Quote :

Engine braking is the act of using the energy-requiring compression stroke of the internal combustion engine to dissipate energy and slow down a vehicle. Compression braking is a common legal term for the same mechanism. Large trucks use a device called an engine brake to increase the effectiveness of engine braking.

http://www.answers.com/Engine+braking?cat=health&gwp=13

Quote from tristancliffe :

Rubbish - you can turn engines all you like by hand.

You do lose a little bit of energy in the compression/expansion of the air, just like you do in a spring, but it's actually pretty negligable overall, but gives the [wrong] idea that it's the compression causing the engine braking.

How many turns you think you can make before exhausted?
Yes, its possible to turn the 4-cyl. engines by hand but its not that easy.
But if someone try to turn an engine with cylinder head removed,
he/she can easily noticed how easy turning to engine by hand.

Engine compression is not negligible force and it is one of the reason of the engine braking
besides with other components frictions; gears, accessories etc.

Things are not black and white completely on this issue.
There is too many parts working together in the engine.
Addressing only one reason is not covering whole fact.

Quote from JeffR :

But once that piston is past top dead center, it gets much easier to turn the engine, or the pressure in that piston may be enough to turn the engine on it's own.

Yes, I agree, after Top dead center, a little relaxing should felt but its about half turn not much, because other pistons is ready to compressing at this moment (for multi-cylinder engine). Without fuel, engine never spin by turning the crank by hand few turns like this way, it will stuck at the nearest compression phase.

Quote from JeffR :

You could remove all the spark plugs and place springs in the cylinders and you'd get essentially the same effect, and springs don't consume energy.

Squeezing/relaxing the springs needs energy. Simply putting kinetic to potential than potential to kinetic energy. At the end some energy lost by friction and movement can not continue, unless a power source is supplied necessary power.

Quote from JeffR :

the compression and expansion of air doesn't consume a lot of energy. It's the friction and the movement of air within the crankcase, under the pistons, that consumes energy.

Not agree completely on this. When you try to turn the engine by turning the crank (with a proper wrench) you can feel the resistance of the compressing piston, even crank case/carter removed. You can hear the vacuuming noise and a very strong spring like resistance caused by compression.
If you want to turn the engine easily by hand, you have to remove spark plugs.

Oil filler cap is open to crank case/carter directly. If there is too much pressure in the carter, filler cap will be pop out, and I never saw that happened. Manufacturers designed this caps as tight fitted style like some kind of cork not screwed or secured type(at least my old Mercedes and Sierra like that).
If some cylinder leaks because of the pressure rings, you will only noticed a fume or light smoke when you check to oil filler cap immediately after shutdown the engine.

Quote from Hankstar :

if you load up your XRT or XRG with people and set it up like it's a big sluggish family car you can have awesome fun in spec races

Another IRL similarity in LFS.

Quote from mindpixel :

What is the difference between the way you use the engine to slow down with front wheel drive cars and rear wheel drive once? Also how is it different in real life compare to the game(if it is different)? In what situation should i use lower gear and brake rather then clutch and brake again for front wheel drive and read wheel drive?

Firstly, my English is bad, sorry for this.

According to my experiences:
When you may find useful to use downshift+braking (engine brake -EB) is;

*High speed cornering: EB & brakes helps the car slow down while you enter the curve (or just before),
EB mostly acts like a "dampener/damper" and with help of EB you can take the curve more smoothly.
Because rear wheels are close the locking limit, applied EB keep wheels just below the locking threshold.
It is the engine internal compression that slows down the car.

Since I assume that we are talking about Internal Combustion engines, these engines always generate
internal forces against its spin. To clear this, it’s helpful to searching about how internal combustion
engines works.

Eg; a 4-cylinder engine, due to the power creation occurs 4 times of working principle,
at the specific time there is always one cylinder generates the power, in other words 180-degree in 720 total degree.
Rest of the cylinders are in either compressing, exhaust or intake position. All these three phases are slowing down the engine,
they generates resistance to spinning engine. To overcome this negative issue, manufactures are using the part we called
“volan”, a big heavy disk attached directly to engine. Due to its mass, engine rather easily overcome these
resistance and other internal frictions (during power on conditions). When you lift off and downshift the car,
two power cycle per rev is ended and only a negligible power can be generate by the engine
(engines are generally adjusted around 800-1000 RPM to preventing the engine dead, i called it “relanti”).
So we safely call this as Engine brake. This is also related to the how fast the engine/driver shaft (tyres) is spinning.

It is not necessary using EB while high speed cornering, its depends to who is behind the wheel and better to
experience it in real life, but brake balance of your car is important here. Its not black & white,
I can say that it’s a driving style.

*On low friction surfaces: These situations are familiar most of the people I think, so there is no need to explain deeply.
Engine brake works in same way with above mentioned. It helps the car keeping in driveable situation,
if it used properly. Exaggerated use of EB cause adverse effects, ie. oversteering (RWD) or even spinning.

*In FWD cars, EB works in same way but results are sometimes different.
Generally, improper using ended with heavy understeer.

