not on your nelly
you don't have fair overlap
corner rights are mine

another


how can this be so ?
with just a stream of numbers
we are racing now !


Col

and one for fun


you buy live for speed
blame Scawen, Vic and Eric
you now have no life

here's another


become the machine
feel the edge of the circle
master your desire


Col

This is fun, here's my first ever haiku:


concentrate focus
know time is irrelevant
use all for the win

Col

Quote from Sketchyrollin564 :

So now, if your flipped, and your on the last lap, and your winning, what do you do, just go back to the pits and exit so you can start from lap 1 again? i dont think its a fair thing.

I don't think its a fair thing when the guy in front crashes out, then just as you reach where he was, he resets and appears right in front of you taking you and himself out of the race !

car reset is BAD for racing

Quote from Smurfen :

only when the game is completely done!

Noooooo

A few months after it hits the shops, it will be in the bargain bins like every other retail game.... LFS is a different kind of game - it will never sell 'big', but it could last a long time, going 'retail' would just kill it prematurely. The devs should keep control of the sales, they will be able to make a reasonable profit for much longer that way.

Another reason is that they are small independant developers. To have a chance of competing in the retail environment they would need the influence and exposure that only a deal with major publisher can bring... not a good idea IMO (get sucked dry and spat out). It's well known that Scavier don't want to go down that road...

Quote from Test Driver :

I'd like to see this feature too, but without the presets. I like the idea that the vote-starter has to write down what happened, this gives him time to cool down and reconsider the situation, since kick/ban-votes can be a result of overreaction.

If someone just wrecked you, you don't need to "cool down and reconsider the situation" you need to vote to ban them... preferably without having to stop racing - so typing a 'reason' would just be hassle...
I can envision many votes like:
Jimbob votes to ban theGreatCornholio reason : .
Without a real reason, the folks who woulda just voted without thinking still will, and those who would only vote with personal negative experience of the banee will also still act as they did previosly...
So the only improvement is that the vote initiator had the extra hassle of typing '.' while he was trying to race.
(if you add a minimum number of letters requirement you get "reason: asdfdjk")

Currently if you get wrecked so that you cannot continue racing, there's nothing stopping you from using the chat system to explain in detail what the guy did before or after you initiate a vote to ban - so why does it have to be part of the voting system ? If you are still racing after the incident, the last thing you need is for voting to be more distracting than it already is.

Still haven't heard anything convincing that suggests this would improve the system in any way.

-1

I can't see why this is necessary!

Nobody should be voting unless they've witnessed actions of the bad driver - in which case they don't need to be given a reason...
In the case where the vote is unfair, the vote starter can easily give a fake reason - particularly if there is a multiple choice list...

If I'm racing and some asswipe does something that I think he should be kick/banned for, I don't want the extra hassle - its bad enough that I'm having to find his name on the list and klick the vote button... I also don't want folks to vote unless they have seen that driver doing something ban-worthy usually after a few incidents, there are enough annoyed folks and witnesses to make a fair vote

I don't see how introducing reasons to the process can improve things in any way - it just makes it more complicated and fiddly... certainly won't make it fairer in any way.

+1

it would be great if LFS always rendered the two closest cars in front and the closest one behind - this would make things much better for us poor folks who don't have fancy pants computers

You see what happens when you let a :monkey: play with your video effects console unsupervised

Quote from AndroidXP :

No, I think it's two different problems...

great analysis

I think that the second version - the 'non-lag' one should actually be solvable at least to the extent where its effect is not causing any problems during races. (I vaguely remember Scawen saying as much a while back). It should be possible to use some carefully constructed set of logical rules to decide whether the car has intersected an object in such a way that tyre collision response should be ignored or 'watered down' in favour of some more sensible response system.... this should at least be much simpler than dealing with any lag related issues where there are too many unknowns.

(Is there not also some less significant issue to do with the fact that some of the track-side components like the high kerbstones at south city (eg at the pitlane entry for classic reverse) have 'ideal' 90º infinitely sharp edges ?)

cheers

Col

Guys, the problem is not about an 'all absorbing' or 'all reflecting' system...

the problem is caused because of multiplayer lag issues... sometimes because of limitations of multiplayer gaming, there is suddenly a big overlap between cars, this causes the collision system to think that huge forces must have been applied... if you decided to 'absorb' them instead of 'reflect' them , then the cars would be crushed to little blocks instead of shooting for the moon...

