Quote from Smolar :

If it is, why there is auto clutch with full H type manual gearbox then?

How can you then go on about keyboard driving? Have you ever seen a real life car you drive using a mouse?

If it's a perfectly accurate simulator, why don't we have to use 'wheels mounted in cockpits that have motion bases and full surround sound? Because concessions must be made to feasible use of the simulator, and the developers accept that not everyone has a bottomless pit of money to call on. That's why this thread exists at all - to make the most of a limited budget.

You say that, with this modification, keyboard driving will be easier but nobody will be faster? How does that work, then?

Sam

Indeed.

The feeling you're after is damn hard to replicate in a simulator without hardware requirements, but personally I think LFS does a better job than most. Do you have the G-movement settings turned up as far as they go?

The turbo modelling is a well-known issue already.

Sam

Quote from Nilex :

Hehe, it does require timing but not in a way it sounds when You said it (sorry if I wasn't clear enough). If I understood correctly, You mean: gearshift + clutch (simultaneously - at the same time) to change gears. I would be insane (I am a little, but not that much :P {but, by the end of this thread... who knows }) to use manual clutch if it worked like that. It would require tremendous amount of luck to do it right (practise wouldn't mean s*** here - especially with high/max button control rate). In reality it works like this: gearshift (press and hold) + clutch. Clutch needs to be pressed after gearshift (not simultaneously - but they are pressed at the same time at one point). That's easy with a few laps practise

I drove keyboard for a couple of months when I first got LFS, and I drove using the timing method I described
Seemed like the only realistic way to do it. I mean, I wouldn't want to be pulling the gearstick for a second or so before I actually went near the clutch, every time I shifted, in my own car

I'm going to stop saying this should be only be an option for keyboard drivers and not for 'wheel users, because nobody seems to listen.

Dajmin's got a good point, but as I understand it, this request is mostly personal preference and partly increasing compatibility a little - ie, allowing manual clutch to be used on keyboards that have the keystroke restrictions described.
I'm not sure what to think about the auto-clutch thing. Personally, I would never want to use it (even on a keyboard), because it feels like cheating. Especially in making the car almost impossible to stall. So, another aspect of this little modification to the code would be that it stops making the auto-clutch, which may be an advantage in some situations, necessary for drivers using some keyboards.

However, I am still of the opinion that a new keyboard is a very inexpensive commodity, and that this modification - however small - wouldn't be necessary with a decent keyboard. Really, I'm just following this discussion to see where it ends up.

Sam

Thus finally proving that there is no need for extreme modification, and that the engine modelling does indeed simulate powerbands accurately?

Sam

Quote from AndroidXP :

The pre-select shift method allowed people with H-gate shifters to make insanely quick shifts. Basically you'd put the stick into the next gear and as soon as you wanted to change up you'd simply give the clutch pedal a short stab, which was basically like an instant shift. It pretty effectively prevented mis-shifts, too.

Quite right, although not the first time it's been said...?

Quote from Dark Elite :

I think, if this was to be implemented, it would need to be available for keyboard drivers only. It really is an advantage for 'wheel users, and unrealistic and boring advantages don't help.

Sam

I agree with Huru-aito here, removing the option to lock the diffs doesn't seem right - but, although my experience is limited as far as differential settings go, I think it does need to be more realistic; if it's staying.

Sam

Thank you, Nilex

Remembering my keyboard-driving days, I was thinking of the timing required to match your gearshift keystroke with your clutch keystroke - however, seeing as auto-cut is now disabled, everyone has to match the throttle correctly too, so keyboard drivers already have that factor to worry about. And it was pretty easy to press spacebar and W at the same time, given the design of one's hand . Quite right, then, that this pre-select method takes very little weight off keyboard drivers.

A point I feel has been missed:
This 'waste of time' thing - while often very valid - does seem somewhat irrelevant to this particular issue, to be honest: if the coding worked like this in Patch X, it's not new coding, why would it be so difficult to continue using it in Patch Y?

Of course, it could - for some reason - be part of a completely incompatible physics engine, something to do with clutch heat implementation maybe; or perhaps it's not possible to have one car running the pre-select method alongside another car which doesn't. However, if there aren't any major problems, all it would involve is a button in the options menu and some alternative code that already exists. Doesn't seem like too much work, really, although naturally I could be wrong here.

