.

I love these cars because they really punish bad habits. After driving one, you can hop into almost anything else and find that you're quicker than before. In that respect, they are great training cars.
 

Kondor999

New Member
Sorry to double-post, but you might not see it otherwise. On the 0.79 car, did max grip from the tires change at all?

Or am I just more tempted to over-drive the car now that it's a bit more forgiving - resulting in slower lap times?
 

mantasisg

Active Member
Yes, I actually reduced the grip a bit, as I noticed tjhat I was driving with touch too low pressures, and it appeared like 1psi more of pressure gave more than a second of laptime (tested at Deutchlandring), and then it was too fast, so I had to reduce the grip slightly. It did a bit to make more predictable car, but of course speeds naturally drops a little.
 

Ace Pumpkin

New Member
I also didn't drive a lot, I was quite busy with some other projects and stuff. But when I checked in Deutschland Ring they were within a second of pace, I also saw few videos on youtube where a guy did a lap with each at Classic Spa and there it also was within a second. So I suppose they quite match already. But needs more testing, I believe AutoUnion could be overdriven more and would be bit faster, even though the rear end geometry is not forgiving.

I am looking forward to get more fun with those cars in AC. I would also revisit few tire parameters, but I am sure that I would stick to the logic that tires shouldn't skate all the time, but rather drop-off later and harder.
Not representative at all:

the two @ Sergio Loro’s Roskilde where almost 2 seconds apart I favor to the Mercs.
Would be great to see you, Mantas, and Gary try to somehow bop these beauties....

cheers, and all the best!
 

mantasisg

Active Member
@Ace Pumpkin I hate those three letters "bop", I don't want to have anything with them. Especially in context of classic cars.

I haven't done a lot of comparing, but in most tracks the cars should be rather close I guess, and probably in some Merc. should be faster, in some - A.U.. Your Rosklide test isn't the most representative.

@Kondor999 Nice. Thats quite a big yaw angle right there, glad to know you survived :D
 

mantasisg

Active Member
Would it be possible to get a skin template for this car?
Hi, I hope so. I should look at it some time soon, I hope I won't forget it. I honestly don't remember how it is maped, I hope it would be usable. I would love to see few skins, they have always been very minimal in real life, still the details makes big differences.
 

RadarRider

New Member
Hi, just raced this car and it is great, one of my favorite car mods for sure. But I have a problem..when racing on any track the AI goes to pits one lap before last. Has anybody had the same issue?
 

mantasisg

Active Member
I could take a look into files of a car. How many laps of the race ? Whats the track. Maybe it could be a track related issue ?
 

RadarRider

New Member
I could take a look into files of a car. How many laps of the race ? Whats the track. Maybe it could be a track related issue ?
Thx for the reply. 3-6 laps, but no matter how many laps, the lap before last, they all pit on all tracks I tested on (some mods, some kunos originals). Turning fuel consumption and tyre wear off fixes the problem. All my testing was done in quick race mode, maybe that's the problem. I will try a full race weekend
 

JyriK

New Member
I hope mantasisg keeps on developing this beauty of a mod!

I must admit I don't quite like the current grip levels though. Power control aside it feels like there's black ice on the track evewhere (I usually use "Fast" track condition). From what I've read of pre-war GP-racing, the issue was not grip per se (relatively speaking, again power control aside), but if you drove on the limit the tires lasted only 2-3 laps on an average circuit. I took the liberty of tweaking the tires so that the DY and DX_REF values matched those of Kunos' Maseratis, and added Combined_Factor 2.3 to them (traction circle less circular). The result was a still very challenging car, but something one could truly race with. I also copied the throttle.lut, so throttle response was less linear, giving more control on lower throttle levels. Next I should figure out how to make the tires more "fragile", I suppose.

For suspension I'd suggest making a fake De Dion tube with a 5th link. The reason is that without a transverse link in AC, the rear roll center wonders about making the front end wobbly. This is the problem with Kunos' Maseratis, and can be avoided. It is suggested that one pair of parallel links is combined into one, to avoid any binding issues (so it still actually is a 4-link). In general straight-line stablity on an even surface wasn't an issue (early models of Auto Union exempted).

Anyway, if you think the current grip levels are correct, who am I really to argue until I drive the real thing, and understand perfectly how to present it in a simulator, which happens like never.
 
