Picking up the S2 license was money well spent for me. I suggest you do the same. The quality of drivers on licensed servers far outstrips those on the demo servers.

Quote from Mark. :

What they have now is good enough!

Im a "gamplay comes first" guy. I do not care for amazing graphics, even though it would be nice, but i would much rather have amazing gamplay.

Updating too DX10 will probably require alot of people to upgrade things, which many people might not have the money to pay for.

I'm also a playability first kinda person. However, I think LFS looks pretty good as is. I run GTA: San Andreas on this PC, and I turn the graphics settings down to 640x480x32, with no AA. First of all, it doesn't have THAT much of a negative impact on graphic quality--but the framerate is silky smooth, with none of the hiccups and jerks that accompanied the PS2 version (and my PC has more processing power than what they consider the "recommended" system requirements).

If I want to upgrade to Vista and DX10, I'll need $300 for the OS, and another $300 for a decent graphics card. I'll wait.

I do think the size of the community has a lot to do with the behavior. Look at the small town I grew up in versus a major metro like New York. My town is pretty quiet, people are mostly nice to each other, nothing really happens. In NYC people by and large don't give a crap about each other, are rude to most people they don't know, and figure it doesn't matter because they can gain anonymity in a crowd.

And I think that's a lot of the reason small communities are more civil. They can't disappear as easily. Do something openly mean-spirited and someone is going to call you on it and punish you for it. So really it's in everyone's best interests right now to behave themselves.

It's that HAHA N00B attitude that made me quit playing Counterstrike, Battlefield and other FPSes online. I just got sick of the insults, the virtual ****-waving and the 13 year olds trying to act big and bad.

I'd just like to say that it's rare to find a bunch of people in an online gaming community that actually behave like respectable human beings (for the most part). I'm really tired of the people that populate the FPSes (HAHA PWNED U SUCK N00B!) and the MMOs (d00d, gimme gold pls?) and the like. To come into a game like this and find people are actually civil and polite to each other is a breath of fresh air.

You don't tear each other down--you help each other out. Players give advice, swap car setups, all kinds of stuff. Most of all, you guys mostly put up with my crappy driving--if I played like this in any other game I'd have probably been booted off every server known to Man.

So I just wanted to say thanks. Despite the extreme difficulty of this game, it's the community that keeps me here.

Quote from Gimpster :

All I know is that the tires on my car do not deflect that badly. The tires on my truck woudl be I would not drive in a maner to do that to the tires on my truck.

The being that anyone worth their salt and has a few functioning braincells would put tires approate for the activity on a car. So if you were goign to race a car even a street car you woudl be stupid to not put on a lower profile, wider tires which can handle the lateral forces with minimal deformation of the sidewalls. Idealy you shoudl find that the tires heat, wear and deform all to acceptable levels when setup correctly. I the street cars in LFS I find this rather diffacult to achieve. Its either propper heating and sloppy sidewalls/handeling or good handeling cold ass tires.

That's pretty realistic. Street tires don't do heat very well. A LITTLE warmth in the tires will help, but the temps that racing tires need for best adhesion usually turn street tires into Krispy Kremes. (greasy doughnuts!) Street tires are at their best when "cold"--they're designed for normal, every-day driving--which NEVER heats up the tires to race temps.

I hate cheaters...

I'd just like to say now--if I wreck and you hit me, I'm sorry for losing control. If you wreck and I hit you, I'm sorry I couldn't avoid.

If they restricted the game to only folks with a wheel, they wouldn't sell near as many licenses. I don't have a wheel (nor can I afford one) and must stick with the mouse/KB combo.

I, however, am nowhere near good enough to set a decent lap on any course. (my best so far on Blackwood is in the XF GTI--at 1:40)

I say you do what you do if you wreck in real life--if you can move the car, do so as soon as it is safely possible to do so. (Very rarely in LFS is a car damaged to the point where it can't move--cars in LFS drive away regularly from crashes that would crush the driver to death)

I would know. I have lots of experience crashing in LFS. (I'm not a "banger", I'm just a really s****y driver!)

Then it must suck to be me, because it still isn't working. I'm stuck in an infinite loop or something. I see a message which I'm guessing says "Download will start in 5 seconds. If it doesn't click this button". I give it half a minute and nothing happens, so I click it..which doesn't seem to do anything but reload the page..which puts me in the same mess as before. Tried in Firefox and IE. Neither one is working for me. (Mind you, I do not speak German, so I'm only guessing that's what it's saying)

Original download location doesn't seem to be working anymore. The download won't start.

