Quote from Glenn67 :

195/50R15's rated at 150MPH I would rate as road super 195/65R14's rated at 135MPH is what I'd call road normal as I take "Road Normal" to mean stock standard tyres

I don't think you would find a race track with insurance that would allow you to run any sort of high performance lapping or particapate in orginised amature racing on a tire like that. My point being that while the flex and grip may be modeled correctly in LFS, (The devs have said the grip is too high) I would like to see better tires modeled. Something more closely releated to what woudl accualy be used. Even at an autocross where the speed only get to about 60mph, that would be a dangerous tire to run. I would not be comfortable either driving that car or working the track with that car on the course.

There is more to consider then just size and shape. The construction of the tire and its compount also play a large factor in its level of grip and its ability to hold its shape. Right now road tires don't feel like they are the right combinatin of those paramiters. They are a soft compound on a narrow tire with poor lateral flex resistance. Two tires of the same size and compound can have very different handeling charistics depending on their construction. Scawen does not have a performance car as far as I know and probaly has tires on par with how the Road Normal feel. They scare me though.

Last edited by Gimpster, Sat 10 Feb 2007, 01:57.

Off Topic:

The geomitry is a little different on the strut. The camber change is based on a triangle where the wishbone is based on a box or trapazoid. The net effect is that a stut has a more linier camber change as opposted to a wishbones more curved camber change profile. You also tend to get more bump-steer on a strut design (dynamic toe changes).

We need a car like a built sonthing like a miata, they are just so dam fun to drive.

Quote from Blaeza :

Since lfs, I can't play any other sim, it kills them all!

Isn't that the damed truth. I use to think some of the the other Sims were good, then I found this little gem, since then the only other title I can say is on or above par with LFS is RBR for its off Tarmak stuff, RBR has Tarmak issues.

I do think that some other titles do have a few features then feel better then the same features in LFS. The most notable is nKPro. They way the Clutch and Gearbox's are modeled feels much closer to my real car. When I mis a shift in nK I cringe just like I do IRL. I also like the way I can feel the road through the steering wheel in nK, there is a texture to it and its that small tactile and audible feedback that makes those features stand out.

Those are the two major areas I think where LFS is feeling old. The way the tires and suspension are modeled in LFS I feel is up to the task of running on the raw polygons. I think its time they up the mesh dencety a little and turn off the vertex smoothing for the road surface in LFS physics. I am tired of driving on a buttery smooth road.

My only other complaint is the lack of a 50/50 Front engine RWD in the same relitieve power and weight class as the XFR. That is the only other car I am waiting to see in LFS.

Trail Braking is a situational skill thats partly based on the car, its setup, and the corners geometry in addition to what preceeds and follows the corner. Its not over complex though.

The basic is simple. Since we can all agree then smoothness with the controles is always better then quick movments it should also be known that your tires and suspension can load more G's when that are applied slowly then if they are loaded fast. Trail Braking allows you to brake a little later and contune to brake as you turn in for the corner. Since you are smoothly adding steering angle you can also smoothly reduce braking force while adding steering angle.

As others have also said you can do the same with the exit and the throttle as you reduce steerng angle. I was very good at this before S2 in the GTT on Blackwood T1. For some reason now I can't seem to trail brake as well or am scared to. I think I posted a more detailed write up on this in the new users forum.

Quote from JTbo :

Also when tire rolls over that means very big decrease in grip.

My tires were sold as performance tires, also speed rating tells that these are not normals, but guess what, text at sidewalls get scrubbed even if I do over inflate them, also at one nice corner on track I could not go as fast as I wanted to go as that horrible sound of my alloy hitting tarmac kept me off, well tires are not too good indeed, send me your money and I get better ones

Money is biggest issue why people do use street cars on track in first place, whole year's car expenses has to fit under 1000 euros with my income so that means track day is not every day at summer and it also means that you can't test many tires or have much custom work done to car, running costs + little driving and that is about it. Money have to come somewhere and I have not found very good money tree yet.

