Quote from tristancliffe :

...and my girlfriend at the time next to me was already in tears...

I have no right to intrude, but I couldn't help spotting this bit. Did she become no longer your girlfriend as a result of the incident?

Quote from kamkorPL :

Thanks! I didn't know about this!

Ditto.

Quote from modenaf1 :

So, are the default setups real shitty in that regard or is it me? I have a wheel and everything too....

Default setups are not nice.

Modenaf1, Bob was probably too modest when he said he'd tried to do something about it. Just so there's no ambiguity, I think a very smart move before downloading all the inferno.hu setups (some of which are not suitable for longer races as others have said) would be to get Bob's "easy race" setup pack. These are a great starting point for further setup explorations.

Quote from Bontemps :

I was having a great race the other night in the mini's and i was going into the same corner as another driver. It was all about outbraking and i outbraked him. I got kicked.

Just curious, but did you have significant overlap with the other car before the turn-in point? People's ideas of what constitutes a legitimate "out-braking" move can vary wildly...

And no, it wasn't me.

The sound when most of the tyre's carcass comes off and is banging against the inside of the wheel arch is loud enough to be heard at almost any speed I can imagine. Honest.

Quote from joeynuggetz :

Holy crap, that looks sweet. How long has that been out. Is it any good? How are the FF effects and the pedals?

Hi, Joey. Don't know about this wheel exactly, but I've been using the Thrustmaster Ferrari F1 force feedback wheel for a couple of years now. Looking at this new wheel, they seem closely related and of similar construction. The main difference is my wheel doesn't have the shifter, just paddles behind the wheel. And those continuous paddles are not independent axes on my wheel, but map directly as alternative inputs to the brake and throttle axes.

The force feedback is great, quite strong and not overly notchy. The wheel mounts easily and stably on a desk, etc. The aluminium shifters are nice and solid, and the aluminium pedals and pedal footplate are much appreciated. The pedals have a reasonable degree of travel and the potentiometers are good (no spiking even now and I am still on my first set). Where the pedals fall down is in the construction of the plastic base unit. Thrustmaster were kind of stupid to use aluminium for the showy parts, but then use cheap plastic for the actual base of the unit where all the leverage is applied. One day in a NR2003 race I heard a crack and my brake pedal just went dead -- on opening it up I found that the plastic mounting / swivel point for the pedal had failed completely. So I built my own wooden base for the pedals. It looks ugly but works well, and also allowed me to spring the brake pedal a bit harder with the help of a carefully mounted squash ball.

Looking at this latest wheel, I would say you'll get a long lifetime out of the wheel itself, but will likely need to do something to the pedal unit in order to be happy with it (unless you have incredibly light feet perhaps).

Hope this helps.

Quote from Chaos :

And it would be a good marketing move, cause people say £24 is too much. Buy S1 license for £12, see what it is like in S2 and very likely he will buy S2 too...

Do people really say that? In a world where XBox games sell for up to 50 pounds, does anyone seriously argue that 24 pounds is too pricey?

Scary snow driving ABS story, Mike. But at 10-15mph, why not just slam it back into first and pull the handbrake on? (I like to pull the handbrake on given the slightest excuse, so this may be the idiot side of my brain talking.)

Quote from tristancliffe :

If we had girly driver aids then it would just end up Scawen vs Scawen in every race.

Mmmm... think of the tension. Scawen wins again!

Stupid question, but do you actually get allocated a pit garage? I have always assumed I was just being started in a random empty one and that it wouldn't necessarily be the same one if I teleported back to the pits.

Who gets to be "traffic / parked"? Is that like being picked last for the football team or what?

For the record: people who use someone else's skin without permission, people who use a team skin without belonging to that team, etc., are jerks.

But while we're on the subject: how many of you people who are so vigorously defending the IP rights of the skin creator also have a large collection of (unpaid-for) MP3s on your hard drive? I may be wrong but I suspect there is a bit of hypocrisy going on here. Anyone?

Cheers,
--Jason.

PS: for the record, I don't download MP3s either.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Lets say one day I walked passed your house. I saw you come out wearing some clothes I liked, and thought "thats pretty cool" (bear with me). So I waited until you weren't looking, snuck into your house, took all your clothes, put them on, and then walked around your neighbourhood so you'd see me.

Hmm. Wouldn't a better metaphor be going to the shops and buying the exact same clothes that the target was wearing and then parading around the neighbourhood thinking you look cool? Because there's no physical theft here, only the (debatable) idea that you're stealing intellectual property by copying the way someone (or something) else looks. You'd be lame, and a bit of a jerk, but I don't think I could call you a thief.

Don't get me wrong, I've never used skins out of the skins_x folder as I agree that it seems rude. But I think your theft metaphor is over the top.

Last edited by jtr99, Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:45.

Can you do a hovercraft full of eels parked in a sandtrap somewhere?

Cheers.

Dan, not trying to bait you or anything here, your frustration with the FFB issue and the responses you're getting seems very genuine. But can I just ask which real-life car is it that you've had the most relevant experience in? I wonder whether there's something going on with the steering geometry of your favourite real-world car that leads to a lighter wheel feel under understeer conditions. You mentioned in a previous post that you had experienced this phenomenon in a range of car types, but in what sort of car would you say it was most pronounced? FWD, RWD? Power steering? Extreme caster settings? Could any of these variables be at play in producing this difference in experience between yourself and some of the respondents?

Quote from Gimpster :

I refuse to conform to the future enevitability. I will build an old can and laugh when some one writes a virus to crash you computer driven car. I will never give up control.

Will it be a gleaming red Barchetta from a better vanished time, perhaps?

Nice one Sam. Got to get me one of those!

It seems that a curb might be making things too easy, but some sort of visual reference would be helpful. How about, oh I don't know, perhaps a large tree placed thoughtfully on the exit?

Another win for the Scavier corporation. Nice one.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I'm a female midget in the Scots Dragoon Guards.

Bad! Bad Thisnameistaken! No biscuit!

Quote from tinvek :

how about a mad irish ex priest fortelling the end of the world taking a walk down the fastest part part of the track and marshalls rugby tackling him ?

I think he's more of a Need for Speed guy.

Quote from joshdifabio :

I would imagine that if there is only one division and interest is similar to last season that times around 1:10.0 (BL GP) and 1:17.0 (FE Gold) would be required. If, however, there are enough drivers to fill two divisions, anything half decent would probably qualify drivers for the second division.

Cheers, Josh, appreciate the answer. I would certainly be a second division guy by the sounds of it, but sadly at the moment work commitments are keeping me too busy to have a shot at those hotlaps.

On the subject of real life racers saying nice things about sims, I thought there was evidence that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex were both sincere fans of Papyrus's NR2003. Truex even went so far as to say this it contributed hugely to his success in his first season. This was in spite of them getting paid to say nice things about the vastly inferior EA game. Can any Americans back me up on this?

Josh, could you give ballpark figures of the sort of hotlap times on Blackwood GP and Fern Bay gold that would be needed to qualify for the league? What was the qualification time for the previous season, for example?

Quote from Vain :

As funny as the clock in a race car may be, it's definitely needed. That way you can play LFS without missing any appointments. :wink:

Absolutely. I find that my really long, way-past-bedtime sessions happen in the FOX, which has no clock.