Feedback on the URD Mod

[David O'Reilly]

I have made a couple of posts in the poll thread but having edited them into one place and added a conclusion to post it in URDs feedback thread felt it was worth making a thread for discussion.

URD Mod Feedback.
I have written two pieces in the Race Department forums regarding this mod. I will post them here by way of feedback.
Please understand that I am trying to be very objective and don't set out to cause unneccessary upset.


Comments before Testing:

The subtleties of beating another driver on tyre/fuel strategy can only happen with a first class tyre model. Its where someone goes as fast as they can and nukes their tyres, or goes light on fuel for the best lap time but forgets the issues with crashes and lapping traffic. And someone else manages it all with a set-up that's not so tyre hungry, a fuel load that optimises tyre performance across a stint.

In testing last season (for Endurance racing 6-12 hour races in ISI Nissan GTR1) with set-up alone we reduced the lap time delta across a 100 litre fuel stint from 4 sec to .5 sec due to (less) tyre wear. We ran 100 litre fuel stints and beat faster teams who went the other way.

My point is that none of that beautiful engineering/strategy depth stuff happens if you can sprint all stint on your tyres. It becomes a long sprint.
I plan to get the free URD Corvette and run a long stint tyre comparison at Bahrain vs the ISI Corvette. I'll optimise the set-ups and run a tank of fuel at race pace and check tyre wear figures and lap time delta across the stint.
Maybe then Ill have some data and can stop guessing and surmising. Hope to have news soon.
in the meantime can anyone point me to a link to download the free Corvette? Thanks
edit: I found it and downloading now


Test Results and some conclusions:

OK I threatened to do some testing, mindful of the old saying that "a man with an opinion and no data to support it just is a man with an opinion.
"Objective:
To verify if there is any significant variance in the performace/durability/sensitivity of the tyre models used in the URD (Chevrolet Corvette) Mod and the iSI Vette.
Methodology:
From time to time I do a little bit of base setup testing at Nazareth Speedway. I like it because it has 5 turns in a 27 sec lap and so I can test a 5 lap run on a setup change very quickly. You are pretty much turning all the time and you can immediately feel the cars response to setup changes. Its a very simple lap and personal performance doesnt vary much. Its a 1 mile skid pan in this sense. You can feel it and see for example a .5 sec improvement if its there without wondering too much "did I just drive better that lap?"
Its also brutal on the RHF tyre.
So I figured I can destroy 3 sets of tyres and get some consistent data without making a career out of it.
So I set up both cars for optimum lap time there. Loaded 50 litres of fuel and ran 40 laps as hard and fast as I could.
I used a Motec tool and wrote down lap times and tyre wear at 5 lap intervals.
If say that lap clearly had an error I used "data smoothing" and extrapolated from the laps surrounding it.
Results:
Best lap time: Nothing in it. The Endurance tyre is not noticeably slower.
URD Endurance 27.295
URD Sprint 27.464
ISI Vette 27.416.
Lap time delta across 40 laps.
URD Endurance 0.7 sec
URD Sprint 1.036 sec
ISI Vette 0.4 sec. (only ran to lap 28 as tyres were nuked, times would have dropped hugley by lap 40 if they lasted that long).
Tyre wear (RHS Front only) is markedly greater on the ISI Vette. At lap 30 its 29% left vs 62% and 63.5% for the URD tyres.
The URD End tyre keeps appr a 2% advantage in remaining wear over the URD Sprint tyre.
Tyre wear other: Its a brutal test so you ask would it hold true with less stress?The pattern stayed the same with the other 3 tyres.
Rears on URD car. 95% Sprint, 96% and 97% Endurance. after 40 laps.
Rears on ISI 82% and 91% (but only after 28 laps not 40.
Left front: URD 89%
ISI 89.52% (28 laps only).
Tyre Temps: behaved differently too. The URD tyres plateued more, whereas the ISI tyre temps kept rising. For example if we compare at lap 20 the the coolest temp achieved that lap for the hardest working part, the centre of the hardest working tyre the Front Right. The ISI tyre was 147 deg. The URD Endurance 126, Sprint 121. Peak temps were higher too.
Conclusions: The ISI car requires much more tyre management. With 70% wear at 30 laps vs 36.5% (URD End) Its tyres wear out approx 80-90% faster. In a less brutal environment there may have been a bigger difference between the two URD tyres who knows. The rear tyre data does not suggest it.

