Project CARS 3 FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

[John Hargreaves]

Ah that's helpful. Most of the cars I've tried so far seem to handle well on default setting, so it's probably no big deal. Apart from the starter car, I've used all borrowed cars for everything so far, but I had half a million dollars so I thought I'd treat myself to a racing car and mess with it. I was a bit surprised that I couldn't actually alter anything until I went back to the garage and bought suspension upgrades from the shop. Understandable with a street car, but the Exige is a proper race car, so that confused me.

Also is it right that you can't change tyre compound from the setup meu, you have to go back to the garage and pay someone $50 to put on tyres that you already own?

Also, is there a way to choose an alternative official livery when you've bought a car, or do you only have the choice between default livery or design your own? When you borrow a car, you get a good choice of liveries, but when I bought this one, it only had one option as far as I could tell.

Edit:

Not sure if identical, but certainly upgraded.

The upgrade system has a pretty equal impact across the board I reckon... but custom races don't really need them, whereas some career modes/races certainly do. The biggest need for uprades (in single player) is in completing the highest tiers in Pace Setter/Hotlap and Breakout modes in career and in the non-stock Rivals events.

For custom races, it's more setting up whatever you want concerning car behaviour.. whether you have better cornering, higher top speeds etc etc.

You are right, I've just started a new race and noticed that the whole grid when set to identical, has a R634 number, so whatever upgrades you buy get automatically added to the AI, so I'm starting to figure things out.

[Sum Dixon-Ear]

Ah that's helpful. Most of the cars I've tried so far seem to handle well on default setting, so it's probably no big deal. Apart from the starter car, I've used all borrowed cars for everything so far, but I had half a million dollars so I thought I'd treat myself to a racing car and mess with it. I was a bit surprised that I couldn't actually alter anything until I went back to the garage and bought suspension upgrades from the shop. Understandable with a street car, but the Exige is a proper race car, so that confused me.

Also is it right that you can't change tyre compound from the setup meu, you have to go back to the garage and pay someone $50 to put on tyres that you already own?

Also, is there a way to choose an alternative official livery when you've bought a car, or do you only have the choice between default livery or design your own? When you borrow a car, you get a good choice of liveries, but when I bought this one, it only had one option as far as I could tell.

Edit:



You are right, I've just started a new race and noticed that the whole grid when set to identical, has a R634 number, so whatever upgrades you buy get automatically added to the AI, so I'm starting to figure things out.

I think with the Exige being a GT B car, the tuning is very limited in stock trim.. so upgrades would unlock tuning parameters which would be available on higher class cars straight away.

Yes, you need to pay a small fee to swap purchased parts... the digital mechanic is the richest person in all pC3... lol.

You should be able to pick any predesigned liveries from your Garage; Customise>Team>Edit>Livery and all the paintjobs should be in there.

For me, the best way to approach upgrade purchases is to focus on one car at a time and pay attention to the Career Goals to get the individual track and car XP rewards, try to double them up. Also grind a bit with each car that you are looking at upgrading to get the maximum parts discounts... it certainly helps.

[John Hargreaves]

You should be able to pick any predesigned liveries from your Garage; Customise>Team>Edit>Livery and all the paintjobs should be in there.

Sorted thanks

[Zinnsash]

John, at least on PS4 in career AI cheats as hell and this is especially visible in higher classes. For example, in hypercars I upgrq
ade my car to max PIR increasing its top speed and acceleration and everything. When I do start a race it sais AI has PIR eqal to stock cars but on oval tracks they have higher top speed than I do even if I set downforce to 0 and gears to long. So in my opinion AI is disconnected to what your car is, it has some sort of code that tries to give it similar resoults to your car no matter what built you have.

About car setup, it makes a colossal difference if you do it right. As an ecample I can give you my monthly rivals time in GT B some time ago, I was first on the list with significant time leap, and I found my laps close to perfect and I was fighting for 0,01 seconds in each another attempt. But after experimenting with car setup I was able to improve my time by 2 seconds... And it was even easier to drive and more pleasant. So whenever you can, prepare your own setup, specific for each car and class as it will vary depending from the upgrades you have installed.

About changing tire compound, yes you have to leave to main menu to change that BUT whenever you can you should just use the softest ones if PIR allows you to. There is no tire wear so picking harder conpound has little to no use.

About tuning, for online racing, without upgraded car, you won't stand a chance.

About borrowing cars, ingame tips say that you will earn more XP and cash when the car is owned. That could be the truth as I do own all the cars I race and my XP and cash rises quickly. If you have completed half of the career you should be counting millions of credits not thousands. Try investing in your own fleet as it seems to pay off..

And once you have your perfect build for the class, don't upgrade it to further class. Buy new car and upgrade the new one leaving old untouched. It will come in handy in online races.

[John Hargreaves]

Excellent advice chaps, thanks ever so much, all this will make a difference to getting the most out of the game I'm sure.

(I'm on PS4 pro for PC3 btw)

[Zinnsash]

And when it comes to performance, lower tier cars that are upgraded to higher class, are better, than stock cars from that class. Even if you upgrade both to the same PIR. And the difference is significant.

[yannara]

I am PC player with G27. Played pCars2 a lot but still found AI being not solid/consistant. I love the simulation but I am not interested in tweeking car setup. Still always been more of sim player, not Arcade (Nascar wins Need For Speed at 90's heh). Should I even try pCars3? I've heard that it is totally different game than previous games and is pure arcade. Is that so?

[Zinnsash]

I am PC player with G27. Played pCars2 a lot but still found AI being not solid/consistant. I love the simulation but I am not interested in tweeking car setup. Still always been more of sim player, not Arcade (Nascar wins Need For Speed at 90's heh). Should I even try pCars3? I've heard that it is totally different game than previous games and is pure arcade. Is that so?

You should definitely try it out! Guys with wheels are happy about physics BUT AI is dumb as hell and is cheating = AI has different physics.

And remember, there are no pit stops and in most of the events no trainings and qualifications as in PC2.

[Zinnsash]

Question about KERS/boost upgrade

When upgrading car with KERS, top speed, acceleration, power and PIR are increased permanently. Increase in those settings is similar (probably identical) that is provided by installing lets say bigger turbo. The thing is, that if I understand it correctly, KERS only provides power from time to time yet it is rated like it should provide power constantly. I did many tests (at least ~200 laps to eliminate driving mistakes from statistics and to learn new setup) with few cars, once with regular engine power upgrades, and then with KERS installed but still in the same class of the car and maxed out PIR for that class, and each and every time I was MUCH slower with KERS installed.

Could anyone confirm that KERS adds power ONLY when it is being used and does not add anything when not in use? If I am right, then KERS PIR impact should be strongly reduced, and it would be nice to see statistics increase represented in a different color, lets say stat bar is blue, but part of it represented by KERS should be filled with half transparent pattern. This way driver could see how fast this car goes withiut boost and what is its potential with boost.

The way it is now constructed makes KERS the ultime worst power upgrade there is - but maybe I am wrong.

[Zinnsash]

Another question:

In Peace Setter in Rivals we see ghosts of opponents to beat. But as there are 3 laps to go, and ghosts represent a single lap, not entire 3 laps run, I wonder what is the algorythm behind that? Ghost is from specific lap like always forst lap, with middle time out of 3 laps, fastes/slowest lap?

It happened that in each of every 3 laps I have beaten top 3 ghosts, yet I was slightly second at the final summary and I found out that I have no clue how this part of the game works.