Quote from kamo2000 :

But it's not that bad no one asked me about 2000 at the end yet

So what's the 2000 for at the end then?

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Depends how it's done.

Agreed, but I thought this was more about those who attempt a pass on the inside, then run the outside car off the road on the exit of the corner, not those trying to pass around the outside.

Unless I've got it horribly wrong.

Assuming I haven't, regarding the junk being spewed forth by the "karters" / those defending running other cars off the road, I beg the question: when you put yourself down the inside under braking and achieve significant overlap, do you expect the other car to turn in on you? After all, they have the line for the corner, right? If you answer "no", then may I point out that it's no different to what you do to others on the exit of the corner. If the defending car can make space for you on the apex of the corner, and the defending car manages to maintain some overlap around the outside of the corner, then you can make space for them on the outside.

It'd be different on a league server where the racing is more competitive and you can guarantee the skill of the other drivers, but on a public server with pick-up short races where the emphasis is on having an enjoyable race and the quality of drivers varies, the kind of driving being proposed by ayrton and alan is just plain rude and dirty, imho.

Quote from Meanie :

Hello folks.

Let me be blunt:
Could we see some different lighting?

That's right, lighting.
I've been on LFS for almost 8 months or so now and i'm quite sad to see that pretty much NOONE chooses another lighting than "clear day".

Heh, I've been in and out of LFS for a lot longer than 8 months, and agree with you entirely: only very very rarely do you find a server running different/cloudy/sunset lighting.

I find it ironic that every week there will be a thread posted suggesting improved or dynamic weather and lighting, they're told to search for the billion previous topics about it and that there might be that kind of thing in S3, and yet so rarely do we use the different weather/lighting possibilities we have now.

I think most tracks and all the cars look better with a lower/softer light, although that might just be the photographer in me.

Quote from Slopi :

(Yes, I know I'm off topic, but I'm pissed off at the quality of racing after this patch, I'm sorry...)

You're not the only one. The general standard of driving across the selection of servers I visted tonight was awful. To the point of just giving up, 'cos it was impossible to get a clean start, race, or indeed anything. Rude drivers, bashing people out the way, people using you as a brake, twats that insist on doing a full throttle start no matter what they're about to run into the back of, people deliberately rejoining into the path of a full speed car after having a crash, the list goes on. :mad:

Come back soon CTRA, I'll never moan about your mods to the FE2 chicane again.

Quote from Captain Slow :

can i ask what people are doing to keep their minds occupied whilst waiting for patch x?

Carefully processing and cutting out photos of a fitness instructor I did a quick photoshoot with last weekend. Right now I'm carefully selecting around his crotch and inner leg, so I can transplant him onto different backgrounds. It's not particularly pleasant. :sour:

C'mon patch X.

Looking forward to patch X - hope you can get it out soon Scawen, good luck. My DFP is on the blink but it's actually working tonight, so I'm itching to have a race on patch X.

The final police skinpack for the UK, Jamaica and Japan is available here.

They're all uploaded to LFSW, so others will see them if you use them.

If you wish to change or amend them, please keep the overall design intact, but please have the courtesy to leave the credit notice intact on the skinfile. Thanks.

P.S. If a mod sees this please could they move the topic to the completed skins subforum. Thanks.

Cheers Bawbag, I'll know where to look if this problem crops up again.

Quote from FOGlegsy :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ ... mp;catid=7&subcat=160


a friend of mine got this at the weekend

Just not from them, one hopes.

Quote from SamH :

Well, two things here.. firstly, Becky is entirely right. The track is the track. It's up to you to negotiate it. The tyres/barriers were there first and didn't move. As a racing driver, you have to meet the challenge, just as everyone else on track with you must.

Agreed, I wasn't trying to claim that I had any disadvantage compared to anyone else. Like I said, I'm just not that keen on going beyond the principle of blocking cutting by changing corners. To me, the track is the black bit with green on each side as Eric intended, and anything put on it is an obstruction that shouldn't be there.

Quote from SamH :

Secondly, the purpose of this particular chicane layout (FE2) is to resolve a problem with the structure of the default track. You cannot negotiate that chicane reliably. It is a hazard. The layout we've added to that chicane makes the chicane more predictable. You have to slow down, but so does everyone else, and you have to be more careful, but so does everyone else. All in all, it's better with the layout. The layout stays

Well yes, it turns it into a more thorough chicane. Maybe the way it should have been. Still doesn't mean I'm keen on the idea, because that's not the line the tarmac takes - or maybe I just feel like being awkward today.

Quote from Tomi :

CTRA admins do what they want in their servers. period.

Never said they couldn't or expected otherwise. No harm in discussing the pros and cons of their decisions though. A "go somewhere else if you don't like it" attitude is particularly counter-productive imho.

Well I do believe I've just experienced the new, improved FE2 chicane, and yes, it's better than putting a stack of objects on the exit of the corner.

Quote from Becky :

I do believe the tyres where there first, and did not move. They did not CAUSE the accident, you can drop that line for a start! Thats the race circuit its your job as a driver to complete it - not to change the track to suite you.

