Quote from Bob Smith :

Either that or you have a version prior to v2.5

That'd be the problem :dunce:. I'm still using 2.2.1.

Actually I think many people aren't necessarily against drifting itself, but the attitudes many drifters display, and the inevitable association with the following:

1: People who parrot everything they see and hear in Initial D, but don't actually know anything about cars.
2: People who wish LFS was more like NFS:U
3: People who barge into a race server, cause a wreck, and then whine.

Not that all drifters necessarily fit into one or more of these categories--but the ones who do tend to be very vocal and over-defensive, and are very, very annoying. I'm all for intelligent, civil discussion like this thread is, though I don't really consider myself a drifter.

Quote from Stellios :

It would be really nice to just have a huge long piece of tarmac, or a really long ring to test your top speeds on. Some cars cant hit top speed on the oval, and it would be nice to be able to figure them out.

In my opinion.

Bob Smith's GRC will tell you this anyway. Links in his sig, scroll up from this post. Though, admittedly, it won't tell you how long it takes to achieve a certain speed, only what the absolute max is.

Which makes me think... Bob, a nice feature for the GRC would be a simulated speed vs. time graph, so you can get a better idea what the "practical" top speed is. Naturally it won't perfectly match reality, what with imperfect shifting and everything, but accurate within a few seconds/10 Km/h would be good enough for me. Knowing the simulated top speed is of limited use if, in game, it would take 3 minutes to get there

Less weight, by itself, is beneficial to handling. However, if a car's suspension has been tuned to provide optimum handling with a 100% fuels load (or close to it), then as the fuel decreases, the balance of the car changes, which can have a detrimental effect on handling. Depending on what your setup is like, the two effects may roughly cancel out, leaving you with similar laptimes.

You gotta give me at least a day man... I'm not on here 24/7

Anyway, my current PB for WE in the FXR is 1:39.46. Nothing spectacular, but pretty respectable, and I know for a fact that was a 10 lap race that I didn't change tires in.

Bob, I tried your setup and actually it's more similar to mine than I thought. Your suspension is softer than mine and your rollbars have greater front/back difference, but your front/rear downforce ratio is no less extreme than mine. I could go as fast in either one, but mine feels a lot "tighter" to me, maybe because my coast locks are set higher, though my front load lock is a lot lower than yours--only 30%. I also made a mistake, I'm running 25% torque split, not 23% as I thought. I had it confused with my RB4 set.

I've uploaded my WE setup. This one is understeer-y at low speeds, but at Westhill it works like a charm. A quick fix for slower tracks is just to soften the front ARB to 80 or so and decrease the parallel steer and center diff lock. A work in progress, but what setup isn't?

Last edited by 5th Earth, Sun, 6 Nov 2005 01:39.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

You can get car builder here for free, legally: http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=2075

There is even a "Modern version on it to be found, but it cost's quite a lot: http://www.stickybear.com/science-skills/cbd.htm

And concerning the load. You can add 100% fuel and 3 passangers for increased load, but still, it does not give the proper results under load... a feature for it would be nice.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I've still got my original 5.25" disk. Interesting to see the new one though--the test track is still the same shape as the original.

Quote from Tweaker :

R2's for what car?

Many fast drivers in the endurance leagues use R2's for long races by the way They do last, it just depends on your driving and tire pressure.

And your question about th F9 thing. Well you are asking something about what you are looking for. They DO show the thickness. Over time they get very thin and once they get almost too thin, they blow The numbers below the grey bars are the temperatures on the 3 main sections of the tire (inside, middle, outside).

On an oval race, I once saw a guy actually run the tread completely off a tire. No unexpected spontaneous blowout--he literally ran the tread to zero thickness, all you could see was the sidewalls. Really remarkable driving to be smooth enough to pull that off, too bad he didn't pay attention to his wear.

I agree with Bob about the tires--I usually use R2s on my FXR as well, while most people use R3s. I tend to run a little bit into the orange on the inside edges, but I still get more grip than optimum surface temp R3s.

I've noticed that choosing softer compounds has a major effect on how much the air in the tire heats up, and having "green air" has a tremendous benefit to grip, worth even having the surface a bit overheated. Since I noticed this, I've been running lower tire pressures and softer compounds on all my setups, and I've been seeing a lot of improvment. I even use R3s on the normally tire-shredding UFR--I can actually last longer than people running R4s.

I'll have to try your setup though--I've been using a slightly tweaked one from someone named "Manu" that seems to have a pretty neutral suspension, but runs much more front downforce than rear downforce and has only a slight oversteer tendency. Might be something in the diffs or the dampers, plus I've been using 23% power split.

