I figured I'd just answer a few things that people ask. Sorry for not quoting things, I'm too lazy to dig up the posts.
Is it worth it to use clutch?
You can shift faster with manual+clutch than manual alone. The reason for this is that internally, the game treats "Manual" as "actual standard transmission with an average-at-best driver doing the shift on your behalf". Even in cars that actually have paddle shifters, it pretends they don't. As a result, you can shift faster and thus lose fewer revs if you handle the clutch yourself.
Assists
I highly recommend that you do not use Braking Line Only as a learning tool. It seems like a better idea than it is in practice. I would instead recommend that you race with no line, then once you feel like you know the track but want to get faster, turn racing line on to Full to get a sense of the lines.
Braking Line Only has two problems:
- It allows you to never really learn the track, which will cripple your ability to visualize turns properly. If you're watching the line, you're not watching the turn exit, your speedometer, the turn distance indicators, and so on.
- The braking line is deceptive. It will give you the impression that it's okay to still have your foot on the brake at the time you turn the wheel. It's not. In general, all of your braking should be done before you turn the wheel, and almost all of your turning should be done before you hit the gas (which you should do smoothly).
I know that mentally you probably feel like the braking line will prevent you from missing as many corners and going in to the wall. This is generally only true for 1 or maybe 2 laps. After that, the braking line tends to be worse because it inhibits learning the track layout and thus increases the likelihood that you'll blow the turn for other reasons.
FWIW, I played Forza 3 with braking line on 100% of the time. I turned it off the moment I got Forza 4 and I have really not missed it at all. I thought I would, but I didn't.
Arwin, you mentioned problems spinning out on corner exits or at high speeds
Both of your issues are likely that you're just mashing the accelerator to the floor. This causes a high torque load on the wheels. If you are anywhere near the limit of traction when you do this, the car will spin out.
Remember that whatever you put in the car, the governing resource is grip. Grip can be spent in one of three ways:
- Acceleration
- Braking
- Turning
If you do too much of any of these things, you will no longer have grip, and as a result the car will go wherever it wants to. In the case of your BMW, you have oversteer, so "wherever it wants to" generally results in you spinning out.
The speed issue:
If you want to resolve this issue by driving differently:
- It is crucial that you be very smooth when applying throttle. If you just mash the peddle in to the floor, the result will be a rapid increase of torque to the wheels, which will require additional grip to keep you rooted. At very high speeds you probably don't have a lot of extra grip, and you can easily cause the car to spin. A reduction in the amount of lead in your foot may help.
If you want to mod the car:
There are two fixes that you can try:
1. Decrease the front ARB stiffness. The most common cause of oversteer is overly-stiff front anti-roll bars. This is beacuse the stiffer the rollbars are, the less grip you have if the road surface is not completely level or there is a high amount of cornering force being applied to the car at the time. Allowing the car to flex a bit more will ensure that your contact patch with the road stays higher.
2. Switch to wider tires or a stickier tire compound.
The cornering issue:
In terms of driving style, I'd bet dollars to donuts that as soon as you're about 80% of the way done with the turn and you're starting to return the wheel to center, you're immediately slamming on the gas. In any remotely fast car, this will cause you to spin out almost immediately.
A turn will always have 4 distinct phases:
1. Braking. This is when you are full on the brake. Your foot should in general be off of the brake before you cut the wheel. The reason is simple, braking consumes grip, thus if you're braking and turning at the same time, you can't turn as fast as you could if you were only turning.
2. Turning. At this point you cut the wheel and give only enough throttle to maintain speed.
3. Exit. Here you're coming out of the turn. Because the wheels are beginning to straighten, you can begin to *carefully* apply gas so that you can expend the grip no longer being used to turn to accelerate. Note though that the wheel is not dead straight at this point and thus you can't just give it the beans.
4. Straightaways: Once the wheel is straight, you can basically go nuts.
Hope that helps.
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