Quote from Intrepid :

125 ICC + 118cc (they usually bore the 100cc to 118cc) on one kart lol...

I thought two engined karts were normal

We got paid by the car and so worked like dogs Normal cars that were not so dirty we used to do in 45 mins

I used to do car detailing and we would get cars that had been used on mine sites up north in Western Australia that were caked in red dust (the red dust would get into everything). We used to strip them bare (all carpets seats door trims and rubber seals) Two guys would have the car looking like new inside and out in under four hours It would cost the customer $150 but would add thousands to the value of the car as after it looked like it never been near red dust Brings back memories...

Quote from Klutch :

I think us WA guys differ alot from you easties.

Really? I know one thing for sure I'm never ever going to buy a house near a corner I see a new fence knocked down (occassionally more than just a fence) just about every other weekend in the suburb I live in. So while there is maybe alot that do the right thing and go to track days and organised events there is more that don't and behave like twats on residential streets A few beers combined with a late night trip home and alot can't seem to resist hooning often resulting in major damage to their cars and private property. On top of that alot of WA drivers are overly aggressive and extremly impatient on the roads. I'm sure your not one of them though [/oldmanrant]

The biggest discrepency I can detect with LFS tyres vs rl tyres at the moment is that the range of usable pressures is too large thus allowing larger extremes than you would see in rl.

I'm willing to bet that the tyre contact patch does not distort correctly under low pressure high loads in LFS. In rl you have a minimum recommended pressure, if you go below that pressure there would be reduced grip levels caused by undesirable contact patch distortions, this doesn't seem to happen enough at low pressures in LFS. Irl once the sidewall begins to roll under the rim it will start to have a negative impact on grip levels as it will have the effect of lifting the edges of the contact patch.

So while lower pressure should equal more grip that should only be true within the recommended range, once outside that range tyre grip I suspect should actually drop away sudenly and dramatically.

As a consequence you see all drivers using lower pressures no matter what their driving style, where as in rl if you have a more aggressive style you would more likely be running higher pressures than another driver that is smoother.

I used an original xbox (large controller) for about 2 years (2004-2006) and absolutly loved it! The only reason I changed to a wheel was because I wore it out

I've also been wondering the same flatlined...

I doubt that would happen frokki, I think it is more likely that the majority would just go for default or unlimited options and only a few would go for custom specs. And only really well organised server operators would get a regular crowd to such servers any disorganised ones would just die a natural death

Of course the option selected for each server would have to be clearly seen in the server list too btw

Another idea that would work well in conjunction with this would be within LFS when you click on a server the next screen also has a link to that servers optional website where the rules and details of the spec class can be viewed.

Another idea would be that a server could host and distribute setups for use on its servers.

Last edited by Glenn67, Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:50. Reason : light bulbs

Quote from -M- :

Anyway it's always possible to calibrate the clucth so you can activate it at 100% with very low pressure...

Yeah I'm beginning to think the only way to get a fair system that is dificult to circumvent is for LFS to detect the range of raw numbers that an axis churns out and then add a dampening factor if it is too small or too quick (this could be applied to all axis) and the button clutch and autclutch should use identical routines for the actual simulated press of the clutch. That would then encourage alot more people to make full use of their hardware.

Last edited by Glenn67, Wed, 6 Aug 2008 09:45.

If you treat LFS as a game then you will use the fastest "legal" means available to you while if you treat it as a sim then you will use the most realistic method available which may or may not be fast.

I personally sit on the fence abit here, while I'd love to persue realism to the nth degree many times I don't so as to remain some what competitive and also to keep the peace in my household. People like bladerunner inspire me to just go full hardcore though and once I have built a sim racing cockpit I'll likely never look back

Quote from AjRose :

I would think it would mostly be used by leagues.

Yes I was meaning for use within leagues and for setting up specialty servers, not for use with average servers. Most real life serries have limitations of some sort, having the broad setup options we have now remain but allow server operators to set spec's for the classes of car they want to run adds alot more flexibility.

