Yes, it is possible and very easily. You select pedals' axes for throttle and brake and mouse X for steering. I was driving this way for some time, that was very convenient.
Are you occupying racign numbers all over LFS? That's nonsence. It would be the same as taking a numb in all the real-life racing: Loёb takes #1 in WRC, and Alonso has to take something different.
I don't defend him. He knows very well what he does and does this repeatedly. But the trial wouldn't be easy going. What counts for a crime in Vykos' list?
0) this forum crack
1) attacking master server
2) trying to give trojan software to betatesters
Each of these items alone "weights" not much and may pass for a hooliganism, resulting in just a small or a moderate money penalty or even nothing if a judge decides he is a lost sheep. So, to draw all the things together one has to do quite a work and a layer. [edit: if a police anti-haxor department doesn't investigate this]
Easy to say "do him this or that". Who the first donates money for a layer to do all the legal operations? (you know these things don't go by themselves)
JTbo,
if you travel to alpha centauri, you can measure the speed by changes of the visible spectrum, and the position by the visible sizes of the 4 nearest stars. There is a lot of information. Unless you want to stop somewhere in the middle of interstellar space for a roadside picnic, there is enough info.
If you are very interested, you may want to try Orbiter space simulator. Though, it is very complicated, I gave it up. For a start you may try to orbit around the Earth in X-Plane's Discovery Shuttle, land and take off into space manually controlling it. I managed to stabilize height and make a speed error less than 1 Mach
Yesterday, i've been at the "City driving Jamaica" host. I've checked more than twice - only street legal cars are allowed there. But at 9:20:00 replay time, enters a famous hacker and takes a BF1. Yep, a car that is not enabled. I believe neither in that with his status in the community he may be a host owner (even the host's owner can't drive a prohibited car), nor to the story with a certain "superadmin".
Here in south-western Siberia I enjoy a warm winter. Averagely -5..-10 since the end of november. Never saw such a weather in winter. This year, it has only once been -20 or below. Just a few degrees sub-zero is perfect!
Some photos. This is SNOW!
1. In the yard. Piles 1+ metre high.
2. Someone skidded here, made quite a hole
3. Snow in the wood.
Good work. Though, some paragraphs seemed to me "apologisive".
Your "real vs fictional tracks" paragraph seems to have a bit weak arguments. You decline the problem, but don't say why. Why is it good for a racer to drive a fictional track? You restate that LFS does better physics, then that it doesn't constrain devs - but a user doesn't care about them. Maybe he'd better come 5 years later when there might be real cars? Why sould he drive fictional tracks now? A positive statement? Ultimately, simulation is made to match the real world. My answer would be that 1) a fictional track is better because your immagination smooths the picture, while with a real track your eye would notice the differences, and a copy of a real track always looks cartoonish. 2) the same for cars: you take them as-is, nothing distracts you.
Anyway, go on, not everyone can take a breath and write a complete article.
Some notes:
* XRT sound seems a bit strange, especially at the back of the car. That high-pitched "rgrgrgrgrrrrr" doesn't sound like real 2 L (I may be wrong, but it seems so to me)
* BF1 is a great improvement. Now it is a real screaming engine, not a coffee grinder. But still it lacks something, like it is partially muted, few echoes - like in a good sound-recording studio. I think partially it is the game sound engine to improve. A loud sound reflects a lot and is heard with many echoes (the extreme example is thunderstorm)
* LX6 seems too loud. IMO, it has a large exhaust silencer not invane.
I think the best way would be to make an area with 100 km of connected roads (LFS can handle 65*65 km area), so that there were a lot of combos. That would be enough for a rally of a national championship scale (150-200 km of specials).
According to my estimations, 1 km of track takes 2-2.5 MB disk space and 6-8 MB of RAM. Whatever config you load (AS1, AS2, etc), LFS keeps all the area (all the Aston, Blackwood and so on) in the RAM, and some memory is used for textures. So, 100 km will work OK on systems with 1GB RAM.