I don't think I could possibly disagree with you more. As far as I'm concerned, a proper clutch model and engine stalling is the MOST important addition to live for speed, second only to improved car/engine damage. H-shifters are becoming very popular and if we really want this game to be a sim, it needs to model the clutch and gear changes properly. We should not only be able to stall the car, but we should be able to miss gears, damage the transmission, and shift without using the clutch (under the correct circumstances).
Until the clutch is completed, the highly touted slogan of "no aids...YOU do the driving" is just a bunch of words.
Totally agreed. I probably would not have bought LFS without being able to first test its online capabilities (especially since that is the games biggest strength). The nKP demo doesn't allow you to try online racing and you can see how big their community is because of it (along with other factors, of course).
While you're right, that's something that needs to be addressed on a global basis. NONE of the cars should be able to drive out of the gravel traps.
True, but how long of a "long run" does it take for it to even out? How many laps would a race need to be before stopping for fuel is even a concern? And how many laps would it take before the FZR needs at least one stop more than the other cars, in which it would lose any time at all? I think, not only is this not a concern in most pick-up races, it's not really a concern on anything less than a multi-hour race. If anyone has solid fuel stats for the three cars (post patch X), that would be interesting to see.
Heresy! BURN HER!!!!1
Even though the pre-X balancing was discussed, I think it still merits discussion. Scawen can reset the ballast at any time without patching, so every effort should be made to finalize things sooner rather than later.
However, I think there are two things that really need to be done before we can fully balance the cars:
1) Turbo modeling needs to be updated.
2) We need more stats from more tracks
But, this is a good start. Hopefully Patch Y will fix the turbo modeling, which should move things closer. I will say that I agree about the FXR needing to be slower than the other two cars, though. It's easy to drive nature needs to be tempered by slightly slower lap times.
However, I think there are two things that really need to be done before we can fully balance the cars:
1) Turbo modeling needs to be updated.
2) We need more stats from more tracks
But, this is a good start. Hopefully Patch Y will fix the turbo modeling, which should move things closer. I will say that I agree about the FXR needing to be slower than the other two cars, though. It's easy to drive nature needs to be tempered by slightly slower lap times.
It might "feel" more finished than some of the other sims, but I don't think we're anywhere near having all of the features in the game that Scawen was planning on having in there. Patch Y is definitely going to have physics changes and car/track updates, but I don't really foresee it adding everything that's currently missing. But, who knows.
Beta is pretty doubtful. We don't have a completed damage model, a working clutch, cars that stall, etc., etc. I doubt that most of these things will be in Patch Y, and we won't get Beta status until all features are in.
That's the same type of thing I was thinking, Dygear. But I would even go a few steps further. Some race series require the engine to be turned off during fueling. Some series use green lights, others use the turning off of the red lights. Some series require mandatory pits, others do not. It would be nice if all of these options were on one screen (for graphical hosts) or in a config file (for dedi hosts). That would allow server admins to set race conditions to mimic most any real world series.
What I envision for the future of LFS is four "sections" that control all aspects of the server:
1) Car selection (which cars are allowed)
2) Track selection (which track is being used, and in which direction)
3) Weather conditions (air temp, track temp, wind, time of day, etc)
4) Race regulations (standing start or rolling start, how the start lights operate, whether pit is required, what must be done during pit stops and in what order, pit window, etc).
Obviously, these options would all be totally different depending on whether you're trying to simulate F1, NASCAR, BTCC, etc. as they all have different regulations.
What I envision for the future of LFS is four "sections" that control all aspects of the server:
1) Car selection (which cars are allowed)
2) Track selection (which track is being used, and in which direction)
3) Weather conditions (air temp, track temp, wind, time of day, etc)
4) Race regulations (standing start or rolling start, how the start lights operate, whether pit is required, what must be done during pit stops and in what order, pit window, etc).
Obviously, these options would all be totally different depending on whether you're trying to simulate F1, NASCAR, BTCC, etc. as they all have different regulations.
Becky's LFS Companion could do this (I don't think it works with Patch X though). It would tell you when a car ahead/behind was racing for a place or if it was a lap down, and it would tell you if there was a yellow flag ("Yellow flag in Sector 1"). It was just like having your crew chief talking in your ear.
Essential? Pfffffft! People only race karts because they can't afford to race real cars.
The whole idea of moving your mirrors outward is to eliminate blind spots, not create new ones.
That's strange. I've been driving for almost 20 years now, I park my car daily (often backing in), and I can't see my own car in my outside rear view mirrors...
How in the world have I manged all of this parking and leaving if, by your logic, I'm utterly unable to do so?
Many of us would like to have such servers (or leagues), but right now there's no easy way to enforce setups or make sure everyone is using the same one. Hopefully, Scawen will implement server side forced setups in the future, but he's already got a lot on his plate as it is.
