Realistic trailer stability

[Solo_Kamen]

Hi

Does anyone know, what trailer stability setting would be the most realistic? I find it silly that my truck with trailer drifts in tight turn and does not tip over as it should... it should, right? I am having the slider about 40% from the left side and I still find it too "grippy"

[Mohegan13]

If you enable the dev console you can manually alter the setting beyond what the slider allows.

g_trailer_stability

default is 0.5 I used to use -1.5

But if you play around with the number until you feel satisfied with it. I couldn't say what is "realistic" as I have never driven a truck, but you can at least fine tune it to what you're happy with.

[Solo_Kamen]

alright, i will tet it to 0 for now. I guess I will be moving to -1,5 gradualy

I guess devs have accurate answer? I will buy france DLC for developer response

[BK Vissers]

Well that's very interesting information.

When I started playing ETS2 I read somewhere that to give a more realistic experience to set brakes and trailer stability sliders all the way to the left. Certainly the braking changed dramatically, I no longer stopped on a dime, and to me that seems right.

Trailer stability was harder to judged, however. I see that with the slider at leftmost position, that appears to yield a numerical value in the config file of "0". I've read in many places here that jacknifing doesn't happen in game.

So my question is, would "-1.5" result in solely increased chance of tipping over in hard cornering, or would it also impact hard braking, with the trailer jacknifing?

[Cadde]

I am so tempted to change the owner of this post to one of the developers.

But realistically speaking, you will never get full realism in any game. Use whatever setting makes you feel comfortable.
One guy thinks trailers should do barrel rolls behind the truck while driving. Another thinks trailers should act like the starship Enterprise... On rails.

The devs would probably tell you (inb4 dev tells me i am wrong) to use 0.5 (half down the slider range) assuming the range goes from 0 to 1 to begin with.
That can be checked by the way, just pull it all the way to either side and check your profile config file for actual values.
But basically, whatever it was set to in the beginning is what the "realistic" value is for SCS software. They then let users decide on their own what they think is realistic by altering the slider.

Be careful with negative values though... Things tend to go awry real quick when you give the game values it's not designed for!

[Mohegan13]

Going round tight bends, I found I had negative amounts of tyre on the road.

[Solo_Kamen]

One guy thinks trailers should do barrel rolls behind the truck while driving

I´m not aiming that far

The devs would probably tell you (inb4 dev tells me i am wrong) to use 0.5 (half down the slider range) assuming the range goes from 0 to 1 to begin with.

0.5 is probably not an answer because you can drift without tralier giving a ♥♥♥♥[didnt know what word to put there]. I think it is time to watch some trailers tip over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jv90xBdP_Q

[Cadde]

That is inherently (literally) because the trailer inherits all it's physics related phenomena from the tractor in game. If the tractor flips, the trailer flips. If the trailer flips, the tractor corrects it.
That is, the truck is king in game. Whereas in reality, it's the other way around. The trailer kinda drives the tractor in a sense.

[Max]

I will buy france DLC for developer response

really? so let's try then ..

default state of game is made as close to reality as doable. sure, we have some inaccuracies in game especially when you are going into details, but we are still improving the simulation gradually. sometimes we also make things more playable than real but not that much as people think.

that said, default 0.5 value is quite good for what we know about trailers (we tried). value itself is vertical position multiplier for center of mass. its reverted so the bigger you set value the lower center will be and more stable trailer you get. values 1 and 0 were chosen as example of very stable and very unstable trailer (its like 1m of distance around center) for player tha would preffer different behavior. although through cvar you can set virtually any number.
things to improve? mainly trailer chassis torsion. this is quite hard to do (especially visually) but it affects possible rollover as it accumulates energy. we have this emulated by suspension tweak.

truth is the trailer is stable because its designed so. if you have cargo stored there correctly you will have center of gravity low and forward to put relevant part of weigh on truck. if you are turning, you are making steel triangle from truck and trailer and its even more stable - thanks to firm connection of truck and (semi)trailer. sure there are limits. too high speed result in too strong centrifugal force, road roll is possible outer factor and trailer goes ...

That is inherently (literally) because the trailer inherits all it's physics related phenomena from the tractor in game. If the tractor flips, the trailer flips. If the trailer flips, the tractor corrects it.
That is, the truck is king in game. Whereas in reality, it's the other way around. The trailer kinda drives the tractor in a sense.

this is not true. forces on trailer cause rollover most of the time even in game. trailer has center of gravity higher and has bigger mass. what stabilizes them both is suspensions, geometry and fifth wheel (the difference between real trailer and semi-trailer mechanics).

[Tiger313]

Interesting read, Max. I had been wondering about stability related issues myself, which is largely answered by your reply to this post.