Even on such simple track the cars feel quite different in personality. I wont go into it (se below) # but when you are curious go and do 10 laps in each.
Thanks all for reading.
The data is available in XL format if you want to see it. see link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l30qm1djsvzbs6g/Tyre Testing Corvette.xls

Further Thoughts after a second test at Bahrain.

In the spirit of exploration I want to report that I've now driven the URD Corvette and the "Darche".
As Gijs says above club races are for fun and learning about the sim. I do however have to report that I have serious reservations about the URD mods suitability/standard for league races.

It is indeed a pretty looking mod with a nice cockpit and well done to URD for having the skill and courage to enter the payware area. I hope they do well and I have paid my 9.90 euro. But....
My concerns are:

Tyre wear. as I have written above following my testing I believe that the tyre wear is so low as to inhibit strategic choice. IE Full tank of fuel and drive flat out till it's empty is the only strategy. Tyre management is denuded significantly if not totally.
Physics: I don't want to be negative but the Darche (911) suffers hugely from too much rear grip. The only way to lose the car is understeer. If you can point the nose where you want to go the rear will follow. The rear end is glued to the road and feels only very slightly better than the Apex Modding 911 and IMO is worse thean the BES GTE mod. The BES 1.0 mod we used for Bathurst is far superior.
I did 20 laps and lap after lap I increased the softness/grip at the front and reduced rear grip till everything was maxed (for grip at front and minimised at rear) (Springs/ARB/Shocks) still I could only just provoke a rear end slide with drastic moves. And that was with NO ABS or TCS.


Feel: This bit is of course very subjective there is just very little going on in the lap with the car, it feels dead/lifeless. It is just flat on the throttle with no risk of over-steer from apex to braking point, get the fronts to hook up and flatten it again.
Sanity check: I was wondering if I was being too hard on it so loaded the the BES 1.0 car and did some laps immediately afterwards. I was smiling within two corners. It was a car. Made me work very accurately everywhere but had so much more feel that it made it fine. I was 1.0 sec faster but man I had to drive. I loved it.
Please try what I did and drive them back to back. Tell me where I'm wrong.For me the URD is easier than hotlapping in Time trial mode in Codies F1. Too easy, too predictable, too consistent.

Conclusions:
My concern is really that some big things RF2 does better than RF1 is
a)Tyre Model, b)Real road and c)weather.
If we take away tyres it seems regressive. I'm a passionate RD member and try to put a lot into Leagues/Club events so I'm worried that we might pick a dud.
Please don't construe this as rant I just wanted my say and I know its just my view. Enlighten me please.
Respectfully (yes I paid for it too).
David

Paste of my previous RD posts ends.

Final Conclusions:

As mentioned above my concern is really that some of the big things RF2 does better than RF1 are:

a)Tyre Model,

b)Real road and

c)Weather.

If we take away tyre model it seems regressive.

If the tyre model is too durable/forgiving we lose that aspect of RF2.Tyres are so much part of the depth of RF2. Any compromise on tyre wear (ie not enough wear or too robust a tyre model) would in my view diminish the challenge in so far as endurance racing is concerned.

Further the majority of Real roads benefits are gone too. IE Too much grip all of the time negates real road. It becomes like hot-lapping in an almost constant grip environment reminiscent of say Codemasters F1 Time Trial. Fine for a while but I don't want 12 hours of it!


Physics and feel.

