It's when you make macro for your controller, so that you when press one button the drivers of the device send multiple key presses to the computer. How it is used as an advantage when changing gears is to make a macro that clutches very fast and changes the gear with a single key press. This way you can change gears a bit faster than by doing it manually.
ok.. tnx for the info.. i have wonderd in a loong time what it meant but when you explaned it i actually knew it but not in that way :reallyhard to explane)
yea it would hard out, bcause you have to use fancy dangle foot work to keep the braking pedal pressure constant/smooth, while doing throttle blip with same foot + clutch with the other, i find it hard in my race seat setup to keep steady braking while doing all
the other stuff.
i think it would help having a better pedal setup (like hanging pedals and the right pedal offset for heel / toe)
Not very pure racing having macros like that i think.
No sir. In fact, it's the opposite to what you've been thinking! If there is no clutch bar (blue bar when engaged on bottom right), then it's LFS standard auto clutch. If there is a blue bar, it's when you start to wonder what they are doing. Because a blue bar means that a driver is manually engaging the clutch, whether it be for a shifter, button clutch or macro noone can tell at the moment.
The "macros" aren't "clutch macros", but instead "shift macros". Some controllers have software that allow macros or scripts to be programmed and activated via button presses.
For example, pressing the upshift button could result in the software reducing throttle, depressing clutch, shifting gear, releasing clutch, returning throttle. Pressing the downshift button could result in depressing clutch, blipping throttle, shifting gear, releasing clutch, returning throttle.
If auto-clutch is enabled, then the clutch stuff in the macros wouldn't be needed, except that the FBM (and maybe some other cars in LFS) won't downshift unless you use clutch (or going very slow), even with auto-clutch enabled.
LFS used to have auto-cut and auto-blip in game, but these were removed a while ago. Shift macros can be used to get the equivalent functionality.
I've been using shift macros since the days of Grand Prix Legends. Even though GPL hot laps are run with no damage (clutch or tranny), I don't like the sound of a no lift shift in GPL (it's a long shift time compared to LFS), so I use macros to emulate auto-cut and auto-blip to make the shifts sound realistic. I use twin joysticks, with a combined throttle+brake axis. Some older or cheaper wheel and pedal sets also combine throttle and brake, and with these controllers, there's no way to blip the throttle while braking and downshifting. This isn't an issue for upshifts, but auto-cut saves wear and tear on the throttle controller.
In the case of LFS, auto-cut doesn't make that much difference for most cars. If a player waits until the engine reaches redline before upshifting, then the engine rpms won't go up and flat shifting with auto-clutch on doesn't appear to do any clutch damage.
Flat shifting only when the engine is already at redline. I've done a few laps like this and a slightly heated clutch cools down a bit, at least in the LX6.
Just FTR you don't need any special software to make one, which was one of the arguments used by the party supporting the idea macro clutches are not a cheat.
I don't care what anyone says, macro shifting is cheating, its an exploit.
Its like when I used to play Hostile-Intent (a Half-Life mod). People would use scripts or "Macros" to do things like shoot full auto with the pistols, or have it throw a flash and then instantly return to thier rifle.
Scripting or any kind of macro system is included in alot of games, but that doesn't mean you can abuse it like that. Sure, everyone can do it, but thats like saying everyone can download hacks. It makes it unfair to people who don't want to automate it, people that want it to actualy take skill on thier part to make it happen quickly and effectively.
I look at people who use macro shifting the same way I look at the people who used to use scripts in HI, they are exploiters that can't seem to grasp the fact that its supposed to take time/skill to do these things. It makes me sad that people would cheat like that, because they don't want to do it the hard way, and learn how to do it well.
LFS also allows to exploit the flaws in the modeling. One could ask, what is the difference between exploiting the physics and exploiting the script system? why only allow one and not the other?
AFAICT the devs have never removed any hotlap or banned anyone because of macro shifting, it's basically a grey area.
Don't get me wrong anyway, if it was up to me I'd definitely take actions to make it impossible or simply not rewarding the usage of macro clutches, locked diffs and much more. It simply does not make sense to keep the game in this state just because a true fix takes too much time.
