pete: what server have you been driving on? it'd be fun to get in a race at the same time sometime. I'm on mercury racing team, mostly.

Thanks for the suggestions

Thanks, bal. I only remembered the incident with Speedy on re-watching the replay just now: it looks terrible from replay cam, it didn't look that bad from my cockpit! It's completely my fault, I agree. Unfortunately it was a product of the damage to the car - for whatever reason it was most problematic in the esses (you'll notice I had a lot of trouble through the esses on the next two laps as well) and I'd almost lost control of the car by half way through the corner on that lap. It was very very light at that point and I really didn't know what would happen if I touched the brakes. Check the cockpit camera and watch me wrestle the steering...But yeah, the result was nasty, if Speedy's in the forums I'm sorry about that one :\.

On the other hand, watching the replay I now see the yellow flag came well before the corner where I actually tried to overtake dazjz for the first time and had disappeared by the time I made my move, so I'd say that one was OK.

I also agree about the last corner, to be honest I just kept the place because a) it was like 8th or something anyway, so not too important, and b) I was pee'd off about the chicane incident! I probably _could_ have avoided him theoretically speaking, but the odd thing is he slowed down drastically way after making the corner, which is what took me by surprise. He was clear of the bend and could easily have hit the accelerator, I've no idea what he was doing...

Last edited by AdamW, Tue 23 May 2006, 20:26.

Hi everyone. I'm hoping someone has time to look at a replay I saved from last night. I _hope_ it's just one race (I'm not entirely sure how the multiplayer replay system works!) but if it saved the whole night, er, sorry, and look at the last race . In the interests of being a better driver, I wanted to get the opinions of experienced drivers on the battle I was having with a driver called Daziz or possibly dazjz, it's quite hard to read names on my TV screen (that's his in-race name, his 'real' lfs name is dazjz69). I started quite high on the grid then got shunted to near the middle of the pack in a T1 pile up (sigh). Driving with some damage to the car (suspension's just a bit damaged but something else was broken - I don't know what it _is_, but whatever makes the wheel pull strangely when turning in one direction, to the right in this case) I was lapping 1:35s and starting catching daziz quite fast - I think I caught him by lap 4.

From now on is where I'd like others' opinions. My recollection is this...

The first time I really caught him I exited the esses significantly faster than he did, giving me a run on him up the short straight to the next turn. I'm fairly sure I could have passed him here normally, but when I pulled out of the slipstream there was someone driving very slowly around the inside of the corner. Being committed to the pass, I broke intentionally late and too much and went right around the outside of the corner, giving the place back to daziz but not causing anyone to crash. There _was_ a yellow flag for the slow driver so I probably shouldn't even have pulled out of the slipstream, but you do get a lot of yellow flags at that corner when someone's just overshot the exit or something, it's often something that wouldn't really affect an overtaking chance.

The next time I had a chance was through the first set of turns on the final lap. I feel he was clearly in the wrong here. He exited the hairpin much too slowly, and I was able to get around the outside of him with higher speed, leaving us side by side (me on the left, him on the right) through the chicane (I was clearly alongside him before we entered the chicane, in my recollection). Following proper rules I left him a clear car width - I didn't try and drive right over the kerb on the right hand side as you usually would. Since I had the right to the inside as we went through the next part of the chicane, I kept the throttle down and drove right over the kerb on the left hand side, and he turned straight into me - obviously also trying to drive over the kerb, instead of leaving me space as he should have done - causing us both to lose control. I kept it in a straight line and was ahead briefly down the straight, but he wound up with a better exit speed than me so got past me before the next turn. I followed him through the next set of corners, which he drove okay but slower than I would, right up to the second last corner of the lap (same place I'd first tried to overtake him). I didn't have a run on him this time so I just followed him along, intentionally braking quite early (around 70, I'd usually brake at 50) as is good practice when following someone slower than you closely, hoping he'd misjudge it and run wide allowing me to get through on the inside. He braked way too hard, must have been taking the corner at 55 or less, which took me by surprise and I ended up just touching his right rear end, sending him sideways and giving me the place.

Anyway, the way I see it is I made two minor mistakes (I probably shouldn't have tried to overtake the first time after seeing the yellow, and I should have been even _more_ alert to his erratic driving in the final incident), but he made one major one (trying to drive straight through me in the chicane). If anyone has time to look at the replay I'd appreciate their letting me know if my recollection seems accurate, and any advice they have for how I could've handled the situation better. Thanks a lot

aeolus: that's definitely the 'classic' way to do things and the best way (or close to the best way) for most corners. Just that second to last turn at blackwood in the GTi, though, you can slam the brakes on at the 50, and at the same time turn the wheel as much as you need to for the entire turn, and the car will react perfectly, so long as you're over the rumble strip when you turn in. Try it a few times (overbrake down to 58 or so the first couple of times, to be safe in case you mess it up, but I can take the whole corner above 63 this way when it works right, and the aliens can do it 65 or so). It'll probably work. (Er, note that I use the WR setup which has the braking power reduced quite a bit, so if you use a different set you may not want to use quite full brakes). Definitely not the right thing to do on the rest of the course, though