Recovering Understeer is simply lifting the gas pedal off, sometimes applying handbrake.
Recovering Oversteer is bit complicated, i use contra steering mostly,
but oversteer is more dangereous than understeer. Because of that, IRL road cars designed to understeer.

PS.Understeer/Oversteer: Once i read a funny explanation which says Understeer is
watching the the stuff you will about the crash just above the windshield wipers.
Oversteer is watching those stuffs with using rear view mirrors.

I believe that we will have those kind of bumpy tracks,
more realistic sounds etc. when devs think its time to.
I agree Danowat, yes LFS has a little sanitized environment compared to other sims.

Quote from XVII :

I'm just saying it would be fun for more rough race matches to be around...

The rough&fun races always around, if skills are similar.
It is more difficult to pass someone without touching him/her.
Thats the difficult and honorable way.
There is also other "easy" ways, no need to mention.

If you want really difficult & fun races,
try to pass someone has similar skill level with you
by the racing rules.
Good Luck!

This topic is a way to be a popular figure in this forum?
or what?

Quote from XVII :

Who the crap cares about honor in a racing GAME, JUST DRIVE!

Quote from hyntty :

Are there, or were there different versions of scgt? Cause that video was almost but not quite the same game as the one I had. I'm looking at the original game case and it has a big ugly BMW M3 on the cover.

As Zeugnimod says, there were hundredths of SCGT add-on car available (still you can find many of them).
I had around 350 add-on cars installed and total track was 70.
(I had near 150 track but sim allowed max. 70)
I missed those days sometimes.
I lapped Nurburgring Süd. with a modificated F50 around 5.30 min.
with average speed ~240, max speed was 421 km/h. After that,
I got a neck pain. The track seem like a fast forward video while driving.
That was fun...

Quote from mcintyrej :

Its not only about megapixels, you know? Some DSLR's have about 6MP. Most mainstream compacts
have more than that, but due to an DSLR's build and features they perform far better.

Totally agree.

I spent more than one year to gain knowledge on digital photography before jumping to DSLR class.
Image quality depends glass and sensor basically, also image processor.
I got Pentax K100D with 18-55 lens finally.

Canon EOS 400D(10mp), Nikon D40X(10mp) and
Pentax K100D Super(6mp), are best machines for entry level DSLR for now
IMO.

Well, LFS content is good enough for me. As for now, i may only ask
one or two famous track; nürburgring nordschleife, leMans etc.

I think that LFS will be richer in terms of content diversity
when the changing atmospheric conditions are introduced.

In my spare time, I am interesting in ancient civilisations, such as
Sumerians (they are oldest and most comprehensive imo)

I'm an amateur photographer (had a K100D+18-55 optics recently)
and musician. I record my own songs at home since 1994.

The Forum is quite informative.
I noticed that the responds are very quick;
Sometimes so short that i thought the responded guy sleeping right
front of the monitor, even "living" front of the monitor .
That’s a sign of things going quite good.
Sometimes bored but that’s life.
Dark makes light's difference.

Have a good day to you all.

It seems that the gauge slightly shifts from "race incident" to "driver B's fault" IMHO, but it is hard to decide for sure.

Driver B in first turn,
Driver A in second turn.
Both of them are did the same mistake ; leaning on the other car while they turning the curve.

Quote from Hankstar :

I think a discreet number would be fine and it could just sit next to the thumb icon in the person's post

Hangstar's idea is good, while on the other hand, the number of people who responded as they "agree" means nothing in terms of information. Furthermore, displaying the agreed forum user data could be in the form of more specific nature, like;
...such number of users have read the xx thread and the percentage of those who agree is xx%.
IMHO.

+1 for forced set on servers as an option.
This forced set could be a neutral car set, with few people inside.(for fun-XFG)

For me,
Mind/mood+Correct Setup=driving pleasure.
With the bad set, you have to deal with the moments; "trying drive faster",
With the correct set, you feel that you can push more and good lap times comes after naturally.
A good set (it may not WR sets) makes sense.
"Good" means the set is suitable to your driving style and it "whispers" to you; "you can do better".

I suggest to learn setup creation/adjusting in details for your benefits, otherwise you have to rely on your luck.

I have many sets, included WR set. I made a new one with changing springs frequency and related other adjustments and i made my pb.(1.33.46) at BL1 with this new set. It is interesting because it is quite out of mostly familiar settings in terms of spring strength.
Try it if you want, it provides good handling but keep away from the bumps.

If it is possible to add Nordeschliefe than maybe it is possible to add track as * Nurburgring
- Südkerhe
- Nordeschliefe
one of the best track i ever saw.
(others; Spa-Franchorchamps, Monza and Suzuka)

I was intended to go one step ahead about the blue flag rule in LFS.
Most of the people at this forum have an idea about the blue flag but it is obvious that this rule is not well known by majority (based on my experiences).
More specific and enforced rules will make the sim more serious.
You may think that this is just a game, but I suggest reconsider it, flash back to the moment that you are preparing to overtake blue flagged car, and the feelings of you, stressfully moments, you are completely unaware about what will happen. Could be a successive overtake or a disaster.