Sam

Wheel turn compensation is mentioned, and this is also in the menu for steering wheel setups, isn't it?

Sam

Somewhat like speed-related power steering, then?

Do we have power steering modelled in any of the cars? Seems rather odd to implement this if we don't, especially in race cars.. And it might get a little bit strange in some situations. After all, such systems in real cars are sometimes ridiculed in the motoring press as getting things heroically wrong.

Interesting suggestion, though.

Sam

We don't have any road cars powerful enough to get this impression, and butchering the tyre physics to make it work on race cars does seem a little.. Well, unnecessary.

Having tested the FZR...
It takes two hours to get the 34psi R4 tyres to cool down to 23'C, but then they have almost no grip whatsoever. Engaging the clutch sharply in second with any reasonable throttle gets the tyres spinning without hesitation, and for a hell of a long way too. You can start the car off in second or even third, and it'll just go with the tyres being ripped apart.

Actually, it's quite good fun

Seems the simulation remains fairly accurate to your road-temperature experiences, then?

Sam

Makes a little bit more sense now, then.

The jury's still out on that tyre test, they're not cold enough yet. Suppose they should really have road pressures in them as well, around 32-34psi? Just another factor that's usually different for us in LFS.

Sam

Last edited by Dark Elite, Tue 3 Jun 2008, 17:51.

A stock turbocharger in a 997 Porsche 911 GT3?

Really?

Sam

Bear in mind, of course, that the very coldest tyres we have access to in the GTR cars are at 65'C. Hardly comparable to the ~20'C you're talking about.

Damn my slowness.

I think I might put an FZR in the pits until its R4s go cold - still probably softer than the slicks you're talking about - and see what happens.

What's the power output of that Porsche GT3, then, if it's been aftermarket turbocharged? Purely out of interest.

Sam

How is a 450bhp, big, lazy muscle car on 275-section road tyres, with road factory gearing, not comparable to a 490bhp stripped-out high-revving race car on great fat soft-compound slicks with optimum cogs for the situation?

You tell me.

Sam

Hmm. Perhaps someone who's prepared to write out such long and detailed improvement suggestions doesn't want to be replied to with "Just use auto-clutch".

A very well presented suggestion - we need more of them to be written like this - although unrealistic. There is no manual gearbox on earth where this is possible, by definition of the gearstick, you can't preselect

However, your point about keystroke limitations is news to me, and does provide another aspect for this sort of thing. Personally, I think it's a bit of an advantage for the car to shift automatically once declutched, but not quite so much as it is a disadvantage for you not to be able to shift down at all

I think, if this was to be implemented, it would need to be available for keyboard drivers only. It really is an advantage for 'wheel users, and unrealistic and boring advantages don't help. It matters not to me, but for those who are unable to use anything but a keyboard limited like this, I suppose it's useful.

However, it could be argued - doubtless it will - that if you're really that concerned, you'd either buy a 'wheel, a controller, or at least a half-decent keyboard

Sam

...The point being that, as I suspected, you don't have a comparable real-world example to use.

Sam

That being, of course, entirely dependant on the tyres themselves relative to the power output of the engine. It's no use saying that brand new tyres will spin when you open the throttle, because a lot of the time they just don't - and shouldn't.

Keeping an eye on the G-meter is the way to check the powerbands, but bear in mind that the faster you're going, of course, the lower the force will be anyway. Personally, I've never had problems with the powerbands of the cars. I don't drive turbocharged cars very often, and yes the turbo' modelling does seem somewhat strange, but the naturally-aspirated cars seem fine.

What's your real-life car, your comparison?

Sam

Well, I took from your post that you were saying the developers would just dive into the task of fully reproducing an entire real-life track, and then decide it was rubbish, without consulting the community for opinions on even the idea of doing such a thing. I didn't reckon that was quite accurate. Sorry for being a little blunt there, I seem to have been in a "sick-of-people-rubbishing-the-devs" mood!

Sam

Last edited by Dark Elite, Wed 28 May 2008, 19:55.