If the developers decided to limit setup options overall a neat way of doing it would be to allow the full range of setup options in an unlimited class, have a default class for what they felt was appropriate for the majority of online racing and have a custom class for server oporators to create spec serries racing.

I'd at least like to see server side restrictions for setup variables implemented at some point.

That way we could easily setup a server to run a "spec" serries like a mazda miata serries based on the RAC which would lock most setting within certain ranges to emulate a mazda miata but still allow for some setup choices that are realistic for that spec. That would open up a huge amount more variation within LFS online community

Quote from Mazar :

JA higher pressure/over pressured tyre will flex less, so heat less. However the higher pressure tyre will likely overheat the tyre surface and underheat the carcass or ''inner core'' due to increase slide/slip, thus reducing its grip even more.

Could you get away running a higher pressure with say a very soft compound of rubber than normal. That's the grey area for me were I can see it may be possible to turn common practise on its head Soft compound with grooved tyres might still generate heat in a beificial way if the rubber treads are flexing enough to heat the tyre evenly, and in F1 they probably don't want the tyre walls heating alot as that would effect the feel of the car too much.

Quote from Ped7g :

I wonder how good the real race drivers are with controlling those micro-slides

Your inbuilt gyro in your inner ear is very sensitive and real race drivers would be tuned into it even more, I'd say that it is much easier for a rl race driver to detect and correct micro slides than it for a sim racer with his butt on an office chair listening for tyre scrub sound or visual cues Most quick sim racers are good at predicting when oversteer is likely to happen and correcting before they actually detect it

Quote from Hallen :

I don't know why this is for sure, but from practical experience in standard cars and from spending time in the paddock with race cars, typically, high pressure=a hotter tire in a shorter time. Lower pressures=a tire that takes longer to heat up and get "to pressure and temperature".

One explanation I've seen for that is that your tyres are just an extention of your cars suspension and having a higher pressure is equivelalent to having stiffer suspension which equals the tyres tacking more load thus working harder (pushed into the road surface) with heat being the by product of work. I've read that autocross drivers use higher pressures than race drivers as their runs are very short and want to get heat into there tyres fast - higher pressures would also make their cars more responsive.

I've also read that tyres are a significant part of the total body roll in a road car. I'd be curious to analyse just how much LFS tyres play in body roll in LFS and how that compares to RL. Also I would be curious to investigate contact patch behaviour under different pressures. In LFS you get the distinct impression that lower pressure equals more grip, where in RL it would seem that the situation is not so straight forward.

Last edited by Glenn67, Mon, 4 Aug 2008 13:24.

I think the title of this thread should be "Lerts unpluged - ideas and theories"

Quote from arco :

Imagine in hotlapping, two equally fast drivers are doing the same combo. Both are using autoclutch, and have done a lap at the very edge of what is possible. The time difference between their laps is, lets say, 0.08s. Now the one that is 0.08s behind switches to macro/button clutch and instantly do a lap 0.3s-0.4s better. How is that not a huge advantage? And there is also the issue of more clutch wear when using autoclutch.

Now imagine the same senerio with someone like balderunner who uses axis clutch and shifter also imagine if more than 50% of LFS's used such a setup. How is it not the case you using an autoclutch doesn't give you a huge advantage over him? Even more so if you have a G25 but don't use the shifter/clutch. I know it's his choice to use that controller method, but it's also your choice to use autoclutch. It seems to me that if something disadvantages the majority it's a called cheat but if it only disadvantages a minority it's ok.

As you know I agree there is a big problem at the moment in the disparity of the autoclutch over the button clutch and I'm hoping it will be fixed.

I just personally draw the line at calling the use of a macro a cheat when it can't be clearly demonstated as the cause of the advantage. Go back to when S2 was first released and at that time there was no clear advantage of using a macro because the button clutch and autoclutch worked in much the same way. Between then and now something has changed in the way the autoclutch operates to give it a distinct disadvantage.

Quote from Bladerunner :

@Glenn67...are you by any chance a macro user? You seem to be very vociferous in defending them!

