968 GT3

Due to the current economic crisis, Volkswagen decided to withdraw sponsorship of the 968 GT3 team.
But don't despair, we found a replacement in ever rich Switzerland:

Tomte wrote:Due to the current economic crisis, Volkswagen decided to withdraw sponsorship of the 968 GT3 team.
But don't despair, we found a replacement in ever rich Switzerland:

Hah hah hah!

i love it.
its cold - burn the rich

happy cheeese,
alphonse

Ok, it was time that Bubbles got a little friend. Or a big brother.
Please welcome 'Holes'

Porsche 968 v1.3

I only brushed up the textures (again), getting the hang of that now.
No changes to the physics and no additional variation of the base car.

With the upcoming GT3 tournament, my lead driver (Don) requests more speed for the 968.

I'm in a dilemma here. I'm aware that the 968 is very easy to drive, making it more approachable for the not so perfect drivers.
The suspension works afully well, it corners pretty decent too. All it lacks is some power.
Now, as Dandy pointed out, the 968 will get eaten alive on every straight, and he's right. I just thought that this could be balanced with good cornering and roadholding.

So, if I would make the 968 faster, would it have an unfair advantage over the rest of the GT3 cars?
I certainly don't want that, especially as the 968 GT3 is based on fiction and a 15 year old GT race project. I just wanted to give the turbo RS a new live, as it is quite alone out there in the Redline world.

There would be several ways to make the 968 GT3 a tad quicker:

• more power: with currently 400 hp it's definitely the bottom end. I know the engine is good for 500 hp given the right boost, but that would be overkill. I'd be more thinking of 420-430 hp (lower than the 997)
  
• lower FrontalAirResistance: for now, it has the second lowest FAR, only beaten by the 997. Lowering that to below 997 values seems wrong, given that the stock 997 has a better cW than the stock 968. But then again, the 997 has a larger frontal cross section. Still, the 968 would need more wings to get the same downforce, hence more drag.
  
• change gearbox to custom specs. For now, I'm employing the standard 968 turbo RS gearbox with the shorter final drive form the CS model. A switch to sequential would also bring an improvement in shift time (currently 0.4s)
  

Now, if I make the 968 faster, I should also make it more difficult to drive... but I already tried that, lowering suspension travel, reducing loadsensitivity to -0.01 and -0.02. This didn't really make it harder to drive.

I'd really appreciate all comments regarding this, be it further ideas for development, leave it as it is or "bad luck, you saw it coming".

Oha,

i was expecting discussions on GT3 cars and their performance coming up.
We had a discussion yesterday in a GT3 race.

The Corvette and the Lamborghini are way faster than the 968 on straights. If the driver is capable of holding it on track without accident, these two cars are unbeatable on straight tracks. As soon as you come with curves or elevation, things change slightly.

I had quite some GT3 races and won many races with the current 968, due to constance (no crashes) and being on gas earlier than others because its just beautifully eating curves.
I think the GT3 cars should not all be the same, this would get boring. And i know you out there feel that way too.

When Val or leo is behind me in a lambo i whish the 968 had some more speed, as they catch up in no time on straights. Therefore some more power would be nice. But i fear the 968 will be unbeatable after.

My suggestion is to leave it as it is, as the advantages (handling, curves, elevation, rain) do already balance out the disadvantage of less topspeed.

Racers may decide if they want a car easy in handling or a fast car harder in handling.
(Obviously the top-shots will use the fast car and not have problems in handling - so the 968 wont be able to win, most probably).

alf

Just to get things straight, I am NOT bragging here, k?

While doing some GT3 MP races I was up against some well known players. Most of them were in Lamborghinis, and I still won with the 968. Of course, I only won once, but the fact that I could beat anybody with the 968, I think it would be too fast compared to the other cars if you made it any faster.

So anyway, I say leave it as is.

After months, I could not drive the corvette in MP yesterday as I had the Dev version of it. So I ran the 968 all day and found myself saying "why am I not driving this instead?" If it gets more than about 10bhp, with improved acceleration, or top end it becomes very hard to beat, and I'd probably switch to it.

It's really fun to drive hard into corners, harder than I could consistantly push the vette and get away with. Not getting sideways or going off can make up for a lack of top speed loss, and the gearing seems to work out nicely on most tracks. Noticed it was about perfect for Donington, Monaco, and Black Forest. Whereas 6th in the Corvette (which I believe is the fastest car now) is about useless even on Spa's long straights.

Toad, you should still be able to drive the current plug-in version - the dev version is -DEV and the other one isn't.

As for the 968's performance, if it's competitive now to the poorer handling cars (the Z06.R especially, though I really don't like driving the Lambo and 997), what happens when those cars get updated? I certainly intend to make the Z06.R handle better this week, and minor changes to the Mustang (I think it's a bit bouncy right now).

another month, another update.
v1.4 sports new skins for the GT3, made by Brook and T5 (thanks guys!), no changes to the physics.

Porsche 968 Pack v1.4