OK, OK. Perhaps I'm over-reacting a little. But I know that I'm going to be learning for a looooong time...

Hi everyone. I'm totally new here and have no idea what I'm doing. I've only been an LFS player for a few days (three or four), and I loved the demo enough to pay for an S2 licence, which I did about five minutes ago. (I bought a licence even though the demo content alone would have kept me going for a good few months yet. That's how much I think I have to learn here.)

In my first few days I've been tearing around Blackwood in the first Training Testdrive (I forgot the name of the car) in second gear, and trying not to crash into stuff. Unfortunately, I'm not doing too well at the "not crashing" part.

Today, I even had a shot at going faster than second gear. I'm even starting to get the point of braking and downshifting! Through one corner, I actually managed to accelerate and upshift on the way out, flinging myself to the outside of the road as I crossed the apex of the corner. I managed to follow the racing line all the way around the corner, and if you were with me, you would have seen my jaw hit the floor in a look of utter disbelief that I actually did that, considering that I'm finding controlling the car using mouse steering difficult enough right now.

In the demo, I've gotten as far as the Overtaking Training, but I haven't passed that yet. I keep colliding with other cars, and I also keep wanting to go back to the Testdrive, over and over until I actually learn how to drive.

I'm learning to drive in the real world too, and I'm drawing certain parallels with the way my instructor is teaching me to drive, and the way you're meant to drive in LFS. My instructor, for instance, taught me to go slow into and accelerate out of corners, and it actually works as much in LFS as it does in the real world, despite the fact that you're only limited to 30 mph where I am.

I'm only managing laps of between 1:50 and 2:00 in Blackwood though, so I'm going to be at this for a while, I think...

Due to being made redundant in the crappy economic situation, I don't have the money to get a steering wheel yet, but it's on my wish-list. (I had a hard enough time trying to convince myself to get LFS S2, but I managed to, so I'll have lots of content to practice crashing, er... driving with.)

It's nice to be here. I hope that once I get better at LFS, I'll get into competitive play, but right now, I don't feel at all ready. I'll get there, though.

Sounds like you have the right attitude! The people that try to beat WR's on their first day with LFS are usually the people that never learn very much. Far, far better to approach from the side of caution and gradually get quicker.

Top Tips!

1. Brake slightly earlier than slightly later. Braking slightly too early is always faster than slightly too late.
2. Turn the wheel (or move the mouse) as small amount as you can, even if you are understeering - putting on more lock doesn't make you go quicker round the corners.
3. Avoid the urge to saw at the wheel. There is no need.
4. Initially aim to get back on the power as you touch the apex at the latest. If you can't then try going into the corner slower, or turning in later.
5. The slower you drive, the faster you go. By slower, we really mean calmer. If you TRY to go fast, you usually go slowly. If you try and be consistent, accurate and forget about laptimes you often end up going faster than you've ever gone before.

Secondary tips:

Since you are using the mouse to control the car, you will need to tweak the car unrealistically to get smoother.
1) Brake force: Reduce that, until you can apply the brakes at full speed (end of blackwood straight for example) without locking up the tyres.

2) Button control rate: Reduce this value (maybe down to 3) so that your button inputs are sent to the car with a fake ramp. It kind of compensates the on/off effect of the buttons, and will help you get smoother.

3) Make sure you disable mouse acceleration in LFS (or in windows if your mouse is not capable of using different setups). Play with the sensitivity and linearity until you feel that the virtual steering wheel is moving like you would expect it to move in a real car.

4) Do not use the mouse buttons for throttle / brake, it will be more effective to do throttle / brake on the keyboard so that you can concentrate on steering better.

Mouse can be very competitive, especially for the lower powered cars. F08 and LX6 will prove harder

Welcome and enjoy the learning curve, you will have to do it again when you get a wheel

For further mouse tips, this thread is worth a read: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=59711

It is the way the pros do it, but as ever there are exceptions. Some people think that going over the limit teaches you where the limit is. It doesn't, it just costs more and takes longer.

If Hamilton did have that attitude it's a wonder he got to F1. Some do, but most of them were pretty clean throughout their careers.

Even if it's not the way the pros do it, it's the best way when you're racing in with other people. By all means take yourself off at the corners until you learn the correct braking points, but you shouldn't risk the drivers around you.

