My last two vids were running the TBO class. A few guys requested something faster and open wheeled. I don't really drive the BF1 or F08, so hopefully the FOX will be good enough. Just like my other vids, this is my home setup using a G25, three pedals, and a projector. I put some pics of the setup at the end of the video, since so many people have asked about it. Once again, due to my crappy camera the quality isn't great and the colors are washed out. But, you get the idea of what the experience is like.

My times aren't great, but I run consistent 1:03s and manage to avoid quite a lot of carnage, especially in T1 on the first lap. I was running 1:01-1:02 the other night, but of course I didn't have the camera running then!

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIlfGTQiw_g

Only the first episode has aired so far. I think that once this series gets going it will be pretty good. At the very least, it should be better than Forza Motorsport Challenge, since all the teams are starting off with the same car. None of this 500hp Corvette vs 280hp 350Z crap.

Quote from nihil :

You are an alarmist... Looking at your diatribe here, your day seems to be filled with shadows that scare you witless. I prefer not to live like that. If by some freak accident I do end up in front of a bullet speeding towards my head, in that last moment I'll at least know I haven't lived in a state of fear and suspicion.

I'm not an alarmist, nor do I live in fear. I choose to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That doesn't mean I live my life in fear of some omnipresent danger anymore than wearing a seatbelt means I'm constantly in fear of being hit by another car.

Quote :

Oh, and by the way its law abiding citizens who end up going postal. Have you not even begun to understand that its the alienation, the solitude, the loneliness, and the general fear of both strangers and the strange that is at the root of killing sprees like this one?

I guess the words "law abiding citizen" are confusing to you. Once you break the law and start killing people, you are no longer law abiding, now are you?

You are at least right about one thing, it's lonliness, alienation, and contempt that spur these killing sprees. It was true in the case of Columbine, it's true in the case of Virginia Tech, and it will be true the next time someone goes on a rampage. We need to adress the problem by treating each other with respect and kindness, and making mental health care available to everyone. Taking away guns from people who use them responsibly is not the answer to this problem.

I'm not convinced that beta testing of the changes is even required at all. Scawen has said that making global changes to the car is now pretty simple for him. So, it would seem that the best course of action is just to release the patch and let the community weigh in if a car is too fast or too slow. He can change it and the process starts all over. The game is still Alpha, and the patches can now download automatically, so there's little downside to doing this. The upside is that you get a LOT more people testing on a LOT more configurations, as well as having the people like STCC and MoE able to test the changes, if they are so inclined.

Edit: Something I do think would be interesting: Taking data from a lot of online races, or even hotlaps from LFSworld (once the changes are "official") and putting them into a format that makes it easy to see which cars are fastest on which tracks, and by how much. When we get to the point that each car is fastest on roughly one third of the tracks, we should be pretty darn close to being as balanced as possible (keeping in mind that easier to drive cars may need to be a bit slower, since there's less risk of driving them, and since they will close the gap if/when weather and poor road conditions are modeled).

Last edited by Cue-Ball, Thu, 19 Apr 2007 23:22.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Just FYI: There are 14 tracks you've never raced on, online at least. And numerous others you've barely touched.

But you can't expect all tracks to appeal to all people. Guys who like South City and the road cars might be bored to tears on Aston, and people who enjoy the open wheelers might have no interest at all in running the rallycross tracks.

More steak please...hold the asparagus.

Quote from wsinda :

No. In fact, my house has been burgled twice. But I'm confident that the thief wasn't carrying a gun, so I didn't have the additional risk of being shot to pieces in case I had detected him. Likewise, the thief could be confident that I would not fill his body with lead. There was loss of property, but there was no loss of life. That's a step towards a civilised society IMO.

How can you be so confident that the thief was not armed? Despite all of the anti-gun legislation in Great Britain, there are still plenty of gun crimes. The only people who you can guarantee are not armed are the lawful ones. And law abiding citizens are the ones you don't need to worry about in the first place.

Quote :

I think that by assuming that others will be violent, and by preparing yourself for violence, you are propagating and stimulating it. You become part of the problem.

I don't see myself as being part of the problem so long as I'm passive and do not initiate anything. Your reasoning is like saying that because I have car insurance I'm causing automobile accidents. Being prepared for something is not the same as perpetuating it.

Quote :

No matter what you do, the attacker always has the advantage of surprise. Then, which is the lesser of two evils: the risk of ending up bruised and hurt, or the risk of ending up dead?

What's to say you won't end up dead anyway? If you want to take the chance that a violent criminal will just take what he came for and not hurt you, that's your choice. Me? I prefer to prepare myself for the worst case scenario, then live happily ever after if it doesn't come to pass.

