Zora's Laboratory (Vette Dev. Stuff)

This is the culmination of the past two weeks' research....

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta6.1.zip

See the read me for more info. This is sort of a test version before I go public with Beta 7, in order to avoid annoying people.

UPDATE!!!!! MY FIRST UPLOAD TO THE FTP HAD A BUG!! It's now fixed as of 2102 CET.

Okay, I just finished a disasterous test run of Beta 6.1 in Multiplayer, and someone suggested that I experiment with Tomte's take on Beta 5 again, which I did....

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta6.2.zip

Since Tomte's own spreadsheet now indicates the original dimensions were wrong, I've kept the revised ones, along with the revised moments of inertia, but what I have revived are Tomte's suspension settings (with the exception of monster 80000front/24000rear swaybars as opposed to his 25000/7500 setting), and his brake settings, which were supposed to be in Beta 6.1 anyway, but weren't because I remembered them wrong (I should have cut and pasted, I know).

The bad news is that while I like what's resulted, it feels more or less the same as Beta 6.1 to me (with Tomte's swaybars or mine), which makes me worry that Multiplayer could screw it up again. The main differences that I can spot are that the braking is smoother (which should have been true all along), that countersteer doesn't have to be as precise (although it's still demanding) and that exiting a drift smoothly requires less effort.

I hope this at least sheds some light on what's going on....

...with the Beta 6.2 should look like this....if you're as bad a driver as me....

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta6.2.redlog

This is, at least, what it looks like in Quick Race, but MP I don't know....

Today I did some rain tests on Beta 6.2 in an attempt at killing more of the squirreling it's been doing, and the result was this....

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta6.3.zip

It includes two redlogs of the testing, which you can choose whether or not to include and view.

<amped>

Who's making noise in here! Keep it down you noisy kids! Some of us need a QUIET refuge.

</amped>

i suppose this pack received too many updates so far...

DonaemouS wrote:i suppose this pack received too many updates so far...

Yeah, that's why I moved the "Infernal Beta Series" over here, to keep the Ambrosia board, and the regular Legacy FTP, from being overloaded with development crap. I figure that when I stabilize this darned thing I'll finally post a public beta on the Ambrosia board. In any case, here's my latest attempt...

Here's the result of the Multiplayer testing yesterday, mostly built while I was still playing (I was in TextEdit and Redline simultaneously :-))....

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta6.4.zip

This semi-public beta includes the following changes...

-license plates raised 20cm., something that I forgot to do when I plugged in Tomte's spreadsheet calculations

-swaybars of 80000front/60000rear, a setting that I rejected during the rain tests, but which I now am convinced is better for reducing squirreling under most race conditions

-brakes changed to 1350front/300rear in response to spinning on Imola (I think the fact that so many curves on Imola are preceded by humps in the track leads to cars spinning here when they wouldn't elsewhere.)

the problem is not where u move the pack. I think no one download this car anymore. Just look at this thread, in 2 days 4 updates. Why? For who?

Just for yourself. And what it mean? That u can just keep your updates on your hard drive, fix the car, and release a REAL new version. But I fearing this plug is already dead. Cause no one will believe anymore, there will be a final version.

Put simply and as kindly as possible, I don't think anyone wants to see you flood this forum with inconsequential posts any more than the ASW forum. Swiss Toni says: "Development is like making love to a beautiful woman: nothing to be ashamed of but most people don't want to see you do it in public."

DonaemouS wrote:the problem is not where u move the pack. I think no one download this car anymore. Just look at this thread, in 2 days 4 updates. Why? For who?

Just for yourself. And what it mean? That u can just keep your updates on your hard drive, fix the car, and release a REAL new version. But I fearing this plug is already dead. Cause no one will believe anymore, there will be a final version.

The reason I feel the need to distribute handling tweaks to a few insiders is that when I test the cars myself in Quick Race, I clearly am not getting an accurate picture of how well these cars work, or how well other people can get the hang of them. Clearly, the car needs to....

-handle somewhat similarly to the original, which many people seem to think it doesn't yet

-handle in a way that a skilled Redliner can drive it in Multiplayer without a steep learning curve

-handle with enough stability to deal with lag in Multiplayer, especially lag that doesn't effect the other cars

So far, I think these sub-betas, tested by something like four or five people so far, have been the main reason the project has gotten anywhere. They've enabled me to spot and eliminate problems to an extent that I never could solely in Quick Race during the same time period, even if I played Redline all day, which is probably not a great way to spend one's time.

