Car physics and reactions are extremely important in any simracing game, they'll ultimately determine how people is gonna drive and race other people once they have mastered them. I've been thinking for a while that car contact physics in RaceRoom aren't up to the level of the rest of the game physics and that it causes some problems, the worst being that you can do dirty moves that would probably end up in a crash in most other sims without consequences. I briefly talked about it with Andi, he told me to try and explain what I meant here so that's what I'm doing, it would also be good to hear other users thoughts about it. The way I see it there's two scenarios where a contact doesn't react as I would naturally expect: · Lateral contacts: Two cars side by side, one of them turns into the other with little angle. What one would expect is an impact which consequences would vary depending on which parts of the cars made contact, if it's side and side it would just be a push, if it's front axle vs rear axle the car on the rear axle would possibly start oversteering while the other would understeer, etc. What it usually happens in R3E is that one car goes ahead while the other one goes back, like they're sliding between themselves. There's a few people that abuse this while defending like in the next video, basically sliding your car that's going slower in front. https://streamable.com/7pxu45 · Lateral contacts in a corner: This is the most worrying as this one is abused a LOT. In most platforms when there's a side-by-side in a corner, the outside line is the riskier, as a small touch from the car on the inside might be enough to make you go wide or even spin. Also, there's not much you can do if the inside car decides not to leave you room on the corner exit (*cough*F1*cough*). In R3E, in this situation, if there's a collision, it's very likely that the car on the inside will spin and the car on the outside won't even notice. What this provokes, obviously, is that lots of drivers that know this will defend by taking the outside line and doing the corner like there's no one on the inside, as there's no risk for them. I took some videos in AC (which imo reacts in a more natural manner to this kind of contacts) so that we have something to compare it with. AC: https://streamable.com/njuugm https://streamable.com/p3q3bs https://streamable.com/teslzk R3E: https://streamable.com/2q8i1b https://streamable.com/ga5yr5 https://streamable.com/ozagxq I'd also like to add, that damages caused by contacts do feel too forgiving to me, it's usual seeing people do very risky moves on other cars or going over their limit in tracks like Macau as contacts, except very hard ones, will end up in no damage at all (the recent broadcasted races there are the perfect example). What do you all think? Thanks
May I add to your concerns, with what I feel is very unnatural behaviour after contact and that's your straight forward rear ending. In nearly every occasion you tap the car ahead the car at the rear will spin, now you can catch these sometimes but again I feel only by making unnatural counter steering and at the exact instant needed, else you will still spin. Now of course a lot of the more prolific drivers have noticed this and will brake check you mid corner, knowing full well there is almost 100% chance you are going to spin by either contact or trying to avert contact. Racing at Spa last week in the '95 DTM's it happened to me on more than one occasion (you know who you are) and there is very little you can do but I'm sure there is something S3 could!
I like r3e much better in this aspect I was destroyed too many times in other games because some genius wanted to overtake me from inside with 1mm overlap same with minor contacts because other guy can't handle car in r3e I can defend these moves and casual contacts usually not ending my race too which is great! it isn't perfect but I prefer it over any other platform in that aspect in my eyes it promote guy who have racing line rights not guy behind that want to do some stupid moves u need more than half car overlap and right angle which promote "correct" racing otherwise u can be punished for ur stupid attempt - in other games most of time guy infront is punished for nothing this first example isn't that clear thought because this guy was on curb, grass and weird angle I had similar "contact slide" in my last rFactor race few months ago while defending from inside other two are attempts without overlap
What happens in R3E is not much different from what happens in ACC or AMS2. For ACC, I think it's even more common for the car in the rear to suffer worse consequences. Actually, the R3E collision model has always felt the most realistic of those three to me (those are the ones I play)--the results of collisions I'm involved in pretty much make sense. In the case of the examples shown, the collision was in all cases the overtaking car's fault. Not sure how it makes the racing experience better if the rear car was able to dump the leading car in all of those examples. From a purely gaming perspective, I think the desired outcome is that the result of contact is unpredictable, which hopefully discourages it. From a bigger-picture perspective, I think the R3E damage/collision model seems to actually encourage cleaner racing vs. what people complain about in other sims. In R3E, big contact ruins your race, smaller/incidental contact may cause someone to lose a position or two but you're able to move along with your race. When the end result is good, I'd be cautious about changing things too much.