Please share your experience tuning so far in FH5 and how it differs from the last game.
There is a definite learning curve to tuning in the new game even if you’ve played previous ones. The biggest difference for me so far is that braking is much more difficult. I do not run ABS. One trick that seems to help is raising tire pressure a lot, like 30+psi. This is very different from FH4 where it was common to run cars from the minimum 15psi-25psi.
Also, it would be really nice if we could import FH4 tunes. Sure, they will be different enough to still need work in FH5, but it would still be a helpful. We don’t all use tuning calculators and I felt like I was working towards building a nice reference library of tunes in FH4. It has been disheartening to see that this is no longer an option.
In the last one I could pretty much ignore tire pressure and never have to worry about it. Just set it to ideal and forget about it. In this one it’s essential. Can’t really speak with authority on it until we’ve experienced multiple seasons, but I do know it has a heavy impact on dirt builds especially.
I’m finding tuning on FH5 a lot easier and I think that’s a lot more related to the physics than the tuning itself. Because the cars behave less erratically it’s easier to spot what are the issues that need to be addressed. Other than that I find that some things I was doing by default on FH4 don’t work anymore, or at least not as well which isn’t an issue because the process is easier.
Something else I’ve noticed in building out cars so far. I could be wrong but offroad tires w/ AWD are probably going to be OP in A and lower classes. For some reason, they brake better than Rally tires at much lower PI cost. I think this is a flaw in game design and might render rally tires almost useless.
So far my group and I have noticed that offroads are superior to rally tires on loose surfaces. A large part of it is tire pressure; rally tires will be more even with offroads once you release a lot of pressure out of the tires. However, on tarmac rally tires have a clear advantage.
I would agree though that offroads don’t cost as much PI as they should. They are a bit of a cheat. We’ve found them to be the only option on lower class dirt builds, and have used them effectively all the way to S1.
I want to be clear that I’m just sharing the information I’ve found. I’m not at all happy about the situation. And it’s not that offroads should be worse either, it’s just that their PI cost is too little. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any realistic way for the devs to change the situation. We’re locked into the offroad on dirt meta until FH6.
Some builds are really different I’ve found. I’m struggling to build a S998 anything for offroad - seem to max about S950ish so far. Also some cars I built in FH4 (Mitshibishi GTO) at S900 I can’t get close to that now despite being able to get it over S900 in FH4.
If anyone can recomend a car to take to S998 for offroad/dirt, and any pickup/4x4 truck for S900 offroad/dirt it’d be appreciated!
Offroad Tyres vs Dirt Tyres
Is the idea Offroad are for the cross-country events, and DIrt for rally trails?
For your first question about building higher in FH5: That’s going to be a tall order. All PI restrictions have moved up in performance in order to account for new cars. The reason why you can’t tune some cars as high as before is because 900 in 5 is the equivalent of 950 in 4 (not exact numbers but close estimates). The cars are just as fast, but the restrictions themselves got much faster.
For any car to have a chance in offroad in S2, it would have had to make it to X in 4 while still being an offroad build. I’m sure it’s possible (the hoonigan RS200 tops my list of suspects) but it’s going to be a heck of a lot harder than before.
There is also another thing: why? It’s not like S1 is slow in this game, and I highly doubt S2 offroad is ever going to appear in seasonals, tour, or open.
And yes the hope was that offroads would be for cross country and rally would be for dirt, but due to how little PI offroads cost for the grip they get on loose surfaces, it’s not working out that way.
Porsche SUVs sound like where I should start next, I didbuild a few in FH4 but haven’t tried yet in 5.
That’s really interesting to hear that about the PI and it makes sense to me now why my Audi RS6 Avaunt at P906 did fine in the S2 Open Dirt/Offroad. In FH4 it was a reasonable none road car but it seems a lot better in 5. The Mitshibishi I mentioned seems the same also despite now ‘losing’ 50 ish PI.
S2 Offroad/Dirt is now a option in Open Multiplayer, I built no S2 offroads in FH4 so I’m struggling a bit to find something that works!
HokiHoshi says, in his upgrading guide for FH5, that although AWD swap was powerful in previous Horizon games, RWD/FWD is much more viable in online/competitive play in FH5. Do you find this to be true?
(HokiHoshi recommends keeping the stock drivetrain most of the time… I typically did this in my own tunes anyway in FH4, partly because I like “purist” tunes that are close to stock, partly because I sometimes enjoy driving non-AWD, but also because I’m not a dedicated or knowledgeable enough tuner to make all the tuning adjustments that big conversions make necessary. So, if I want an AWD tune for a vehicle that isn’t AWD stock, I normally just use a tune from a reputable tuner…)
I’ll need more time to test out more builds but generally speaking I would mostly say no, but with a caveat. I’ve driven a bunch of different S2 RWD builds in FH4 and I generally found the issue to not be the drivetrain, but rather the build or tuning settings. To be frank, most builds out there are pretty trash. The handling physics in Horizon are actually more nuanced and sophisticated than a lot of people give it credit for. I’ve found that the best way to approach a car is to consider its real life counterpart (including its characteristics like camber curves, ride harmonics etc.) and tune based on that. My guess is that the developers just ask for the raw data from manufacturers and plug it into the game directly, so cars react positively to tuning changes that would benefit them in real life too. But that’s just a hunch I have.
