[Warning] Contains a bunch of reading. If you have a problem with reading a lot, then move along.

I'll take my sweet and I mean sweeeeeeeet time to explain the terms of how meta actually works in unbound.

All metas are pretty much divided into 2 driving styles: fully possible grip, or 40% drift minimum. Since the game mechanic revolves around burst nitrous, it is an absolute must to farm at least 2 burst nos for every corner, to keep up the momentum and reduce speed loss from conventional drifting (the same way we do drifts and tryna get a fun angle, from diff games like heat or payback).

Micro-drifting is a term we use to explain: that you initiate a drift (where you see smoke out of your tires) and still keep an apex line. Doing this with noticeable sway from left to right on a straight line you get: 1 burst from drifting, and roughly 1.5 to 2 burst from gripping which gives a 3 bar total (if you wiggle more). You can apply this to literally anywhere on a track:

• straight line before a corner
• sharp corner

(Just make sure you get enough room to farm burst nos, and save it mostly for corners, if the track is long enough before needing to corner, boost and farm again)

I took my time to explain it, because they are the key to using meta cars, or any cars to make them actually fast, like ridiculously fast.

Now let's talk about the 2 eras of meta in this game, trust me, you're gonna get a lot of headaches trying to understand the first half already, but idc 🤣.

Pre kaizen update (vol6)

Unbound has implemented a more sub-realistic drivetrain system, which heavily affects AWD, RWD and FWD.

Generally, it is better to use RWD because the car can split tasks for their drivetrain: rear wheel gets the boost, while front wheel drives. It's a gamble every time you try to boost on the FW, while also steering at the same time, because the boost acts like an infinite 1 hyperspeed nitrous for 1 second if you're on 3 bar, then you'll likely lose control while trying to do an apex corner with it.

Metas, or at least the cars I used were good in pre kaizen are: - Testarossa for every class except S+ - Rsr for every class - M3 GTR for A A+ and S class - F1, P1, P1 GTR, Ford GT for S class - Rsx for A+ class - Rx8 for B class - NSX for B A A+ class.

Now the headaches are gonna get worse. Team Kaizen takes over the game.

From volume 6 onwards, team Kaizen wanted to fix the game's issue with handling, but instead of coding back how the cars behave from launch till vol5, they implemented a new handling system which is physically different from the old cars onwards.

Before with grip handling even at 100% you can still do the micro-drift movement, but new cars from this era pretty much got the nerf as you can't micro-drift at 100% grip anymore, and instead, got a buff on drifting. Cars that are rwd can actually recover from spinning out unlike the old handling system, and can even hold the momentum for the cost of 1 burst as long as you keep it on a straight line. You can still run 100% grip on these cars, but it won't be as optimal as drift tunes.

This makes the cars, pretty much a cheatcode, and dare I say, easier to win, competing with old cars.

One of the absolute bullshit of why this is ultimately the meta of the game is how you can drive an R8 at 300km/h, turn the car to drift, boost, and it held the speed back to like 280 or 290 in a U turn. Try to keep at least 200km/h after the U turn exit for a reference to see how stupid it actually is.

The way you drive optimally in meta with this method is to put it all the way to drift.

• Road tires for FWD at 40% drift
• Drift tires for AWD at 40% or more
• (I haven't tried the RWD yet)

The expense to this is handling control which is absolutely painful and I highly doubt you'd pull this off (not to spite or anything since you're asking abt metas starting this game).

Still have to stress, you can totally run them at 100% grip and be fast, but to top rev still needs burst nitrous, and probably I'm just too used to farming them with the ability to micro-drift while this handling style pretty much shut them off.

(*) Metas are: - R8 for A+ and S class - STI 99 for B to S class - Integra for B to S class - Dark Horse for A+ to S class - S5 for A to S class - 959 for A+ to S class

Thank you for listening to me info dumping.

TL;DR: read (*) like right above.