GGGGG TTTTT 33333 TTTTT IIIII RRRR EEEEE SSSSS G T 3 * T I R R E S G GG T 333 T I RRRRR EEEE SSSSS G G T 3 * T I R R E S GGGGG T 33333 T IIIII R R EEEEE SSSSS By Wolf Feather/Jamie Stafford FEATHER7@IX.NETCOM.COM Version: FINAL Completed: November 3, 2001 ==================================== ==================================== ==================================== JOIN THE FEATHERGUIDES E-MAIL LIST: To be the first to know when my new and updated guides are released, join the FeatherGuides E-mail List. Go to http://www.coollist.com/group.cgi?l=featherguides for information about the list and to subscribe for free. ==================================== ==================================== ==================================== CONTENTS Spacing and Length Permissions Introduction Tire Selection Tire Care Two Exceptions Input from Others Wish List Contact ==================================== SPACING AND LENGTH For optimum readability, this driving guide should be viewed/printed using a monowidth font, such as Courier. Check for appropriate font setting by making sure the numbers and letters below line up: 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ==================================== PERMISSIONS This guide may ONLY be posted on FeatherGuides, GameFAQs.com, PSXCodez.com, Cheatcc.com, Absolute-PlayStation.com, InsidePS2Games.com, RedCoupe, CheatPlanet.com, The Cheat Empire, a2zweblinks.com, Gameguru, cheatingplanet.com, vgstrategies.com, ps2fantasy.com, hellzgate, GT3 High Speed, gamesover.com, and neoseeker.com. Permission is granted to download and print one copy for personal use. ==================================== ==================================== ==================================== INTRODUCTION Why a guide devoted specifically to tires in one specific game? As a recent Michelin commercial (shown in the States) states, the tires are the only safety features on the road which actually TOUCH the road. Implicit in this commercial is the message that special care must be given to tires. In the case of Michelin, this means that choosing Michelin tires is far safer than choosing any other brand of tires (note that this series of commercials has been running since LONG before the Firestone/Ford controversy erupted in 2000). In the case of Gran Turismo 3, this same implicit message - that the tires are the only safety features on the road which actually TOUCH the road - means that special care must be given to the tires to keep them from wearing out too quickly. This is especially important given that the only reason to enter Pit Lane in GT3 is to change tires - fuel, damage repair, etc., are not at issue in GT3. Of course, there are instances where tire wear is never an issue. None of the Arcade Mode races use tire wear, unless you specifically induce Professional League races (codes available elsewhere). Similarly, the Beginner races and some Amateur races are simply too short for tire wear to become an issue. Tire wear is also not involved in any of the Rally races, as - again - those races are too short for tire wear to become a factor. Many Amateur and ALL Professional and Endurance races, however, do include tire wear as one of the 'features' of each race. ==================================== TIRE SELECTION Tire selection is very important. This is the first variable in race performance (if based on tires alone). For non-racing cars intended for mundane street use, Normal tires are standard issue. While Normal tires may work well on the highway and on city streets, they are virtually worthless in an actual racing situation. Normal tires do not provide adequate grip to be effective in racing. This is most noticeable when trying to corner at relatively high speeds with a vehicle with Normal tires. Simulation tires supposedly give a more accurate feel of what it is like to drive a racing-tuned car. Sports tires are a little better than Normal tires. When first playing Gran Turismo 3, one of the best things you can do to improve your chance of success is to upgrade to Sports tires as soon as possible. This will improve your cornering ability, and provide a little more grip for acceleration (especially from a standing start). Dirt tires are required for dirt-based Rally events. All rally-intended cars come with Dirt tires. Many non-racing cars can also be equipped with Dirt tires. For example, I used a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII GSR(J) equipped with Dirt tires - with a lot of money spent on parts and time spent in tuning - to compete in and win ALL the dirt-based Rally events. (The same car also won in ALL the wet-based Rally events.) Racing tires come in an array of 'flavors,' with each tire compound giving a varying level of grip countered by an inverse level of durability. Super-slick Least grip, maximum durability Slick Medium-slick Medium* Average grip, average durability Medium-soft Soft Super-soft Maximum grip, least durability * For F1 cars, Medium tires are the ONLY tire option available (likely due to the lack of an FIA license for GT3). All F1 cars come equipped with Medium tires. A very important issue in tire selection actually involves horsepower. The chosen tires need to have some measure of durability, or else you will be stopping in Pit Lane to change tires after virtually every lap of the race. For example, a maxed-out Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak Version (1841HP) will be putting down so much power on the road that Super-soft tires will almost instantly become worthless. In other words, don't allow the car's horsepower to overdrive the tires' ability to function properly. In the event that the chosen tires wear out too much (orange or red tire indicators), cornering at any respectable speed will be virtually impossible, instead causing a