Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec - Power Ranking Version 2.0 By: Palfy Email: vitzrs1_6@hotmail.com *********************************************************************** Last updated: 3/29/02 Table of Contents 1: Introduction 3: Power Ranking Formula 4: Power Ranking 5: User Feedback 6: Revision History 7: Legal ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1: Introduction Many sports devise a formula to rank all players against each other, so one can determine who the "best" or "most complete" player is in any particular sport. This is typically called a Power Ranking. With so many cars featured in Gran Tourismo, with often just miniscule differences in their performance characteristics, a Power Ranking would give anyone playing the game a very good way to determine how "good" a car would be, or what the "best" car would be to use in simulation mode against cars picked by the AI. Similar to sports where there are long and on-going discussions about the formulas used to determine the best players, I certainly realize that the Power Ranking Formula can be considered subjective or might not yield the results you expect. Based on your driving style, you might win easily against a car that is ranked higher than yours. Yet, the Power Ranking gives you at least pointers on potential performance of all the cars, thus making it easier for you to select a car well suited for what you want to accomplish. However, it is unavoidable that some cars will be over-rated or under-rated, since no single formula can be devised that will rank each and every car exactly right compared with other cars. Thus, you might want to take this ranking with a grain of salt. For a good example of an over-rated car, look no further than the Suzuki Escudo. Yes, it will allow you to blow away the competition on the Test Track or the Super Speedway, but its handling is extremely difficult, so you will certainly struggle with it racing Cote d'Azur or the Corkscrew in Laguna Seca. Yet, it will deliver a basis for comparing different cars. And it will provide all of us an "objective" basis to discuss the performance of certain/all cars. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2: Why bother? Since most of us upgrade and/or tune our cars extensively anyway, why bother writing this FAQ? There are two reasons for doing so: 1. Initially, when you are new to the game and have only a limited number of cars available to you, the Power Ranking numbers can help you to pick the right starter car, or even you second car. Also, you might have limited funds for upgrades initially, so again, picking the right car as your second or third car might be crucial 2. Later in the game, despite having a lot of money available for upgrades, you will mainly race F1 or Race Cars. While you can tune these cars, there are not too many upgrades available for these cars, so the Power Rankings might matter to you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3: Power Ranking Formula Thanks for all the feedback on my Power Ranking Formula. Most of the feedback pertained to the Cornering/Handling section of the formula, so for version 2 of this FAQ, I revised this portion of the formula. See below for an explanation. The New, Updated Power Ranking Formula is: Power Ranking Value = 1/HP-WeightRatio * 2/36 + 1/((3*HP-weightFactor + 7*Torque-WeightFactor)/10) * (1 + Tuning Factor) * 34/36 + 1 * (1 + Tuning Factor) * 2.5 + 1 * (1 + DrivetrainUpliftFactor) * 1.5 + 1 * (DriveTrainUpliftFactor * (2* (Front Downforce + Back Downforce)) + (100 - Front Height - Back Height)/400) * (1 + TuningFactor) * 1.5 Explanation: The Power Ranking Formula will be applied only to "stock" cars (cars that you can buy from the car dealership, not tuned, not upgraded), or to cars that you win at the end of a race or championship. Once you tune or upgrade the car, the ranking would change. Invariably, upgraded cars are not considered or featured in the Power Ranking. The following three major components influence your racing experience the most: - Power/Acceleration - Braking - Cornering/Handling Thus, all three areas are weighted equally in the Power Ranking Formula: Power Ranking Value = Power/Acceleration Performance + Braking Performance + Cornering/Handling Performance Tuning Factor While many of the stock cars are not tuned and you have to tune them yourself (your tuning is not considered in the Power Rating Formula), many of the cars you