Quote from Juls :

Very interesting thread here. IMO all this is a question of philosophy. With the recent posts from Eric and Scawen, I understand better how they see LFS (maybe).

They do not seem to consider it like a software company, but rather like a traditional craft company. For example a company producing limited series hand crafted cars.
In such craft company, the main objective is to create the best atmosphere for working. Too much production, too big team, and you introduce additional constraints which prevent you from fully focusing on the product. You have to cut costs, remove marketing, use a reduced team, work in small workshop to give the best result without getting prisonner of commercial constraints.

This is a great, ethical idea. I would like to create similar business (but hardware product)... product first, marketing to hell, never do anything that could result in a quality loss. But sometimes I wonder how this model can apply to software business. Writing a large piece of software like LFS is not like producing hand crafted cars, one after the other.

It is rather like building a castle. LFS grows all the time, each part added requires maintenance, repairs, improvements, and will consume another part of the workforce. For example, Eric has been carefuly adding textures for years, progressively...imagine the work required to make all these textures high-res now!
IMO, building larger and larger software without scaling the team leads to a progressive decrease of new features development rate and motivation. This is unavoidable, and in fact it is not a problem, it's their choice, it's their product. A bit frustrating sometimes for those who think LFS has the potential to eclipse all other racing sims like I do.
I admit this is very easy to dream about what Scavier should or should not do...I go back to work

Perfect comparison - there is nothing to add to that...

Quote from sil3ntwar :

69% in 124.24

I was hoping they would show a small photo and you had to guess the circuit!

Or, to make it a bit harder: show a photo of a corner and you have to guess the circuit... That would've been so much fun!

Well, that proves my worry... Redesign for the sake of marketing - that is never a good thing... The Charouz was so competitive last year, changing that just to say "oh, but it's a real Aston" (even though it's not) is mindboggingly stupid...

88 % in 1:06... Never heard of Jarama and mistook Zolder for Zandvoort...

Quote from deggis :

PICS!

http://www.endurance-info.com/ ... ualite-endurance-332.html

No "omg" effect really

I'm worried that a/the designer had more word in creating this than the engineers... I mean there's gotta be some advantage when everyone else opts for OW-style noses, but Aston thinks a squashed nose of one of their roadcars will do...

Quote from Equinox :

Its a blower, usually houses/replaces an air filter. So its an air intake. Just makes it look all fancy & stuff, rather then having a big red K&N filter stuck on top

"Blower" usually refers to the supercharger itself, the thing brt900 wants to know about is just the intake for what is commonly a screw-type (or roots?) supercharger underneath...

If you watch the H2H Allstar Event next Saturday (shameless plug, I know), I'm sure you'll see plenty of this technique in the LX6 at AS Cadet Reverse, especially T1...

Isn't the MRT also a prime candidate for induced understeer, especially in fast corners?

Quote from Zen321 :

Well actually you are one of the two (or more if you manage well) participants of that actions, which mean you can influence events to favor you, so go hit some clubs

(To everyone)
But what people fail to understand is that none of their forum post can have a positive action on the development speed, and can only lead to frustration from the devs whom, in return, may lower the speed even more.
If you want to participate to the development, build some tools and create tracks/cars/etc but don't moan

Even more? As far as we know, apart from a break due to moving house nothing has changed development-speed wise...

Quote from SamH :

Something's not right.. http://www.flame.hj.cx/img/lfs-history/bmw_sauber.jpg <-- the background image isn't a 2004 image.

Yeah, the BF1 was Patch S as far as I remember, so it's actually after the "new alphabets"...

Quote from Riders Motion :

Hey,

I'll get that damn laptop soon when USPS find when I live but there's no mouse with it (obvious) so I plan to buy one. I would like a good-looking laser mouse with a wire. I would like to pay under 50$ if possible. Thanks!

I recommend you to go to an electronics super market and test-feel them... Remember to be thorough, a mouse that feels good on first touch might lead to a cramped hand with extensive use...

I very much liked my MX510 for its superb hand support, I don't think there's been a better layout since (the G7 looks both appaling and unconfortable, same with the MS Sidewinder)... I've then switched to a Razer Copperhead, which got unconfortable after 2-3 hours of uninterrupted use and now got a Lachesis: not as good hand support as the Logitech, but very good button layout - I've never pressed any other than I wanted... The Lachesis could be over your price limit though, don't know what they're selling it for over there...

You could also take a look at the Habu or the IntelliMice, if the MX-layout fits you...

Quote from CSU1 :

...I hate lazor mice, there's just no feel.