Quote from Swiss_tony :

I was under the impression however that the purpose of additional obstacles was to prohibit corner cutting, not to redesign existing layouts

However I have to disagree completely with Becky here and agree entirely with Swiss Tony. According to Becky's reasoning on track objects, the CTRA could use the red and white barriers to place a chicane in the middle of a straight and expect us to negotiate it, but if I wanted to do autocross, then I'd join an autocross server. Maybe I'm being a bit naive on this, but when I join a public server running (in this case) FE2, I basically expect it to be the FE2 I know. By all means use objects to prohibit corner cutting, but I'm just not keen on the idea of using them to radically transform a corner or chicane.

Still not sure why objects can't be put off the track, in places where you'd only hit them if you were cutting beyond the kerbs anyway.

Quote from MGBoy :

I don't think I've got any warranty or anything (bought new off eBay) so I don't know how much good it would do to try and contact Logitech.

Doesn't matter - if it's bought new from a UK retailer then you have a 12 month warranty. Just beause that retailer sold it to you via ebay doesn't dissolve them of their responsibilities. Afaik.

It'd be different if you bought it from a private seller advertising it as new/unused, because the 12 month warranty would have started when they bought it.

Thanks for the help guys.

Fortunately my DFP has sprung back into life completely of it's own accord. Correspondingly, the transformer plug is now warm again too.

Just as well, since Logitech support's reply was a copy and paste job of the bog standard obvious stuff that anyone can find by searching their website.

Fingers crossed it keeps working.

In perfect timing for the imminent release of patch X, my DFP appears to have gone on the blink.

It doesn't twirl from lock to lock when the computer is booting up, and just sits there flashing it's left light at me. It is detected and shown as fully working in Windows, yet none of the inputs are working.

Anyone know what the flashing left LED means?

To add insult to injury, the wheel is only 2 months over it's warranty period, and wasn't even used from October '06 until just a couple of weeks ago. :irked:

A few references I found via google about flashing lights on Logitech wheels hinted at power problems - curiously the transformer isn't even warm.

Any help or ideas or links anyone can send my way would be much appreciated.

Last edited by STROBE, Sat 2 Jun 2007, 00:19. Reason : fixed October '06 from Oct '07 ;)

Quote from teaz-R :

No thx for the slowdown lap. But yes the postrace wrecking can be annoying.

Agree with that. I've even been wrecked on CTRA by post-race wreckers before I've finished myself, with them coming back over the start/finish line whilst other people are still finishing their final lap at full racing speed.

That's the extreme rather than the norm, but wrecking is commonplace after any race in LFS and I find it very annoying.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

are you going to create some ambulance and tow truck skins too?

Yep, just as soon as Eric creates some ambulance and tow truck models to put them on.

There's no vans, pickups, or winches in LFS that would make those skins appropriate. A paramedic car would be a possibility, but there's no estate cars in LFS (every paramedic car I've seen is always an estate, even if it's just a small one - and I've never seen a paramedic in a sports coupe), and is there really any need for one? There's no death or injuries to contend with (thankfully), and paramedics don't chase or arrest people like cops do on the C'n'R servers.

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

and how about a light blue police skin?

Of which particular force / nationality? Something Canadian, I presume? Again there's a couple of problems with that:

- There's not a single car in LFS which even remotely resembles the shape, sheer size, and waterbed handling characteristics of a standard Crown Vic, so any US/Canadian skins wouldn't have such a realistic effect. There aren't any muscle cars in LFS either, since they seem to get used as pursuit cars in real life in US/Canada.
- There is no one "style" of livery for North American police cars. They come in such a huge range of colours, designs and visibility levels that I'm not sure if there is anything that could encompass them all and be a generic cop cruiser. I've seen US cop cars that are all blue, all red, bright green, black, and so on. I suppose the CHP/LAPD black and white is iconic, as is the NYPD blue from the '90s. But nonetheless, there's no appropriate vehicle to put them on, sorry.

I'll never say never, though.

Nice one, thanks.

Quote from GabbO :

Around male models?? mhh..

Yeah, I'd definitely recommend hanging around and doing photoshoots with female fitness & bikini models. Like what I do.

Good luck with the webshop venture Victor; not too keen on LFS clothing myself but I might be tempted by a mug or suchlike in the future.

As part of the final set of skins for the three main environments in LFS, here's the Japanese police skin pack.

Surprisingly, when I did some research into Japanese police cars, I found that their liveries were remarkably dull. Black and white, red lights, and very little else. Even though they have some really nice cars (Skylines, GTOs, Imprezas, and, err, Toyota Crowns), they're all dressed in the same placid two-tone paint scheme. They feature a few accessories, most notably the lights, but since I can't add comically huge telescopic lightbars to the cars in LFS, I've just tried to keep the paintwork as realistic as possible.

First up is the XFG, just a little run-about for the japanese cops.




Of course, the Japanese police (being Japanese) have to have the 4WD RB4. It's not an Impreza, but it's the closest we've got.




