WTF are those advanced flags?

[VALL_es 163]

With the release of the new supercars I've been listening recently about those advanced flags. I searched some info about them and some people say it affects the performance of the car in a different way depending on the advanced flag they have. Does someone know a bit more about this? Is it really important for general racing?

[JuniorChubb 3,359]

@Mark Verstappen is the man for this kind of information, I kind give you a brief outline though...

There is an issue with cars called ‘kerb boosting’, this is when car hits a bump and the rear suspension compresses. This compression leads to a temporary boost in speed. This issues/glitch is buried somewhere in the code and not possible to simply remove.

Kerb boosting is a major issue in the game for racers, some embrace it where others hate it as it leads to unnatural racing lines where people swerve all over the place to pick up these speed boosts.

The ‘handling flags’ seem to be an attempt to remove kerb boosting from the game... However they have a side effect of making the cars with them a lot slower and having slightly suspect handling (prone to spin out and bounce out of control). Most people don’t like the ha doing flags due to the adverse effect they have on driving, however some prefer them as they remove kerb boosting.

However with the latest Casino DLC they seem to have tweaked the handling flags slightly and improved things a lot. Cars with ha doing flags are now less prone to spin out.

This is just my understanding of how it works, others may contradict my option or have a bit more info on how it works. Whether they are good or bad though comes down to opinion for many.

[VALL_es 163]

So... That's what makes the Flash GT bumpy, the Entity XXR slow... Only because of the kerb boosting?

[Mark Verstappen 392]

@JuniorChubb All I know I just got from watching Broughy videos basically. 😄

Yeah, 99% of all cars since SSASSS have the advanced flags. But they're not the same on every car. Also they have so far made new flags for new updates in which most, if not all of the new cars that update have a new type of flag. Just this last update though they changed how the game handles the flags which made all the previous flags have less of an effect. I don't know if there's a new type of flag for this update as well though.

Advanced flags have different effects. For example, one makes a car bouncy, another makes the engine revs go up and down when you hit a bump and another might do both.

I guess we're lucky R* makes them less severe. But if this was an attempt at removing kerb boosting, they failed horribly since cars from Arena War and The Diamond updates do boost again including a few cars from other updates with flags. At least most drive nice again.

Here's a list by Broughy where you can see all the handling data. I don't know what value does what, but you can be sure if the same value is at another car it does the same thing on both those cars. Advanced flags are in the column named 'strAdvancedFlags'.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nQND3ikiLzS3Ij9kuV-rVkRtoYetb79c52JWyafb4m4/edit#gid=1756626270

You can also find things here for example that the Adder has its high (at least for the time) top speed because it has a low amount of drag instead of an outstanding drivetrain.

[VALL_es 163]

Wheels, spoilers, bumps... Mother of god GTA has more variables that affect performance than any Gran Turismo or NFS 🤣

[Mark Verstappen 392]

Keep in mind the game only uses certain variables for certain things. For example the game does nothing with car weight for car performance. Just for collisions. 😋

Edited August 29, 2019 by Mark Verstappen