Huh, interesting. Why do you think it’s in the game? Incidence of their physics system or trying to artificially increase the closeness of competition?
Also I’m surprised there is no dirty air effect in the game but I guess it makes sense since fluid dynamics is by far the hardest part of physics to simulate.
I honestly think it’s recycled code from previous games. I trace it back to the FM6 NASCAR update where the drafting physics changed dramatically. This reverse dirty air was introduced along with a push mechanic for the car in front. The lead car used to gain speed on the straight too if someone was in the slipstream through FM6 and all of FM7. For this game they removed the ‘push draft’ and the slipstream is extremely powerful now. That also meant that the aerowash or reverse dirty air was more noticeable. Then again the cynical part of me thinks it was added in to ‘create’ excitement. But all it really does is hinder the experience.
Recycled code makes the most sense to me. It must’ve just been missed for launch then they did everything they could to lessen the effect in the update but clearly it’s still present. Hopefully T10 acknowledge it’s a bug at the least.
While there has been SIGNIFICANT improvements coming from FM7 in terms of the way cars slipstream up to the car ahead, the new model tends to fall short in other areas.
(For reference, this will use the NASCAR cup cars from FM7 and the Oldsmobile Cutlass GTX from FM. Which is the most predominantly used NASCAR equivalent in most FM community leagues, though the principal applies to just about all cars in game)
To be more specific, in the previous instalment if you were to sit directly behind the car ahead, you were able to push (both with the air and with the physical bumper) the front car to a higher speed to a varying degree depending on if it was a physical or aero push.
But now with the new draft model, aero pushing the lead car doesn’t seem to exist and physically pushing the lead car nets maybe 1 or 2 mph boost momentarily to the lead car before it slows back down again. This is at primary detriment to the community NASCAR leagues, most particularly at Daytona (though Id imagine Sunset which is coming very soon will suffer a similar problem), where drivers are essentially forced into two or three wide grid lock as the lead cars of each line can’t clear each other.
Ideally, any changes/fixes would involve keeping the current model as is currently, perhaps with a slight nerf to the side draft effect, and incorporating a marginal drag decrease to the lead car once the trailing car is within a certain distance. Say 20-25 feet from the back of the lead car. (Or if somehow this effect does exist in game, perhaps consider increasing the effect so that it’s actually noticable.)
I forgot to mention it in my initial post but in regards to the “side draft” effect that currently exists, it should really be implemented in the opposite way where it slows down the adjacent car, not speed your own up.
The game has the correct implementation areas where when you get close to the rear quarter panels it starts to take effect, (though I’d argue it could do with a small shrink so you need to be closer for it to work), but it shouldn’t serve as a speed boost to your own car but rather a small drag increase to the other car.
side draft isn’t modeled in forza, never has been
I’m not sure what it’s called then but there’s a second type of “speed boost” if you will when you get the nose of your car diagonally next to the lead car’s rear bumper. It is possible that this is still the same main draft effect but if this is the case the shape of the “hole” that is punched in the air by the lead car would be very oddly shaped for it to be the cause.
Myself and a few others have always just referred to it as “side draft” because that’s just the closest thing we can compare it to cause when this happens we are in no way directly behind the lead car.
Update 13 includes these physics changes:
- Updated multi-car aero model to reduce downforce impact on leading cars, widen the aero wake near the car, smooth transitions near wake edges and reduce drafting induced aero balance changes. [1821540]
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