edit: forgot to mention - it's usually correct not to brake and turn at the same time, because braking, accelerating and turning all work by using the tyres' traction, of which there's a limited amount; trying to do two at the same time, unless you're very careful, is usually going to break traction and leave you sideways. there's some fancy name for this theory but I can't remember it. anyways. The point is, you _don't_ have to wait to turn the wheel if it's just a lift-off corner, because slowing down by lifting off the accelerator (as opposed to braking) isn't using any tyre traction. In fact by not accelerating you're releasing all the available traction, so you can use it all for turning. So if it's a lift off corner (on Blackwood, like the esses or the final corner) you may as well lift off and turn at the same time, unless that wouldn't leave you going slow enough to make the corner.

pete: yikes, you're driving 1:34s without having full accelerator travel? I think mazz was right with the baby alien comment! *runs away*

Last edited by AdamW, Tue 23 May 2006, 19:05.

If LFS were an arcade game I'd want my quarter back.

bob: people would still choose to use them for variety. in gran turismo 4 you can fit just about any tyre to any car (some can't take dirt / ice tyres, but that's it), and people will still run challenges on n1 (worst tyres in the game) just for the fun of it. they could always be put into a league's rules, or something.

Well, not only has 'everyone' complained about it, I guess 'everyone's caused at least one T1 accident too, if we're being honest. I know I have (unintentionally, of course, but the effect's the same). I'm also pretty new myself and I'm still pretty nervous about screwing up and being yelled at for it.

I mean, F1 races get T1 pile-ups reasonably frequently, so I think it's pretty darn inevitable that any assortment of non-godlike drivers is going to have them too. It's pretty much impossible to stamp out really, I guess we should discuss containment strategies more than anything else!

samh: I guess the problem with _that_ is that it's a bit hard to drop places in a controlled fashion. i.e., it's hard to let Slow Noob #1 barrel past you without also letting Annoying Fast Driver #2 past you too, where he will assiduously block you for the rest of the race . I had a really annoying run the other day where I was in the middle of a three car line. The guy behind me runs almost exactly the same pace, so he was obviously really pushing me. The guy ahead is usually clearly faster than me, but he made a mistake in the final corner, so I was pushing him up the home straight. I didn't WANT to overtake him - even if I did he'd just get back past me on the back straight, most likely, and in any case I didn't really have _enough_ on him to be confident of making a clean move - but I also didn't want to lose my place to the guy behind me, because I knew I'd never get it back. As I tried to finesse the situation by backing off just enough to stay behind the guy in front without letting the guy behind past, I utterly missed the braking point for T1 and they both ended up miles ahead of me as I slewed around the outside rumble strip at 40mph. Sigh. T1 is a bit like this situation times ten - you're trying to stay out of trouble while at the same time not letting your close competitors from behind you on the grid get past you...

Last edited by AdamW, Tue 23 May 2006, 03:18.

joen: well, there's a counterpoint for T1 braking, though - you're arriving from a standing start so you're going slower than you usually would be. For Blackwood, for e.g., the optimum braking point on the first lap is quite a way later than on subsequent laps, because you're going significantly slower when you get there. You can brake nearly at the 50...if you're at the front...

right. if you get rear ended under braking you're almost certainly going to lose control. I fail to understand how the person doing the rear ending can somehow 'choose' whether they 'just speed [the other person] up' or 'push them off'.

pete: a baby alien. alien seems to be a term used by 'normal' LFS drivers to describe 'crazy fast' LFS drivers. maybe we newbies should get together and make an LFS vocab thread for each others' benefit

but, of course, remember that lots of people do that, so it's not necessarily a bad idea to join an empty server - once you join it, it won't be empty any more, it'll show up on the list for all those people who disable empty servers, and so you'll probably find other people start joining quite quick .

Aeolus: talking of corners that fast drivers take in ways you wouldn't expect to work, one that really threw me for a long time is the second to last corner. I think what happens there is the rumble strip helps you a lot to turn in, because you really can slam the brakes on full and turn in at exactly the same time and, instead of failing to turn and making you look like a clown as you'd _expect_ to happen, the car will glide happily to the apex at just the right speed. The problem is that if you try this _without_ having the whole car on the rumble strip when you start to turn in, it won't work, and you will look like a clown . I only really got the hang of that one yesterday.

Last edited by AdamW, Mon 22 May 2006, 16:45.

tweaker: hum, guess my 1:34.19 with auto clutch is OK, then...I don't have a clutch pedal on my DF-non-pro, and I've never driven a real car so I'm not used to doing the whole clutch thing anyway, so I guess I'll stick to it .

pete: man, you're luckier than me - somehow I always wind up on a server with four people doing 1:33s . My strategy is generally to stay patient, try and work my way up when people ahead of me screw up, then block like crazy...hehe. I've had a few second places now in real competitive races, not any first yet though. I'm trying to work on some other tracks now. All the South City tracks are kinda fun (except sprint 2, can't get the hang of the long compound left hander in that course at all).

pete: so did you make it to 1:33 yet? I got to 1:34.19, 1:33 feels like it'll be tough...