# from above

I will elaborate here having now done tests back to back Corvette vs ISI Corvette @ Nazareth and Darche vs BES 1.0 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR at Bahrain

There is just so much more going on under you with the other non URD mods. The car is moving around on its tyres and suspension. Grip is moving from front to rear as you load up each end with brakes or throttle and this is evident from FFB and on screen. Throttle steering has an immediate impact on the cars line, too much and you can oversteer on exit necessitating a little counter-steering . Braking wise if you are not in a straight line when braking hard in the 911 the rear will threaten to step out. The car is alive., laden with character, the centre of gravity evident. The limits of adhesion easily reachable and have to be managed. In the URD car there is just not much to do for much of the lap. I also rode on-board last night in the URD Viper. The driver was on full throttle on tight corner exits well before straightening up the car. Not do-able in real life.


Bottom Line

• Way too much grip.
  
  
• Not enough tyre wear.
  
  
• Not enough feel.
  
  
• Equals a false sense of security and less depth in Endurance Racing.

My view and only my view. I haven't set out to offend anyone. Its just my views.


At its current state of development the URD mod is a dumbing down of RF2 capabilities and below the standard if the ISI cars as well as some FOC mods by some way. Work on 1)tyre model and 2) physics is needed to bring it up to standard. Maybe the tyre model work will achieve some of part 2? I don't know that's outside of my knowledge base.


It can serve as a fun entry level car to get new drivers involved in multi-player in the Club Racing scene in sprint races but the danger is that it ('s physics)equates to doing a whole lot of mileage with all assists maxed out. This results in the need to relearn how to drive later.

In my view its better to learn in lower powered cars that react correctly (eg Skippy, Mazda Miata to name two) and drop assists A.S.A.P. If URD can address these issues and give us great physics and tyre model then the player has the chance to decide to use assists or not as their personal learning curve progresses.


However:Having said all of this its not carved in stone anywhere that anyone has to enjoy the full engineering depth of RF2. If painting a car and getting on track and having some fun is what you want then its an easy entry point.


I better stop writing now before I bore anyone.

Peace out.



The writer:
Has been racing consoles and sims since 97.
Been with RD since 2010 starting with Codemasters F1 on Xbox.
Got involved with RF1 and RF2 over the past 2 years.
Race at a mid pack level in RD League races and occasional podium in Club Races. So capable but not alien.
P3 in 2013 VWEC
In real life have raced high performance GT cars of front mid and rear engined type and up to 500hp on track in timed Club Sprint events as well as Endurance Karting. So over 500 laps real life experience.
Oh and Porsche and Ferrari salesman for 7 years.

 

[Ben Goymer]

*Awaits ISI forum catching fire*

In all seriousness I want to like this mod but something about the way the cars drive seem a bit too on-rails for me.

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

*Awaits ISI forum catching fire*

In all seriousness I want to like this mod but something about the way the cars drive seem a bit too on-rails for me.

The same for me and I mentioned it a bit, but not in a way like David. All hell will break loose and people start with things: "Yes, cars do have grip and no driving on ice bla bla"
But to be serious. The URD cars beat the Lola B12/60 on first acceleration out of slow corners and at the moment the Lola is even a bit quicker than real world.

At Bahrain they have the same top speed as real GTE cars, but I already saw laptimes 1 seconds faster than qualy and I bet the times were on high fuel and the realroad waant super grippy. The ISI Corvette was very close with the times to the real thing.

Especially T9 and T10 the downhill left is so challanging in every car I drove in Bahrain, that includes F1 Mods, FR35, ISI Corvette and the Lola.
I watched WEC and F1 sessions running there and even the best drivers in the world struggle with the car in that corner. In a URD car no problem, no locking just dont use 100% brakes done...

