I also have a question.
Why is the unit of preload Nm?
If I assume a linear clutch the torque exerted is some constant by the difference in angular velocity between the two wheels.
M = c * (omega1 - omega2) or in units:
Nm = ? * 1/s
So obviously the constant's unit must be Nms, or Nm*s/rad, if you measure angular velocity in radians/second instead of 1/second.
Or is the c in the formula calculated from normalization as in
c = M0/deltaOmega0
with M0 being the setting in the setup and deltaOmega0 an example difference in angular velocity (usually 1 1/s)?

Vain

The rule is "If you cross the line and you're involved in an incident it was your fault."
So if you cross the line and there is no incident it's all fine. But if there are other cars around we stay clear of the line.

* I'm uploading a few onboard scenes from Heat 2A, one of the qualifying races.

Vain

Quote from Jakg :

fair enough - care to show some of the "n00by moves" your talking about?

Didn't you see the broadcast?
Self-criticsm isn't your strong point, is it?

None of the drivers make mistakes when they drive on their own. Half the field does laps within .5% of the WR. Sub-WR times aren't seldom at all. There is a stiff competition, the safety margin is small and pressure is high. On a track like So1 that's bound to cause some bent panels.
I was a victim of my own pressure in lap 2 and I admit it. But that's the point of the STCC race format. All in all I had a lot fun driving that race even though p5 is a bit underwhelming, but my battles during the race were a lot fun (unfortunatly you didn't get to see much of it).

Vain

Quote from hackerx :

Heh OK, it just seemed to me bit like random pickup race on public server, given the number of unsuccessful chicane exits.

That's true. That's mostly down to the pace and tension in the race.
My 'unsuccessful' exit at lap two was caused by never successfully settling into a rythm, other drivers were driving just inches behind the tail of another car, and more drivers were just driving on the absolute edge.
If LFS simulated damage to the side mirrors I guess almost every car would have lost it's left side mirror at that chicane. If you leave more space you're off pace, at least if you want a top 15 finish.

[Edit]
And Jack, stop claiming it's because driving is too difficult. You drive a FWD!

Vain

Can you perhaps use an LFSW script that displays the best current online-pbs for a certain selection of benchmark-tracks to compare the different cars?
Say you take the best 50 XRT pbs from Bl1, Bl1R, So1, So4R, etc. etc. and compare them to the best 50 FXO pbs. that should be a proper measure of the relative pace of the cars.
Then take into consideration that the FXO pays for it's improved handling by a horrible start off the line and you should be able to track down a very good balancing within a few weeks.

Of course there are a couple of tracks where people cut a lot. e.g. KY3, KY3R and BL1R can't be chosen for such a comparison.

Vain

Since you're one driver short of your desired number of drivers I'd like to ask for what reasons exactly you only want to sponsor US drivers. As far as I can see the exposure is identical (unless Becky favors north american drivers in the broadcast, of course ).
My point is, Chevrolet has a World Touring Car team with a british, an italian and a swiss driver and I don't believe that has a negative impact on the perception of Chevrolet's achievements in the US.
(And no, I'm not asking because I want the sponsorship deal. I guess there are more exciting drivers out there. Even though... Well, more infos on the 'even though' next week. :tilt

Vain

Last edited by Vain, Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:31.

Watch STCC.
(Most names are easily remembered because they are derived from the track. The SO-corner names e.g. are derived from the street names that are on the signs on the So tracks.)

Vain

The LFSW-messages lagged behind a lot this evening, but shortly after 21:30 GMT+2 it worked well again.
I don't think that the number of users dropped significantly around that time, so I wanted to report that.

Vain

I've had it yesterday evening for a while on several servers. The LFSW-messages lagged behind for minutes.
Today around 14:00 GMT+1 the problem was gone.

Vain

Finally I came up with something worthy.

Vain

Quote from SlamDunk :

Yeah, the kind of "pure", nothing but in-game stuff ones are the best, in my opinion and I'm very interested to see how other people would do a cockpit gameplay video.

Just look here.

Vain

No on first thought because I already have a dashboard on the screen.
On second thought I might sympathize with a small LCD screen that displays some car stats (e.g. speed, whatever I choose). Though I wouldn't spend much money on it because as said, the info is already available. Also I wouldn't know where to mount it because it'd obstruct my screen if mounted on top of the MOMO's body.

Vain

Quote from DaveWS :

You don't get it do you? You don't start rumours before the devs choose to release a patch. I actually think a temp ban should be in order unless you edit/delete your post.

He also could have said "Look into your LFS folder, under /data/language/English.txt and look for lines ..." - everyone of us has those strings in his LFS folder.
I think it's good to know that there are at least intentions to tackle some of the more important problems with LFS within the next few years after they weren't fixed for years, so I'm thankfull for this thread.

