Quote from richo :

The GTI's guys had to use go-jacks to get the cars back into there pit area but they said it was the norm for there class of racing to weld the diff centers up.

I don't mind the locked diff remaining if it behaves as the way you discribe it. Can't turn the thing in pit lane as it is now it is far too easy to drive with a locked diff.

My father used to race a mini at the speedway back in the '70s, he ran it with welded locked diff, front and rear sway bars, modifed camber and was on slicks, so similar to alot of sets in LFS. He used to win alot of races and had a knack of driving the thing. When he eventually retired from racing the car he sold it onto another fellow competitor who was used to RWD cars he most likely ran with welded diffs as well so wasn't unfamilar with them.

The new owner accused my old man of sabortaging the winning mini as he couldn't drive it no matter how much he tried He would just come flying up to the first corner and carry straight on ahead up the embankment as he couldn't get the thing to turn.

Locked diffs should not be easy to drive imo. My old man had a particular technique for setting up the car (I suspect it had something to do with wieght shift to lift the front inside wheel) to have the right attitude in the bends which enabled him to have maximum power down for most of the lap, where competitiors in much more powerful RWD cars couldn't get down all there power.

Quote from AndroidXP :

To get better data we would need a virtual tyre test rig, where you can set wheel speed, load, camber slip ratio and slip angle of the tyre and extract a RAF out of it.

Didn't Scawen say he was going to code a virtual tyre test rig up at some stage if you ask him really nicely

Quote from Hallen :

However, the reason I end up using a locked diff sometimes is the engine bog down problems. You hit your brakes, the engine bogs down, and you end up with this weird skid problem. It only happens on LSD cars and usually only happens if you are turning just a little bit (ie trail braking or a slight bend in the brake zone). It is not so bad if you are going perfectly straight.

That was a major problem for me with the LSD before patch X30, I used to use high preload to avoid it (i.e. 200 - 400)

With the new engine intertia improvements I have found this problem to be almost non existent now Since X30 I've been setting up the LSD with 20-30 Power Locking, 30-40 coast locking and 20-60 Prload with very good results.

That is the aspect of the new patch that caught most of my attention initially

I personally think we must be pretty close to phasing out the Locked Diff from LFS as the LSD seems pretty good since X30. It was only ever put in there for comparison, it wasn't ever ment to be a viable alternative to the LSD There is simply no need for it anymore. People will not like it though as it will take some time for people to relearn how to setup up a car

So I agree fully with Axus, I suspect he might know that though

Quote from beefyman666 :

I do prefer analog guages (which I voted for) but for the GTR cars (and for a little bit of realism) they need digi race dashes.

Point taken, I'm not against a digital dashboard being used were it would fit with real world equivilents either especially since I drive mostly the LX6 and standard road cars mostly

Quote from beefyman666 :

Done a quick photochop. I can dream 'til it happens.

Digital dashboards were the worst inovation ever in production cars and should be left back in the 80's were they belong I cant begin to say how ugly they were in comparison to a nice set of analogs why do you think most sensible car maufactures reverted back to analog so quickly the public outcry against digital gauges was deafening!

Maybe it's not the same in LFS but irl analogs are far more easily read at a glance than a digital read out.

Hmm what I really want for xmas is a set of real analog gauges linked to LFS via outgauge

Quote from dmwright :

Lol, but I really coundn't really really imagine that could you . Especially in real road cars . I was wondering if it was you who voted for No speedo but... You already have voted

Matty

Hmm I'm getting a reputation it's totally unwarranted I tell you

Quote from dmwright :

LMAO - lol that's insane all together

Not really if I hadn't already voted I'd have at least considered it myself definately RPM should be much more prominante in race cars than speedo. It's just the road cars that would more likely have a speedo than a large RPM dial.

Quote from Mazz4200 :

Be grateful, if Gunn had his way we'd have no cars post 1969

Well what would be wrong with that as lad the belief that real cars stopped being produced between 1967-1972 was firmly implanted. That did remain true for about 20 years imo

Last edited by Glenn67, Sun 16 Dec 2007, 00:06.

Quote from Bandit77 :

- a bloody bad suspension with a lot of body roll and too hard a front

Well that statment might fit with chassis flex not being modeled yet, chassis flex has a big impact. Irl they deliberately take measure to reduce its effects in race preped cars so should make a noticable difference to road car type handling when it is implemented at some future stage

Quote from sidi :

I would prob agree with most of that apart from the realistic diff, just done some offline testing with xrt and i'm finding that locked diff is still faster, maybe i need to test more.

It is possible that the locked diff will still be faster especially in hotlaps, what whould be interesting though is to compare locked diff vs a realistic lsd setup over a long race 40-60 laps, and see how it is with clutch heat and tyre wear now

I also see that with the new improvements the lack of chassis and drive train flex is rearing its head again. That's actually a good sign, and I'm sure that will be addressed in a future patch, at that time I believe we will be much closer to rl setup parameters than ever.

I believe most if not all of the issues with the digital speado that people are having are from developing bad and unrealistic habits in the first place.

It should also be noted that Pre X30 setups are really not valid in X31/Y anymore

Pre X30 I'd have agreed with the digital speedo outcry, infact I used to use it all the time and have since S1H in 2004 along with custom wheels view. All for the same reasons as being stated here now about needing compensation for FOV and lack of feel limitations that a sim cant give.

I have found that you can now setup cars far more realisticly than before (i.e. less camber, slightly higher tyre presasures, softer spring rates and realistic diff use. Also with engine changes gears need adjusting) but if you do all that all the cars I've tried so far give far more indication and predictability at the limit than before with a FFB wheel. So much so that I don't miss the digital speado for a sec now

Real life racing - including qualifying - is much more less predictable than a sim. Sim tracks are still relatively smooth and don't change much from lap to lap. Real tracks change dynamicly from lap to lap. Rubber builds up on the racing line to give extra grip in the dry but less in the wet. Rubber fragments build up off the racing line to reduce grip. Sand is brought onto the track whenever a car reenters from an off. Temperature changes affect grip etc etc

So irl you cant race with a digital speado like is described, not because it not possible to have an accurate digital speado fitted to a race car, but because the track conditions are live and vary alot compared to a sim and it's simply unrealistic to expect the same grip lap after lap (therefore same speed at apex) irl

Another point to note is the pre X30 digital speedo wasn't a hundred percent accurate. At one stage it was as it just told you the exact velocity of the car at any given moment, but several versions ago that was changed so that the speedo gave you what the wheels were recording. So if the wheels were spinning it would report higher than actual speed. Likewise when driving at the limit your tyres do have some slip and the speed isn't accurate. At that time there was an outcry also, because it would be so much harder, but as time went on people adjusted to it.

I don't see it any different now if everyone is in the same environement its a level playing field, the aliens will still be aliens and people will adjust. But what I do see as very promising is that this "race simulator" is getting closer to being a race simulator and less a game with good physics and imo that is a good thing

I'm personally looking forward to a time when the tracks are much more variable too

Quote from Flycantbird :

Why do all the obvious bits get glossed over so frequently ?
(rhetorical)

I've wondered that myself alot in the last few days.

After 10mins of test driving I'd already concluded that the lsd diff's could be set much more like real life now and that cambers could come down from there extreames of pre X30 as well as gear ratios and even tyre pressures need readjusting.

Fantastic progress so far in my view Scawen I find all the cars that much more believable and can only look forward to the future of LFS with newfound promise as you develop the sim futher.

Quote from Scawen :

As you say, they don't simulate the individual firings at the moment, their power comes from a calculated torque curve creating an effect similar to reality but not detailed and interesting enough to be how we'd like it to be in the end. The same goes for the turbo simulation of course. And the clutch will be worked on at some point as well. LFS just gradually gets more and more detailed as time goes on.

Quote from Gnomie :

I tried it on South City Chicane Route, and it felt really awesome! Good job! I never tried a road going set before, but it was really fun to just drive around in the sunset, looking at the great work the devs have put down on this track. I really liked the FFB your set gives -- feels just right IMO. I'll use it for some laps like that when I need to relax after a race!

Don't thank me it's Bobs set I only changed it slighty.

If you liked that you might also like to try the track day version I made of it also.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=628560#post628560

The reason I'm posting them is for Niels and anyone else that might know what a street car of similar specs would feel like at the track to compare. To me they feel pretty good

Maybe the trackday set is what you should get data from next Android as it has closer to RL setup values

Quote from JTbo :

Club's first open track day:

You are free to use setup of choice, as long as it is realistic

Here is my contribution to the track day

Its a road going set adjusted appropriatly for track day driving while still being a comfortable street car. Is that realistic enough

I'll post the road going set also.

I got one of Bobs old road going sets for the XRG and modded it abit for how I think a RL standard street car would be. Changed gear ratios even more than Bob had and fiddled with the suspension slightly to what I think would be a common settings for a street car

The end result is attatched try it and let me know what you think.

XRG_Road Going.set

Last edited by Glenn67, Thu 13 Dec 2007, 16:28. Reason : Updated set

I'm finding that the engine inertia improvements have changed car handling dramatically - far more than I envisaged. With that though far more realistic diff setups are possible while still having a quick car unlike before.

Would be interesting to get Bobs original road going setups and port them into X30 to see how they handle now compared to similar cars in RL

Quote from Breizh :

The speedometer should be legible.

Well if your willing to sacrifice some realism for legibility then just set to virtual dials you can see clearly then

Quote from Tweaker :

Nah, two different things.

I always thought there was a default racing groove there before it gets changed by human path updates which I assumed was what the AI racing line would emulate. Ah well another assumption dispelled
Anyway it would still be interesting if the AI could see the racing groove and learn from there human counter parts

I haven't even turn it on or know how. But I'd has a guess that it is based pretty much on the old racing line that was there in rubber laid down anyway maybe it gets updated with other cars path data as well that would be interesting for AI being trained by human drivers. But I dought it.

Quote from danben7 :

um, where do you download it from?

It's currently a test patch so its not yet offically released.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=34749

Quote from mrodgers :

Weird how it can be so small of a change visually, yet so large in driving. I'm not saying it is unnoticeable visually, just very suttle.

And in that you have just hit upon one of the keys of going faster even very subtle changes in racing line can make a significant difference which is why you so often hear "but I'm doing the exact same lines as you and...."

XFG and BL1 was the first combo I tried as always and wasn't yet at one with the clutch. Yeah the end of striaght punnishes alot if you go abit too wide its less flowing like that but more techincal.

I liked the old one cause I could drive it in my sleep bit like watching TV I could turn off and just relax.

The new track layout will just take time too get used too and then it will be the same no dought, just got to break all those old electrical connections in my brain and rewire them for the new layout overall I like it and think it will be good for more fun races.

Engine inertia, clutch and locked diff will change XFG characteristic dramatically with old type sets. It will require a complete change in setup behaviour I believe. thats the car

Then the track has changed more than is easy to see. It's narrower so alot of the corners can't be taken quite as fast as previous and then there is the major change after the end of straight leading into the second chicane. At least a second to two seconds difference there now I think. I've only tried about a dozen laps there and used to do 133xx was getting 137-138 so wouldn't feel that bad about 139xx

I've only done about 20 laps in FBM mostly LX6 for me still love that car. Bettered my previous pb on SO Classic with LX6 last night after fiddling with the new RaceS set. SO tracks and LX cars are truely heaven now

Last edited by Glenn67, Thu 13 Dec 2007, 04:12.

Quote from kaynd :

anyway I hate locked diffs… I have removed them from all my sets for any car, since the addition of preload after patch W

I did the exact same thing
I do agree that the XFG clutch seems abit too weak, but its seems to be XFG related so probably just an adjustment on that car is needed. Also your probably right in that the friction heat build up is abit off at lower rpm, maybe accross the board haven't tested myself


One thing that has always bothered me in LFS is that mid to low rpm always "sounds like" its too low compared to RL. I mean if I go in my car and hold it at 2000rpm it sounds like 4000rpm in lfs or there abouts, so I think it gives a false impression that it is low rpm when its not. I have noticed an improvement in that in this patch but it still gives me that impression

Are the people that find clutches easy to burn all using lock diff?

I think you will find any high locking diff will now put alot more strain on the clutch causing it to overheat at least that is my impression.

The UF1 has an open diff most people driving the XFG are still probably trying to use the locked diff try the LSD with medium to low locking and see if your results are much different.

I agree though that the XFG does seem to be a little too sensitive.

A few comments though in a real life car slipping the clutch on a slope at average 2000 rpm isnt low rpm a normal hill start probably wouldn't use much more than 1200rpm if that, also first gear in a rl street car would be much much lower so less bite would be needed to keep car stationary.

But I get your point and yes I think it probably needs a little fine tunning. Like BBT said its probably just the heat curve that need fine tunning on some cars. And also people will need to adjust setups to siut new situation, and on thinking about it, its probably this later senerio that is more true as we have got away with quite unrealistic setup before.

Last edited by Glenn67, Thu 13 Dec 2007, 03:31.

Quote from Riders Motion :

they all suggest 50 psi for STREET USE. I

Max tyre pressure does not equal optimum tyre pressure optimum tyre pressure has not so much to do with the tyre itself but rather the loads and conditions the tyre is running under.

A street car with normal street tyres (not performance) may have a suggested pressure of 27-32psi but thats with an empty car with driver and a passenger maybe at speeds under 120km/h. They would suggest if the car is going to be loaded more on a regular basis to increase this by 4psi, also if you intend to drive at speeds above 120km/h it is generally recommended to increase tyre pressure by 4psi, but this is mainly to reduce the wear on the tyre not necessarily for any porformance gain.

In reality the correct pressure is determined depending on track condition, weather condition and the load/speed the tyre is subjected too, not so much the rated pressure on the tyre.