Obviously, finding that data is not always easy. That’s also not to say that a high power AWD setup wasn’t the most competitive in FH4 (it most certainly was). I’m just saying that high class RWD wasn’t as bad as people keep making it out to be. You just need to tune the car correctly and make some compromises along the way.
Now with that in mind, it’s hard to compare FH4 and FH5 for two reasons:
Class boundaries are different now
Slick racing tires are available for all cars
Every class limit has been moved by the same amount so that every class now allows more PI relative to FH4. You can add more hp/grip/weight reduction into each class. For example, A 850 in FH5 is closer to S1 900 in FH4. Racing slicks don’t provide additional grip when launching, but the lateral Gs you can pull are definitely higher. This also helps keep the rear end in check on a high power RWD car. Tires also behave differently now. I experience less of a snap and more of a gradual decline as you approach the limit, especially on the lower tier tires like sport and semi-slick. I generally find the lower tires to be more viable on slightly higher hp builds than before. But that’s also necessary because of the class boundary changes, so it cancels out.
Depending on the setup, especially with slicks and additional aero permitted through the higher PI ceiling, high power RWD can be/feel more competitive in online racing in certain cases. But I don’t find that to be generally true. Those are just my observations, maybe other people have different experiences because they prefer different types of builds or have a higher skill level than me.
As for other tuning changes, I agree that the front diff especially makes a huge difference now. Turning down acceleration on the front from 30% to 15% has a huge impact on how my AWD A110 drives. Tire pressures are also very different now as has been pointed out. Pay attention to the stock tire pressures. You’ll notice that different cars actually come with very different tire pressures from factory now. The settings are not based on factory values, but they do make sense. Heavy vehicles come with very high tire pressures, some FWD vehicles come with higher front/lower rear pressure and vice versa for RWD. Changing pressures also makes more of a difference when tuning builds, but I still need to spend more time playing around with that.
I agree with most of your findings, but I’ve found at least one example where offroad tires are better than rally tires even on tarmac… I built an A class Audi TT RS meant for all surfaces and the offroad tire build outbroke the Rally tire on tarmac and the loss in lateral grip was remedied by the extra power gained and AWD. It beats unbeatable AI on both Road and Dirt. This is just one example of course and perhaps there is another build path I should have taken. I spent over 12 hours of testing on this car, mostly spent swapping parts out.
That is how it should be in my opinion but it isn’t.
Re: S1 and S2 Offroad: I haven’t tuned one in FH5 yet, but the Hoonigan RS200 made a good S1, S2 and even X class dirt car in FH4. I used the 2010 F150 for S1 CC races in FH4 and SUVs like the Cayenne and Urus also worked, the best for S1 CC was the Toyota Baja though. Sorry I can’t help more yet for FH5.
No. There are already some OP power builds that use 2WD but they are the exception and not the norm. I wish it were true. I hate swapping drivetrains and adding aero and both are as necessary as ever if you want to be able to beat the Unbeatable AI or have an OP car for online use. I just plain refuse to do it on some builds.
You didn’t really ask about race Aero, but that is another unfortunate requirement of the new game physics. The difficulty braking in this game forced me to put the ugly Forza wing on the aforementioned Audi TT and this wouldn’t have been necessary in FH4. As a disclaimer, I’ll just say it is early in the game and I could be wrong about all of this. I’ve only made a handful of tunes so far. Perhaps Unbeatable AI is too high of a benchmark for what makes a really good car in this game.
It feels wrong to call 2WD cars uncompetitive in forza, they are a joy to drive on tarmac once the car is rolling. The biggest disadvantage 2WD has to AWD is launching at the start and only having few laps to catch up after getting roasted at the start.
This would be so easy for devs to fix.Simply allow road races the option of a ROLLING START or add on a few extra laps to online races. It is a simple thing that would be absolutely game changing for the better. We would have a much wider range of competitive vehicles in the game while preserving Forza’s physics and plethora of tuning options.
I always preferred RWD on road - most AWD I have a tendency to go too fast into corners and understeer into the wall…
But offroad I’ll go AWD every time, I will try RWD occasionally like I built a offroad focused BMW M2 Coupe for this weeks seasonal speed trap (offroad in BMW), I smashed the target but it’s a real handful to take into a race.
This is one of a very small list of things that annoy me with the game. But I guess I just need to find like minded people. Obviously depends on the track. But I love racing like, a minimum of 8 laps, I think more could even be better in some situations, and I feel it brings out a better spirit of racing. Nobody rushes TOO crazy trying to gain that position like in 3 lap races.
