MX Bikes Official Forum

Update to Beta5: Changes in bold.
TLDR: Suspension work better making SX behaviour more predictable, in particular rythm sections. Slightly better traction helps making big jumps. Slightly lighter front ends requires more tact to brake hard, and a better front end control in woops and on full throtle take off. Overall, SX difficulty went down slightly as it is easier to hit big rythms and be consistent, but harder to push it hard on hotlaps due to whoops and braking requirements. Difficulty order of my tracks: JS7 SX South < SX2016 Rd2 < SX2016 Rd1 < SX 2016 Rd3 < JS7 SXNorth. Expect lap times to be slightly slower than in Beta 4 (around 1s for a 1min lap).

Since I have seen people on youtube or online stuggling a bit with SX in general, I just wanted to contribute with a quick guide on how to get started in SX in MXB. Of course, it is subjective as to what to do and why, but what follows has been how I could make it work for me.

Before the actual guide, a few words of infinite wisdom ( ;D ).

In MXB, and at least on the tracks I have made, SX is a matter of finding the flow of the track. If you try to approach each section trying to "make it", basically, you won't. You will always be faster doubling through nicely than forcing a triple in nose high that you'll case. Hoh, and you'll have more fun too.

In order to achieve that, you need to be smooth with the bike. Which requires you to know what the bike is doing and how the physics work. The big NONO currently (beta 5) is having the bike center of gravity moving around too quickly - inertia WILL throw you off. That includes changing the bike lean on a jump / bump (unless you know what you are doing and you are scrubbing / whipping but this is a starter guide). You will be able to jump smoothly even if the bike is leaned, as long as the angle doesn't change. Also, you will wash the front end and/or back end out if you give too much gas on a berm. This is realistic, but can be surprising in a game. The way I have found to control this better comes in three steps:

1. Know what your bike and rider are doing

1.a. Camera
I am extremely uncomfortable running in the 1st person bike view because I have no idea how my rider is positioned and how the bike is moving around him. Same in 3rd person as I lack the perspective. I have found the 1st person chest mount to be best for it, with the following settings:

In Settings / Simulation: FoV 110, Tilt 50%, Pitch 30%, no corner anticipation.

This allows me to always have at least the front fender moving around in sight, and estimate the lean of the bike without getting dizzy because of too much movement.

1.b. Controls
Set up everything to your taste binding-wise, but in terms of control you want to dampen your input slightly, and make sure you control the lean of the bike perfectly. There are two schools for that: either stick = lean angle, or stick = movement. I belong to the first school (this is the Direct Lean option). You also want stability help. It's not "cheating", as the devs confirmed it was for testing purposes but intended to be put at 100 or close to it at all times. I see it as "hours spent in the gym in the off season". The higher the Stability Help, the more your input will have effect on the bike. In Beta 5 you can get away with lower Stability Help settings (down to 60% or so), making you turn sharper but have a harder time in the whoops. I currently run mine at 70% but do not recommend it when starting out.

In Settings / Simulation: Stability help 90% ; in Settings / Input: Direct lean 90%. 0 riding helps (beside automatic tire changes, I'm too lazy). I have found out that Automatic Rider F/B Lean is overridden when you give Rider F/B Lean input, but kicks in when you dont. Up to you if you want that, it can help when starting out but don't get bad habits - you'll need it off at some point.

Do not overlook the controller settings. They are very powerful and can drastically change your experience from "I barely touched the stick what the hell" to "wow this is not even responding". I run with somewhat of a mellow setting to allow me to be more stable when approaching jumps and berms, at the cost of turning a tad slowly.

In Settings / Input:
- Lean : 100% Linearity ; 0-0% Smooth ; 100% Gain
- Throttle: 100L 30-10S 100G
- Brake: 75L 50-25S 100G
- Rear Brake: 100L 100-100S 75G
- Rider F/B: 100L 0S 100G
- Rider L/R: 100L 0S 100G
Beta 5 changes rundown: trying to diminish the spinnind/washing out by replicating the natural smoothing that comes with real bikes commands, in particular how disk brakes work.

