The way I see it hotlapping itself isn't very realistic so defining what is realistic behaviour when hotlapping is kinda a moot point.
If I happened to be in a "hotlapping" situation in real life I'm pretty certain there would be nothing stopping me from driving backwards or doing burnouts or whatever.
I dunno, I don't feel that strongly either way but find some of these discussions about what is and isn't realistic in a computer game a bit strange.

I don't have much experience with patch T yet but with Q I raced quite a lot of 1hr + league races. The general rule of thumb for me was to let the tyres peak at around 10-15 degrees above optimum. 15 degrees was the max because it was where the grip loss was too high. Having the tyres peak around 10 degrees above optimal was best overall in long stints I found as you'd get the longest period where they were at optimal temp and they wouldn't be too cold near the end of their life.
I imagine it will be similar with T so it doesn't surprise me that R1's were the best in the fox for you. Like others said a better test might be in the GTR's.

No mp in the demo means I won't be trying nk for a while once some trustworthy verdicts start appearing which could be a few months down the track.

LFS is a known quantity so out of the two I'll be playing LFS whether the new patch is out or not.

I also prefer the approach of LFS, sometimes and I do stress only sometimes realism is not good in a sim. For me the physics being top notch is the main concern which I expect to be the case in nk but some "hardcore" options I can see turning me away.

A widescreen monitor really helps I found, I use cockpit view and see the mirrors without needing to use a high fov, about 85 I think.

Like I already said the safety of drugs is relative, in the case of weed it is more safe relative to many everyday things we do and it is safer compared to other illicit drugs.
My advice is if you do use drugs to be responsible about it and that you must realise there are negative effects on top of the positives and they are especially compounded when you abuse them. Simply using drugs does not constitute abuse however.
I think it's a typical and lazy deflection to claim that anyone who promotes drug use is simply spouting rhetoric and is blinded by the "good times". The reality is there is a lot of positives for some people to be gained out of using drugs and the risks are a judgement call for them to make. With better and more balanced drug education and the end of the demonisation of drugs people might actually be able to make more informed decisions and the risks would decrease.
Gunn is right in a lot of things he says but for weed in particular it's still not enough to warrant it being illegal. It's the most studied drug on the planet and most studies that I've heared of don't recommend it be illegal. Politicians don't want to hear this of course so nothing is made of it.
This is a good link I only just found.

http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/healthmyths.html

Quote from Dupson :

Why i love LFS ?? cause it includes quite real phisics model from the perspective of arcade game. Yes ! I love you can warp to PIT i love you can join , you can restart ! yes ! that what makes the LFS !! very easy and powerful about phisics!! And i dont want it to be changed. Are we goin for another GTR or what ? That what makes it different and that what makes it better. As I said - kinda hardcore driving model and very easy race options/settings/possibilities

let LFS stay this way

I totally agree, the useability of LFS is second to none but people would throw it by the wayside all for supposedly more realistic racing. Like I've said alreay leagues are where you'll find the most realistic racing, in an hour long race I do my darndest not to make any contact with anything because it will cost you. Expecting this type of racing in your average pickup race is just not realistic and making things more and more restrictive will not stop the fools or those who just want some fun but it will make LFS a more difficult piece of software to use.
I know not everyone can run in leagues but I think you still have the option of finding a bunch of like minded racers, setting up a server and getting together regularly for some racing more to your liking.

I think you've said it better than I could jtr, the thing that tends to annoy me about the drugs issue is that if for example weed was not illegal you simply would not be able to mount a strong enough argument for banning it. There simply is no valid argument for it being illegal but because it is and we've got almost a century of propaganda under the belt it's almost impossible to convince people.