The real trick - and its a difficult one is for the collision detection to 'know' when overlap is caused by lag and when its caused by a normal bonafide collision... it doesn't matter what 'solution' you use, there will be many implications and there will always be some situations where the resulting behaviour is unrealistic... the only way this will be completely resolved is when the internet gets fast enough and error free enough that lag becomes insignificant.

I'm sure Scawen will come up with something that is more acceptable then the current system (although it seems pretty good to me in most cases), just remember that the real limitation is the internet and don't expect miracles

Quote from Speed Soro :

I dont think it is a self owned or whatever. It just proves that how much time has passed by and nothing substantial happens.

It means, I'm right, you are wrong, and Scawen is postponing for too much time the things that are really necessary to a real simulator.

As has already been explained to you, the closer a Sim gets to being 'true to life', the less noticeable any improvements will be. Diminishing returns etc....
Each time there is a major update to LFS, it will be less noticable than the last update and will have taken much more work than the last update.

(in simpleton language, just for you: "If it's already really real, how much realer can it get - only a really really little bit... but if you make it a really really little bit realer, then next time you can only make it a really really really little bit realer... and making something a really really really little bit realer is really really really really hard to do, so get real")

Anyone with half a brain who has been paying any attention to the LFS development process can see that - so whats your excuse for missing it ?

So all 'it just proves' is that either you are arrogant and have a very short span of attention - or you have the brains of a :banana:

I think the jury's still out

Quote from faster111 :

mmm dev how about a daliy dairy?

I found this at www.scawensdiary.com (the link seems to be dead now...)

Quote :

Friday June 1st:

Up at the crack of noon again, damn, run out of aspirins - will have to take it easy on the Gin until I can get to Tescos.
Read the forum... had just about enough of those whinging b*st*rds.
Will try to get a little coding in before the snooker comes on the telly...

Saturday June 2nd:

Phoned the Police again to see if they've tracked down Eric yet... no luck though .. oh well, maybe I can get someone from the high school on work experience to do some new content for S3...

Sunday June 3rd:

Vic phoned, his cousin is on holiday, so they're going to the Dam for a couple of days to get wrecked - do I want to come?

Hell yeah I've had LFS up to here !!!
I'll just spin some crap about incompatibility and switch on the Scawen Bot... that always works.

Now, where did I put that spliff ?
...

I was shocked an horrified

If I see a blue flag, I take a mental note of the situation ready for the bug report... no way I'd be getting lapped

Seriously though hot heads who believe that back markers should just disappear by magic as they approach are just half of the problem.

Another big part of the problem is that in LFS (and any other racing sim) being aware of whats happening behind and to each side of the car is difficult - that makes being passed difficult.. add to that the fact that most often the driver getting the blue flag is inexperienced and so not comfortable with look buttons, and its obvious that there will be incidents

Often the inexperienced drivers don't even know that the look buttons exist, and those that do don't realise that you can switch from the totally impractical and disorientating 'smooth' look to the very useful and easy to get the hang of (IMO) 'instant' version. (in my dim memory smooth was the default - maybe not now, or it never was... I dunno).. anyhow, when your sitting stationary, it seems that smooth would be much easier, but in practice at race pace the opposite is true... A racer should be able to look around, left and right while racing in traffic mid-corner without 'losing it'

Maybe one of the lessons (maybe its there I've not checked them for years) should involve using the look buttons and answering some kind of question about what you saw as you passed something mid turn... you would have to be going at race pace through a tricky 'S' section to 'pass' and also be able to answer a multiple choice about some randomly variable graphic on a board at the apex... maybe 4 boards 2 left, 2 right all angled away, so you can only see them using 'look', one has a star marked on it, you have to say which one... and what colour the star was...

Quote from Rooble :

...

'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me'

here's an twist:

"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names may cause long lasting psychological damage, oh, and if you call me that again, I'll break your bones!"

now, where ma damn hong kong book of kung fu..

Last edited by col, Tue 29 May 2007, 22:06.

So what you really need is a mode where LFS hands all the race management over to 'IN-SIM'... Then you update your software to take over the task.

All the flags, messages, leaderboard etc. get switched off.
stuff like flags and monitoring num laps... lead lap, whos winning etc. has to be done from in-sim.

Scawen would have to add a few extras to in-sim - other than that I guess it depends on how easy it is for him to switch off the built in race control and have in-sim take over...

Quote from Jacob_B :

I still have to debate between S2 or saving a bit more and buying a faster GPU, my Geforce 6600GT isint good enough anymore, im thinking a Geforce 7950 would be a great match with my liquid cooled AMD 64 4000+ @ 5600+

maybe you need to rethink your priorities ?

here are some things to think about :

#1 do you really like LFS ?

