Let's say you've got a clutch pedal that moves 6" from completely depressed (disengaged) to completely out (engaged). If we start with the pedal all the way to the floor (clutch is disengaged, power is not transmitted from engine to tranny) we should have an inch or so of free play where the clutch doesn't engage. The same is true at the top of clutch travel (maybe not for race cars, but for road cars). The top inch or so of clutch pedal travel is free play and has no real effect. So that leaves us with the 4" in the middle. While the clutch might do most of it's grabbing in the first half of those four inches, if we hold the clutch in the exact center (the 3" mark) it will still slip. This slip is what we're interested in for shifting. We only need to depress the clutch enough for it to start slipping to be able to shift. So, in our theoretical 6" of pedal travel, we should only have to press in the clutch 2-3" (1/3 to 1/2 of total travel) before it slips enough to allow us to change gears.
The point being that you should never have to press the clutch all the way to the floor before you can shift. You CAN do that, but it shouldn't be required. The way that LFS works now (X10), you must press the clutch all the way to the floor (or nearly so) before you can shift, unless you use the DXTweak/calibration lock workaround.
I have no way to test this in game to see exactly how much "grip" the clutch has at different points in its travel, or whether or not it is completely linear. I only know that from my feel and past experience, LFS doesn't model dead zones at either end of the clutch travel (or else they are very small), and the clutch feels very linear. If someone can show hard data to prove me wrong, I'd love to be proven wrong.
I think the only person that knows the answer to that is Scawen.
The point is that we shouldn't have to use DXTweak or calibration lock at all. While it may or may not engage linearly (I don't think it's possible to tell for certain without elevating the rear wheels), LFS still requires the clutch to be fully (or nearly so) depressed before it completely disengages, which is not the way it works in the real world. We should be able to successfully shift with just a dab of the clutch, without resorting to locking the calibration.
I've seen that same behavior, with AI cars running a few qualifying laps, then pitting. But I've also seen AI cars head out for qualifying and keep running until they were out of fuel. I was running two different tracks when I saw the different behavior, but I'm pretty sure that qualifying was set to 15 minutes in both cases.
This is true, but it really should be addressed by Scawen. In the real world you almost never have to push the clutch in completely in order to release the load on the transmission, since the biting point of the clutch is usually near the top of the pedal range. But in LFS you have to depress the clutch fully for the clutch to engage. It was this way in X10 and earlier patches as well. The physics should be changed so that rather than having the clutch engage linearly from the bottom to the top of travel, it should have some dead space at both ends, and the biting point should be near the top third of travel.
There are workarounds (DXTweak, calibration lock), but they shouldn't be necessary.
Enough of the personal attacks. If that's the best you can do, please find your entertainment elsewhere.
It's not just a game - it's a sim. It's supposed to simulate car racing. You show me a race car driver than can swivel his head 180 degrees like an owl to look directly behind himself (while in full race gear, no less) and I'll concede that you are right. Until then, I think it's plainly obvious that looking behind is not possible in reality and, thus, doesn't belong in a simulation of reality. If you want something that's accessible to everyone, might I suggest Burnout or Gran Turismo?
The options of auto-cut and auto-blip have been taken out and most of the people on the forum have received that change positively. So your idea that "once something is in there, it should stay" holds no water. As LFS gets closer to simulating reality, more and more arcade features will likely disappear as well.
I heard the Bloods use autos too. Not having to shift leaves you a free hand for shooting.
That's something that I proposed in the Improvements section quite some time ago. Not only vary the temperatures by location, but by time of day as well. While an afternoon at Fern Bay may have 90*F ambient temps and 120*+ track temps, early morning at Blackwood would be considerably cooler (even more so than Blackwood in the afternoon). This would make it fairly realistic and allow a lot of temperature variation, without requiring anyone to manually change anything (other than picking a track/time, of course). I would think that would be a fairly straightforward change, but I really have no idea.
While it might be a bit heavier than it was in X10, it's got a better gearbox which should help offset some of that. Probably not enough to make it competitive on the current tracks, but if you make it too much faster you'll get complaints about the car that's easiest to drive being almost as fast as the harder cars (I haven't checked, but it might already be faster than the XRR on the tight tracks where it has a torque and traction advantage).
I think the big problem with the FXR is that it's a car without a home. Logically, it should be heavier and have less power (more weight and drag due to AWD). The problem is that it has all of the AWD drawbacks without enjoying any of the benefits. Driving on a completely dry track on a clear day, there's no real advantage to AWD - only disadvantages. For the FXR to really shine we need very cold track temps, loose surfaces (marbles), and inclement weather. Until LFS includes at least one of those, there's really no good reason to use an AWD car over the others.
Similarly, if LFS modeled changing (or at least changeable) track temperatures, the FZR would lose a lot of its luster real quick. The very first race with a 110*F track and FZR lovers would be wishing their engine was at the other end of the car because the back tires would be boiling from doing all the work.
I firmly believe that the ability to change track and air temperatures would add a huge amount to the variability and enjoyment of races in LFS. In fact, it could very well be the single most important factor in mitigating car strengths and weaknesses, and adding some spice to the game.
I would love to see a reply of sensible driving that wears out the tires in two laps. I've been watching the AI run a lot today, looking for bugs in the latest patch, and they can go over 40 laps (and could probably easily do 50) in the GTR cars without overheating or wearing out the tires (the new, easier to overheat and faster-wearing tires, I might add). If you can't make it two laps, you're doing something very wrong.