I use a gamepad. I can't afford a decent wheel and I'm not going to waste my money on some cheap piece of garbage. Besides, it doesn't make things any harder for you, just for me.

And I don't know what you're talking about. I'm Stateside and I don't have any problem finding a server with good ping (I consider a good ping less than 150 ms) They're out there. Just look.

Hm. My conversions must be a little off. Still, best to err on the side of caution. I typically don't go over 45 MPH in the pits, just to give myself a bit of a cushion.

And I apologize if I seemed a bit aggravated. I can't count the number of times I've been rammed by idiots doing 90+ through pit lane while I'm trying to limp my car back to the stall. (Said ram then usually sends my car OVER the speed limit, which gets me a penalty too. Wish there was a way to fix that. I shouldn't be penalized for someone else's mistake)

DO NOT SPEED THROUGH THE PITS.

Another tip.

DO NOT SPEED THROUGH THE PITS.

The speed limit is 80 Km/h. That's about 50 MPH if you're using US measurements. If you exceed this limit, you will be penalized. The speed limit is there for a reason--cars are going in and out of stalls, and you need to watch for them. Several cars in the game won't exceed 50 MPH in 1st gear (with standard settings) so drop it into first and you should be OK.

Try not to use the "chase cam" view. Your visibility ahead is great, but you can't see behind you at all.

The horn is there to WARN other drivers that they are doing something incredibly stupid--it is not your personal noise-maker.

And take my word for it, a gamepad is a poor substitute for a wheel. Hard to cram 900 degrees of wheel rotation into about 3/4" of total stick travel.

Very fun tracks. Hard as hell though. I have yet to complete a lap of any of the ones I've tried without taking severe damage.

OK, I've unlocked S2. I start the event. I hit Shift+U, and THIS

is what I see.

What am I doing wrong? I can't load a layout, I can't save a layout, I can't add objects, I can't move objects.

This needs to be added to the game, and made to change depending on what the driver is using. Granted, I already KNOW that 80 Km/h = about 50 MPH, but most people aren't that bright.

I can't say I worry much about fuel economy when I'm racing. The needle points to E, I go fill up. That's all the thought I normally put into it.

Redline for an LS1 is a little over 6000 RPM. Redline for the 7.0L LS7 is 7,000. Small-blocks can rev like crazy. Big-blocks, not so much.

Would definitely like to see a couple big ol' muscle cars. Stadium trucks would be cool too. Really, anything big and loud is good with me.

It seems to me to take an awfully long time to come to a stop over the kitty litter. Aren't those gravel traps supposed to slow you down a lot more? I slid into one doing maybe about 60 MPH and continued sliding until I hit a wall.

I've noticed a couple other minor issues when taking damage.
1. Bodywork sometimes clips into the tires. This doesn't seem to have any effect on the tires themselves. If there's bodywork cutting into the tires, that tire needs to blow, and quickly.
2. I have seen some thoroughly MANGLED cars manage to limp their way back to the pits after surviving crashes in which the driver should have been KILLED (roof is caved in, driver's helmet is sticking through...sure sign he's a goner) And I should know, I've driven some of those smoking wrecks. (the in-car view made me a little queasy...) If it's estimated the driver would sustain serious injury or death in the wreck, the race should be over for you. That would probably cut down on a lot of the kamikaze driving I see. (Of course, this should be turned off when hot-lapping, so we can screw up with impunity)

And I'd also like to note, the only time I ever really finding myself hitting the reset button is when I've been in a major crash and flipped the car onto its side/roof. This happens more often than I'd like.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I think that's to let you know that they are hazards even with a healthy car.

I think those types of drivers are GREATER hazards with a healthy car. If it's banged up the suspension's all out of whack and they won't get far, and certainly won't get there quickly.

Just watch out for anyone driving a car that looks like this.

Thank you. Figures, looked everywhere but THERE.

Ok, I went through the game screens, I went through the manual, all with no luck. I've seen drivers in-game running around with their 4-ways on (hazard lights). How are they doing that?

Yeah, the collision detection needs a little help. I, erm, overcooked it a bit going into the chicane on Blackwood Reverse and slid into the red/white Jersey barriers and...went right through. Collision detection on walls is solid though. (YOu can tell I'm a newbie--I hit EVERYTHING. You should see my car when I'm through with it)

Oh, and hello everybody.