The Dirt monthly thread

[Habsolute 1]

Oh...and slow. I forgot to mention, painfully slow.

There has to be something that I haven't figured out yet when driving RWD cars, 'cause especially in tight corners (or snow) I spin it. It's frustrating...which then leads me to be WAY too conservative, which makes the handling worse. Then I a try to push to see how it reacts at speed....and I haven't found the happy middle place yet...

[shadow118 18]

With RWD's you have to be gentle with the throttle on corner exits on the tighter ones, especially on ice and snow. 
I probably wouldn't have counted dinner as part of the monthly, but that's just me :D 

[Habsolute 1]

Didzis said:

With RWD's you have to be gentle with the throttle on corner exits on the tighter ones, especially on ice and snow. 
I probably wouldn't have counted dinner as part of the monthly, but that's just me :D 

I've been practicing in Wales with the M3, 'cause I have a hard time in that location and every once in a while I get in a groove...but as soon as I get apprehensive, I'm all over the place...

[Porkhammer 78]

Habsolute said:

Didzis said:

With RWD's you have to be gentle with the throttle on corner exits on the tighter ones, especially on ice and snow. 
I probably wouldn't have counted dinner as part of the monthly, but that's just me :D 

I've been practicing in Wales with the M3, 'cause I have a hard time in that location and every once in a while I get in a groove...but as soon as I get apprehensive, I'm all over the place...

Keep in mind that you turn with the throttle, not the steering wheel. The steering wheel is basically just a vague pointer to where you want the car to go.

[Habsolute 1]

Porkhammer said:

Habsolute said:

Didzis said:

With RWD's you have to be gentle with the throttle on corner exits on the tighter ones, especially on ice and snow. 
I probably wouldn't have counted dinner as part of the monthly, but that's just me :D 

I've been practicing in Wales with the M3, 'cause I have a hard time in that location and every once in a while I get in a groove...but as soon as I get apprehensive, I'm all over the place...

Keep in mind that you turn with the throttle, not the steering wheel. The steering wheel is basically just a vague pointer to where you want the car to go.

Thanks for the advise, man! I think you're right, I'm way to aggressive with my steering inputs...which leads me to eat lots of bark...or rocks....or sky :-)

[KK78 9]

So 4 stages into the Monthly and my Pug got wrecked.... oh well saves me the pain I guess :)

[YoMrWhite 3]

Survived the first 6 stages, but had major crashes/spins in each but the first one. The 205 just wants you to push, but makes you pay for it, if you go over the limit. Quite fitting for Group B I guess...

[foppaldo 0]

I've spent a fair amount of time comparing the 205 and S4 in Germany and Wales. I can post better times with the Pub, but for every clean(ish) run there's four where I crash. A lot.

For that reason I think I'll be better off chosing the S4. It doesn't seem quite as intent on killing us both at the first opportunity. Hopefully that will increase my chances of crossing the finish line for this monthly.

[shadow118 18]

Did some testing in  the German long stage Ruschberg, before diving in to the Monthly. Pug is fast, but it's also an uncontrollable mess. Quattro handles quite well, but with less mistakes I was still slower than the Pug run where I had spin-outs and crashes. My fastest run was with the S4 - 5:49.6. 
I'm actually more concerned about Sweden, because driving the Group B cars there is a bit of a nightmare

[hkkane 0]

first time join monthly event ,when 7-12 stages available?

[foppaldo 0]

Tomorrow. The first six stages are released on the 1st of the month. Then after a week (or in other words, the 8th of the month) the next six become available. Repeat two more times.

[foppaldo 0]

In the end I went for the Pug, just because of the awesome Kodak livery. All in all  things have gone fairly well. Frequent small scrapes and spins and such, but only one major time loss: on one of the short stages in Wales, where I managed to puncture after 50 meters, and subsequently lost a minute and a half. To rub salt into the wound I got a stage win with a good six seconds on the reverse stage.

That being said, after Finland I wonder how I'll be able to get this car through the final six stages. It's been reduced to a steering wheel and a truck load of gaffa tape. Everything is in shatters. Seeing that I'm somehow 17th, I suspect that most others are in a similar state, and that Sweden will be all about nursing our Rent-a-Wrecks towards the finish line.

[Dytut 44]

Finished the monthly in the end. Was a tough battle to keep the poor pug in working order. Not sure if I encountered a bug or something, for I managed to get my radiator to 0% at every service point throghout the monthly. Pretty much from stage 1, and even if I drove it careful and didn't hit anything. This happening to the rest of you pug drivers aswell or was it just me?

[F2CMaDMaXX 400]

Dytut said:

Finished the monthly in the end. Was a tough battle to keep the poor pug in working order. Not sure if I encountered a bug or something, for I managed to get my radiator to 0% at every service point throghout the monthly. Pretty much from stage 1, and even if I drove it careful and didn't hit anything. This happening to the rest of you pug drivers aswell or was it just me?

I'll let you know, i'm trying that one myself.

[Porkhammer 78]

Decided to start my monthly... picked the 205.

Germany went pretty smooth.
Wales was ok. Driving purely on safety.
Finland was awful. Crash on SS18, but still holding on to a 47 second lead. It's annoying how the 205 seem to think that I use 50 degrees of rotation in Finland. It's close to undrivable.

Just Sweden to go now, and the Peugeot is not feeling well after Finland... let's see if it will survive the last six stages and keep me in the lead.