Sure rich guys buy separate car for track days or even special track day vehilce like radical which is really expensive to run too, but there is more those that are not rich guys

I wish I could afford more then to autocross. The track days here are expensive. The local track has a requirment of their advanced training day first. $500+ then the first HPLD is 250+ instructor for the first time 200+, then after that its about 250 a session for a half day and 400 for a full day. Couple that with having to do an oil change before and after, brakes and maybe a dedicated set of tires for the cause and if you need to an alighment a track day is pushing upwords of $750 for people in this area.

Hell it only costs me $15 to autocross, but its not as much fun and my car is ment for the track damit.

Quote from Breizh :

Viper, I meant to ask Gimpster what tires he expected should be used, instead of those in LFS.
That's what dynofiend was responding to, too.
And as rodgers said, LFS probably is not that far from reality... if you're going to assert otherwise, please show some proof.. without any, you're only speculating.

The tires I have on my car right now are Yoko 195/50R15 all the way around. These have a max pressure rating of 36. These will roll over to scrub the sidewalls if I dro the pressure to 30psi. These are rated for 150 MPH. I would consider these to be equivlent to the Road Normal. At 35psi they will retain a full contact patch on the tarmak even when pushed past their grip limit. There is no wear on on the sidewalls.

The tires I want to get are Advan 205/45/15 and have a max pressure rating of 50psi. These will have a sidewall about the same higth as the one I have now, but the sidewalls are designed to resist rollover more. These are what I consider Road Super. Race compounds in a DOT legal street tire with tread. This will probaly also be able to be run down to 35psi with out deforming.

When I drive in LFS the one thing I feel about the current street tires is they feel like 135mph rated 60-65 series buget all season radials. They don't feel right until you get the pressure way up there but then they do not ever get warm. Its like the compound of the tire is mismatched to the design.

Edit:In case you need a point of refference.

My car is a 1994 Mazda Miata 1.8L with 140BHP and 100FT LBS of torque. The car weighs 2300lbs with the roll bar, is lowered with sport suspension and shocks, upgraded swaybars, about 2 degrees of negitive camber and has a weight distibution of 50/50. Its much like the XR GT but a little lighter and a little less power. The handeling though is completely different for some reason. I would be more then willing to take the time to take mesurments and do some testing if the devs want an additional refference model to verify their physics on.

Last edited by Gimpster, Sat 10 Feb 2007, 00:32.

Always been 31 or 32.

My question is why would anyone in thier Left mind race or do a track day with tires that are prone to excessive sidewall flex.

The cars in LFS may have accurate sidewall flex but they are the wrong dam tires for the application they are being used for.

I honestly feel the racing surface is far too wide in LFS for the most part. South City has that tight fast feel the rest of the circutes do not.

Hyperactive, when did this turn in to a HardCore mode comversation? I am all for leaving in the options that help make up for the interface issues faced by people who do not have the luzury of a G25. I don't have a G25. Think like auto clutch, auto cut/blip, automatic trans, traction control and anti-lock brakes need to be there for people using less then optimal control interfaces.

Thinks like damage, tire wear, fuel usage, etc. having the option to be disabled does not increase the accessability to anyone. The just turn this Sim in to an arcade game with compromised physics/reality. I am all for the options but some just do not have a place here I think. If there is a hardcore mode down the road I am sure the people that have the hardware to race underthose restrictions will do so, the rest of us will still have the option to race on other servers. I would like to see the systems more polished though before I am forced to use then. The simulation of transmission and clutches still needs a lot of work. nKPro has the best trans/clutch simulation I have used.

I used the term "Never" because the Devs have stated in the past that the ability to disable Damage, Tire Wear, Fuel Use and other similar features would "Never" be included in LFS. They have no plans to include the option and its thrie decision.

