Quote from 96 GTS :

Yes, that's true, but I don't think the TBO class is race prepped, if you look around the cockpit, they still have radios and A/C units, the seats look normal to me, they still have rear seats. I don't know about carbon fiber hoods. I actually had never even thought of the cars as being race prepped, but if they are, the weight makes perfect sense.

Good point.:nerd:

hehehehe, I never thought I would see racers arguing for LESS hp.

Quote from 96 GTS :

Just a sidenote, but the cars in LFS are unnaturally light. There is no way that the AWD RB4 should be lighter than the very light Honda S2000 roadster. The FXO is lighter than the original Mazda RX-7 which was a tiny, tiny car. Just my oppinion, but I think all of the road cars in LFS need to be heavier by 500lbs.

Yes, but you are comparing a race prepped car to a stock car. Take out all the soundproofing, the spare tire, the AC, the radio, the headliner, pull the stuffing out of the back seats and add lightweight racing seats, put on lightweight carbon fiber hood(bonnet), and trunk lid, pull off anything else that you can do without. You will shave a lot of weight off of the car.
The Speed World Challenge E46 BMW 325 base weight is 2750lbs (the weight they are not allowed to go below). The stock car weight is something like 3252lbs. Hmmm, that is about 500lbs.

Setup makes such a huge difference on these cars. It will be very, very difficult to make an assessment without a whole lot of data with different setups and different tracks and different driver styles. But keep cracking at it, we will figure it out eventually.

hehehe, well, we sure managed to steal this thread.

and no, I am not a neocon-bushite (very creative btw ), but I probably am wrapped too tight.:bluegrab:

Quote from skiingman :

...Nope, its not. If it were "racing" about crossing the line first, there would not be such Pro Wrestling style moves as "free pass" and "green white checker". Its a spectator sport. Pro Racing, if you will. WWE and NASCAR are very similar in both conception and fanbase.

Fair enough. I am not a NASCAR fan either. I do watch it from time to time because it is the ONLY racing on the tube. But, don't confuse rules with lack of competition. Rules have always been there. Lets look at road racing. If a full course caution comes out with a pace car, and the P1 leader just passed you, but not the car in your class that you were only a second behind, guess what, you just lost a lap to that other car. If it happens the other way around, you gain a lap. The "free pass" in NASCAR was put in place after a safety rule change eliminated the chance of gaining laps back after one of their very frequent crashes. Even though it is still hype, and there is a lot to hate about NASCAR, it is still racing. But, I do understand your point, and I am very close to agreeing with you 100%. The most I can say now is that it is certainly dummied down racing to attract the widest possible fan base. I feel the same way about "Pro" Basketball.
Yes, road racing in the US is fragile. Series do come and then fade away. The problem has always been exposure. SPEED is the NASCAR channel, but they at least do show a lot of the ALMS races, the SWC races, Grand Am and of course the NASCAR owned Rolex GP series (which is road racing even though they use ugly spec cars). This is more exposure for road racing than ever before. I think the biggest shame is that a lot of cable companies put SPEED in with a extra-cost add on package along with a bunch of channels few racing fans want.

I don't think you need to cram all the different types of cars into one season. It makes it harder to get proficient when you are changing car types all the time. Having a season that covers the slowest cars up to the TBO or even the Sports car (LX6, RAC, FZ5) classes would be good in my opinion. The cars are reasonably similar to drive and offer a lot of good racing.

Sure, the faster cars are more sexy and they are a lot of fun and I do want to have league races with them. But, I do realize that we have time for this. It is not like we are all on time-limitted licenses. LFS ain't going away next summer, it will be here for a long time. We have the time to build different racing series that will be a lot of fun.

I really don't understand the mentality that Arcade Syle=American. Are you saying that Europeans don't play arcade style games? Are you saying that Europeans don't produce arcade style games? Are you saying that if it is unrealistic that it must be American and not European? Are you saying that only Europeans appreciate function over form?

Just because it may have more flash than substance does not equate with an entire country. It equates to your opinion of a particular object.

