Exactly what I wanted to hear, thanks. 
Oversteer does not equal drifting. Any car can oversteer; only a RWD car can actually drift because drifting is using the throttle to manipulate the rear of the car while cornering in order to make the car behave in a specific way.
I disagree. A realistic automatic transmission would be a valuable addition to LFS. Some of the cars in the current version could feasibly have autos, so it stands to reason that the functionality should exist in a realistic simulation of those cars.
That said, it has to be a real automatic, not an auto-shift driving aid. It should be slower in racing conditions than a properly-used manual gearbox, just as is the case in real life.
And I'm saying this despite the fact that I would probably never even use an auto unless I had no choice - I simply prefer manual shifting because it's more engaging.
Can/Should I Report Laggers?
Earlier today on SS1 there was a driver who was lagging badly. His car would warp a lot, which meant that whenever anyone got near him, they would be hit by his car and would crash, while he continued obliviously on his merry way. He crashed out two drivers on the first lap, then I got spun out mid-race when I was behind him. I told him twice that was lagging and causing others to crash, but he ignored it.
Now I know laggers aren't purposefully doing so, but they're still ruining the races of others and generally causing disruption of normal racing, which is against the rules. Is this worthy of a report? I would only consider doing so if 1) they were lagging for a long period of time, 2) they were ruining the races of other drivers, and 3) they were ignoring messages from others to fix the problem.
Now I know laggers aren't purposefully doing so, but they're still ruining the races of others and generally causing disruption of normal racing, which is against the rules. Is this worthy of a report? I would only consider doing so if 1) they were lagging for a long period of time, 2) they were ruining the races of other drivers, and 3) they were ignoring messages from others to fix the problem.
That has already been posted sir:
That'll never happen. Everyone has a different idea of what should have priority. Democracy simply doesn't work in game development; it has to be left up to the developers on their own to decide what gets done and in what order, otherwise it will go in several different and conflicting directions.
I honestly don't care if the barrier bug ever gets fixed, because I don't drive around with the intent of hitting them. I've driven LFS for weeks and weeks at a time without ever experiencing the barrier bug. Personally I'd rather have development focused on aspects of the sim which most affect my racing experience. The periphery can wait.
Well that sucks. Hopefully they'll pick up some better circuits in the coming years. Here's where they went last year:
Homestead-Miami Speedway
Streets of St. Petersburg
Twin Ring Motegi
Kansas Speedway
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The Milwaukee Mile
Texas Motor Speedway
Iowa Speedway
Richmond International Raceway
Watkins Glen International
Nashville Superspeedway
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Michigan International Speedway
Kentucky Speedway
Infineon Raceway
The Raceway on Belle Isle
Chicagoland Speedway
IMO that name is crap. It shouldn't have IRL in it, or CCWS in it.
Thinking about it though it's a tough call on what to actually name this thing...
It should imply an equal merger, not a lame buy-out situation. Are the 2008 rules more like IRL or more like CCWS? In other words, will the races be more like last year's IRL races or more like last year's CCWS races? Have they even decided on rules for this year?
This whole thing seems really rushed for what should be a world-class open wheel series. Perhaps they'll continue to run as two series for a while while they work on the details.
I really hope this works out though. Hopefully this merger will bring back American open wheel racing to the world stage like it was in the 90s. To have F1 teams look closely at top drivers like they did with Villeneuve in 95 would really bring prestige and credibility back to a sport that has been in the doldrums since the split.
Before 1996, there was just one premier open-wheel series called CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams). It raced on superspeedways (Indy 500), short ovals, permanent road courses and street circuits.
Tony George's family has owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for decades. He was on the board of directors of CART, but his opinions were basically ignored. CART continued to do what it wanted in spite of objections on the part of the owner of the track which held CART's biggest race of the year.
Because of this, Tony George decided to leave CART and found his own series which only raced on ovals. Regs were much more restrictive in order to reduce costs which were spiralling out of control in CART. CART lost the Indy 500, but most of the big drivers stayed in CART. In the first couple seasons of IRL there were very few races and even fewer seriously talented drivers.
IRL struggled to gain much prestige especially in the first few years. CART was strong for a few years after the split, but it gradually waned into obscurity. Somewhere in here the named to CCWS (Champ Car World Series).
A few years ago IRL branched out into road courses. It also gained a few big-name teams which defected from CART. This is when the rumors of a merger started to fly.
A couple years later, here we are.
Tony George's family has owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for decades. He was on the board of directors of CART, but his opinions were basically ignored. CART continued to do what it wanted in spite of objections on the part of the owner of the track which held CART's biggest race of the year.
Because of this, Tony George decided to leave CART and found his own series which only raced on ovals. Regs were much more restrictive in order to reduce costs which were spiralling out of control in CART. CART lost the Indy 500, but most of the big drivers stayed in CART. In the first couple seasons of IRL there were very few races and even fewer seriously talented drivers.