Using this method, however, within four days, this car has gone from being driveable only with effort in Multiplayer, to being stable enough to win races, even on dirt (admittedly under otherwise favourable conditions). I still think it needs work, but for now I've run out of ideas for how to tweak the handling. I'll get back to graphics work over the next few days, and in the meantime, I'll post my final handling tweak for now....

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta6.5.zip

I figured the car was spinning not because the brakes were balanced wrong, as I had them as much to the front as I could without skidding straight, but because the rear wheels were making inadequate pressure with the pavement as the car's weight shifted forward. First, I put another centimeter of play in the front suspension travel, keeping the front of the car at the same level at rest by also lowering the wheel position 1cm. That gave me some improvement, but only if I adjusted the rear swaybar back to 57000, which I did. Still not satisfied with this, I took a shot in the dark and added another centimeter of travel to the rear suspension, without changing the wheel position.

My gamble seems to have worked, as now I'm getting faster lap times on every track except Watkins Glen, and with less effort. I hope that this Beta is a further improvement. I'll try to test it with some of you in the Redline community tonight (that means the night of the 31st), to see if I can put the handling issues one side and get back to completing the graphics work on this expansion, which is almost done, but not quite. For the moment, I'm just assuming it will be graphics work for a few days....

Battlewagon wrote:distribute handling tweaks to a few insiders

Personal Messages.

"feel free to register and get a screen name for a quiet and private place to converse and share ideas"

I thought:

quiet = no one teaches you what you should write or not

private = no outsider interrupts the conversation

share ideas = what Battlewagon is doing

I don't download every version he is publishing but I am also not nerved by his posts. So what?

quiet = not spewing fail.

Battlewagon, I have no more time in the forseeable future to help you with your cars.
I'm gonna start a new job tomorrow which will need all my attention.

Last set of hints:
The beta I produced a while back got you a driveable and I think believable car which only needed some tweaks. These tweaks are:
- top speed adjustment via wheels.powered (set to a sum of 1, I think I had it set to less than that) and via frontal.AirResistance. I did not have the right source for the top speed but this is so easy to adjust I didn't think it warrants a discussion.
- wheels.width was to wide for you (and I still doubt that the C2 came with tires as narrow as 170mm), your call
- acceleration control via wheels.friction and if you want maxClutchTorqueTransfer. Make sure the wheels spin at a full throttle start.

My inertia, suspension and swaybar settings should all work out or need only little adjustment as long as wheels.position and CoG are correct (the latter 2 are in the right ball park according to the latest numbers you posted).

If you need to resort to monster swaybars to get this car driveable I must say you have ruined the C2.

djpimley wrote:

Who's making noise in here! Keep it down you noisy kids! Some of us need a QUIET refuge.

lol

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Beta 7 Released!!!
September 5th, 2009.



You may now download it from Filefront:

http://www.filefront.com/14470023/63VetteBeta7.zip

or the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads Server:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta7.zip

This wasn't my plan to release this plug for the first time here, but Ambrosia's site appears to be down. As people following this project closely already know, this latest beta is the product of several weeks of fiddling to fix Beta 6, which many people felt was too slippery to be realistic. The challenge then was to produce a new beta which...

-had realistic performance numbers

-was stable

-was drivable in multiplayer

To achieve this, and somewhat controversially, apparently, I released five sub-betas between the 28th and 31st of August, at a semi-secret location used by Redline developers. Some people were annoyed that so many betas were released in such a short time, but my argument basically went that tinkering would make perfect with this car, especially since its main problem turned out to be drivability in multiplayer.

In any event, I'm now convinced that this beta is improved enough for another fully public release. It now has (from Beta 6), the following changes:

-new wheel models

-new interior model

-new body model

-changed wheels.stickiness to -0.1 due to overwhelming public demand

-introduced shiftUpRPMfix 6000.0 in accordance with the dotCar Editor's advice

-vertical CoG changed to 0.4 in accordance with original data plugged into Tomte's spreadsheet

-changed wind resistance figures to:
-0.5 front
-2.12 side
-2.81 top

-maxClutchTorqueTransfer changed to 288.06 to reflect 67.5% of gross horsepower

-front wheels.friction changed to 9

-rear wheels.friction changed to 375

-differentialLockCoefficient changed to 90

-changed front wheel y-axis position to 0.35, with suspension travel of 0.12

-changed rear wheel y-axis position to 0.38, with suspension travel of 0.16

-moved all models (including the steering wheel and license plates), exhaust sources, and light sources up 17cm. to compensate for the changed wheel positions

-brake settings changed to 1350front/300rear

-swaybars changed to 25000front/17812rear

What are the remaining issues of this beta? Partly, that's for you, the players, to decide and get back to me with. One thing that I know to be true is that the lag in multiplayer was never entirely the suspension settings anyway. In my final tests of this beta, I still experienced serious lag if more than six cars were on screen, so given the huge races we have, I might want to go back and fiddle with the model yet again, or possibly (for the first time in one of my plugs) use shadow models. I hate shadow models because of the way they make a plug more complicated, but if they could solve the (computer) performance problems with this plug, then maybe I should make some shadow models.

