Just to be clear, my comment was I no way intended to be negative (or come across that way). My point was that this experiment ended up becoming a bigger project than probably anticipated. It's something completly unexpected but very much welcome.
LFS has this "here is something that we like for you to enjoy" approach to me and that is something I wouldn't change for the world.
It is kinda funny to see how this "little experiment" about setting time of day has slowly turned into a "well, might as well upgrade the whole thing while I'm at it" project.
As it came up a few times now. When you talk about CPU loads (or hardware requirements in general) and optimisation / performance considerations, do you have a specific plattform in mind?
Of course having lean and fast code is always a plus, but with the new lighting system (and tire physics) I would guess some people might to upgrade their PC.
I'd like to point out that this forum is the official forum for a product and therefor moderation policies are not really subject to a democratic process.
The devs provide a service here for more than 10 years and so far the only annoyances have come from a very very small group of people who, as far as I'm concerned, act like little kids with no manners. If you have a problem you can discuss it in a sensible way. If you are not able to do that, please stay away.
This is the internet, there are plenty of places where people can discuss stuff of any kind, but don't blame the moderators (or Scawen in this case) for doing the job as they see fit and have the right to. If you don't agree with them or the policies (which have hardly changed since this forum started), then don't be here. Nobody forces you to use this forum.
The UFx has always been the exeption to the cars as it was created by Scawen (IIRC). Generally all non-demo related cars are in need of an upgrade.
But while this is on "the list" of stuff that need's to be done, tracks and physics must be sorted first, so Scawen can stop maintaining two LFS dev versions. Cars are not a requirement for this to happen, therefor it can wait (for the moment). I'm pretty sure the devs are not blind and aware of how the car models look when being compared to the updated tracks.
As Scawen has already stated (multiple times): All tracks need to be updated for the next release. That tracks like Blackwood have been updated multiple times in the past couple of years while others have not, has nothing to do with this.
I also think that it is quite obivious that, while you are working on a track to fix some issues, you might want to look at / fix / update some other stuff as well.
LFS is for the most part a racing game and not a train simulator. Thus having a moving train on a race track seems rather daft. It might be fun for all thr cruisers out there, but then the autocross editor might need a few more train related objects.
However, I foundly remember the LFS football / autoball events from back in the day - I want a scalable ball object!
Obviously I'm not Scawen, but I suspect that this is a step into proper day/night simulation. However shadows are just one thing, you'd need to add lights to all cars and probably some more track objects. Sun is still fixed in LFS as far as I know, so that would have to move around the earth as well.
Also... we do not know what else is on his todo list. All we know is that the list is probably a book by now.
LFS has always had very low hardware requirements (insert obvious calculator joke). But at some point those requirements have to be raised to provide a bit more modern (and looking at those pictures ) graphics. However I'm confident that there will be options that allow some fine tuning.
That is just the way gaming on a PC is and more or less has always been. At least the timespan between buying a modern PC and it being completly outdated has increased a lot in the past decade. An i5 2500k is still a decent machine.
That (annoying) window thing comes from a time when people were using 3rd-party firewall software that would ask you to allow network access for lfs.exe. It could happen that that request didn't actually pop up correctly and thus block LFS from connecting to the master which resulted in people asking why the game was broken.
User-Settings are also a think that weren't really around when LFS was initially released in 2002. It's basicly how games worked back then and has the distinct advantage that you can just copy your LFS folder and save all data at once without having to dive deep into the user folder (and AppData isn't even visible per default) and back a 2nd (3rd, 4th ...) folder as well.
Both concepts have advantages and disadvantages.
I have not tested the LX8, so I won't comment on that one.
However cockpits are another issue. There are plenty of cars in LFS that are desperatly in need of some visual updates: UFx, RB4, FXO, FZR... Those still look like 2006 when S2 was intially released. And while the demo cars got updated (yes, some others as well) the updates for those "nearly finished" cars (2009, I'm too lazy here to search the exact post from Scawen) never arrived.
