All i know is that in my first 20 minutes race with mostly new people there was zero car to car contact and plenty of passing on the narrow LRP track. Thats worth the cost for me.

Spanks here is the one i hae been tweaking with. The diff you will have to adjust to your liking because there is no way to make it work right given the options in lfs. I will give yours atry tomarrow as it too late here now and I get up very early.

My real car also understears if you cary too much speed in to a corner, but I can also very easily brake it loose with just a touch of brake, alittle flick or some power-over. It's a bit stiffer, lower, and twitchy then a stock one with a street alighment. Mine has some seroius camber, and rear toe in, front toe out.

I did the math and this thing uses the corrent spring rates for my FMsprings, I can't find the info on the shocks though. Gears and final are correct, but this thing does have way more torque.

This is close to how mine would feel if I took the rear ARB off which has been recomend to me for autocrossing and track days. Mine is a bit more tail happy with a stiff rear ARB. The original owner was a drifter I think.

Last edited by Gimpster, Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:52.

Now that would light a fire in LFS development. As someone on the outside Kegetys has been able to accomplish some very cool things even if we can't use them all.

In the end for me at least LFS is slowly dieing. Having been here from nearly the begining, and seeing it evolve over time I have always felt the pace of development was way too slow. I don't blame the devs personaly for this, I think alot of it has to do with what LFS really is, a cool little experiment that took on a life of its own and has managed to remain at the forfront of Racing Sims because the challangers have fallen short of their goals. Drivers Rapublic and nKPro both looked to be great but DR looks dead, I was really looking forward to this one, and nKPro fell appart and is still tryign to pick itself up.

iRacing's subscription and pay for content model is not a new one. I is exactly the same as another title that the entire comunity was going Gaga over several years ago. It did not have a subscription service but you were going to have to buy each car and track seperatly each woudl come on a credit card CD which you could add to your current content. No one was bitching about that back then. We all remember Racing Legends don't we?

I don't know how poor most of you are that has you fussed about $13 US a month. That is 1hr of work for me, 2g of fuel, 2 trips to the fast food place or 1 trip to the movie theater. Its nothing, even if I only play for 2 hours a week, it brakes down to like $1.60 a hour for entertainment. That sis dirt cheap.

So I look at it like this. I can continue to make LFS my primary racing sim and hope to get some new content, features or vehicle dynamics improvemtns from a development team of 2 people who are not wealthy and al have other distractions, (Scawen's growing family) or I can spend a little money and give iRacing a try, which has a nice experanced development team, partnerships with lots of great real racing entities and the good finacial backing from a guy who is a sim enthusist. It becomes a no brainer. I will refocus on iRacing, even if it is still lagging behind LFS on some features or even all of them it will evolve as a far faster pace.

LFS will not continue to remain on top if it continues as is has been. Of that I am absolutly positive.

Ok, I think I may have changed my mind on this one. After two nights of racing on public and CTRA servers, I am now convinced that LFS needs some sort of driver safety rating as a built in piece of functionality with or without the driving matching aspect. I don't care if it dings me every time I drop a tire off track or get punted in to the wall by some other inept driver because even with those incidents I will have a better rating then they do and I will be able to find drivers who have the same respect for me as I do for them.

Built in safety rating - Hell yes.
Every incident counts - Hell yes, even if I was the victim.
Weighted penalty by session type - Sure.
Server Admin ability to disable - if we have to, to keep everyone happy.
Driver matching service - if possible.

Even in the CTRA servers there are lots of people out-driving they skill level. This has been one of my biggest complaints over the last few years. The T1 nightmere has become less ugly but there are still frivers in every race that make poor choices because they do not respect me enough to think how I am affected if they crash or bump me in their attempt to get a fast time or gain a position.

The lack of risk is the reason. Its the biggest flaw in LFS and the faster the cars get, the more popular LFS gets the worse the issue becomes. The only incentive to drive safely around the track is ones own self image, pride and respect for others. There is no program mechanic that punishes or discourges people from unsafe and disrespecfull driving.

I think that will need to change if LFS is to continue to grow. If it does not find it way in to LFS in some way which is not overly intrusive then LFS will devolve in to somthing like NFS over time but with better physics.

In the end does it really matter? Even in a real car you can adjust this by altering the size of the rotors, the number of cylinders/caliper and the brake boost/pressure feeding the system by using a different master brake cylinder. So who really cares if its alterable. People that set it not lock on full push are loosing out on maximum braking power as you can often brake much harder if you slowly bring up the pressue. I always set it high enough to lock all 4 tires at the end of a long brake run.

