Slower than expected car??

[Moosemedford]

I’m observing a pattern in my latest career. I’m at that point where I’ve completed dirt, truck and xfinity - working on the Cup series. I’m running two teams this season - one in xfinity (farming cash) and one in Cup (spending cash).

My Xfinity car is 100/100/100. I have 9 crew members, all +10 in their speciality. I have 5 cars in my garage and most races I enter 100/100/100.

I am playing on “normal” difficulty. Driving aids is set to “custom” with slightly less assistance than the normal setting. I do have the AI set to lose tire traction faster than me. My car setup is the “suggested” setup with the slider halfway between “tight” and “loose”. I use the multiple stages setting. I’m playing 50% length with 2x wear. I’m using a PS4 controller.

In qualifying, I am unable to get better than mid to high teens. Race starts, and for the first 4-6 laps,I simply hold my position. As tire wear sets in, the AI cars slow down. I move up the pack, typically I’m in 1st or 2nd when the first stage ends. Hit the pits, start stage 2 up front. During the first 2 laps in stage 2, I fall back ~10 spots - the AI cars are much faster than me as soon as we exit the first turn. I spend the first few laps trying not to get ran into the wall by different “drafting buddies”. During laps 3-8, I hold position, and then from that point through the end of the stage slowly move up the field. Wash/rinse/repeat for the final stage. Typically finish the race in 1st with about a half lap lead over second. Most of the field is lapped, many multiple times.

When I complete races, my “speed rating” is typically about 92 - I think my high is 97.

I’d love to turn off the increased tire wear on the AI cars, and bump up the difficulty. But why is it that my 100/100/100 car is literally blown away in the first few laps by the AI cars?? Is it necessary to grind through hours of setup to get a fast car? I would rate my driving skill as fairly good in that I seem to run nice clean laps. Is it that I’m playing with a controller and not a wheel? (Yes, I’ve calibrated my controller)

I would have thought that going down a straight on an early lap in a 100/100/100 car that I wouldn’t have any issues keeping up with the top 5 cars. Typically by the end that first part of each stage (where I transition from losing ground to at least holding position) I’ve fallen approximately 10 seconds behind the leader. Just doesn’t seem normal to me. Trying to figure out how to normalize the “yo-yo” effect.

Sorry for such a long post.

[CaptainNebulous]

To achieve the best speed you need to turn off all assists, except for automatic transmission.... and learn how to actually drive. Assists generally always = slower. Don't worry though because driving without assists is quite easy in this game.

[Moosemedford]

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate the feedback.

Makes sense - last night I spent about 90 minutes working on my car setup for a particular track. Got the wheel camber correct so that the front tires were actually heating evenly. Played around with different gear ratios, car height, etc. The net result being a batter handling car with much better tire wear. But all that effort only shaved a nudge (about 0.2 seconds) off my lap time. Upped the difficulty to “hard” just to see net effect. I qualify - get 29th. Same pattern as before - at the start of each phase, the AI cars are as fast or faster than my 100/100/100 car. After about 6 laps, I’m slowly gaining ground. After stage 1, I was 8th. Then 3rd after stage 2. Won the race by a half lap.

I’ll do some practice laps with current assists levels versus none as you suggest, see how it comes out.

I do find it amusing that at the start of the 3rd and final stage I’m out front (gained 2 spots pitting) in a 100/100/100 car on fresh tires and when the light goes green it’s all that I can do for the first 5 laps or so to keep from getting crashed out because AI cars are passing me so fast. About half the field passed me before tire wear set in and I started working my way back to the front.

Thanks for giving me a different idea to pursue.

[Vlad Tepes]

I agree with CaptainNebuous. This is one of the first things I remember learning in NR2003. If you want to go fast, turn off all assists.. they keep you safe, but slow you down.
I do agree, however, that the game has a tendency to make the AI cars "faster" when they first start... It seems to be an AI thing I remember even back in NR2003 days...

[CaptainNebulous]

Originally posted by Moosealbany:

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate the feedback.

Makes sense - last night I spent about 90 minutes working on my car setup for a particular track. Got the wheel camber correct so that the front tires were actually heating evenly. Played around with different gear ratios, car height, etc. The net result being a batter handling car with much better tire wear. But all that effort only shaved a nudge (about 0.2 seconds) off my lap time. Upped the difficulty to “hard” just to see net effect. I qualify - get 29th. Same pattern as before - at the start of each phase, the AI cars are as fast or faster than my 100/100/100 car. After about 6 laps, I’m slowly gaining ground. After stage 1, I was 8th. Then 3rd after stage 2. Won the race by a half lap.

I’ll do some practice laps with current assists levels versus none as you suggest, see how it comes out.

I do find it amusing that at the start of the 3rd and final stage I’m out front (gained 2 spots pitting) in a 100/100/100 car on fresh tires and when the light goes green it’s all that I can do for the first 5 laps or so to keep from getting crashed out because AI cars are passing me so fast. About half the field passed me before tire wear set in and I started working my way back to the front.

Thanks for giving me a different idea to pursue.

Just remember... the assists are partially counteracting anything you are doing that isn't necessarily "easy to control" to make the car go faster. Depending on the assist, the following effects may occur

- Car is automatically slowed beyond natural tendencies depending on how much you are turning the wheel, assists generally like to have a sort of "sweet spot" where not enough or too much for the assist results in it slowing your car down to get back within a certain thresh hold

- Handling is effected, usually resulting in understeer (because it is assumed that new players have a harder time controlling over-steer or even neutral handling)

- Automatic braking or even ABS

- Throttle control, particularly in the turns, preventing you from having full throttle control

- Speed sensitive steering (aka the game slows down the steering input more, the faster you are going)

- Controlled wheel spin.... sounds nice right? Well you actually need to utilize wheel spin, in a sense

- Unseen changes to aero characteristics (for example the game may add more rear downforce to prevent oversteer, factors into the whole understeer thing)

... and more

Now I don't know exactly what they do in this game, since I keep them off.... but these are good examples of why you may be slower with assists turned on.

[Moosemedford]

@ CapNeb - I appreciate the advice. Just completed a race, all assists off, hard AI difficulty.

Took the "default setup" and moved it a few clicks to the right. So that it was more "tight" than "loose" but only a nudge. Then ran about 20 practice laps to get the camber & tire pressures correct. That took about 0.2 seconds per lap off my average lap time. Then turned off assists and ran another 10 or so practice laps. That by itself took another 0.5 seconds off my lap time.

So that was definitely part of the problem. Though I will say that on that setting if I came out of the pits with fresh tires, and another car came out with me - that car would just walk away from me for 4-5 laps, though not nearly as badly as before. Maybe there are some more savings I can find in the setup - but certainly turning off all assists speeds the car up quite a bit.

[Vlad Tepes]

This is all good stuff! Interesting.
So far, I have found that at each track, I simply do the custom setup, hit X to get recommended settings, drag the slider all the way to the right, then back off one.. so I'm almost all the way to the loose.. minus one "click", and I can drive this way without issues.. and be fairly competitive. To me this is still too tight lol..