Spreadsheet Discussion and Q & A

[Blooze]

This Thread is for the Car Setup Sheet, but questions for the Leaderboard sheet can be handled here as well.

If you go to trying to use that thing, the Wb suspension section, the Damping Agents, or the Torque/Transmission section and have problems, post them here, and I will do my best to help you out with it.

If you find a bug or error (Heaven Forbid - not me!?!) post those here as well.

If you have a tuning idea that could be assisted with a spreadsheet, lets talk about it.

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[Fit4aking]

Hey Blooze....is the spreadsheet supposed to calculate the power to weight ratio of the cars in the Stable Table...hehe.  Also when you add a car to the stable should it carry over to the track tables as well or do you have to manually enter it into each one.  I Added my Solstice to row 2 of the stable (under the header) and had to re-enter it in each of the track tables.  All of the time calculated and changed according to input but I found it strange that the complicated things worked so well and the seemingly easy stuff still required the use of a calculator.

I've been using it a lot and I'm gonna get a C-class version ready soon.

[Tonka Crash]

I have incorporated a lot of the functionality you worked up for tuning based on WB and was curious about something in your implementation that may point to a difference in the way we approach tuning.  In yours I see that you have one value to set the base WB (M4), but you also have it set up so that you can add directly to front or rear values as well?  This does allow more customization, but can easily break the tie to the base WB.  Do you typically do this or are you usually just increasing both the same amount?  This question is mainly about the fields B14,C14 ; B17,C17 ; B23,C23

I have it implemented in one of my spreadsheets where I just have one field each characteristic B14,C14.  If I needed to gross corrections in over or understeer I would move my WB fore or aft instead of trying to add say 5% to rear ARB.  If I needed an increase in a characteristic it was always applied evenly based on the WB.

A tip:  You might change the formatting of those field that get added in as a percentage to be a percentage number format.  This allows entering a whole number like 5 that get displayed as 5%  and still get used in the calculations as .05  In some cases it may make some of the entries a little more transparent to the end user.

[Blooze]

First to Tonka...

You have it diagnosed correctly.  And I do it the same as you, except I have left both fields and the decimal in place primarily due to legacy stuff - I have about 160 of these car sheets out there in my various garages.

When I first started with the Wb thing, I used the front and rear division to dial in which Wb would work the best.  You will also notice that I have an area for adjusting the Dampers, which I no longer do.  The game doesn't either.  So once I set the Wb and the Damper agents, those remain unchanged.  I no longer input the Bump Dampers either, but let the sheet calculate them.

[EDIT]I reviewed the percent formatting and made the change you suggested.  I will make a change to the distribution template and note the post accordingly.  As for me... I will fix it by attrition. 

And now for Fit...

The information in the Stable Table is not entered.  It comes from the Car Work Sheets with functions such as this...

='C:\Forza2\Garages\USA\[A-USA.xls]VIS AWD'!$A$1

I don't have to enter that by hand.  With both worksheets open...

• Make the Car name field current (A2 in your case) hit the equal sign...
• Now make the car sheet current (it doesn't have to been in the same workbook as you can see)
• Double click the A1 Cell in the car work sheet or select it and hit enter.
• Excel will fill it all out for you and as long as you don't move or delete any files will keep it current for you.  What ever is in the A1 Cell in the Car worksheet will show up in the A2 cell of the Stable.]
• When representing the car on the Track Sheets I copy it and the Garage Flag from the Stable.  That way the same function is used and any changes to the name in the Car Worksheet will show up in all four possible places.
• I didn't set it up to automagically enter the names because
  - All the sheets are sorted at different times, things would get boogered.
  - Not all cars make it to the track sheets.  I have builds that haven't been run yet.  They are in the stable but there is no time on them
  - Not all cars make it to the OT and ROT sheets.  Those are usually specialists in the snakes or Nissan, etc. Power tracks.

The data in the Stable columns comes from the following Car Worksheet cells.

• Name = A1
• Hp, Torque, Weight, and PW come from cells N4 - Q4
  ='C:\Forza2\Garages\USA\[A-USA.xls]VIS AWD'!N$4
  Notice that the function is edited to remove the $ from in front of the N.  Now I can copy the function and do a [ <right click>Paste Special/Functions ] to the adjacent 3 cells in the Stable sheet and it pulls the appropriate values from the Car Sheet.
  
