That's strange. I thought the AI on SO Chicane was fixed? I ran two AI-only races earlier today, both of them using the XFG and XRG. Both races were 20+ laps and all cars finished (without damage) each time.
Judging from this post, it looks like X38 is a release candidate for Patch Y?
I think most of the bugs have been squashed. There is still some AI funkiness, but it all appears to be stuff that you know about, and things that will need addressed later. Now, if we could only convince you guys to give us the already finished new car interiors...
I don't think any of the wheels that have been released in the last few years are like that. All of the Logitech wheels that I've owned (I'm on my third) use separate brake and throttle axis. You just have to make sure to check the option in the driver settings (the little Logitech Wingman app).
I know you said you don't have the room, but the cost might not be as big a deal as you think. My buddy got a Logitech wingman wheel off eBay for like $5 + shipping, and another friend got his DFP for, I think, $25.
Other than that or a gamepad, I don't have any other solutions. Sorry.
That happens on pretty much every single track with every single car. The AI are pretty decent out on the track, but their behavior for pitting and stopping after the race leaves something to be desired. I'm sure it's on Scawen's to-do list, but dunno if we'll see it fixed for Y.
But are we actually sure that this is happening? I know that it's pretty darn easy to clutch-in to prevent stalling the car, even when it gets down to only a few hundred RPM. Given the clutch and engine behavior, it wouldn't surprise me if the wheels were locking up but the clutch was slipping enough for the engine to keep running.
I'm sure that it will be addressed in a future patch anyway, but I have a feeling it's not really working as we assume it is.
The lines that the AI use, when the get on the power, etc. can be modified by Scawen. Rather than "boosting" their cars we should address their lines and throttling.
Can you be specific about which track/car combos the AI are slow on? I ran against some AI in the LX4 on Blackwood the other night and had one hell of a time just keeping up with the Quick level. The Pro level guys left me in the dust.
In most non-endurance races, teams pit when a full course caution comes out. But since LFS doesn't have full course cautions, and since AI can't possibly know about them, we can't currently handle this case. Best case solution here is that if a car causes a yellow flag for more than, say, 20 seconds (assuming reset is disabled), LFS issues a full course caution for 1-2 laps and forces that car to spectate.
I think this is more a problem with the basics of the way LFS works than it is a problem of the AI. Every track in LFS has half as many pit boxes as it does garages. The AI aren't aware of this limitation, and neither are normal players. It's impossible for everyone on a full server to pit at the same time, and since people are assigned stalls as they join you don't even know who your "teammate" is. This makes it virtually impossible for pit sharing to work. We need some sort of way to assign people to certain pit areas and make those areas clearly visible so that drivers know which pit is theirs. Then, the AI need to be made aware of this as well.
I think that's a hacky and poor workaround. Right now the AI are great at determining the amount of fuel they need, how many stints they need to run, etc. I sure as heck don't want to have to assign every single AI a specific fuel level just to make them pit more "randomly". Especially if Scawen could do the same thing with a relatively straight forward logic fix.
What we really need is: Full course cautions, AI that are aware they may be sharing a pit box with another car (AI or human), and some sort of way for people to get assigned stalls/pits and be able to tell which one they are assigned to. And the AI being more aware of human drivers wouldn't hurt either, but Scawen said he's working on that.
That's how it's supposed to work. Fuel level is not tied to car setup and never has been (not even for when you are driving). The AI select the amount of fuel that they need given the car they're driving, the track they're on, and the number of laps.
Getting penalties in the pits has been a problem under certain circumstances in almost every single test patch. I think it would be better to have the AI not push their luck so much in the first place. That way if the tires are hot and greasy, or if another car nudges them, or they have a tailwind, or any number of other things happens they will not get penalzied.
None of us humans can brake perfectly to hit the exact limit before we enter the pits, nor can we keep the car perfectly at the speed limit on cars that don't have a limiter. Slowing the AI down a few seconds earlier could solve these problems and really won't have any negative impacts.
I haven't been able to test it myself since I'm at work, but the AI on Blackwood RallyX are faring okay using the XRG in patch X36 now. I ran 8 cars for 8 laps and they all finished with barely any heat in the clutch.
Huge improvement.
They certainly like to put on a show entering the pits though, sliding sideways and plowing into each other.
In X10 and earlier you could get the AI to do some pretty serious powerslides around certain corners. But I've tried everything I can think of to get the new AI to do it and they won't. The only time they ever let the ass hang out is when they try to make a pass and perform their ultra-fast lane change maneuver. When doing that, I've seen an FZ5 fishtail back and forth the whole way down the back straight on Westhill. But otherwise, the new AI are just too good. They don't lose control as easily or make the mistakes like before.
Oh, I definitely agree that the way people drive in this game would break parts. I just don't think the clutch is likely to be one of them. I've found clutches, even crappy stock ones, to be extremely strong. You usually will blow up the engine, snap a u-joint, or break an axle before you toast the clutch.
The way that people downshift in <=X10 is my biggest gripe. They tend to over-rely on engine braking and the artificially fast speed that LFS downshifts. I think a lot of that will go away now that auto-blip and auto-cut are gone, but the cars are still going to be subject to a lot more [virtual] abuse than they could reasonably withstand.
I'm anxiously awaiting further clutch model improvements and hoping for much improved damage modeling. In due time, I'm sure.
That was not clear from your initial post. It sounded like you didn't want to use a button and you also didn't have a free axis to use.
You could probably get a wheel or an analog gamepad very cheaply. Xbox controllers seem to work fairly well, and they're very affordable. Would that be a simpler solution?
I think you are seriously underestimating the durability of the average car. I've jumped WAY higher and WAY farther than that in POS beater cars loads of times, on both pavement and dirt (I grew up in Wyoming. There was nothing better to do ). Never broken or burnt out a clutch. Hell, we jumped my friend Dave's Datsun so high that the seats hit the ground when we landed. The windows broke out of the car, but the clutch worked just fine. I've launched my Mustang quite hard on very wide tires without frying my stock clutch. I've had friends launch their cars many times using sticky drag radials, and never broken a clutch (I've seen them slip, but only after repeated abuse like this). Hell, my friend's GTO twisted off THREE driveshafts and broke multiple U-joints, but never had the clutch overheat or massively slip. And that was just a Centerforce "street/strip" clutch, not a racing clutch.
Nah. Cars are pretty damn tough. Except Hummer H2s.
In order for the clutch to slip, you would have to have enough torque between the tires and the engine that it overpowered the clutch. In general, either the tires don't have enough grip (in the dirt they certainly wouldn't) or the engine doesn't have enough power/engine braking (depending on if you're on the gas or off). The only time I've ever seen a clutch slip and burn up is if it was old, if it had been massively abused (lots of riding/slipping the clutch or hard launches), or if the car had been highly modified but was using a stock clutch. Simply powershifting from first to second should not be enough to slip the clutch.
How much torque can tires and engine braking possibly cause when driving on dirt and gravel? Letting off the gas while driving over bumpy pavement, or being on the gas after going over a speedbump a bit too fast would be more likely to generate a lot of stress on the drivetrain, and I've never had a clutch slip as a result of those types of actions. Not even in 15 year old beaters.
Even in single player, you're essentially running a host. You pick the track, the laps, the weather, if pitting is required, etc. What you're basically asking for is a way to restrict all the cars that connect. What we have right now is simply voluntary restrictions that can be used by leagues to add ballast or intake restriction to specific people.
I understand what you're asking for, but it needs to be solved by server-side restrictions, not a change in the AI behavior, IMO.
The AI are still having problems coping with grass. They are much better at staying on the track now, but on occasion when they try for a pass they spin out or get bumped onto the grass. Quite often they will sit there spinning circles or bumping into walls. Not sure if this can be fixed simply by having them use less throttle when on the grass.
Edit: AI still having issues pitting too. I had 7 cars running on Kyoto GP. Even though there are 16 pit boxes there, out of 7 cars two of them apparently tried to use the same box and crashed into each other. Either that, or the later car turned in too soon hitting the first car as it was trying to enter the next box.
But you are taking a voluntary restriction, not them. If you restrict your car, those restrictions aren't enforced on everyone else in the race. Only server-side restrictions would do that. In that case, all cars (including the AI) would be restricted.
Yes, you are probably right. However, I'm still open to contributing as much as I can to getting the problem fixed. Who knows, perhaps with just a little investigation Scawen will happen upon a silver bullet for the problem. If I can help find that silver bullet, I'm willing to try.
Perhaps it would be possible to simulate a "virtual spring" in the clutch, just like real road car clutches use. That could possibly soak up some of the jarring on/off throttle transitions and prevent some slippage that shouldn't occur. Or maybe there is some way to make the clutch friction non-linear, so that once it grabs it's less likely to slip, but that it can still slip taking off from a start.
When driven correctly, I haven't had any cars overheat the clutch on tarmac tracks. The clutches still slip like crazy, but as long as you lift and blip, they don't seem to overheat.
As for the rallycross races, they seem to be pretty much ruined by the clutch overheating using the X33 system, as many people here will attest. Not even the AI and their perfect shifting technique can go more than a few laps on any of the rallycross tracks. I personally haven't tried rallycross in X35.
Rather than looking for a pattern of which cars overheat and which ones don't, is there any way we can help narrow down why the clutches are slipping when they should not be? It doesn't make any sense that in low traction conditions like dirt, that the tires are overpowering the clutch. There must be something, somewhere that we're overlooking.
Edit: Is there any way that we can output clutch slippage and/or stress/torque from a replay and graph it? Something similar to the replay analyzers?
I don't think it will "solve" the problem, but it should help.
Edit: I know you want to punish flatshifting, but I don't think this is the method to use. We've lived with people exploiting that advantage for this long. We can continue to live with it until you can figure out how to make the clutch work realistically.