Playing Le Mans Ultimate online can be a great sim racing experience – there are two things to keep an eye on that might otherwise hold you back, however.
Le Mans Ultimate has hit Early Access in late February, and its online mode has proven popular since. The Race Control system first tested in rFactor 2 provides players with Daily and Weekly Races, as well as Special Events. The Daily events look to provide an even playing field, with setups usually being fixed.
That means that for these races, you simply need to show up, click ‘drive’ and compete, right? In theory, yes – but despite setups being fixed, there are two key things that you should keep an eye on and that LMU does not tell you about.
After the release of Patch 1 for the game, I streamed Le Mans Ultimate online, taking on some of the daily races. Two were alternating at this point, those being LMP2 Fixed at Monza, and GTE Fixed at Sebring. It was the former that was up first, which should have been a decent starting point – most sim racers could probably do Monza in their sleep.
And yet, I qualified a lowly 15th out of 19 cars. Now, I am certainly no alien, but this seemed a tad low to me – but hey, could be that a bunch of very fast people raced at that time, too. However, what made me really think was how I could not keep up with other cars in a straight line, despite being in their draft (which must have been down to them getting better exits, as it turned out).
It was the following GTE race when it finally clicked, though. Going through the MFD pages, I noticed that my Porsche 911 RSR-19 GTE had its engine mode set to ‘Race Lean’ by default, so I cranked that up. This raised a suspicion – was this also the case in the LMP2?
Long story short: Make sure to switch your engine mode up from the slowest mode. Ideally, this should also get changed in a future update so the cars start in a more appropriate engine mode by default in the future.
And normally, LMU overfills the tank by quite a margin. You will not need a full stint’s worth of fuel to compete in a 16-minute Weekly Race, and even less for qualifying. So, to find out how much you want to be carrying, simply drive a few practice laps and check the average fuel consumption in the MFD.
Once you know your lap average (after adjusting your engine mode, of course), you can then calculate how much fuel you will need for the race based on lap times and the race length. Make sure to put in one or two more laps worth of fuel to account for an unexpected extra lap should you be faster than anticipated, though.
How has your Le Mans Ultimate online experience been so far? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
Le Mans Ultimate has hit Early Access in late February, and its online mode has proven popular since. The Race Control system first tested in rFactor 2 provides players with Daily and Weekly Races, as well as Special Events. The Daily events look to provide an even playing field, with setups usually being fixed.
That means that for these races, you simply need to show up, click ‘drive’ and compete, right? In theory, yes – but despite setups being fixed, there are two key things that you should keep an eye on and that LMU does not tell you about.
Le Mans Ultimate Online: Engine Mode
UPDATE: After checking and testing things again, it does seem that engine maps indeed do not have an effect in the LMP2 at this point. The experience described below was a combination of a stronger grid in the first race and some good ol' placebo, too. Still, making it a habit to check this setting is a good idea so you are on top of things once the engine maps actually do have an effect on the car.After the release of Patch 1 for the game, I streamed Le Mans Ultimate online, taking on some of the daily races. Two were alternating at this point, those being LMP2 Fixed at Monza, and GTE Fixed at Sebring. It was the former that was up first, which should have been a decent starting point – most sim racers could probably do Monza in their sleep.
And yet, I qualified a lowly 15th out of 19 cars. Now, I am certainly no alien, but this seemed a tad low to me – but hey, could be that a bunch of very fast people raced at that time, too. However, what made me really think was how I could not keep up with other cars in a straight line, despite being in their draft (which must have been down to them getting better exits, as it turned out).
It was the following GTE race when it finally clicked, though. Going through the MFD pages, I noticed that my Porsche 911 RSR-19 GTE had its engine mode set to ‘Race Lean’ by default, so I cranked that up. This raised a suspicion – was this also the case in the LMP2?
"Slow Mode" By Default
So, back to Monza it was, and sure enough, the engine mode was set to ‘Safety Car’. That certainly explained things – and the Oreca 07 only features two engine modes, the other being ‘Race’.Long story short: Make sure to switch your engine mode up from the slowest mode. Ideally, this should also get changed in a future update so the cars start in a more appropriate engine mode by default in the future.
Le Mans Ultimate Online: Fuel Load
Aside from the in-car adjustments, Fixed Setup races mean that everyone should start the race with the exact same car parameters. That is not quite the case, however. At least in the races I tried, it was possible to adjust your car’s fuel load.And normally, LMU overfills the tank by quite a margin. You will not need a full stint’s worth of fuel to compete in a 16-minute Weekly Race, and even less for qualifying. So, to find out how much you want to be carrying, simply drive a few practice laps and check the average fuel consumption in the MFD.
Once you know your lap average (after adjusting your engine mode, of course), you can then calculate how much fuel you will need for the race based on lap times and the race length. Make sure to put in one or two more laps worth of fuel to account for an unexpected extra lap should you be faster than anticipated, though.
How has your Le Mans Ultimate online experience been so far? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
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