And if you are implying that the US has no "real" racing, then you really aught to give it a second look. NASCAR is NASCAR and the tracks may be boring, and there may be a lot of hype, but it is still cars going 200mph trying to be the first to cross a line. And no, not every American race fan is a NASCAR fan.
The ALMS is a great series. Le Mans style racing, using Le Mans rules and regulations. Geee, what happened at this year's Le Mans 24 Hr? A whole bunch of US ALMS teams won, and they took the Outright win too. In a European Audi R8 with a mix of drivers from around the world. What a wonderful thing.

Yes, I know the image that the US can project. Las Vegas/Hollywood style gauche flamboyant overkill. But please don't project that image onto all of America, it ain't like that. There are some people here that love good road racing, who appreciate nimble little cars like the BMW 2002, who love F1, and who do know the difference between flash and function.

Quote from al heeley :

Ah, an interesting idea, a LFS golf mod! No trolleys on the greens please!

I reckon a year or so after S3 is finished, people will be released the tools to do their own tracks, then produce sets of cars by group or 'class' as per the EA F1-type mods released. I can't see us playing golf in FZR's though, although a UF1 with the top off would be useful to follow round if full of cold beer.

UF1 Polo, I like it

Or, use the GTR's ast the club, and the UF1 as the ball

I think we all look forward to the day when we can work on mods for this sim. Racing on real tracks will be the first thing that hopefully gets done.

Go to the Dell refurbished site, snoop around and get a basic box for $300. You should be able to get at least a 2GHz machine for that kind of money. Use the monitor and graphics card that you have now.

The problem isn't the lack of a single player mute capability. The problem is the taggers that repeatedly spam. The solution is not to wait for the next patch, the solution is to kick or even ban abusers. This is a community problem and should be solved by us.

Personally, I rarely see this kind of behavior. If I do on my server, it is a warning and then a ban. If a person can't control themselves enough to stop spewing then they probably won't be worth racing against anyway. If you log onto my server and you imediatly spew out your "clan" information or some other nonsense, that will be your first warning. Do it again, and you are gone. It may sound a bit harsh, and there are exceptions, but a simple "Hello" when you log on will be all you need to say to be welcomed. Unfortunately, I cannot monitour my server 24-7, so it is bound to happen. If you have problems with people on my server, let me know, or send a replay.

Quote from avih :

well, ppl around 18-23 are at their top u know. from there onwards you start losing brain cells but gain experience.
if you look at proffesional racers, most are "young". 30 is starting to be considered as old. ppl at the army are young. proffesional sport players are young.

Ya, but just because you have more brain cells does not mean anything, you have to USE them too... and that is where the experience comes in :fence:

Quote from avih :

however, racing is a sport where experience can compensate for reaction time and that's why there are more older guys racing than, say, playing CS.

What makes you think old guys don't have the reaction speed? My feet are slower... but that is beacuse I am out of shape and heavier. I am just as quick as I ever was.

Young guys are the norm in professional racing? I would have to say that seems to be more of a trend now. But I think that has more to do with marketing and the maturity of ladder systems and the fact that kids start racing much ealier in life now, so they have the experience they need by the time they are 24. Plus, I think it ties back in with point #1, the proliferation of unused brain cells, and the certain knowledge that you are invincible illepall :eek:

In my earlier post I jokingly said that people in their 20's were kids to me. Well, that probably did not come across too well. They are young, but not really kids. I take each person, either online or off, based on the merrits of that person, not some silly guage like how many years you have been around. My point of the above comments, is the same but reversed.

You can now if you have a wheel that is programable. I have hazard, and left, right turn indicator buttons on my wheel.
But it would be nice to have the turn signals listed on the Control settings page. The hazard lights used to be there though.

A better implementation would be to have a simple text file with a list of user names in it. On startup, the file could be loaded by the server, or loaded using a /allowlist filename.txt command. It would be much easier for editing and much faster for reloading if you had a server go down.

Quote from Vykos69 :

LFS attracts at first the "non-conservative" Simracer, cause it came from a total different point of view. Ask any GPL freak, Nascar fan or whatever, to race you in the GTi. He wont.

Uh, gotta disagree there. I was a GPL... well not freak, but fan. I actually like NASCAR 2003. Both of those sims have more in common with LFS than there are real differences. It all comes down to good physics and good racing.

