Quote from Mithras :

Maybe the XRR's headlights are purposely designed so the remaining portion of the flip-up lights resemble that of a Lamborghini Countach's when they're up

I'm pretty sure the XRR headlights are meant to be aftermarket flush-mount lights that are generally used on race cars with flip-up lights. Flip-up lights are a huge drag at high speeds, so race cars with these types of lights generally have flush mounted lights instead. Because there is no oncoming traffic they can use smaller, yet brighter lights that easily fit into these areas.

Here are some (admittedly, not very good) examples:
http://membres.lycos.fr/loonyq3/3big.jpg
http://www.mr2beast.com/images/NBRFQEXLSM.jpg

Quote from h3adbang3r :

The XRR tends to get on two wheels easier now, I am trying other tracks with it to confirm.

That's odd. If anything it should be harder to get on 2 wheels since the center of gravity is now lower.

Quote from Electric Eye :

Also guys, could any of ya capture some screenies of S2 cars and show the new interiors in em?

There are already pictures in the main forum thread.

Quote from cool_big_andy :

The new rearviewmirror is pretty useful^^

I generally hate off-topic replies in the test patch forum, but that is just plain awesome.

Quote from Stigpt :

Will I be able to run a MPR replay from y-22 with y-30?

No. Whenever a car model changes (even a very tiny amount), it alters the physics calculations. Pre-Y30 replays will not work (unless the replay contains only unaltered cars - the LX4, for instance).

Edit: I stand corrected. According to Scawen those replays will work, but may stutter.

Last edited by Cue-Ball, Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:17.

Quote from Kegetys :

Same goes for the driver hands & gloves, hopefully those will be updated too.

I have a feeling we'll see updated drivers (body/hands/helmet/etc) before S2 is done. But if they were to do that now it would invalidate ALL hotlaps, which they are apparently trying to avoid. When we get to the point that a fully incompatible patch has to be released, I'd bet money we get a new driver model at that time.

Or maybe I'm an optimistic fanboy.

Quote from Kid222 :

Also found a bug: XRT and XRG have something wrong with mirrors.

I don't see anything wrong.

Quote from psychometalist :

Anybody encountered huge FPS drop?

Does your video card support HVS? Did you upgrade from Y to Y30 or were you running one of the earlier test patches (Y24, for example).

If your card doesn't support HVS, you'll need to get one that does.

Quote from Furiously-Fast :

Great work! XFG has a better bodykit, XRG has much nicer wheels, GTR seats/interior is great, and the XRT is easier to drive!

That is debatable. Personally, I don't like the new wheels. The spokes are too thin and the middle looks "empty". I wasn't a big fan of the old wheels, but the new ones aren't any better, IMO. With all of the different bespoke versions that people came up with, I think there's room for improvement here.

edit: I would humbly suggest these for the XRG: http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6485/workemotionstk7.jpg
and these for the XRT: http://www.lfsforum.net/attach ... id=25851&d=1173238066

And pretty much anything would be an improvement over the current UF1 wheels.

Last edited by Cue-Ball, Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:59.

The interior improvements are incredible. What a huge difference. I had custom dds files loaded for all of the cars before, but I think once all the cars are done I won't need them any longer. The race cars are great, but the XFG is probably the biggest improvement. It looks much more crisp, clean, and realistic. I can't wait to see the rest of the cars get the improvements as well.

The XRR headlights do look a little odd, though. As though the texture doesn't quite fit or something.

I haven't had a chance to test out the frame rate improvements (my work machine doesn't support HVS), but so far the patch looks superb.

Not to toot my own horn, but it looks like many of my predictions were correct, given Scawen's thread this morning.

Quote from Hyperactive :

If you look the past 3 years, the years since the launch of S2 you will quickly notice that your bets are quite high...

I don't think they are, and I'll explain why below.

Quote :

You can be as optimistic as you want, just like the few fan boys who always see the next big patch being released in the next few months.

Considering I'm complaining as much as anyone else, I don't know that I'd consider myself and optimistic fanboy.

