Front wheel traction pole

[MXK_NK181]

I'm just curious as to how many riders feel that the front tire is a bit slick and wants to washout, and how many rider feel it is already perfect.
I just wana say i love this game and it is by far the best mx game to date. Ive been playin mxs for about 2yrs and i am no slouch, i have about 600 online wins under my belt. My one and only complaint, and all my buddys that i race with agree is that the front tire seem like it could use a bit more traction from time to time. Im not shure if its traction or a stearing issue or what. Ive heard that JLV is under the impression that it is perfect but I for one think it could use a littel improvement. Now lets see what u guys have to say about it .........

[Showtime]

it depends on how u use it, just like in real life if u use it quick and all at once your front wheel will lock up and slide

[yzmxer608]

The stock traction it happens a lot, it happens less with the custom more sticky traction. It's fine if you ask me, just have to be careful in ruts and turning.

[Prologue]

I think it 'feels' a little unrealistic but I am not a pro motocrosser going crazy speeds, so yeah. I do wonder whether or not JLV uses the same friction coeffcient for sideways traction as he does for front/rear traction. Offroad tire designs aren't the same side to side as they are front to back. They have to take into account the cleanout of the mud and all that and so I bet the friction coefficient should be treated as a vector and not a scalar (then dotted with the force vector or something similar).

I don't know which way (side having more traction than front to back, or front/back having more), but I would hope that it favors better handling in MXS with more traction side to side compared to front and back.

Also there is the question of whether or not the same sort of thing applies to the front and rear wheels; which one has more traction by design? The front might have more 'static style' traction in looser soils because it could cut in more. It is a subtle thing but it might also be something that is true for real bikes and would help with handling in MXS.

[FMXIAN]

I personally always have trouble with the rear bouncing around. Very rarely does the front give me trouble.

[JETZcorp]

I think the front wheel is pretty decent in terms of grip and such (as a disclaimer, I've never taken a real bike nearly as far as I do in MXS) but it's let down greatly by what's controlling it. For example, let's say you're a little too fast in a berm and come out of it. No big deal, you think, I'll just move on out to the next berm on the outside and catch that. But, you're leaned over, and in order to get to the other berm you have to go "down" the one you're going over. As the front tire contacts this surface, the game doesn't realize that the angle of the terrain has changed. It seems to be making the assumption that the entire world is just flat, and any given angle between tire and ground is caused by the bike's lean angle. So, when it sees this berm and processes the angle, it tries to correct the crazy lean angle you don't have, by steering into it. The bike understeers, and the bike falls. In real life, if you just held the bars the way they are, the wheel might slide a little bit but would then catch the ground once the angle got usable and you'd keep going. MXS tries to correct the bike from falling (even though in this case it's not about to fall) and snaps the bars over. This has happened to be so many times I can't even count. Every off-camber surface I encounter, even if it's only a foot wide, causes the bike to snap to understeer and just fall. This correction mechanism works fine at lower angles, but in situations like this it doesn't work.

And furthermore, it's unrealistic. Even when you're leaned over too far and detect that the bike is about to lose grip and slide, you don't yank the bars over to full lock to correct it! From what I've seen and experienced, the instinct is to put your leg out and right the bike that way. That's part of the reason you're supposed to have your leg forward in a turn (the main reason being to put your weight forward). I think if the game would detect situations where it wants to give "snap understeer" and instead put the leg out to correct, it would be a big improvement. And of course, if the forces involved are too much for a leg to reasonably correct from, or if the bike falls before the programmed-in reaction time, then it's still possible to fall. But I think the way the game responds to big-angle situations on the tire is far too simplistic and is responsible for about half of my falls.

[JohnnyMac]

I voted yes. I think custom tracks do improve traction, however I think Jetz has a valid point as well, so I think its a combo of the game correcting steering in weird ways along with lack of traction (especially on slopes). Two instances I see odd behavior, in my opinion, is after a crash, bike is trying to straighten up, and Im turning handle bars to help it up-right faster and start moving, yet front tire just slides forward without traction...until eventually it hooks up. Second instance is with the inside of a rut playing havoc with steering/grip.

