Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 169: Getting a Grip on Things
With the Ellisbury Update now merged with the public release, there have been many major changes in how some trim options are handled. In particular, tires have been overhauled significantly, with semi-slicks (the sportiest tire choice other than race tires) now only being available from 1997 onwards, assuming tire techpool has been set to 0. However, they are still very effective when used in extreme high-performance applications, such as modern track-focused road cars, especially those with very high power outputs. (generally those from the 1990s onward, although it is possible to unlock them as early of 1982 with +15 techpool) . This is because their extremely soft compound gives them more grip, at the expense of reduced drivability and comfort, in addition to being utterly useless off-road (or on snow and ice, for that matter) and wearing out more quickly than a sports tire. Moreover, they are very challenging to drive on in wet or even damp conditions Finally, they not only increase the price of any car to which they have been fitted, but they increase the service costs and fuel consumption significantly, the latter due to their greater rolling resistance.
To demonstrate, I decided to compare the lap times set by my favorite Automation build, the LVC LS60, around the Airfield test track on sports compound and semi-slick tires. It was fast enough on regular sports tires, but on closer inspection, it needed more grip to make the most of its power. After fitting semi-slicks and tuning the suspension to exploit their characteristics, the result was a significant improvement of around 3 seconds. I later found out that swapping from a handmade interior with a luxury CD player to a sports interior and premium CD player, along with downgrading from an advanced safety suite to a standard one, helped matters even further, due to the weight reduction that resulted. Even without these additional changes, however, the increased sportiness more than outweighed the loss of drivability, comfort, fuel economy, and reliability, considering that the LS60 was a flagship hypercar, and not a mass-produced commuter car.
The tire setup, suspension settings, and lap time of the LVC LS60 when fitted with semi-slick tires (above) when compared with those of the same car using regular sports tires (below).
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