Ball in teh hole mice are best imo

I thought so too until I used my first optical mouse... I love having no resistance until that damn ball gets rolling - it makes it way more responsive too...

Simon Pegg and John Cho in this? Do they want to make a comedy?

I thought Pickard was the bar brawler, now they make Kirk one too?

Quote from SamH :

Hmm.. doesn't work that way then does it? LOL! All that engine and it's heavier at the rear?

Just radiator, lights and front suspension in the front, the engine about bang on in the middle, with the gearbox, drivetrain and driver adding to the rear already...

Quote from senn :

interesting. What are the advantages/disadvantages to raising or lowering these numbers, or is it also totally dependant on the programming of the game itself?

The advantage is of course the slower interval between calculations, so the higher the interval, the smoother it should be... The problem is that obviously it puts load on the CPU, and there is a higher probability of spiking (if high enough, it will pick up every little flaw in the driving surface for example)...

Yeah, the promotion has been posted on virtualr.net, so there will be quite some requests now... Tim Wheatley commented there that he himself gets all those requests and manually activates them - with today's downtime he wasn't able to, therefore the delay...

Palmer, Brundle, Surtees, Clarke... Is that a coincidence (I know one is not, but the rest)?

Quote from McDee :

Problems have already arrived, I used to be able to race any car I felt like (except when they released a new car) and now I can't, that is a problem IMO. I would happily put up with a price increase or policy change if it meant more updates, and due to more updates, more racers. It's all about more racers.

Your problem, not one of the business... And I honestly can't say that it has been any different in the whole time I've been here - it was always 2-3 favourite combos which were boring, but somehow driven to death and some leagues to the side... CTRA made it worse in a way, as it gathered many racers so that even those 2-3 combos were reduced to 1-2... Now that it's gone, people have to reaquaint themselves with the thought that they have to visit other servers again and/or make their own to have a race... I'll give TBO 2 more weeks before it goes to GTR@ASNat again - Oval seems to have disappeared to iRacing...

Quote from McDee :

Hey, I feel for the guy and even agree with him on a lot of levels, but the fact remains. It's just not smart to make those feelings public to your customers/potential customers. Can you imagine any successful business having PR like that? Heck, even a call center person would get fired for saying something like that to just one customer.

Crowd control. As simple as that... See it this way: You are king as a customer, but if you think you can walk all over me in my own store, I will literally kick you out... Eric has shown that there is a limit and we're approaching it - I find it surprising some people don't seem to get that...
Anyway, if someone is offended by probably this one first time the devs haven't made a jolly face to the constant bickering on here, his life must be bliss...

Quote from McDee :

People seem to forget the most important thing, LFS is a BUSINESS, as in, they need to make money or they don't eat. I'm more worried about them keeping LFS alive than I am about the scirocco. In the early days you could pick the car you like, find a server with people on it and race. Now if you want company you have to pick a server with people, and drive the car they are driving. I've got about 10 friends to buy LFS over the years, and none of them are regulars any more. Now I know this is fine, people take breaks etc but here's the thing; LFS needs new content just to stop or slow the "churn", the people leaving LFS for other sims. It does not need this to make me happy, or to satisfy the whiners. It needs this to STAY IN BUSINESS, to put food on the table etc etc. The hardcore LFS crowd is not enough to keep things going, even though they are usually the most enjoyable people to drive with there just aren't enough of them.

Thing is though, when I see Eric post "You don't like it, leave" I get scared. It makes me think the devs themselves aren't mature enough to maintain a professional apperance. LFS's public relations could really use some help, and this forum sure isn't doing that. If you REALLY want LFS to survive, go get new people to buy it. It's that simple. The dev's just aren't good at getting people to do that. I bet Eric's post got a good number of them to stop actually, and that is not how you run a business.


TL;DR?

I don't think we need to or even should worry about the business side of things - we're only customers after all... If problems should arise, the devs will take action themselves, we won't have any part in it... As for Eric's post: after all those comments and even punches below the belt it was only a matter of time until one of them would run out of patience... It was surprising how long it took and his post was more restrained than what I would've said - and it isn't even something of my concern...

So unless you hear that prices will go up or you'll have to pay a monthly subscription from now on, you can sleep well assuming that the business is running ok...

Last edited by bbman, Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:27.

Quote from Speed Soro :

[...]

Sensible words? From YOU?!?!?! Has hell frozen over?

GRT Teamskin for GTAL...