 

[yusupov]

this was the defense of the URD mod on the forums that i read, & being in no way a setup guy myself, i just believed it: the default setups are just (not quoting anyone here, paraphrasing) very safe, not built for speed. meanwhile rf2 baseline setups typically are just...weird.

the very first thing i noticed about URD was i couldnt lose a car. just couldnt. only one other poster, afaik, made that complaint, but he was told as above. 'if its so on rails & easy, do x time at sebring' was another retort echoed a couple times, going off memory. it sounds like im trying to make out the defenders as bullies or something, im not -- these were just the defenses i can recall from other customers. no conspiracy or anything, although it did seem a bit arrogant to me as well when, baseline, the cars are just ridiculously stable. i would def. imagine some simple setup tweaks were suggested there, but i dont recall them.

i did spend a few minutes once trying to mimic the URD darche to iracings RUF baseline & ran it on mid ohio; it was indeed a radical change but the car then felt easily too loose. again, not knowing setups, & different sims having different absolute values, etc, i would say without doubt i did a horrible job of imitation. but its certainly possible to lose the back end, at least. ;D


thanks for this test! im quite happy to have the mod, but i like shiny things, & bc the general consensus is so overwhelmingly positive, ive assumed that, not having messed around with it much myself ir2 setups, or done any endurance racing (or even runs), i'm simply the one who doesn't get it & would just need to research a bit. this may well be true; hopefully a league that makes heavy use of it can post their thoughts. but its nice to hear a challenge to consensus opinion. the tire wear analysis is very interesting, for sure, seems something is obviously wrong there.

i would really recommend, provided you don't mind catching flak (and if you haven't already) simply posting this to the URD thread on the ISI forums. i imagine some will roll their eyes but hopefully ales will post, and there will be some good feedback from other users.

 

[David O'Reilly]

this was the defense of the URD mod on the forums that i read, & being in no way a setup guy myself, i just believed it: the default setups are just (not quoting anyone here, paraphrasing) very safe, not built for speed. meanwhile rf2 baseline setups typically are just...weird.

the very first thing i noticed about URD was i couldnt lose a car. just couldnt. only one other poster, afaik, made that complaint, but he was told as above. 'if its so on rails & easy, do x time at sebring' was another retort echoed a couple times, going off memory. it sounds like im trying to make out the defenders as bullies or something, im not -- these were just the defenses i can recall from other customers. no conspiracy or anything, although it did seem a bit arrogant to me as well when, baseline, the cars are just ridiculously stable. i would def. imagine some simple setup tweaks were suggested there, but i dont recall them.

i did spend a few minutes once trying to mimic the URD darche to iracings RUF baseline & ran it on mid ohio; it was indeed a radical change but the car then felt easily too loose. again, not knowing setups, & different sims having different absolute values, etc, i would say without doubt i did a horrible job of imitation. but its certainly possible to lose the back end, at least. ;D


thanks for this test! im quite happy to have the mod, but i like shiny things, & bc the general consensus is so overwhelmingly positive, ive assumed that, not having messed around with it much myself ir2 setups, or done any endurance racing (or even runs), i'm simply the one who doesn't get it & would just need to research a bit. this may well be true; hopefully a league that makes heavy use of it can post their thoughts. but its nice to hear a challenge to consensus opinion. the tire wear analysis is very interesting, for sure, seems something is obviously wrong there.

i would really recommend, provided you don't mind catching flak (and if you haven't already) simply posting this to the URD thread on the ISI forums. i imagine some will roll their eyes but hopefully ales will post, and there will be some good feedback from other users.

Yep posted in full on the ISI site.
It does seem I'm in the minority. But so agree with the on rails thing.

 

[RaceNut]

I agree that the URD cars generally feel like they have more grip than the ISI cars but, I haven't run any long races to judge the longer term tire behavior.

 

[Frank]

Nice writing David.

I personally like the URD mod more then the BES mod. The URD cars feel a bit too grippy, but so do the cars in the BES mod, and in the BES mod you can correct impossible slides with your throttle in a too easy way.