[FMXIAN]

I think the front wheel is pretty decent in terms of grip and such (as a disclaimer, I've never taken a real bike nearly as far as I do in MXS) but it's let down greatly by what's controlling it. For example, let's say you're a little too fast in a berm and come out of it. No big deal, you think, I'll just move on out to the next berm on the outside and catch that. But, you're leaned over, and in order to get to the other berm you have to go "down" the one you're going over. As the front tire contacts this surface, the game doesn't realize that the angle of the terrain has changed. It seems to be making the assumption that the entire world is just flat, and any given angle between tire and ground is caused by the bike's lean angle. So, when it sees this berm and processes the angle, it tries to correct the crazy lean angle you don't have, by steering into it. The bike understeers, and the bike falls. In real life, if you just held the bars the way they are, the wheel might slide a little bit but would then catch the ground once the angle got usable and you'd keep going. MXS tries to correct the bike from falling (even though in this case it's not about to fall) and snaps the bars over. This has happened to be so many times I can't even count. Every off-camber surface I encounter, even if it's only a foot wide, causes the bike to snap to understeer and just fall. This correction mechanism works fine at lower angles, but in situations like this it doesn't work.

And furthermore, it's unrealistic. Even when you're leaned over too far and detect that the bike is about to lose grip and slide, you don't yank the bars over to full lock to correct it! From what I've seen and experienced, the instinct is to put your leg out and right the bike that way. That's part of the reason you're supposed to have your leg forward in a turn (the main reason being to put your weight forward). I think if the game would detect situations where it wants to give "snap understeer" and instead put the leg out to correct, it would be a big improvement. And of course, if the forces involved are too much for a leg to reasonably correct from, or if the bike falls before the programmed-in reaction time, then it's still possible to fall. But I think the way the game responds to big-angle situations on the tire is far too simplistic and is responsible for about half of my falls.

This makes so much sense it hurts. Good job JETZ.

[Pumaxcs]

I have never had that happen to me I don't think.

[jlv]

When the stabilizer turns it that far it's already gone. The reason it's turning it so hard is because it senses the angular velocity from the fall in progress.

It would be sensible to limit the steering angle when it's sliding to prevent it from high siding if it catches. It would not save you from sliding out though.

[JETZcorp]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that "angular velocity" could be caused by a change in the terrain angle, rather than bike angle, right? If so, it's possible that the wheel could simply lose grip and slide six inches before finding the next outside berm, and the rider keeps going. But if the bars are at full lock when he reaches that point, he isn't going anywhere. Or, sometimes the wheel does correct, and makes the bike do things straight from The Matrix.

From what I can gather, it seems like every mechanism in MXS assumes that all controlling of the bike must be done with the bars. The second your bike starts moving, the feet are never allowed to touch the ground. I understand why the game thinks it needs to try and make that hard turn, but I think it would be great if the game would recognize that it truly is hopeless to solve the problem with the bars, and either let the bike fall, or find some ground that works. If the game detects that the bike's about to fall, the rider can't put his foot down to the ground to right the bike like he would in real life. But the reason that's done in real life is because the rider knows instinctively that he's gotten himself into a situation that he just can't get out of using the bars. Gary Semics even makes mention of this in one of his DVDs, as he's showing a replay of a case where his front wheel washed out, and he put his inside leg down to prop the bike up. Here's the video, fast forward to 5:35. The lines he says are, "The front wheel wasn't leaned over far enough right here, front tire's coming out of the berm, not leaning over far enough. So, there it goes out of the berm. So, I know it's gonna fall if I don't do something, so I'm stepping with the inside foot, picking the bike up...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHI196-dP2Q

[jlv]

No, the angular velocity isn't relative to the ground angle. It feels the bike falling to the side and tries to correct by steering into it. When the front wheel is sticking, that stops the roll. If you're sliding out, your roll angle keeps increasing as the wheel sides out and it continues to attempt to correct it.

Using your leg to support the bike does stop the fall, and MX Simulator does that at low speeds. The problem with that is when your foot is supporting the bike, it becomes a tricycle and doesn't want to steer like a two wheeler any more. You've probably noticed that when your foot comes out the bike stops turning around the corner. That's because the front wheel is no longer steering in to maintain the roll angle.

[TeamHavocRacing]

so, lowering the max dab speed would minimize the trike effect?

[jlv]

I guess in the sense that you would not be dabbing as much.

[JETZcorp]

Just how low of speeds are we talking about here? When I had the "auto-dab when stopped" option turned off (because I was tired of the redirect thing messing everything up) the rider would fail to keep the bike up at ANY speed other than absolute zero. In order to stay upright, I had to hold the dab button, and the brakes, and the clutch. Even moving two inches would be enough to let the bike fall, even when sitting down. I have never seen the rider put his foot down to save the bike from a fall the way Semics did in his video, and there have been a lot of situations where I would've done exactly what he did.