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JyriK

New Member
FYI, after modding the rear suspension myself, I set the DY and DX_Refs to 1.19 (lower than the Maseratis), testing at Donington 1938, with track state set to "old" (89%), I got within 0.4 seconds of the pole time of 1937 GP. Perhaps too much grip now, although most of my attempts lead to a crash...
 

mantasisg

Active Member
Thx for the reply. 3-6 laps, but no matter how many laps, the lap before last, they all pit on all tracks I tested on (some mods, some kunos originals). Turning fuel consumption and tyre wear off fixes the problem. All my testing was done in quick race mode, maybe that's the problem. I will try a full race weekend
I will look at it at some time, but currently I am just so busy. Perhaps it also could be related to AI default setup. Afaik there is some way in AC to force AI to use same setup as player.

I hope mantasisg keeps on developing this beauty of a mod!

I must admit I don't quite like the current grip levels though. Power control aside it feels like there's black ice on the track evewhere (I usually use "Fast" track condition). From what I've read of pre-war GP-racing, the issue was not grip per se (relatively speaking, again power control aside), but if you drove on the limit the tires lasted only 2-3 laps on an average circuit. I took the liberty of tweaking the tires so that the DY and DX_REF values matched those of Kunos' Maseratis, and added Combined_Factor 2.3 to them (traction circle less circular). The result was a still very challenging car, but something one could truly race with. I also copied the throttle.lut, so throttle response was less linear, giving more control on lower throttle levels. Next I should figure out how to make the tires more "fragile", I suppose.

For suspension I'd suggest making a fake De Dion tube with a 5th link. The reason is that without a transverse link in AC, the rear roll center wonders about making the front end wobbly. This is the problem with Kunos' Maseratis, and can be avoided. It is suggested that one pair of parallel links is combined into one, to avoid any binding issues (so it still actually is a 4-link). In general straight-line stablity on an even surface wasn't an issue (early models of Auto Union exempted).

Anyway, if you think the current grip levels are correct, who am I really to argue until I drive the real thing, and understand perfectly how to present it in a simulator, which happens like never.
I don't remember now how it is exactly as I drove it long time ago, basically when I updated it. But I remember I was in fact giving it more base grip, so it would be less like on ice, however indeed I was increasign wear, I also made sliding less benefitial by itself. You simply have to drive it more conservatively, and less dorifto, later sliding everywhere at 200km/h velocity.

I will not comment Kunos maserati tires as I drove it long time ago, I am also by no means absolutely certain about basically anyhting in existance in this universe.

If I remebmer exactly these tires should have lasted 2-3laps in Nordschleife. But that also may have been if driven very on the limit, but rationaly not fantasy 170-200km/h+ sideways everywhere.

These tires used lots of cotton belts and natural rubber, they overheated easily with fast drivign plus that level of power which was insane, I think they very rarely used all of it.

Kunos maserati is from late 50s IIRIC, tires has begun to rapidly advance exactly at that time.

I don't know much about its suspension, it is mostly work of aphidgod, I just allowed myself to "ruin" the tires.

The grip levels shall be correct as thats what determines pace of any racing car, I don't remember but I think I was doing close to real life laptimes. You might be concerned about composition of grip. How sliding interacts with static friction, how fast, whats the amplitude of friction switch, whats the effect of load sensitivity, temperatures, wear.... I need to drive it again some day, but I remember I tried to make it in a way that sliding would be not as exploitable, and drivers should put effort to avoid excessive sliding both for control and tire wear matters.

I know I use not standard grip composition, as by default in Kunos world cars has relatively lowish static grip, and highish sliding grip, which makes them more skateable. I tried soem different approach. I understand it may now fly too well in world of AC, but I have my own perceptions, they are welcome to be challenged, I don't assume that these tires are trully right. I actually handle tires parametrization better in rF2.
 

JyriK

New Member
The problem is slow speed grip. In retrospect, increasing DYX Refs is not the best way to fix it, but there are other parameters, most importantly lookup tables for load sensitivity -- for more slow speed grip and less mid speed grip (basically correcting what's wrong with Kunos tires).

RF2's over laborious tire model is the biggest deterrent for physics modders. Good luck with that.
 
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