nearly- uncontrollable slide into a barrier or into another vehicle. Strong acceleration will likely cause the vehicle to spin. A good driver will not let this happen very often; an expert driver will NEVER let this happen. Choose your pitting strategy so that your tires never become too worn. A set of tires needs to last AT LEAST 5 laps in order to give you a chance of winning a race. Of course, the greater the durability of a set of tires, the longer you can stay out of Pit Lane, thereby reducing your number of Pit Stops in a race; however, greater durability means less grip, which in turn means that you are quite likely to slide more often unless you take VERY good care of the tires. ==================================== TIRE CARE At the beginning of a race and immediately after a Pit Stop, the tires are brand new ('stickers') and need to be brought up to temperature as quickly as possible so that they can provide the best possible grip. This is noted by dark blue tire indicators. During this period, sharp turns or extremely-fast cornering will almost certainly cause the car to slide, and perhaps even spin. However, slides and spins will bring the tires up to optimum temperature even faster, so you may wish to purposely induce slides when entering corners, IF the tire indicators are dark blue. Once the tire indicators are green, the tires have reached their optimum performance temperature, thus providing you with the best possible grip for that set of tires. The amount of time the tire indicators remain in the green color range depends on your driving style, the amount of time off- course (in the grass or sand) or banging the barriers (or other cars), and the initial selection of tire compound. As the tire indicators switch to yellow, you need to start taking better care of your tires. You may experience slides when cornering. Orange tire indicators are a warning to get to Pit Lane to change tires as soon as you possibly can. You will be sliding around a lot more. Red tire indicators are effectively Game Over. Unless you have a HUGE (multi-lap) lead or a significant horsepower advantage over your competitors, you will not have a chance of winning the race, especially if you stop to change tires. Essentially, you are driving on pure ice, and the only way to 'reliably' get around the circuit is to ride the rails - which is inherently more difficult with the open-wheel F1 vehicles. Note that not all four tire indicators will not be the same color at all times. If even ONE tire shows a red indicator, you need to limp back to Pit Lane to change tires as soon as possible. Traction Control affects tire durability. With a low Traction Control setting, the tires will spin for a while (especially on a standing start or when under strong acceleration) before they actually grip the pavement; the friction of the pre-grip spinning wears away at the tires. With a high Traction Control setting, wheel spin is reduced or even eliminated, thus extending the durability of the tires. One of the best ways to reduce the durability of the tires is to corner at high speeds. The GT3 manual gives an excellent, detailed description of what occurs with the tires when cornering. In short, cornering at high speeds causes a high percentage of the tire to be used for speed, and a low percentage to be used for the actual cornering. To combat this and thus extend the durability of the tires, try to brake in a STRAIGHT line before reaching a turn, thus reducing overall speed and providing a lower percentage of the tires to be used for speed, and a greater percentage used for cornering. Note that if the percentage of the tires used for speed is too high compared to the percentage used for cornering, the car will slide and/or spin. Perhaps one of the best things to do to learn to take care of the tires is to play a racing game (such as the recently- released F1 2001) in which vehicle damage of available. Playing with the damage option on will certainly make the effects of worn tires quite visual. As tire grip wears away (due to a long run, multiple off-track excursions, etc.), your car may begin sliding around, potentially resulting in car damage (broken and missing parts), which REALLY makes driving a nightmare at high speeds. The Gran Turismo series does not make this visibly clear, so it is easy to underestimate the condition of the tires; similarly, without any car damage (due to licensing concerns), cars in the Gran Turismo series can simply "ride the rails" around corners when tire conditions are less than optimal. However, all of this CAN be thrown out the window, and you CAN win even an Endurance Race with red tire indicators and never stopping to change tires. I myself did this is the Trial Mountain 2 Hours Endurance Race using a Zonda C12S and Normal (street) tires. The only reason I won, however, was that I had superior horsepower to the other cars in the race. While it CAN be done, I very strongly suggest AGAINST attempting such a feat!!!!! ==================================== TWO EXCEPTIONS There are two circuits where tire wear need not be an issue: Test Course and Super Speedway. For both circuits, the car should be tuned for maximum speed, which usually means a high gear ratio, and low downforce and ride height. If you can select the tires you want (which means you are not driving an F1 car), you may as well go with Super-slick tires, as they will last the longest. For Test Course, the two banked turns are so extremely gentle that if you slide at all, the banking will usually prevent you from sliding up into the outer barrier. Even if you do hit the outer barrier, simply ride the rails until you can regain control of the car. For Super Speedway, simply ride the rails if necessary. In the Endurance race at Super Speedway (100 laps), you