Car guide, pretty please

[Luiz Silveira]

I only recently got into RBR, and have just made a post on reddit with my first impressions.

The thing is: I'm still getting a migraine every time I need to choose a car to run. More than once I've spend 20+ minutes trying to figure them out and eventually just gave up driving the session altogether.

I mean. After getting reacquainted with the FIA group divisions in the past 30 years I have an idea about why the groups are grouped like that, but a lot of pieces are missing in the puzzle (difference between A7 and A7k, anyone?). I tried to find this info everywhere, no avail.

Lastly, I'd be thrilled if someone with a lot of experience could do a rundown of the car choices. Where should I start? Which are the easiest to drive? What are the main/most important groups, and which are the best cars in them? What's supposed to be the difference between their handling, which are fastest, what should dictate my choice?

It also doesn't help that some official Rallyesim champs seem to accept every single group (or almost). So there are people running for 30 parallel classifications and cups and trophies, which not only makes it very hard to understand but - imho - makes it a bit lame to have so many classifications with 2 or 3 people competing against each other whilst there are 150 people in the rally altogether.

Thanks a bunch for any piece of information you throw at me. I'm desperate.

Cheers!

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

I'm sure my co-mod (co-driver?) in here @Roy Magnes will give you a very good answer.

I'm not a big expert on anything 'below' N4, so I won't comment on that, however, I really liked you reddit post, nice to see some relatively old games getting some attention there as well
Hope to see you in our rallies sometime as well, might not always be the biggest ones, but very often you'll end up in a good fight, and everyone is in the same class and/or car!

- Pinky

 

[Roy Magnes]

@luizsilveira

The WRC cars are the newest and fastest cars of the lot. Group A8 are the preceding category to the WRC, with less power and less traction than the WRC's.

Group N4 is the older "untuned" category, with even less power than the WRC and A8.
The R4 are essentially N4 cars with more power.
S2000 is lighter in weight, and somewhat similar in power to the N4/R4, but these cars have a naturally aspirated engine as compared to the turbo engines on the above.
RRC are like the S2000, but with a turbocharger and a smaller volume on the engine.
The new R5 category are really RRC's with better aero and more power.

Of these cars, the N4 are propably the easiest ones to learn 4WD with, as they are slower than the rest, but with enough power to make it interesting, aswell as you'll learn how to use the racing lines to be more efficient through the corners compared to throwing the car sideways everywhere. A handy lesson to bring as you progress up to more powerful machinery.

The 2WD's are more difficult to keep track of, with some classes crossing into each other.

R1 is the most basic 2WD class in rallying today, with a small engine and very limited setup options. These are usually the easiest cars to learn the trade in, as the slower pace is easier to follow, aswell as it makes it easier to learn how to use the racing lines to your advantage, as any sliding loose you time because of the lack of power.

R2 are a bit more powerful than R1, and a bit more open on the setups. But it is still quite limited.
R3 are even more powerful, and some of these cars also use a turbocharger as opposed to the naturally aspirated engines in the R1 and R2. This increases the power a lot, but also induce more wheelspin.

The older classes follow a different hierarchy.
As a general rule, these classes was divided by engine size, degree of tuning to engine, brakes, and chassis.
A7 is 2,0 litre engine, the A7K is the heavier modified version of these cars. (the A7K are the famous Kit Cars that ran alongside WRC in the late 90's wth their screaming NA engines, really fantastic machines on tarmac!)

A6 is 1,6 litre engines, A6K is the more modified version. The A6K are also known as Super 1600, and were the cars used for the JWRC in the early 2000's.

A5 are (max) 1,4 lirte engines, A5K are the more modified version.

N3, N2 and N1 do follow the line of the R3, R2 and R1 where the N3 are the fastest, most powerful cars of the lot, and the N1 are the slowest, most basic cars. The N3/N2/N1 cars have all NA engines, and are good for learning 2WD as a beginner. Plus they are fun to throw around the stages for fun regardless of driver level.

Most (all?) of the above 2WD cars are FWD, as that is the most common way of doing 2WD in our days.
For driving RWD cars you have to look at the VHC or the Group H classes, where there are different classical rallycars usually with big engines, rear wheel drive, and lots and lots of sideways action.
The RWD cars in RSRBR do not have any handbrake, as the RWD is not a feature in the original game. There will be a mod that corrects this for 2015, with early testing available in the NGP_1 category.

The Group B class consitst some of the most hairy and wild rally cars of all time, with the power and speed being the key rather than drivability and safety.

The only classes I don't know that mutch about is the F2000 ones, but it seems to me to be some kind of nationally homologated cars, somewhat based on engine sizes as the N3/N2/N1 classes.

I hope this clarifies most of your questions. If there are more you want to know, just shout

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Just to add a tiny tiny bit more.

The A7K - cars, Kit Cars, did have Traction Control in real life, that's not available in the game, so while it is possible, it is much harder to beat the 4WD cars.

NGP_1 category, also features some other cars than only RWD, as the physics-update might also change the way all the other cars drive as well. I think it's a bit to slippery, but the power-output seems more correct in the NGP_1 - however, again, this is just a BETA-test category!

 

[Luiz Silveira]

Wow, fantastic response! Thank you very much. So it is almost as complicated as I thought, but this helps a lot

Two small questions:

1) Would you have any tips regarding specific cars within the groups? Or how they compare to each other? No need to be extensive of course. Also, is there any info about this out there? It seems odd to me that there is a lot of info out there about other sims, but regarding RSRBR I can't find (for example) what people think about how the Skoda Fabia S2000 Evo2 compares to the Peugeot 207 S2000.

2) Why do people create some official rallies on rallyesim that literally have as many classifications as there are groups (i.e., a TON)? Wouldn't it be better competition-wise to narrow down the choices a bit?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Manuel De Samaniego]

Hello Luiz, I read your reddit post and I enjoyed it, it was nice to see the current state of RBR from a newcomer's perspective

1) Would you have any tips regarding specific cars within the groups? Or how they compare to each other? No need to be extensive of course. Also, is there any info about this out there? It seems odd to me that there is a lot of info out there about other sims, but regarding RSRBR I can't find (for example) what people think about how the Skoda Fabia S2000 Evo2 compares to the Peugeot 207 S2000.

I think the best way to see how a car compares to another (times wise) is to look at the stage records and see what cars are faster

here you can see the rallyesim best times:

http://xiv.rallyesim.com/results_best_times.asp

I think there are a few disscusions about how cars compare to each other here.

Some packs have a few cars that are similar to each other and occasionally one or two cars that aren't as fast as the other cars from the same pack, for example the Mini WRC doesn't seem to be as fast as the Fiesta WRC or the DS3 WRC which are in the same pack, I think this is trying to emulate reality where some cars aren't as good as others in their class, except from this kind of cars most packs have a balanced roster of cars and it's more for the driver to decide which one adapts better to their style, some cars seem to be more fragile than others, others have better traction, etc. If you'd like to hear a particular opinion about a certain car you can ask here and I'm sure some people will gladly tell you their views.

2) Why do people create some official rallies on rallyesim that literally have as many classifications as there are groups (i.e., a TON)? Wouldn't it be better competition-wise to narrow down the choices a bit?

If you are talking about the public session rallyes, then that depends on the allowed groups of the championship that organizes it, for example here in the RDRC we have 3 groups, RDRC, RDRC-2 and RDRC-3 and they allow the selected car packs for those groups.

If you mean the official rallyesim championships the answer is simple, they allow as many classifications as the real life counterpart of the championship allows, for example in the WRC rallyesim championship you can select a WRC car and run with it, but in the rallyesim Portuguese championship you can't select a WRC car as they aren't allowed in the real Portuguese rally championship, opinions regarding this are varied as there are some people who think that's not good for competition and there's people who like it, I think having many classifications reduces the number of competitors in each class and gives you a better chance to finish in a high possition without having to be very fast, if there were less classifications it would be more difficult to finish in a good possition, in addition some people are really extremely fast in rallyesim and to beat them would require a big ammount of practice, having many classifications allows newcomers or people who like certain cars to compete with others in the same class without facing the faster cars directly, offcourse you can always pick a fast class and pit yourself against the fastest people overall.

Cheers

BTW, the NGP plugin looks really interesting

 

[Warren Dawes]

1) Would you have any tips regarding specific cars within the groups? Or how they compare to each other? No need to be extensive of course. Also, is there any info about this out there? It seems odd to me that there is a lot of info out there about other sims, but regarding RSRBR I can't find (for example) what people think about how the Skoda Fabia S2000 Evo2 compares to the Peugeot 207 S2000.

I've been out of RSRBR for a while now, so I can't add much to the excellent info the other guys have provided here.
However, based on RSRBR2013, I wouldn't get too hung up on the theoretical variations between the cars within each group. If you read the technical specs provided in-game, some may show variations in HP, torque, weight, etc. But I think RallyeSim have deliberately tried to equalize many of these performance characteristics to keep them all competitive within a class (but not all classes, Group B cars vary a lot). So, for example, within the S2000 class, speed etc is very close. I have found that there are small variations in the handling and gearing of each car, so it can often come down to personal preferences and driving style. The best way to choose a car from, say, within the S2000 class, is to test drive it on a range of track surfaces and find your personal handling preferences.
One good thing about RBR / RSRBR, it's not just about outright speed, it's your ability to keep it clean, keep it on the best driving lines, and maintain momentum.

 

[Luiz Silveira]

Thanks a whole lot for all the answers, they were all incredibly helpful!

And thank you for the feedback regarding the reddit thread as well. I'm really glad you liked it.

Now all I need is to up my pace. A lot. I'm noticing I'm as much as 10% off pace regarding the stage records (running 5:03 at mineshaft with the s2000 Fabia for example, while the record in the class is 4:38 or something like that).

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Well, the records are rarely any goals, there are some incredible aliens out there (we've had, and still have, some in RDRC as well).