Current rule tells that “keep your line” and I suggested to change it to “leave the racing line while overtaking takes place or leave enough room to faster car”, faster cars are generally follows the race line so clearing the race line ASAP is most logical movement, thats all.

Current blue flag rule in LFS as follows. (wiki - "Driving Guides")

Blue Flag
A blue flag tells you that a car behind is in a higher position than you are. The action you will take depends on your situation. Let's examine the two likely situations where a blue flag will appear in Live For Speed.

• If you are being lapped by a faster car: The car behind you is consistently faster than you and has managed to travel one more lap than you have. He is about to overtake you and the blue flag is displayed to warn you of his presence. In this case you are hindering his progress and must allow him to pass you as soon as it is safe to do so (you can't be expected to yield while negotiating a chicane or high speed corner) Hold your line don't fight the other car, do not make any sudden movements left or right, ease off slightly and let him pass. He is a lap ahead of you and you are not fighting him for position. You must not hold him up.

• You are not being lapped by a faster car: The car behind you is in a higher position but is not consistently faster than you. Perhaps you had an earlier spin or have just made a pit stop or stopped to serve a penalty and that is why your rival has managed to creep up behind you as if he is about to lap you. As above, if you see a blue flag you must not hinder the progress of the car behind, if you are holding it up you should allow the other car to pass you as soon as possible. If you are not hindering its progress then get on with the job and leave it behind you.

Note: There is some controversy in real racing about exact interpretation of blue flag rules. Generally it is accepted that you hold your line and make no sudden or defensive moves, allowing the faster car to overtake you. You will earn respect from all drivers for acting sensibly and fairly when faced with a blue or yellow flag.
http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Driving_Guides#Obeying_Flags

Quote from Gunn :

Sounds cool, all I have to do is come up behind the slower driver and stay close but not overtake even if he makes way for me, as long as I deliberately don't overtake him he will be black flagged and then I can go on my merry way with him teleported to the pits.

Yes, anyone can abuse the rules in this way indeed.
I believe that implementing the flag rules including black flag, makes this sim more playable and enjoyable. But, for black flag, to do this I think some parameters have to be indicated and clearly understood.

I agree with most of you about the blue flag, it is indicates that one or more cars are approaching with higher velocity, BUT this does not mean that the car behind you WILL overtake you. It just informs that at some fraction of the time during your race, a car (which +1 or more laps) has gotten close and entered the "blue flag" distance. The distance may be stabilized (similar speed), increased or decreased.

So, I think, developers can use following parameters to determine black flag rules;
1. Distance
Constant approaching to the front car. Can be calculated and average of the decreasing distance with two car is identified, finally a critical distance constant, let's say for XFG, in 15-20 meters “first warning”may appear on front car's screen.

1.1 Time
Similar to "distance" parameter. The sim has its own time calculation with every sector already. This parameter always runs at the background, if the driver behind is ( +1 or more laps) closing the distance, it means the time gap is melting with every moment. Once again, same as distance, for XFG, let's say 0,3 second applies for “second warning”. Time and distance parameters surely depends on the traveling speed of both cars. This is also another physics equation that the implementation needs.

2. Race line
When the two above situations happen, front driver has already got two "warnings" (I will explain it later). He/she MUST leave the RACE LINE immediately, he/she may continue the lap without decreasing the speed or slam the brakes (out of the race line while overtaking takes place).


Scenario:
Well, I pit-out and am 1 lap behind other drivers, and leader reaches me, “blue flag” could be flashed in any time now on;
>Sim calculates above parameters and decides to show me a blue flag or not, if it does, blue flag comes with in 1 second or 100 mt distance (for XFG) or less (roughly).
>I get “first warning” because the distance between two cars is getting extremely close.
>I get second warning after some seconds or meters because I am still driving at the Race Line and slower than leader.
Now, two things can apply;
>I drive off the race line and then warnings will reset,
>I keep my position and get black flag instead of third "warning".
A moments later I get transferred to pit or spectators mode or penalized to drive-through.



There will be improvements on this scenario, let me say this is kind of a presumption. I made that to simplify the situation which is without race marshal observation, very complicated and a difficult task even in the real world.


And it may be better if the flags are shown on top/down middle of the screen and remain till the situation changes.
A separate warning message should be implemented and this will show that oncoming situation (as in 1 and 2).


The most critical things is clearing the racing line at the right moment and without causing any complication with other driver.
This rule can be misused or abused in time as “Gunn” said, but since not overtaking while you are +1 or more laps ahead of front car and going faster is pointless, this action has not any reasonable cause but maybe a very specific one.


And for the severely damaged cars, this situation can also be penalized by being transferred to pit.
Damage severity depends on the “driveability” of the car and also it is the work to be done by devs again. A message can inform the driver like “Car damaged” which is then car may transferred to pit. Or, to say it simply, the car will not move any more after some degree of damage.

I am proposing that Adapting Full Flag rules to the game will be enhance on-line racing quality.

For example; after 3 consecutive Blue Flag than > Black flag and user automatically transfered to the pit or "spectator mode".
This also could be an option to choose for the hosts.