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about the lessons right now - the AI drives a more or less fixed line and will just plough into you if you're in the way. That means you fail the lesson and it's not even your fault. IIRC you can skip those lessons anyway.

Since you have S2 licence My advice is Avoid The goddamn demo servers Just avoid them at all cos.
It cost to much nerves and its bad for your health its not worth it

Get on s2 learn how to keep a UF1 on the track then move to the XFG learn to keep that on the track. Then go to a reasonable server that races XFG and just drive around when you get behind someone just follow them brake at the same time as them take the same line and follow them you will soon learn. Naturally pic a good driver. Thats how i learnt how to drive i did this constant for about 3 months with the FXR around Aston North on Conedodgers 1 my average lap time was 1.55 i did this after about 2 months i was keeping up and overtaking the guys i was provisionally following. Hitting low 1.42's consistantly one a second off the WR.

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i highly recomend getting a wheel...any sort of wheel (it can be a 10 dollar wheel) will be better then the mouse. you have a very good attitude, and like ashley williams said, as long as you join a server and learn from them, you will learn try not to stick to one server, try to get different servers, so you can get many teachers. even join a team, or be an aprentice and just have them teach you for a while. best of luck!

in lfs and rbr i started working over my limits then backwards and then i got to a point where i could do lap after lap after lap without crashing or going off. now on most tracks in lfs i can get .5 to 3 sec's away from all world records with the right set.

Quote from carey :

That isn’t the way ‘pros’ do it. If you listen to people who worked with Lewis Hamilton in his early days, they say he crashed a lot, plus he’s said himself that he used to drive over the limit then work backwards. In real life it’s an expensive attitude, but I don’t believe LFS has a no-claims bonus system!

Driving over the limit is a good way to learn, that's why we have super wide gravel side lines or even autocross ( and sims, maybe ).　

But really getting used to that can eat you. A good drive has a natural tendency to stop him/herself from going over the limit. When people say "learn from being over the limit", they mean "force yourself to go over the limit a little bit in safe situations even you don't like the feeling", not "PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH and then win or crash".

Quote from MAD3.0LT :

in lfs and rbr i started working over my limits then backwards and then i got to a point where i could do lap after lap after lap without crashing or going off. now on most tracks in lfs i can get .5 to 3 sec's away from all world records with the right set.

Exactly. It's taken you 6 years to get that close to WRs with your 'start off by crashing' technique. I did the same in one year with my 'go faster until you find the limit' technique.

Doesn't make me crash-proof, but I think you learn a lot more putting in lots of consistent laps and being able to experiment than you do by spending half your time in a wall, with damage or resetting back to the pits.

Quote from Ash196 :

Due to being made redundant in the crappy economic situation, I don't have the money to get a steering wheel yet, but it's on my wish-list. (I had a hard enough time trying to convince myself to get LFS S2, but I managed to, so I'll have lots of content to practice crashing, er... driving with.)

Hello and welcome.

Right now, I'd say the best thing you can do is keep doing.

However, the best thing to do is keep doing, but it would be even better to keep doing with a wheel.

This is the best cheap one:

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from= ... _sacat=See-All-Categories

60 pounds on Ebay and free postage. Don't worry, it will work perfectly for the PC with a driver download even though it says PS2/PS3. Try to convince your parents that it will help you practice for the real world driving and ultimately make you safer. They might help out.

Once you're comfortable driving with the wheel and doing sub-1:45 laps that are smooth, then you can really focus on nitty gritty techniques.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Exactly. It's taken you 6 years to get that close to WRs with your 'start off by crashing' technique. I did the same in one year with my 'go faster until you find the limit' technique.

lol, really? is that the tristancliffe iron-clad conclusion? cmon, if the newb is depending on you guys for advice the least u could do is provide him with all the information and let him choose the one that fits him the best. extrapolating conclusions that "your way" is better than "other guy's way" because it took him 5 years longer to reach your level of driving is just invalid.

i flew off track loads of times in my starting days, and i had huge problems controling any type of RWD.. but i didnt start with UF1 or XRG, i went straight for the FZR and didnt waste time driving over eggshells in order to improve. conclusion - same things dont work for everyone.

and as far as advice for the new guy goes, pm me and i'll start u off with 2 books that'll give u the theory necessary to recognize your own mistakes and improve.