Ok you are right. I did mess up on the set some. I based in it the weight of an SM2 miata making the HP of the MX-5 Cup cars. I have been working on the set some more and I am getting alittle closer.

The best I can do using the RAC to get correct suspension geomity and close tire size is a ready to run weight of 2459lbs(50%fuel + passanger) & 140hp. I am modeling it on my 94 miata, so the spring rates, shocks, ride hight, camber, toe, gear ratios and final drive all match what I am driving on a daily basis. The diff is a tough one though as mine has the torsen, so I need to do a little more research and find out if its a one-way or two-way locking diff and find out what the values are for it.

At this point it is starting to handel like my car, it does push a bit in the corners if you enter too fast but also has a bit of power off or braking induced over steer, just like mine when removing the rear ARB. It is not quite as steerable with the throttle as mine but I think the diff and tire pressures are the cause of that. It does react correctly to curbs with just a slight pull in the direction of the curb.

And that XRG N-Miata is no where close to what mine feels like. Perhaps its modeled on a bone stock miata with worn out shocks...

Last edited by Gimpster, Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:43.

The RAC does have a mid engine, but with the added weight and moving that weigth all the way forward it puts the car in the right weight distribution F/R. It also has wider/low profile Road Supers and a double wishbone suspension just like a Miata, E30, Solstice or other performance FR cars. My choice in using it had nothing to do with it being a roadster.

I hate strut suspension.....

Since Cue-Ball wanted a Spec Miata I build this setup based on the RAC. It's a little light but its close. In the actual class only things like toe, tire pressuer and camber are allowed to be changed. The ARBs, shocks, springs and gear ratios are fixed.

Last edited by Gimpster, Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:15.

Please do not take my post to mean I want to see the fast cars and open track be removed or that I completely loath the current state of the program and community as I do not. I was mearly comenting on the difference in what I hoped LFS would decome and how it was evolved as a frame of refference for helping people understand why some I am asking for some of the changes I hope to see in the future.

Some where between Pre S1 and Now the feel of the program took some very distinct changes. The tire model is one of them, the clutch is another. Both are very much steps in the right direction but for me they both still feel very wrong, but still very close. Driving other sims, namely nKPro and getting a more performance centric car has shown me what I once though was a very accurate simulation, now feels nothing like my real car. The tires on the street cars are the one thing that really throws me off.

I do not understand why I can not get the tires in the XRG up to temp unless I use very low pressures. While this yeilds propper heating and thus good amounts of grip it also makes the handeling mushy and unresponsive. But if I try to run the tires at a more realistic 30-40 psi then the tires never get warm unless I slide the tires all oger the track.

I don't know why but the current road and road supper tires feel more like buget tires then somthing I would even consider putting on my car.

I am not so sure this would work well without also have the ability to match players of similar rating. I think that is the key to making the whole thing work. By matching players you are more likely to be running with people of similar skill, and as such the number of incidents will drop as you climb the ranks.

Using a system that fails to match players would lead to elitism, where its more of a bragging right then a way to find a more competitive group of people to race with. I do not know what the CTRA is like now but back when I was racing more often then now you alomst never could find a race in the higher ranked servers.

Ok this thread is a bit long for such a simple suggestion. Since I did not read the whole thing I will just say this. I do not see a problem with removing the max brake pressure setting option from the setup screen for based on whether brake is mapped to an anolog control or not.

If it is then remove the option and set it to a predefigned setting. If not mapped to an anolog control show the setting and allow the user to adjust the max pressure as they lack the ability while racing to esaly modulate braking force.

Makes it more realistic for people with peddels while still being accessable to people without.

Yea but the sidewalls are still single ply and designed to run at 32PSI nominal. How many performance tires in a 245mm/40%/17" size do you see that have such excessive side wall flex?

Embrace the idea of learning to understand vehicle dynamics and then experiment and build you own. Unfortunatly the lack if limitation in LFS setup makes this a bit daunting.

While I am not in favor or open tuning, there are many little things that are allowed even in very restrictive racing classes. Some level of tuning would be a welcome upgrade to the current system. In the same was as making setup changes more restrictive would also be a welcome upgrade. When I look at some of the SCCA classes like Spec Miata, they do allow for things like adjusting the timing, but do not allow for things like swaping the intake, adding forced induction, etc. Some more open class allow a little more modification such as altering cam profiles and such.

