Someone had found it, a couple of years ago. Wasn't it from a Mitsu 3000 or something?
That Summer Cup LRF league was a blast.
The LRFs aren't so much drift as they're inaccessible for anyone that's either new or hasn't had a lot of hours playing them. What the LRF class needs are easily exploitable cars, like a low-tech vette. The F430 I'd made was less easy to flog but extremely flexible compared to the RAC.
The LRFs aren't so much drift as they're inaccessible for anyone that's either new or hasn't had a lot of hours playing them. What the LRF class needs are easily exploitable cars, like a low-tech vette. The F430 I'd made was less easy to flog but extremely flexible compared to the RAC.
Yes, but the salient point is whether it's not feasible at all, as opposed to a lot of work. Anyone who's followed LFS for a while knows that Scavier aren't above putting in a ton of time and effort into something, if it's worth it.
I'd agree that server-enforced balancing would work for pick-up races, and for the cars to be left "stock" in leagues. Provided that the overall performance distribution was evened out by balancing. I don't think it's so difficult to get that right with conventional cars, rather than the oddball mix we have right now in the LRF class.
I'll concede it might be a wild goose chase in some cases, while LFS is still WIP.
I'd agree that server-enforced balancing would work for pick-up races, and for the cars to be left "stock" in leagues. Provided that the overall performance distribution was evened out by balancing. I don't think it's so difficult to get that right with conventional cars, rather than the oddball mix we have right now in the LRF class.
I'll concede it might be a wild goose chase in some cases, while LFS is still WIP.
That's right Sinbad. Does that also apply to normal cars like the 4 more conventional ones I mentioned? I don't think so.
Even unbalanced as the LX and FZ are, they're still close enough to be fun on at least a couple of tracks. Not that this is some golden standard, but it's certainly not a waste of time either.
AndRand - I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Even unbalanced as the LX and FZ are, they're still close enough to be fun on at least a couple of tracks. Not that this is some golden standard, but it's certainly not a waste of time either.
AndRand - I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Sinbad - I certainly don't have in mind such disparate models as the current LRF, specifically. I do think something like (repeating but it's a perfect example) Vette/F430/911/M3/etc, would work out great in LFS.
Again, why cripple one when you can improve the others? This is all philosophical and not the actual brass tacks.. I don't see how it's impossible to reach a good enough balance when you're not limited to real cars (could argue that they provide ready-made balancing, but that's something else) but have a clean slate to start with like Scavier do. They can take the characteristics that make each major car type (american muscle car, italian exotic, etc) in reality and improve on them towards the sole purpose of racing them in LFS' virtual world.
Even if there are a few odd balls in the car set. They're still very fun often enough, thanks to LFS players not being equal. Incidentally, the more different cars, the better the odds of these unequal players finding a non-handicapped (ballast/restrictors) car to compete with; which in my experience LFS players are happy to do.
Coleus - It's an abstract argument. Show the empirical data for it being exponentially unfeasible in LFS' case: 4-5 cars per class. E.G. Why couldn't an MR GTR be added to the XRR/FZR/FXR, or something like a VW Beetle to the UF1 and as a racing version to the XFR/UFR, and why Vette, F360, and M3 type cars couldn't be added to the LRF class? Especially when you don't have to aim for an exact balance but only to fill the present performance cloud like I described. Each car will be balanced towards the average performance, not necessarily interdependently with every other car at the same time.
It just doesn't seem exponentially unfeasible to me. What does seem absurd or unfeasible is getting a balance worked out that could be broken by the next update in a WIP game like LFS.
Again, why cripple one when you can improve the others? This is all philosophical and not the actual brass tacks.. I don't see how it's impossible to reach a good enough balance when you're not limited to real cars (could argue that they provide ready-made balancing, but that's something else) but have a clean slate to start with like Scavier do. They can take the characteristics that make each major car type (american muscle car, italian exotic, etc) in reality and improve on them towards the sole purpose of racing them in LFS' virtual world.
Even if there are a few odd balls in the car set. They're still very fun often enough, thanks to LFS players not being equal. Incidentally, the more different cars, the better the odds of these unequal players finding a non-handicapped (ballast/restrictors) car to compete with; which in my experience LFS players are happy to do.