I'm not sure if you're starting from 1:36 (or definitely 1:40) that it's a good idea to try and copy 1:33 lines right away, because you need a lot of car control skills to, e.g., brake at the rumble strip for t1, or past the 100m marker for the turn after the back straight. it's probably better to try and work up to that level gradually - it's much easier to get a 1:35 or 1:34 by braking a little earlier than the world record guys do than by trying to follow their lines exactly and 'just mess up a little bit' :P. I still can't quite match the lines they take, but by working up gradually I'm getting close (1:34.19 is my best now). when I was at 1:36 and trying to get down to 1:35 / 1:34 by copying the WR lines exactly, I was getting very frustrated and sliding around at 55mph a lot...

soma: do you have any experience in any other vaguely realistic driving games / real life? I was playing GT4 for a while before I picked up LFS, so I can get reasonable times quite fast, but if you never played a real sim before, five days to get to 1:36 sounds pretty good.

well then you're doing pretty well (better than me, I've only done 1:35s!) - maybe you should move on to other tracks and cars? the general experience will likely improve your pace for blackwood / gti when you come back to it in future, too.

To the people saying he wanted the 'glory' of owning a single solitary world record for a tiny niche game of which nearly everyone in the world has never heard: how much glory would you say that is, exactly? :\

Ha, you think it's hard? Try playing on my screen - 27" standard def TV. You can't even READ the names of the setups. Or just about anything else, really.

f-man: uh, didn't you see the rest of my post? I have the left / right / rear views mapped to the playstation d-pad on my DF, which is right under my left thumb at all times. I usually check the rear view momentarily before and after every corner, when I'm in traffic. Heck, in some long corners, I check it in the middle.

If you're driving the GTi or GT, 1:34 is a darn good time! The world record hotlap is 1:33.x, so I guess people doing 1:32 on servers are probably getting a draft down the back straight (that can REALLY help your laptime) or maybe getting a corner cut somewhere. If you're in the GTi especially, speed out of corners could be a result of the FF layout. FF cars really don't accelerate very well at all with anything beyond very minor steering input, so even if you're following the same lines as the faster guys, you may be doing it with a slightly different series of steering inputs; when you're past the apex, maybe you're still turning the wheel a bit, while the faster guys already got the car turned around nicely before the apex and hardly have any steering input after it, allowing them to get more acceleration than you do. Just an idea

f-man: I don't use mirrors (virtual view): I have the Driving Force (non-pro) wheel, which has all those handy Playstation buttons on it, and I have the d-pad mapped to look right / left / behind, so flicking to the rear view momentarily is very easy (I do it all the time).

They've had the PS3 devkits out for months now. You don't need the final media to work on the games - especially since the special GT product they made for E3 isn't really GT5, it's more GT4 hi-res, so there's probably not that much data to it.

I think people are possibly too quick to blame the F1 cars for the lack of overtaking. I tend to blame a) the new points system, b) the expenses, and c) (least) the drivers.

A good thing to do is the watch the GP2 races before the F1 races: the Canadian version of Speed Channel shows the GP2 Saturday feature race in full before showing each GP live (though I switch to TSN to watch the GP since they have the much better English commentary...anyway). Those cars are pretty close to the F1 cars in performance - not on a level, but close - and those guys overtake each other all the time. Sure, it resembles an LFS public server a lot more than the F1 race (i.e. a lot of the passing manoeuvres are wildly overoptimistic and end up with both guys in the kitty litter), but it's sure entertaining to watch, and they DO make the moves stick quite a lot of the time. Now those guys have a more aggressive points system, and they're also all trying to stand out and get picked up by an F1 team. The F1 drivers are driving for a points system that goes:

10
8
6
5
4
3
2
1

and have no incentive beyond the points to fight for a high place. Under the old system, the gap from first to second was actually worth fighting for - 4 points (and therefore an overall 8 point swing) is a big difference. Under the new system, if Schumacher's leading and Alonso is holding second, what incentive does Alonso have to even try a pass? Let's say he's got a 25% chance of passing, 50% chance of not getting past but keeping on running, and 25% of taking himself out of the race. If he stays in second, Schumey gains a huge two points on him in the championship. Oh, big disaster. If he manages to pass, he gains two points on Schumey, for a total difference of four points over staying in second place - that ain't much reward. If he takes himself out of the race, Schumey gains ten points on him (and his team will not exactly be happy with him for wrecking several zillion pounds worth of equipment). The risk and reward just isn't there for him to try and pass, so he won't - he'll just hang tight and see if he can get past in a pit stop, or through an error. No matter how amazing the cars, I think if the drivers had more incentive to attack, they'd do it more.