I'd complain about this being a repost except A: it's not, on the these new forums, and B: I really want one too

Way back in ye olden DOS days, there was a game called Car Builder that you could (duh) build cars in, including designing a body (2D only though, AFAIK no downforce really modeled). You couldn't drive the cars, and construction was just choosing from a variety of predetermined parts, but it had some sort of algorithmic test track that told you what the handling and performance was like, as well as calculated specs. It's fun and pretty accurate in some ways--fat tires gave you more grip, but they also increased drag.

Back on topic, I would love to see this. Dropping the car just doesn't convey nearly enough information--plus it's over so fast, you hardly have time to see what's going on. If I want to check camber change under load, It's not too hard to get a few fat friends to sit on the bumper, so constant loads seem a reasonable request.

a

Quote from mrodgers :

(bunch of Toyota truck stories)

Did you ever see the Top Gear episode(s) where they test the toughness of a Toyota truck? Amazing stuff. I need a truck like I need a hole in the head, but I still want a 4Runner in my Baja 1000 dreams.

Me, I've never totaled a car in the time I've been driving (going on 4 years now, since I was 17 or so, got my liscence late). I've been driving the same car the whole time, a '94 Honda Civic 4-door. Not the most powerful engine in the world, but it handles well and it's practical. I consider myself to have pretty good car control, but I admit I have serious issues in the awareness and attention area. I've been in two minor accidents, both low-speed rear-enders that were honestly my fault.

One was stopped at an intersection--a wasp landed on my neck (WTF?), I freak out and release the brake, automatic transmission says "let's go!" and I drift into the truck in front of me. I get my hood and front plate dented good, he's fine because I only hit the trailer hitch and spare tire. Lets me off without reporting it, for which I am eternally thankful.

Second was crossing an intersection after the light turned green. I'm not paying enough attention, and the car in front of me slams on the brakes because there's a bus stopped int eh road, picking up passengers. I slam the brakes, but I'm too late and the road condition is crap, so I slide into them with tires squealing. The kind woman in front of me has the impression she's somehow partially responsible, and given that we just swapped a little paint, she also lets me off without reporting it.

I've had a few scary intersection-related incidents since then. I'm really not happy about it at all, but I'm not in a position to avoid driving at this point. I'm doing my best to be more careful, though.

Quote from DratsaB :

Yes this is a bug. It has been metioned before, perhaps not on the new forums though. (doh! too slow )

Regarding this bug..how much more difficult does this increased ride height make driving the cars(from a setup maker's point of view)? Does this bug cause the cars to be actualy faster than if there was no bug. ie when we get a patch will the times in these cars/top speed be slower?

The high-nose bug has to do with downforce being applied along the axis of the car, no matter what angle the car is at. Basically if the car is angled way up in the front, the downforce is actually pushing slightly forward as well as down, which gives you about 10-20 km/h extra top speed, a notable advantage on the Oval. Naturally this only works in cars with downforce. In reality of course, such a configuration would be generating massive amounts of lift and be wholly undrivable.

As it is, the high-nose setups are a bit fussy to drive, but not nearly as bad as you'd think. I've tried driving one (on principle I don't use the bug in real racing) and though it can be a bit squirrely depending on how extreme you go, it's within my capabilities as an average driver.

I know, this sounds like sacrelige--more servers is always better, right? We want LFS to be popular!

...But 90% of the servers are empty. Lots of servers is okay, but if the player base isn't there, it just spreads people thin and no one ever sees anyone else online. People are always complaining about how few servers have people in them, how they join an empty server and race for 3 hours without seeing a single other player... Clearly there's a problem.

Basically, my theory is that if we had fewer servers, the average server would have more people in it. Simple. I know having lots of servers around the world is good, because it ensures players around the world can all get good connections, but I see lots of "server teams" that run 3, 4, or more servers, all from the same location, and these servers are the ones that seem to be empty the most. I know you have nothing but good intentions, but we just don't need you.

Currently it seems like we usually have around 375 public S2 servers online at any given time. Assuming 15 player limits on average, that's 5625 players that can be supported. Our typical daily peak player load is only around the 600 mark--even if players spread themselves as widely as possible, that's only 1 or 2 people per server. Even with the all-time peak, around 1,000 racers, the average is less than 3 racers per server, and less than 1/5 the total capacity. In addition, the nighttime low of 100-200 players means there are actually more servers than players--even in the widest spread, the majority of servers are completely empty.

So, if you run multiple servers--consider shutting some of them down. I don't want to tell the individual servers to shut down, but if you're running more than one, I'd personally ask that you cut back to just 1 or 2. It may actually be better for the community in the long run.

Regarding snap oversteer while braking...try adjusting your diff. Set the coast lock to a smaller value, and make sure NEVER to downshift early. I've found in all the GTRs, an early downshift while braking almost always causes snap oversteer.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

Could also be a problem of frame stiffness...