It's quite simple, slowing down the button rate for the clutch will take care of macro shifting altogether, and FWIW (=0) I already asked for that in the suggestions section.
Except that the timing in these macros are a bit random, making them hard to detect.
Slowing down the auto-clutch shift rate would solve the in game assists issue, but maybe this is already done. I assume that clutch isn't used on the LFS cars that emulate sequential no lift shifters except for launching.
The shift rate isn't the only issue, the devs apparently spent a lot of time on clutch overheating physics, and in what seemed to be to be an afterthought, removed auto-blip and auto-cut assists because they render the clutch overheating useless. On some controllers, macros can be used to get the auto-blip and auto-cut assists back. Lap times won't be faster, but it eliminates any clutch overheating issue. On some or perhaps most LFS cars, the clutch wont overheat on full throttle auto-clutch upshifts if the player simply waits until redline before shifting, so macros aren't needed to avoid clutch overheating from flat shifting either.
Users who have macros don't use auto-clutch. Also I thin it's advantageous to make the macro clutch to use an axis instead of button. So fiddling with the auto-clutch or clutch button rates wouldn't affect people who use macros, only people who use them in a legit way.
As Duck said correctly, that's just cos most of us use auto clutch.
Also on our 6 lap stints, if you have the gear ratio right, you can flatshift the FZR all race long and the clutch won't heat. In fact you can do it up to 20 laps, from then on you need to be a bit more careful. So that's not cos we cheat either, that's just good gears setup
I think so too, the advantage comes from the fact the you get
a) ultra fast shifts
b) clutch heats a lot less, and since the shifts are so fast, it's like flatshifting throughout - in fact it's faster than flatshifting throughout!
I downloaded one of the macro for G25 and tried it on our combo. The advantage was quite noticeable to me. 1 kph more speed on straights, and as3 has a lot of straight! You do 1:40s without even trying. On a perfect hotlap I'd get 259kph up the back straight with a super exit out of the pin, with the macro I'd get it every time in race.
However I also found it to be completely unreliable. I could never do more than 2 laps without it missing gear at least once, usually it missed one every lap when upshifting. So I'm not sure how people do this to gain advantage, I lost more time than I gained with this - and that's a good thing!
Sorry, I think you misunderstood me. I meant that because people who use macro or button clutches gain an advantage because of a fast shift and less clutch temp, then having a faster auto clutch would compensate for their hax
And also, I agree mostly with aceracer. Although even a missed shift, for me, doesn't cost as much time as using the auto clutch.
Maybe I didn't set this up right (I followed one of the widely available PDF tutorials on how to set this up), I didn't spend too much time with it in any case - but the miss-shifts were like the clutch go stuck or sth. The engine would just rev up and the gear wouldn't drop in. Until I got it sorted I lost around .5 secs. And that happened every other lap.
Then there were others where it simply didn't shift, so I had to shift up 2 or 3 times. That was less of a time loss - but happened more frequently.
So in the end every time I shifted I worried more about whether the gear would actually drop in than where I was on track and what I was doing. Took all the pleasure out of racing, it was just a big pain in the neck - and that to gain a couple of tenths on one of the few laps it actually went well.
I found it absurd to use this. In any case, I get more pleasure out of winning races without exploit against drivers who do use the exploit then winning races with the exploit against people who don't - hehe
I think you missed my point. The button clutch input is 'converted' from a digital value ) to a sort-of analog input when it is passed through the button rate.
In my idea, the clutch would have its own hardcoded button rate that cannot be changed using the button rate slider. It would be tuned to be slower than any other method of clutching.edge
That would get rid of it, IMO.
The auto clutch should be slowed down too, but of course this does not please the people who throw away their H-shifters, set their G25 to unrealistically slow lock values and do whatever amounts to a time gain.
Whenever you exploit a simulator, you're actually making it arcadish, so why play a simulator in the first place?
Bending driving aids to turn a comfort feature made for older/cheaper controllers and turning em into competitive weapons is completely pointless. Defeats the whole idea of a simulator.
But alas I'm basically one the few that thinks it that way, maybe I should just give up on LFS and its communty and go play iRacing.