Believe it or not I don't care at all about macro users, well I care about it at the exact same level as unrealisticly low deg of wheel rotation, low max brake pressure, unrealistic setups,etc, etc. It's a controller config or setup choice that is there even if it is unrealistic imo.

Using a macro clutch I'd venture to say gives less gain than an individual setting their deg of wheel rotation low and if you take out the differences of autoclutch not acting as it should then the difference between the speed gain of low wheel rotation and a macro are light years apart.

I have seen many well respected drivers in the past (I'm talking 2004 era) use a macro clutch and these are drivers that were dead against cheating.
I just get very bemused at how when things swing around and become politically incorect by the majority how aggressive and forcefull the mob becomes against those that don't do what "they" believe is right.

Don't get me wrong I don't mind people having a different opinion then me, I just get concerned when I start to see life time bans and possies being raised to go and hunt down all those dreadfull nasty cheats. I find the whole thing rather unpalatable which prods me to investigate further and try to bring some balance to peoples views. I believe I have done that to some degree.

The bonus is I may have uncovered a bug in the autoclutch which might get fixed and all autoclutch users would then get a better experience in LFS than they do now.

Quote from migf1 :

glenn: can't make it more clear to you, sinbad did too... the macro is an EXTERNAL AUTOMATION... that's the fundamental thing to call it a cheat. The others you keep referiring too are of secondary importance.

ok so programming your controller to make it easier to access and change settings in the F11 & F12 screens is a cheat? Or using logitec profiler to adjust the profile of your clutch axis is a cheat? Hmm what about using teamspeak to chat to team mates about race strategy, or using the analog gauges to give you a different view of your gauges to whats standard or modifying sound files to enable you to hear skid sounds more clearly or using logitec profiler to adjust deg of wheel rotation or using an insim app to be a pit spotter. I could go on.

The fact is I've proven that it is not the macro that gives the clear advantage here. The macro is not what makes macro shifting faster than autoclutch. In fact it is not faster it's just that the button clutch does a better job of simulating a clutch movement than the autoclutch. And if the autoclutch behaved as it did back in patch P this whole discussion would not be occuring as the differences between button clutch and autoclutch would be so miniscual the topic would have never been raised.

To me the deciding factor if an external app is a cheat is if it interferes with LFS within resident memory. A logitec profiler macro doesn't interfere with LFS at all.

Quote from sinbad :

The button operated autoclutch should operate as slowly as the autoclutch. There is no reason at all why it shouldn't. There also is no realism discussion to be had. 3 pedals is realistic, everything else is unrealistic. No grey area.

But it does operate more slowly than a manual clutch and it is pretty much the same speed as the autoclutch. It is just that the autoclutch doesn't behave like a clutch should and therefore gives a poorer result to the button clutch which is behaving how a clutch should.

Don't you think it at all odd that the autoclutch goes instant on (i.e. digital - 1 physics cycle) where the button clutch takes 0.05 sec (5 physics cycles) to reach 100% disengagement.

btw go do a clean install of S2 patch P and see if you can see a difference between how the autoclutch and button clutch operate

Last edited by Glenn67, Tue, 5 Aug 2008 10:14. Reason : for clarity

Quote from 510N3D :

just out of curiosity, where did you got those values from?

From page ten

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=869589#post869589
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=869939#post869939
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=869993#post869993
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=879443#post879443

Which are the results of tests I did myself as well as analysing worms example wr macroshift run and kaynd's posted replays of tests he did. The manual clutch times I achieved fairly comfortably on the drag strip with a G25 wheel I think it would be possible to do even quicker clutch times with practise.

Quote from migf1 :

I think people that use the macro are cheaters

I added that line just for you

Quote from migf1 :

Here we go again, tha macro is external to LFS!

Prove to me that a macro gear change is faster than using the button clutch by a margin as great as the difference between autoclutch and button clutch and you have won. I'll only concede that a macro is a cheat when you do

Quote from lil chris :

Is it easy to tell if the person is using the macro or just shifting really fast with button clutch?

It's impossible to tell even at x 0.125 slow motion in a spr replay, so definately you would not be able to deterine it online or from an mpr.