Deadzone to taste according to your controller quality... Do NOT overlook this. Beta 5 made the bike more responsive in general. In the whoops in particular, any unwanted input can result in swapping out. Your goal is to set your deadzone at a level which does NOT give any input when fiddling around with your finger on the controls. Do not worry if you hit 20% or so, it's normal on a worn cout controler and will not impact when you actuall give an command input.

2. Bike and bike setup

Everyone has a favorite brand, I know. Every single bike can run SX properly (125KX, 450YZF, whatever). Save yourself some frustration, get on the MSM 250F or the YZF 250F. Those two are the most neutral and balanced, the MSM being soft, the YZF being rigid. The 450F are overpowering at first (heck, even now). The 250 2 stroke require you to already flow or they will bog down / throw you off. The 125 2 strokes are like 250 2 strokes without the power ;)

The first things you should do are:
- Changing the gear ratio to 13/52 (in the pits, Drivetrain)
- Changing the tires to Med Soft (in the pits as well).

You do not need to touch the suspension for now. Both of those bikes run great stock. Maybe put a harder spring on the MSM forks and shock if you feel it rebounds too much.

Suspension setup tips
Start off by reading the Suspensions Tutorial by StoneRider (http://forum.mx-bikes.com/index.php?topic=1463.0). This will help you achieve a base setup that you will need to tweak for SX. I usually proceed with those steps once I have around recommended sag values:

• Fill up the oil in the fork to 130.
  
• Get the rear a bit soft with slow rebound (lower bump / higher rebound values). This helps traction and whoops control.
  
• Get the front a bit harder to move (higher bump and rebound) but decrease it's preload bit a few clicks.
  
• Ride a lot and see how it behaves.[/b]

A few pointers:
- bottoming out the rear shock throws you sideways in the air.
- bottoming out the front throws you nose high uncontrollably when jumping hard.
- whoops is a matter of a softer rear with a stiffer front.
- jumping slightly nose high constantly can be lessened by going down one spring rate (fixing your preload afterwards of course).
- it's not too bad bottoming out the rear on jumps slightly as long as you retain traction and whoops stability. Bottoming the front is a no no.

3. Track riding general tips

I would strongly suggest you start with either the SX South (clay) of the JS7 compound (http://forum.mx-bikes.com/index.php?topic=1260.0) made by TheFatController and me or the Factory SX training facility (http://forum.mx-bikes.com/index.php?topic=1165.0) made by Pacopastor. Both tracks are the most forgiving SX tracks I know of.

Once again, try to find your flow and don't force it. This is the most crucial aspect of SX.

Couple of tips I learned the hard way:

- whoops should be approached by shifting one gear up (if you are coming in in 2nd, shift up to third) in neutral position. Let the bike settle down into the first 2 whoops with very low throttle, start leaning back, then put around mid throttle. Hitting the rev limiter is a sign you have too much throttle. Get in straight as an arrow, do not try to change direction other than using rider lean (if even). Let go of your lean stick.
- berms are not a launching pad. You should be braking coming in, and accelerating slowly until you are straight up again.
- engine braking is huge on the 4 strokes. Throttle control while landing and taking of is the key to flow the rythm sections. Rule of thumb: never have 0% throttle taking off and landing. Wide open will also shoot your front end high. Use Rider F/B lean to compensate.
- don't try to straighten up the bike last minute on obstacle faces. You'll be smoother taking off with a small but stable angle.
- yes, you can seat bounce. No, you should not need it anywhere on those two tracks.
- if you find yourself nose or end high too often, try to look at your replays to see if you are bottoming out.
- slightly moving forward on big jumps take-off helps the bike move naturally nose down toward the landing.
- slightly moving backwards at the end of the tables helps the bike jump further to the next obstacle.
- at least on SXSouth of the JS7 compound, taking the outside lines and doubling in is very easy and not a big time loss at all (except the northern set of whoops, take the left turn then roll the first bump taking the outside line, the double is tricky, as is the inside line).
- with a light front end, be very careful when grabbing the front brake and trying to turn right away. You WILL wash out. In particular when the front suspension is working it's way back up (typically 1 or 2 seconds after coming out of an obstacle like jumps or whoops). Either let engine braking do its job and stabilize the bike, or brake as you land. For this reason,  SLOW DOWN at the end of a whoops section if a turn is coming up. Don't expect to get out of the whoops and slam the brakes, it won't work.