Coleus - It's an abstract argument. Show the empirical data for it being exponentially unfeasible in LFS' case: 4-5 cars per class. E.G. Why couldn't an MR GTR be added to the XRR/FZR/FXR, or something like a VW Beetle to the UF1 and as a racing version to the XFR/UFR, and why Vette, F360, and M3 type cars couldn't be added to the LRF class? Especially when you don't have to aim for an exact balance but only to fill the present performance cloud like I described. Each car will be balanced towards the average performance, not necessarily interdependently with every other car at the same time.
It just doesn't seem exponentially unfeasible to me. What does seem absurd or unfeasible is getting a balance worked out that could be broken by the next update in a WIP game like LFS.
It's not the shapes. It's the variety of racecraft that different racing platforms provide. It enriches strategic and tactical gameplay. Same reason soccer is better off as it is now than with each team made of clones of 1 guy. And if the cars are going to be different this way, they might as well also look and sound different, yep. I can't see how the game wouldn't be simply more boring with zero esthetic variation, everything else being equal.
20 cars per class is a lot. That's obviously beyond feasible for LFS, right now. 10 too. I think 4-6 cars per class is probably optimal. Some classes will have less. e.g. there's really not much room for much in the UF1 or XRG/XFG class. Even the TBO class is a bit hard to add to. It could really use some engine variety, but that's about all that's missing. The LRF class could certainly use at least a few very real archetypes.. Like I described above. And then you can take each new road car model and make a GTR out of it so long as it's not redundant; an MR engined GTR is the most glaring hole right now.
So yeah, not 20, but not just 3 either.
How is the FZ5 compromised or even crippled? What you're saying sounds like you can't even tell if it is..? LRF doesn't "never" work. There's certainly lots of tracks where the gaps are too big, but in e.g. Bean0's (I think?) LRF league, there was still excellent racing. It was still really fun.
.. Did something change? What I remember is that the LX6 is what leaves the other cars in the dust. But for argument's sake, why handicap the FZ and RAC when you can just make the LX faster? A few years ago I made a 6 car class using Tweak, and the cars were very fun. I don't see at all how making a competitive class can only happen with crippled or boring cars.
It's now irrelevant but just for illustration: The class I'd made was the regular LRF class + the XRG as a vette, the XFG as a 1600cc rally kit car on slicks, and the XRT as an F360. It was a blast and the fine tuning left for a precise balance wasn't going to ruin how fun the cars were. Each one's character was uncompromised.
Now, I'm saying this for road cars and not exclusively. I don't think it's a bad idea to have some stand-alone models, especially race cars.
20 cars per class is a lot. That's obviously beyond feasible for LFS, right now. 10 too. I think 4-6 cars per class is probably optimal. Some classes will have less. e.g. there's really not much room for much in the UF1 or XRG/XFG class. Even the TBO class is a bit hard to add to. It could really use some engine variety, but that's about all that's missing. The LRF class could certainly use at least a few very real archetypes.. Like I described above. And then you can take each new road car model and make a GTR out of it so long as it's not redundant; an MR engined GTR is the most glaring hole right now.
So yeah, not 20, but not just 3 either.
How is the FZ5 compromised or even crippled? What you're saying sounds like you can't even tell if it is..? LRF doesn't "never" work. There's certainly lots of tracks where the gaps are too big, but in e.g. Bean0's (I think?) LRF league, there was still excellent racing. It was still really fun.
.. Did something change? What I remember is that the LX6 is what leaves the other cars in the dust. But for argument's sake, why handicap the FZ and RAC when you can just make the LX faster? A few years ago I made a 6 car class using Tweak, and the cars were very fun. I don't see at all how making a competitive class can only happen with crippled or boring cars.
It's now irrelevant but just for illustration: The class I'd made was the regular LRF class + the XRG as a vette, the XFG as a 1600cc rally kit car on slicks, and the XRT as an F360. It was a blast and the fine tuning left for a precise balance wasn't going to ruin how fun the cars were. Each one's character was uncompromised.
Now, I'm saying this for road cars and not exclusively. I don't think it's a bad idea to have some stand-alone models, especially race cars.
Can't please everyone.
All things considered I think it'd have been just as fun/boring. Substitute the fun of a variety of competitors in classes with more classes but completely homogeneous competitors in each class. No, I don't think either one is clearly better than the other. Apples and oranges.
How are any of the GTRs less authentic than they would be if they'd been added on their own? They're all made up cars.
