Hello all! Glad you like the skins.

As for the render scene, all but 2 cars (LX6/RB4) were scenes from digiserv merged together onto a larger scene. The other 2 I found through threads on the Master Skinnerz forum.

I don't have the time or talent to do a render from scratch so I 'cheated' by using ready-made scenes.

If I had done everything from scratch I'd release it in a heartbeat but since those cars were the work of other people I wouldn't feel right about making a public release of that scene.

I will get a hold of someone from dSRV and see if I can send it to people who want it via PM or e-mail and get back to you with an update.

Welcome to the group. I'll try to answer your questions in the order you listed them.

1) The game doesn't issue penalties for passing under yellow so people do take advantage of it.

2) The courteous thing to do is to yield to the leader and take the outside line but unless he's far away (the blue flag warnings trigger quite early) or he's gaining on you big time, take the corner as you normally would and yield on the following straight to minimize time lost.

3) The lack of low speed grip is definitely a game-related issue so don't mess with your settings if you've got them where you like them. Whether the grip levels are realistic or not is open to a lot of debate.

Hope that helps.

As ajp71 suggested, join the CRC. The server is public at the moment but the racing there is kept to a very high standard and CRC members are eligible to enter special events and leagues run by the CRC.

Pop on over to cleanracersclub.org and apply.

Quote from scotty37 :

Ive just started so it will take me a little time to get used to it

no worries. we all had a first time.

But I found the best way to acclimatize to life on a forum is to reply to existing threads. Lets you learn how to state your opinion or otherwise take part in an active discussion so that when you have an issue or question that hasn't been raised yet, you can start a thread that will likewise become an active discussion.

Cheers.

EDIT: also watch that video above too.

No offense but you really should have something important to say if you're going to start a thread.

Brief one-line messages about trivial matters are ok for live chat rooms but they constitute spam on message boards where threads add to bandwidth/webspace usage etc.

Bumpdrafting blows. Period.

As much as I appreciate your well thought out posts supporting it, I hate it with an unadulterated passion when people do it to me in NR2003. Repeat: HATE IT!!!!!

It accomplishes little and just makes me nervous and angry at the same time. Not a good frame of mind to race with. Even real life NASCAR drivers acknowledge its pathetic risk-reward ratio.

So do me a favor when I'm on track: go do your kinky driving with someone else.

I'm naughty. Incredibly naughty.

I drive all the cars from a centered view that simulates a TV on-board camera mounted on the roof/roll-bar. :ashamed:

http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=view11gu.jpg
http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=view25tv.jpg

Yes I know I'm a stupid arcade racer because of this, but I drive all my sims this way (F1C, NR2003, LFS) and the increased view makes me a better safer driver. So sue me.

I must be a little weird. I right foot brake in my real life car but I left foot brake in all of my racing sims and both feel so normal in their respective situations but when I LFB in my real life car and RFB on my game pedals it feels so awkward.

I guess its the perfect scenario for me cuz left-foot braking does make you faster but yet I don't accidentally carry my sim-racing habits into my real-life car (at least the pedal usage)

P.S. Nighthawk - got lots of fond memories of Indycar Racing 2 myself too.

Quote from Tweaker :

I guess when they enter with limited-admin power, they would have to enter a limited-admin-password. And the server admin would have a full access password. That would make it easy I guess.

I would however like the options they have to be editable via a config file or something. Because if the limited-admin could not reset an Auto-X layout or something, that's no fun. Just have it editable and it would be decent.

Yeah that would make sense. Have the setup.cfg file contain paramaters for a junior admin password and also which commands the junior admin has the power to use.

Some of the more harmless parameters like car/track/auto-x options could be opened up if senior admins so choose but things like connection settings and passwords should be restricted to avoid potential screw-ups as you suggested. Also I believe there should be a limit on banning rights for a junior admin since the very name suggests that they are lower in rank than a full admin and serious stuff like month/year-long bans should fall to full admins to decide.

Last edited by RacingSimFan, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 02:48.

This is just something that popped into my head so make of it what you will but I think it might be handy.

A coded position for a Junior or Assistant Server Admin.

