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The strongest starting preset for a public Assetto Corsa drift server is simple: disable AI traffic, enable tyre blankets, set the track surface to Old or Green at 95–97%, and keep fuel, damage and tyre wear at 100%. Use one clearly stated ABS and traction-control policy, require the same Custom Shaders Patch (CSP) build for every driver, and validate scoring with a second account before opening the session. This combination gives drivers predictable grip, avoids traffic-related penalties and makes scores comparable.
The recommended public-drift baseline
Use the following values as a starting preset rather than as permanent rules. They are intended for a normal drift event in which cars should be easy to initiate, consistent from the pits and judged under the same conditions.
| Setting | Recommended starting value | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| AI traffic | EnableAi: false |
Removes unexpected traffic, wrong-way behavior and traffic-related penalties from a pure drift session. |
| Tyre blankets | Enabled | Cars leave the pits with a more consistent tyre-temperature and grip baseline. |
| Track surface | Old or Green, 95–97% | Reduces mechanical grip and makes initiating a slide easier; the 95–97% range is the documented drift starting point from AssettoHosting (Sergi Garzón, 2026). |
| ABS and traction control | Factory for mixed-car public events | Keeps different cars usable without silently granting or removing an assist from a driver. |
| ABS/traction-control competition rule | Off or Forced only when the event requires it | Creates a strict, identical policy for a serious competition. |
| Stability control | Off for realistic competition; optional for beginners | Preserves a more realistic car response while allowing an accessible training mode. |
| Fuel, damage and tyre wear | 100% each | Provides a neutral baseline. Change one rate at a time only after a representative stint. |
| CSP | Explicit minimum version; 0.1.77 build 1937 or newer for the documented live-HUD/CSP validation workflow | Keeps weather, lighting, HUD and scoring behavior consistent between clients. |
Factory assists are the sensible default when a server accepts several car types and a broad public audience. A strict event can set ABS and traction control to Off or Forced, but publish that rule before drivers join. Stability control is a separate decision: turn it Off for realistic competition, or leave it available for a beginner practice server.
Why grip, temperature and traffic determine drift quality
Track surface: Old or Green at 95–97%
Drifting depends on the transition between available grip and wheel slip. A fully grippy surface can make initiation abrupt and demanding, while too little grip makes cars rotate without useful control. The documented starting range is 95–97% on the Old or Green surface state. In practical terms, begin at 96%, run a representative stint and move only a small amount if the cars feel too planted or too loose.
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Do not change surface grip and tyre-wear rate at the same time. If both values move, you cannot tell which change caused a different entry speed, angle or tyre life. Record the selected surface and percentage in the event rules so a later session can reproduce it.
Tyre blankets
Enable tyre blankets when consistent laps or judged runs matter. Without a common temperature starting point, one driver may leave the pits on cold tyres while another begins after a warm-up run. That difference affects the first initiation and can look like a setup or skill difference. Blankets do not remove the need to test tyre wear; they simply make the starting condition repeatable.
AI traffic
Set EnableAi: false for a pure drift server. AI cars can introduce unexpected braking, blocked lines, wrong-way situations and penalty triggers that have nothing to do with a driver’s drift. A traffic session is a different format and should be advertised as such; do not leave AI enabled accidentally on a competition server.
Choosing assists without making scores unfair
Factory assists for mixed public events
Factory mode lets each car use the assistance behavior defined for that car. Assetto Servers identifies it as the sensible default for mixed-car public events because it avoids imposing a single artificial setting on vehicles with different intended electronics.
Off or Forced for strict rules
Use Off when the event requires drivers to run without the assist. Use Forced when the server must impose a particular policy regardless of a client’s local selection. State whether the rule applies to ABS, traction control or both; a driver should not have to infer it from a server-side kick message.
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Stability control
Set stability control Off for realistic competition. For a learning or open practice room, making it optional can help new drivers complete a run, but those assists should not be mixed silently with a strict leaderboard. Record the policy with the scoring mode and car list.