It's a Porsche, I'd say it's not a good setup, but given RWD, heavy in the back, and powerful, it doesn't really shock me. Accelerating out of a corner with a lot of grip could do that.

Oh, and Vain, you're right. Soft rear ARB + stiff front ARB could very well cause what that picture shows. Assuming the suspension has been modified to act that way, the guy is trying to compensate (overcompensate?) for the Porsche's tendency to oversteer.

Last edited by 5th Earth, Fri, 7 Oct 2005 05:38.

Quote from Bob Smith :

OK I was struggling to think. Happy now?

(I found three weights for the Celica GT4, I went with the middle one...)

I always thought the RB4 was a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX... but whatever. The Eclipse weighs significantly more than the RB4, some we can compromise

Back on topic... I think initially it was thought that FWD was in itself enough of a disadvantage to make the XRT and the FXO equal, but in practice since the power levels are relatively low, and suspension tuning options fairly extreme, it's really not a problem. If the power and weight were equal, then logically one would think the XRT would be faster.

Anyway, I think the drivetrain effeciency is the main problem--IMHO it shouldn't be different between the XRT and the FXO. IFAIK driveline effeciency is not one of the main advantages of the FWD configuration. I'll grant the FXO lighter weight, since FF does weigh less than FR. Power would be the remaining tweak, but since the FXO is already less powerful, I'd leave it for now and see if the drivetrain alone will make things better.

RB4... just gets the short end of the stick. It has marginally less power than the XRT, but the main killer is the decreased torque--without torque, it can't make full advantage of improved acceleration due to AWD. Extra driveline drag and weight is realistic, but... it's just not powerful enough to need the AWD, just like the FXO isn't powerful enough to really suffer from being FWD. From a "gamer logic" standpoint, I would say the RB4 should be the most powerful, since it's the biggest and heaviest, but it isn't. If all I cared about was game balance, I'd make the RB4 inordinately torque-y at the low end, and give it a slightly more overall power (but not too much). But that'd be with no justification from physics.

Considering the numerical stats for the Yellowbird 911, I'm not suprised he was driving it that way in the 'ring video. The thing has an engine like a Group B rally car--whacking great twin turbos, power doesn't hit until 3,000 RPM and then it rips your face off--and unlike Group B, the 911 doesn't have the benefit of AWD. Plus, the 'ring is a course that probably only a handful of people in the world can claim to "know", and as such a little rally-style mild drifting is a reasonable way to make navigate the corners.

That said, as mentioned his tires were toast after that run, and he was not doing showboat drifting.

That all said, if you want your tires to last longer, try using Hybrids. I've found them to be a bit tougher, albeit lower grip, and you can thrash them a lot longer before they give out.

Quote from skiingman :

For instance, it seems at BLGP that there is no bump driving onto the concrete at T1, just a change in grip. Most real racetracks aren't all that smooth. Maybe they are in Europe? Wouldn't surprise me, some of the roadcourses here look like rural roads in comparison to the beautiful european tracks.

All true. It's worth noting that, for my South City setups, I run softer ARBs, preciesly because the track is bumpier, including some very noticable bumps from manhole covers and the roughness of the brick-road chicane. And for my RallyX setups I run very soft ARBs.

Quote from skiingman :

5th Earth, the "live-axle" for offroad is a good debate. You nailed that one, except I tend to think given the appropriate cash a live-axle would get stomped by an appropriate IFS/IRS system even in rockcrawling. Off-road racing has some of the coolest and most bizarre suspension designs out there. Rockcrawling is brutal on parts (two u-joints last summer just barely picking through rocks with my silly D33) and beefy as heck live-axles are readily available. Any mass-produced independent suspension is going to suck for rockcrawling, but let it not be said that it would be at a disadvantage to a live-axle if properly designed.

Well, the main point in favor of live axles besides durability is that, with a live axle, when one wheel is pushed upwards by a bump, it exerts a downward force on the other wheel as the axle rotates around its central point. Ignoring the effects of non-flat tire contact, which is valid with very soft ground, large rocks, or extremely low tire pressures (all hallmarks of offroading), it's easy to see that more downward force means more grip. More grip is always very desirable.

An independent suspension with cross-linked pneumatic or hydraulic springs will have the same effect, and this system has been used to good effect on some Land Rovers, but the system (at least on Land Rovers) is also famous for being very unreliable and hard to repair. It's also undrivable on normal terrain without switching back to conventional springing. You're probably right about it being better in the case of unlimited funds, but rockcrawling isn't yet such a big sport that most people have that kind of money and engineering skill.