can win in the professional level races are Road Cars or Race Cars and are tuned (well balanced with respect to acceleration, braking, cornering, handling). Thus, a Tuning Factor of 20% uplift was applied to all F1 cars and road and race cars (cars that typically come with Medium tires and most/all upgrades applied). All stock cars received a tuning factor of 0%. Power/Acceleration Performance The Power/Acceleration Performance consists of two parts: Power Performance and Acceleration Performance. Power Performance While the sheer power of a car is important, the power/weight ratio better exemplifies the power performance of a car. Ideally, everything being equal, the more horsepowers your car has, the faster it can go. Also, the lower your power/weight ratio, the faster your car can go (again, everything being equal). However, in GT3, there are only two out of 36 tracks where sheer power (thus, HP/weight ratio) matters: Super Speedway and Test Course. Thus, the Power Performance is computed as 1 divided by HP/Weight ratio and multiplied by its relative weight (Power Factor) of 2/36. Power Performance = 1/HP-WeightRatio * 2/36 Acceleration Performance Acceleration is very important for racing most of the tracks in GT3. The curvier a track is, the more important acceleration will be. Often, when tuning a car, the first adjustment one makes is the gear shift ratio to set the optimal setting for acceleration vs. high speed. On a track like Cote d'Azur or Laguna Seca, you hardly ever reach the top speed of the car, while on the Test Course, acceleration hardly matters. Acceleration is influenced mainly by the torque-weight ratio, but also by the HP-weight ratio (HPs also influence the torque-weight ratio). Thus, 7/10 of the acceleration factor is influenced by acceleration (torque-weight factor), whereas 3/10 are influenced by the HP-weight factor. Tuning of the car also plays a role, so the Tuning Factor (see above) was applied in the formula as well. Since Acceleration matters pretty much in 34 of 36 races, its relative weight (Acceleration Factor) was set to 34/36. AccelerationPerformance = 1/((3*HP-weightFactor + 7*Torque-WeightFactor)/10) * (1 + Tuning Factor) * 34/36 Braking Since there is no braking data in GT3, the braking Factor was set to 1, meaning that all cars have adequate braking for the power they have (actually, when racing, e.g., the Suzuki Escudo, you will find out that it does not have adequate braking power, but I did not want to use a subjective factor to braking). Braking is also influenced by Tuning, so the Tuning Factor (see above) was applied. To give braking the same weight as power/acceleration has, an uplift factor of 2.5 was applied BrakingPerformance = 1 * (1 + Tuning Factor) * 2.5 Note: While the braking force can be influenced and tuned, the preset for all cars is Level 9 in the front and back, thus it could not be considered for the formula. Cornering / Handling The Cornering/Handling performance is influenced by both the cornering abilities of a car and the way it handles in general. For both cornering and handling, an uplift factor of 50% was assigned to each category to equally weigh the sum of both with Braking and Power/Acceleration Performance Cornering Abilities Revision: Upon your feedback, I included the downforce settings and the suspension height setting in the formula. Other settings, such as cambio angle, seem to be always preset to 2.0 in the front and 1.0 in the back, so I did not consider them, since they are the same for all cars. You have to purchase the full suspension upgrade in order to see the suspension height setting. I used the factory setting for all cars. Downforce cannot be "unlocked" by any upgrade, so either it is visible and can be changed (typically for F1, race cars and rallye cars, but also for some cars like the Mitsubishi Lancers) or it is invisible and cannot be changed. However, I noticed that the makers of the game seem to have used "pre-settings" for different classes of cars, e.g., all F1 cars have at least a downforce of 0.70 in the front and 1.3 in the back. All Rallye cars have downforce factory settings of 0.45 and 0.66 whereas Race cars typically have settings of 0.66 and 0.81. Thus, for cars without visible settings, I put them into certain buckets (e.g., small cars, sporty cars or muscle cars) and assigned pre-defined downforce values. So the new cornering formula looks like the following Cornering Ability = DriveTrainUpliftFactor * (2* (Front Downforce + Back Downforce)) + (100 - Front Height - Back Height)/400 This puts the main emphasis on the Downforce and keeps the Height Factor pretty small, typically at less than 10% of the Downforce factor. Old part of the formula: NO LONGER VALID No details are provided in GT3, but in general, cornering abilities depend to a certain extend on the drive train. FF cars generally have a larger turning radius than FR cars. FF cars have a tendency to understeer a lot, whereas FR cars are more prone to oversteer. 