Quote :

The thing that will more probably happen is S2 is being released in year or two with maybe a percentage of those big things you mentioned. But hoping for two new tracks is totally over the top, it just won't happen period.

How can you be so sure? Do you know for a fact that we won't get any new tracks? If you think that S2 will be released a year or two from now, what will Eric be doing that whole time if not making tracks?

Quote :

Even the GTR interiors have not been released because they are not ready, not because of physics incomatiblities etc., this has been said too somewhere...

No, it hasn't. Re-read my quote from Scawen:

Quote from Scawen :

Not all the car interiors are done and Eric wants to release them at once, not having half a car class updated while another car is not. And one thing leads to another, so if the XRR is updated, the XRT is updated, so then the XFG should be updated as well. I expect all the interiors will be released at once, in an incompatible patch.

The GTR interiors could have been done months ago. But Eric is redoing more than just the GTR cars. Specifically note that Scawen mentions the XFG and XRT. Because the interior changes make a patch incompatible, they want to release them ALL at once.

Quote :

It's not about glass being half empty or half full, it is simple a matter of looking what has been done since the launch of S2 and looking at the future with that in mind.

You're right. So, let's take a look at what has been done over the past year. I won't list everything - just the significant changes:

Patch Y24 (current):
- FFW and REW in single and multi-player replays
- Huge frame rate increase (HVS utilization)
- Demo license system (A solution to wreckers!)
- Chinese, Japanese and Korean language support
- In-game AA and AF support
- Car shadows increased to 16 cars

Patch Y (Dec '07):
- New car - Formula BMW FB02
- Updated South City track
- Updated Blackwood track
- Improved AI drivers
- Improved Physics (engine inertia, throttle cut/blip removed, clutch heat)
- Road car and GTR car class balancing
- Interface updates
- New training lessons
- Auto-update system

Patch X10:
- Force cockpit view added

Patch X (Jun 2007):
- 32 car / 47 guest / 20 AI limit in races
- False starts!
- Physics (clutch pack preload)
- High resolution skin download service
- Global class balancing system
- Huge InSim changes, allowing us to have the CTRA and other such leagues.
- Connection queueing

This list doesn't cover all of the small interface changes, bug fixes, engine sounds, etc. Frankly, I'd say that some of the best changes EVER to LFS have happened in the past year (stalling, working clutches, and false starts alone were worth the wait). But, because we haven't had anything shiny, it doesn't feel like progress has been made.

I personally feel as though the glass is more than half full (with rFactor being a quarter full and nkPro being full of tobacco spit) ...but that doesn't mean I don't really, really want to have a full pint.

Quote from pauliaK :

Who knows, perhaps Eric has already made like four or five tracks and five or six new cars for upcoming S2.

Fixed. I'm not going to bother digging up the quote, but Scawen has said that S3 is not being worked on until S2 is finished. If Eric has already made new cars or tracks, we'll see them in S2.

Quote :

We should not forget that S2 is pretty much finished and in my opinion we shouldn't expect much before S3 is out.

"Pretty much finished" is fairly ambiguous as far as LFS is concerned. Yeah, it seems mostly complete. We haven't been promised any additional features (other than the GTR interiors). However, Scawen has said things that lead us to believe that he still has some tricks up his sleeve. He's talked about tire improvements and fixing the collision issues. He's talked about an improved damage model, detachable body parts, and improved aero modeling. Given the things that have been changed recently (clutch modeling, engine intertia changes, false starts) it would seem reasonable to conclude that the devs vision for the game is to continue to refine the sim to be as realistic as is practical. That would suggest that we could see plenty more changes before S2 is final. We haven't been promised any of these things, and we aren't owed any of these things, but I think that we will wind up getting them anyway.

I personally have a vision in my mind of what I'd like to see LFS become. I think that Scawen's vision is probably very similar. I also have a vision of what S2 should be when it's "done", and I think that vision will probably be fulfilled. It's just a matter of how long it takes to come to fruition. I obviously would like to see it sooner rather than later...but I'd rather get it later than not at all.