CSP requirements and drift scoring
CSP is required by many night-lighting, weather and track features used in modern drift setups. If the server uses a live drift HUD or CSP-assisted leaderboard validation, Assetto Servers documents a minimum of CSP 0.1.77 build 1937 or newer. Treat that number as the minimum for the documented workflow, not as a promise that every track or feature works identically on every later build.
Make the client requirement explicit
- Choose the CSP build that the server will support.
- Publish the minimum requirement in the server name, welcome message or event rules.
- Keep all drivers on the same build when physics, weather, HUD or scoring depends on CSP.
- Reject or help update clients that do not meet the requirement before judging their runs.
Changing CSP builds midway through a competition can alter visual, weather or scoring behavior. Freeze the requirement for the event and change it only between events after a fresh validation.
Configure the track path safely
AssettoServer’s documented example for a CSP track path is:
TRACK=csp/<CSPversionID>/../<trackname>When adapting a track configuration, change only the first SURFACE_0 entry to CSPFACE_0. Changing additional surfaces can cause checksum errors, preventing clients from joining even when they have the correct track. Keep a copy of the working configuration before making this edit.
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Make scoring rules part of the competition rules
A drift leaderboard is not comparable unless its scoring conditions are comparable. Configure a minimum drift angle, minimum drift duration and a validation mode, then publish those values alongside the track and car restrictions. Do not compare scores made under different validation modes: changing the mode can change point calculations, so a higher total may reflect a rules change rather than a better run.
Installing and configuring AssettoServer
The documented deployment flow uses AssettoServer in Assetto Corsa’s server folder.
- Install or extract AssettoServer into the Assetto Corsa
serverfolder. - Launch
AssettoServer.exeonce to confirm that the executable starts and creates its expected configuration context. - Edit
server_cfg.inifor the core server settings, including the AI policy and event basics. - Edit
extra_cfg.ymlfor the additional drift, CSP and rule features your setup uses. - Save both files and restart the server. Configuration changes are not considered active until the restart has completed.
- Apply the event rules, wait for confirmation that they loaded, and restart again if the server reports that a rule set was applied but not yet active.
Keep a dated backup of both files before changing grip, assists or scoring. When a new edit causes a join failure, restoring the last known-good pair is faster than debugging several simultaneous changes.
Validation before opening the server
A server can start successfully while still enforcing the wrong assists, penalties or scoring rules. Validate it with a normal driver account, not only with an administrator account, because permissions and voting behavior can differ.
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- Assist test: confirm the displayed ABS, traction-control and stability-control behavior matches the published rule.
- Grip test: leave the pits, perform an initiation and verify that the Old or Green 95–97% setting is active rather than a stale surface value.
- Traffic test: confirm that no AI cars spawn when
EnableAi: falseis intended. - Penalty test: check wrong-way, contact and track-limit behavior in a controlled run.
- Scoring test: perform a drift with the minimum angle and duration, then one below each threshold, and confirm that validation responds as expected.
- Session-economy test: check fuel consumption, damage and tyre wear over a representative stint rather than during one corner.
- Pit test: enter and leave the pits repeatedly to confirm that blankets and pit behavior are consistent.
- Voting and recovery test: verify that ordinary drivers see the intended voting options and that a restart returns the server to the saved rules.
Only open the server publicly after a second driver has repeated the critical checks. A single local test can miss client-specific CSP, checksum or permission problems.
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Fuel, damage and tyre-wear rates
Set fuel, damage and tyre wear to 100% for a normal baseline. This is a starting value, not a claim that every car or track will produce identical stint lengths. Assetto Servers recommends changing one rate at a time and completing a representative stint before committing to the event setup.
How to tune one rate safely
- Record the baseline value and run a complete representative stint.
- Change only one rate, leaving grip, weather, assists and scoring unchanged.
- Repeat the same type of run and record fuel use, damage accumulation or tyre behavior.
- Keep the change only if it improves the intended event format without creating a car-specific disadvantage.
- Publish the final value before the event and do not adjust it between qualifying and judged runs unless the format explicitly allows it.
