Forum:Learning to Drive

Glossary of terms
The blue groove is the mental line that is made and changed every second. This groove is the one that a persons mind chooses as its best plan of action. For example, the blue grove for a normal turn would be a sweeping arch.
 * Blue Groove

To feather the throttle means to work the throttle back and forth between 40%-90% throttle to achieve an optimum level of spin on the car. (When the rear wheels of a car are broken free from the pavement the result is the rear wheels want to instantly slide to the outside of the turn. So by controlling the speed at which the rear wheels spin, it is possible to control how much the rear wheels slide.) When going through a turn, to kick the back end farther toward the outside of the turn, throttle on. If the player wants the rear wheels to come more in line with the front wheels, throttle off. This is used in many situations where the engine controls the spin of the car.
 * Feather

When the vehicle makes a wider turn than was intentionally planned. (The rear wheels did not kick out enough)
 * Understeer

This is a picture showing the blue groove as a green dotted line and the Red line represents the line that the car actually takes.

When the vehicle made a tighter turn than was intentionally planned. (The rear wheels kicked out too far.)
 * Oversteer

This is a picture showing the blue groove as a green dotted line and the Red line represents the line that the car actually takes.

Profile of a good driver:

Rational behavior
A driver who is calm and collected in their thoughts. This driver recognizes an objective, and collects a rough plan of how to achieve it.
 * For example: This driver does NOT use a Blista Compact to force a Trashmaster off the road...

Situational awareness
A good driver makes decisions based upon the situation; not by anger or fear. They may be aware of the weather.
 * For example: If it is raining, the roads are wet, so the player has less traction, so maybe a Banshee with a blown out back tire may not be the best idea.

A good driver is also aware of the lay of the land.
 * For example: If a cunning getaway plan involves fast turns and small alleyways, a driver will NOT be picking a Firetruck as the getaway vehicle.

Mini-map
This may be the most useful tool a player ever receives. Many players can’t get to the end of the street without one. Much of the information the player needs to know is within the confines of a small circle. One of the better features is the built in GPS route tracker, this is very handy when the player needs to get somewhere but they have no idea how to get there.


 * Keep in mind the route tracker will only actually tell the player the shortest LEGAL route to your destination, most of the time there is a shortcut. Knowing them is key to evading cops. But a person has to find these out by themselves.

Acceleration and deceleration
These two things may be the hardest to master. Accelerating smoothly is easy enough but learning how to decelerate is a different story. Deceleration is not confined to pressing the brakes and calling it good. There are several ways to decelerate,

In addition to speeding the car up, the player may not know that lifting off the throttle actually slows a car down? By lifting off the gas, the player has allowed the cars back wheels to spin freely. Not under any power load. So the car will be less likely to break loose and understeer in corners. This is the alternative to smashing the gas and the brake at the same time. On consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the controller has triggers which can be used for precise speed control, depending on the player's input. On PC and Mac, the player may need a separate controller to give precise speed control, which keyboards don't offer.
 * The Throttle

These are very useful. They usually do a good job in slowing and stopping the vehicle. The problem lies in that most of the time, when a driver wants to slow down they smash the hand brake, causing the wheels to lock up. The player should not slam on the brakes. The resulting skid is less effective than pushing the brakes to the point where they almost lock-up but don’t. This allows the brakes to do their work to slow the car in a controlled manner.
 * The Brakes
 * Sudden Deceleration

Brakes don’t work well when the player is going 250 MPH, but an analog physical object, like ::say… another vehicle, doesn’t really give a crap how fast the driver going. So in extreme cases, this skill can be used.

Cornering
A Driver should be able to take any turn with ease, they are able to gauge the size and power of their car, gauge the turn’s intensity and size, and gauge the traffic and situational factors, to complete the turn in the fashion they choose as the best fit.