My bets of what S2 will get before it's final:
New car models (including body panels that fall off and no license plates on the race cars)
Improved damage model (blown engines, more easily bent suspension, crushed radiators, etc)
Fixed collision system (no more flying cars when hitting barriers or walls)
Improved longitudinal grip tire model
Adjustable track temperatures
Improved turbo modeling
Further improved clutch model (with a grinding noise when you miss a gear)
More realistic lap time and flag displays (animated GPL style marshals for Yellow flags and a nkPro-like pit board instead of numbers flashed across the screen)
Improved textures, added details, perhaps working pit lights - general graphical improvements.
And I'm going to go out on a limb and say we'll see at least two tracks (tracks, not layouts) and two more cars (and possibly lose a few of the current cars).

I don't have any sort of inside info, but these are the things I expect to see before S2 is done, based purely on what we've got so far and my own personal hunches.

Just to keep things interesting, here's a post from Scawen in a similar thread that took place just before the release of Patch X. It seems eerily familiar...

Quote from Scawen on 30th May 2007 :

This thread won't really go anywhere. It's a bit boring to see the same old discussion again.

A massive update - Patch X - is coming out on Friday.

So... it's not a sensible time to complain that the features on top of YOUR list are not done. Everything is done in the order we want to do them. There is a lot of Eric's work not yet in the game but sorry to disappoint anyone, there's no code of mine that isn't yet there (except development tools)... patch W34 is really it.

Obviously (because I've said it before so many times, so it must be obvious now) I'll be working on AI and physics for Patch Y. But first patch X is out with its many very imoprtant updates.

OK, so now it's time to close this thread. Thank you for understanding!

Quote from Boris Lozac :

If they interfere with the physics they certainly won't be in Patch Z

How do we know this? You've said this before but I can find no record of the devs saying that Patch Z would be compatible.

Quote :

and we still don't know what changes abrupt the physics engine for sure, some say cockpits will be physics incompatible some say they won't

Scawen has said, point blank, that changing the interiors causes a patch to be physics incompatible:

Quote from Scawen on 29th December 2006 :

The meshes aren't used in the mass calculation any more. However, they are used to create a physics collision box and also to determine a radius. So they can affect physics in small ways.

Any tiny change to the car could put replays out of sync. For example, if a driver's position was moved by one millimeter, because of an updated steering wheel or whatever, the replay would be out of sync.

Not all the car interiors are done and Eric wants to release them at once, not having half a car class updated while another car is not. And one thing leads to another, so if the XRR is updated, the XRT is updated, so then the XFG should be updated as well. I expect all the interiors will be released at once, in an incompatible patch.

I'm personally expecting to see the new interiors in Patch Z as I've heard nothing else that would make me believe otherwise.

Quote from Zen321 :

Well even if there was a better damage model, people would still not take car of their car, only because of the instant pit ability.

That can already be solved by turning off mid-race join and car reset (which is already off by default).

Quote from Woz :

There is a simple solution.

1) Have a bound box inside the car that is the vitals space (Engine etc). If any bodywork crosses into the vitals box you have a dead car.

2) If any of the bodywork is crushed into the tyre space puncture or add big heat buildup to cause puncture

Another option I've suggested is to watch for spiking g-forces. If you are going 60 mph and hit a wall it should register as a huge spike in g-force (or, perhaps because of the way LFS models it, it may register as a sudden drop to zero g). I would think that it should be relatively straight forward to code in something that says "if g-force > X then engine == dead". This wouldn't take care of people who smash the front of their cars into the person ahead, but it would prevent people from driving off after smashing into the wall on South City.

While I wasn't around in the "good old days", some of the things in your post resonate with me. I also much prefer the slower road cars. I've never driven the BF1 or F08 in a race and have barely even bothered turning a lap in them. Despite their speed, they just don't draw me in like the road cars and even the FOX. Same with the GTR cars. I drive them occasionally, but it feels more like work and less like fun. I would love to see more Blackwood-type tracks that are better suited to these cars (however, I will admit that Westhill is one of my favorite tracks, even in the road cars, due to its elevation changes and over-the-rise corners).

