Ask a formula 1 driver that. They will point out the clutch paddel on the wheel, and mention the fact that if the car knows you havn't given it enough throttle to pull away, it will clutch back in for you.
I wouldn't say it totally unreasonable for a formula BMW to have a paddel clutch... if you put that engine in the bike you operate it hydraulically by hand just fine.
When I drive these kind of sequentials IRL I always clutch and blip with each downshift, and 90% of upshifts(no blip obv.) as well. When you or your associates have to repair the transmission/drive/engine yourself if it goes wrong, it pays to look after them, and the time you lose is negligable with practice. There is always something good to be said for mechanically sympathetic drivers.
I've cooked a clutch in a road car before doing autotests. When you've only got 89bhp, and thats only at the top of rev range, you find yourself clutching out a lot slower to keep the revs up. That was a nasty mazda...(not that Mazdas are bad, just this one) while there's no power to spin the clutch, the clutch is much weaker, so the whole process kind of scales down
This is twenty times more apparent in 125 2 stroke motorcycle racing. When I wanted to launch my 125 I'd have to rev it up to about 11k, and clutch out progressively over the course of about 5 seconds without letting the rpm drop untill you're all the way out, whip it up to 13k and grab second. The no clutch it (it's a constant mesh sequential gearbox) for the rest of the race.
I've also had the clutch go funny on the bmw once (much harder to do, its stiff enough to need hydraulics), after driving at half a mile per hour having to slip it a lot to negotiate a field in a car definately not designed for it. Took ages for it to feel normal again, it felt like I'd glazed the plates, but they were probably just VERY hot.
I guess this is because there is no real cooling going on, its sandwiched between a hot piece of metal and a gearbox which is warm, and even though I've got a fan on there, its not necessarily enough. I'd say how long it takes to cool is about right.
I'm suprised they didn't whack in a preliminary brake heat simulation for this patch though, I've cooked brakes so much more often than I have clutch! I guess it doesn't matter which order they get worked on in really, I just figured once you've got a "heating and cooling" simulation, changing values for when to be hotter, when to cool down and at what rates, plus the effect of the temperature of the item in question, much of it would be code re-use.
Clutch heat must be important, my car has a clutch cooling fan/system. Car designers don't put cooling systems in for things that don't explicitely require it.
The current AI have no concept of you being there, therefore the new can't possibly be any worse, as they drive faster, so are less likely to get in your way in that sense.
Therefore the answer to the question posted as the thread title, is yes
I think they will be a great addition, mainly allowing people who want to go on a current combo to be entertained by the game while waiting. That's why there are bots in CS. Gives you something to do while letting the server fill up for a good real race....
If it is simply the kind where the spark is cut to all the cylinders, that means the same amount of fuel and air is being added for the duration of shift, which means on the exhaust part of the cycle will dump nice, cool air and fuel straight into a nice hot exhaust manifold...
bruuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm BANG burbleburblepop bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I think a certain amount of elitism is perfectly realistic within a racing community.
Look at Alonso, he's hardly the friendliest or most forgiving of people!
It's natural for people who spend all day every day being a racer, understanding the finite details of physics within racing, to get impatient with people asking for Nitrous Oxide in a non-drag, circuit racing environment.
I welcome a new car, no-matter what its specs as I like a diverse experience of vehicles. More than that, I welcome the changes in simulation, the new clutch and gearbox simulation improves all the cars, so not only do we get one entirely new one, we get better versions of all them.
The method you first describe is great for all the pedal setups pc wheels come with, I had to change to this one because my accelerator pedal in the BMW is hinged at the bottom.
In the Mazda, all the pedals swung under from the footwell, and the pedals were too far apart to rock right to blip, so I would rotate my foot and use the right hand side of my heel.
The trouble I find, it that I have to push hard on my brakes in the car, and I've got a remarkably stiff throttle pedal (which I'm going to see the docter about later this week), so when I do it in LFS, I find myself locking up all the wheels, and then when I release some brake pressure, I find out I'm also at WOT and the car goes "what the hell kind of transition is that!? I'm going to take this corner backwards to teach you a lesson."
anti-stall - obviously it doesn't just add more fuel, it opens some stupid butterfly arrangement controlled by a servo (for cruise control as well) which allows more air to be sucked in, the air mass sensor detects this and adds more fuel to maintain the right mixture, thus giving more power out the engine.
Naturally, but it does try to maintain engine rpm above stalling speed by adding more fuel. Otherwise it would not climb above the idle speed when resistance is removed. Acceleration has no inertia. As gentle as it is, it does try to stop you stalling.
Part of me thinks it is so you can move the car around your drive at home without having to use any gas.
I wonder if they have actually mapped fuel injection... I want that nice burble you get when on over-run, why does that happen? I would've though pulse width modulation would allow the shut off to be instant?
Many fuel injected engines have a rudiemntary anti-stall mechanism. I'm not sure why, but when I gently lift the clutch on my car at idle, gradually pulling away at 800rpm, if I sink the clutch quickly, the revs climb for a moment up to 1,200 before dropping back down, as if it was adding a little bit of fuel to stop the revs dropping too low.
If the engine simulation has got as far as modelling fuel injector behavior, and the time it takes from injector in the plenum to reach the cylinder I'll be very suprised though.
(edit : tristan will correct something I've said, so I'm going to leave a gap for that...)
I would have thought going backwards with the clutch in a forwards gear as a result of a spin would be enough to stall any engine, no matter how "anti-stall" capable.
Looking at old footage of the turbo formula one cars, I wouldn't be suprised if the turbo GTR cut out on the start line of its own accord!