Now these kinds of changes don't drasticly alter the performance of these cars. What they do allow is for the cars performance to be adjusted magrinaly for the design of the track. By advancing the timing you gain a little mid and top end HP at the cost of some low end torque, not unlike using a taller final drive ratio but doing both would give you car well suited to long fast open tracks while doing the oppisite would give you more low end punch for shorter slower tracks. While altering the cam profiles will add or reduce the power levels a little it also affects the fuel economy.

So sure evently some one may find "The Ideal Setup/Tune" for a given track/car combo for them but its still just a matter of driving style and it will not work for every one but on a track with a ballance of both slow and fast sections you now have some more choice in whether to setup to be optimal fro the fast sections of for the slow ones.

So in the end I would not ming having more settings to ajust while at the same time reducing my adjustment choices for any given setting.



Dajmin,

So many people use the Inferno setups because currently setup options are nearly infinite. That level of setup adjustability is unrealistic and leads to the faulse idea that there is one perfict setup for any given car on any given track that will work for everyone. If the we were limited to just a few options for each setting then people would be more inclined to try and setup the car them selves and would naturaly find a setup that works for the way they drive in stead of having to adjust their driving to match the setup that some one else used to set a WR.

Curiosity leads to Experimentation...
Experimentation leads to Discovery...
Discovery leads to Insight...
Insight guildes further Experimentation...
But Complexity leads to doubt...
And Doubt tempers Curiosity...

You do the math, but in the end the situation is the result of the equasion we are presented and its at a level that is unfortunatly more then many people wish to try and understand.

Last edited by Gimpster, Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:40.

It is only logical that we have a drag car of some sort. We do have a drag strip after all. It also then seems logical that we have an oval car as we also have an oval track. None of the cars we have now is any real challenge to drive on the oval as it is much too large for the cars we have and only the FB1 or FO8 is squirly enough to be a challenge on the drag strip.

Hence why adding in these tracks was a an ill concieved idea. The drag strip is in as far as I know because there was a large number of young drivers that would corupt racing on blackwood trying to drag down the back straight during races that adding in a dragstrip was an attempt to get that activity to move to a place where is was not interfearing with racing. I may be wrong though.

I have a dream… A vision of LFS… A vision that is different then what we have now… One in which the old feelings of unchecked adrenalin and pure passion were rampant and where driving was just a joy which I cannot express in words still exists. I want to see the passion brought back to LFS.

My vision of what LFS was to become and the developer’s vision of what LFS is to become diverged some time ago. While the changes and path of development have resulted in some interesting and innovative features I am still perplexed and a little sad/annoyed but the path which was led us to the point where we currently find ourselves. When I first discovered LFS, back in the days when all we had was a demo, featuring the XRG, XFG, XRT and Blackwood, it had a much different feeling then it does now. This feeling has nothing to do with the physics or the looks of LFS but has to do more with the design and content we had. Those three basic cars were perfectly matched to the track. Their performance and dynamics played very well to the layout which resulted in a cadence and pace that just made you forget you were sitting in front of your computer and instead made to feel as though you were in your real car at a local track competing door to door with your best buddies. It had this feeling of youthful innocence that has now been lost. Today, LFS feels less like I am running at a local track with friends and more like I am a struggling racing professional lost in the jungle of national level competition. I miss the old feeling.

I think this is in part due to the nature of the content we have been given over the S1 and S2 releases. The cars very quickly became very diverse and now extend to the very apex of open wheel racing. The new tracks are wide and open and surrounded with reminders of the level of racing we now compete in. Where once we had a track carved out of the land with few reminders of the commercial nature of racing, we now have track environments surrounded by bleachers, and filled with sponsor ads. The tracks are wide and open with sudden choke points that seem ill conceived. Few of the new tracks feel well suited to the cars we have to drive on them and their wide surfaces contribute to a dulling of the sense of speed so many in our community have been commenting on. When I watch racing videos there is often little room for passing, running three wide is almost impossible and if done the cars are nearly scraping paint. I think this has a lot to do with why many people are seeking faster and faster cars. It’s not because they want to drive faster it’s because they feel like they are driving so slow in the cars they have.

In my vision of the LFS we don’t have the FO8 and FB1, we don’t have the FZR, XRR and FXR. The pinnacle of open wheel cars is the FOX and the panicles for the tin tops are the UFR, XFR with perhaps a RWD and AWD rival. The faster cars should have been left for S3 along with the tracks in which they would feel at home. In my vision of LFS Aston would be a pair of smaller track venues each with no more than 3 variants of varying length, each presenting unique challenges and with a layout that flows smoothly from one turn to the next. Kyoto would be a short track oval which would require some braking in the corners and its attached road course would have to involve exiting under the banking through a tunnel or be completely detached from the oval as it would not fin in the infield. Westhill would be much like it is now but perhaps a little more compact, but not much. This would be the track which gave us a promise and taste of what the future would hold when faster cars are introduced in S3.