I hope you all enjoy this new beta, and get back to me with your further suggestions.





Here's the existing Vette Pack....

The Vette Pack, Version 1.4.1
Rereleased May 17th, 2009.

Filefront inexplicably deleted almost every redplug that I uploaded...except for oddly, the Epic Fail, so I've reuploaded everything with new links

You may download the pack from Filefront here:

http://files.filefront.com/Vette+Pack+141zip/;13769379;/fileinfo.html

or the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads server:

[url="http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/VettePack_1.4.1.zip"]http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/bat...ePack_1.4.1.zip[/url]

If you can't stand the huge size of the standard Vette Pack, I've also released a "Lite" version, that only includes the 6 most basic cars here:

http://files.filefront.com/Vette+Pack+Lite+141zip/;13769414;/fileinfo.html

or here:

[url="http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/VettePackLite_1.4.1.zip"]http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/bat...kLite_1.4.1.zip[/url]

It's personal choice, really.

Finally....if anyone is wondering what happened to the Vette Convertibles Pack, it's still available here:

http://files.filefront.com/VetteConvertibles+14zip/;13769425;/fileinfo.html

or here:

[url="http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/VetteConvertibles_1.4.zip"]http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/bat...rtibles_1.4.zip[/url]

Okay, first of all, an update...

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.1.zip

This is the current, public beta of the C2, which includes both standard and wide wheel versions of the Z06.

I was testing it with Valentin K and some other people last night, and the consensus seems to be that it could still be more stable. I know at least that the '57 R.P.O. 684, in its present WIP form, can beat the Z06 around Canyon handily, so clearly the Z06 can still be improved upon in terms of the g's it can pull, but fiddling with the swaybars has, I think, reached the limits of what it can do.

Tomte and others have long said that the C2's engine settings could be improved further, although they were talking about balancing the desire to smoke the tires with the desire to get accurate acceleration. What Val said last night was that the rear end of the current Beta was "dragging" and that he couldn't "feel the road." Hmmm.....at least with a rear wheel drive car like the Z06, my inclination is to say that this must be the engine settings more than the suspension, so I got to work testing, putting in another couple of hours building a new WIP. I've decided to pitch the wheels.friction experiments for now, however much it annoys me that I spent several days trying to refine the settings WITH wheels.friction on all of the cars in the pack that were relevant. Instead, I've gone back to the older, simpler system of limiting the clutch torque transfer, and then fine-tuned using the wheels.friction. I've also tried to raise the CoG back to where it was, since the C2 Corvettes were the only cars I've ever built that had different CoG's for the .car and the moments of inertia equation, and the combination of these two things meant that I had to redo the suspension yet again.

Now I have a WIP that's faster, at least around Canyon, and which seem to be stable, but I'm still having trouble learning how to drive it, which seems to indicate that it needs work. Surely, it needs more work, but I think it's on the right track. When it's fine-tuned, I'll post a pre-beta of sorts here and put on a push to finish it off.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Beta 8.2 Released!!!
October 1st, 2009.

You may now download it from Filefront:

http://www.filefront.com/14634643/63VetteBeta8.2.zip

or the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads Server:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.2.zip

In addtion, for RLPAU users, I've released this version, which works better with RLPAU, or rather should work better upon the next release, as deletion of the old beta will subsequently be automatic:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.2 RLPAU.zip

This is a handling upgrade for the Z06 that was originally supposed to be an adjustment of the engine settings. When I actually went into fiddling with the engine settings, drastically reducing the rear wheel friction, however, what I discovered was that I had to redo the suspension all over again. In addition, I made a point of not only improving stability, but also reducing lap times to ensure that the C2 Z06 would be faster than the 1957 R.P.O. 684, which is also faster now (with the improvements that I've made for Version 1.5 of the Vette Pack). Surprisingly, this only took me two days, including the time it took me to redo the rest of the pack based on what I had learned. The changes I made consisted of the following....

