Forza 3 driving guide for beginners
This guide is basically for people that are just starting out in the game or or are struggling to come to terms with how to improve those lap times. The guide is not recommended for racers that have been around the block a bit, but that said, you may also pick up some handy tips when it comes to racing etiquette.
The main sections we will be covering are the mainstay of racing and that is braking, accelerating and cornering. Once you have mastered these elements then everything else will soon start to come together. With Forza 3 and other such simulating racers it is always about finding the best lines, learning your braking points and keeping the traction solid as time is lost if your car is sliding.
Forza 3′s assist system helps put in to place a lot of these elements but cannot really tell you how to control your car properly. Although, there are assists to show the lines on a track, where to brake and when to get on the throttle, most decent racers will tell you that once you are used to the track you will find that there are better lines to be had which will get you in and out of corners a lot faster so although they are great as a guide, once you become more confident and have a better understanding of the dynamics of racing then spend some time with a track and look at different lines.
Braking
If you think braking is as simple as mashing the brake button (or brake pedal), it’s time to snap to reality. Braking is as important, if not more so, than accelerating when it comes to realistic, technical racing. Poor braking can dramatically affect your lap times. Proper braking technique, conversely, will set you up to swing through corners drama-free and ready to peg the accelerator at the soonest moment possible.
As a general rule, combining braking inputs with steering inputs will result in oversteer, often to catastrophic effect. In simpler terms, don’t brake while turning. Braking is much more effective when done in a straight line, scrubbing off speed much faster than braking while turning. If you try braking during a hard corner, you’ll effectively divide the potential grip of your tires between turning and braking. This division of grip results in both poor turning and poor braking. If you’re braking during a turn, you’ve waited far too long before using the brakes.
Since you undoubtedly need to drive through turns slower than the straights that precede turns, treat braking as a necessary preparation for turning. As you approach a turn—well before entering the actual corner—apply the brakes while making as few steering wheel corrections as necessary. If you time your braking properly, you’ll have slowed down enough that you can ease through the corner without further need of the brakes.
Accelerating
Much like braking, acceleration doesn’t often mix well with cornering. The effect of acceleration on cornering is highly dependent on your vehicle’s drivetrain, but the general rule is the same. By accelerating during a turn, you effectively divide the potential grip of your tires between two functions, acceleration and turning. In some cars, this results in understeer, during which the turning potential of the car is compromised, and instead of turning as sharply as possible the car will push toward the outside of the turn. In other vehicles, oversteer is induced, during which the tail end of the car swings out, making the vehicle more difficult to control in the turn and crippling acceleration potential.
That said, there are very few times when you can use the accelerator without touching the steering. The lesson here is not that you should never steer and accelerate at the same time, but rather that you need to understand the effects of combining the two actions. The real lesson here is to practice moderation. If you’re deep into a turn with the steering cranked to the extreme, pegging the accelerator is only going to ruin your turn. It may not be obvious in theory, but think of the opposite action: If you’re running pedal-to-the-metal down a long straight, cranking the steering wheel left or right is going to severely wreck your acceleration (and probably more).
How you moderate your acceleration should be directly related to how hard you’re steering. Through a slight right bend, you can ease the steering a little right without stepping off the accelerator. If, however, you’ve just slowed down for a sharp hairpin, you’ll want to only feather the accelerator as you crank the steering to maintain the modest speed you’ve set up for the corner.
After you’ve navigated a turn and pointed the car straight, center the steering and nail the gas to get out of the corner. In a perfect racing line, it’s okay if your acceleration out of the turn results in minor understeer that pulls the car away from the apex and to the outside of the corner. Use the full width of the course to keep the straightest line possible when accelerating out of a bend.
Cornering
Now that you’ve got a basic understanding of the effects of braking and acceleration on your ability to turn the car, it’s time to understand a key principle to cornering: Slow in, fast out.
The gist of the principle applies to every corner you take. Exiting the corner at the highest possible speed is the ultimate goal of every turn. If you’re fast out of a corner, you’ll carry that speed into the following straight. But in order to exit a corner at the highest possible speed, it’s necessary to enter the corner slowly.
As we explained earlier, before entering a corner, you want to apply the brakes as you approach your turn. From inside the corner, feather the throttle lightly, just enough to maintain a constant, low speed. Turn into the corner and aim the car for the corner’s apex (more on this later). Once you’ve made it through the meat of the turn, center the steering and nail the accelerator to get out of the corner as fast as possible.
When approaching a corner, you typically want to brake along the outside edge of the turn. Doing so will allow you to cut a gradual turn toward the apex. If you come into a corner from the inside of the track, you’ll effectively reduce the radius of the turn, resulting in a loss of speed through the corner (and out of it). A more gradual turn radius, started from the outside of the track, will allow you to maintain a higher speed while adhering to your racing line.
The apex of the turn is the point in your racing line that comes closest to the inside of the turn. Typically this is where you transition from turning to straightening the car for acceleration out of the corner. Visualizing the proper apex will give you an idea of what your racing line should look like through a particular corner.
After hitting the apex on the inside of the turn, let your acceleration pull the car back toward the outside of the turn. Use the full width of the course to cut as straight a path as possible as you exit the corner. Staying straight as possible will let you accelerate more effectively, adhering to the original mantra: Slow in, fast out.
(details taken from IGN)
Weight Distribution
Now that you’ve got a basic understanding of proper driving technique, it’s time to look a bit more in-depth into the physical mechanics at play in high-speed racing. Weight distribution and weight transfer concern the effects of weight balance on the handling dynamics of your vehicle. These dynamics are always changing as you race, as everything you do affects the distribution of weight in your vehicle.
When the vehicle is at a complete stop, its weight balance is at its most neutral. A perfectly balanced car will have a 50/50 weight balance, with half of the car’s weight pushing down on the front wheels and the other half of the weight holding down the rear wheels. While only a few cars actually achieve a perfect weight balance, this general idea applies.
Naturally, the weight balance of a non-moving car is instantly changed the moment the vehicle kicks into motion. Upon acceleration, the weight balance is shifted backward. As the car lunges forward, the front end of the vehicle lifts while the tail end of the vehicle dips down. This shift in the weight balance dramatically affects the grip of the tires. Under hard acceleration, the front tires lose grip while the rear tires gain traction from the added weight. As acceleration slows, weight balance gradually returns to a more neutral state.
The opposite effect can be seen under hard braking. As a car brakes hard, the nose of the car dips down while the tail tends to lift. In this situation, the weight balance of the car is shifted forward. The front tires of the car gain traction from the additional weight while the rear of the car loses some grip potential as the pressure of the weight shifts away from those wheels. This shift in weight balance is why a car’s front wheels handle most of the braking.
As weight balance transfers fore and aft of the car, dynamics such as cornering ability and grip for acceleration are affected. The effects of weight transfer vary depending on the drivetrain type of the vehicle.
Hints and Tips
Be gentle with acceleration and Throttle: Remember that the brake and accelerator on your controller or wheel are analogue and not digital. In days of old there were two detections on the triggers or buttons. On and off! This does not apply to todays games and controllers. Forza 3 is controlled through squeezing the triggers gently and can do a lot to improve your lap times if you get used to depressing gently. If you hit the brake trigger straight away, you will more than likely lock your wheels which will make the car harder to control and also un-stable. Likewise with the accelerator, quickly pressing the trigger will create wheel spin as the power comes into the wheels and therefore provide less traction to create the speed on and exit or even getting off of the starting line. Look to feed each of these in to give yourself the best possible chance of braking into the corner properly or getting the speed down the right way without wearing out your tyres, kicking the back wheels out or sliding too much. The first few times this may feel really alien to you but after a while you will find you have a lot more control over the car you are in and those times will come down quite a bit.