may wish to stop once or twice to change tires, but with a really fast and powerful car (such as a maxed-out Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak Version), you will EASILY win - in my case (two Endurance races, one with the Suzuki Escudo, one with an F1 car), I won by more than 30 laps over the second-place car. For both circuits, change parts to gain maximum horsepower output and speed off. In my own experience, virtually any car above 650HP will either be in contention to win the race, or will simply leave everyone else in the choking on exhaust based on horsepower alone. ==================================== INPUT FROM OTHERS I received a pair of e-mails from PJ (e-mail address withheld) concerning tires and braking. His information is rather technical, but is definitely useful to know: From: "pj" To: Subject: gt3 braking & ford racing Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 06:31:23 -0400 enjoy all of your writings which i've read thus far. most recently read your gt3 tires faq. good stuff. having had some road racing experience (decades ago when it was less expensive to race), i would like to share some info on braking with you. haven't read the skip barber portion of the gt3 manual yet so don't know if what i'm about to say is included in it. perhaps i read your tire faq too fast & didn't notice it there. if so, please excuse me. if gt3 is a real sim, then braking should be performed just as an actual road racer would. typically, for most turns, approximately 85% of your braking is performed in a straight line. obviously, this % varies depending upon the unique characteristics of each turn. the remaining approx. 15% is performed while entering the turn, before apexing the turn. this is known as "trail braking". its purpose is to continue to transfer weight to the front tires, thus increasing the tire's contact patch which results in greater cornering ability. get on the gas too soon and weight transfers to the rear wheels resulting in the car "pushing" (under- steering) off-line and perhaps off the course as well or into a barrier. i've found that proper "trail braking" allows for carrying higher speed through the corners, just as it would in real life. this is a very difficult skill to master. braking technique & tire management are perhaps, in my humble opinion, two of the most important aspects of gt3 racing (as they are in real life). Car setup while extremely important in real road racing, does not seem to be as important in gt3. it certainly helps, and can help a great deal, but it is not necessary to winning a race even with an under powered car. besides, if one doesn't know what they're doing, they can sure mess up the handling of a car. the "stock" or standard suspension settings seem to work just fine with few exceptions. proper braking allows for carrying higher exit speeds out of corners and for the most prevalent passing maneuver in real racing (and in gt3 also), viz. "overtaking under braking". while this rarely happens unless i don't select a good pit strategy, if it's late in a race & pitting might cause me to lose or i don't want to run 2 laps on super-slick cold (blue) tires, then i just finish the last lap or two on orange or red tires. just as in real life, this increases the braking distance, so the driver (player) must adjust the braking points accordingly. with care and somewhat slower lap times (usually 3-4 seconds per lap for most courses), one can run several laps on red tires. Handling is very mushy and it's easy to exceed the worn tire's limits, and the car is twitchy at high speed, but it can be done. ================================= From: "pj" To: "Wolf Feather" Subject: Re: gt3 braking & ford racing Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 03:26:18 -0400 forgot to mention that with a close ratio gear-box, downshifting and pulling high revs can produce "engine braking" which can be used for "trail braking". this is especially easy to do in GT3 with a manual transmission especially since there is no risk of over-revving the engine and "blowing" or "grenading" it, and since repeatedly bouncing the engine off of the rev-limiter does NOT produce the real-world vibrations that can, over time, damage an engine or crack headers. ==================================== ==================================== ==================================== WISH LIST There is really only one thing I would like to see changed about the Gran Turismo series in relation to tires: more realistic tire wear. The current method of tire wear (with tires lasting 5-10 laps on average) is just fine for relatively short races, but for longer races (such as the Endurance Races), the need to stop for tires so often is a very unrealistic aspect of this 'driving simulation' series. For the typical two-hour race, tire wear should occur at a rate requiring only 2-3 pit stops during the race. ==================================== ==================================== ==================================== CONTACT For questions, rants, raves, comments of appreciation, etc., or to be added to my e-mail list for updates to this driving guide, please contact me at: FEATHER7@IX.NETCOM.COM; also, if you have enjoyed this guide and feel that it has been helpful to you, I would certainly appreciate a small donation via PayPal (http://www.paypal.com/) using the above e-mail address. To find the latest version of this and all my other PSX/PS2 game guides, please visit FeatherGuides (http://www.angelcities.com/members/feathersites/). The latest version will always be posted at FeatherGuides, while other Web sites may lag behind by several days in their regularly-scheduled posting updates. ==================================== ==================================== ====================================