I have heard both arguments time and time again and I will be the first to admit that I learn far faster when forced to drive without diving assists and reality limiting features. Back with F1 2k2 my friends and I were all running about the same skill level, I was a little slower though and not as proficent. So I made the choice to disable all the driving aids and in a matter of two weeks I was out driving then every race.

You may think that driving aids and the ability to disable damage, etc. will alows new members of the comunity to ease in to LFS but the hard cold fact is you learn far faster with all the reality in place.

In a racing car, the gage cluster is designed to include all the needed gages to monitor the condition of the engine. There are better places to put gages then on the I-Piller. Clustering them in the center console makes more sense anyways as I have no need for the clock or radio there.

Quote from aoun :

So we restart, i decided to take him out, then he threats me saying i get banned when he shows the footage of me for 3 months.. is that also possible?

I hate to say it but you resorted to wrecking as a retalitory action. If you get banned it woudl be justifiable. Just like in the real world if some one comits a crime and goes free but you retaliate and break the law you can be punished for it.

Its better to just in a simple non confrontational manner express your case and then drop it. If you have to resort to some sort of retalitory messure then do so with in the limits of what is legal in racing. Accidents happen, oops. A little nerf here alittle tap there it does not have to look like it was intential to be effective.

The damage system is a place holder feature. Suspension damage was included in S2 to help limit wall riding in South City. The devs felt that having the suspension become damaged without some visual body damage was just not working so they put the start of the damage model in place. The current system was never intended to be a final feature. As S2 is about the cars I imagin that before S2 is considered Final we will see a more fully realised damage model along with other improvements to the cars them selves and the physics surounding them.

Being able to turn off the damage will never happen, just as turnin goff fuel use and tire wear will never happen. Simulator = Simulation of Reality, you can't turn off damage in the real world. Some consessions are sill made though as in the restarts, reset, you don't die in a crash etc...

LFS is developed in a building block fashion. Untill there is night there is no need for lights.

No maggot thats not what I want.

Take for example South City in its entirerty as one open envirnment, access to all the roads and having the course defigned through the layout editor.

Now do the same for all the areas, Fern Bay, Aston, Kyoyo Ring, Blackwood, and any future track venue.

Thats part of the idea, You choose a venue and the configuration is then a suprise. Ofcourse it could be built in such a way as to display the name of the config currently loaded. Predefigned configs created by the dev team and supported by LFSworld would be easy to spot this way and custom configs you would have to learn.

I imagine with a system like this we would see a wider variaty of tracks and some of the pressure would be off the developers to cater to our every whim in course design as we could define our own within the bounds of the venues design limitations.

No it was not directed at you. I was mearly pointing out the reasons and likely hood. I think its long overdue for a racing sim thats steaped in real physics to take this kind of approach but until the engine is completely rewritten to allow for it it will not happen.

I posted my ideas on how it could work in another thread here in this section but with the current LFS render its not possible to do and retain all the current functionality.

Its am rendering engine limitation for the most part. Getting the AI to follow the track woud lbe as easy as drawing a virtual path in the editor, but since LFS is an Online Racing Sim why do we even need the AI anymore.

Todays computers are more then capable of rendering an entire city at once many times larger then the one that encompases the South City venue. But it woudl not even need to if a moden rendering soluton was used. Some of todays FPS have huge envirnents that are not a problem at all to render for the 64+ players in then at a time.

Its not somthing that will change for S2, It may not make it in to S3. It may have to wait for what ever follows LFS, perhpas LFS2.

Right now in LFS we have a variety of track configurations depicted in several different locations. Every track configuration is a unique entity that shares many common textures and geometry with the other configurations in the same location and to a lesser extent the other locations. This has its limitations and is I think not the most elegant or flexible means of implementing multiple track configuration in a single environment.

Some of the community has expressed the desire to have open venues or track areas where they can just drive or for some of the unique “Games” the community has come up with which can be facilitated through community cooperation and some creative in-sim programming. Cops n Robbers is one of the more entertaining of these community creations.