EDIT: Sweden, done. Went a lot better than expected. No spins, no crashes... fast and smooth driving. Managed to pull an entire extra minute to my lead as well - and this is driving with a flu + cold! I'm happy with myself. ;)

[shadow118 18]

Started and finished the montly today :) 
Picked the Quattro, because I think it's the easiest to drive in Sweden. Have had problems with Group B cars in Sweden lately, so didn't want to risk it.
Germani went fine, Wales was also ok, apart from getting 30 seconds of penalties in one of the long stages.
Finland was bouncy... very... very... bouncy :tongue:
Sweden went surprisingly smoothly. Not a single spin-out, just some rolls :D Like I barely touch the bank and suddenly I'm like a turtle on it's back.
Next time I'll probably pick something faster

[Dytut 44]

Amazing. This monthly run of the Evo in Monte was the first time I got into the flow of monte. I finally understand what you mean when you talk about it! I wasn't that fast anyways, but I finally felt like I could've gone faster instead of pushing and failing like I did before.

[foppaldo 0]

Same here. First time I've ever felt confident that the car would respond how I wanted and not randomly choose between understeer and snap oversteer.

It actually led to something I found odd, which hopefully someone better than me can answer:
- According to the game I set the 'current best time' on the five first Monte stages. Yet on the leaderboard showing straight afterwards, @RyuMakkuro steadily reduced the gap between us. I would fully expect him to smash me through Monte, so that's not the problem, but why does the game tell me that I set the fastest stage time when it's obviously not the case?

[Dytut 44]

Yeah that's the usual tomfoolery. In evenst and leagues it's not actually stage times that are shown at the end of a stage, but how you compare to the current 1st place in the standings for each stage.

So for my part my times were compared to headquake's, who was 1st in the league totally (and had completed the stage). I was faster than him on every stage, so I closed the gap to headquake by about 25 seconds over monte. But I also kept check on Ryu since I started Monte 15s behind him. In the end, I was 30s behind him. 

So in general it's like this:
leaderboard after stage 1:
1. Racer Rick 1:00
2. Speedy Sam 1:20
3. Fast Fiona 1:50
...
...

Racer Rick does stage 2 first, and gets a time of 2:00.
Leaderboard for stage 2 is now:
1. Racer Rick 3:00
2. ......
3. .....

After that, Fast Fiona runs stage 2 and gets a 1:30. Game reports that she was -30s. This is the difference to Racer Rick for the stage.
Leaderboard is:
1. Racer Rick 3:00
2. Fast Fiona 3:20
3....

Speedy Sam runs stage 2 after that, and gets a 1:50. Game reports it as -10s, as this is the difference to Racer Ricks time, even though It's actuallt 20 seconds slower than Fast Fiona.

[RyuMakkuro 6]

foppaldo said:

It actually led to something I found odd, which hopefully someone better than me can answer:
- According to the game I set the 'current best time' on the five first Monte stages. Yet on the leaderboard showing straight afterwards, @RyuMakkuro steadily reduced the gap between us. I would fully expect him to smash me through Monte, so that's not the problem, but why does the game tell me that I set the fastest stage time when it's obviously not the case?

Because ever since the RaceNet issues, aka console release basically, it's dimwitted slow and takes ages to update the fastest time there. Similar stuff happens in the Leagues.

Though given that I was driving with massively broken Evo X (I had no power for the first 4 stages, literally none), I'm surprised I was still as fast as I was xD Possibly the improved setup helped, maybe also the fact I'm used to how slippery that side of Monte is in Mist conditions.

[RyuMakkuro 6]

To those going for the new stages and find their cars lacking in... exhaust. Don't repair it. It will just drop to 0% every single time. At least it did to me.

[foppaldo 0]

Resurrecting this out of frustration.

Within three jumps on the first stage of Finland the radiator light turns on. From there on every service area is spent repairing the radiator from 0% to 80+. Then at the start of the next stage I suspect it instantly is reset to 0.
I drove as cautiously as I possibly can, slowing before every big jump. I continued to do so through Sweden, and still couldn't stop the rot. On the first stage of Germany the car gave up the ghost.

I really hope that CM will take the time to do a little tweak on how the "percentage repair" model seemingly just wastes your repair time on parts that are down to 0%, AND/OR tune it so that the radiator doesn't take massive damage on jumps regardless of your suspension/damping settings.

[Porkhammer 78]

Finland part of monthly, done. First stage was ok. The rest was awful. My radiator and exhaust were completely trashed by the time I reached my first service area. I also had a crash at SS6 - yet somehow I am still leading. Three countries to go.

Sweden, done. Pretty nice pace all throughout, with the exception of SS10 where I spun twice after being distracted by a strange sounding engine - and then of course there was the odd snowbank cuddle. The setup I have for the 205 in Sweden is absolutely perfect; every corner was enjoyable.

Germany, done. No mistakes, only had an engine stall at Ruschberg. I also managed to win some stages with quite a large margin (10+ seconds), so I'm guessing I'm not the only one with a beat up car. Finland really messed it up. I still cannot repair it fully.

Wales, done. Going with the cautiously quick approach, though I got a little bit cocky on SS23 and rolled a couple of times. Happy to be done with the monthly, and leading with 2 hours and 45 mins to go.

[Headquake 0]

Well done Porkhammer. 
I had a lot of fun with this group B monthly, really got comfortable with the S4. 
Happy with 2nd place.
 :) 

[Snaky115 4]

Started doing monthly Grp A for giggles with mah Ford Escort.

It feels more... attracted to snowbanks than other cars, god this car is FAT. That is one of the weirdest crashes ive had in Sweden Stage 3 - it just... got stuck to the snowbank when i was in a straight line on the finishing straight. Didn't even spin, just stopped dead. 

EDIT: did 18 stages in a row! O_O
ALSO i won the Germany rain stage Oberstein! With an Escort! =D yay