On the other hand, I think that LFS has become much better in many ways recently. The new clutch model and car stalling is a HUGE improvement in realism. I think that further additions like track temps, better damage model, realistic setup options, etc. could make it even better and push it more toward the "good old days" feeling. Driving the XRT around Blackwood gets old, but the ability to very track temps would help change things up a bit. Having realistic gear ratios and suspension adjustments would help keep the racing closer. Adding radiator damage would help prevent getting punted into the grass in T1. All of these things will make the game more realistic while simultaneously giving us better racing.

While it may be partially conjecture as to whether or not iRacing will be updated in the future, many things that are coming are certain or nearly so. The version of iRacing that is being offered now is very different from the beta version, according to reports. That shows that development is continuing. Things like the current gearbox and engine model are not representative of a "hardcore" simulation, and to think that they won't be changed is a bit short sighted, in my opinion. Most importantly, iRacing charges for cars and tracks. There is no reason for them not to offer as many of these items as they can since they are the main revenue stream behind the subscriptions.

To put it simply, iRacing must continue to make improvements to their product because of the fact that they are charging a monthly fee. If you don't continue to improve people become bored and stop paying. Their unique business model virtually guarantees a continual influx of new content and enhancements because that is the only way they can ensure a continual revenue stream.

Quote from NikLaw :

I think the devs won´t hire more people to work on LFS, because there isn´t enough money available.

Since the development goes on, but people just pay once, the costs keep running.

It doesn't have to be that way. I can say with certainty that I would pay money for more cars and/or tracks. Three new tracks for LFS (real or fantasy) would be worth 10 pounds to me, easy. This would be an easy way to appease the users, giving them what they want, while increasing revenue.

Let's say that tomorrow the devs released three "packs", each of which contained 2 tracks and one car for 10 pounds. Pack one is two banked ovals and a NASCAR-like stock car, pack two is two road courses and a Formula Ford-type car, and pack three is a stadium course and a point-to-point course (similar to a rally stage) with an off-road truck. The devs would have a chance to double their money, we would get some new stuff to play with, and the community as a whole would be better off. Release one of these packs every three months or so and you could continually bring new people into the sim, you could continually drive profits (so that the devs can afford to keep working on this wonderful sim), and the community would be appeased in their knowledge that something new is always coming down the pike.

Just think of all the different cars that could be offered and how many people it would bring to the game. We might finally see a sprint car and a dirt oval. The drifters could get a mountain pass track and a car with massive steering angle. Maybe we'd finally see a muscle car, a mid-engine exotic, a LeMans prototype, a 60's F1, or a rally car! If sales of the track/car packs were even remotely successful it would easily pay for the development cost of hiring another modeler (assuiming Eric already has his hands full or does not have the time to commit to such a project). Hell, the cars could probably be had for free! I'm sure that people would step up to the plate and create models if they knew there was at least a glimmer of hope they'd end up in the game.

Seems like a win-win scenario to me. The devs get to make a little extra money, the users get more cars and tracks, the game stays fresh, and we attract new people to LFS and to sim racing. The main drawback to such a system would probably be that it would require at least a modest amount of time from Scawen to change the UI, integrate the tracks and cars, and possibly code tire changes or new suspension types. This seems like a small price to pay to really grow the game and user base, but it would definitely postpone some of the other stuff Scawen wants to add/fix. Also, the more cars are added, the more time it will take to ferret out bugs. But, again, I think this would be an acceptable compromise. Of course, whether or not this is even possible, given the way LFS is coded, is impossible for us to know.

Quote from richo :

ranks there are alot of talented people that can under the devs supervision add so much to LFS, personally there's no negatives in that idea..

