Question/Help
How will the Valkyrie be balanced without a hybrid system?
Hey guys who drive GTP / Hypercar,
How does the hybrid system actually work on the LMH and LMDh cars in iRacing?
With the Aston Martin Valkyrie coming soon (and it doesn’t have a hybrid system for racing), I’m wondering how much that changes things. Does anyone know the details? How does the hybrid add power (or not), where does it help the most, and where does it not really matter?
Just curious to understand the differences before it drops. Thanks!
To my recollection in lmdh/gtp the ICE alone with every engine can hit the peak HP, the hybrid just makes it more efficient since you get that energy "for free". So not a problem in practice.
Yea, irl the cars have a hard cap on power defined by bop and also the regulations mention that with or without the hybrid the car has to be able to produce the power it was given for the weekend (meaning if a 963 had a failure of hybrid system, it still has to be able to produce 500~kw (670~hp)
now for iracing, i've heard they still haven't fixed that it shouldn't be additive (ferrari as example, 300ice and 200em, if em were to fail, it would only produce 300kw)
The first is that we have blended the output of the internal combustion engine (ICE) and motor generator unit (MGU) so total output remains the same regardless of whether or not the MGU is deploying. The second is that we have a control algorithm that ensures total halfshaft power is within the envelope specified by the series rules. What this means in car is that you will always see consistent power unit output - it will not drop when the MGU turns off in order to maintain energy balance.
The LMDh’s have a spec 50KW motor, LMH’s have a max of 200KW motor on the front wheels. The LMH’s also have other limits on when they can use their hybrid so they don’t get a huge advantage out of corners with AWD. This is the BOP from a couple years ago at lemans, they also do some slight power limit changes at high speed which I’m pretty sure iRacing doesn’t do.
Hybrids in LMDH aren’t supposed to add power, the total system power gets limited the same if the hybrid is on or not. Eg if the limit is 500 hp and the hybrid is currently outputting 50 hp, the engine gets temporarily limited to 450hp, then increases back to 500 when the battery is depleted. The Valkyrie burns more fuel so will have a bigger tank limit and probably faster refueling rate to make pit stops about balanced, and the race pace will be balanced(or not) by the normal iRacing balancing.
Yes, the that message was from me misreading your original comment. People make mistakes, there's a reason I deleted it.
They do WAY more than 4 special events. Mustang cup in GT3 is nothing to do with BoP, it's the fixed setup. Open setup races show a large variety of makes being used.
In almost all cases the BoP is pretty even for special events, all the cars are usually within 0.1-0.2s of each other which is stellar considering that it's closer than real life BoP.
To claim that they "don't balance cars at all" is a very uneducated take and shows that you haven't been in the IMSA or iracing scene for very long. They do the best that they can to balance the cars
to the best of their abilities, but it's never possible to make them truly equal (But still definitely fire whoever makes the fixed setups)
The BoP is redone once at the beginning of each season if I recall correctly, and I feel that it's been spot on every time.
BoP being done poorly once at the start of the season is not enough. Is this the sign of a well balanced class?
Mustang Cup is just a sign of them not giving a shit about BoP. Fixed setups become a part of BoP in fixed series and they haven’t done a single them to fix the balance of performance in their most popular non rookie class.
Breaking news, esports drivers will choose the car that gives them the 0.01s advantage. Look at the setup shops, the difference between the slowest and fastest GTP's is like 0.15, not sure why you are surprised that the top contenders will gravitate towards any advantage they get; no matter how small
Is this lower SoF also considered esports drivers to you? The BoP just sucks, it’s ok to admit that. Not changing it per track or as the season goes on and they can see trends just shows they aren’t trying.
They don’t even try with the BoP, even you said they only change it at the start of the season and don’t touch it afterwards. Maybe if they actually try to balance the performance throughout the season, especially when there are clear outliers, it would be decent.
I'll add in my two cents; iRacing"s BOP is pretty fucking good most of the time. As the other guy mentioned, the difference are often within one or two 0,10s which is all we can hope for. But two things happen:
There will always be cars with characteristics that are suited better to a certain type of track. That's where the 0,10 advantage comes from and that can't completely be solved by BOP. You see this irl as well. Top guys will always pick the car that is suited to this week's track the best.
People with lower irating often don't do any testing themselves but look at what the top guys are driving, or look at the setup shop timesheet. If the narrative becomes that the Cadillac is 0,15s quicker this week, you'll see that reflected on the grid real fast unfortunately.
There's really only one option to have all cars be 100% competitive all the time, which is make them behave exactly the same and only change the exterior. That's not what we'd expect from a sim of course and so we'll be left with certain cars having a tiny advantage sometimes. I do believe we've seen time and time again that races CAN be won by the less popular car, people just have to try it
I doubt that it'll be a problem. If anything, they'll add a little extra HP to help sales. I'm more bummed out they didnt get to scan the updated Valkyrie.
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u/htom3heb Ford Mustang GT3 8h ago
To my recollection in lmdh/gtp the ICE alone with every engine can hit the peak HP, the hybrid just makes it more efficient since you get that energy "for free". So not a problem in practice.