Quote :

No, I hadn't guessed. In that case, the example seems nonsensical to me. At the end of the Weimar republic, German society wasn't exactly unarmed. Right-wingers and left-wingers all had their "militia" of armed street gangs. You could even say that the violence made many people agree with the Nazi takeover.

You are right, to a point. The Weimar government passed legislation against owning weapons, and that legislation affected everyone, not just Jews. This was done to prevent violence (which it did not accomplish) and prevent extremist takeover (again, not accomplished). Once the Nazis took power, the law was amended specifically to prevent Jews from owning firearms.

Now, this is not to say that had they been armed, they would have been able to resist Nazi oppression. Few Jews owned firearms, even before the legislation was enacted in 1928. However, it's quite obvious that unarmed civilians have very little chance against an armed military, while armed civilians at least have a fighting chance.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

"The first time" was 250 years ago, with the support of another nation's armed forces (sorry, I forgot that you prefer to consider the French to be spineless cowards rather than the country who delivered your country to you). With the advent of modern warfare I'd like to see you do it again, especially without the help of the French military.

The Iraqi "insurgents" seem to be doing just fine against our military with nothing more than automatic rifles and improvised devices.

Quote :

Yeah we do have crime. We've got a very unfair social system so of course we've got crime. But what we don't have - that you have - is normal people shooting the **** out of eachother every time they get a little bit pissy. Over here, they go out, get drunk and leather eachother in the street until the rozzers turn up and baton them quiet. That's the advantage of not having guns in every home.

You are sidestepping the issue that the murder rate and violent crime rates in England are nearly identical to, or in many cases higher than, those in the United States. You can make all the excuses that you want, but in the end the crime rate is what matters. Whether you are shot with a gun or stabbed with a knife, the fact is that you would still be dead. What is the goal of a gun ban if not to decrease crime? It's plainly evident that it HAS NOT WORKED! Not only do they have gun crime (but wait! they're banned! how can that be!?), but they have MORE violent crime than when gun ownership was legal!

Quote :

I like your news sources by the way. Four sources I've never heard of, and "fff.org" certainly seems to be an objective commentator.

Those are the first half dozen links I pulled off google. By any measure, they are a damn sight better than any sources you've cited thus far.

Quote :

That's a nice statistical increase, but it's not a comparison with the USA. I remember when I was living in New Jersey (mid-'90s) New York City proudly announced that their annual number of unsolved murders had dropped below the magic 2000 marker. That's unsolved murders in a city of (at the time) 9 million. What a great result!

Many of the sources that I linked above DO compare the US and GB directly. If you'd like to see even more data by an independent statistician, feel free to read most anything by John Lott. His last book "The Bias Against Guns" is chock full of cited sources and data that is readily available to anyone who cares to look. He offers up multiple comparisons between the US and countries like Great Britain, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, etc.

Quote from wsinda :

I guess you're right. I live in a country where the right to use lethal violence has been taken away from the citizens. You're talking about self-defence, I'm talking about a civilised society.

I can carry my firearm and be quite civilized, thank you very much. However; I have no guarantee that everyone around me will be so polite. Is your society so civilized that you don't need to lock your doors at night? Is it so civilized that you could just do away with all of your laws and expect people to behave properly? I can only guarantee the civility of myself. I cannot guarantee what others will do and, therefore, I choose to protect myself and my family to the best of my ability.

Quote :

I also gave up my "right" to serve in the army (= conscientious objector to military draft), because I believe that weapons solve nothing, and I didn't want to be part of the madness that is called war.

You are right, war is madness. You are also right, that violence doesn't solve anything. However; given the choice between protecting myself with violence and not protecting myself at all, I'll choose the former.

Quote :

Well, no use in keeping them, then. It'll be interesting to watch the U.S. society turn into anarchy.

The police generally respond to calls for assistance. That means that, in most cases, a crime has already been committed. It's also been upheld by the court that the police have NO obligation to protect you. It is, quite simply, impossible for them to be everywhere all the time. And even if they were, you would then have a Big Brother, police state scenario. Given the choice between getting assaulted and calling the police afterwards, or brandishing my gun and avoiding assault, I'll choose the latter. A gun doesn't even have to be used to be effective.

Quote :

The firearm is the great starter of a race towards more violence. The rapist also gets himself a gun. Next, the lady will be raped at gunpoint. Which is, I believe, significantly more traumatising than being raped by use of muscle force. Boy, that's an improvement.

