A question for JTW, if he's still reading. This data on slip ratios is extremely interesting, but I'm finding it hard to anchor some of it to personal visceral experience of car and tyre behaviour. Could you have a shot at plugging in an approximate slip ratio that goes with the following tyre sounds? Assume typical modern road tyres on a normal asphalt surface.

1) Cornering at a reasonable speed, but no recognizable sound except the white noise of the tyre against the road.

2) Cornering just a bit faster, so we get that high-pitched squeaking as we start to encroach on the limits of grip.

3) Faster still, so we get that full-on squealing sound of being right on the edge.

4) Faster again, enough to lose traction and we hear that sick, lower-toned squalling / roaring sound that is so often followed by the crunch of metal and the tinkle of glass.

I've phrased this in terms of tyre sounds when cornering, but it seems to me that all four sounds can also be generated by progressively more violent starts. If we think of these sounds in a longitudinal acceleration context, then we can possibly assign approximate slip ratios to each one, right?

I realize I'm asking a lot here, and it's possible that my question doesn't even make sense. But if it's possible to plug some very approximate numbers in it would help me (and possibly others) to get a better grasp of the discussion.

Quote from mrodgers :

when I get the back end loose, I often let go of the wheel with one hand to let the countersteering take care of itself.

Completely off topic, but wasn't there an online video ad for BMW that featured some great stunt driving on city streets, including a nice shot of the driver with both hands off the wheel doing exactly this, i.e., powering out of a corner and letting the front wheels do the counter-steering all by themselves. Don't know who the real driver was, but the actor playing the driver was Clive Owen.


And on another point: I for one find it slightly disturbing that someone as fast as Biggie doesn't use FFB. It must be true, I suppose, that if you can get the necessary feedback to your brain through other channels (vision and sound being the obvious ones) then not having a wheel that tries to move around in your hands means that you can be more precise and faster in your control inputs. Those of us who sit in front of our PCs sweatily grappling with high FFB settings may be having a marginally more realistic experience, but it's not clear that the end result is more precise placement of the car.

Last edited by jtr99, Sat 10 Jun 2006, 15:39.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I remember when I first showed my father a replay in LFS, he was astounded.

Not to argue with you, BBT, but I remember being pretty astounded when I first saw a Gran Turismo replay on the PS1. It's all relative to what you've seen previously, isn't it?

Or perhaps your point is that your dad had relevant real-world experience.

Quote from AdamW :

you can easily get in the top few places just by driving a full race without making a major mistake. Never try and pass anyone, just hang back 25m until they stuff it into a wall and drive past at your leisure.

So true. Got two firsts, a second, and a third at SO Long Reversed yesterday and they were all utterly undeserved in terms of my lap times.

Just wanted to echo Blowtus -- I find your technical input very interesting, Todd. Thanks for taking the trouble.

Good point about typical slide / spin accidents. I once saw an accident a bit like the one you describe, ahead of me on a UK motorway as we were approaching some roadworks. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but afterwards I couldn't help thinking "Wow, that looked exactly like a NR2003 slide." If we all went out and deliberately spun cars at high speeds every day, we'd probably be a lot more qualified to comment on tyre models. (Not a suggestion, just a hypothesis.)

Last edited by jtr99, Sun 4 Jun 2006, 12:45.

I agree that some sort of Top Gear exposure would be great for LFS and the devs, and I'd be happy to see it. But I'm not sure that LFS would really appeal to Top Gear's presenters or audience. Top Gear seems to me to be about cars as thrill rides and ego accessories, rather than driving as a skill. I think it's no accident that they featured GT4: it's exactly the right game for their audience.

Quote from IReallyHateBureaucracy :

I just don't like the DFP's looks.

Hi, IRHB, nice to meet you, welcome to LFS etc.

Just wanted to note that the above is a regrettable reason to favour one wheel over another. I am not a DFP owner but I know that the many people who recommend the DFP are doing it based on its superiority as a subtle control input device, rather than any perception that it looks cool. Wheels are not all created equal, I assure you.

Buy the DFP and re-skin your onscreen wheel if looks matter.

Quote from Bob Smith :

I prefer to start near the back of the grid, so I can coast through the chaos, and let a speed, consistency and general uberness lead me to the win.

You go, girl.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

One of my all-time top five I think, including LFS, DOOM, Super Mario World and... whatever other game I like. So yeah, SNES ruled.

Goldeneye. I feel sure it was Goldeneye.

Ayrton, you seem to feel that early braking guys are more of a problem than late braking guys when it comes to T1 madness. Is that a fair summary?

