Forza Horizon 3

[LowPolyOWG]

Indeed, but it's nice that I know what program I should disable before attempting my 50 lap

[Art Blade]

 

[LowPolyOWG]

Hmm, the game is somewhat broken, it still crashes randomly after long gaming sessions....

[Art Blade]

that's not good 

However, we tried this..

I just had an idea: we should start that 50-lap race and one of us quits.

It worked, finished a 5-lap race on my own. Only the money isn't worth it. I only made some 500+k, maybe 560k or so. Obviously a lot more money can be made by racing against the crazy AI in SP.

At least I got two new cars thanks to the current Forzathon 

[LowPolyOWG]

 

I hope FM7 doesn't suffer from this, otherwise, people will have more reasons to "hate" MS/Windows Store.

[Art Blade]

During the last two days, I was busy with online drag racing. In all the time I had only drag raced once for the sake of a forzathon but else..

It just so happened that I was at the airfield and there was a player meeting you could drive in from single player and you'd be put on a car park "to show your car and meet other players." There are two more options. One is to start an online free roam session (you can choose to participate) and a showdown. The showdown is a one mile drag race. You can choose to participate. On both occasions, cars of all classes are allowed.

I was there with my favourite S2 car, the 2017 Ford GT, and thought hey, let's do a drag race. I was pretty sure that my car would perform well. It didn't.

First, if there are cars of different classes, the lower classes get a head start. Just for your information, the classes are (lowest to highest) D, C, B, A, S1, S2 and X. I was in an S2 class car and there was a guy in a C class car. He was allowed a 14 seconds head start. We watched him rev up and whizz away until we couldn't see him anymore, he was probably more than half a mile away when the S2 class was allowed to start. There was an S2 class 1969 Dodge Dart Hemi and boy, he pulled away as if I was riding a child's tricycle. My nice Ford GT is *bleep* at drag races. The C class car won as the other cars couldn't pull up to it anymore. Great. From the rest of the grid, the Dart Hemis were the fastest, then came everything else.

The first thing I did was to try a C class car. I got a 14 seconds head start, hehe. And then I saw all the cars overtake me and finish before me. Hehe. So a C class isn't the only thing you need. You need a fast C class.

Then I left the meeting and checked my garage (by now I've got 400 cars I think, at least pretty close, and I got ALL cars that you can buy, except three -- those are worth $10M, $8M, $2M and will eventually be mine -- minus the DLC cars which I can't buy) and fetched the Dart Hemi. Proper muscle car, made for drag racing.

I returned with the Hemi after tuning it properly to S2. I did well until some C class clowns spoiled it again. At first I didn't mind but after a couple of races I thought it's silly, they get a guaranteed win while I can't win in a faster S2 car. So I fetched a 1949 Mercury Coupe and made it a C class drag monster.

When there were people in C class cars, I'd change cars and use the Mercury. Else, I use the Hemi, the drag monster of the S2 class.

I didn't mind joining S2 cars with my C class because it's an easy win. But after a while I found it silly and only use the C class if someone spoiled my S2 class drag. Then it's C versus C and basically only another Mercury can beat a Mercury. Else, other C class cars will lose against the Mercury.

I was quite successful, actually. All of the tunings are of my own doing, nothing downloaded or such. And with those tunings, I won more than 50% of the races, was on a podium more than 100 times and did about 120 races total so far. My average online finish is 2nd place. I didn't quite expect that

Then came the part when I was beaten by the same type of car I was driving. Just a few times, but man, it was quite a difference, they were fast.. how?

You may remember that until now my favourite pastime has been "rivals" races against a shadow of a player I had to beat. Turns out that there is the drag strip on the airfield as well among the rival races Finally a way to practice drag starts and so on, trying to improve my drag racing. Made me chuckle when I noticed that I was the fastest automatic gear shift drag racer in the C class in the world, even though it was only barely above rank 800.

And then came the moment I realised I couldn't possibly beat drivers who used manual gear shift. So that's the secret for drag racing.

I had to find a controller setup that was made for manual gear shifting. The game has got at least 14 prefab setups but none were to my satisfaction. However, thankfully, the game allows for a completely customised controller setup. I got it working and was now prepared for the top league drag racing.

I had to overhaul my tunings completely to get a proper drag result. It worked. With that C class Mercury, I'm now rank #176 with around 22.5 seconds I think, from about 800 with automatic, that's a jump. With the Hemi it's crazy. Hundreds of players have identical times although not all of them are the same, i.e. 20 x 19.151 and 15 x 19.253 and so on. I don't remember the rank I got with the Hemi (my head is overloaded with drag stuff right now) but I did a massive jump there as well. Edit: world rank #1 is 18.952 seconds for a one mile drag. I'm currently 19.223 seconds and rank #3073 out of 48,178 racers.

And after practicing both S2 and C class, it was time to go to the online player meeting again and try my luck at the showdown drag races. It was the last thing I did today in FH3.

I had a race against a Hemi who beat me but it was not a good time, I had a bad start (first time manual drag online) and maybe so did he. Still we finished 1st and 2nd, then came the rest. The same guy launched another drag and this time it was only me and him. This time I had a good start and I beat him with 19.35x seconds while he had some 19.78x or so. It was dramatic Normally I get some 19.8 or so with an automatic. 19.6 is an average manual drag if people are somewhat good. So my 19.3 something must have been shocking -- I felt great

And last but not least, I had a C class Mercury drag because someone else was hanging around with his Mercury on the car park like a vulture waiting for easy S2 victims. Not with me. Alright, my first manual drag in that C class wasn't great, it was OK, but he beat me. He drove a toxic green Mercury and even honked his horn when pulling into the finish in front of me. Good. We did a second drag. This time I had a cool start and I was away in no time. I beat him by several tenths of a second (basically like the Hemi race) and boy.. at the end of the race you get to see a board with the standings. He was now only listed by his name, no time any more, no "100%" finished (and no "DNF" either) just a dash (that "-" apparently meant he wasn't there..)