For a short judged run, excessive wear or damage can turn a small contact into an outsized result. For a longer open session, 100% gives drivers a neutral reference from which to decide whether a different rate is necessary.
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ACS Drift recommends using Content Manager with its recommended CSP version. Players join through Content Manager’s Online tab, and required cars or tracks may be fetched when available. The server should still publish the exact car and track requirements because automatic fetching does not guarantee that every dependency is available or that a client’s build matches the event.
Wheel baseline
The documented baseline wheel values are:
| Control | Baseline |
|---|---|
| Gain | 100% |
| Minimum force | 0% |
| Effects | 0% |
| Gyro | On |
| Soft Lock | On |
ACS Drift also documents device-specific paths for the MOZA R5 and Simagic Alpha Mini, plus an A7 controller script. Use those as client-side starting points, then make small personal adjustments without changing the server’s grip, scoring or assist rules.
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| Format | Grip and tyres | Assists | Traffic and CSP | Scoring approach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open practice | Old or Green at 95–97%; blankets enabled | Factory; stability control may be optional | AI disabled; state the required CSP build | HUD useful, but treat scores as practice if rules are not frozen |
| Mixed-car public event | Old or Green at a fixed value within 95–97%; blankets enabled | Factory | AI disabled; identical CSP requirement | Publish angle, duration and validation mode |
| Strict competition | Fixed surface percentage and tyre baseline | ABS/traction control Off or Forced; stability control Off | AI disabled; require the documented CSP minimum or newer compatible build | Freeze validation mode and reject incomparable prior scores |
| Long-form session | Same grip baseline; blankets enabled | Choose one published policy | AI disabled unless traffic is deliberately part of the format | Start fuel, damage and wear at 100%, then tune one rate after a full stint |
These are operating presets, not separate physics packages. The important fairness rule is that every driver in a comparison sees the same surface, temperature policy, assist policy, CSP requirement and validation mode.
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Troubleshooting common failures
Drivers receive a checksum error
First compare the track path and surface entries. If more than the first SURFACE_0 was changed to CSPFACE_0, revert the extra changes. Then confirm that clients have the required track files and the same CSP build before changing any physics setting.
The server starts but the drift HUD or validation is missing
Check that the client meets the stated CSP minimum, that the server’s CSP-dependent configuration is active after a restart, and that the selected track supports the feature. Do not judge runs made without the validation component against runs that used it.
First runs feel different from later runs
Confirm that tyre blankets are enabled and that every driver follows the same pit procedure. A cold-tyre start can otherwise be mistaken for a grip-percentage problem.
Drivers report random traffic or wrong-way penalties
Verify that the active configuration contains EnableAi: false, restart the server and repeat the join test with a normal account. Also check whether a traffic mod or track-side script is spawning vehicles independently of the server’s AI setting.
Scores cannot be compared
Check the validation mode, minimum angle, minimum duration, surface percentage, assists and CSP build for every run. If any of those changed, put the results in separate groups instead of merging them into one leaderboard.
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Buying the correct game edition
ACS Drift states that the Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition includes all official DLC and is the easiest choice. Availability and pricing depend on the marketplace and country, so verify the current listing for your region. The server settings above do not remove the need for every participant to own the required base game, DLC and mod content.
Operational checklist
- AI disabled with
EnableAi: falsefor a pure drift room. - Tyre blankets enabled and pit behavior tested.
- Old or Green surface fixed at a documented 95–97% value.
- ABS, traction control and stability-control policies published.
- Fuel, damage and tyre wear begin at 100% unless a completed stint justifies a change.
- CSP minimum and exact build policy visible to drivers.
- Only the first
SURFACE_0changed toCSPFACE_0when required. - Minimum drift angle, duration and validation mode recorded.
- Rules applied, server restarted and a second driver used for validation.
- Leaderboards separated whenever scoring mode or core conditions differ.
With those controls fixed, the server’s behavior is predictable enough for practice and fair enough for competition. Tune one variable at a time, keep the final configuration backed up, and treat any scoring-mode change as a new event rather than a continuation of the old leaderboard.
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