Now, get on the tracks and practice. You'll most likely change the settigns around a bit to suit your taste and style. After a bit, you will feel like you need to change the bike setup. Or try new bikes. Or whatever. At that stage anyhow, this guide will be too basic for you ;)


As a reference point, using exactly those settings, and NEVER touching Rider FB/LR lean on a stock MSM250F, I can run SXSouth on the fast lines (tripling in) around 52s laptime consistently.

Reserved in case I babble too much.

Great tutorial, hopefully this will help anyone having trouble.

Me and Asdrael hit about 3 laps together on sx south close together, it's the most fun and forgiving sx track available right now.

I will just add that my favorite bike for sx on the stewart compound is the Husky 250f as it doesn't seem to bottom out so easy and seems to give a more natural trajectory when leaving small singles, very stable and forgiving bike.

great post, very helpful. can i add this to the mxb central tutorials page? here's a preview of what it would look like..

Feel free to post it. I see you have the formatting down already, but if you need the post "raw" let me know.

Glad to see it can help people :)

And yeah the husky is nice IF you already are good in the whoops. Otherwise, stock, it is very unforgiving on that obstacle I find. (Plus it looks ugly as hell with those big ass plastics. And everyone knows the most important part about SX, after flowing, is looking rad).

My bike setups below if you want to try them out. Beta4 stage. All values taken using the METRIC SYSTEM - if your values are way off, try looking in the option to enable the metric system.

For the MSM250F I do not touch anything as I use it as a "is it ridable?" bike when I make tracks. Stock with a 13/52 ratio and MedSoft tires, you should be able to ride everything decently. Put harder springs if needed front and rear.

EDIT: THIS WAS TYPED FOR BETA 4 AND IS NO LONGER VALID

My YZF250 suspension setup (13/52 ratio with MedSoft tires):

Front:
Spring     5
Bump      10
Rebound 8
Preload   12
Oil           120

Rear:
Spring     57
Bump      8
Rebound 7
Preload   13

It adds up to a rather stiff front and medium but low rear. The bike will be fairly rigid with a bit of rebound to help you go over obstacles. It is very stabe in lines and turns resonably well. You may want to increase the rebound values once you start going faster to avoid getting too much air / handle the hard triples right outside of turns more reliably. No rider movement required to position itself well in jumps. I use a 20mm Front Leverage but that's to taste. This is what I use when learning tracks as it is very forgiving and predictable.

My CRF250 suspension setup (13/52 ratio with MedSoft tires):

Front:
Spring     4.6
Bump      11
Rebound 10
Preload   12
Oil           105

Rear:
Spring     57
Bump      15
Rebound 12
Preload   15

This makes the CRF handle better and not bottom out everywhere. It stays low on jumps, has decent traction, and remains ultra-stable in the whoops. It needs however quite a bit of body movement depending how you approach hard hits (seat bouncing / pulling pushing to make it). It is however quite unforgiving, don't case anything. Here, 20mm leverage at the front as well.

Enjoy!

Thanks for sharing, I can't recommend the CRF with this set up for sx enough..

Thx for this guys, I will try the CRF with set-up asap!!


I fully 2nd the 1st person (chest mount?) with 100fov..great for whips also! I can see some of the seat so it helps me gauge the rear of the bike!

thx for sharing i will give it a try and will practice more sx. i will return when i mastered SX

The CRF with your set-up really made the SX work. The small triples at the end of the sections are much easier to handle without the front fender looking to the sky. thx!!

Quote from: Asdrael on September 12, 2016, 08:31:24 PM
My bike setups below if you want to try them out. Beta4 stage.

For the MSM250F I do not touch anything as I use it as a "is it ridable?" bike when I make tracks. Stock with a 13/52 ratio and MedSoft tires, you should be able to ride everything decently. Put harder springs if needed front and rear.