Quote from sinbad :

But that would be a completely different thing from the current button clutch. If a car has a clutch like that then the game should ask you how you wish to operate it. If a car has a pedal operated clutch, you should not be able to gain an advantage by operating it with a digital on/off button tap.

That's just it though at the moment the button clutch actually operates more closely to reality (but is still slower than manual clutch) and the autoclutch is the one that is not operating correctly.

Auto clutch currently acts as follows:

1. digital on (instant on less than 0.01 sec)
   
2. 100% engaged 0.10 sec
   
3. Tappered decline 0.10 sec
   

Button clutch currently acts as follows:

1. Tappered on 0.05 sec
   
2. 100% engaged 0.05 sec (can vary slightly)
   
3. Tappered decline 0.10 sec
   

Manual clutch currently acts as follows:

1. Tappered on 0.05 sec
   
2. 100% engaged 0.05 sec
   
3. Tappered decline 0.05 sec
   

It's just in this case the bug in the autoclutch is giving people a time penatly. So we wouldn't call using the autoclutch an exploit (I'm sure we would if it gave an advantage, although would we as everyone could use it :really.

So why oh why are people still insisting on calling the button clutch or even macro shifting an exploit when it is clearly the autoclutch which is behaving incorrectly and that the button clutch is actually more realistic and correct? (oh I know it's because the majority are using autoclutch )

I think all people that use the autoclutch are nubs and don't appreciate realism, much the same way that automatic uses are nubs

How anyone can call this a cheat or exploit is beyond me with the current facts at hand

I agree that at the moment the autoclutch users are at a disadvantage, but it's not because of the existence of macro shifting, it's not because the button clutch operates digitally it is because of the auto clutch it's self is wrong.

The autoclutch gives you a disadvanatage the button clutch does not give you an advantage!

So to go around branding button clutch and macro users as cheats and dishing out life time bans is something I would be very cautious of doing, and I say that as an autoclutch user.

The majority is not always correct, take off your blinkers guys...

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Er... where do you expect grip to come from, other than friction?

Tyre grip comes from two main sources both combine to the give total grip of the tyre.

One is friction (the grip you have when a tyre is spinning comes purely from friction) the other is mechanical grip (this is the effect of the rubber being pressed against the road taking the shape of the tarmac and thus giving a mechanical "grip")

The amount of grip a tyre gives from mechanical and friction is determined by surface type, temperature and compound of the tyre. The way a tyre heats and cools will also be partly determined by the above factors.

I'm pretty sure that the way LFS tyres heat and cool is not 100% correct along with limited contact patch modeling, which then gives unrealistic grip at extremes (i.e. too lower pressure irl would lead to tyre contact patch distortions and tyre damage thus reducing grip considerably).

In F1 there is more variables to consider as changing the tyre pressure has a significant impact on the overal suspension frequency response the car has, compared to say changing the tyre pressurse in a road car.

Tyres irl get heat from several means (friction, tyre deformation, radiated heat from brakes, etc) and although LFS mimics this I don't necessarily believe it is in the correct ratio in all circustances. I have read also several times (from reputable sources) that higher pressures can give more grip. It all depends on the surface conditions, weather conditions and more importantly the rubber compounds used.

If for example the rubber is very soft then perhaps a large amount of the grip and heat is being generated by friction, it would then make sense that in an F1 car higher pressures would generate more heat as it would make the whole car stiffer and increase the effect of tyre friction.

My suspision is F1 tyres rely more heavily on grip generated by friction than you would expect the case to be in a road car.

Quote from arco :

So the hotlap analyzer on lfsworld is in reality useless?

Well no it's not useless, it does what it was intended to do and that is give newcomers a tool to better their driving. It's just not very good for this type of detailed analysis

Quote from acro :

Anyway, after reading about the tests you've done (which someone else obviously hasn't), I'm pretty much agreeing with your findings. As it is now, autoclutch seems to be at a clear disadvantage compared to the other methods.

it seems that there is a direct correlation to how long a post is too how little people are willing to read it!