I am not sure why so many people are shocked between the rally and off road tires. The tread on both are very different and they act more true to the real deal. Rally tires have treads that are suitable for off/on road use so that they can still get grip, but won’t be the optimal because of the changes. Offroad tires are designed to grip better off the road by design of their treads. This would be like putting BMG Goodyear T/A KO2’s on your car thinking you would get road grip comparison to a Falken Azenis FK510. It’s just going to happen. Also, this is why a lot of trucks on the road with offroad tires have to change them out because of wear and tear when they drive mostly on the road. Offroad tires have different tire composition and need that depth to be able to dig into the ground. They also have more “bite” on the sidewalls so they have additional grip and durability when the tires are aired down (32PSI for road vs 10-15PSI when offroad). When you look at regular performance tires, all of their grip is on the bottom of the tire patch and want you to be at optimal PSI for full tire placement without deformability of the tire itself. If you air down a regular tire, you will get a smooth, thin outer wall that is now being put on the ground which has 0 grip.
Now, you look at a general all terrain tire for vehicles, or all touring, ext and you will notice that the tire threads are a bit different and have a cross between both thread types. It won’t be far superior over each side but a happy medium. That’s what Rally tires are, because they switch between the two surfaces. The game isn’t redesigning anything, just making it more realistic across the boards. You don’t take a brand new truck on the crap tires it comes with into a mud pit and expect to get out in one go, no you upgrade the tires so get the grip. We shouldn’t be expecting the game to have 1 tire that works for everything anymore, we should expect the game to add more realism to give people what they have wanted and asked for.
The only difference I have made in my tuning of cars between FH4 and FH5 is less tire pressures, that is it. My suspension tuning is the same exact way and it still works as it has since FM3 with very slight modifications due to the changes in settings in the game itself.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I did not think people are shocked by the difference in the way these tires behave (at least not in this thread). Rather, I thought they were concerned with the low PI cost of off-road tires, given their performance benefits. If I understood the concern, it is that rally tires have a much higher PI cost than off-road tires, but they perform worse on dirt (to be expected), and the performance gains of rally tires on the road aren’t at all worth that extra PI cost. The consequence of this, if true, is that off-road tires just are the better option for rally/dirt series (dirt/road mix) than rally tires are, at least for lower classes (C, B, and maybe A?), since the PI points are better spent elsewhere than upgrading to rally tires; and this is what seems surprising. Shouldn’t rally tires be the better option for rally racing (dirt/road mix)? (Or are you suggesting that, actually, at least in in lower classes, should be expected that rally cars would be using dirt tires rather than rally tires?)
I haven’t done much with the upgrading/tuning to confirm that the off-road tires are that much better than the rally tires on the dirt without being significantly worse than the rally tires on the road. I have only made one dirt built—a B700 2015 Subaru WRX—to race the Gauntlet. Having read some of the stuff above, I opted to go for off-road tires and use the remaining PI points on other areas. Anyway, I could not keep up on the road (against highly skilled drivatars). To be fair, I really wasn’t driving well, and it was my first time doing this race, so I didn’t know the course. I was in last place by quite a bit when we got to the mountain. But the mountain part is all dirt and by the time we got to the top of the mountain, I had caught up, and on the way down the mountain, I easily, and almost comically, overtook everyone to get in first place. So, yeah, my car dominated on all the dirt parts, but it could not really keep up on the road. I’ll try again with standard tires (I assume Rally tires would put the car over 700). But for now I am wondering whether the downsides of off-road tires on the road are being understated.
I would have liked some better ingame description. Offroad Race sounds like the best tyre to pick for noneroad events but it’s actually the Offroad tyre that offers better handling.
If I was to rename them then Rally (Offroad) and Offroad (Offroad Race) would have been a better description for the 2 tyres and their intended uses.
I agree with you. The way they did descriptions for the different parts is kind of messed up and doesn’t explain it all to well. There use to be an explanation for each item which I do miss. But at least you can vvisually see the difference between the two tires at least. The Rally tire does have tread for offroad but still designed to be for on road purposes, but if you look at the Offroad Race Tire, you can see it is meant for true offroad purposes. I know a lot of people would get confused between the two because a lot of people don’t watch any Rally Corss events or see the Core trucks that are usually always offroad. But to each their own. Some people want the game to be more arcade and some people actually want this game to lean more towards simulation. To each their own but the game is moving oddly towards both.
That portion of the message wasn’t just about the main OP’s thread, but just in overall. BTW, great choice of car since I own a 2015 Sub WRX in person. But besides that, yes offroad will be way better in the dirt overall where as a rally tire will be better on the mixed surfaces. At lower tiers, you can get away with a bit more if you’re just playing the AI. IE, I used a modified and tunes B700 2002 Skyline and I ran rally tires for all the events that dealt with dirt in general. What happens is you lose traction in just complete dirt, but not as much as you would think just flying through the “hills” but more when you hit pure gravel/ “mud” or dirt lanes. This is where the true offroad tires will shine because they are driven on what they are suppose to be driven on.
The lower tier cars can get away with just rally because of the lower HP/TQ than a higher end car. For instance, rally racing a 1965 Mini Cooper vs a Audi TT Quatro.