Post by fab. ICEMAN on Feb 24, 2018 9:59:17 GMT
Guides And Tips...
With Project CARS 2 being a full racing simulation, there are hundred ways of setting up you car and millions of combinations between it. This thread should give you a basic overview of the different values and help you getting started with the setups. One thing straight forward: Tuning your car is not as difficult as you think! But first a few important things before we get to the setups.
...About Your Car And Your Driving
Force Feedback (PC only)
I assume you're driving with a wheel - if not - don't worry, you can still be fast with a controller, but having a wheel makes things easier for you and together with the right Force Feedback you will be able to 'feel' the car. This is very very important in order to be consistent and fast. You should feel absolutely comfortable with your FFB settings. The ingame FFB is not the best, but you can download FFB-files to get a really good feeling of your car.
> Jack Spade Custom FFB Files (if you don't want to register to download the files click here)
How to use:
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}
1. Unpack/copy all files into "My Documents/Project CARS 2" folder.
2. Delete the SMS default "ffb_custom_settings" file. (Note, the game automatically creates a new file if none is detected at game start)
3. Activate - relabel your selected one to "ffb_custom_settings".
4. Start the game and select Custom on the FFB flavor menu.
2. Delete the SMS default "ffb_custom_settings" file. (Note, the game automatically creates a new file if none is detected at game start)
3. Activate - relabel your selected one to "ffb_custom_settings".
4. Start the game and select Custom on the FFB flavor menu.
Wheel Rotation (900° or less?)
This is a topic where opinions differ a lot. I still want to mention it, because I think some people may benefit from it.
Nowadays all racing wheels support full 900° wheel rotation. That means you can turn your wheel one and a half times to the left and also one and a half times to the right. But no one can turn it that far without lifting your hands off the wheel. Do you want to lift off your hands and crank the wheel from one side to the other? I don't want to.
I want to be able to turn it as far as I can with two hands on the wheel. Every rotation that comes after that position is useless to me. That's why I set my rotation to 360° instead of 900. With two hands can turn it easily 180° in each direction and still feel comfortable doing that. The benefits are huge to me:
- When my car is spinning out I have much better control of counter-steering actions. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable in situations where my car is loosing traction. In theory I should be 2.5 times quicker on the counter-steer.
- I know and feel the maximum steering angle (I have a soft-lock on my wheel). If you spun and face wrong direction you wanna turn your car as quickly as possible. Also on tight city tracks just like Monaco I feel a lot more agile around the corners.
The downsides? I don't know if that's even a downside, but when you quickly turn your wheel to maximum steering angle while driving, it might overreact a little bit. Talking about the last 330 to 360° in my case. But that's not really a problem for me, I got used to that in no time and I prefer reaching maximum steering angle quickly over not reaching it at all.
Just try it out - you need to find a way where you are feeling comfortable. You can also do a lot with adjusting the steering ratio in the tuning setup. But take your time with setting all this up: It's absolutely crucial to find your ideal way with the steering as your whole driving depends on it.
How to set-up:
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Option 1:
1. Open the Logitech Gaming Software (or similar software for Thrustmaster and other manufacturers) on Windows
2. Go to your global wheel settings and adjust steering rotation/angle to your liking (I have 360°)
3. Make sure you don't have any game-profiles activated or set up the rotation for every profile
4. Launch Project CARS 2 and calibrate your wheel (hint: If you set it to 360° it should display "360" on the first step where you need to hold the wheel at 90°)
Option 2:
1. Leave your wheel at 900°, launch Project CARS 2 and to the calibrate wheel options
2. When calibrating, only turn your wheel 360° on the second step
1. Open the Logitech Gaming Software (or similar software for Thrustmaster and other manufacturers) on Windows
2. Go to your global wheel settings and adjust steering rotation/angle to your liking (I have 360°)
3. Make sure you don't have any game-profiles activated or set up the rotation for every profile
4. Launch Project CARS 2 and calibrate your wheel (hint: If you set it to 360° it should display "360" on the first step where you need to hold the wheel at 90°)
Option 2:
1. Leave your wheel at 900°, launch Project CARS 2 and to the calibrate wheel options
2. When calibrating, only turn your wheel 360° on the second step
Physical Brake Resistance
This tip comes from our beloved member @pezby
All somewhat-up-to-date wheels come with a physical brake resistance (in most cases there is some sort of rubber in your brake), which is very good, because you need that! If you don't have such resistance, just like the G27 (your brake pedal feels the same like your gas pedal), it is greatly recommended to build one yourself.
The reason behind this is pretty clear: Without a resistance it's hard to judge if you're braking with 50 or 75%, but that something you wanna know without constantly looking on ingame brake display. Back in the day where I had my old wheel, @pezby suggested me to put a Squash Ball behind my brakes. I did and the result was amazing. Finally I could now get an idea on how hard I was braking and starting to learn the technique of trail-braking.
If you don't have a Squash Ball at home - it doesn't matter. Find a piece of rubber, foam or anything that is soft. Put it behind your brakes and test it out. You wanna need to use quite some pressure to get to 100% - so that in most cases you're braking with 70 to 90%.
Feb 28, 2018 13:46:02 GMT @pezby said:
Just to add...The squash ball is to add resistance to your brake pedal. Its there to simulate a load cell brake pedal if you cant afford one as they are quite expensive.
If you are going to use foam, watch this to get an idea of the kind of foam you will need. Foam Brake Mod. Same principle no matter what pedal set you have. The squash ball is still the best option as they are quite firm and give good brake feedback.
If you're even thinking of upgrading your wheel and pedals, definitely get a pedal set with a load cell brake before a wheel.
You will get more benefit from a quality pedal set than a wheel.
Learning How To Drive
This might sound a bit blatant, but learning how to drive is still the key factor in this game. Get to know your limits and the limits of the car in every corner of the track first. Especially when you're still new to the game. No setup on earth will help you if you don't know the right racing lines. And you can be fast with default setups! Just take a look at Clucks World Records in the Time-Trial. 95% of his records were driven in default setups, so don't tell me you're slower because you have the wrong setup.
I have not found a decent tutorial or explanation on how to improve your driving (if you find some, post them here!), but the best thing you can probably do is practice. Practice, practice and practice. You're a human being, you're able to learn and that is what your brain does during practice. Experiment with different lines, speeds and corner approaches and you will get better with every minute spent on track. Drive with people that are faster than you and learn from them. Compare sector times and find out where you loose time. Your driving is what matters the most, so you should be focusing on that 90% of time you play the game.
Different Weather/Track Conditions
You want to practice for an event so you set up a lobby with the exact same date and weather options, because it will be 100% identical with the actual race lobby, right? Wrong! First off, Project CARS 2 uses a whole new weather system called Livetrack 3.0 which is completely dynamic. Read this from Yorkie:
- Track and Ambient Temperatures
- Wind Speed and Direction
- Track Saturation (Wet weather): The amount of wetness/dampness on/of the track.
- Track Water Levels (Wet weather): The amount of standing water on the track.
All of the above, can be different each time you create a new session to practice in or whatever, even when it comes to using exactly the same Time of Day, Time Progression, Date, Weather Setting and Weather Progression. So don't be surprised when you do a practice session and manage X lap times, then do another practice session with exactly the same settings yet you're doing Y lap times. Everything is effected by the weather, with more cloud cover resulting in cooler track temps, and localized cloud cover keeping certain parts of the track cooler than others.
- Wind Speed and Direction
- Track Saturation (Wet weather): The amount of wetness/dampness on/of the track.
- Track Water Levels (Wet weather): The amount of standing water on the track.
All of the above, can be different each time you create a new session to practice in or whatever, even when it comes to using exactly the same Time of Day, Time Progression, Date, Weather Setting and Weather Progression. So don't be surprised when you do a practice session and manage X lap times, then do another practice session with exactly the same settings yet you're doing Y lap times. Everything is effected by the weather, with more cloud cover resulting in cooler track temps, and localized cloud cover keeping certain parts of the track cooler than others.
Second off, keep in mind that with every lap you drive on track you will leave rubber on the surface, multiplied by the cars on track. Racing with 30 people will get you more grip than practicing alone. I haven't found anything official about this yet, but I've experienced it myself and also heard it from other people. It seems to be a feature as well as dirty air is (driving behind a car will make you loose downforce).
So the best what you can do in order to practice for an event is hosting the session several times and simulate your opponents with bots. Especially when you practice race stints - the best you can do is jumping straight into a offline race against bots. I've experienced it so many times that I tuned my car in a solo session and when I used that in a simulated race with bots it was complete garbage. Try it out, you'll be surprised how much different your car will feel!
Crew Chief
Long story short: Get Crew Chief. It's a tool you don't wanna miss during your race. He tells you important information's about the race, your opponents, your tire/brake/damage-status and comes with a pretty precise spotter.
> Crew Chief
...About Tuning Setups
Setup Guides
Now you wanna know what's behind all of those tuning settings. The problem is, there is no specific PCARS setup guideline or whatsoever. The good thing is, it's a simulation so all the principles from real life AND other racing sims work the same. Searching for guides I found a couple of decent ones originally made for other games, but you can copy them 1:1 for PCARS:
> rFactor Garage Setup Guide
> Assetto Corsa Car Setup Guide
These two guides are very complementary and give you a really good overview. Take your time reading through these and take notes. It's a lot of stuff and you might need to come back and study it again.
