Transmitter Settings Thoughts
added: 22.05.2018
Just wanted to give my thoughts on transmitter settings from the perspective of someone whose just started out. I couldn’t find any info like this when I first got back into it and hope this will be helpful to someone...
I started back with an Etronix EX3GPro I picked up second hand from a kind chap on Oople, much like most of the gear I got back started with. It’s a budget stick radio that does the job and got me up and running on VRC Pro, and also with a real Yokomo YZ-2. It was a big improvement over a control pad, but I did soon start to wonder what the difference between a £50 and a £500 radio was. It started to become obvious the more I started to pick up speed and get closer to the pipes – latency.
So I’m no expert on this, but latency is the time it takes between moving a stick and actually seeing that change in the car. With a high end radio this time is consistently pretty much instant, but with the budget radios it is significantly longer. Now, our brains can tune into that latency and get used to it, but the issue is that the amount of latency can drift around, so you could arrive at a corner and turn the stick in the same place every time, but some laps you’ll clip the pipe, and others you’ll drift out into the dust. You get an overwhelming sense of making mistakes that you have no control over, and a hopeless inevitability that you’ll crash during a run. Another thing that seemed to reduce the accuracy was adjusting the exponential settings, so I found leaving the transmitter settings linear and using the in game settings for expo and end points was much more accurate and consistent.
After 6 months of getting back up to speed and much pondering I decided to invest in a new radio – the Sanwa ZZ. It was a huge improvement (thankfully!) and opened up the world of accurate controller settings to me. I hooked it up to my VRC pro adapter, reconfigured the controller and reset all the settings. Specifically the in game settings I now run as zero exponential, 100% end points and full steering on the car setup screen all the time. I now adjust these only on my transmitter as I have shortcut switches that allow me to make adjustments while actually driving rather than having to pull up while I go into settings screens.
Using the transmitter settings I’ve found that I like to run the steering exponential (curve) somewhere between -40% to -60%. This may sound excessive but gives a lot of control over the initial movement of the stick, and allows you to make small adjustments to the direction of the car on straights and while lining up to hit jumps. I then dial in around 70%to 90% of lock on the steering so the max lock suits the tightest corner on the circuit. I often work this in relation to the expo to keep the initial steering feeling the same.
On the throttle I like only a little exponential. Maybe negative 10% to 20%. Just enough to give some extra control at low speeds to limit spinning up the wheels, and help hit the jumps at the right speed to make the landing ramps.
Brakes I usually set the end point so that the car doesn’t spin on full brake at the end of the straight. This can be anywhere between 30% to 85%. I leave the expo at zero, although sometimes you’ll find with some cars that a touch of the brake while in the air brings the nose down too hard. Getting the nose down when you’re in the air gets your wheels back on the ground sooner so is important to get right. If you’re struggling to match the car to the landing ramp angle and bringing it into the ground front wheels first, try increasing the brake expo to -20% and it will give you a little less initial brake.
I’ve toyed with Anti-Lock Brakes but they don’t give a noticeable benefit to me. The best use I’ve found is on the end of straights like on Naxos or Rhein-Mein. It may be useful to have them on a button and just turn them on for that one corner.
The “Speed” setting allows you to slow down your inputs and makes the car less twitchy. I usually leave these at zero and rely on my talent. However, on those many occasions when my “talent” is AWOL - usually on a bumpy/dusty track after too many lemonades - it may be beneficial to raise the steering and throttle “speed” to between minus 10 to 20. This can also prevent you from over driving when the pressure is on.
That pretty much covers my thoughts on the transmitter settings at the moment, but an important side note is the setting of the drag and initial brakes on the ESC in game. The drag brake is the amount of brake that the ESC applies when you have the throttle at neutral. This is very useful as it gives you a consistent braking force that you can hit easily every time, and makes the car respond the same way into the corners every time. It has the effect of slowing the car slightly and dipping the nose into the corner while you’re coasting, giving more steering as the weight transfers onto the front tyres. I find this especially beneficial with the short course trucks, and set it at around 15% to 21%. If I feel like I’m slowing down into the corners too much, or oversteering, I reduce the drag brake down.
The initial brake on the ESC is the extra braking force that’s applied when you first pull the stick back (just a touch). This again gives you another consistent level of braking force and is useful for the rally car style hand-brake turns. This is good for throwing the car around a hairpin turn just after the apex, and I like around 6%, specifically on the short course trucks again.
So I hope that is of some help to someone starting out. If you have any comments/improvements/corrections please feel free to contact me, I’d love to know the settings you use and appreciate your opinions!
Edited by author: 22.5.2018 17:09:39 GMT
Edited by author: 22.5.2018 17:14:08 GMTEdited by author: 22.5.2018 17:26:30 GMT