• The Estimated ET is Cell AF37 in the Car Sheet.
• The remainder of the values are from cells J10 - P10 in the Car Sheet.  Copying is handled in the same manner as described above.
• By doing it this way, any value that changes in the Car Sheet is atomatically updated on the Stable Sheet.  That is why I don't calculate the P/W ratio

So, as you can see - I am not entirely joking when I say I have set up a relational database using The Folder system and Excel Workbooks and Worksheets.

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[Blooze]

Consider this... if we were to get a majority of the folks around here conversant in these car sheets we could attach them to posts and save a bunch of typing time...

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[bimmerlovere39]

Well I looked at it... and it made my head hurt...

The left side makes sense.  The right side...

I guess I'm not as mathematical in my tuning as y'all. Not yet, anyway.

[Blooze]

I can do that, and have.  Throw a toon together based on feel and a formula concocted from previous builds.  I can drive it a couple laps and tweak it and be done with it and have it fairly close.

But I won't like the car much - I will be uncomfortable with it.  I will know that I have been half assed and slip shod.

There's a Bible verse - "it's the small foxes that spoil the grapes."  And a folksier version "The Devil is in the Details."

The transmission may work well, but is it at its optimum?  How can I know for sure until I've run the numbers.  That goes for any part of the job.  Until the car is properly logged, it's data reviewed - until all the information is gathered and tooked away in a file, then the job is not done and I am uncomfortable with it.

I don't prescribe this for others.  That is the way I operate.  I share my phobias and OCD proclivities for those who live with the same demons in hopes of helping them put them to rest, as I am occassionaly able to do...

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[bimmerlovere39]

Lol.  I have huge amounts of respect for even understanding the sheet, much less making it and using it!

98% of my tuning is by feel and times.  The other 2% is made up of previous knowledge of track and car.  One of these days I will probably do this.  But for now, I do things my very own inaccurate, primitive way. 

And I'm happy with it like than. 

To each his own. 

[TheTechnobear]

ive seen much the same going on down at the track at club level

- in one garage, the car pull in to the pits its hooked up instantly to the computer, data downloaded, the whole team staring at the monitor - whilst the driver gets out goes into the motor home gets changed
- next door garage, the old team boss (whos obviously been doing it since he was a whipper snapper) pats the driver on the back, and simply says, "so how was it, how'd it feel out there?"
- of course, the 3rd approach, is the driver jumps out... and immediately starts adjusting tyre pressures and ARBs himself
suppose the 3rd is the closest to FM2    

[bimmerlovere39]

The 3rd is most assuredly closest to me.  FM2 is often like the first, but with only the driver; we do, after all, have telemetry (not that I use it much!)

[Fit4aking]

I can't count the number of laps I run with the tire temp screen up.  I just have the bad habit of not saving replays to watch actual race telemetry.  I always save the ones with big wrecks but forget the others.

When I get down to trans tuning I'll have to pay closer attention to it. 

..........someday!

[TheJohnNewton]

Blooze, when you were working in IT if somebody asked you for a quick estimate off the top of your head would your head explode?  I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you'd want to go do some serious analysis first.   

[Blooze]

LMAO - Yep!  I hated that. 

They would want a man hours estimate after having sprung the damned thing on me.

How many hours?

Hell, I don't know.

Most of it is simple, pretty straight forward most of the time - but I have never worked a project that didn't have a hitch.  There is a rule, 95% of the project will take 5% of the time...

I used to try to tell them, I don't know what or where the "hitch" is yet.

I used to love Access for that.  Feasability Apps.  But then I would have to fight to keep them from distributing the damned "Proof of Concept".

I developed a little estimater formula.  Quickly think up the absolute worse case scenario time frame then double it.  Next, you mulitply it by 3...  You can come up with a pretty scary number that way, scary to a project manager at any rate.  "If ya want it any closer I'll need a day to work on it..."

After awhile they quit asking me for time estimates.  They just give me the job and say that they needed it yesterday.  And I'd get it done as fast as I could.

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[Fit4aking]

Hey Blooze, I remember in a post somewhere you explained how to enter another track into the spreadsheet for tracking overall leaderboard times.  Could you go over that again.  With the new track on the way and Excel on my Xmas list I'm gonna force myself to learn how to do this.  I hope Santa remembers to include "Spreadsheets for Dummies", I'll be the dummy.

'Preshiate it.  A link to the other post is fine.  Or you can grab me by my ear and lead me over to it, whatever floats your boat.

[Blooze]

lol - read the post in the locked spreadsheets thread about adding the Montegi tracks.

When we know which track it is, I will probably push an updated template and a set of specific instructions for adding that track so it matches the template.

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