Even then, its not part of the core, and by default, will be seperated from the core, making it ingerently limited.

Look to FPSs for guidance here...quake, unreal, tribes (the best as far as scripting goes). They all are built around being able to be scripted. Mods created, all kinds of useful client and server-side tools...and none of them have had a "cheating problem" associated with the scripting stuff...so thats obviously not a reason to ignore that segment...

I need to learn more about insim...I've used a few of the tools created for it, but never delved in on my own. I may be speaking out of my league, but I can't imagine it's as good as having access to the core a scripting engine would provide.

Quote from wsinda :

You get maximum flexibility if the rules are declared in the shape of a program. Suppose that the server sends the client a JavaScript function. The function takes a setup as input, and returns a boolean result.

Oops, made a thinking error there: the script must be pretty limited in its power, if you really want to keep the setup confidential. For instance, the function can't be allowed to make an HTTP call, because that enables a malevolent script to send the setup data elsewhere.

Quote from rjm1982 :

Even then, its not part of the core, and by default, will be seperated from the core, making it ingerently limited.

I don't think of InSim as limited. You can do a lot with it, both for retrieving data from the engine and for controlling the game engine. Have a look at the CTRA X-system; it uses InSim's possibilities to the fullest.

The downside to InSim is that writing an application is not for beginners. (The upside is that the performance penalty is lower than with scripting.) That could be solved by building a scripting engine of top of InSim, like the_angry_angel did with luaLFS.

EDIT: Hm. I may have been talking nonsense. Had a look at UnrealScript and TorqueScript, and they look far more advanced than where LFS is now.

To get back to the original topic, LFS would need an extra feature: to let the client execute a piece of code that it gets from the server (which may have got it from an InSim application). I expect this will be very complicated, so it will have to wait until S3 is designed.

I would absolutely LOVE a "force X setup"

I really don't understand the appeal of forced setups. More realistic ranges and resolutions? Perhaps. But as I've said before, different people require different things from the car and have different equipment.

Quote from Forbin :

I really don't understand the appeal of forced setups. More realistic ranges and resolutions? Perhaps. But as I've said before, different people require different things from the car and have different equipment.

it's just an option.

there's nothing wrong with more options.

+10

Very good idea.
For some leagues, it would be good to have the same setup for everyone, seeing who is the best with a particular type of car.

Big +1 from me, as it's been every time it's been brought up.

did anything ever happen with this? i know airio can do some of this stuff (tire type, etc), but i'm looking for something that can verify the entire setup, maybe with md5 or some sort of hashing.

I think currently with InSim you can only check some select params out of the whole setup.

If this were implemented it opens whole new areas in LFS.

Things like:

- Race series where handycaps are put in place based on position in the last race etc to balance racing.
- Spec racing where every car is known to be exactly the same.
- Things like the Baby Mini & GT series can be enforced properly and become new "car" types.
- Block unrealistic set options or only allow settings in specific ranges. Such as the V8s choice of 3 diffs etc
- Hell, even the cruise servers benefit as they could bodge a form of tuning with this via hanycaps and locked sets.

It must be possible though surely, i mean LFSTweak allows you to edit things, then it must, as an external program, be able to 'read' whatever it needs to from LFS to allow changes to be made to cars.

If this info can already be read and made sense of by a program, which im presuming it must be in order for tweak to work, then im guessing that something could be written with insim or something that just reads the setup data from connecting players and if the data isn't inside the paramaters set by the server then you can't join.

If you were to mandate an external setup checker app that was to run in the background and transmit "ok" or "fail" messages to the server, in order for you to join the server, then I think this would be possible. Not exactly convenient though, forcing people to download this in order to join the server. Maybe would have some use in leagues.

Quote from Bob Smith :

If you were to mandate an external setup checker app that was to run in the background and transmit "ok" or "fail" messages to the server, in order for you to join the server, then I think this would be possible. Not exactly convenient though, forcing people to download this in order to join the server. Maybe would have some use in leagues.

works for me, anyone feel willing to code one?