However, for league racing it is always a sensitive point to use modded cars, they will never be to the standards of original content, especially in physics.
For the URD mod however, as far as I know, it is still in beta, so that might improve.
What I do like about the BES mod for leagues would be that the cars are extremely balanced.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Nice writing David.

I personally like the URD mod more then the BES mod. The URD cars feel a bit too grippy, but so do the cars in the BES mod, and in the BES mod you can correct impossible slides with your throttle in a too easy way.

However, for league racing it is always a sensitive point to use modded cars, they will never be to the standards of original content, especially in physics.
For the URD mod however, as far as I know, it is still in beta, so that might improve.
What I do like about the BES mod for leagues would be that the cars are extremely balanced.

Thanks for your feedback Frank.
In the last few days I have been driving the Spec Miata and the Ferrari Challenge both at Putnam park and they have thrilled me (again) with how alive they feel under you. I just dont get that feeling at all in URD. They just feel flat under me.

So its tempting to say that while u can recover a slide in BES at least they slide in the first place. Lots of ppl slid off the track in Bathurst and laguna Seca so maybe its not so easy?

It will be very interesting to hopefully have another race soon where we use BES and LMP1 as a comparator to the Bahrain race and an LMP1, ISI GT1 and GT2 race.

Well I guess at least we have choices these days, not so long ago ppl where bemoaning the lack of cars.

Cheers.

 

[Frank]

The miata and the Ferrari are amazing yes, they are a class apart. I love how you really have to drive the miata and how rewarding it gets when you get the hang of it.

 

[Damian Baldi]

I didn't tried URD yet, but I have read about more grip on biuld 770 than in 660. Could someone confirm this?

 

[David O'Reilly]

I didn't tried URD yet, but I have read about more grip on biuld 770 than in 660. Could someone confirm this?

I cant I'm sorry as have only driven the URD mod on 770.
Other cars dont have increased grip IMO.

 

[David O'Reilly]

A little follow up on the URD and the Darche in particular.
I was quite harsh on the Darche (not poetic on purpose) and one of my real disappointments is that with a 911 IRL the engine and gearbox sit way back over the rear axle and very low.
It gives a unique feeling, lots of rear grip on throttle but a pendulum if you brake when not perpendicular or have wheel turn.
My benchmark is the BES 1.0 911 997. Its great.

Well armed with my new toy the carstat 2 I looked into some files.
The real 2009 911 GT3 RS has a weight distribution of 38.5/61.5 front/rear. Its correct it is the real car after all. It was improved slightly in the GT3 RSR by moving some things fwd including an auxiliary oil tank, battery and power steering stuff..
The BES 1.0 is 41/59 very close. A full fuel tank and you are there. Centre of gravity .275 metres
The "Darche" 44/56. Centre of gravity .31 metres
The Ferrucio 44/56. Centre of gravity .31 metres
Spot the difference?
So the Darche has the same weight distribution of a mid engine Ferrari and C of G.
Take a look at one and see . One has an engine sitting quite high one very low.

Now I am chastened somewhat after 4 rounds of the VSC2 and some great racing by teams using the URD Mod.
But how about it URD, what about putting that lovely flat 6 engine low and in the back? It might turn it into a 911 and I might love it!

 

[lgel]

I agree with you the BES Porsche is much more like you would think a Porsche would drive, but one is a GT3 less grippy than the GTE in real life too. I love driving the BES version, but in modern Spa it still catches an invisible wall in eau rouge. URD mod suffers from wrong temperatures control for motor and brakes across the board. I hope that after a league season the revised version will be improved.

The URD Porsche with min, or close to, rear wing settings, a good front end, and differential settings is not so bad.

For a pay mod I think they wanted to make the cars accessible to a wide range of players, following the critics of driving on ice (C6R GT2 initial, with cold tires on green track).

I think cars should have two version of physics (or tires) one easy, the other realistic to cater all driving skills.

Have fun racing.