DXTweak should do basically the same thing as the calibration lock. You must either have something configured incorrectly, or pots that are giving bad readings. But you should easily be able to look while playing and see how far you have to press before the white line on the clutch bar is visible, and whether or not the clutch is "jumpy".
I've done some more testing and am trying to figure out how the AI decide which pit stall to use. I had three FZRs running on Aston (Nat'l, i think). They pitted in around lap 40 or so. The first car into the pits pulled into one of earlier stalls (stall #8 or so). The second car drove past him and pulled into either the last or second to last stall. The third car drove in and, apparently, tried to park in the same stall as the previous car. He pushed the car in front completely 90* sideways in the pits, but luckily that car was able to get out okay. When the car that did the pushing (the third car of the three to enter the pits) tried to leave, he ended up driving across the grass and taking out the two cones at the end of the pits.
Are you using three pedals? If so, you will probably want to change your clutch pedal so that it does not need to be completely depressed in order to disengage. This can be done using the calibration lock option.
That way, when you press your clutch pedal, say, 3/4 of the way, LFS thinks it's completely depressed. It makes mis-shifts a lot less likely.
The purpose of auto-clutch is to depress the clutch so that you can change gears. However, you are still responsible for making sure that the engine revs match the drivetrain speed. Otherwise, the clutch ends up taking the brunt of the damage when it tries to make the two match. Either the tires slip or the clutch does, but the speed differential has to go somewhere.
Yes, of course. It was just to illustrate a point. I remember one of the races that I watched not long ago (LeMans series, I think) and the drivers were complaining about a rule that they could not spin their tires coming out of the pits. Everyone was up in arms about it because even though they have very powerful cars, the clutches are so grabby that it's difficult to take off without either stalling or spinning the tires. To get away without doing either, they risked burning up the clutch and being out of the race.
I would love to see LFS model this behavior (but we'd need fixed longitudinal grip or the change would be worthless).
Trucks are generally geared lower than passenger cars. And much lower than race cars, which often need higher gearing to hit top speed. Many race cars are notoriously difficult to drive away from a standstill because they have peaky engines, grabby clutches, and relatively high gearing. Just look at Richard Hammond trying to drive an F1 car. He stalled it 8 times straight. 
Could you possibly setup a button so that you can use button clutch but have it "feel" like a real driving experience? For example, back when I had my DFP I was planning to cobble together a button and block of wood where the clutch would normally be. This would be easy to do by cannibalizing a simple USB controller. I was planning to start on this project, but then the G25 came out so I abandoned it. But something similar should be very easy and cheap to put together, and would give the experience of having a clutch pedal without the cost. Then you could drive similar to real life without using your thumb or whatever as a clutch.
I don't think that is fair. Firstly, equal on what track? If they are fairly equal on a fairly long, high speed track then one car will be better on shorter, tighter tracks (and vice-versa). Also, should the FXR be as fast as the FZR when it has the multiple advantages over the FZR (AWD, a more foolproof shifter, reduced fuel consumption, reduced tire wear)?
IMO, the FXR needs to be slower, because it has other advantages that can make up for some of that deficit, and that make it easier to drive and more likely to survive a full race. The XRR also needs to be slightly slower than the FZR, since it has tire, fuel, and transmission advantages. The only question is, how much faster does the FZR need to be to make races fair and interesting. I think we'll only know that once the GTR leagues (MoE and others) have a chance to put the new cars through their paces.
That depends quite a bit on the car's weight, power, and gearing. Taking off with no throttle in my wife's car would be tricky indeed because it's overly heavy and underpowered.
That seems to be the case here.
I've found the same is true on Westhill (running AI, not humans). the FZRs lead, the XRRs run second, the FXRs are far behind in third. Even with having to make an extra stop for fuel over 100 lap race, and even with their increased tire wear, the FZRs are still the lead cars.
I'm hoping the Masters of Endurance guys will give the new test patch a try on various tracks and see what they think. I have a feeling that even after the changes, the FZR is going to be the dominant car on most tracks.
I assure you the XRT is still in the game. It's not being removed.
Now, the demo on the other hand....
Yes, but "twice as long" is not long enough. Cars can still repair very severe damage in a minute or so, and can repair damage that in real life would be completely irreparable.
Increased damage and changes to the repair system are probably a discussion for another thread though, since so much needs to be addressed, and it's obviously not going to happen in this particular patch.
That sounds like another problem where the AI does not realize that the number of laps for the race has changed. It seems as though they determine the number of laps when they first enter the game, but that they are not updated when you manually increase the number of laps.
I'm sure it depends a lot on the race series as to what is allowed. There are so many different series, car types, and sanctioning bodies these days that it's hard to know what is and is not allowed in any given one.
I would like it if LFS supported the gamut from club racing (no headsets, no transponders) to LeMans style racing with live tire temperatures, transponders, pit radios, etc.
Hopefully we'll eventually see support for all of these things, as well as server side control to limit some of them.
I'm pretty sure this is how it's done in real life as well (just an educated guess, since I'm not fortunate enough to race in the real world). After you cross the start finish line, let's say you are 5 seconds ahead of the guy behind you. Well, there's no way that your crew can determine that you're 5 seconds ahead until that guy crosses the line. By that time, you're past the pits and down the track. So the next time you come around, they can tell you how far ahead you were the last time you passed the start/finish line.
With higher end racing and cars with transponders, this is a non issue since they can talk in your ear and tell you how fast you're going, how far ahead/behind you are, whether you're running too slow or falling off in time, etc. Just one of the many reasons I loved Becky's LFS Companion so much. It could do most of those things and was like having a pit chief talking you through the race.
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