#2 do you think LFS is not that good and there are many better racing games ?

#3 do you want LFS to grow and its development continue ?

#4 do you not care if LFS fades away ?

#5 do you want LFS to succeed and for other game developers to use the same approach and creat ground-braking software ?

#6 do you want LFS to not be a huge success and for other developers to continue making the same old crap they keep pumping out ?


If you said yes to the odd numbered questions, then you would be cheating yourself by not buying a licence and supporting LFS.

If you answered yes to the even numbered questions then what are you doing here ?

fwiw, your existing system is MUCH more powerful than mine - but if I had to choose between demo on your proposed new system or S2 on my ancient 'puter, I'd pick S2 on mine every time !

Col

Quote from Mako. :

Imo, I think we should actualy CUT BACK, on the demo. Offer ONLY the XFG and XRG/ BW Forward (on time of day only as well). And have The demo only work for 30days.

EDIT: Also, no training missions above the XRG. Only one with the XRT, where you drive it around in the lot. Limit skins as well maybe?

Have to agree - a cut back is what I would do !

I would probably go with 2 cars (XRT and XFG), only BL1 and BLrally, no reverse configs. Limit players to two 'user' setups per combo. I would also limit laps so maybe races can be either 2 laps or 20 laps but nothing else. No hotlap mode in demo, no qualifying, no AI (especially right now as they don't exactly help the image of LFS ), no pitstops.
just bare essentials for racing with a FWD and a RWD car - enough to know if LFS is for you.
I wouldn't limit the demo to 30 days though - thats just like inviting crackers to attack LFS...

Oh, and I would consider plastering all the billboards at blackwood with adverts for S2 !
maybe some grafitti as well

Last edited by col, Sat 26 May 2007, 20:00.

Go and drive a few sessions in demo mode to get back into the swing of things - that's what I do when I've been out of the loop for a while. Once you start to get the feeling that it's everyone else who's a noob and not you (doesn't usually take long ), then its time for S2 again

Col

Quote from Hammerdown :

I'm just thinking that but if the kerbs are bumpy enough to make car vibrate visually, then surely I should be able to feel that vibration through the wheel. No? Maybe the ff motors aren't sensitive enough to render it...

I'm not sure that you understood what I was saying

It doesn't really matter how bumpy the curbs are, if your direction of travel is perpendiculuar to the curb ridges, and you are not turning (not much anyway), the curbs just make the wheels vibrate vertically... this doesn't make the wheels twist, so it wouldn't try to turn the steering either... that means you won't feel it through the wheel !

If you approach the curbs at 45º, particularly if you are also turning at the time, you will be much more likely to feel the bumps (assuming there are bumps on that curb .

Personally, I feel the bumps when I expect to , and don't when I don't - it all seems right to me.... my wheel is the old Logitech Wingman Formula Force 'old red' it only has about 180º turning circle, but the Force feedback is cable driven - much better than any geared or belt system I've tried...

I have the force turned way down, but I still feel curbs if I hit them at an angle so they 'grab' the wheel that hits them.

Greboth is right, there are no 'canned' FF FX in LFS, all the feedback comes from the front wheels... if the tyres, shocks, suspension setup work together with the angle of the car with respect to th curb mean that hitting the curb doesn't cause twisting force in the front wheels, you won't feel the curbs (think about it).
In a real car, you would also feel the bumps through the seat of your pants as the car vibrated vertically - in lfs you only feel stuff that imparts a lateral turning force on the front wheels....
That is of course the way it should be - anything that is turning the fronts for you is somthing you need to know about to help you drive... other stuff is less useful, so would just get in the way.
Maybe if you developed a Force Feedback cushion, you could get Scawen to output vertical forces on the car that your FFCush can use... until then, just enjoy the great LFS FF as it is

Col

Quote from chanoman315 :

its the question all the community is asking,,,

noooo, the question that the community wants answered is
"when will S2 be released?"

Quote from deggis :

...Feels weird how low priority this whole collision detection seems to have on devs' to do list... regarding that it has so huge effect on online play, everytime you touch a tyre or other car there's chance of getting a free flight ticket to moon.

Thats interesting... when did Scawen explain that collision detection was low priority? I must have missed that... [/sarcasm]

Do you have any idea how complex a comprehensive collision detection/response system is for this kind of game?
And of course, even if it was easy to do, it wouldn't be released until the next 'incompatible' patch