If you need something simpler, take a look at the picture below (it's originally made for PCARS 1, but again: Principles work the same). But it's still advised that you go through the guides above to get an idea on how those settings work.
Video Guides
This playlist one is from Yorkie, he is a developer from the SMS team, so all the information you get out of his videos is straight from the game. They are quite long, but definitely useful:
> The Insider's Guide to Project CARS 2
The second playlist is from PCARS 1 and only with text explanations, but it's still very helpful:
> Setup guides from Dyr_gl PSN
Tire Temperature, Pressure and Wear
Tire Temperature
This is probably the most important thing. Either too cold or too hot, you will start to loose heavily grip, so keeping your tires in the optimal window is what you're looking for. The temps in this window are:
Hard Slicks | 90° to 100° C. |
Soft Slicks | 70° to 85° C. |
Road Cars | 80° to 90° (Softs) - Lower temps on hards |
from Pirelli
Temperature Distribution
With the use of camber your tire heat will build up different on the inside or outside. Those differences are pretty normal, but in general, 5° to 10° C difference between inside and outside should be the window you're looking for. The difference between front and rear tires should not be higher than 25° C.
Tire Pressure
The Pressure plays quite a big role in this game and is influenced by the cold pressure (the value you set while tuning), the brake temperature (hot brakes heat up your tires and expand the air in it) and the way you drive your car. The values listed below always refer to 'hot pressure', that means you've driven a few laps and the tire is well warmed up. But first a statement from Casey Ringley (Developer from SMS):
Run whatever feels/works best for you. The carcass construction of our GT tires, in particular, has the contact patch pressure distribution mostly flat around 1.9 Bar (28 PSI). A little over and you stiffen things to gain some sharpness but maybe lose a little contact patch area. A little under and it might feel a bit softer/grippier but you start to get extra rolling resistance from the flex. There isn't really a wrong answer in maybe a 3-4 PSI (0.2-0.3 Bar) bracket around those targets except one that doesn't suit your driving style.
These are his rough targets (hot pressure!) for the main tire groups: Source
| ||
Formula Cars | Front: 1.7 Bar (24 PSI) Rear: 1.45 Bar (21 PSI) | The Dallara IR-12 oval tires like up to 3.1 Bar (45 PSI) on the right side. |
Modern GT & LMP | ~1.8 Bar (26 PSI) front and rear | Maybe down to 1.6 Bar for a very slow track like Long Beach or higher to 1.90-1.95 Bar at Le Mans to squeeze a little bit more off the rolling resistance. |
Touring Cars & V8 Supercar | 2.0-2.15 Bar (29-31 PSI) front and rear | |
Ford Fusion | 2.4-2.6 Bar (35-38 PSI) front and rear | Ovals might go to 3.0 Bar+ (45-50 PSI) on the right side. |
Light Sportscars (Radical, BAC, KTM, etc.) | ~1.6 Bar (24 PSI) front and rear | |
Road Cars | 2.1-2.2 Bar (29-32 PSI) front and rear | |
Vintage GT | ~1.8 Bar (26 PSI) front and rear | Roughly the same range as modern GT. |
Vintage Group 6 & Formula | 1.7 Bar (25 PSI) front and rear | Bit more flexible here. Something in the 1.7 Bar (25 PSI) range is usually a good starting point up to 2.0 Bar (29 PSI) or down to 1.2 Bar (17 PSI) to adjust for balance on something wild like the Lotus 72D. |
A Word About Tire Wear
Yorkie made an interesting post about how your driving style influences the tire wear:
Also the lines that you're trying to take through a corner play a big part in the load build up and how much you cook a tyre through a corner. If you adjust your line to open up the entry a bit more, and bleed the speed through the corner and then accelerate with less of the turn to complete and with shallower steering angle, you're going to put less load on the tyre when comparing to trying to hug the inside all the way through and accelerating out hard.
Suspension Calculator
This is more of a advanced tool to help you with your setups, but it's extremely powerful. The calculator is based on a excel where you can try out different springs/damper combinations. What you receive are values and diagrams where you can see if your car is balanced or not, if it tends to oversteer or understeer. Figuring out how to use the calculator might be a bit tricky, as Jussi is not explaining everything in detail. I might come back and add a proper explanation on how to use it.
> Jussi's Suspension Calculator
Gear Ratio Calculator
Haven't used it by myself yet, but it seems like a very useful tool as well. With this calculator you can make sure that your gears are spread out evenly and are adjusted to the needs of the track.
> Gear Ratio Calculator
Calculate The Optimal Shift Points
coming soon - check this for now forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?55865-Calculate-the-optimal-shift-points
That's it for now, if you have more useful links or stories or whatever, post them here and I will include them! See you on track guys.