Uh huh I don't like this at all

So with this system the only way for a good mod to be visible for a regular user is for it to be accepted first, then enabled in an online server, then for people -reviewers- to join that server, pick that mod, test it, and then rate it highly. Only then is it going to be visible on mods page. Actually even then it is doubtful, as it may just not get approved.

I don't see this happening at a large scale and I see this as quite restricting. Players really don't have that much of a problem when they see a bad mod. In fact seeing those shitmods makes players admire when they see a good mod. I just see here too many hurdles which may demotivate the modders.

Only thing I see wrong with the current system is star rating being too ambiguous in terms of what the thought was when user rated the mod 1 star. If you could add a lil comment within the game along with a star, that'd give the modder an idea of what the general complaint is. Not sure if you meant this when you said implementing full works.

I'd change "Staff Picked" into "Approved" so that it sets a good example for a kind of quality that is welcomed and maybe expected. If you're really disgusted by those low quality mods, I'd just add "Show WIP mods" button in mod browsing page and keep WIP's hidden otherwise. Or I'd reserve the most visible part of the page for approved mods. In either case, if a user wants to get his hands dirty he either scrolls down or clicks "Show WIP mods".

For the mods that are really fun but will not ever be at a "LFS standard" level simply because of what they are, if they are rated well, I'd give them trophies for each milestone, like in lfsworld. E.g. 100x5 stars = liked mod, 200x5 stars, loved mod or top mod or stuff like that. Ofc 4* should also count as a good vote, but some algorithm is needed. These could be used when sorting as well. They won't get the approved sign but they are still fun, and fun is why we play so they should be easy to access for the users imo.

Quote from Scawen :

Nice! I've always wanted to see bigger vehicles though I realise pit garages are a problem.

Good that the obj importer seems to be working quite well (for points, triangles and smoothing groups).

If the vehicle is bigger than a certain size just spawn it on the pit box? A truck has no business in the pit garage anyway. If someone is in the pits close by, you could use the same system which prevents resetting a car when someone is approaching.

And you could also update the current pit-garage menu with 3D view with zoom in and out. Should be good to check the detail of the mod you just installed, and big vehicles wouldn't look cropped as well.

Quote from Gunn :

I agree with what you are saying, although I don't think selling mods is (necessarily) a good idea. If copyrighted content does slip through the approval process - and it has been sold as a commercial asset - then legal trouble is much more likely. So purely from a risk management point of view, it may be best not to involve profiteering.

A case could be made for selling content which is designed and made completely from scratch, but it would have to be obviously unique rather than a tweaked version of an existing real world car. There's a lot of grey area here of course.

I didn't mean a dollar price as in selling the mods, but for the review process. Basically you'll have to have $1 or more in your account to be able to send a mod for review. If it's approved, $1 is subtracted from your account and you'll be able to update it in the future free of charge. If it's not approved, your money stays in your account and you go back to the drawing board and try to make a better mod that will be approved. And maybe S3 users could be granted a one or two charge free mod approvals. The price I brought up is completely arbitrary so it could be any other price that makes people stop sending that 1hp stronger UF1000 for a review.

The question is whether modding is allowed as a "car editor tool" or as a tool to make new quality mods for the game. If it is the former you're gonna have 1000 versions of basically same cars none of which will be used all that often. It'll just clutter the modding section because everyone can slightly modify a car and send it for review for laughs. This problem is exacerbated because this tool has just been released and people just wanna test it. Maybe have a grace period where you basically approve any mod for a few weeks, then remove the bad ones.

After which you could also bring about a small price for mods. Maybe a dollar for each mod that has been approved? This way people won't be sending a mod for review that they don't really like or care about.

When it comes to legal issues. If someone files a complaint, you can simply remove it from mods section and be done with it. No? With that being said I don't think they will pursue it all that much.

Quote from Scawen :

I kind of think that the tyre physics system is the biggest unknown.

Eric has kept on at South City longer than any of us had ever imagined, because he kept getting new ideas and going for it. I'm guessing he could wrap it up fairly quickly if needed. In my mind Kyoto has the most unfinished parts, though I might be wrong about that.

Eric did leave Kyoto in the end stages when he moved on to South City. But the end stages of projects generally take quite a while. I'm speaking generally, not actually speaking for Eric or specifically about South City or Kyoto.

