Automation Airfield Power Lap Times

[strop]

I have a few ideas. Shortly after I submitted my previous attempts I found some new ways to shave seconds (as opposed to hundredths of a second) off the time. I wonder if it's the same as yours...

p.s. goes without saying though, bloody hell that's fast!!!

[Stryfe]

I would imagine it's likely the same thing I did. I was stuck around 1:11.4 for quite a while until I found a way to take off much more time.

I'll let you have the fun of playing detective

[strop]

I can tell you now though, I am still very impressed by managing to blow it all the way down to 1:08! Though I'm not done yet, my initial efforts are still falling some distance short, though through this I will reveal that I've definitely made headway and results are far more commensurate with certain analysis with with the pitch and bump charts...

[OCAdam]

So I have a new competitor for both this track and the automation track... and it's ugly as all sin. But it produces downforce about that of an LMP... I think. If not, I need more lips! It's just simply called the 2014 Time Attack Barrage B2.

[Stryfe]

I wasn't feeling super great yesterday and took the day off of work. I ended up sitting and working on that car for probably 4 hours to get it down to that time. That's not including the engine which was mostly done the night before.

I'm looking forward to having time to try applying what I learned to some other body shells to see if there's a better choice

[strop]

@OCAdam: LOL yes that's hilarious. How about if I told you that you didn't have to make it so blatantly lippy in order to raise the effective aero to over 2.4m...

@Stryfe: I was also playing around with ultra-downforce configurations... there is a certain optimum downforce for each track, though (obviously). It will take quite a lot of time to find!

[Stryfe]

I've really only built cars designed for the Airfield track so far. I should probably take a crack at the Automation Test Track as well, it would probably be a good way to learn more about setting up the car. With that long straight I'm assuming less downforce and more top speed would be needed but I'm only guessing. As you said, there's a certain optimum downforce for the track but it also varies depending on how much horsepower you have. The more power you have the more downforce, and therefore drag, your car can support.

[strop]

Indeed that's the principle I'm exploring now. Though I'm used to simulations where I'm not given specific units, only a slider and some vague arbitrary quantitative measurement, whereupon I simply take a guess and whack the car around a track to see how it feels. This is a rather different game, though, as the driving is all done through systematic algorithms.

Since we're on topic then, care to throw a bone? I'm not so proud (or time rich, really) that I won't ask for a hint. I'd be interested to see what you can find for the Automation Test track, since I can tell you now I've a car with a time not yet submitted that is significantly quicker than all previously posted (but I think it can improve, pending tests with a different frame), so I can tell you that the optimum downforce for that track would be quite a lot lower in general (I find if your car hits 300-320 on the long straight and coming out of the slingshot you may be in the ballpark), whereas the top speed for the Airfield is closer to 240-260 (if even that?)

For example, the engine for my Reborn Genesis Time Attack develops 794kw (I always tune engines for high end power). It weighs about 845kg (the frame is small and won't fit a giant 10.9L engine in it). It seems that the optimum downforce for such a car lies somewhere in between 500-700kg @ 200km/h, but any more and the time starts slowing down because I lose too much top end speed. Yet even with all that I'm still more than a second off that crazy 1:08 time! Supposing I were to try using a 1210kg car that develops 1175kw though... however I seem to have messed up the balance between front and rear downforce, which I'm assuming makes quite the difference. And one thing I'm not sure of, is if placement of the downforce fixtures matter, or whether lips automatically contribute to front downforce, and wings the rear...

Ultimately I'm less interested in taking the crown as I am seeing the ultimate time attack machine being built. Once that's done, I feel like at least I can stop obsessing over it a bit and start designing more aesthetic works

---

p.s. aha, back in the game! I'll finish this round of tuning sometime in the next 24 hours and then maybe we can consider sharing notes then.

p.p.s. disregard what I said about the comparative downforce between the tracks. Perhaps that's only because I wasn't working with enough sufficient downforce to begin with. I honestly don't know. You'll see what I mean when you see the times I've just submitted: they were done with a model of exactly the same tune (including a rather short top speed!).

[OCAdam]

Lips and wings contribute to F/R DF depending where they are located. It's why you see my Barrage covered in both. It created over 1800lb of DF with 1300+HP in a car weighing under 2400 lbs. Also... it only hits about 260km/h and still took the top time on the ATT. Honestly I think I could go faster with MORE downforce than that. In essence I am going for extraordinary downforce to improve corner speeds to a point where top speed has no matter. I also went with a car body that allowed massive tires (305 and beyond).

[strop]

I tentatively agree, though still don't quite understand what the downforce sliders specifically pertain to. I had an inkling of an idea that the fastest car around the track was the one that could go around the entire track at the same speed i.e. top speed, but that would probably be beyond the practical limits of what's available. Of course you're welcome to try... after all I'll hint that my newest models generate nearly 2600lbs of DF at 200km/h with 1600hp. But I'll also reveal that my car doesn't APPEAR to be covered in fixtures... methinks it's an exploit in the game's system.

Maybe later, once the newest times are up, I'll show you what I mean.

[OCAdam]

I'm going to guess you simply layered a bunch of the lips inside of each other. I only didn't do that because I was just trying to cover up the fact that my car has no front end at all. All the lips ARE the front end because of that massive hole otherwise (yay cooling?).

[strop]

oh my god xD hahahahahahaha

That's gold.

Yeah no with regards to engine, I just found that there's no replacement for displacement, so the saying goes. Just how much does weight distribution matter when you've got more downforce than the Hand of God and more rigidity than a parking infringement officer? And the best thing about a giant NA engine is all the power for only a fraction of those prohibitively high cooling requirements! Thus I've been able to keep the styling a little more, er, discreet? Guess that's not quite the word, but you know what I mean

[Stryfe]

I'm not convinced that the location of wings and lips has any affect on the front/rear downforce balance. I suspect they only add to a value for the total downforce available and the balance is controlled by the two sliders. That said I haven't tested it by putting a lip on the front, testing it, and then removing the front lip and putting one on the rear on an otherwise identical car to verify that claim.

Here's something some may or may not have noticed. The slider labeled downforce in the aero section controls just the downforce provided by the underbody. If you don't have the underbody downforce part equipped that slider has no affect what so ever.

[Stryfe]

I'm an avid Formula 1 fan and I'm enjoying that this development race is a lot like what happens during a F1 season. The teams all try to develop their car faster than one another but end up having done very similar things by the time the season is over because they've learned from watching each other and in the end there's just what works and what doesn't

[Reaper392]

I'm not convinced that the location of wings and lips has any affect on the front/rear downforce balance. I suspect they only add to a value for the total downforce available and the balance is controlled by the two sliders. That said I haven't tested it by putting a lip on the front, testing it, and then removing the front lip and putting one on the rear on an otherwise identical car to verify that claim.

Here's something some may or may not have noticed. The slider labeled downforce in the aero section controls just the downforce provided by the underbody. If you don't have the underbody downforce part equipped that slider has no affect what so ever.

I don't know about this build since I cant get to the information without digging through the lua files, but I know that in previous builds the downforce did have separate effects on front and rear, depending on where you put what wings. Also, you are almost correct about the undertray. The slider has an effect on all three of the modified undertrays, but obviously the effect is most noticeable with the downforce undertray