The current system makes it easy to track things like track cutting, and other checks to provide the foundation for implementing flag rules and other mechanics which will likely be added down the road. It also makes it easy to track Hotlap and World Record data but there are many different ways to do this now. The upgrades to the Autocross tools have opened some new interesting options. With the addition of no-pass checks we can define areas that are off-limit to drives which was the last real limiting factor aside from the rendering engines limits in texture and geometry bandwidth.

I would purpose that for S3 LFS should makes a somewhat radical change to the way race venues and track configurations are defined. I think this is needed for several reasons. First the change would allow for more flexibility in engine allowing for more unique play styles. Secondly it could limit could reduce the number of track objects/maps that the simulation needs to have. Thirdly it will provide a single mechanism or solution that allows for all types of racing formats to be defined without having to code each one separately. And lastly it will set LFS apart by being the first real simulation to allow such flexibility in just a solid and simple interface.

The Idea:

The current tracks get replaced with Racing Venues. Each venue is a unique environment which contains all the geometry and textures. The area is also coded to define the areas such as racing surface, pits, starting grid locations. In this state it is much like an autocross area of the current version of LFS, just an open environment with no track or course defined. To use the venue for racing, the server admin need to either load a static predefined layout, (basically a standard layout like autocross) or build a new layout either from scratch or modified from an existing one.

Only predefined layouts from the Dev team will be supported on LFSworld for Hotlap and WR tracking. All tracks must have 3 sector gates and either a combined start/finish ling for circuit racing or a separate start and finish line for point to point racing such as single lap autocross or rally. Some additional tools will need to be added to the editor to allow for defining the pits but that should not be too difficult. We already have tools to define no cross lines but the addition of a tool to define no drive areas would be nice.

I do not see the problems with a system like this. Most of the tools and mechanics are already in the LFS Autocross editor. It would add more uniqueness versatility to LFS while preserving the current flavor and style that defines what LFS has evolved to become currently.

I have two counters for the reasons why people think it can not be done.

1- AS Historic is a dam large track and area, easily the size of the area used by the whole of the South City complex.

2- We can build tracks and hold multi-lap races in the suto cross areas using the editor so there is no reason why a predefigned track is a requirment for the game engine.

Now I see no reason why all for the track areas can't just be open racing venues. The tracks host could then define the layout of the course just like a circuit layed out on the autocross areas. The only draw back is we loose the ability to record Hotlaps and WRs. The way around this is to have predefigned layouts that can be selected but not altered and just track Hotlap and WR stats for those configs only. All other configs are WR and Hotlap invalid.

The only limitation there might be right now is poly count. If the engines limited in its avalable mempry useage for texture and geometry then somthing like this may need to wait for S3 and the rendering engien overhaul.

I had a dream last night as well but its content is not really suitable for this public forum.

In time perhaps we will have some real racing venues, either comunity or official matters not to me so long as they are highly accurate and detailed.

My definition of speed drifting is this:

Using all of the avalable slip angle the tires are designed to use. Tires are desiged to slip alittle and doing so is not going to slow you down. Even in modern F1 people like Schumi drive and steer as much with the rear tires as they do the front. If the tires are squeeling you are past the point of useable slip angle.

I am faster using that technique then grip only. It does not wear the tires out either and means I am using a slight about of counter steering through the corners. Steer with both ends, Schumi does.

Who wants to run at the front? Its boring being up there hotlapping. Its so much more fun being in the middle or back running side by side through the corners and swapping positions. But more often then not if I get a few clean races in I will be nipping at the heals of the lead pack.

Its not a huge jump to go from midpack to front runner. The increasses in speed come through being smooth and consistant. When you are midfield or backfield its a great time to experiment with lines, corner stratigies, close racing and application of pressure. You will often find that the really fast driver but by no means all of them, are only fast when they can drive their perfect hotlap line. Force them use somthing different and they crack and make mistakes under the pressure.

We still don't have a RWD non-downforce race car yet either. XFR/UFR/? Missing Car