Quote from Vykos69 :

And that's the main reasons new people come to it, that's maybe also the reason some of "us" are fanatics when it comes to advertising the "own" Sim. Because LFS goes new ways, compared to the old and conservative ones of the simracing scene since years.

I think that is what keeps a lot of us here. I came in the first place because of the good physics modeling and the great online play. I stay because of the community and yes, because that feeling of connection with the developers that makes me (and all of us) part of the product. I really don't understand the "old and conservative" reference though. If by conservative, you mean established large companies that produce products for the largest possible demographics, then I could agree (but think that "conservative" is an odd way of describing that), and "old" is always relative

Quote from durbster :

You've missed my point there though, I wasn't suggesting a difference in the functionality of the interface, just purely how it looks. You could have exactly the same menus, layout, buttons, sliders etc., but presented in a sort of Microsoft Visual Basic style the whole product would feel completely different.


It's a widely held view but I'm not sure it's true. I've never seen stats to back it up. If you look at the readership of PC gaming mags for example, the average age is mid-late 20s, and you get just as many adults with PS2s as kids, possibly moreso since they're the generation that have grown up with computer games.

Sorry, I missed your point there. Standardized controls, albeit somewhat boring, do make for a more usable interface, and can look a bit more "professional". However, I think those things are hard to do when you are drawing with DirectX. By definition, that means that you have to create a draw everything yourself.

I'm sorry, but I am an old fart, mid-20's IS a kid to me.

Quote from durbster :

Just to illustrate, in terms of interaction, the LFS setup screen could look something like this:
http://post-logic.com/softi/li ... CH_Setup/Pictures/25b.gif

It would be just as simple, just as effective from a users point of view, but it would make a huge difference in how it's percieved as a product.

And also, as AndyC points out, the information on screen while you're driving is exactly what you'd see in an arcade game.

A complex, unintuitive interface is just indicative of poor design or lack of attention by the developers. It does not make the program more of a sim.

I think there are a lot of kids using LFS. But the demographics of who plays computer games (or sims) is strongly skewed towards younger people so it is only natural to have a higher percentage of younger people. Show me a sim that only old people play... and I will show you an old sim. And btw, I am one of the older guys.

hehehe, it is almost like we have good oversteer and bad oversteer, just like we have good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.

I liked that linked article on slip angle. It makes a lot of sense. Too bad they use the term "slip" angle. It would be better if it were termed "twist" angle. I bet the term comes from the old bias ply tires used in the 60's.
Anyway, it is easier to understand now how a lower tire pressure in the rear would lead to more twist and a larger "slip" angle that would be interpreted as an overteer by the driver.

I somewhat disagree with what you are saying Squirrel. With the formula cars, you don't need to lift on up shift. They shift so quickly, that you can shift flat and not cause any damage. Most real life formula cars use the electronically controlled throttle cut for shifting anyway so this is reasonably realistic.

For downshifts you definitely do need to mach the revs. You have to downshift quickly in the formula cars, so the blips come fast and furious. Automatic blips would be appropriate if you were driving something like an F1 car, but I am unsure about how the RL Formula 3000 or G2 GP cars work.

I know this was probably posted on RSC, but I wanted to make sure it was here:

The clutch support requires that the clutch be depressed in order to shift. I can change a gear, and then depress the clutch at some later time to activate the gear change. It would be very nice if the program would cause the car to go into neutral if the shift was made without a clutch or possibly cause transmission damage or even have the gear change work if the revs are matched properly. But either way, the shift should work if the clutch action and the gear change happen at the same time.

Second, The clutch acts like a switch, it is either engaged or not. There is no "feathering" of the clutch at all, even when automatic clutch is turned off. I use a good analog clutch (ECCI), and all I get is On/Off for the clutch. It would be very nice to be able to feather the clutch like in a real car.
Thanks for reading.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

So.. no one can tell for sure how does these GTR-s, Formula, and other race cars drive..
Till recently i drove LFS with lifting my foot for a bit, when upshifting, and auto clutch ON, but i couldn't do good times with that driving, so watching how other drivers drive, i started flat shifting, leaving the clutch auto ON.. so now i have 1.32.800 on BL with GTI..
BUT, if real drivers do not drive like that, and they DO lift off the throttle when up(down) shifting, then i would like to see damaged engine for flatshifting.. the more real the better.. For now.. i will continue to flatshif because others also drive like that..