As I say I believe the tyre physics are still the least predictable. I need to get my teeth into that and see where we are at.

It sounds like you took such a long break from the tyre physics that you don't even remember where you left off.

And you know if you support track modding the community will make tracks that will put the upgraded FE in shame right? And since modding is S3, even more incentive for all the users to upgrade to S3.

I like the structured and approved mods system that is also easy to download/update and maintains a level of quality. Normally you have to get the file and go to the root of the game, drop it then see if it works and then find it again on the web if the mod is updated etc. It's a hassle. RF2 does kinda fine with Steam but then if you have 40gb of mods you have another 40gb of workshop folder which just sits there doing nothing.

Let's say you made a mod and it is not approved because of copyright, is it possible to send it manually and install, using it online? Or can you only test offline unless it is approved? Would naming a car Volkspragen and changing the logo be enough to avoid the copyright filter?

Any plans about track modding? Since this is an S3 package, might as well add the track support too since you won't have to worry about saturation or anything. Modders even made tracks with slab walls so I can only imagine what they can do with actual track support.

Quote from NumberTwo :

Will the new modded cars still latch onto edge of kerbs at rockingham and ruin any meaningfull racing?

This issue is about the tyre model's contact patch so no. This can only be fixed with either new physics, or "fixing" the surface on the track. But the latter would be more like duct taping the problem.

Quote from NumberTwo :

Not being aero overhaul, but can you add a wing to mod car? Is there a property of lift and drag for the wing you make? Can you add a diffuser to modded car?

Or are mods for now limited only to cars without aero?

The visual shape of the car and it's performance has nothing to do with each other in sims since it doesn't calculate the downforce from the shape but basically from the numbers that you put in.

Quote from Bose321 :

I think this is the moral of the story. You have more important things to worry about if LFS is really that expensive for you.

They want to buy the game, but only for the price of a bag of peanuts. Not sure if that's a good thing perse.

Doesn't work like that. 1 Kuwaiti dinar is worth like 3 euros. For them you're paying peanuts as well.

Quote from Gutholz :

From a quick google search it seems all turkish accounts who posted in this thread are active in a community that runs cracked servers.

Some years ago there was an attempt to cooperate with another cracker, to have him as LFS-reseller. As far I remember, that did not work out.

Are you mentally challenged. If that is a fact, and they are here trying to actually pay and buy the game is a GOOD thing.

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

erhm. how did he discover gravity under an apple tree then ?

also he travelled alot .

not sure how that fit in to this ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psMy-F8Llpg

https://www.biography.com/news/isaac-newton-quarantine-plague-discoveries

That's my second and last reply to you, as I just don't see you as a person that I should have a discussion with.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks but when I am attacked by random people for no reason, I am genuinely concerned about their mental state. I'm not a whipping boy for people's personal problems.

As for talking about mental health, I've experienced serious depression in the past and I know for a fact that getting out and enjoying nature as much as possible is a great help. I am genuinely concerned about people staying indoors during lockdown and seriously suggest they get outside. It's not a joke that people need exercise. Without it, gradually the brain and body deteriorate.

There was a thorough and lengthy test patching process where people were invited to give feedback. If people with a special interest have a problem with one of the slightly adjusted features, then it really is too late and the correct advice is, next time, participate in the test patch stage.

If there was an actual bug or serious issue, then I'd have to spend more time away from the real development and start working on 0.6W. But there isn't such a problem. There are a few tiny changes that a very small number of people are worried about. It's a real storm in a teacup.

Kinda disagree. Check Newton. One of the two smartest people of all time and he was at home cranking equations mostly. It's all about what you do with your time in quarantine. You can come out better, or more stupid.

People here aren't your enemies wanting to trigger you for no reason, they all like LFS and care about it, well maybe some care about their hotlaps, but most care about the game and that's why they're here. And that's why I am gonna share my opinion.

He's got a point about braking pressure, such a system was in F1, Hakkinen was using it. A second, small brake pedal. It was banned.

Brake pressure adjustment is good for drifters, but racers will use this to their advantage, to get the nose to turn in, changing handbrake pressure as they see fit. This is a nice challenge but not realistic. Get the front to turn in just the right way with a push of a button. Racers in real life don't do that. You changed steering rotations for more realism. Does handbrake driving provide mote or less realism? I think it should've been specific to "Alternative" and default should've been left alone. That way drifters still get what they want.