Which scenario is the lesser of two evils: two people with equal weaponry, or one person who is vastly bigger and stronger versus another who is smaller and weaker? I'm quite sure that my wife would much rather take her chances being armed than to just "accept her fate" and be bullied. And I'm also quite certain that a mugger would much rather live to try another day, rather than to try assaulting someone they know to be armed.

Quote :

Yeah, I know. The Germans then invaded my country, fighting only with their bare hands.

I think you know that I was speaking of the disarmament of the Jews prior to their move to the ghetto and nearly successful extermination. Not a laughing matter at all.

Quote from Doorman :

Ability to set a time (5-6 seconds) for the display of the welcome message. Sometimes you can connect so damned quick it can't be read! It might, just might, prevent people from continually asking 'Is a pit stop required?' etc.

I think that things like pit stop, track, layout, weather, etc. need to be addressed in some way other than the welcome message. These are things that you need to be able to quickly and easily see at any time, not just when you first connect to the server.

Quote from Forbin :

Honest teams need not apply?

Freudian slip.

Quote from szyszek :

Hehe, well said
The thing is, that I definitely see your point. And I do agree that in a way LFS would benefit if it had all the cars (and more) that you mentioned. BUT, would it do good for the community, and for the racing we see on-line? For some reason I don't think so, and that's precisely why I have doubts about this whole add-on business in the first place.

I believe that it would be good for the community. Throw in a stock car and a couple more ovals and you satisfy (and draw into the game) more of the stock car junkies. Put in a sprint car and a dirt oval or two, and those people will want to play LFS. The Formula Ford would be not only great for a league, but the perfect training car for newbies. A trio of supercars would let everyone live out their dreams of being Jeremy Clarkson.

As long as the ease of joining a multiplayer game is not affected, I think that new cars and tracks would be nothing but good for LFS and for the community.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I love this age-old american fairytale that maintains an armed populace can overthrow a tyrannical government.

Funny. It seemed to work pretty well the first time.

Quote :

Please do explain how crime rates in the USA are lower than those in the UK. I'd love to hear that one.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/n ... icle.asp?ARTICLE_ID=21902
http://www.newsmax.com/archive ... es/2001/3/21/205139.shtml
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28582.html
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/7/10/203335
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0512f.asp

I could go on and on all day long. Great Britain's violent crime rate is on par with, or higher than that of the US (this includes rape, murder, armed robbery, burglary, etc).

Pay special attention to this part:
"[Between 1997 and 2003] crimes with [banned firearms] have more than doubled.... In 2002, for the fourth consecutive year, gun crime in England and Wales rose — by 35 percent for all firearms, and by a whopping 46 percent for the banned handguns. Nearly 10,000 firearms offenses were committed...."

and

"In the four years from 1997 to 2001 the rate of violent crime more than doubled. The UK murder rate for 2002 was the highest for a century.... A recent study of all the countries of western Europe has found that in 2001 Britain had the worst record for killings, violence and burglary, and its citizens had one of the highest risks in the industrialized world of becoming victims of crime...."

Now, tell me again how the gun ban in Britain has achieved a reduction in crime.

Quote from harjun :

for W10....will there still be STCC servers and stuff and is it better than normal one?

W10 is a test patch. I think it's a safe bet that none of the league servers will install a patch until it's final and released to the public. So, if you install W10 you likely won't be able to connect to the STCC servers (though I haven't verified this).

A friend recently showed this to me and I thought a lot of online racers would find it interesting. Tommy Kendall (multi Trans-Am championship winner) hosts this show where fledgling drivers and their teams compete for a $100,000 prize and a real race sponsorship. Every driver starts out with a Pontiac Solstice GXP, so everyone is on even ground. The drivers have to drive, their teams have to prepare the car. If the drivers don't perform well enough to land one of the several sponsors in the show, they are out. If the car doesn't fail tech inspection, they are out. If the crew chief misses a meeting, they are out. Looks brutal, and very real.

Check it out here: http://www.setup-tv.com

Quote from szyszek :

Again, as for the car editor: I say no, thanks. We have enough cars as it is already (with many of them practically unused, because people will rather spend weeks,months driving GTR @ AS NAT).

I don't think I could possibly disagree with you more. While LFS has a decent selection of vehicles, there are plenty of cars that really should be put into the game. Just off the top of my head: A stock car, a sprint car, a V8 sedan, a mid-engine supercar, a V10 or V12 FR supercar, a WRC car, a stadium truck, a solid axle musclecar, a Formula Ford, a BTCC type car class...need I go on? I find that other than the BF1 and the RAC, most of the cars are used quite widely.

