You can adjust the linearity of the FF curve in the Windows controller profile. Values slightly over 100% help stiffen the feel around the center (e.g. 105-110%). Lower the FF strength in LFS slightly to compensate. With my G25, I typically use around 105% in Windows and 25% in LFS, plus or minus 5% depending on the car and how much caster my setup has (usually maximum caster).
Also, do you have all of the spring and damping effects in the Windows controller profile turned down to 0%? Everything should be 0% except the overall force.
In racing, smooth is fast. You need a decent amount of aggression when attacking corners, too, but that aggression must be tempered by smoothness. Smoothness comes from having a well thought out plan of what you are going to do and when you are going to do it at each corner. This means having well-defined reference points on the track or just to the side of the track for braking, turn-in, apex, and exit. That's basically what I was pointing out in the track guide.
And yes, I have a G25. I started off playing LFS 8 years ago with a flight stick, using buttons for throttle and brake. The most powerful car back then was the XRT, though (known as the GTT at the time, for GT Turbo).
Your posts from a year ago seem to indicate you were quite happy with LFS, or at least enough to make an autox layout, having played LFS for "a long time."
You're putting words in my mouth. OWRL is not exactly what I am looking for. I don't want to have to switch cars mid-season. I don't want to have the top-8 inverted for the feature race. I also never stated that OWRL being halfway through a season would preclude me from participating, only that it was a concern in contrast to LFSCART, which is just starting up.
If that were the case and I plowed into someone, that's my fault for being an idiot and not heeding the local yellow. If further incidents are caused a result of my carelessness, I should be penalized.
And therein lies my problem with the safety car system: it makes it possible for the would-be winner to lose because of someone else's mistake halfway around the track, through no fault of his own. Not only that, the SC doesn't even serve its real-life purpose of saving lives. If the guy in second place makes a mistake, that mistake should carry on throughout the race. He should have to deal with it. That's competition. That's racing. If he manages to claw back the time lost and take the lead by being fast, not making mistakes, and being cautious enough to not caught up in someone else's nearby mistake, so much the better and so much more rewarding for him. That's what makes a winner. Being gifted back that lost time as a result of the safety car cheapens any improved result that driver may take.
I'd certainly consider it, even if it weren't coming from someone who has been with the sim for 8 years. I like to know people's opinions and what logically led them conclude such opinions are valid. "Because it's what we've been doing all along" or "because someone else does it" doesn't really follow logically, though.
Given the opportunity to improve upon a racing organization's procedures in a way that would improve competition, would you not capitalize upon that opportunity? Or would you prefer to dogmatically follow the existing procedures, even if it meant competition suffered as a result?
It's the difference between trying to accurately represent real life, natural phenomena based around man-made, tangible objects so that objects behave they way they should (i.e. physics), and trying to accurately represent man-made, intangible ideas and procedures in a particular series so that people behave the way they should, purely for the sake of imitation (i.e. safety car procedures).
Some rules/procedures are necessary for the sake of fair competition (e.g. no intentional crashing). Others are... not.
You know what I mean. Replace "driver" with "team" if it makes you happy. You're just picking nits/debating semantics.
The "grid, drive back to pits" was due to the limitations of how LFS does race starts. You can't start a race from the pits and go grid up because you're automatically placed on the grid.
Its presence in a different series doesn't make it right nor worthwhile for this series.
I said I could not make two of the road races. I was seriously considering participating in the others until I heard about the safety car. I guess I'll have to save you the embarrassment of getting stomped by someone who hasn't played LFS with any regularity in years, though.
How are any of those things any different? They're other examples of artificial and unnecessary realism for realism's sake, much like this SC silliness.
I'm imagining deko looking at my list and thinking, "WOW! Those are some great ideas!"
I'm not saying I would flip or get stuck, but I can almost guarantee someone else will, and the resulting SC will ruin someone's race, perhaps mine. I don't care if you have the 32 best drivers in LFS, chances are someone is going to crash. It just reeks of artificial realism for realism's sake.
I don't think there is a racing org in the world that would not do away with safety cars if there were a guarantee that no one would ever get hurt. Likewise, the real-life methods employed to remove a car from a track (rolling it behind a barrier, using a lift to move it behind a barrier) are essentially the same as a Shift-S.
You're deluding yourself if you think this does anything but stifle competition and add tedium for the sake of unnecessary "realism."
Why not go all out? Make sure everyone is using the exact same equipment (chair, speakers/headphones, wheel, pedals, monitor, CPU, motherboard, video card, RAM, internet connection, etc.). When everyone spawns at race start, make them all go back to the pits. Wait a while. Then send everyone out on a sighting lap. Make everyone find their own grid position.* Then wait some more. Have interviews with the drivers. Then send everyone out on a warmup lap. If someone crashes, make them pay money to repair their car. If someone gets a penalty, make them pay a fee. Make them pay for tires, fuel, transportation to the track, etc. Have real sponsorship contracts and competition for contracts. Give teams incentive to drop drivers who under-perform. If someone crashes hard, force them to sit out for a period due to "injury." Maybe forever.
Where does it end?
*I'd actually kinda like to see this one, because it was a bit of a shock when I had to do it in real life after just spawning where I needed to be for so long.