Best Way to Define Rally & Off-Road for a More Versatile Tune

Forza Horizon Legacy Horizon FH4 Discussion
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My understanding is that Rally is just a type of off-road Motorsport. Is that correct? I ask because FH seems to treat them as separate types of racing. However, when upgrading cars, there are no “off-road” engine and suspension parts—only Rally. And even then, FH4 (& 3, I think) refer to Rally as “Dirt Racing.” And even, even then, the dirt races are often a combination of dirt track and asphalt.

Assuming I have all this right, do you guys think it’s possible to tune a car so it will perform reasonable well in both off-road and dirt racing (which again, I tend to think of as Rally)?

Without going into too much detail, I tend to tune for dirt racing (or Rally) closer to specs typically used for road races. For example, where I might raise the springs close to max for off-road, I tend to lower springs substantially for dirt racing. Same for spring tension. Similarly, the settings for anti-roll bars and AWD 2-way differentials are considerably different for Rally or multisurface roads and off-road.

Tires can be tricky too. I raced motocross in my youth, and knobby tires for my dirt bike were much more aggressive than the tires on my road/off-road hybrid motorcycle. But again, FH seems to treat off-road and rally tires the same. With Rally tires being used for both dirt racing and off-road. It’s been my experience, however, that in some dirt races in FH3 and 4 (especially those in which a considerable part of the course is asphalt), “Race Tire” compound performs better than Rally tire compound.

Are you guys creating separate tunes for dirt and off-road racing, or do you try to find some middle ground tune that works well for both?

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I’m still tinkering with these sort of things myself. And I also find it a bit odd that sometimes it will say it is a dirt race and yet more than half of it by distance at least is on tarmac. So building a rally off-road tune is not necessarily better or faster. In fact unless it’s a cross country race it seems like you might as well just tune for the street and then suck it up when you’re on the little dirt sections of a “dirt race”.

I also wish they had separate off-road tires for every vehicle or at least the rally vehicles, maybe not the Lambos LOL. It would be nice to have a little bit more serious tire for the cars when you’re taking them off road not just the buggies and big trucks.