Quote :

Releasing this would only flood the community with low quality crap. Last thing we need. And I don't think that charging any money would change this.

I agree with you here. I do not want to see a car editor released. I'd rather see Eric take requests from the community about what sort of cars we want to see, then release them in packs of three or something. Ditto for tracks. No user created tracks, but official track packs released by the devs at somewhat regular intervals.

Now, if people want to model fictional (or licensed) cars and submit them to the devs for inclusion, I think that would be great. This would allow people to get involved with the sim, would save the devs at least some of the work of creating a car from scratch, and would increase the type of cars available to the community. Just so long as every Joe Schmoe can't release a car outside of official channels. I don't want to see LFS turn into rFactor.

Quote from nRcToretto :

There will always be advantages for one or onother car on specific tracks, but thats the way its ment to be. If all cars would have the exactly same speed what intention would you have to drive one of the classes cars?

I don't think anyone is confused about that.

Now that Scawen has made it more clear how the balancing is going to work, it makes a bit more sense. I suppose this means there will be the big, incompatible patch and then probably one more patch after that which reworks the car balance, assuming the physics changes make the cars unequal again. Sounds like a solid plan. Hopefully it won't have too much negative impact on leagues, but that really can't be helped, I guess.

Quote from wsinda :

What right are you referring to? The right to own a machine that can kill a fellow human at the whim of your index finger? Compare the murder statistics of the US with other countries, then decide if the safety is indeed "supposed".

The right to bear arms, which is guaranteed in the United States Constitution.

You are one of the people I'm speaking about, which are willing to give up your right to defend yourself, thinking that the police and the government will protect you. Newsflash: They can't, and they won't.

The firearm is the great equalizer. A gun makes the most petite woman more powerful than even the largest, strongest rapist. Guns make law abiding citizens more powerful than even the biggest, meanest gang. Guns make the public at large more powerful than government. It's with guns that we Americans got our freedom, and it's guns that protect them. There's a reason why the right to bear arms is second only to the freedom of speech in this country.

I, for one, will NEVER allow myself to live in a police state, where the citizens are disarmed "for their own protection" while the police, government, and criminals all have access to firearms. History has shown again and again that disarming the populace causes crime rates to increase and allows the government to abuse its powers. I'd be more than happy to discuss at length the crime rates between the armed countries like the US and Switzerland versus "unarmed" countries like Great Britain and Australia, or what happened after Germany disarmed its populace prior to WWII.

I own and carry a gun daily. Not because I'm fearful, and not because it "makes me feel manly", but because it's my right and my obligation.

Quote from Hankstar :

You say bigoted, shortsighted, ignorant shit like that and you wonder why so many people (i.e., The World) think your country is backward and racist. And stupid. And elitist. Not to mention the biggest threat to world peace since, well, ever.

And you are doing the exact same thing by grouping all of us Americans together. Just remember that half of us didn't vote for that fascist, Bush. And most of us were opposed to the invasion of Iraq before it even began.

We might be from the same country, but we are not all cut from the same cloth.

Quote from Nine :

my main point here is the fact that yes, I care more about American citizens than I do of those in Iraq, you won't be seeing people from Iraq becoming something in 20 years...

That's a pretty shitty, ignorant statement to make. If you care more about the Americans from V.T. than you do for the Iraqis, because you feel a closer connection, that's one thing. But to say that someone will never amount to anything because of where they were born...

It sounds to me like you need to walk a mile in their shoes.

I agree with Jamexing. I think that global handicaps should just be left off until the turbo modeling and tires are taken care of. Fix those two things, then watch the STCC and MoE servers to see how the cars shake out. Then the devs can implement whatever global balancing is necessary to make the cars relatively even.

I think that would add a bunch of complexity that's really not needed. Also, even though LFS supports punctures and flat tires, I don't think it can simulate a tire rolling off the bead.

The only thing more sad than the loss of life at Virginia Tech is the ignorance of people who are willing to give up their rights for supposed "safety".

Quote from Bob Smith :

I thought 6 pps was the upper limit for Internet servers anyway? While 9 or so was for LAN play only, where bandwidth is unlikely to be an issue.

I don't recall of the top of my head, and I don't have LFS handy to check. I just remember it going up to at least 9, and down to at least 4.

Don't forget that the "smoothness" also affects the required bandwidth. 28 racers with a smoothness of 4 will need less upstream bandwidth than the same number of users with a smoothness of 6 or 9.

Quote from matze54564 :

i guess some phishing-script was done in this thread, be careful and dont enter your password please!

It's not the thread, there's just some sort of problem with the UKCT servers, it appears. I'm sure it'll be fixed shortly.