Well, there must be some sort of downside. Otherwise the devs would have already asked the community for contributions. I personally don't see the downside, but there must be something. There has certainly been no shortage of people asking for user generated content, and at least a few people who have offered to provide it.

Nobody has heard from Kegetys in a while...perhaps the devs hired him on to the team to speed up development! Yeah, that's the ticket.

Quote from George Kuyumji :

LFS progress is slow, and I think making laser scanned tracks wouldnt really help this Sim. It takes alot of money and months which could be spent on other things, like getting more developers for Scawen.

That all depends on who is doing the scanning and who is putting up the money. Piddy has already tried to pitch the idea of his scanned Eastern Creek track to the devs. Presumably, adding his already finishedtrack to the game wouldn't take any money or time on their part other than converting it from rFactor/3DS/whatever to a format that LFS can use.

Let's not try to fool ourselves here. While it takes a very specific skill set to do code development, it requires a much different skill set to model a track or car. While there's no way in hell I could ever help Scawen code something for LFS, I do have the skills to operate a digital camera, a GPS, and most likely a laser scanning device. Joe Blow might not be able to program the slip curves for a tire or code up an engine damage system, but he could very well be able to create a very good looking and functional car model.

Adding cars and tracks to the game doesn't necessarily mean taking time away from other development. Especially when there are people volunteering to do the work. Unfortunately, we don't really know for sure since the devs have never really commented on why they can't or won't accept work done by the community in these areas. Perhaps it would be a lot of work for them to implement. Perhaps it would cause legal problems. Perhaps they just don't want to deal with a bunch of whiners from the forums. We really don't know, and they seem to be in no hurry to tell us.

Quote from LiveForBoobs :

Scawen said on the patch test forum that patch Z would be only fixes, that devlopment would be after that.

Don't burst my bubble! Nobody knew ahead of time that we would get either of the BMW open wheelers, so I'm crossing my fingers that Patch Z has a little something extra in it too (I know it probably won't, but a guy can dream, can't he?).

In any case, we know the GTR interiors are on the way. That change should be enough to keep everyone interested for another few months while Scawen works on physics changes and Eric (hopefully) cranks out another track or two.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

There has been an offer of laser scanned track data, which was ignored. I appreciate Scawen is busy, but maybe a 'no thanks' would have been nice. It's not as though he'd have to drop everything either- this kind of work could be done independently and concurrently, it could sit on the shelf for a year or two until the time was right. I haven't heard from Piddy for a while so maybe they indeed cut some kind of a deal, but I doubt it.

I actually PM'd Piddy about this very subject a few days ago. After seeing what he was able to do with Eastern Creek, I was willing to volunteer my time and a considerable amount of money to try to do the same laser scanning at Pacific Raceways here in Seattle (assuming that the owners were open to the idea, which I imagine they would be).

Apparently, the devs have expressed zero interest in having this happen. Frankly, this is something I just can't understand. You've got dedicated users who are offering to donate their time and money to make this sim better, but the devs don't seem very receptive to the idea at all. The same thing is true for new cars. Look at how many cars there are for Racer and rFactor. While LFS probably would be unable to work out licensing agreements for real cars from major manufacturers, "generic" cars that are not copyrighted should be relatively easy to add. I know that several of the best car modelers in the community are fans of LFS, and I bet that some of them could model a Sprint Car, Stock Car, off-road buggy, etc. very quickly. I can't imagine that it would take that much effort to add a car to LFS if the car model and interior were done by volunteers for free.

I understand the desire for Scawen, Victor, and Eric to keep LFS from becoming a "job", but I also think that they could embrace community generated models (car and track) while still keeping true to their own work ethic.

Maybe Patch Z will come out with a new car and track or two in addition to the GTR interiors that we know are coming. That wouldn't address everyone's concerns, but it would at least be something new to keep people content for a while.

That's very strange. I just checked the F08 (which I NEVER drive) on Fern Bay in Patch Y24 on my machine here at work and the numbers do not overlap the tire display in F9 mode.

Can you reproduce that with any of the other cars on your machine? Are you using a language other than English?