thanks very much for this feedback!
> Overall, a huge issue for me in this game is how weak the brakes are.
>I'd bet that your programmed max deceleration is way off.
the brakes where not tuned properly. what determines acceleration deceleration is ultimately the tire grip. the breaks where just set to a low value because i tuned it to my liking and got used to it.
>Do I need to threshold brake? Is that the issue?
there is an ABS system, but its not great, since the breaks were so weak, that was definitely not the problem
>Also, I find that I can't use forward-rearward weight transfer to my advantage at all. This leads to frustrating understeer.
this is interesting. i was worried that the whole weight shifting thing was too strong! the way it works now (probably not corect judging from your feedback), is that a little bit of of braking gives you oversteer but slamming it does not. the reason is that under heavy braking, the tires will `use up` all the grip applying a `backward` force, while little grip is left for steering. so most of the weight shifting steering benefits happen when your stop accelerating and improve only slightly by braking a bit.
> That seems to be a physics modeling issue. It shouldn't be whether I'm hitting the brakes, it should just be how the chassis is shifting weight front or rear that is affecting handling and grip.
its for the reason above - its not hardcoded, in fact, its all emergent behaviour from the physics model. the things that are hardcoded are the biases to make the physics more arcady. you do get a grip proportional to the weight(under heavy braking it can get like 80% weight on the front tires). its just that all of the gained grip ends up being `used up` to do the braking. now, this is how rigid body friction works, but tires are stretchy and sticky so i`m probably missing something. i have a few ideas already on how to fix this issue, or at least tune it in a way that the more you break the more steering you get(assuming thats how it works)
> And then I get gobs of unwanted oversteer (basically a completely uncontrolled rear end) upon touching the brakes at all while going high speeds.
this one is a bit tricky, im not sure why it gets so much harder at high speeds. could it be just that my surfaces dont have as much grip as other games? im using values that are slightly higher then real general purpose street tires... another thing is that the car has a lot of maximum steering, so small inputs could be doing more steering then expected.... finally, i need to try out aerodinamics. there should be a small self-aligning effect when air is hitting the side of the car, but i have no idea if it would make any visible difference without testing... street cars barely make any downforce, but something with a big airfoil would be more stable at high speeds
> FWD and RWD handle in this.
i should probably have added a toggle... from my tests its too easy to lose grip when accelerating, so i think ill need to write some sort of assist for keyboard controlling. the clutch is also too fast, so changing gears is like a clutch kick and makes rwd go sideways quite easily on some tests that i did