IRL struggled to gain much prestige especially in the first few years. CART was strong for a few years after the split, but it gradually waned into obscurity. Somewhere in here the named to CCWS (Champ Car World Series).
A few years ago IRL branched out into road courses. It also gained a few big-name teams which defected from CART. This is when the rumors of a merger started to fly.
A couple years later, here we are.
NASCAR venues are generally much closer together. Most of the races are in the southeast, and the others are in the contiguous US, except for Mexico. (Someone who follows NASCAR verify this, because I'm not sure).
It's a lot easier to move race cars, a team and all its equipment 300 miles from, say, North Carolina to Georgia than it is from Japan to Australia.
19 is a quite a few compared to other open-wheel series. I wouldn't say it's too many, but like I said some of the smaller teams might struggle to make it to the flyaway races especially.
Yeah this can pretty much only be a good thing. 19 races in a season is a lot though, considering that it's already February and they haven't even confirmed the dates yet. A lot of the smaller teams in both series may have problems raising the money to show up at each race.
How do you know those nose winglets aren't an advantage? Yeah they look silly but if they're fast they're fast.
A lot of people said the same thing about Mclaren's swooping front wing crosspiece when it first came out. It looks strange but it's obviously fast because most cars are using it now.
I'm not sure about that. In his first and so far only race, he set a faster race lap than Rosberg.
He might struggle early in the season, but I think he'll start to do well at some point. Maybe not shading his teammate, but getting close and pushing him.
It won't be live, but within a couple hours of the broadcast, someone here will have captured, re-encoded, uploaded and distributed the whole thing.
http://www.racing-underground.com
http://www.racing-underground.com
That was really bizarre. And a little disturbing.
Points Earned in 2008
Räikkönen over Massa
Heidfeld over Kubica
Alonso over Piquet
Rosberg over Nakajima
Webber over Coulthard
Trulli over Glock
Vettel over Bourdais
Button over Barrichello
Sato over Davidson
Sutil over Fisichella
Hamilton over Kovaleinen
Räikkönen over Massa
Heidfeld over Kubica
Alonso over Piquet
Rosberg over Nakajima
Webber over Coulthard
Trulli over Glock
Vettel over Bourdais
Button over Barrichello
Sato over Davidson
Sutil over Fisichella
Hamilton over Kovaleinen
That isn't exactly true. He nearly won the championship in 2003 and the Williams that year was clearly the fastest car on the track at several races. He was in mathematical contention until the final race and if he hadn't retired there and gotten a drive-through penalty in the previous race he would have won it.
I agree, but usually get shouted down by "it sucks!" whenever I say so in-game.
The track is more challenging and overtaking is much improved because of it. You have to be quite precise to pass cleanly, but that's a good thing. "It causes more wrecks" isn't a good reason to remove it IMO; that's evidence of driver skill problems, not the track itself. And I'm not even sure it does cause fewer wrecks, considering how easy it is to flip cars on the high curbs of the normal version. CTRA's version pretty much eliminates rolling over on the curbs there.
I have a 19" CRT which uses 1280x1024 resolution. I use FOV of 95, because that is the narrowest value which allows me to see all of the near side mirror in the road cars and both mirrors in the open wheelers. I don't like having to turn my head to see my near side mirror.
I think it looks alright, although it would have been better if they had extended the gold and silver more, so there'd be less white.
At least it will be easy to recognize.
It is.
System's broken.
Tear it down, build it anew.
Same here.
McCain left wing?
McCain is the war candidate in the Republican party, relative to Romney and Huckabee. He advocates an enormous, extravagant army with presence all over the world in order to defend our empire - even more strongly than the other 'mainstream' candidates. Permanent bases in Iraq as a base for an attack on Iran. Trillions of dollars more spent on projecting power worldwide.He's an authoritarian, plain and simple. So are Romney and Huckabee. So are Hillary and Obama, albeit with slightly tweaked rhetoric.
Where does the Constitution give the President the power to make war without consent? Article I clearly gives Congress alone the power to declare war. History has proven that aggressive imperialist foreign policy is a failure. America is bleeding to death because of it. Our currency is weakening, which happens to all countries when they overextend themselves and spend too much money. Money we don't have. We borrow money from China just to pay the bills every year. We print money out of thin air, which causes inflation and intensifies the vicious cycle.
The US government needs to reduce spending massively. Wasteful, frivolous, government programs should be eliminated. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should cease immediately. All American troops abroad should be brought home.
Foreign policy should be open, humble, and honest. We should be talking with and negotiating with governments who disagree with us, not placing sanctions on them and threatening them with force. Trade, travel, and communication should be free and open. Entangling alliances should be avoided. Military force should never be used as a tool of aggression and empire.
Faith in government should be restored by removing those in office responsible for the morally reprehensible policies of this administration and this Congress, and past ones. The word 'treason' comes up frequently in discussion of these policies, and the Constitution makes clear and simple the procedure for impeachment and trial of officials accused of such crimes.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG