The ECCI pedals are great. They are expensive, and you do have to do quite a bit of assembly when you get them, but they are worth it. Metal construction, great feel, and they can be compatible with MOMO and DFP wheels (or anything else using the USB option).

I use 720° and a comp of 1 in LFS. This allows for exact synchronization with the game and the car.
I can't remember all my FF settings, but they are pretty low. I find 0's in the controller and 100% in LFS is a bit much.
The biggest problem I have is catching the whip back spin after you catch the first slide. Trying to turn the wheel back quickly after you catch a slide and the car is starting to spin back to where it should be is difficult. You really have to fight the FF as it gets very stiff. I usually end up spinning in the opposit direction from the original slide.

For the money, the DFP wheel is great. It has some notchyness when you have the Force Feedback cranked way up, but normally it does not. I also rely on the FF to drive now and can't imagine living without it. It makes all the cars feel different too. Without FF, you would not get that, all the cars would feel about the same.
I do have the ECCI pedals, and they are awesome. I love the feel, and the brake is so much better than the DFP pedals.
You do get what you pay for, and I would get the ECCI wheel if it had some form of FF. However, if I get a chance to try the ECCI wheel with LFS, it might change my mind. They do make great products.
I expect to replace my DFP sometime this year. I expect it just plain wear out. I have about 40,000 miles of race driving on it now. The pedals failed months ago. I could fix them, but don't bother because of the ECCI pedals I have.

Osoi is like the Iceman from the movie Top Gun. He just wears you down
I watched via Spectate and was chearing Osoi on. It was very exciting. Osoi commented on what a great finish it was and that he had a good time racing against you.

There might be something internally wrong with the DFP wheel or there might be some kind of a Windows/USB driver problem.

I have a sticking gas pedal now. It acts like it totally loses calibration. The pedal will act like it is stuck on, and other times it will not come on when pressed.

Here is the kicker, I have ECCI 6000 pedals. There is nothing wrong with the hardware. The pedals are connected to the DFP using the 9-pin dsub connector on the back of the DFP.

If I unplug the dsub, and reconnect it without doing anything else, the pedals start working correctly again. But only for a random period of time.

This happens using other games too, not just LFS.

I can close LFS and use either the Windows Controller panel or DXTweek, and watch the pedal stick and hesitate. It clears as soon as I disconnect the cable and reconnect it.

I am at a loss to explain it. I may have to get the HDUSB kit from ECCI and bypass the wheel completely for the pedals. I need to check continuity of the wires from the pedal to the dsub connector, but they have not been crimped or chewed on so I suspect it is OK.

One of the reasons I got the ECCI pedals is that the DFP pedals were erratic, but mostly with the brake, not the gas.

Also, check out the Wiki sticky post. It talks about all the settings, and has some great tips in it.

Cool, another NW racer !

That is the biggest problem that I run into. Most of my friends and associates are very busy people. Families, work, and other hobbies. What I try to do is get them to trade some of their normal hobbie time for LFS time. Unfortunately, I have had little success yet. My brother would be a perfect candidate, but he refuses to admit that he is interested.
I have one friend who I am sure I can get addicted to LFS (god, now I am a pusher). He really likes GT4, but that is because it is quick and easy. He does not have to worry about setups and it is easy to get the game out and play. Plus, he just moved so he has been very busy.

I think the most important thing is to share your online racing experiences with them. Talk about the community of people and how important that is to the game. Talk about teams and how you can meet more people and make more friends just by racing LFS. I have!

I am learning it now in the FOX. It is a good track, but except for drafting on the long (semi) straights, the passing opportunities are few.

I do hate the chicane that comes off of the oval and back onto the road course. It is too easy to cut and jump over it. I can take it at 125mph when I am hot lapping but only 110mph if I want to be consistent. It either needs to be a tighter turn with higher curbs, or it needs to be opened up into a sweeper.

Nice system.

I use the X700 on a Pentium 4 3GHz with 1.5GB RAM. I have a 75Hz refresh rate but I rarely see that high of a rate. It is usually around 60+-5.
Did you set the Vertical synch on? Does that make any changes?
It would seem that you should be able to get much higher frame rates than you are seeing. But unfortunately, I am out of suggestions. Sorry.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Assuming they're all imported, I suppose that would have something to do with it. It's not that expensive anyway is it? Compare it to the cars that it will completely wipe the floor with on-track, and it's a total bargain.

No, the price was off their website at about 13,000 Pounds. I just did a guestimate conversion to $.