My YZF250 suspension setup (13/52 ratio with MedSoft tires):

Front:
Spring     5
Bump      10
Rebound 8
Preload   12
Oil           120

Rear:
Spring     57
Bump      8
Rebound 7
Preload   13

It adds up to a rather stiff front and medium but low rear. The bike will be fairly rigid with a bit of rebound to help you go over obstacles. It is very stabe in lines and turns resonably well. You may want to increase the rebound values once you start going faster to avoid getting too much air / handle the hard triples right outside of turns more reliably. No rider movement required to position itself well in jumps. I use a 20mm Front Leverage but that's to taste. This is what I use when learning tracks as it is very forgiving and predictable.

My CRF250 suspension setup (13/52 ratio with MedSoft tires):

Front:
Spring     4.6
Bump      11
Rebound 10
Preload   12
Oil           105

Rear:
Spring     57
Bump      15
Rebound 12
Preload   15

This makes the CRF handle better and not bottom out everywhere. It stays low on jumps, has decent traction, and remains ultra-stable in the whoops. It needs however quite a bit of body movement depending how you approach hard hits (seat bouncing / pulling pushing to make it). It is however quite unforgiving, don't case anything. Here, 20mm leverage at the front as well.

Enjoy!

This is probably a dumb question, but how are you getting the numbers shown for Spring, Preload, and Oil? My numbers don't go anywhere near those values.

Quote from: shanebell618 on September 18, 2016, 06:16:45 PMThis is probably a dumb question, but how are you getting the numbers shown for Spring, Preload, and Oil? My numbers don't go anywhere near those values.

If you are trying on a different bike, remember that each model has its own limits to values so you might not be able to transfer those.

Other than that, I just go to the suspension page in the pits while on a track and tune the settings there... you should be able to as well? I mean, select the YZF250, load a track, and directly in the pits go to the suspension page. You should be able to see the listing and tune exactly as I suggest. Don't mix up front and rear tho, they use completely different values for the settings you mention. I'll try making a video once I get back to a MXB capable rig :)

Quote from: Asdrael on September 18, 2016, 06:23:16 PM

Quote from: shanebell618 on September 18, 2016, 06:16:45 PMThis is probably a dumb question, but how are you getting the numbers shown for Spring, Preload, and Oil? My numbers don't go anywhere near those values.

If you are trying on a different bike, remember that each model has its own limits to values so you might not be able to transfer those.

Other than that, I just go to the suspension page in the pits while on a track and tune the settings there... you should be able to as well? I mean, select the YZF250, load a track, and directly in the pits go to the suspension page. You should be able to see the listing and tune exactly as I suggest. Don't mix up front and rear tho, they use completely different values for the settings you mention. I'll try making a video once I get back to a MXB capable rig :)

I know how to change the settings, I'm just saying that my minimum and maximum values for those settings are nowhere near what yours are. This screenshot is my options for the crf250.

Well.

Erm.

Sorry.

Metric system user here ;) I think you can change it in your game option in the initial game menu. I'll update the posts accordingly.

Hahaha, I didn't even think of that!  ;D Thanks for the explanation lol.

No worries.

I see a lot of people trying out the CRF, maybe overlooking the YZF. If it's because of the hotlaps videos or something else, I don't know - but the YZF is definitely more friendly and forgiving to use. And if it's any indication, my CRF hotlaps on SXNorth on the JS7C are barely any faster than the YZF ones at the cost of a lot of effort (talking 0.3s on a 1min lap). And on the AMA tracks, I am faster with the YZF than with the CRF.

thank you very much for the guide! as soon as i'm mostly asphalt racer and new to dirt bikes, motocross seems hard to me but SX is just impossible :) hopefully I'll get better with your advices.

Quick update:

For b5, my controller settings haven't changed except that I have 70% linearity on the front brake. Regarding the bike setup, I have to redo them as the suspension physics changed a bit.

Man this is so useful, just started learning SX again.. thanks As

B5 update coming out later today. Will have updated settings, braking and whoops section due to physics update.