I like how all the cynicism in this thread manages to totally and utterly ignore the massive amount of time that needs to be invested by a three man team to get a real-life track to be accurate. Do you really think Eric has spent such an inordinate amount of time developing such a track, and then deliberately not released it to us? It seems a little unlikely to me that such a small team could possibly be using so many man-hours on something they never plan to make available. What, exactly, would be the point of that?

It's quite possible that an LFS driver, who can practice for free for hours every day and drive with very little fatigue, no G-forces and no danger, could outpace an FIA F1 driver using the real-life equivilant the same car on the same track. I would even go so far as to say I'd be very surprised if there's no racers in this community that could be well into the F1 grid times using the simulator.

Sam

If you don't have the money to buy LFS - and, $3000 or no $3000, if you're not allowed to spend it on what you want then it is not your money - the simple solution is to do extra work specifically with the intent of buying LFS.

Oh, and as far as trying to persuade your parents goes, referring to it as a game is probably not the best of ideas

I'm sure there a plenty of people around here, myself included, who would be prepared to tell your parents how much of a difference LFS has made to their real-world driving skill; and in a very measurable way too. How much of an effect it would have on someone who has not driven in real life before, I'm not certain, but I am certain that someone who has good experience of both real world driving and LFS driving will be the better for it.

Sam

So you started a thread to inform us you've started a thread elsewhere? Wouldn't asking a moderator to move your current thread be a bit less spammy?

Sam

Quote from OP :

Why not just give us the XRT in Y19? Yes, many of the S2 drivers did not have the chance, but maybe with a better demo (not that the current one is not amazing) more S2 drivers will get up there and compete with the best and give some more competition!

Now, all of my reasoning is based on basic math. Hopefully I have not messed anything up horribly! If I have, please point it out quickly, so I can feel completely stupid!

If we get the XRT, we will have 4 cars out of 20, right? So:
4/20 = 20%

Also, we get one track out of seven tracks, right? In these tracks, we get three variations out of twenty-nine, right? So:
3/29 ~ 10.34%

So, using basic math, to get the percent of the game we would have, we just take the first percent (percent of cars) and the second percent (percent of track variations) and multiply them together. So:
.2 x .1034 = 2.06%

That means we would only get 2.06% of the game if you gave us the XRT in addition to what we have right now! As of the moment, we have 1.55% of the game. You are giving us an extra .51% of the game. Is that really that much?

If simple mathematics is the way to do this, look at it this way..
S2 costs £24, and you have 1.55% (arguably) of the total content. For that, you have paid £0.

So, the percentage you have paid is 0/24, 0%. 1.55% content sounds rather generous in exchange for that, doesn't it?

Quote from OP :

Again, I would like to mention, I am not trying to be greedy about this. But I doubt you would find many demo racers who were against getting one extra car (that many have driven before).

Let's not state the blindingly obvious. I don't imagine I would find many demo users who were against getting all the cars, but that doesn't mean that's going to happen either.

This is probably a flame-provoking comment to make... But I find it quite remarkable that so many demo racers have the temerity to suggest that, having paid ScaViEr nothing at all, they are in a position to suggest that they know a better way to manage LFS's marketing than the methods ScaViEr have spent considerable time - not to mention experience - deciding.

Sam

+1 from me. It is doable with inSim, but more server-side options are always welcome

Your English is easily understandable, SpeedXP, and well done for using it and taking March's corrections.

Sam

We don't really have any 'modern road cars', but even if we did have cars that might have such a system, if the car's been fitted with a shift-up light I somehow doubt that this protection system would be left on; because they are inherently restricting as far as gearshift patterns are concerned. Personally, I'd be pretty annoyed if I'd braked late and - unfortunately, but necessarily - had to use the engine braking more violently to slow me down, only to have some silicon having a go at me for it

Sam

I suggested only having it on cars with a digital speedo because if you're going to go to the level of customisation where you remove the tachometer purely to re-orient it, you'd probably fit a digital speedo too. Thus, if this was the only option we got, it might look somewhat strange alongside other non-modified dashboard instruments. If, however, the whole lot was customisable, then that probably should be available for all cars.

That said, it's a fairly minor thing anyway, as we already have a perfectly accurate shift point light in all cars even if you can't tell from the engine note.

Sam