I'm not sure how each team or group runs their servers but in some cases it could be worthwhile to endow trustworthy people with certain admin rights that keep the server orderly and efficient but at the same time not turn over the keys to the kingdom by allowing fullscale changes.

For example...

A Junior/Assistant Admin would have the power to:
- Force restarts or qualifying
- Force players to pit or spectate
- Issue on-track penalties
- Kick players
- Ban players up to 1 day
- Send server messages in the chatbox
- Send race control messages that appear in the middle of the screen

A Junior/Assistant Admin would NOT have the power to:
- Change any of the admin passwords (thus preventing a hijack)
- Change or establish a user password (thus keeping a public server public or a private server private)
- Change any connection settings (# of players/ports/etc...)
- Allow/disallow cars or change track or apply auto-x layout to track
- End race
- Change qualifying time length or race distance
- Turn on/off mandatory pit stops
- Ban players for longer than 1 day
- Edit ban list

Giving limited powers such as those listed to someone trustworthy would mean that more people have the power to ensure order on a server but at the same time not letting more people have the power to make major changes or go tyrannical with unfair bans or hijack the server by changing passwords.

What do you think?

Last edited by RacingSimFan, Thu 15 Dec 2005, 00:40.

I agree with Hyperactive's point that a fantasy track of Nurburgring proportions would be frustrating and lose popularity because it isn'tthe Nurburgring.

The real track and its history are the biggest motivators for people to drive/race on it in RL or in sims.

That said maybe we can start a petition and present it to the devs saying that we'd gladly pay more for S3 to offset the license fees necessary to create the 'Ring for LFS.

Trouble is the FO8 outside of the Oval or Westhill or perhaps the longer courses at Aston isn't a popular combo which means not many know how to drive well at these places in FO8 which means CHAOS!!!

I fear too many would become frustrated with the level of concentration required just to handle their own cars let alone race others.

Quote from ScarySquirrel :

anyway my problem is this. Im quite happy drafting and switching places with people etc etc which is really fun. but if i made a slight mnistake and they get a little too far in front for me to catch their draft, i find it impossible to catch them. I have a set i downloaded off these forums and i swear my line is right but they just slowly pull away, its so annoying

thats the downside of fo8/oval racing under the current physics. the draft is everything and once you lose it, you're toast unless your setup and line are faster than the car ahead. chances are, they're not. at least that was the case with me. there are guys who still do the oval all the time and have done so since day 1 so my only suggestion is to watch their lines and beg, borrow, or steal a setup from them.

unless you find the fastest line and setup the oval will become very frustrating. thats the way it was for me and why i haven't raced fo8/oval in ages.

It will take vigilance on our part to make sure all WR laps are checked because, and i'm just speaking for myself, if I were to cheat on hotlaps, I would not do so in such an obvious way as the person who cheated on FO8/KY Oval did.

Hypothetically, if I had the desire to cheat in this manner, I would only want to better the honest wr by a few tenths of a second - hundredths of a second on the oval. The odds of going unsuspected are greater in that case than if I were to blow away the honest wr by several seconds, such as was the case on the oval. I would also aim for a less high-profile record than FO8/Oval.

Until the hotlap checker is setup to disallow any 'tweaks', we must hand-verify each and every new wr by downloading the replay.

Just finished up some racing here. Not too many showed up this time around but, as the attached replay will show you, it doesn't take a lot to have an exciting race!

Here is the kind of action this track is capable of producing.

P.S. the server is down now but stay tuned to this thread because I will let you know here when it is up again.

I have created an American-style short oval in the autocross arena that I call State Fair Raceway Park. I am also hosting a dedicated server for it that is online right now for a few hours. I can't keep it online 24/7 but I will notify you all in this thread when it is online.

This is very different from the high-speed flatout oval racing on Kyoto. This is like american stock car racing on short ovals. You have to brake for and through the turns and be gentle with the throttle coming out of the turns. You also have to be VERY aware of your surroundings as this is a small track and I hope to have a full server (14-15 for me).

Presently the car being used is XRG. It is the most stock-car like and provides for close racing. I also have used the MRT to mimmick sprint-car racing but it is much harder to learn so we'll stick with XRG for now.