Since the Japanese police in LFS would be working at Kyoto, I had little choice but to give them the fastest (straight-line) road going car in the game - the FZ5 - in order to give them a chance around the high speed roads they'd be working on. As it's the pursuit police, I've taken the liberty of adding some limited high-visibility marks to compensate for the lack of lights and stuff. Most forces seem to be heading towards adding hi-vis stickers anyway.




The final skinpack will be released soon, just need to sort out a few bits and pieces on the skins etc. The skins will be for public use and free to edit the unit numbers if you want your own individual unit. Hope they're of some fun for city driving / cops and robbers guys etc etc, thanks to the versatility and immersion of the LFS universe and physics.

Last edited by STROBE, Tue 29 May 2007, 23:17.

Quote from Hammerdown :

I would rather they didn't waste time trying to incorporate bikes, trucks, SUVs, people carriers, three-wheelers, shopping trollies and other assorted juvenile garbage where the physics engine would be utterly wasted.

Why on earth would it be wasted? Do the aforementioned vehicles not make use of the excellent physics engine?

I'd love to see a wider variety of vehicles in LFS. Trucks (proper cab/tractor units, not what Americans call pick-ups), SUVs, prototypes/GroupC, saloons, Super Touring, or any other "juvenile garbage" that would be great fun to drive and race with LFS physics, regardless of how slow it is or how much it rolls.

Obviously none of these things are a priority, but it'd be great to have them in the end.

In the midst of all this, I'd just like to say that after a few days or dodgy racing on CTRA servers, last night it all went good again and I had a great time battling with XFGs and XRGs around South City Classic. Competitive, sporting, spotlessly clean driving for many races from everyone at the front of the pack, and everyone was "in the spirit" of it and seemingly having fun. No aggro and no meanness in evidence. So I don't think the points system is to blame for problems.

It only goes to show that CTRA servers are just like any other - one day you'll have some shitty racing going on, the next day it can be so clean and fun that it's like going on the Super Fun Happy Slide covered in Mr. Muscle detergent.

Err, not that I like being covered in any liquids of Mr. Muscle. That's not why I go to the gym.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

But telling the world's press that your drivers weren't trying and that you dictated the result from the pit wall from lap 10 is a really stupid thing to do, and I hope they do give him a slap for it.

I have to agree that I was surprised by the candid nature of Dennis' comments, but I'm more surprised that Ferrari International Assistance need to act so soon and so obviously this year.

Besides, I've never agreed with the rule about team orders anyway. What exactly is the point of running a team with two cars on the track if you're not allowed to co-ordinate them to increase your chances of success? They may as well ban two car teams and make every team run just the one car.

As promised, here's the preview of the Jamaican police skins which I've knocked up over the past couple of days.

There's no Home Office documents or definite guidelines for liveries of the Jamaican Constabulary Force's vehicles, in fact their own website is unreliable and seemingly frequently offline. As such, their notorious lack of budget is reflected in the vehicles at their disposal. There is also more room for interpretation of what Jamaica police would look like using LFS vehicles, given the lack of precedence or official documents dictating what their police vehicles should look like. Therefore these designs are very loosely based on the limited images available of Jamaican police cars.

This UF1000 is an old, faded original JCF patrol vehicle from an era when road offences were not a priority, and would now be relegated to local or community patrols, or for use by commanding officers as a radio command/observation unit.




The JCF would also be likely to have something with the ability to keep up with regular traffic around the winding Jamaican streets, such as the XR GT.




More recently, the JCF would have acquired vehicles for pursuit purposes in an effort to combat Jamaica's increasing organised gang and violent crime. The XR GT Turbo fulfils this role, with a new high-visibility livery. However the JCF's limited budget means that their idea of high visibility only extends to a few stick-on yellow strips, relying on the new paintwork to do the rest.

Quote from Richard Torp :

Use LFS in the way that YOU want..

A lot are playing City Driving..it`s nice they can use LFS in that way too..

Agreed - LFS is always primarily about racing, but it's a tribute to the "feel" of the cars, the physics, the accessibility and the versatility of it all that drifting, cruising, c'n'r etc servers are so popular.

I've been on the City Driving servers occasionally and whilst they're not for everyone, it is mostly just some good innocent fun. It often tends to attract newer/younger drivers too, who have limited car control and who you might not want racing in a pack with you anyway. I actually see far less point in drifting than city driving, and have hardly ever visited a drifting server. But I won't complain about them, because as long as people are finding new ways to enjoy LFS, then that's the main thing.

Quote from Becky Rose :

when they [the tyres at FE Green chicane] are first seen they can be a bit of a surprise

Well that's one way of putting it.

I think the more accurate way would be my thought process when racing on a track I thought I knew for the first time, which was "jesus ****ing christ, who the **** put all these ****ing tyres on the ****ing racing line?!"

I can see why there's a need to prevent cutting at that chicane, but can't that be achieved by putting tyre stacks just on the apexes of the chicane kerbs? I don't understand why there's more tyres on the left at the exit than at a Kwik-Fit garage, and nearly every lap they get bounced all over the track making it (as previously mentioned) a complete lottery for any drivers following.