Maybe you are right but I have to say I get a lot more mad at the (excessively) late braking guys after one of them has taken me out. Also, as someone else has pointed out above, it's pretty clear that not everyone knows where they should be braking for T1 on cold tyres on lap 1. (Or for any turn on any other lap for that matter.) Look at the amount of locking up we see in a typical rush for the T1 apex. LFS physics punish lockups pretty severely, and so if we all knew what we were doing there'd be very little of it.

So I think your perfect world in which we all banzai into T1 and miraculously come out unscathed on the other side is unlikely to happen any time soon. In the meantime I think the questions are (as others have said above) what can we do to give maximum information to the guy behind us and to best anticipate what the guy in front is likely to do, whether he's new or experienced.

Quote from Hankstar :

And everyone knows the UF1 is the ultimate oval racer!!1

Sounds like it's time you started a league devoted to the ultimate combo, Hank. Count me in.

Thanks for the explanation. My non-expert opinion was that the car models looked fine but that the environments seemed a bit "1990s" and reminded me of GPL tracks: things like one flat grass texture all the way to a vertical wall of tree texture, etc.

Having said that, I remember being underwhelmed by LFS's graphics when I first downloaded the demo and looked at the view from the Blackwood starting line. However, shortly after that I started driving the car and I don't remember thinking about the issue since.

Sorry, Ian, were your screenshots intended to highlight good or bad things about rF? Honest (if stupid) question.

George, you seem like a thinking guy. Can you explain to me how having both left and right turns makes racing "deeper"?

Hi, Mikko.

Good questions. The references you've been given above are both very valuable. I'll try to condense things a little: first thing we need is the concept of a turn-in point, but you know what that is right? So, the short story is that if there is no significant overlap before the turn-in point (and for "significant" read "level with the driver's door" or whatever) then the leading car is entitled to the racing line throughout the corner.

If there is significant overlap before the turn-in point (e.g., slipstreaming down the straight, then pulling out and entering a corner absolutely side-by-side) then both cars have to give room to each other all the way through the corner. Note that neither car will be able to use the classic racing line; both will have to deviate in order to make sure that the other guy is not forced off the track.

And that's about it.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Correct, and now the suspension acts differently which has made the car less stable particularly when changing directions, this makes it a little harder to drive again - see original post for context.

Hmm. Assuming an undamaged suspension, there just can't be any difference in FOX handling characteristics between the Patch U and Patch T versions. When you mention the suspension "acting differently", are you referring to something to do with damage? Am I missing something here?

I hadn't seen "This is S2" but watched it because of the reference in this thread. Thanks, Tristan, for an extremely amusing 3 minutes and 3 seconds.

Thanks, Karl, that makes sense. I have only used R3s so far myself as that's what's on the Race_S setup. I remain a BF1 noob and have really only driven it for the novelty value. (Am having too much fun with actually being able to keep the LX4 pointed forwards.)

Quote from BuddY ChRisT :

i dont know for pitboards, do you think you could be able to seem them?

GPL had/has a fantastic graphical trick for making pitboards useful. When you were a few hundred metres away from your pitboard guy, an artificially zoomed-in version of the pitboard would appear on the side of the screen. This allowed you to read the information easily. As your car got closer to the pitboard guy, the image would "zoom out" to give a smooth transition between the "HUD" pitboard and the real-sized pitboard in the guy's hands. I always thought it was a clever way to simulate the higher graphical resolution of real life.

Surely LFS could borrow this technique without Dave Kaemmer letting slip the patent attorneys of war?

So are you guys all running the BF1 on its softest available tyre compound for races under, say, 15 laps? (Sorry, can't remember whether that would be R2 or R3.)

Quote from XCNuse :

..whats that supposed to mean?

Sorry -- just meant that I liked the sarcasm involved in linking to a site with a god-awful number of pictures and describing it as '"some" pictures'. I was wondering whether this sort of understated humour was a Finnish characteristic. Not trying to be rude.

Quote from deggis :

There are "some" pics...

Awesome. Are all Finns like this?

Quote from indo420 :

but my mother owns a 1976 Corvette Stingray 427ci. it's got 67,000 original miles on it. not a bad piece.

Is your mother single by any chance?

Quote from danowat :

Ok, ok, fair enough, but ask yourself this question, if Nkpro hadnt have come out recently, would the single seater cockpits have been improved

I don't know the answer to that, but for what it's worth Dan, I thought you made a reasonable point. Not sure why you got jumped on here.

Quote from richy :

wish i could say i felt the same about this point.

That's pretty rich coming from a man who ties women to railway tracks.