4WD and MR cars have pretty solid cornering abilities with a tendency to under- or oversteer less than FF and FR cars do. Thus, uplift factors were assigned to drive trains as follows: FF: 0%; FR: 2.5%; 4WD: 10%; MR: 15% The formula thus looks like Cornering Ability = 1 * (1 + DrivetrainUpliftFactor) Handling Again, no details are provided, but in addition to the Drivetrain UpliftFactor (see cornering), tuning also plays a role, so the TuningFactor was applied as well. Thus, the formula looks like this Handling Ability = 1 * (1 + DrivetrainUpliftFactor) * (1 + TuningFactor) Thus, the overall Power Rank value is determined as: Power Ranking Value = 1/HP-WeightRatio * 2/36 + 1/((3*HP-weightFactor + 7*Torque-WeightFactor)/10) * (1 + Tuning Factor) * 34/36 + 1 * (1 + Tuning Factor) * 2.5 + 1 * (1 + DrivetrainUpliftFactor) * 1.5 + 1 * (1 + DrivetrainUpliftFactor) * (1 + TuningFactor) * 1.5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 4: Power Ranking After so much math and theoretical "car stuff", here are the power rankings: Car Drive HP HP Torque Tuned Power train Weight Weight Ranking F686/M 18.433 F687/S 18.190 F094/S 17.996 F094/H 17.536 F688/S 17.528 F090/S 17.075 Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak Version 14.178 Mazda 787B 13.763 Nissan R390 GT1 LM Race Car 13.348 Toyota GT-ONE Race Car 12.831 Tommy Kaira ZZII 12.454 Chevrolet Corvette C5R 11.700 Gillet Vertigo Race Car 11.664 Mitsubishi FTO LM Race Car 11.550 Mercedes-Benz CLK Touring Car 11.118 Pennzoil Nismo GT-R 11.016 Tickford Falcon XR8 Race Car 11.009 Dodge Viper GTS-R Team Oreca 10.979 Toyota Altezza LM Race Car 10.968 Chevrolet Camaro Race Car 10.948 Ford GT40 Race Car 10.932 Raybrig NSX 10.851 Arta NSX 10.851 Pagani Zonda C12S Race Car 10.825 Toyota Castrol Tom's Supra 10.559 Panoz Esperante GTR-1 10.487 Opel Astra Touring Car 10.450 Lister Storm V12 Race Car 10.390 Honda Castrol Mugen NSX 10.377 Opel Calibra Touring Car 10.181 Jaguar XJ220 Road Car 9.627 TVR Speed 12 9.574 Renault Clio Sport Race Car 9.335 Tommy Kaira ZZS (J) 9.047 Peugeot 206 Rally Car 8.929 Subaru Impreza Rally Car Prototyp 8.904 Subaru Impreza Rally Car 8.894 Dodge Viper GTS-R Concept 8.851 Citroen Xsara Rally Car 8.760 Lancia Delta HF Integrale Rally Car 8.716 Toyota Celica Rally Car 8.653 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII Rally Car 8.625 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI Rally Car 8.625 Toyota Corolla Rally Car 8.621 Nismo Skyline GT-R S-tune R32 (J) 8.533 Ford Escort Rally Car 8.517 Spoon S2000 Race Car (J) 8.456 Nismo 400R 8.424 Ford Focus Rally Car 8.370 Shelby Cobra 8.141 RUF CTR2 8.119 Nismo GT-R LM Road Car 7.870 Honda NSX Type R (J) 7.810 Pagani Zonda C12 7.636 RUF 3400S 7.587 RUF RGT 7.511 Volkswagen New Beetle Cup Car 7.508 TVR Tuscan Speed 6 7.496 Lotus Motor Sport Elise 7.363 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205 (J) 7.330 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 7.195 TVR Griffith 500 7.184 Tom's X540 Chaser (J) 7.111 Dodge Viper GTS 7.067 Mugen S2000 (J) 7.055 Volkswagen Lupo Cup Car 7.053 Lotus Esprit V8 SE 6.960 Aston Martin 8 Vantage 6.635 Renault Clio Sport V6 24V 6.562 Lotus Elise 190 6.514 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport 6.496 Opel Speedster 6.478 Lotus Esprit Sport 350 6.415 TRD Celica TRD Sports M (J) 6.300 Honda NSX Type Zero (J) 6.298 Mercedes-Benz CLK55 6.284 Volkswagen New Beetle RSi 6.269 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex S.S. Ver. 6.166 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII RS (J) 6.154 Acura NSX 6.114 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI GSR T.M.E. 6.105 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI GSR (J) 6.105 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII GSR (J) 6.080 Subaru Impreza Wagon WRX STi Version VI(J)6.068 Subaru Impreza Sedan WRX STi Version VI(J)6.068 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution V GSR (J) 6.045 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV GSR (J) 6.039 Subaru Impreza 22B-STi Version (J) 6.032 Aston Martin Vanquish 6.019 Toyota MR2 GT-S (J) 5.943 Subaru Impreza WRX STi (J) 5.939 Subaru Legacy B4 Blitzen (J) 5.865 Spoon S2000 (J) 5.850 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI RS (J) 5.844 Audi S4 5.823 Mazda RX-7 Type RZ (J) 5.807 Mazda RX-7 Type RS (J) 5.785 Mercedes-Benz CL600 5.775 Acura NSX 5.772 Subaru Legacy Touring Wagon GT-B (J) 5.764 Subaru Impreza Sports Wagon STi (J) 5.764 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 5.762 Subaru Legacy B4 RSK (J) 5.761 Chevrolet Camaro SS 5.758 Toyota MR2 G-Limited (J) 5.752 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 Turbo 5.744 Audi TT 1.8T quattro 5.736 Mine's Lancer Evolution VI (J) 5.711 Nissan Z Concept 5.708 Nissan Skyline GT-R Vspec II R32 (J) 5.692 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-spec R34 (J) 5.679 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-spec II R34 (J) 5.679 Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Coupe 5.677 Nissan Skyline GT-R Vspec R33 (J) 5.666 Jaguar XKR Coupe 5.665 Toyota MR-S Edition (J) 5.665 Nissan Silvia Spec R Aero (J) 5.639 Toyota Supra RZ (J) 5.636 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R 5.633 Mazda RX-8 5.597 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 5.592 Nissan 300ZX TwinTurbo 2seater (J) 5.570 Nissan 300ZX TwinTurbo 2 by 2 (J) 5.525 Nissan Silvia K's S13 2000cc (J) 5.515 Nissan 240SX K's Aero (J) 5.491 Nissan Skyline GTS-t Type M R32 (J) 5.470 Nissan 240SX Fastback Type X (J) 5.469 Honda S2000 5.404 Spoon Sport Civic Type R 5.400 Honda S2000 Type V (J) 5.388 Mercedes-Benz SLK 230 Kompressor 5.308 Honda Integra Type R 98 spec (J) 5.270 Toyota Supra SZ-R (J) 5.234 Acura CL 3.2 Type S 5.200 Toyota Altezza RS200 (J) 5.192 Mazda MX-5 Miata LS 5.191 Nissan Silvia K's S13 1800cc (J) 5.175 Mitsubishi FTO GP Version R (J) 5.163 BMW 328ci 5.156 Fiat Coupe Turbo Plus 5.154 Acura Integra Type R 5.150 Mazda RX-7 Infini III FC (J) 5.137 Toyota Celica SS-II ST202 (J) 5.133 Acura RSX Type-S 5.130 Peugeot 206 S16 5.091 Toyota Celica SS-II (J) 5.086 Chrysler PT Cruiser 5.046 Honda Civic SiR-II EG (J) 5.039 Toyota Lexus IS 5.038 Daihatsu Storia X4 5.034 Alfa Romeo 156 2.5 V6 24V 5.025 Honda Civic Type R EK (J) 5.024 Honda Accord Euro-R (J) 5.003 Nissan Silvia Varietta (J) 4.961 Mazda MX-5 Miata 1.8 RS (J) 4.926 Honda CR-X Del-Sol SiR (J) 4.925 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex AE86 Type I4.922 Mini Cooper 1.3i 4.900 Mazda MX-5 Miata (80's) 4.900 Suzuki Alto Works Suzuki Sports Limited 4.873 Volkswagen New Beetle 2.0 4.859 Mazda MX-5 Miata 4.858 Daihatsu Mira TR-XX Avanzato R 4.854 Toyota Vitz RS 1.5 (J) 4.783 Toyota Vitz Euro Edition (J) 4.715 Mazda Demio GL-X (J) 4.707 Many thanks to AdrenalineSL, DConney and Sam1230 for publishing your car databases on the Internet -- they certainly provided me with an excellent jumpstart on this Guide. Keep it up! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 5: User Feedback As expressed in the intro, the Power Ranking is subjective and certainly debatable. Thus, please send me your feedback, but without flaming me. I will try to publish as much feedback as possible, plus I'm open to revising the formula based on your input. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 6: Revision History Version 1.0 9/24/01 - First Edition. Here it is Version 2.0 3/29/02 - Revised the cornering part of the Power Ranking Formula ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 7: Legal This FAQ can only appear on the following sites: • GameFAQS • CoreMagazine • GameSages • Vgstrategies.com • GameShark.com • FAQ Domain • Happy Puppy • ZDNet/Videogames.com If anyone finds it on any other site, please inform me ASAP. E-Mail Address: vitzrs1_6@hotmail.com Copyright: © Copyright 2001 Palfy. This FAQ and everything included within this file cannot be reproduced (physical, electronical, or otherwise) aside from being placed on a freely-accessible, non-commercial web page in its original, unedited and unaltered format. This FAQ cannot be used for profitable purposes (even if no money would be made from selling it) or promotional purposes. It cannot be used in any sort of commercial transaction. It cannot be given away as some sort of bonus, gift, etc., with a purchase as this creates incentive to buy and is therefore prohibited.