If you can see the side of your car in your mirror, there's just that much more that you can't see off to the side. Here are a couple links that show what I mean.
http://www.smartmotorist.com/mir/mir.htm
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm
If you can just barely see a very tiny portion of your rear quarter, that's one thing. But most people have their mirrors adjusted way too close to the car which gives a big blind spot. Obviously, this is not a problem in LFS. But the reasoning stands. Mirrors are most effective if you can see little or none of your own car in them.
You apparently haven't been racing on any of the TBO servers before...
When properly adjusted, you shouldn't see YOUR car in the mirrors anyway.
I wouldn't say invisible marshals is much of an improvement. If that's the case, then a nearly 10 year old sim is far and away better than both LFS and nKPoo.
I personally like the GPL/GTR2 system the best. Actual marshals, standing where they should be, waving the flags as appropriate. The only difference between the two is that GPL uses 2D sprites and GTR uses 3D polygonal models. I think this is by far the best, most realistic solution. If they could do it in 1998, surely it can be done now.
Speaking only for myself, I agree with you, Vain. I like the pit board to be simple and easy to read. In this case, less truly is more. My biggest request would be to make it look more lifelike, if possible. But I'm not sure that's feasible given InSims limitations.
I think the GTR2 pit board could serve as a good benchmark:
http://www.digitaldisplacement ... 6-06-12%2019-37-39-92.jpg
I do like the idea you mentioned earlier, of being prompted for fuel and tire changes. That was my favorite feature of Becky's LFS Companion. It would be great if her program were updated for Patch X, and you could run it alongside your pit board app. The two programs combined could really go a long way toward giving the feeling of having a pit crew on your side, and would reduce the need for most of the HUD.
You're making things much more complex than what I was trying to describe. If you slide wide and hit the wall on South City, it doesn't really matter which suspension component is broken. All that matters is that you hit too hard and your race is over. The current damage model seems to work well for things like going over curbs (though most would say it's not sensitive enough), but it doesn't work well for lateral impacts (how many times have you brushed a wall and had NO suspension damage?) or impacts directly to the front or rear of the car (because the car's body protects the wheels/suspension, and body damage doesn't matter right now). So, we don't need to do everything from scratch, we simply need to fill in those gaps. For side impacts, I think the g-force solution I outlined should work pretty well and be fairly light on resources. For front impacts, an even simpler system could probably be used: "if vertex is pushed back further than Xmm, radiator is punctured." Even the current suspension damage model could be tweaked. Suspension components can take a lot of abuse, but once you break a shock mount, you shouldn't be able to continue on like you currently can. Because body rub isn't modeled, we perhaps need to "fake it" using another method. Perhaps when any suspension component turns completely red, that wheel stops moving completely. This would better model a broken tie rod or a tire that's completely touching the inner fender well. Ditto for engine damage. If you accidentally shift from 5th to 2nd, your race is over. You don't need a complex damage model to determine that. You just need to determine a max rotational speed for each engine and, if it exceeds that speed, you stop the engine.
It doesn't much matter how it's done. It doesn't need to be perfect (and it certainly won't be, because of processing limitations), but it does need to be better. The key is getting people to stop hotlapping their races by making that sort of driving more risky. The days of downshift braking and wall rubbing need to come to a close if LFS is to move forward.
Even the very first release of Nascar Racing by Papyrus (released in 1994!) had a better damage model than LFS currently does. Engines could overheat and blow, and suspension could be damaged to the point that the car wouldn't move. I'm sure the damage model is already high on Scawen's to-do list, but I wanted to illustrate possible ways that LFS's model could be improved and show that it doesn't take a ton of CPU power to do it.
Whenever you have a body that is in motion, that suddenly comes to a stop, it undergoes tremendous g-forces from the sudden stop (this is why hard drives are rated for a specific g-force). LFS already has a g-meter built in, so I would assume that the physics engine can calculate the forces that a car is under. So, when a car is going 45 mph and hits a wall, LFS will know that it's experiencing X number of g's (say, 120 or so). If a car hits, say, 12g's, you pretty much know that it hit something solid. If it breaks 12g's and the left rear wheel comes in contact with a wall at the exact same time, you pretty much know the rear axle is toast. If the car breaks 12g's and the nose comes in contact with another car, you can pretty much write off the radiator. These are just numbers off the top of my head, but you get the idea.
I think this kind of basic calculation is do-able and would be a HUGE improvement to the current damage system.
You don't HAVE to, but you should.
Just think, for the cost of a G25, which allows you to play day in and day out for years, you wouldn't even be able to buy a single set of race tires which would only last a couple of races, at best. Consider it an investment.
While I imagine simplistic radiator damage would be pretty easy to add, I also think that more complex suspension damage would be *relatively* easy as well. LFS already has a built in g-meter. It would seem to be pretty straight forward to say something along the lines of "if g-force > X, then <component> intersecting <track or object> = broken".
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG