There is something about RBR in Rally Season mode that is not captured in any other Sim..... the fear of doing your car damage. In rally season if you trash your car then you get a DNF and no points and you move on to the next country. No restarts unless you leave the season and start a NEW one from the 1st stage again.

This tends to make you very focused and worried about damage you inflict on your car.

NKP has introduced "Pro full mode" which means setup changes and car repairs are carried out in realtime. The NKP version might be a little extreme but scaled slightly might add so much racing in the way rally season makes RBR so compelling and immersive.

The following would need to be a server option so casual servers could be run. Its aim is to make you mentally not want to damage your car by making damage have a cost (not credits)and hence something to avoid.

1) No joining race after it has started. You can join the next race to take place.
2) Jump to pits disabled and spectate changed to retire, which removes you from the race so you have to wait for the next race.
3) If you want to get to the pits then drive/limp to them or retire from the race.
4) Between races there is a repair session where you can select repairs to be carried out. The session is carried out instantly but is worth x minutes of repairs
5) Repairs take the same time to repair in a pit stop as they do in the repair session.
6) You are give a list of repair that are needed along with time taken so you can select what is repaired.
7) You can select more than you have time for but you miss the next race.
8) If you miss a race all repairs are carried out.
9) Damage is stored on LFS world so it is carried over to other hardcore servers.
10) If you leave a server with any damaged cars they are repaired after the total repair time for the car has elapsed in real time. You can fix quicker in the repair session after each race.
11) You only have 1 of each car and changing cars stops you using your repair session. If the car being swapped from had damage it remains damaged until fixed in repair session or x minutes of repair time after you leave the server.
12) A ban applies to ALL hardcore servers for 1 hour


These rules would, like RBR, add a fear of crashing while you drive. I doubt wreckers you have much impact with the global ban.

Some good ideas there
Anything than can encourage people to take care is a good thing. I always like GPL races on pro level for that reason.

I honestly don't think that this will actually improve LFS, because up to now LFS has been streamlined for easy access. Start LFS and 30 seconds later you're racing. Of course this would still be possible with persistant damage, but the thing would get a whole lot more complicated.
But still I'm far from disagreeing with you. I loved the thrill of rallying through a narrow passage in RBR (f.e. france) at much too high speed and always with the feeling that I might trash the car any second when my concentration fails.

Think about the following situations:
1. In a league race
All people are racing for positions. Any damage can cause a considerable effect on the finishing positions. No one wants to damage his car. Also there is no warping to pits, etc. because of leagu-rules.
2. In a public race
People are practising. They are just having a quick race to improve on laptimes or for the sake of the thrill of a close fight for positions in a twisty section at 160km/h.

In the first situation persistant damage is not needed, because the people already fear any damage that may occur. No need to frighten the drivers anymore.
In the second situation persistant damage is not disired, because people are there to play a game, not to be frustrated while having to wait in front of their computer for repairs. Their race was already screwed because of an accident and now they have to sit around waiting, though they just want to race.

Of course a nice and correct damage system is desirable, but a good part of the fun in LFS is the ability to just jump in and race, and when something doesn't work out, just get a new car at the next race. I for one wouldn't like that part to be removed.
I also liked the damage system of RBR, where you could just skip the repair-procedure. That was solved very well. But think about that: When your last race has been ended because of an unfortunate accident (f.e. lag, someone behind you locked a wheel, etc.), do you really want your next race to also be destroyed? You've already been punished for something you didn't do, why punish you again?

Vain

1-3 ok, but there are more impotrant things for PRO mode than annoying repair rules (4-..). Just make repair times longer (more real) and let choose driver (F12) what kind of damage repair and what not.
I want to
- disable TAB when driving! (should be allowed only in spectate mode or between sessions)
- disable F9 and F10 for other cars than yours
etc ...

EDIT: 2Vain @ public race
if Im noob and want to practicing, Ill not join PRO server! this is for people who want clean (like league) races but without wainting 2 weeks for their next league

I tend to agree with Vain on this, an improvement would be very nice to the damage, but it's not something that should be on the top of the list. IMO at least

Quote from Viper93 :

I tend to agree with Vain on this, an improvement would be very nice to the damage, but it's not something that should be on the top of the list. IMO at least

Its not an improvement in the damage model I am after. Its the fear of damage that RBR does so well. In that sim in Rally Season there is a nagging in the back of your mind at all times that a single mistake and your rally in that Country is over and any points you were in line to get are lost. The level of immersion this adds is hard to describe in words.

This is the effect the idea is trying to create.

Quote from Vain :

I honestly don't think that this will actually improve LFS, because up to now LFS has been streamlined for easy access. Start LFS and 30 seconds later you're racing. Of course this would still be possible with persistant damage, but the thing would get a whole lot more complicated.
But still I'm far from disagreeing with you. I loved the thrill of rallying through a narrow passage in RBR (f.e. france) at much too high speed and always with the feeling that I might trash the car any second when my concentration fails.

Think about the following situations:
1. In a league race
All people are racing for positions. Any damage can cause a considerable effect on the finishing positions. No one wants to damage his car. Also there is no warping to pits, etc. because of leagu-rules.
2. In a public race
People are practising. They are just having a quick race to improve on laptimes or for the sake of the thrill of a close fight for positions in a twisty section at 160km/h.

In the first situation persistant damage is not needed, because the people already fear any damage that may occur. No need to frighten the drivers anymore.
In the second situation persistant damage is not disired, because people are there to play a game, not to be frustrated while having to wait in front of their computer for repairs. Their race was already screwed because of an accident and now they have to sit around waiting, though they just want to race.

Of course a nice and correct damage system is desirable, but a good part of the fun in LFS is the ability to just jump in and race, and when something doesn't work out, just get a new car at the next race. I for one wouldn't like that part to be removed.
I also liked the damage system of RBR, where you could just skip the repair-procedure. That was solved very well. But think about that: When your last race has been ended because of an unfortunate accident (f.e. lag, someone behind you locked a wheel, etc.), do you really want your next race to also be destroyed? You've already been punished for something you didn't do, why punish you again?

Vain

Its a case of yes and no on your answers. Yes I can see what you are saying but in the case of casual gamers you hunt out non-hardcore servers. If non-hardcore is default then server admin must enable when they start the server so most will remain default config as is the norm now.

If you are on a hardcore server then you know what a smash will cost you and so you will try your best to avoid one. This means people will yield when they know they are beaten in a corner, as would happen IRL.

It might be as you say that only 1-3 are all that is required but in that situation the restart race should be changed as follows.

1) Restart race disabled unless no race in progress.
2) End race can ONLY be selected by people in a race.

The second option is so that only people that are in the race have a say on if it ends or not. Once the race ends then all can vote for restart, not before.

My point of view has been summed up already (btw option 1 is already in, it's a dedicated-server option), why pay the price twice ?

In an "arrive and crash" race ... sorry "arrive and drive" race ... your race can be ruined by a mistake by somebody else, or an unavoidable event such as in one race today where a spot of lag resulted in me destroying my car against an invisible force field - much to the annoyance of the driver of that invisible force field .

That instantly lost 10 minutes waiting for the next race, I wouldn't want to have waited 20-25 minutes, I would have logged off and played Oblivion instead and done the repairs later when I wanted to go downstairs for a cup of coffee.

As it stands LFS has as much fear as your going to get from accidents, they trash your race. That's the most severe punishment you can be dealt.

The only way to increase the fear would be to make the force feedback break your arms in case of an accident ... ! Then you'd get some of the fear you get in real racing that makes T1 so much safer to do in real life !

I've seen some nasty accidents in my time racing karts and single seaters, but i've seen way worse a lot more frequently in LFS - and I dont really think anything can be done to improve it if you go to an "arrive and crash" event like Fox racing on CCUK servers.

They're great for adrenaline packed quick blasts in a busy pack of cars, but you have to also accept that crashes are part of the parcel. There's nothing stopping you getting a group of your online race friends into a mini-series for more serious racing if that's what you want.

If you want "arrive & drive" 'though - you wont make it safer with persistent damage without physically hitting the drivers with a mallet when they slam into the back of you.

Sounds very flawed to me, global bans? I'm banned for no reason from a *nameless* oval server so I'd get banned from all servers sounds fair to me.

I think the car state etc. should be seperate for each server, although maybe each server could remember your car state.