I think it is a fun little car, and given the right track with the right people, it is still a hoot to race. I think that Fern Bay offers the best tracks for this car. Unfortunately, I also think that Fern Bay also has the slickest pavement.

Honestly, still the best racing I have had in S2 have been in the LRF cars and the GTi and GT, still. The GTR's are awesome and fun, but I just don't quite feel right in them yet. The FOX can be a blast, try it on Aston Cadet, you'll break a sweat

OLFSL started it's current season on Blackwood with the GT and GTi. Unfortunately, the GT now seems to be outclassed by the GTi by almost a second on BL1. Still, I am very comfortable in both cars and lap pretty well in them. It was a heck of a good race.

OT
I was looking at the Caterham web site. Why the heck are those cars so bloody expensive? Even the kit built ones are over $22,000 US for the basic model.

The FPS will not match your screen refresh if your CPU and your GFX card can't keep up.

Quote from Fonnybone :

For the more macho, rwd will always be the man's choice where fwd is
for girl's.

Rambling OFF.

You were doing great until that last comment

not "girl's" choice, its the "girley" choice

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Don't know about LFS but in the real world I can explain how trail braking works and is something I do to avoid understeer at the turn in point. Tristan is quite right in saying that it can't be done on a car that oversteers off throttle near max speed for the corner. In this case you don't need to trail brake, just lift off. I've tried setting fast times with my Golf set up like this but it just leads to inconsistency unless you have awesome driving skills. Better to have it set up to only oversteer under braking. Much easier for drivers with limited experience, like myself, I admit it

When you hit the brakes this compresses the springs and shifts the weight to the front of the car. So, you are heading towards the turn in point of a corner and braking hard to get your speed down. If you try to turn in whilst hard on the brakes you will slide. This is because the tyres only have a limited amount of grip to give. At this point you are using all the grip (longitudinal) to slow the car, so if you turn, the tyres need some grip (lateral) but none is available because you are already using it to brake. This concept is known as the traction circle.

So, you reach turn in and start to lift off the brakes slightly as you turn in. this releases some of the tyres available grip for turning. There is energy stored in the springs because they have been compressed by your braking. As you release the brake, this energy is released and the spring a) pushes on the topmounts, lifting the front of the car back to its static height, b) pushes down on the hubs pushing the tyre into the track surface. This gives more grip and this is trail braking. It may also have the affect of reducing grip at the back, giving you slight oversteer to help you get the nose of the car to the apex.

So, as you turn in, you trail the brake slightly until you reach the apex, avoiding understeer.

Want to know about 'hinting'? Doubt it's been programmed into the game though.

That is a wonderful explanation. You really need to add that to the manual Wiki.

I doubt that "hinting" is actually programmed in with bushing preloads and play, but I find that it will help depending on setup. The program definitely models weight shift, and a bit of a hint can preload tires and start the weight shift so it is not so violent, which will usually keep your tires stuck to the pavement.

Quote from Gabkicks :

i still can get in 1:33's with normals and probably 1'32s. i've heard people who get wr times use hybrids because they can hold a higher max g.

The hybrids get used in the rear. I think they give more grip back there because they actually come up to temperature. They use road normals up front. At least the set I got is that way. It is pretty darned fast.

Do yourself a favor and check out Bob Smith's Easy Race Setups for the street cars. They are generally well balanced and provide an excellent base for learning on. If the GT had horrible oversteer, it was most likely the set.

The line, throttle and braking control are all important. Subtle differences in throttle, braking points, braking pressure, and entry point make such a huge difference that you can hardly beleive it. I can run a high 1:32 on Blackwood with consistent low to mid 1:33's, but that comes with a ton of practice. I have over 17k online miles, and I have more than that off-line. I must have raced over 1000 laps on Blackwood (or so it feels), so you can't expect to be turning 1:31's in a few days.

Sets are important, but you need to find a set that feels good to you, and stick with it. If you change sets a lot, you will never adjust and you will continue to struggle.

You are understeering when you try to go faster into turns like the WR guys do because you're not using the same turn-in point, throttle or braking as the WR guys are. It could be the set if it is really bad, but I guarantee you it is mostly your technique. Don't take that as a dis, it just the way it is. We are all in hunt of the perfect lap, most of us non aliens never quite get there. I drove the default setup to a low 1:34 when I thought I had grabbed a set sent by my teammate. Shoot for getting consistent low 1:35's. You will be quite competitive at that speed on a lot of servers and in the lower pools of several leagues.
Look at the hotlap charts. How many drivers do you see there with 1:31's? Not that many when you compare it to how many people own LFS. That is because IT IS HARD TO DO. Don't get discouraged, you are doing fine. Keep at it.

Oh, and one more point. Blackwood is EVIL. It is evil because it is the one track every single driver has spent the most time on. It has been analyzed to death. People race it to death. Some guys can drive it with their eyes closed. The top hotlaps are insane.

[EDIT] WOW, there were no replies to your post when I started this message. I have got to learn to type faster! Good work guys![/Edit]

Last edited by Hallen, Mon, 17 Oct 2005 15:44.

If your frame rate drops through the floor on starts, it is more likely your processor or your lack of RAM that is causing the problem. Either way, the starts are the hardest thing to master and if you are laggy at the same time, you are going to have problems. Chances are, the people who were trying to kick you, were doing so because of your lag. If you lag, it slows other people down too. You get close to a laggy car sometimes and you start lagging too (or so it seems).

Trying to race close to a driver who is lagging is very, very hard to do. You basically have to get lucky to get around them. I had a driver who seemed to keep brake checking me going into turn 1. He was turning pretty good lap times, and he would always out accelerate me onto the back straight. When I watched the replay, I could not figgure out what I was thinking during the race. I was not that close to him, and he only really brake checked me once when he made a mistake. He was lagging from time-to-time. I think that was the problem more than anything else. At one point, I was riding in his car watching the replay, and the car disapeared, and my car from behind went charging through my virtual body in the now nonexisting car. It was very odd. He had lagged so bad that the replay went kind of goofy for a bit.

This is a long way of saying that you are going to need to get that framerate and potential lag problem fixed before you are going to have any success at starts. Try turning down your LOD settings. You will lose a lost of detail at times, but it will help with your frame rates. I have also found that shortening the Look Ahead distance helps.

You should watch server 2 replay, mid pack, the first 5 or 6 laps were pretty intense I think we had about 6 cars within .5 seconds of each other.

Nicely run. Servers started on time, an admin to answer questions, and a generally good race (at least for Pool #2).
Thanks for running the league guys! It is a lot of fun.

Quote from Don Merino :

Did he ever wonder how its suspension and wheels would take those 10 tons?

:doh: Never let logic stand in the way of a perfectly good fantasy :ices_rofl

If you have never driven a track/car combination before, practice it offline for a while first. Then don't be afraid to jump in and join the races on a server. Online is where this game realy, realy shines.

Also, don't be afraid to investigate some of the league races. Many of them qualify via hotlap and devide the racers onto different servers based on their hotlap speeds. This means you will be racing people of similar skill level most of the time. It makes for good racing and a lot of fun.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

Spitfire:

Their first car "Spitfire Mark I" was basically a carframe built around an engine of the infamous Spitfire fighter.

Whether it was famous or infamous depends on what end of it's 20mm cannon you were on. For marketing copy, you generally stay away from the negative.
For the logo, the destinctive feature of the Spitfire was it's rounded wing tips. If I were doing a logo, I would want to show that. It is unmistakeable. Plus, I think that Supermarine, or whoever holds the rights, might get a little upset about the whole thing. Cool idea though

Quote from skiingman :

An interesting case where the captain cares all about torque and HP is only a figure of academic interest is the PT6 (or probably about any turboshaft/constant speed prop setup) captain pays attention only to torque. Since his prop turns (more or less) at a constant speed, torque is all he needs to know. Its also the only thing that can be easily directly measured, which is probably why they have a torque gauge and not a power gauge.

Absolutely correct. The PT6A-65AR for example uses 3650lbft of torque at max continuous power, 3800lbft for takeoff and will go has high as 4400lbft for emergency power. It will put out more, but every second you are there, you run the risk of throwing a blade off a turbine. This is at a prop RPM of 1700 at takeoff and 1425 for cruise (1300 RPM is the minimum for cruise). The horsepower is somewhat meaningless because we need to factor in the properties and efficiencies of the prop, which produces the thrust.

And Tristian, the Captain does care how and why his engine works the way it does. The way it is measured may obscure the mechanics of it (use % power not actual numbers), but the pilots do know how the power and how much power is being produced.

hehehe


Multithreaded...



Awesome job there Scawen.
BTW, the next time you have a stuck tap, or bolt, try a product called PB Blaster instead of WD-40 (if you can get it where you live). It works much better and much faster.