I think the problem is you like doing things in a very structural, in your own "proper" way. There's nothing stopping you from uploading a little patch that fixes this, (neither is anything wrong with that, my steam games keep updating all the time with little patches) but then you're gonna think it must be "0.6V1.5" or something, and you just don't want that. You like seeing 0.6V clean which is, just a number of a version and tbh totally meaningless.

And you know not all issues come out during patch testing, and not everyone is supposed to do patch testing. Why don't you try a less structured approach? Like, release an official version, if people come flooding, pointing out an actual problem like they did here about 2 things after the official release, release another official version. My ACC is 1.7.3 or something. Two days ago it was 1.7.2, a day before 1.7.1. It's all fine.

Quote from Scawen :

Each pair of wheels could have the option to go down a few tyre sizes (in steps of 10mm) and another one to add spacing (in steps of 5mm to move the wheel out a bit as it goes narrower).

So there'll be 50 different "versions" of the same car each with slightly different tyres. I think this is going to saturate the cars in a bad way. We look at a car we won't know what it is and who is faster. Everytime an explanation: Hey he is using 5mm wider track etc. Right now we can see if its drift/street spec or GTR spec. No confusion.

What I realized from this thread is that the drift community will never have enough. After this they'll ask you to adjust turbo pressure, then engine power, then cylinders etc. This is a bottomless hole. Sometimes giving people everything they want creates the opposite effect because they don't have that one thing to go for. And it's not easy in real life to adjust the rim and track. You jump in a different configuration.

And whoever has perfect balance? In GT series nothing is perfectly balanced, every car has strength in certain track or environment. You want the 1=1 balance? Use the same damn car. Why even try to make 2 different cars perform exactly the same?

You said you were going to get this done and move on.
What you proposed is going to take another month or two because it never takes as little as projected, another bunch of petty requests while you're at that, while new graphics and tyres wait.

What's your goal? Sell more LFS. Make LFS better for everyone. Is this going to sell more LFS? What percentage of LFS users care about this? 5%? Reading on the forum might create the illusion that everyone wants this while in reality most don't care. You did the multiplayer update, which pretty much affects 100% of players. The stuff you're working on now? A few people doing request after request trying to get the dev to create the exact game they want.

And all this will be subject to change with new tyres anyway. And if you're planning to let people create custom cars or allow modding, again all this will be of no importance. I think this should be left for later stages of LFS after new tyres are updated, and tested, in a menu like "Modify/Edit a car", so each drift server owner can create whatever perfect balance they want.

I don't understand why 1024x1024 skin res download is still a paid feature. You don't want your game to look bad/low quality. People are basically creating free content for your game by creating skins. Free higher quality skin downloads will make the game look much better in every platform. When a car passes by and the text on the skin is pixelated, the guy who's watching the game doesn't know it's a limitation. He just thinks "Ehh, ugly game." You create graphical reflection for cars which make them look much better, but you keep the resolution low, I don't see the point.

I think that limitation was put in place like 15 years ago. Nowadays data is much cheaper, faster, and screens are much bigger. 4k could be paid content as of this moment, but I don't think it's wise to have players download low res skins which makes the game look ugly.

Edit: I know it's just 1€ for 1000 downloads, but most people won't bother doing that and will just let low res skins be.

Last edited by nexttime, Sat 6 Feb 2021, 19:01.

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

Intel I7 2.93Ghz 8GB Ram. 64bit, Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 TI. and i am on a fiber optic internet connection.

if thats potato. then youre right...

i dont have graphic card issues at all. dont let gust get that thought into you.
LFS is the only game that does this. so pretty sure its a LFS thing not my card or CPU.

Never a good idea to mod your game in any kind then report any bugs/issues. AFAIK LFS don't have any Pontiac or such sky and whatever else you've modded that isn't possible to see from a SS. Try with clean install of LFS.

Quote from pajkul :

The thing is that it's much easier to get both things done and release them together than just extract only the graphical/track changes and apply them to the public version we're using now, these are my thoughts and it's based on what Scawen has said before, so it's completely understandable.