Especially with the game continually WIP.
So race on spec-racing servers. If the new cars are designed correctly, each one will have some appeal, the same way real cars each have their unique character. Corvette, Porsche 911, Elise, prototypical english roadsters like TVRs or Wiesmanns, Caterhams, FWD hot hatches, and so on. Each car would have some appealing characteristics that you couldn't get in other cars. And anytime you're doing more than single round racing (leagues), it starts to even out in the championship points. And there's more than a negligible number of players who simply like a particular car type, regardless of their handicap. You only guarantee that some cars will be garage queens if they're redundant. The monotony of redundancy is exactly what multi car classes avoid.
Single-model races might guarantee close racing (provided you've got skill-matched drivers) but also make for some bland races compared to multi-model gigs.
And in leagues?
The scatter isn't supposed to be so great that you have no chance of competing. There won't ever be (in a realistic practical pov) a perfectly balanced class of cars at every track. There'll always be at least a few if not all tracks where at least one car is lagging behind the rest. And the more different cars in a class, the better your chances of having a car near you to compete against, regardless of whether you're ahead or at the back of the pack. That's the aim of adding new cars to classes, not to altogether give up on balancing classes.
Why exponentially?
I do think it makes such a difference, if the current cars are any indication. I guess we won't know for sure unless we got those extra cars 
I personally wouldn't refuse such an influx of new cars, but I reckon it might be a bit too rushed for Scavier's standards to just put out cars without balancing them, and leave that hard work for the players.
I personally wouldn't refuse such an influx of new cars, but I reckon it might be a bit too rushed for Scavier's standards to just put out cars without balancing them, and leave that hard work for the players.
Imbalanced class? That's what we have right now.
There's no scale on that plot. It's only a picture of the effect of adding more cars versus trying to get fewer cars balanced perfectly at every track. The letters on the plot represent tracks, the dots are cars, the vertical axis is lap time. The point is that instead of fighting in the deminishing returns stage of tweaking the last 10% of performance disparity between 3 cars, it's easier to reach that 90% parity and then fill the gaps with 3 new cars also worked out to 90% parity. Getting to (numbers made up for sake of argument) 95 and 99.9% parity is less bang (player fun) for your buck (dev time/effort) than giving players more cars to fill the gaps.
If LFS already had a relatively good variety of car types, it'd be a different story. But it doesn't. There's no more than 3 cars in any given class. A large predominance of 4 cylinder cars. The VW will be yet another 4 cyl FWD.
Last edited by Breizh, .
10-12 road cars spread over 3 current classes and a whole new one works out to 2 new cars per old class and a new four-car class. Seems reasonable to me. More reasonable than being limited to the difference in chassis and drivetrain that we've got now; so you don't have to look forward to that, it's already here.
So far we have almost nothing but 4 bangers. I don't know how anyone could argue that this aspect of the car set is satisfactory, that it couldn't be added to.
UF1: Could use one of those old RR cars like the Fiat 500 or VW Beetle. Or a synthesis of those like Scavier know how to do. Make the engine a thumper like the Beetle's.
XFG/XRG: I frankly can't think of an addition for this one.
TBO: Every one of these is a 4 cylinder turbo. Can you say redundant? A heavy RWD naturally aspirated saloon and something else with novelty shouldn't be too hard to fit here. I'd say something like a Miata but that's yet another 4 cylinder. Bo-ring.
LRF: A classic front engined RWD like the Corvette or M3 with a big NA engine and really simple handling; as much a staple of motorsports as the Porsche is. A bigger MR also with an NA engine. Or maybe do both an M3-ish car with the I-6 it used to have, and something like a Vette with a big low-reving V8. A rotary powered lightweight like the RX7 would fit here too.
A new class: Either exotics with four of the most varied formulas that exist.. e.g. a big exotic MR like the current Murcielago, something that handles like the Skyline with that high tech I6 (for the sound) and four wheel steering etc, a lighter MR like the F360 family, and some other stuff I can't think of... but I reckon it's not hard to find since this class is so rich in reality.
GTRs: Pretty much all of the above could then have a GTR model. That's something like 5 new GTRs for the current two GTR classes, with maybe the fast exotic road cars getting a separate GTR class. Whatever... Redundant? Not when it would fill the gaps in laptimes at all tracks, overall. Instead of struggling with getting just two and three GTRs close enough at all tracks like right now, you could have more competitors and inherently easier time to have any one of these many models close in laptime to at least one of the other cars in its class. This random distribution is easy to appreciate if you plot it:
Right now:
Three cars added:
And instead of cars getting away from the pack (meaning the other two in LFS' case) anytime they've got a slight advantage in laptime, any given car would be in close competition with at least one other in the class, which slows down the field stretching into individual models hotlapping on their own.
And that's just road cars. Other types would be great too, e.g. LM prototypes, etc...
So far we have almost nothing but 4 bangers. I don't know how anyone could argue that this aspect of the car set is satisfactory, that it couldn't be added to.
UF1: Could use one of those old RR cars like the Fiat 500 or VW Beetle. Or a synthesis of those like Scavier know how to do. Make the engine a thumper like the Beetle's.
XFG/XRG: I frankly can't think of an addition for this one.
TBO: Every one of these is a 4 cylinder turbo. Can you say redundant? A heavy RWD naturally aspirated saloon and something else with novelty shouldn't be too hard to fit here. I'd say something like a Miata but that's yet another 4 cylinder. Bo-ring.
LRF: A classic front engined RWD like the Corvette or M3 with a big NA engine and really simple handling; as much a staple of motorsports as the Porsche is. A bigger MR also with an NA engine. Or maybe do both an M3-ish car with the I-6 it used to have, and something like a Vette with a big low-reving V8. A rotary powered lightweight like the RX7 would fit here too.
A new class: Either exotics with four of the most varied formulas that exist.. e.g. a big exotic MR like the current Murcielago, something that handles like the Skyline with that high tech I6 (for the sound) and four wheel steering etc, a lighter MR like the F360 family, and some other stuff I can't think of... but I reckon it's not hard to find since this class is so rich in reality.
GTRs: Pretty much all of the above could then have a GTR model. That's something like 5 new GTRs for the current two GTR classes, with maybe the fast exotic road cars getting a separate GTR class. Whatever... Redundant? Not when it would fill the gaps in laptimes at all tracks, overall. Instead of struggling with getting just two and three GTRs close enough at all tracks like right now, you could have more competitors and inherently easier time to have any one of these many models close in laptime to at least one of the other cars in its class. This random distribution is easy to appreciate if you plot it:
Right now:
Three cars added:
And instead of cars getting away from the pack (meaning the other two in LFS' case) anytime they've got a slight advantage in laptime, any given car would be in close competition with at least one other in the class, which slows down the field stretching into individual models hotlapping on their own.
And that's just road cars. Other types would be great too, e.g. LM prototypes, etc...
Last edited by Breizh, .
I'd like to speculate that Scavier can sit down for a day, or a day's worth over a couple of weeks, and come up with about a dozen good fun and varied road cars. Then add them to the game. There's plenty of room in the current car set for a muscle car, a couple of exotics, a Fiat 500 or VW Beetle RWD to go with the UF1, a racing version of same for the UFR/XFR class, and so on.
But since I don't know anything about how Scavier go about things or what their intentions are, and since we've already had this discussion, I won't speculate that it's crazy from the uninformed POV of an average player looking in (as far as looking at an opaque window allows) from outside, that this is somehow not feasible.
But since I don't know anything about how Scavier go about things or what their intentions are, and since we've already had this discussion, I won't speculate that it's crazy from the uninformed POV of an average player looking in (as far as looking at an opaque window allows) from outside, that this is somehow not feasible.
Keylogger is what I was thinking too.
Not if the message you received helped you see what racing line you should use.
+1. And myspace too, so we can play flash-based LFS with myspace friends, inside the LFS Facebook/Myspace interface. Revolutionary!
You might find one of the Tweak apps helpful. They're in the Unofficial Addons forum.
Scavier should say it's not coming, if it's not coming soon?
Dang, it sure sounds like LFS is "dead".
No horns or screaming crowds - no one attends alpha racing sessions.
Boostd, I am absolutely hammered at the moment, but if no one explains the short comings of LFS' physics and gives you the low down on what LFSTweak can and can't do within a couple of days.. I'll post to let you know about it.
So you're saying you wouldn't mind if all cars in LFS had a 30% reduced top speed? Blasting thru the back stretches of South City is awesome because of the speed sensation... Blasting even faster thru a stretch like that, or like the Mulsanne would be worth it.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG