Mod cars just need to have a bit more input into their own tyre properties (assuming it's possible in Scawen's physics model). The different brands are nice just for visual variety (although also unrealistic as almost all series are "spec" tyres at this point)
Also important to note that the compounds that LFS ships with are fairly generic. Like they're not shipping "drift" compounds or even oval compounds (in the case of the stock car mods).
Real life you have Goodyear bringing a different compound to nearly every track which will suit that tracks load and try to optimize the tyre to work its best (sometimes oo good becuase they have incredibly grippy rocks that never wear)
Scawen would need to implement XInput for control inputs along side directinput.
Probably not a huge priority as it would genuinely only apply to Xbox Controller as there's few other devices that would use XInput over DirectInput.
There is a more modern Microsoft input API as well called GameInput but I don't think it's really been battle tested. It was secretly deployed as a Windows update 6~ months ago and wrecked havoc becuase both device drivers and games weren't expecting it and it would hijack things like FFB from the game on window focus change and the best way to fix it was to disable the Windows Service for GameInput Runtime. Currently it's also not yet available in Windows SDK, just the Xbox GDK (also available on Windows) which I'm sure Scawen doesn't want to link against.
It's fixed in xinput (which pretty much exists just for Xbox Controllers) but XInput lacks a ton of features which LFS relies upon for input (like FFB).
Other sims implement both DirectInput and XInput and only use the latter for Xbox devices which is a reasonable solution to the issue.
For "compatibility reasons" though, Windows exposes the Xbox controller with combined triggers and many of those external apps basically just access the Xbox Controller as a XInput device and then proxy that back as a virtual DirectInput device.
DFP has a fairly slow motor that can't keep up with the expanded rotation.
Even the Logitech G wheels (bar G Pro) struggle to keep up with 900 degrees to make catching slides "easy". You have to help out and rotate the wheel as well.
You may find benefit in reducing the rotation so that the motor is able to respond "faster" compared to 900deg.
What do you think that you do when you put your GAME password into LFS?
You're authorizing your install to a website.
The website portion would just let you manage active licences which is more than what other DRM offers where it's this black box where occasionally you can't launch your game because it said so.
Maybe the unlock system is just too generous to allow users to activate LFS all the time?
Maybe it needs to be more ruthless and attach IDs to each unlock and automatically deactivate old unlocks from the Master Server at a certain limit (ie 3 unlocks and a new unlock invalidates the oldest from the master server). And then rather than give a new one each week, give a new one every month.
Adds support costs when people have issues and needs to ask for new unlocks, but presents a barrier in people sharing accounts.
Should also be noted that if a website does need to authenticate that you are who your LFS Username is, LFS does offer itself as an OAuth 2 provider to authenticate with and should integrate with that rather than asking for your direct credentials.
Not even the craziest use of game economies. For a while, people used Team Fortress 2 (and other Steam games) to launder money. Buy items with stolen credit cards and then sell them for real cash off-market. The volume of transactions was fairly high.
While it might be nice for LFS to send an email with an update, it doesn't sound like they're the ones breached and thus aren't compelled (and may not be compelled becuase outside of EU) to disclose a breach (as they haven't been breached).
Buddy, LFS has had its time in the sun for a long time. For a huge number of simracers, it was where they experienced online racing for the first time. Pro drivers, both virtual and real, cut their teeth in LFS.
LFS was big and while it's slowed down a lot, it's impossible to deny its significance in simracing. And despite 20 years of existing, no sim has managed to capture the magic of LFS' pickup multiplayer where a race was always available. Only iRacing comes close to the same magic, albeit with much more structure.
It might be beneficial to use a format like JSON that can easily be serialized/parsed into a nice object rather than an INI like this?
Then you don't need to worry about parsing the file. You can pretty easily just readFile => parse to object => <do thing> => serialize and write if modified
If you were looking to get to your destination quicker, SimHub might be an option too. It would allow you to build your own custom HTML/CSS/JS dashboard with SimHub handling the simulator communication for you.
Then you just need to load it up in a web browser on another monitor/phone/tablet and boom.