IT WAS A RAGE QUIT! 

It has been a good day. 

[Art Blade]

Oh, remember this?

The game, particularly the Wheelspin, hates me. The difference between winning those $5,000 and and selling the prize car (below the $5k) at the auction is roughly $1.5 million.

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login

I won that car!!! On the first drag race day. I'll keep it, I don't need the money 

And when I was browsing YouTube I came across this entertaining video (with a little explicit language..) that pretty much sums up the average first time drag racer's impressions and also shows the head starts of lower class racers. I found it amusing because it is similar to what I experienced before I understood what it takes to win. By the way, the still (background image of the vid when not played) says "cheater" and points to a Mercury who got a head start because he's a C class. You may want to pause the vid at 6.29 when the lineup is being displayed, look at the right side of it where you can read that lower classes get a head start at showdown races. So that Mercury is not cheating but it is not exactly a fair race, either. When you've learned your lesson, you'll know what to expect and can prepare (use a Mercury as well, for instance, or wait until no C class cars are at the meeting and so on) but these days, apparently it's either Mercury vs Mercury or Dart Hemi vs Dart Hemi if you want to win a "fair" race. Fair as in, you need those two cars and then you can compete against the same car type.

[BinnZ]

Quite an entertaining read Art, about that drag experience! +1

[Art Blade]

cheers

My new fastest time with the Hemi is 19.182 seconds and that is world rank 1,421 out of 48,327 drag racers.

During an online race this morning, I beat someone with 19.265 (Hemi vs. Hemi, he had some 19.4 ) and that was cool because he beat me in a Mercury vs Mercury drag and he had a really good time (22.4 something) so we're even, of sorts 

Oh wow, he's really good. I JUST checked his ranking for the S2 class (rival races) and he's got a proper 19.052 with his Hemi which ranks him #88

Checked the C class, he's got a Comodore VL and got 19.953 which makes him rank #04 
I'm #163 with 22.476 with a Mercury.

I checked all of the other classes for that drag, he's several times #4 and one #32, and the above mentioned ranks. Seems like I met a really, really good drag racer this morning

Meanwhile I can tell who's good because I'm not exactly among the slowest drag racers. Usually no one beats me in a drag of the same class (Hemi or Mercury) unless I screw up the start. The start is crucial and I'm far from being a perfect starter. Actually, my starts are pretty amateurish. Which means, my tunings have to be really good because they still allow me to get good times even without perfect starts. I need to w0#k on my starts but man, that's really difficult to master 

[PZ]

 

Who is the gold guy in your new avatar, AB?

[LowPolyOWG]

AB, maybe you should to some fine tuning as you did with the Ford GT 2017 Pretty sure acceleration is more important than top speed

[Art Blade]

PZ, the gold guy (the full body pic I took this part from looks yellow, not golden) is a Synth of the second generation, from Fallout4.

GKID, it's a mix of everything which is why I'm so interested in drag now. Plus, with my bad eyesight, I only have to drive straight -- perfect. I can basically literally drive with my eyes closed (unless some unfair players change lanes and try to ram you off so you won't overtake them, has happened before)

You need acceleration because without, there is no speed. You need speed because a massive acceleration without reaching the car's top speed towards the end of the drag is useless, too. What you'll find funny at the first glance is the fact that despite having six gears, only three or four are being used. The remaining last two or three have the same setting as the highest used gear.

Why? Shifting gears stops acceleration, you slow down while shifting. If you can skip two or three gears then you can instead keep accelerating. However, those few gears in use need to be matched properly or you won't accelerate all the way. What does happen is actually a continuous acceleration until you hit the one mile finish. It is practically impossible to get to top speed way under a mile.

Oftentimes I had a great acceleration and was way ahead of the field, already rubbing my hands in anticipation of the imminent victory, when I got overtaken by one or more cars as they kept accelerating beyond the speed I had reached. I hadn't been on top speed yet when I hit the one mile. The other guys, however, did.

So.. you need to be able to get your car's top speed before the mile runs out and you need to accelerate with only three or four gears so you don't slow down "too much" (talking about hundredths of a second) -- it is not as easy as it looks.

***

The guy I mentioned before wrote me this:

hope to see you again too. it would be nice to race again without lag. your car is very quick . please disregard d,c,b and a rivals times. all times were s2 cars. cars were entered in s2 rivals but times were posted in class cars were before upgrades. reported it and asked for times to be removed. hope they do. i was never on d leader board. my best c 22.289 merc coupe.  b 20.6xx. a 20.2xx king cobras as best as i remember. i wish the times glitch never happened.

Very nice message, I thanked him. Indeed, I'm looking forward to meeting him again.

[PZ]

ah... I thought he looked familiar but could not place him/her/it 

[Art Blade]

 

Man. I worked on the setup and tuning again and I got faster. I just improved my time by 0.00.022 seconds. Twenty-two thousandths of a second or 22 milliseconds. And yet it made me rise from rank 1,421 to 1,382.

It is so bloody hard..

Same tuning (I think I'll keep that now, it's probably as good as I can get it) and another 7 milliseconds. Seven. And now check the jump in ranks:

rank 741 @ 19.152 s 

Getting there, "slowly" 

[LowPolyOWG]

Nice I decided to a car tuning on my Lamborghini Aventador. I made it go 400+ km/h, but I need to tweak some of the gears, they are a little inconsistent (I messed it up, so I couldn't go past the 4th gear)