Well it's all relative isn't it, many people consider driving in their car safe but it's a lot more dangerous than smoking weed.
Again though I want people to be told the truth about drugs, the good as well the bad. If you abuse drugs there are consequences but that doesn't mean you can't use them responsibly.
thisnameistaken is right that not everyone can handle drugs like lsd so what I said above isn't quite right but it's all about level of risk which for most recreational drugs isn't that big.
I think rock climbers are crazy and you would never get me to do that because the risk of death is so high but no one is banning rock climbing are they.

btw jtr99, are all aussies you know trippers or something? :color:

I think if you really want serious racing then a league is your only option and I don't see much changing that.

Gee, it seems petrol here in Oz isn't really that expensive afterall but like others have said it's all relative.

Quote from JeffR :

Windscreens aren't street legal, so that is why I have to use the windshield. I've read that in California, you can't wear a helmet in a car, even though the ratio of head related deaths in cars is higher than the head related deaths on motorcycles (more internal injury related deaths on bikes).

Similar to what ajp71 said here in Oz wind deflectors are legal afaik and most that race competitively use them. I guess it all comes down to whether the LX's in LFS are road going cars having a day on the track where the wheel and windscreen should stay or if they're more race orientated where the wheel would be removed and wind deflectors and tonneau covers used.

Well there may not be many positives from a health standpoint but there definately are some and no one would do drugs if there were no positives at all to doing so. I guess though that most would generally fall into the category of the feelings they can produce and with certain drugs the expansion of certain thought processes. Take LSD for example, I think most people could benefit from doing it at least once in a controlled environment. It's a unique life experience and it gives you an added perspective on the world that you will get nowhere else.

Last edited by tailing, Fri 3 Mar 2006, 10:19.

Further to this suggestion I think when you take the top off the LX cars the windscreen should change to the smaller wind deflectors that are generally used when racing all manner of super7 clones. Tonneau covers for the passenger side would also be nice as they are regularly used to also decrease drag.

Yeah you have to be careful not to read too much into things, especially some forum commentary. I mean a lot of people would have you believe GTR had great multiplayer so I'm not even that confident about any future word-of-mouth about the multiplayer in nK.

ASS did an interview with the lead dev last year and reading that was what made me see the similarities between the development approach of the two games. It's what gives me confidence that nK will be a good sim because the focus is in the right place as opposed to more commercial ventures.

I've started watching Dark Place recently which is just great, do these other shows mentioned feature the same guy? Anyway I'm going to check some of them out, of course Bottom and Red Dwarf are old faves but the others I've never heard of. Praise be the internet

If your against all forms of drugs then that is fair enough, at least you are consistent. My beef is similar to yours in that some of the most damaging drugs are the ones that are socially acceptable and relatively harmles ones like weed are illegal creating all sorts of unnecessary negatives like criminality as you mention.
To just say 'don't do drugs' is a bit naive in my opinion though, fair enough it works for you but not for most. Better to be open with young people imo about all drugs, their positives and their negatives. Lying in an effort to kerb drug use of any kind is not the answer imo and can encourage feelings of rebellion that many young people already have.
Anyway it wasn't my intention to start a huge debate about all this but it tends to happen when you mention drugs

Yeah no multiplayer in the demo is not a good move from my pov, my sole interest in any new sim these days is multiplayer so that is one of the major things I want to test.

As to the preview is it just me or did it almost sound like a preview for LFS? The explanation of the sound engine in particular.
I think there are a lot of similarities between the two games and their development which unfortunately makes me believe that nK Pro is still some time away.

Quote from deggis :

But it is recommended (even by the dev Scawen) to turn off "Spring Effect" and "Damper Effect" strengths in the Logitech Profiler

You'll notice in this post that Scawen initially says that you should set them to 0% but then later admits that he may be wrong so it is not certain.
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=7645#post7645

If you read the link to the thread on RSC there is actually more evidence to say that setting damper and spring to 0% is the wrong thing to do.
Personally I think ffb is so subjective that you should use whatever feels best to you, it just annoys me that most people assume it is a given that the best setting is having spring and damper at 0% and always recommend to new people to do so.

I say experiment a bit and find what feels best for you, if that's settings of 0% then so be it.

Quote from danowat :

Do you really think thats true?, there have been well documented reports about the mental health issues that are connected with smoking it.

Yeah I do think it is true but notice I was careful to say relative to nicotine. No drug is completely harmless, especially when abused but a minority of people suffering mental health problems from smoking weed pales into insignificance when compared to the hundreds of thousands of people who die each year from cigarette smoking.

I can understand what your saying goop because there is that habitual nature with any drug I think. I guess with cigarettes it seems that five minutes after you've had one it's basically as if you never had it, at least with other drugs there's a longer lasting and more profound effect.

Most people will tell you to set spring and damper to 0% but personally with my momo that makes the ffb do very strange things. (Many believe these settings somehow add effects to what LFS generates but there's really no proof that I've seen that this is the case)
I've just left the default settings as is at 100% and use about 40% ffb strength in LFS. I think most people when they get a new wheel make the mistake of having the strength too high, imo it's a case of less is more.
I think you will struggle though for a little while in any case when you first start using a ffb wheel. You will start getting more and more accustomed to it though till you reach a point where you just won't be able to do without it.

Last edited by tailing, Thu 2 Mar 2006, 09:16.

I'm an admin for the Australasian League which originally started under the umbrella of the Endurance League. We get quite good numbers, up to 80 racers for some races.
I'm not sure how relevant it is to your situation but I think one reason we get the numbers we do is that the aussie community is very tight-knit centralised around the ARSE forum. The majority of LFS racers here visit ARSE and it doesn't take long for new people to be told to check it out and to check out the AAL. Everyone gets to know each other and you start to get a real community feel.

Bad health effects aside what is it that smokers actually get from cigarettes? Maybe you get something out of it but apart from a bit of a headspin I never got anything out of it. I can't see any positives to it.
Smoking weed on the other hand is a different story and relative to nicotine it's harmless.

As you gain more experience you should be able to switch between cars and tracks pretty easily. There will always be certain cars, tracks or combinations of both that don't really suit you but that won't stop you from having competitive racing on them.
Re-iterating what some have already said I think specialising on one specific combo can do more harm than good in the long run. The XFG and the XRG might have very different handling but there are some things you can learn in either that will help your driving in the other, things you may not have learnt as soon if you'd stuck to just the one car.
For a start concentrating on one combo is beneficial but I'd advise anyone to start experimenting with other cars and tracks as soon as possible.

I wouldn't hesitate to jump online, a lot of people seem to but as long as your respectful you won't have any probs except maybe getting beaten alot at first

You've got your answer imo, the fact you didn't change the tyres is almost certainly the cause. I've just finished a 4 round league in the XFR, 3 races just over an hour, the last a two driver team event 3 hrs long.
With the XFR you can't bank on the rears being able to last two stints even if they look to have more than half the tread still left after the first stint.
Our first race was KY Nat Rev, I did a one stopper and didn't change the rears, they lasted but not by much it seemed in the end and the handling was affected with the wear and the fact they cooled down.
In testing for the third race at AS Nat my left rear blew on the second stint when I didn't change them. It started locking up for T1 and kept locking on the same spot, I had at least a third of the tread left on the tyre display but after 3 or 4 laps it went. In the race I did change all tyres and finished but one of my team mates didn't and spun out, his tyre didn't blow but he spun cause he lost too much grip as they'd cooled too much.
In the final 3hr race Latch and I changed all tyres on each of our four stops and we ended up winning (against the likes of Chaz ). We did stints of 27-29 laps with R2's all round at BL1. The extra time in the pits didn't really cost us and meant we had a nice handling car all race.

While the focus in the XFR is usually all on the fronts the rears are still important. From my experience your best to change them when you change the fronts because you do run the risk of flatspotting them. Even if you don't they tend to cool down too much, losing grip and getting quite taily.

Last edited by tailing, Wed 1 Mar 2006, 08:16.