Vain

That's cool.
I think I'll wait a bit with going crazy until there are a few complete new rallies. If I learn them one at a time I'll know them within 3 hours after their release. So I better wait until there are more stages than I can memorize.
Great to see that making stages finally works. Can't wait for more.

[Edit] Does anyone know the artist of the onboard video's background music?

Vain

Last edited by Vain, Wed, 4 Apr 2007 10:16.

I strongly disagree. There is no other justification for motorsports other than technology.
If it wasn't for the technological point of motorsports I'd immediately support closing down all race tracks.
(That's why I'd support the end of NASCAR.)

Vain

Quote from halllo_fireball :

It has nothing to do with personal preferences! LFS tries to be a realistic simulation - and the sound of the flat six engine as well as the sound of the BF1 is far from reality! I wouldn't complain if there would have been improvements in the past ...

I think it's not about being a flat-6, it's about being rear engined.
Real rear engined cars have very interesting exhausts. LFS cars don't. The sound of a 997 GT3 RS is a very far away - just looking at the exhaust tells you that it will take a while until we can simulate that properly in realtime.
In other words: Scawen knows the engine sound isn't perfect. It will propably get some more attention when the engine simulation is improved.

Vain

@duke_toaster:
Actually that's the same reason why I don't like things like TC in F1.
F1 is top-technology racing. And the technology devised for F1 should be applicable to normal cars.
TC helps to control the car - the engineers should think of different ways to stabilize the car. They should be thinking about suspension-improvements instead of building a virtually uncontrolable car and then fitting it with electronic gadgets until it can lap consistantly.
The F1's TC-development has no relevancy to electronic safety-systems used in road cars, thus I'd like it to disapear.
On a similar note I think F1 should run turbocharged engines for a while again. It's an important development-area that can help to improve the efficiency of road cars.

Vain

Keep going .
I'll try to spend a couple of hours on it in the next few days. Your work is greatly appreciated.

Vain

@Jakg: There're downsides to everything in IT. There's nothing easier than stating the shortcomings of a system.
@al heeley: Could you perhaps put up a picture of the system running, please?
I've been thinking about getting a 22" widescreen, but I always wondered wether it'd be worth it coming from a 17" TFT that does it's job well. What is your experience with other software? Not all programs appreciate the non-4:3 format.

Vain

Quote from jtw62074 :

Outside of the preload torque envelope (when locking torque is greater than the preload) the preload has 0 effect

That is exactly what we're talking about when saying the LFS clutch pack doesn't work well.
You go through a corner, about 0g longitudinal acceleration, the car tries to oversteer away. In LFS it's a good strategy to apply 30-40% throttle now, because as soon as you do that the rear wheels find grip and the car turns properly.
That is a typical LFS driving technique. What you do there is you force the diff into locking under power, which encourages understeer.
The same thing happens in slower corners while lifting from the brakes. Under coast the diff is locked, you approach the apex and as soon as you leave the brakes the car tries to oversteer, but as soon as you apply throttle the oversteer is gone, because the diff is under power-locking.

It is a very tedious behaviour and promotes all kinds of weird driving techniques. The basic thought when driving a clutch pack diff in LFS always is "Never, ever, operate the diff between coast and power or you'll oversteer."

To my understanding that is the case when preload is either non-existant or very very low.
I tried to circumvent this so very often by trying out everything with the setups and I can't avoid that problem with the clutch pack diff.

Vain

Not a challenge, but a nuissance.
See, when I'm taking a break from solving DEs I don't want to talk about DEs. It kind of defeats the purpose of taking a break from DEs.

Vain

Quote from axus :

(d^2y/dt^2) - (dy/dt) - 2y = 10 sin t

Go away!
I've spent all day solving DEs because I write an exam on them next monday, so just go away with it, will ya? I'm trying to avoid maths here right now!


Vain

m/s is a velocity, not an acceleration.
And 80.000 1/h is not a velocity.

(The only way to learn to use proper units is to be laughed at. )

Vain

Last edited by Vain, Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:26.

A picture of your thumb and whatever you managed to draw on it.
That doesn't need artistic skills, requires only a mobil-phone-cam and is something creative.

Vain

1. Each AI saves *all* it's data in it's .knw files. That includes all knowledge about all cars and all knowledge about passing, etc.
2. The AI saves it's data when crossing the finish line.
(On longer tracks you can notice that when the field crosses the finish line. The framerate gets jumpy because the knw files are written.)
3. The AI always learns. In practice, singleplayer, multiplayer, quali, race, always.

Vain