Why does my Chaos Vehicle slide everywhere?

Final tire friction is the product of the wheel’s Tire Config friction scale and the road surface’s Physical Material friction. If either is at default 1.0 and the other is below 1, effective friction is low. Bring both to the ranges that match your intended feel (1.5–3.0 for grippy arcade cars).

Where do I set wheel-vs-surface friction?

On the Tire Config asset (FrictionScale), on the road’s Physical Material (Friction), and the Wheel Setup curves (Lateral and Longitudinal Slip Curves) define how grip falls off as the tire slips. Tune all three together; changing just one rarely produces the feel you want.

What about Suspension settings?

Suspension affects how much weight transfers to a tire during cornering or braking, which directly scales available friction. Soft suspension with large damping ratios produces a floaty, low-grip feel; stiff suspension transfers weight more sharply. Tune after friction values are set.

Fix: Unreal Chaos Vehicle Tire Friction Too Low

Quick answer: Effective friction = TireConfig.FrictionScale * PhysicalMaterial.Friction. Raise both to 2.0+ for arcade-feel grip, and tune the Wheel Setup’s Lateral Slip Curve to control drift behavior.

A Chaos Vehicle skitters around like it’s on ice. The road is concrete with no rain effect. Even gentle steering produces oversteer; braking locks the wheels and slides for meters. The vehicle’s suspension and mass values are reasonable; the tires just don’t grip.

The Friction Stack

Chaos Vehicles compute per-wheel friction as a product:

EffectiveFriction = TireConfig.FrictionScale
                  * PhysicalMaterial.Friction
                  * SuspensionLoad / NominalLoad

If TireConfig.FrictionScale is 1.0 (default) and the road material’s Friction is 0.7 (default for a generic PhysicalMaterial), effective friction is 0.7 — far below the 1.5–3.0 range expected for an arcade racer.

Step 1: TireConfig Asset

Open your TireConfig Data Asset:

FrictionScale: 2.5   // up from default 1.0

This is the main lever. Higher = grippier tires regardless of surface.

Step 2: Road PhysicalMaterial

Open the road’s PhysicalMaterial (assigned via the road mesh’s material or directly on the collision):

Friction: 1.5
RestitutionCombineMode: Average

Different surface types should have different values: dry concrete 1.5, wet 0.8, ice 0.3, gravel 1.0 with high slip curve.

Step 3: Wheel Setup Slip Curves

Each wheel’s Lateral Slip Curve defines how much grip is available as the slip angle increases. Default curves are conservative. For drift-style cars, push the peak to ~0.7–0.8 friction at higher slip angles. For grip-focused cars, peak earlier with sharper rolloff.

Open BP_WheeledVehiclePawn → Wheels → expand a wheel entry → Slip Curves.

Step 4: Suspension and Mass

If the vehicle’s mass is wrong, tire load is wrong. A 1500 kg sedan with mass set to 100 will feel like an empty toy regardless of friction. Open VehicleMovement → Mass and set realistic values for the vehicle class.

Suspension Compression Damping ~2.0 and Suspension Spring Force scaled to vehicle weight feels right for most cars. Too soft and weight transfer during turns drops grip on the inside tires below threshold; too stiff and you bounce.

Step 5: Verifying with Logs

Enable debug HUD: chaos.Vehicle.ShowAll 1. Shows per-wheel slip, normal force, friction force in real time. Drive aggressively; check whether you’re saturating the slip curve. If slip stays at 100% the moment you turn, friction is too low; if it stays at 0% even during sharp turns, the cars are skating without modeling slip.

Verifying

Build a test track with three surfaces: dry concrete (Friction 1.5), wet asphalt (0.8), ice (0.3). The vehicle should grip well on dry, slip moderately on wet, and slide dramatically on ice. If all three feel similar, the slip curve or TireConfig is dominating — revisit.

“Chaos tire friction is a product of three numbers. Raise the wrong one and you barely feel it. Raise the right one and the car transforms.”

Build a benchmark drive cycle (straight + corner + brake) and time it whenever you tune friction — subjective feel is unreliable for fine tuning.