So, I’m racing a wet track and there are puddles everywhere. Every time I hit the things, it sends me flying off the track! Surely this can’t be right. I have the widest rain tires possible. My car is also as low as I can make it. I figure that the weight of the car and the speed I am traveling should be enough to just push the puddle out of my path. How dare T10 give us the ability to slam our cars down so low that hitting something like a puddle would put us off the track!!!
Raise your ride height! Seriously, max it out for wet tracks. It makes a big difference. You will notice that trucks in the game handle these measly puddles just fine for 2 reasons; vehicle mass and GROUND CLEARANCE.
I am not saying it will save you every time, but at least you give yourself a better chance. When you slam your car, you’re basicly giving the water more surface area at the front of the car and thus hitting one off center will create more drag one side of the car thus resulting in a bad day.
Really there are two main factors: if the tyre is able to disperse the water and maintain effective friction with the ground, the vehicle may not be phased by the puddle at all.
Big off road tyres stand a better chance at this.
The second factor is actually cross section or width. If the vehicle is succumbing to hydro planing, then a skinnier tyre will actually have less hydro planing force applied to it, while a wider tyre will experience a stronger hydro plane effect as there is simply more area for the water to apply force to.
Personally I prefer not to spend my time dodging puddles, but it would be interesting to see the results of a test with different tyre widths.
Edit: an example of the principle of reducing area exposed to water to reduce drag:
TBH since I always by default lower to a couple of ticks from the lowest, I am not really sure what it feels like to raise the car as high as it’ll go. I may try that.
Technically speaking, if the game were to be 100% realistic, the puddles would be mostly gone after the first few cars go over them splashing out all of the water. As the pack gets more spread out during the race, the puddles would have little time to reform leaving just a slick track that most other games use when simulating rain. Honestly, if T10 had just gone with the “slick track” method, (like in Horizon 2) it would have looked pretty but not been very satisfying.
Sure the puddle dynamics aren’t “perfect” in FM6 but I’m glad that they are there. FM has been out over 10 years now and needed a new “feature” for some time. Also, I find it very satisfying when racing online and I make it through the puddle unscathed when one causes half the field to wipe out.
Having watched the Petite Lemans in person, I can say that there is a level of realism. It rained the entire event and for most races, and practice sessions. Lots of off track excursions were had, you could see drivers off lines trying to avoid standing water. They even stopped the race shortly to dig trenches so the water would run off the track better.
Except that the water doesn’t run off the track. It’s always there, in the very same spot, having the very same size. Might be fun the first time around, but after a while it really adds nothing, at least not for me. You learn it like you learn any other part of the track, and then that’s that. Might as well not be there. Now if that whole feature was a little more dynamic… but it isn’t.
Apparently no’one here has even been in crash cause of hydroplaning… I have, I hand measily 50mph speed, I hit a puddle, (about 1 inch deep) it literally lifted off the ground both of the right side tires of the car, the resitance caused by the water in front of the tire, started turning the car, I tried to counter it with steering, and next thing I know I hit the kerb, which ripped the right side supension to bits, and then I bounce on top of the guardrail.
That was 50MPH ! Here most of the time you come with wide tires which are great, when you aren’t in the puddle, While narrow cut’s a path to the water better. Also you like to use light cars, which will move about more while you hit the puddles, while heavy cars are more stablile, And you hit the puddles with much higher speed most of the time.
While yes, I do agree the puddles aren’t perfect. They are pretty good, and most of the complainers need a reality check.
Don’t compare your daily driving puddle experience with puddles at race conditions. I was once hitting a puddle at just 75 mph, at cruise control on the higway. Just a pudde similar to the long puddles on the straight back to the short double right in Len Mans Bugatti. It was a good fight. Don’t want to do this again. At race conditions, at this point you are going over 100 mph. That’s something completely different, especialy if you did not remember the puddle and running flat aout.
The pudles are normally harmless, you have to know about, change your line, and if you can’t avoid the puddles - fingers off the trigger and as straight as possible.
Well, if you forgett about the Sebring puddle, right in front of the wall behind start/finish … hitting this puddle flat out … meet the wall … and that’s realistic
I have hit some puddles at those speeds and not had a problem. Then again, I have hit some unexpectedly DEEP puddles at slower speeds with just one side of my car that totaly cought me off guard. At a slower speed you have time to react. Once when I was 19 or so I hit a large deep puddle while merging onto the freeway at about 55 and it almost put me into a wall. I was fortunate enough to save it. So yes I have personally experianced it. I dont want to think about what might have happened if I was speeding.
I think T10 had done an outstanding job simulating wet wether. The only grip is that T10 didn’t do all that well with the visuals for the depth of these puddles. If you park your car on a puddle in this game you will see that it looks like the car is sitting on top of a shallow puddle. It would gave been nice if T10 represented these puddles with more 3 dimensional depth. I think this is one of the major factors for why people think the puddle physics are bad. If I am on a track and see a larger puddle, i just assume its going to be deep and try to adjust my race line.
I like that they tried to introduce some new conditions so every race is not a sunny dry day. The puddles can be a bit troublesome initially, as you learn the forces at play in each one it becomes manageable to get through them as quickly and smoothly as possible. It is in many times just a case of avoiding the puddle by leaving the drive line.
And this is without slicks which I guess a lot are using on the game. I’m sure most of the racing drivers on here will say they would have controlled it but it was obviously very sudden and unexpected.
Someone mentioned a reality check? I live in he north of England. If you’ve ever visited or live there yourself you know it’s pretty grim weather wise and the quality if the roads is awful. Never once in my life had an accident in my car due to rain (or even snow for that matter).
Final corner of Spa you can’t avoid the puddle/river/lake unless you cut the corner (which 90% of scrubs in this game do, put sticky grass there god dang it turn 10!).
I’ve tried raising the ride height which helps to some degree but still get dragged and spun occasionally.
Yes we the community wanted new features but as somebody already mentioned make the weather and track conditions dynamic. Or give us he option of wet and intermediate tyres.