Nice one mate, look forward to it :) Just played Anaheim 1 again, although im crap it is so fun! :D cheers mate

OP updated for Beta5: Changes in bold.
TLDR: Suspension work better making SX behaviour more predictable, in particular rythm sections. Slightly better traction helps making big jumps. Slightly lighter front ends requires more tact to brake hard, and a better front end control in woops and on full throtle take off. Overall, SX difficulty went down slightly as it is easier to hit big rythms and be consistent, but harder to push it hard on hotlaps due to whoops and braking requirements. Difficulty order of my tracks: JS7 SX South < SX2016 Rd2 < SX2016 Rd1 < SX 2016 Rd3 < JS7 SXNorth. Expect lap times to be slightly slower than in Beta 4 (around 1s for a 1min lap).

Regarding the bike setups, those given for b4 still work. The MSN got better though so I'd recomend starting out on that.

OK thanks Asdrael, awesome post. A question though.
When is says 100l 30 40s 100l
Does that mean 100% linearity 30 press and 40 release?  Not too sure, as they are the settings in game.

Could you please elaborate on exactly where those values go.  Thanks mate again great job

Quote from: gdubmx on January 05, 2017, 06:14:04 PM
OK thanks Asdrael, awesome post. A question though.
When is says 100l 30 40s 100l
Does that mean 100% linearity 30 press and 40 release?  Not too sure, as they are the settings in game.

Could you please elaborate on exactly where those values go.  Thanks mate again great job

Yes. Linearity 100%, Smooth 30% press 40% release, 100% gain. It's the order they appear in the settings (I think).

Awesome thanks mate,  I thought that was it.

Added some suspension setup tips in OP for Beta5.

Suspension setup tips
Start off by reading the Suspensions Tutorial by StoneRider (http://forum.mx-bikes.com/index.php?topic=1463.0). This will help you achieve a base setup that you will need to tweak for SX. I usually proceed with those steps once I have around recommended sag values:

• Fill up the oil in the fork to 130.
  
• Get the rear a bit soft with slow rebound (lower bump / higher rebound values). This helps traction and whoops control.
  
• Get the front a bit harder to move (higher bump and rebound) but decrease it's preload bit a few clicks.
  
• Ride a lot and see how it behaves.[/b]

A few pointers:
- bottoming out the rear shock throws you sideways in the air.
- bottoming out the front throws you nose high uncontrollably when jumping hard.
- whoops is a matter of a softer rear with a stiffer front.
- jumping slightly nose high constantly can be lessened by going down one spring rate (fixing your preload afterwards of course).
- it's not too bad bottoming out the rear on jumps slightly as long as you retain traction and whoops stability. Bottoming the front is a no no.

Since there is a bit of SX activity, a quick setup guide for SX especially. This is for OEM 250f bikes, if you try to learn on a 450, too bad ;)

Gearing:
Add 1 to 2 teeth at the rear sprocket.

Engine Map:
Up to you, stock is good enough.

Tyres:
Hard rear, Mid Hard front. If your rear washes out too easily, potentially put Mid Hard. If your front washes out too easily in turns, Mid Front. If your front washes out when braking, go for 20mm leverage on the front brake. I tend to run 0.8 of pressure front and rear.

Front Suspension:
Find a spring and preload combination that gives you ~30-35 dry sag, and +30 rider sag (so if 32 dry sag, around 62 rider sag). Springs between 4.6 and 5.0 Nmm should give you that.
~13 Bump
~10 Rebound
~125 to 130 oil.

Rear Suspension:
Find a spring and preload combination that gives you ~40 dry sag and +65 rider sag (so 40-105 for example). Springs between 46 and 50Nmm are usually sufficient.
~9 Bump
~14 Rebound

Fork Offset, SwingArm Length:
Bit of a matter of taste and varies with the bike. I'd recommend not touching at first. If you want to touch it because the front / rear feels unstable, let me forward you to this guide: http://forum.mx-bikes.com/index.php?topic=1644.0


I think that's it! Normally when I do that blindly (take a bike, set it up like this and go) I can immediately run laps using the fast lines without any issues.