-raised y-axis center of gravity back to 0.42, as this appears to provide better stability

-changed maxClutchTorqueTransfer to 234.72 to simulate a net torque reflecting 55% of gross horsepower

-changed rear wheel friction to 92 on standard Z06, to 10 on the wide wheel

-changed frontAirResistance back to 1.1 to adjust for new engine settings

-reduced suspension travel in the front by 1 cm.

--changed suspensionFriction to 263 to adjust for new engine settings

-swaybars changed to 25000front/20555rear

-brakes changed to 1350front/400rear

As before, this release includes an Alpha for the wide wheel, once again upgraded with the changes to the standard Z06 Beta. If you're confused about the Beta number...well...I'm running out of beta numbers, and I didn't want to go for 9 yet because it might still be possible to refine the engine settings. In the meantime, I hope that this latest Beta, once again more stable than its predecessors, will bring the C2 Z06 one step closer to 1.0, and the Vette Pack one step closer to Version 1.5.

In other news, I'm working on some semi-public betas of one or two other C2's for release here, in order to fine-tune them. The good news is that none of the other C2's have given me as much trouble as the Z06, but I still feel that I should refine them before any release. I particularly want to get the Grand Sport right, as it should be the fastest of the bunch (as it already is), as well as the most competitive with modern cars. At the moment, I'm trying to decide whether to give it the Z06's 47front/53rear weight distribution, or make it 50/50, since I've been unable to find an official figure for it, an iron (I don't know how iron it was, if at all, as many were made largely from aluminum from what I've read) 377 would obviously be heavier than a 327, and 50/50 would probably be better for optimizing handling anyway, at least in Redline. I haven't built the 50/50 version yet, but it should be done in the next couple of days, so perhaps then I'll post it here. I'm also thinking about fielding an Alpha of the L72, since I'm having trouble getting the accurate 0-60 figure of 5.1 seconds without cranking up the wheel friction just as high as before, which of course makes the rear end "drag," as Val put it.

Battle - i adore you!

most betas ever seen
longest posts ever written

but - i love your cars (the way they look often more than the way they handle - but hey!) - thanks for the work!

alf (some swiss toni)

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Wide Wheel Alpha 4 released.
October 2nd, 2009.

You may now download it from the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads Server:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63Z06WideAlpha4.zip

This is a handling tweak of the Z06 Wide Wheel to reduce understeer and hesitation on launch. Whether it's really an essential upgrade is a matter of opinion, since I'm mainly working on the rest of the pack right now, and I don't have a new Beta of the standard Z06 to include it with. Therefore...this plug doesn't replace Beta 8.2 of the Z06, but merely supplements it. So.....keep Beta 8.2. I'll keep both loaded, of course, until I either release a new beta or release the Vette Pack Version 1.5 in its entirety. If people really like this Alpha, I'll rerelease it on the Ambrosia board, but for the moment it will be limited since I don't want to flood people. In any case, this upgrade includes the following changes...

-swaybars changed to 25000front/22000rear to cut down on understeer and achieve greater control of the front end

-maxClutchTorqueTransfer changed to 238.99 to reflect 56% of gross horsepower, with the intention being to make the car easier to launch and drift

As I said, if there's the demand, I'll release this on the Ambrosia board too, but it's not really meant to replace Beta 8.2 of the Z06.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Beta 8.3 Released!!!
October 5th, 2009.

You may now download it from Filefront:

http://www.filefront.com/14660217/63VetteBeta8.3.zip

or the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads Server:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.3.zip

In addtion, for RLPAU users, I've released this version, which works better with RLPAU:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.3 RLPAU.zip

This is actually a re-release of the Alpha 4 of the Wide Wheel. Is this complicated? Well....that's why I'm releasing this plug. There shouldn't be two C2 Z06 plugs floating around. The completely stock Z06 Beta, 8.2, is still the same old car, so if you're not into the Wide Wheel then you don't need this upgrade to avoid a DFM. For those of you who didn't download Alpha 4 of the Wide Wheel, as it was a limited release, it included the following changes from Alpha 3...

-swaybars changed to 25000front/22000rear to cut down on understeer and achieve greater control of the front end

-maxClutchTorqueTransfer changed to 238.99 to reflect 56% of gross horsepower, with the intention being to make the car easier to launch and drift

Okay, so these are only two changes. In practice, however, they make the car much more stable and less "weird," as people were saying. It can smoke its tires now, albeit only by a chirp, and the understeer and unpredictable response of the steering that troubled Alpha 3 has been moderated a great deal. Currently, I can't even detect it, so my inclination right now is to turn my attention to the rest of the Vette Pack and sit on this Beta for now. I hope you all like it.