I don't know how it works with coding and which approach would be easier, but one thing I know is we'd probably wait for several months maybe even a year more for the tyres while graphics are already ready and that's where I don't see the point. And I'd personally like tracks/graphics update first, testing it with the old tyres, then the new tyres. That way 2 big updates would be seperated, and we'd better see the differences between the old tyre and new tyre. If all the tracks would change we'd only have Blackwood to feel what is actually different characteristically compared to the old one. Also in terms of laptimes, race strategies etc. Yeah you obviously don't need the same track but it'd be a better comparison that way.

Regarding the interiors, I doubt it'd take much time. Few cars are actually quite decent, but there are several which needs to be brought to todays standards. Like LX, UF, and several more. The two official cars need even less attention simply because they were done after a real design.

Quote from pajkul :

Ok, the important thing to understand is that the graphics update and new tyre physics are supposed to be released together in one update.

The main reason for this is that graphical update is happening in the development branch, and that branch contains all changes in tyre physics. It would be a lot of work to for Scawen to release graphical updates and physics changes separately, it's just easier to simply finish up the new physics and release them together.
Apart from that, even if it was possible to do, then all online stats and hotlaps would need to be reset because the tracks would change with the tracks/graphics update, and then these would have to be reset yet again because of the change in tyre physics - that's the second reason why it doesn't make sense.

Pretty sure the new tyre won't just be "release and be done with it" kind of thing. It'll probably be further tested by the community, bugs/exploits/behaviors fixed & updated over a period of months and months. And with every update, charts will be reset. So I don't see the point in holding back this amazing graphics/tracks update that takes LFS from 2006 look and moves it 10 years forward. But of course, the cockpits would have to be upgraded as well, in the same update or the one following, because they are currently at PS1 level, though that's probably somewhat easier to do.

For example right now tyre heating/cooling behavior is totally wrong in LFS. A tyre will never stay that long at 190c (or cool down that slowly) while just sitting. As soon as you stop turning or unload that tyre, it'll go down to 100 or so very quickly depending on air/track/brakes temperature. Or that the tyre at thinnest thread won't give you the best laps. The only reason these issues are not fixed is because of the premise of new tyre physics. If this was the primary tyre model, those kind of fixes would be applied and all hotlaps would have to be deleted again each time. So I doubt Scawen cares about not deleting hotlaps anyway, nor should he.

Quote from Scawen :

A very interesting side-by-side video by kagurazakayukari showing the difference between a live recording and an MPR, with Wizard DK driving a lap of Blackwood.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1962078#post1962078

The glitches you can see in the MPR recorded on Wizard DK's computer can be improved by sending more packets, but the issues seen in the live recording cannot be improved by sending more packets. They are due to latency (high ping).

So your own car in a mpr is always 6pps even if the server is set to 4 or something? Or 12 in this case. Because in some of my own replays (6pps version) I see a lot of glitches sometimes on my car.

I think having that terribly glitchy video with 300 ping on the left makes the typical glitches on the rest that shouldn't ideally be there look too "innocent". Also the follow camera, I am sure we would see them mini-teleporting in fast turns or even on the straights.

We all know that anything over 150 is an issue and 100 is seen kind of decent. Wish he had 100-150 ping so that we could see the most common scenario.

What is the solution then? As a player I can clearly see there are differences in how different sims handle the issue because when 200 ping is death in one sim, it's just fine in another. Not just in racing but cars look smooth as well. They must be doing something different.

I wonder why LFS does physics calculations and not just send where the car is, to the server? It would have been fine wouldn't it, as long as my client and the server knows where the car is? It's like you can either try to simulate each piston and fuel flow of the engine and millions of different stuff, or you can just simulate the power of it at the wheels. Former will be much more "advanced" but won't be any more accurate than the latter.

Apart from that, could there be a "common sense" system that would be like "Dude, come on. 1200 kg car won't immediately teleport 50cm that way, it's physically impossible"? Or maybe even something graphical to get rid of that. I am just throwing ideas at this point and I don't know which one would actually make sense for a real solution. Because, yes we have lag issues in all sims, but we can pretty easily differentiate between a lagger and not. When a person has a good ping, it looks good on the track. In LFS everybody has that glitch regardless of their ping, either always or somewhere on the track.

Quote from Scawen :

Test Patch U13 is available.

I have tried to increase packet frequency carefully where it is needed, while making sure it is never decreased.

