I searched for both of these but couldn't find anything.

Firstly, I'd very much like to be able to right click on the wheel colour sliders in order to be able to input an RGB value. Since there's the option to right click on almost every other slider to enter a precise value, it's be excellent to see the same feature on the wheels (and body colour, for what it's worth). It would make it so much easier when trying to get a wheel colour to accurately match a colour on the car.

Secondly, not so much a suggestion as more a query about the auto-downloaded skins from LFSW. Are there any plans to upgrade the downloaded skins from 512 to 1024? Or given that some people aren't interested in it and just don't want to see a field of white cars (which I understand entirely), perhaps enable it as an option for those who like to see skins in detail? I don't have any concerns about hard disk space (400GB in total), connection speed (4megabit download), or video ram (128MB, and that's on an ageing GeForce 5900), which I appreciate isn't the case for everybody - so are there any plans to auto download the larger skins as an option? I assume the bandwidth/load on the LFSW server is an issue also, but hopefully as the money keeps coming in from S2 purchases then the server can be upgraded / extra bandwidth purchased as necessary. Whichever way, it'd be nice to see it at some point in the future.

Does anyone know what the various fictitious brands in LFS are supposed to make/do? Reason I ask is so that when I'm using LFS logos on a car with some real-world sponsors, I don't duplicate the sponsorship of that type of product - eg. having two wheel manufacturers advertising on the same car.

Is the following list correct as it stands and most of all can anyone help fill in the blanks?

T-Fone - mobile phones
Nexx - ???
Katt - exhausts
Volante - ???
Takai - helmets and racing apparel
DTuK - ???
RufTweeks - tuning and modifications???
Freno - brakes
HiBite - clutches, pads
Tico - ???
KNS - (Kyoto Suspension Systems) suspension
ATL - (Aero Tec Laboratories) racing fuel cells/tanks
Scavier Solutions - (Scawen/Victor/Eric) racecar engineering?
Injext - fuel
Redexx - oil
Cromo - tyres
Engexx = turbos
Evostar = tyres
Donbikes = ? (bikes?)
Gripmaxx = tyres
3DGE = cooling systems

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by STROBE, Mon, 7 Nov 2005 21:35. Reason : Updated list

Quote from seinfeld :

im not trying to bag this game, but it is in the genre of simulation, I think its all a bit behind, this game reminds me of the old grand prix games from 1990's
if you want to make it big lfs, you need to step it up a notch, I mean comon crappy graphics really considering what gt4 gtr F1 2005 and other car games have got,

Well there's no denying there's room for improvement in LFS' graphics, but what we have at the moment is certainly, by no means of imagination, "crappy". Yeah, personally I'd love a graphics engine with proper light sources so that headlamps can be used and flashed, indicators are visible like on a real car, and the whole environment can change in light as it gets cloudy or rainy or dusk/evening/dawn. And who wouldn't want glowing brake discs or heat haze shimmering off the cars? But what we have now is pretty damn good, imo. It doesn't have any of the aforementioned effects or neat touches but it is quite detailed, and most of all, realistic looking.

Quote from seinfeld :

also you need to get some licenenced cars happening, no one cars about a fzr they wanna race a GTR skyline, or a RX7, we want mountain downhill touge driving, and real tracks from around te world
its just gotta come up a notch for especially if u want 80 buks austrailian

I disagree - I like the fantasy cars. Using real-world cars in a serious race sim never seems quite right to me when (for example) someone driving a Porsche beats a field of Ferraris when you know that never happened in the racing class being modelled. But with the fantasy cars, anything is feasible - and best of all we can have closer races because the cars don't have to have traits and flaws from the real world, they can be designed to be as evenly matched as the devs desire.

The same applies to the tracks. I think some of the tracks in LFS are better (by which I mean better designed and thus more fun to drive and race on) than any of the real-world tracks featured in other simulators. More variety is always a good thing, yes - but it takes quite long enough to master what we have at the moment. Getting an FZR on worn rear tyres consistenly through the dipped chicane at Aston Historic is as much a challenge as you'll find in any real world track, imho.

Quote from th84 :

p= private host

I thought the "p" in the server description indicated that a pit-stop is compulsory.

On a slightly different but not altogether unrelated note, are there any plans to progress to the beta stage soon? I expect the "alpha" tag is quite off-putting to some people, despite the fact that LFS in it's current state is more stable and fully featured/detailed in certain aspects than many final versions of software (which is certainly a big credit to the devs). But what stage does S2 have to be at before it would be considered a beta?

I use a Linksys WRT54G, and once I'd flashed it to the latest firmware, it offers QoS services. What would be useful for your arrangement is that you can prioritise bandwidth based on which physical port you're connected to on the router. So you could give yourself high priority, which means you'd grab loads of bandwidth when you demand it, and leave everyone else on low priority for their music downloading. Although it's not so sophisticated for wireless connections, you can still identify two devices by their mac address and give them high priority.

But I'm not aware of Netgear routers offering this feature. Tristan definitely shouldn't get a WRT54G to replace his DG834G though, as the Linksys is cable-only and won't work with the protocols used over ADSL (aside from the fact that the Netgear contains an ADSL modem but the Linksys doesn't contain any modem). Or so I've been told.

Quote from Scawen :

This post would be more useful if you stated which fixes you can't wait for... My main priority is to get this batch of compatible patches finished so i can get onto physics updates.

Well, one thing I find would improve the playability of the game while you move onto the physics upgrades would be to have the silent locked wheel bug fixed. I assume it's a bug, I haven't read up about it much I'm afraid. I've seen it mentioned around the forums though, where a single wheel locks without so much as a squeak. Often I've hit F9 to see what's going on after I nearly miss my turn-in point, only to find that I've totally flat-spotted a front tyre without any audible complaint from it. Alternatively it'll still be locked as I turn in, and the only way I have of knowing about it would be plume of smoke visible in my mirror. It's nothing major, just one of those little annoyances really, but one that can cost you a position if it happens more than once in a race.

On a separate note, since installing P8 I've had my first crash-to-desktop in LFS - first ever, since the first version of S1! All stable since though, so hopefully just a one-off.

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, i was getting some email notifications. Fixed now, thanks for that!

Nice one, thanks Scawen!