Features on tracks are there for a reason: This might be a gimme to a lot of people but cones etc are placed there for a reason. Ever seen them on the Silverstone track? You will find 3 on every bend and these represent (the same as in real life track days) the entry, the apex and the exit of the turn you are going into. You will also find rumble strips over those general areas too. Although the cones are precise and the strips are not so, they make great references for you when determining how best to get through a corner. You can pretty much guarantee the cones will be pretty accurate but if they are not there then use the rumble strips as a guide. Also remember the slow is fast rule and also the outside, inside, outside rule. eg, if it is a right hand bend then you will need to approach from the left hand side of the track (outside), find your cone or strip and turn into the apex of the corner (inside) and then get on the accelerator when you feel you have the car under control traction wise and feed the car back to the left hand side of the track to exit (outside).
Also look for marker points you can use for braking, whether it be a tree and speed sign, a sign or whatever you can use lap in and lap out to find reference points to help you slow the car down or for what is coming up. There is a great piece of discussion in our interview with Anthony Davidson that explains the really well. It is regarding a Le Mans driver using a caravan as a reference point to braking and when he doing his second stint the caravan has gone and he crashed because of it.
Traction is key: Any type of circuit racing is all about battling traction for the most point. Yes, here are many other factors to consider but if you are sliding and your tyres are not stuck to the ground, you are losing time. Try to find a way of countering this action to gain mor speed, more control and better times. Using the throttle trigger the correct way definitely helps this. How many people have gone into a corner and had an on, off love affair with your throttle control causing the car to oversteer and then understeer because of the amount of times you are depressing the throttle too quickly. Instead, try throttle control around the corner to maintain the speed but not slide too much while you are doing it. Try braking, turning and keeping the pressed halfway down rather than all the way until you have the control to exit. One thing you are doing is keeping the revs at optimum ready to get on the throttle and therefore gaining time. You’d be surprised at how well this works! Listen to your tyres to guage the level of grip you have. If they start to squeel a little then ease off the accelerator a bit to maintain that balance.
Understand your car: This may sound simple but quite a few players think that each car will respond the same way as any other one will which os definitely not correct. A FWD car has a tendency to understeer (not turn in enough) as the front wheels are is what is driving the car forward, RWD cars have a tendency to oversteer (turn too much into a corner) as the rear wheels are driving the car. You need to compensate for this always and when you add different PI and upgrades into the mix and can get a little hectic, braking points change, turning attributes change etc. Try and get a few laps in a car and also understand the drive train to compensate your driving style for the car itself. Remember that slow is fast so hitting the corner a little early in braking and turning but being able to get on the power earlier is a lot more preferable to over shooting the corner in the first place.
Respect the other racers: You may think you are the nuts and have the measure of predictable AI but when it comes to online racing you have to remember that the other cars are controlled by humans that have different styles to you. Take your time when over taking is a must. Do not risk ruining your race and another opponent by being impatient. Chances are you will get your chance at somepoint and if you don’t then you got beat by a better man on that race. Gaining good exit speed is always worth looking at. If you cannot make the move then back off a little. If your ducking up the inside and are just about to block a natural racing line then back off a little. I know you want to be commited but there comes a point where it is not wise to do so.
The same goes for cornering. Remember that it is your job to get past the opponent in front not for him to let you through. If you can’t do it cleanly and confidently then do not do it. Remember that coming into a corner the person ahead of you may have different ideas to braking etc so you need to compensate for this by perhaps braking a little earlier than you normally would. Doesn’t mean you will lose that much time, it just means you have possibly avoided an accident that wouldn’t do either of you any good. Also, remember that your tyres need time to warm up. Trying to attempt a move that you would make in the middle of the race may not work here if tyres are cold and not up to temperature.
Also, keep looking around if you have a little moment. Some of the best encounters I have seen and one I was in last night have involved all the things that have been mentioned above plus communication and the players looking at where each other was at. We were racing for nearly a lap two abreast with two rows and not one crashed because of silly moves and over eagerness. This race succeeded because the racers were telling each other where they were, looking through mirrors and also out of the side of their cars. When it happens like that it is the best experience in this game. Just remember to communicate a little of the position of your car. If you are overtaking on the right, tell them this as it will make it easier for them not to cut across the racing line into a bend and take you both out.
Well, that’s all the basic driving guide and I hope that this helps some of you guys into becoming better racers. Good luck to you all and happy racing!
by gazzara