Maybe for there are some technical reasons (incompatible LFS version?), I don't know. Probably. But since then we also had incompatible track updates for Blackwood, Westhill and Rockingham. I'm not sure why, but updated cockpits were just never mentioned again, which is really a shame, because that is what a customer first sees and what pulls you into a game. And compared to other games LFS is at least 10 years behind in that particular department (sadly).
I haven't given up on those updates yet, considering how stunning Blackwood / Westhill turned out to be, but an update on that front (Hello Eric!) would be very much appreciated.
tl;dr: Other cars are in desperate need of a (new) cockpit too!
So far the people and their reason is unknown. Before we jump to conclusions and point the finger at anyone, we might want to wait for some facts first. And taking the claims of a random person from twitter (or anywhere else) serious doesn't help anyone.
edit:
If there is some actual evidence you might want to get in touch with the devs before posting it here.
I'm pretty sure that Scawen (and Victor!) would have prefered a rather relaxed easter weekend instead of having to deal with this while the rest of us would have enjoyed a few races online against / together with fellow racers.
I would be really interested in knowing the reason for this, but I suspect this is another pis**** contest by "children" who feel that they are entitled to something. Too bad that handling issues by talking, listening and understanding each other is apparently to difficult for some...
If this is about something that happend on a Server with people... seriously?
Go make / run your own Server with blackjack and etc... SERIOUSLY!
I find it rather funny that the person who wants not to hype up things is teasing / hyping future development.
On the other side, given the years it's been in the making and the new found optimism, it might just be that all is finally coming together in some rather big release.
1. As far as I know / remember supporting the community with modding tools has been on "Scaviers" mind for a long time. My best guess is that additional stuff would most likely be limited to cars / tracks. At least that should be the easiest way. Given, that Eric seems to use custom tools (coded by Scawen) it should be a good guess that any official tool might be based on those editors.
However it doesn't seem to be very clever to release those while you are still working on the "core stuff of the game" as you'd have even more stuff and tools to support and people will complain if an update breaks popular mod x or else (see the work that is being done on shaders and track lighting). The approach here is to release stuff only "when it's done properly" instead of a rolling release (which makes sense given the number of coders working on this game which is still one, unless his kids have joined him in his quest by now)
2. I think there is a very long list everyone has of things that need to be implemented (link to the obvious https://www.lfs.net/forum/8-Improvement-Suggestions). Stuff like VSC and SC would certainly be nice, at least SC has been done by several leagues by having an admin drive around slowly in front of everyone else with varying results (<insert joke about admin driving skills here>).
Easier or related stuff usually gets implemented during a round of test patches, if it wasn't already on Scawen's very short "todo-list" (I think he is using continuous paper at this point). My guess here is that if a request seems reasonable, improves the gameplay, fits his shedule and peaks his interest, he'll probably end up at least thinking about it. At least that's how it looked to me on multiple occasions. It also depends on whether the patch is compatible or not (to previous LFS versions) on what get's actually implemented.
I'm happy that no one has given up hope yet and that some point we can get back to the original intention of this forum: Do it yourself tips for kitchen remodelling!
Thank you Scawen for the small update on what is going on behind the curtain.
And while I understand that every update on the graphics system will allow Eric to provide us more eye candy, I can't help but notice that tire physics aren't mentioned.
Given the long time (I think it is somewhere around ten years now) and probably head scratching that you already invested in the simulation of those black round things, can you give us any word of encouragement on that end? I can't help it, but it seems to me, that you prefer working on other stuff these days.
I know that LFS is your baby (as well as Eric's and Victor's) and that in the end we (the customers) all have to accept that or move on. And yes, I realize that you can only do so much as a single person at a time and that every statement you make here will be written in stone to be thrown back at you at some point.
But can you give us any realistic estimation / description on the current situation on that front?