Quote from skiingman :

I still stand by my statement that if you could get the CG very close to the road and the track wide enough, the swaybar would do you more harm than good. I think some examples of that exist. I hate driving FV8 with beefy ARBs, same for FOX.

Well, there's always the matter of personal taste. I can certainly see that softer ARBs on a formula-style car would certainly be no great disadvantage, and the advantages may be enough to justify it. In a perfect world, of course, the CoG and the roll center would coincide, and then there would be no body roll at all, but nobody has ever made a car that had a CoG that low. I still think that in the absence of high-tech systems (pneumatics, Bose active suspension, etc.), ARBs are essential for high-centered cars like typical road cars.

There are so many wildly varying opinions flying around I'm not even going to try sorting them all out, and make some sweeping statements based on comments I've seen.

The probability that any of the following are wrong is feasable.

1: Antiroll bars make an independent suspension less independent: True. However, the benefits of decreased left-right weight transfer (due to decreased CoG movement) and decreased suspension movement (allowing less camber and better tire contact patches) mean that ARBs, in moderation, are beneficial to a car's handling on a reasonably smooth track. The tires stay flatter, and the inside tire does more of the work. For serious offroading, of course, you should probably remove the ARBs entirely, but for road racing, by all means use them.

2: ARBs can be fitted to a non-indepedent, aka live axle suspension: True. Fix each end to each wheel, fix the middle to the chassis, and think about it: it works. If you're trying to use one on-road, you absolutely want one so you can have some semblance of stability, but again, for off road you don't want it. (incidentally, live axles have certain distinct advantages for extreme off-road situations, but that's another discussion)

3: ARBs decrease grip: False. This is a common misconception, one that I held myself for a long time, which stems from the fact that stiffening the ARB on one end of a car changes it's understeer/oversteer tendencies, i.e. stiffening the front ARB causes understeer. What is actually happening is that having different front and rear ARBs causes front-rear weight transfer in response to lateral forces. A stiff front and soft rear will, in response to a lateral force, cause weight to be transferred from the front wheels to the rear wheels, specifically the front inside to the rear outside (in the opposite situation, this is why "hot hatchbacks" are famous for cocking their rear inside tire in the air in a hard corner--the hard rear ARB and the soft front ARB used in FFs means literally all weight from the inside rear is being transferred to the outside front, helping with the understeer). Total grip remains the same, but you lose some in the front and gain it in equal proportion on the rear. Changing both ARBs by the same amount will have no effect on front-rear balance in response to acceleration forces, and any change in grip is due to other factors.

You don't.

What an enormous image.

:rolleyes: :riceboy: :chairs:

Quote from deggis :

I don't (fortunately) have major FPS problems (actually I can use 4xFSAA even that have over 2 years old machine) but what the "Haze Effect" does?

Haze is a subtle one. It makes distant objects slightly lighter and less contrasted, i.e. seen through a thin "haze". The effect is only really noticable in large areas, like the Blackwood straight--turn it on and off and look at stuff that's far away to se the difference. It basically just makes distant objects look more distant, and lends a sense of "atmosphere" to the game.

I like it because it looks more realistic, and it also helps hide LOD effects.

Quote from marsden1002 :

thought if a system was misfiring it would hinder preformance, and backfiring does not neither does anti lag??

Anti-lag deliberately misfires the engine by triggering the spark plugs when the exhaust valves are open. This ignites the residual fuel in the exhaust gasses, which then burns through the turbo charger and makes it keep spinning at high speed when the throttle is off. This produces a very noisy popping noise whenever the car is coasting, and is awful for the turbocharger and exhaust system, but it improves performance in the short term.

Backfiring is an obsolete term that's frequently misused--it's something that only carbureted cars can do. A backfire is when the engine triggers the spark plug while the intake valve is open. This causes the gasoline in the carburetor to ignite, and generally makes the entire intake system explode like a small bomb.

Quote from Gunn :

Wearing your real tyres out and risking a fine for dangerous driving is cheaper than playing LFS? If you think drifting IRL does not wear or heat up tyres then you are in for a rude shock indeed. Then when your clutch burns out and your diff destroys itself, or you snap a drive shaft you may wonder why you took a street car drifting at all. Professional drifting uses soft tyres and heavily modified vehicles to perform like they do without breaking. It is a very expensive sport/hobby and is rather unkind to the mechanical systems and components. It may look exciting at the D1 but if you plan on drifting your usual ride you can look forward to replacing just about anything that moves and a great deal of what doesn't. It may look glamorous and exciting but the public car park is not the right place and a street car is not the right tool. I'd rather see you guys drifting in LFS than in my local neighbourhood, thanks very much.

You missed the "wink" icon at the top of hir post. I pretty sure s/he's kidding.