Quote from FiveMagics :

I have been playing various racing sims (mostly GTR Evo and more recently LFS) for a few years now and I almost always learn a track/car with the default setup except for gear and steering ratios. However, inspite of trying many different setup changes and many different downloaded setups (and working them to death) I've honestly never once found a single change which has improved a lap time by even a fraction of a second (apart from with the afore mentioned ratios). I was wondering if anybody else has found this to be the case? I have been told that changes are most prominant in the likes of F1 and F3000's and I only really use the touring and GT cars but even so... Furthermore, tyre temps seem to be quite an issue with a lot of drivers but I don't honestly feel any difference whether the tyres are cold, hot or at the recommended optimum temperature.
I should mention that I wouldn't expect a setup change to make much of a difference within a lap or two, so I have given said setup changes a fair run before reverting back to defaults. I also make sure that I am completely familiar with the track before making any adjustments or trying somebody elses setup.

Maybe you've gotten so used to the default setup that you aren't pushing it enough?

I've now spent some time searching through the iRacing forums for FFB-setting tips... I came across TechAde's post in which he explains that setting the overall FFB strength in the drivers amplifies the weak forces, but leaves the strong forces the same... This I used to create a workaround...

I've now set the drivers to 119% and ingame to 3... With these setting I now have quite strong feedback (more than I'd like), but at least the bumps and the tyres are equally strong... Due to the immensely weak forces, just 1 % in every direction makes a huge change, so I can't finetune that any further... The Solstice is pretty much dead now, but then power steering would do that so it's ok...

Quote from Crommi :

The way I see it, receiving small slap on the hand when you cut corners too deep is ok. It also keeps the times more in line with real laptimes, on Infineon IRL layout you could probably gain almost a second if you could just curb-jump through that chicane.

You really have to show me how you cut corners on the outside sometime...

Quote from titanLS :

For what it's worth, just putting a tire or two off doesn't give you incidents. You have to have the center line of the car off before you'll get a 1x.

Which can easily happen when a rumblestrip ends and that's what I'm talking about... And even then I can't think of a single reason why you'd be penalised by going off on the outside of a corner - you'll be losing (much) time anyway, so why not leave it at that? If I can manage to get back on the track safely without pointing in the wrong way in the process, isn't that something I should be awarded rather than penalised for? Or do they mean safe in a "Health & Safety" kind of way?

Quote from Riders Motion :

I didnt mean like if it can handle Window 7. My friend has bought a laptop and for some reason he couldn't install XP on it because the laptop was 'designed' for Vista. Ahhh it's hard to explain!

I think your friend doesn't know what he's talking about... I wouldn't know anything that would prevent a new OS being installed onto a wiped HDD...

A week has passed and boy will I be glad when I can finally leave the rookie series behind for good... In this week, I had probably 2 clean races out of 10... I even got a wrecker (he was obviously mad for not getting by me cleanly, so he decided to wreck me - he's reported now)... But it's inexplicably satisfying to beat C-licence owners or at least give them a good run for their money...

Anyway, there are a few shortcomings for me - little things, not completely wrong, but awkward if not a bit disappointing:
1. FFB: Like I mentioned before, I think the bumps are too pronounced... I realise it's their unique selling point, but I feel they've overdid that...
2. Resets: I had plenty of opportunity to "test" the resets (like with afore mentioned wrecker), but for what tries to be an uncompromising recreation of the real deal, just being there is awkward by itself...
3. Gears: I hate not being able to put the car into gear on the grid, I can drive away in every other sim ffs! Twice now I've forgotten that I can only shift up to first once the lights appear, leaving me standing with the field behind me blasting forward...
4. Incidents: Just dipping 1-2 tyres in the dirt at the end of a rumblestrip at corner exits gives me an incident - for what? Either I've been off track the whole time (as a rumblestrip isn't part of that, or I haven't! Either I lose control or my acceleration is compromised the whole straight... So why when I can hold the car am I being given a penalty? The insides of corners I can understand - cutting has to be prohibited...
5. Schedules: 25 minutes to wait every time to get into the next session is a bit too long for my taste, and I'm not even counting in the higher classes... I can understand this is to gather as much racers as possible, but I'd prefer a race every 45 minutes anyway...
6. Website: The series homepage is quite good, the most important info is missing though: how many fecking laps? I don't care about the minimum racers to score points - that's out of my influence - but planning how long it will take (and in the higher classes, how much fuel I'll need) is!

Anyway, it's good fun, but I don't think I'll renew my subscription - it's just not that much better than it's competition to justify the monthly cost... When the Corvette is available though...