Many real world racing cars use a lot of assists, traction control, abs, stability control, no lift sequential shifters, ..., whatever is allowed for that class of racing, and yet it doesn't make the racing less realistic. In 2002, Formula 1 race car transmissiong were fully automatic, but still impressive:
Macros would work just fine with iRacing as well, so I don't understand the point of this comment. Since you mentioned iRacing, in the video of David Coulthard above, his SR would have taken a hit because he drives over the curbing in the old "bus stop" chicane near the end of a lap.
Just have to tweak the macros to increase the time between "button presses". I've never had an issue with reliablity with macros on any racing game, but my particular controller (CH Products USB, yoke+pedals, joysticks, ... ) is a bit more programmable than most.
The first "macro" that I recall was a somewhat common "rapid fire" macro built into some gaming controllers used for first person shooters or other combat type games. Saves wear and tear on the trigger button.
An assist is not an exploit. An assist is either allowed or banned, an exploit is about bending the rules to get an unfair advantage, basically it's about screwing people.
OTOH since you started a topic about weird problems on downshifting the FBM that nobody else has, this might actually make sense. I sincerely hope you're not the same joystick guy who wanted auto-blip and auto-cut back because 'I could script those anyway'
iRacing has no script system, has no button clutch --hell! has no clutch simulation to speak of.
On the plus side, the iR makers are trying to make sure no driver has unfair advantages.
Same guy, but you got the quote wrong. What you quoted doesn't make sense. If it doesn't affect me because I can "script" around it, then why would I care? I've been using scripts long before auto-blip and auto-cut were removed from LFS, not for exploit advantages, but because its less wear and tear on my joysticks and my wrists. I'm just not that serious about racing games.
It was other players that wanted it back, and I was only defending their position. One issue is you can't auto-blip on a combined axis (throttle and brake) controller. At the time I posted that, I also had a Logitech wheel and pedal with separate throttle and brake axis, where auto-blip isn't an issue, and which I would use for "serious" game play. It's since ceased to work, and I don't play racing games enough to justify buying another wheel and pedal set currently.
Regarding the FBMW post I was experimenting with an old CH yoke and pedal set without any scripting, but the pedals are terrible, so I gave up on using it, and went back to joysticks and macros. The macros include an "auto-blip", but there was still an issue with downshifts on the FBMW, so I had to add clutch input in addition to throttle blipping in order to get the FBMW to downshift. Apparently there's a bit of delay between when you blip the throttle and when you can downshift, which I noticed even when using the flimsy CH pedals.
Apparently you don't understand the scripting capablity of the CH Products controllers. The CH software creates a virtual device where controller buttons, controller axis, keyboard inputs, and mouse inputs are all emulated and driven by either real inputs from actual controllers or programmed outputs from scripts.
I recall some utility to do the same for Logitech controllers (perhaps a hacked version of the CH driver), but haven't seen anything about it in years.
Not having a real clutch simulation means it cannot possibly be exploited for faster shifting: everybody shifts take the same time, so it doesn't matter if the controller is programmable or not.
E.g. iR doesn't accept pedal calibration data from any program other than itself (and that includes Windows), so the brakes cannot be tweaked to work with a digital button as it happens in LFS.
Now if the drivers you mention are smart enough to fool the checks that iR has in place, this I can't tell. But if the game developers take a stance as to discourage the use of tricks, it follows that each every trick automatically gets out of the grey area and becomes by all means an exploit and as such, unfair towards other players.
In LFS this situation can only drag along because Scavier hasn't taken such a clear stance. It's not even a matter to cover all holes, but just to let everybody know that bending the rules is not acceptable.
This is your problem. It ain't written anywhere you have the right to be as fast as anyone else. Programmable controllers are just a way to bend the rules.
You want to be as fast as the best drivers without being forced to spend time developing the sensitivity and honing your skills? TANSTAAFL, I'd say.
Of course there will be one as long as Scawen doesn't effectively changes the game (as was the case of auto blip and auto cut) and the time of free lunches is over. My hope is that time comes soon, but my reason tells me is not going to happen any time soon for the reasons I have listed in another post.
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but when you explaned it i actually knew it 
but not in that way :really