Here are some preview pics:

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/3238/oval18nv.jpg
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/533/oval21dn.jpg
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/5375/oval38hp.jpg

If you decide to join the server I will send you a good base setup for this track.

Its a much more skilled kind of oval racing and I hope you enjoy it.

Last edited by RacingSimFan, Wed 30 Nov 2005, 00:01.

Just a further FYI, the LPI system in nr2003 can be turned right off by a server wishing to allow 'full-contact' racing so fun stuff like Banger Racing wouldn't be out of the picture. Results in such a server then wouldn't count towards a driver's LPI rating.

Yes I will agree that this system does unfairly charge a victim with an incident but it is the best system I've seen outside of pure human supervision. It's worth looking into.

A PB-limit will narrow you down to fast drivers but an LPI limit would narrow you down to clean drivers. Fast and clean do not necessarily go hand-in-hand.

It's not fair to beginners to this particular game but who have the proper attitude and expectations aquired in other sims. I for instance am a veteran of EA's entire F1 series and also played the rFactor MP demo, GPL and NR2003 before getting LFS so I knew the difference between arcade and simulation right from day 1.

There's a difference between being new to a car or sim and being oblivious to one's surroundings or to realistic physics.

The most effective method of 'idiot-proofing' a server that I've seen is NASCAR Racing 2003 Season's L.P.I. indicator (Laps per incident). That game charges an 'incident' to someone who causes a wreck (but unfortunately it also charges someone caught up in another's wreck too...it's an automated system that registers heavy contact with walls or other cars).

In that sim your LPI goes up when you finish races without incident. Your LPI goes down if you are charged with an incident. How many laps you complete before and after the incident becomes a deciding factor in how much your LPI drops. If you get in a first turn wreck and immediately retire, your LPI would drop more than if you get in a wreck halfway through the race but pit, repair the damage and finish. Servers can set a minimum LPI for joining.

That would, IMO, be the best way to 'rate' a server in LFS.

Last edited by RacingSimFan, Sun 27 Nov 2005, 23:49.

Wonderful!!!

LX6 is a blast with slickmod!!

Can slickmod be updated to the new Patch Q?

I will be using another computer in my house as a dedicated server often and would like to use slickmod for cars like LX6, RAC, and FZ5.

that's why I said 'unrealistic suppositions'

You are right though that Villeneuve wouldn't have yielded to the McLarens in that case.

I have that race and watched it a while back and noticed that it was very close at the end. I believe the top 6 were all on the finish straight at the checkered flag and Gerhard Berger very nearly nabbed 3rd place from Villeneuve with the 5th and 6th place runners only a few carlengths back so Villeneuve's plan was very close to blowing up in his face if something had gone wrong.

All I know is that the draft in the FO8 is way too 'potent'. The physical size of the slipstream is actually pretty spot on but the burst of speed the trailing driver gets from it is way too much.

I haven't raced on the oval in ages because its all about the draft. You are royally screwed without the draft. I watch real-life Indy car racing on high speed ovals and a fast car with a good setup IS capable of gaining on a group because the draft just does not produce that slingshot effect with such low-downforce wings.

It was the last lap and Villeneuve put his 2 left wheels off the track when he made the pass. And Murray Walker's pants were on fire during the whole thing! (at least that's what his tone of voice conveyed...)

For the sake of mentioning boring number facts and unrealistic suppositions, if Hill's car hadnt've crapped out Villeneuve would have gotten 4 less points. He would've then been -5pts to Schumacher going into the final race and his 3rd place finish there would have left him 1pt behind Schumacher which would have made Schumacher the '97 Champ until the FIA took away his points.

At least this way Villeneuve won the Championship outright without needing to have it be 'awarded' to him by the FIA after the fact.

Last edited by RacingSimFan, Thu 24 Nov 2005, 03:37.

At the risk of being called a heretic, I found that LX6 with slickmod was a blast. The car still has enough under the hood to keep you cautious in low speed corners but the extra grip makes that car so much more driveable.

Yikes what is with the fixation on mandating roofs for UF1?!?

Roof on it looks like a top-heavy brick on wheels.
Roof off it looks like a sporty fun car!