So it's not 12pps at all times? Question: Why don't you try even higher pps? No harm can be done anyway, people simply will stop using it if it's bad. Last time I ran a server in AC it was 15pps by default so I am assuming that number was just mid range and not even maximum. And AC is even seen as kind of inferior in terms of online experience compared to iracing and acc. (ACC handles high ping the best)

Quote from Scawen :

Position packets are sent more frequently in response to steering
- packet frequency is further increased at higher speeds

Shouldn't this be the other way round? At lower speeds people use quicker/wackier steering inputs & higher angles. And at higher speeds we all keep it smooth. (If by higher speeds you meant the vehicle speed and not steering wheel rotation)

Quote from Scawen :

this could in theory allow two things.

1) the smoothing you see in replays
2) allow rewind to replay something interesting before switching back to real time

I do know this isn't very easy. I'm not sure how far away it is from being possible but I'll have a look into it.

1) Wouldn't streaming be much smoother already with higher PPS? People in streamed races are generally more hardcore, and have low latency internet. It's bit more serious than your casual Blackwood FBM.

And nowadays people have CRAZY pc's Scawen. They aren't even that expensive anymore. I have 8 core 16 threads Ryzen with 16 GB ram. And that's like average Ryzen, not even considered top end, I can open 10 LFS instances and run max AI on all of them. (Probably more actually) LFS is already way too friendly to old hardware. I can run LFS with a 20 year old PC. Literally. Maybe not with max graphics and max AI or 999 FPS, but it WILL run. And that's probably also because you don't cut corners and code cleanly.

2) I think this one would require a new broadcasting interface with specific controls. It wouldn't be nice to see the guys fiddling with the menu and trying to find where the incident happened, going back and forth in replay etc. Something like a "control room" would be amazing, where viewers don't see what's being done and when the specific replay is ready, just "send" it to the main stream, maybe even choose different views to play it from, and then it goes back to live automatically after replay ends. Hell maybe even a quick LFS logo animation before and at the end of the replay, not to jump straight into it and confuse people. Streamers would basically get the replay and angles, the playback speed ready, and send it in during a calm moment in the race.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks for the feedback.


I was wondering about this often requested change. As usual I fear it may make things worse. I believe it can help when all players are near the server, with minimal lag. In this case it can bring similar benefits to using a high pps on a LAN. The problem I have with it is that the really bad lagging you see is usually from players with high latency (time lag to the server).

Higher pps cannot help with this. Such players, if sending twice as many packets per second, will not appear any better to the other players and will still be all over the place. Only now they will consume more CPU on the other players' computers because of the catch-up physics done on each position update.

So the problem is that more packets per second cannot possibly solve the worst problem and could make it worse. Turn 1 slowdowns could become a slide show of carnage.

I feel it's a bit like having a broken cylinder head gasket and increasing the turbo boost to try to get some more power to compensate.

But I can see that it could be worth a test. Maybe I can even run a local multiplayer test here using a remote server to get an initial feel for it before trying it in public.


Good question, I'll need to ask Victor about this.


Other comments - thanks for the feedback. I'm reading and thinking...

People aren't asking you for more packets per second because they think this can fix bad internet problems. They ask you for that for smoother gameplay. You're working on all those amazing graphic improvements, but when the car I am racing against keeps trembling (or doing mini-teleports) on the road it's a very ugly sight, and that's still a part of the graphics. It just doesn't look natural.

Also when people broadcast sim races, you know this is basically the age of streaming live sim stuff now, and this is a good source of marketing for games, this 6 pocket per sec is again an issue. Cars just skip over the track like skipping stones on a lake. When a new guy watches a stream of LFS he'll be like "What the heck is that?" and not even consider buying it. I am quite used to LFS (speccing in a server for example) and it was even off putting for me to watch the broadcast of skipping stones.

I'd even increase it to 18 packets per second or at least give the choice. Someone's bad internet isn't game devs' problem to solve. Bad internet issues occur in all the other games. And I can only assume people will get faster and faster internet, or lower and lower ping. Why not give people with fast net a chance to play buttery smooth LFS. Every single thing in LFS improved except this stuff. Still back in mid 2000's.

About CPU issue, I can run LFS on a 11 year old laptop with 40 people absolutely fine and not getting bottlenecked by CPU. The cpu is i5-430m. So you shouldn't worry about CPU at all.

And I remember you made replays little smoother back in the day. Would be great if you could make them even smoother too.