Boris, what everybody is trying to say is that it depends on the car IRL. Some race cars have standard H type transmissions with clutch, some have sequential with clutch, and some have sequential with all the gadgets to allow flat shifting with no clutch.
For a standard car like the GTi, flat shifting will cause damage eventually IRL. The clutch, the engine, engine mounts, transmission mounts, drive shaft and differentially will all get hammered over and over again causing damage. You will always lift and blip when shifting in these cars. The point is not necessarily the max RPM's you hit, but the rapid change in RPM's that happen during this manuever.
For some sequential boxes, you can upshift without using the clutch, and some you need to lift and some you don't. Sports cars with sequential systems usually require that you use the clutch for downshifting and that you match revs by blipping the throttle. However, if the rules allow, just about any pure race car can have systems that allow for flat, no clutch shifts using the different methods listed above.

Quote from mrodgers :

Obviously also not a single income with wife, 2 kids, home, 2 cars (1 paid for, both over 100,000 miles), homeowner's insurance, life insurance, car insurance, utitlities (oil furnace, ouch, gonna hurt this winter), 2 credit card payments, loan payment, property taxes, school taxes, hospital bills, cable/satelite bill (to keep wife off computer so I can race), internet bill (to keep me racing), 40+ mile commute to work, etc. etc.

hehehe, yep, and it costs you at least $100 to take your wife to the movies.
Pay baby sitter $40
Since we have the baby sitter, might as well do dinner (wife thinking:hide: ) $60
Movie $14
Stupid snacks at movie $20 (ouch)
Gas $5
Oops, that's $139.

Oh, on topic, I have no idea what this thread is about:monkey:

I think somebody just did a bad job of editing the copy. There are several places where the flow just did not work and there was no point to the statements.

Overall though, a nice review. It does seem a bit odd to me though. Where I work, magazines and even TV producers usually run copy (the text; what they wrote or are going to say) by us before they run it. We might not like everything they say about our products, but it will be correct on the technical aspects. We also offer suggestions on rewording things if we think it will be misunderstood or confusing. I guess this type of courtesy does not happen in the gaming world.
Please don't get to upset by this idea. Most of the items you read in a trade magazine or specialty magazines were written by the manufacturers in the first place, it is common practice.

Please try to drive the car offline first. By asking the questions you are, you are implying that you have never driven the FO8. Don't let the first time you drive it be online when a racing is ongoing. It will turn out to be a bad experience for everybody.

Get to the point where you can actually control the car and keep it on the track. Then give it a go online. Have fun

Quote from NutDriverLefty :

Come to the Petit le Mans at Road Atlanta and say "Hi" to The Nuts (NutDriver Racing)!

I might have to take you up on that someday.

Dude, that's a lake, not a bay. It ain't Fern Lake yaknow...

Quote from Gunn :

The strange part about the circus is that until the first race of next season you never know who is going to be driving for which team, or if they even have a drive at all. Rumours and confirmed reports notwithstanding, this has been the way for many many years. It is not uncommon for documents to be signed and promises to be made which all come to nothing in the end. Team bosses or drivers or driver's managers can instigate the greatest legal escapes in F1 and it can be astounding to behold. We shall see what we shall see.

Or, to paraphrase; Silly Season is on!

Michael specifically stated during an interview that he was not signing with McClarren. He is sticking with Ferarri, at least until the contract is up next year. After that, I am betting he retires, or starts his own team. He has nothing left to prove as a driver and he has all the money that he will ever need. Of course, I am sure he would love to leave the sport with just one more championship and a few more poles to capture the only other record he does not already own.
I think that there would be only two reasons Kimi would go to Ferarri: 1 $$$$ like already stated, or 2 he is convinced that Bridgestone can correct their performance slide (pun intended).

I am finding that I enjoy silly season quite a bit. It helps to build anticipation for next year