Well AFAICT cars IRL are usually set up with some rake for several reasons, so having it flat is not what I'm looking forward to.
My point is if you can tell what ride height difference is equivalent to 0 rake given certain suspensions settings, then it'd be easy to find out the rake for whatever set you stumble upon.
That can be useful to compare completely different sets, especially when the axles are set up with different frequencies. The actual ride height value of course means nothing by itself, the ground clearance and thus rake depend on the actual spring stiffness and bump as well.
What I find hard is to tell is how much oversteer/understeer is caused by rake alone, as it affects the amount of F/R weight transfer and also has aerodynamic effects especially at high speeds.
Sometimes even relatively small adjustments to ride height result in a remarkable change in handling.
That's understood, I was thinking something analytical (ala VHPA) or .raf files analysis, maybe looking at slip ratio or torque at the wheels? I'm not on windows now and can't remember exactly what data is available.
I was suggesting it's not impossible, even for an individual with some money to burn, to find out the hard data.
Googling a bit around I was able to find interesting stuff regarding the GTI which is why I was mentioning it. The same holds true for many popular models, and I think big repair shops also have huge DBs with technical data about an almost endless list of models.
Spring stiffnesses are just a tiny bit of the puzzle, I would have expected the average 'manufacturer' to provide enough information to Scavier to model the car with a certain degree of accuracy - certainly not because they are happy to share it, but because I put faith in Scavier not accepting too many compromises about this.
The discussion about setting up rF reminded me of that post of Shotglass saying Linux is a hobby because to get it to work correctly takes entirely too much time.
I'd say setting up FFB in rF is a hobby itself I have enough already to learn about driving and setups without having to cope with dozens FFB settings, and the increased complications of having to tell whether is the set, my driving or the FFB settings that need addressing.
Up to a point I was in a mood to try rF out, but that part really killed my interest off - Maybe if one has extensive knowledge of the car and track he's going to drive... maybe...
"Look! Mommy! the RAC is so low the steered wheels are touching the fenders. It must be that awesome sim I heard about, where your car can take off like a plane on 1ft high curbs and when you land you have neither damaged rims nor bent suspensions arms! I wonder why they didn't throw in one of those extremely realistic skyrocketings off the red-white barriers! want one ASAP!"
Slo mo should be for showing off the good things in LFS not exposing its flaws - JIMO and back to my corner
Sound analysis, its only shortcoming is we commoners can only observe two things:
1) the frequency of released patches
2) amount of information released about ongoing development
With 1) being a little on the slow side, and in absence of 2) people start going astray and come up with theories which to you may seem as logical as the invasion of earth by reptilians, still they have the same justifications as your patience.
The only difference is you have faith and they've not. That's why expectations should be managed.
The problem with idiots (discarding the idea you were implying I am one too), is everybody need to be able to recognize them as to neutralize their statements.
I'm sure you noticed the logical loop in the previous statement, as if everybody would be able to recognize them, they would be able to do so as well and instantly stop being idiots.
Hence the popular saying 'never argue with an idiot because others may not be able to notice the difference'
For me the inevitable conclusion is even if idiots and idiots only are <cough> moaning, the effort associated with recognizing one means the bad word of mouth idiots create has the very same value as the one that would be created by a group of select and very knowledgeable people pointing out issues with LFS and its management.
To a degree - it doesn't matter if someone is an idiot or not, as long as the thing he/she's saying has some truth in it
I think I understand where you coming from - i.e. you say what matters the most is the amount of the error. If this is small enough you won't notice it because of flaws in LFS or limitations of the controllers masking it, right?
I still have some questions if you don't mind - I find all of this very interesting.
So you would use an iterative process, using what you think is a good guess or the softest value and then progressively increasing it through testing on various LFS track configs?
But even if you don't have the ratios you could still extract the springs curve and use it adimensionally, am I wrong?
And motion ratios could be estimated through a geometric study of the suspensions?
That would be easier if they had CAD drawings of the suspensions and not just the body - but there's a lot of stuff available online and offline the thing being basically a refactored GTI.
Assuming the devs can't come to a good estimation - if the motion ratios are 'made up' then it makes no difference whether they choose to go model progressive or stick to constant stiffness, the springs would still be 'made up' as well
@OP - I can do without a true dev blog, but it would be nice if they resumed posting some updates like they used to do (http://www.lfs.net and browse news archive)
Also some things Scawen says on the forum could be slightly edited and posted as news, so that one doesn't need to sift through his posts to find out.
It is a matter of taste, some people like/find convenient to set 900° wheels to a small lock, mainly before it makes easy to countersteer quickly. Of course changing the lock affects the feeling you get through FFB.
If both could be had for around the same price, I'd buy the GT no question. If instead, the Thrustmaster is significantly cheaper, it becomes a matter of personal priorities. I'd still save to get the GT.