In my vision of LFS the level of racing is also based in a class structure which exists outside of the inherent class based on the performance of the cars. The level of competition would directly affect how much adjustability there is in car setup. At lower levels drivers are forced to use a predefined setup for each car while at higher levels of competition more settings are allowed to be adjusted as well as the number of adjustments available for each setting. As it stands now many settings are infinitely adjustable, when in reality things like gear ratios, springs rates, damper settings and sway bar stiffness selections are limited to a handful of available options. I think this is a problem and in my vision of LFS we are much more limited.

In the end we have what we have and LFS will continue to develop as the people running the show deem it should, but perhaps in the future the path of development may start to wander back towards how I hoped LFS would be when I first started dreaming towards the future of LFS back before it was no more than a demo. I hope I am not alone in the way I feel and that there are other out there that have those same fond feeling of what LFS was like in times past when the community was smaller, the choices were limited and the competition was close and fierce.


I guess you had to be there to understand... Oh well...

Last edited by Gimpster, Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:03.

Stiggie,

I am sure if/when we get night racing in LFS part of that upgrade will be to include real lights on the cars. Not just the brake, blinker/hazard and flash to pass driving lights we have now. When that will be is anybodys guess.

I do not see building a new track enviernment as being a very diffacult challenge for some one with a fair ammount of modeling and design skill. And though I hate to agree with negitive statements I have to agree with Ian H. If we look at LFS and the content pushes over the last two years we get the following. Lots of small and fundimential code upgrades from Scawen, and we have two new cars, which we did not really need, a few configs and some old track refreshes from Eric. Lets face it, at this pace there better be some big changes or additional content in the not so distant future or its plainly obvious that LFS is not the pimary day job for Eric.

Now this may not be a bad thing, LFS has been great but I think some of the competitors are just about to catch and perhaps surpass what LFS as accomplished. If they can pull off what they hope to then LFS may slowly fade away without ever reatching the devs vision of its completed state.

My fondest memories of LFS are just before the S1 launch. When taming the XRT was a challenge and the only track we had was Blackwood. Tracks like Blackwood, Aston Historic and Westhill are the reasons I played LFS, the other tracks just do not have that special feeling that makes me forget it's a sim and not a real track. We need more tracks like that, tracks that are nice and simple and yet uniquely challanging. Tracks like we might find in our home towns where lower ranks of drivers are learning the ropes and it feels more intimate.

LFS is at its best when using the lower end cars on these types of tracks then when driving the high end sports cars on the fast and overly stale tracks. But this is starting to get off topic and so I will end this post.


Yes I would like to see some more tracks, with fewer variants.

Yes I would like to see things that are different then we have now.

Yes I would like to see narrower tracks with less advertising, less BIG Racing feel.

No I don't care if those tracks reuse some of the current envierments are a backdrop or visual style.

After nearly 5 years of being involved in the LFS comunity my opinions on this subject have changed many times. At this point I think LFS has too much diversity in its car classes. While its great to have three cars with about the same performance capabilities, I often find that one of them is always more competitive then the others. The racing tends to be closer in single car races. If anything I would think it would be better to reduce the number of cars in any given class while also adding in some new classes of racing and tracks.

We also do not need three models of the same car. There is no reason why we can't just have one XR base model with the other versions just adding on differnet body/running gear parts. But please do not confuse that with customisable body kits and performance tuning.

Honest Answer:

I got tired of not having a single car I wanted to drive and an now paitently waiting for my iRacing invite. See you all on the flip side.

Gimpster

And just so your searching is not in vain, the general answer is that LFS does not support open enviernments. But I think it does it would just have to be treated as an AutoX session with multiple laps.

Quote from dontpannic :

Thats what I mean - the XRG really isn't the Skyline GTR in the photo

Nor is the Skyline in that Pic RWD either. That is the R34 and its Awd.

I think it would work but it would all have to be very subtle. None of the effects should be very pronouned and they all need to be ballanced. It sould only just effect the edges of the screen, just as things leave the screen.

Correct. But since most of us use screens that do not take up the majority of the visual area that aspect of human vision is not naturaly occuring in a simulated envienment. The natural focal point for our eyes is some where between 18" and 24". If we put our screens at that distance then the majority of the screen remains in the center of our vision and thus remains in focus and in the high resolution portion of out visual cone.