Hi there. Long time no patch, we hope it was worth the wait!
Lot of research went into this update.
Brand new tyres, suspension, aero...
More settings to play with in the setup.
edit:
few mistakes will be fixed within the next days in a hotfix
such as: LHD collider & LHD flame & LHD (again!) shifting
The RHD is the base version.
LHD & Clamshell are under the RHD version
See below Jack' notes for more details:
What's possible has been taken from real data:
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* suspension geometry, springs, ARBs, ... measured on real car and 4k-8k photos, found data from Caterham developments and Caterham owners, ... dampers are set by me, no one who knows the real data will give them up, we did ask
* aero from wind tunnel data and 3D model, all the angle changes work for both drag and lift
* engine from a 1700 dyno graph, 15% transmission loss
* brakes, approximated from Caterham driver's experiences
* basic stats such as weight, balance, dimensions, gearbox, fuel consumption taken from auto catalog, real dimension and weight+balance measurements
* tyres are similar to what other AC cars use, may change in future, no crazy grip tyres here and no semislicks on this one
Handling wise:
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* 1-2-3 gears car is nimble, very light, easy to drive at road legal speeds, 4-5 gears car loses power to accelerate due to poor aerodynamics, the drag is high and front lifts up, this is how Caterham/Lotus and similar cars behave, an infamous aerodynamic brick or worse
* it has open differential with no rear ARB as such it takes a bit of persuasion to go sideways, not difficult in first two gears in tight corners, need to shift the weight and not go too fast
* do keep the aerodynamics in mind, at top speed it will lose around 50kg mostly at front and reduce front axle weight by 15%+, it's a lot, enter higher speed corners a little slower than you may be tempted to at first, front tyres also do not heat up as much and on all cars with this body it's common to struggle for front grip unless you run a race oriented modified version
* slow down or brake in into a corner to get more front grip and steer in to transfer weight
* understeer = driver error, entering too fast, cold front tyres, no weight transfer, ...
* 144bhp 5500rpm, best to run around 4800-6200rpm
* fuel weight affects heights and weight balance up to 3.13% to the rear, more fuel = less front grip
Compromises made:
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* AC doesn't seem to support proper weight balancing per corner, only front and rear, there are no left and right weight balance options, as such the car in AC is perfectly symmetrical side to side, this may not be an issue on heavier road cars but on Caterham and other very light vehicles any tiny change to weight and balance is noticeable
* tyres, sound, 3D model details may change
* throttle response is linear, no data available, it's the most intuitive and consistent to use
* brakes do not have heat yet and I'm not sure brake heat is working right in AC either, didn't seem to work online with 330 P4, F1 2004, disc temps. were stuck at air temperature
* new v1.15 parameters and future changes in AC may or may not be implemented, depending on their worth of using and data available, stock AC cars don't use them either yet and I've already added several rounds of AC updates over the course of development, everything should be up to date apart from using the additional/experimental v1.15 parameters
* motion ratios are worked in via progressive springs and bumpstops but there is no LUT for it in AC so it's still pretty simplified simulation system, damper velocity change with MR cannot be implemented it's not supported by AC
Thanks goes to all Caterham builders/owners/lovers for their photos and information, namely Daniel French from www.caterhamr500.co.uk and countless other who have been kind to share their Caterham experiences with us.
Known issues:
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* LHD exhaust and engine intake is on the wrong side
* sound, paint, dial light may need tweaking, feel free to replace sound with one you like more, Content Manager offers a simple to do swap if you don't know how
Other Caterham versions:
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* being made and some models exist, physics wise all very close, 4 front suspension variants for all 3-4 real front suspension geometries already made, rear DeDion is a problem since AC doesn't support DeDion and Kunos yet doesn't seem to be interested in adjusting their live axle with new parameters to support it, will have to be approximated
Please respect copyrights as we do, if you want to create a mod for anything but personal private use using this data ask us first.
We may already be making it, it's planned or you could work with us to make it.
Data files wise everything should be made by us, initial development versions used Kamil's Academy data as place holder with his permission and have since been replaced with our data entirely.