I spent my free time today working on the Vette Pack, but this meant going over the C1 and the C3 Corvettes to work the bugs out of them and improve some of the modelling on the C1's. I'm not going to actually redo the C1 Corvettes quite as much as I originally planned, as the C2's have taken up a lot more of my time than I was expecting. Tomte's spreadsheets that I used on the C2 project did help me to improve the C1, though, basically making the dimensions more accurate, with the pleasant surprise that it also improved the handling.

As for what do with the C2 Corvettes next, I'm set to release another Beta in the next few days, including a tweak of the Z06 Wide Wheel, and maybe an Alpha of the Grand Sport. As I've said before, though, the other C2 Corvettes besides the Z06, especially the big blocks, were easier to stabilize. Right now, my main dilemma with them is whether to do an L88 race car. I've already done two street ones, one with radials and one without, but it's kind of a no-brainer that a factory race package should be available in a full-race version in Redline. The problem, really, is that this project is already reaching gargantuan proportions, and I haven't even done any C2 convertibles yet!!! Ultimately, I don't want to do any convertibles this time around, since it would be much too much work and take too much time. The L88 might be worth it, though, since it would only be one more car, and would make this upgrade to the Vette Pack more logical. The next pack could then include the proper upgrade to the C1, a C1 coupe, and a C2 convertible or two.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette C2 Beta 8.4 Released!!!
October 9th, 2009.

You may now download it from Filefront:

http://www.filefront.com/14683459/63VetteBeta8.4.zip

or the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads Server:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.4.zip

In addtion, for RLPAU users, I've released this version, which works better with RLPAU:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.4 RLPAU.zip

This is another handling tweak on the C2 Z06, although this time I've been more thorough, going over both the standard and wide wheel versions, making the following changes...

-changed maxClutchTorqueTransfer on Wide Wheel to 241.12 to reflect 56.5% of gross horsepower on wide wheel, with the intention being to make the car easier to launch and drift

-changed differentialLockCoefficient back to 100, as 90 no longer seems to work as well with the current suspension settings

-changed rearSwayBar to 35000 to cut down on understeer and improve control of the front end

-changed car name on standard wheel Z06 to avoid confusion

And....there's one other new goody in this Beta. I've included an Alpha of the Grand Sport so that people can start racing it. I want it to be the best car in the pack, if possible, so even though it already handles pretty well (I think), sometimes it can still be a handful simply because it's so fast. In fact, although there were some very fast race cars in the 1960's, like the Porsche 917, that could go 0-60 in less than 3 seconds, I doubt a Corvette Grand Sport could have. I think everything but the 917 would have been a dragster, come to think of it. Does anybody know the real figure for the Grand Sport? In the meantime, you can just enjoy driving insanely fast, I guess.

The Grand Sport is nearly perfect! Great model, and I absolutely love the handling. Had a couple MP races at Rudskogen yesterday. Was a blast. I'd say the only problem are the brakes (I know you're working on this). Don't change the handling though!

Haven't tested the Z06 yet.

Good work!

P.S. lovely engine sound for the GS

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Beta 8.5 Released!!!
November 7th, 2009.

You may now download it from Filefront:

http://www.filefront.com/14880255/63VetteBeta8.5.zip

or the Legacy of Lies Developer Uploads Server:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.5.zip

In addtion, for RLPAU users, I've released this version, which works better with RLPAU:

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/battlewagon/63VetteBeta8.5 RLPAU.zip

This is a tweak of the engine settings on the Z06, following testing with an estimated net horsepower rating of 270, which may be high, but which is probably close. Both versions of the Z06 still have the same gross horsepower ratings, but should handle better now that they can throttle steer a little bit more accurately. I hope so, anyway. The 0-60 times are slightly improved also, without sacrificing higher-end torque the way an attempt at net horsepower versions would. Most importantly, they now deliver the lap times that I've been aiming for the past few weeks. The changes are...

-changed maxClutchTorqueTransfer on stock Z06 to 235.9 to reflect performance numbers measured during net horsepower testing

-maxClutchTorqueTransfer on wide wheel to 245 to reflect performance numbers measured during net horsepower testing

I've also included Alpha 2 of the Grand Sport in this pack, which has so far been only a limited release for research. It's been so well received that one or two people have asked for it to be made 1.0, so I've at least included it as-is in this public release. The only change to the Grand Sport from Alpha 1 is that it now has the brakes set at 5000front/1650rear, due to problems controlling Alpha 1 on Rudskogen.

This probably won't be the final beta, but I believe that it's enough of an improvement to warrant a new release, as the lap times in testing are a tangible improvement.