Clearly smilies are wasted on some people. I don't use them often, but when I do I would hope people might fecking look at them. Any idea what means? And idea what means?

I thank you.

= rasberry at you; up yours
= I laugh at your fail; you suck

j/k


@Ash196

Hmmm you just needs some mega practice to get good. Three years for me and I am lucky to make it better than 20th place.

As soon as you learn the track and how the car must be driven you got to be very consistent throughout a race.
You must prefer driving a second slower than trying to be faster and end up ruining the car or crash into other players.

I used the skidpad to learn the limit, driving in circles and just keeping the tires chirping and not screaming has proven useful to me. Try it and see if it works for you.

Thanks everyone for chipping in so quickly with advice and support. I really appreciate your helpfulness and what you're doing. I haven't felt the feeling of belonging to a community like this in a long time.

As to how I'm doing, I've just been spending the past day getting used to a couple of the other cars, and mainly still hanging out on Blackwood.

My progress so far is that I've got a decent idea of how to handle the XFG, and I'm starting to memorise the racing line of Blackwood (I mostly drive with the racing line off, switching it on at points where I'm still not quite sure of the recommended line to take.)

I'm trying to take things slowly (but not too slowly), making sure I understand the car, and the road thoroughly. I understand that everything depends as much on mental control and knowledge as it does on physical control and knowledge.

I've taken the Training Testdrives for the BMW Sauber (BF1) and the Rallyx (XRG). The BF1 handles easier than I thought it would (and the speed is ridiculous), but I had problems driving on dirt in the Rallyx drive. It just proves how little driving experience I have (in the real world and in LFS) when I say that I honestly thought driving on mud and driving on the road would have little difference in the handling of a car. How wrong I was. (For those who are theorists or who know how things affect cars, why is this the case? I always want to know how different things affect cars, because I can then try to change my approach while taking into account what is physically happening with the car.)

Last night I did hop onto a server, but unfortunately nobody was around. Either that, or they all saw me coming and jumped ship! Anyway, I did stay for a bit in the hopes that someone would jump on the server, but nobody did. The server was using the Kyoto Ring track, so I did get some practice with the racing line and the XRT on that track.

Just now, I took the UF1 and UFR for a spin on Blackwood offline. The UF1 really struggled to get around - especially on the incline near the starting grid (just before you complete a lap)! I thought I was the fastest thing on earth, tearing down that straight at 60 mph!

The UFR on the other hand, is a completely different beast. I love how zippy it is, but even though I only hit a top speed of about 120 mph in it, the sheer sense of speed I felt meant that at no point did I actually feel I had control over the car! It felt faster to drive than the XFG, even though my top speed was probably slower! So many things in LFS never cease to amaze me.

I also love how you can stall the car if you put it in gear without enough gas to move off, and you have to switch the car off and back on again! The realism blew me away, but now that I know I can stall the car, I'll try not to do it in future!

I'm actually gobsmacked that each car I've tried feels completely and utterly different. All my years playing Sega Rally and Daytona have kinda conditioned me into thinking that most cars would feel the same. I guess I'd better stay away from arcade racers from now on, heh. I find LFS much more fun and satisfying, anyway.

Where I'm going to go from here: continue to get used to cars offline, and probably try out a couple more of the tracks (with the racing line on). At the same time as offline practice, I will start to get online and maybe just spectate (rather than join in) for a while. I may have one or two races online, but I am never going to expect myself to be able to compete.

The most I hope to do is stay somewhere near the back and at least try and keep up. Overtaking will have to wait until I grow in confidence a bit more. At this stage, if I can keep up with the other cars, while staying at the back, I'm doing better than I thought.

Quote from Ash196 :

Last night I did hop onto a server, but unfortunately nobody was around. Either that, or they all saw me coming and jumped ship! Anyway, I did stay for a bit in the hopes that someone would jump on the server, but nobody did. The server was using the Kyoto Ring track, so I did get some practice with the racing line and the XRT on that track.

You can see where most people are at if you put your server list filters as attached. Public, allow reset and arrange by number of connections.

Also, I'd like to add that I can't even remember the last time someone sent me an XFG setup that didn't defy conventional wisdom. My point? If you go the "understanding the physics" way, take note that you may not be driving a particularly realistic setup at all

Quote from Ash196 :

The most I hope to do is stay somewhere near the back and at least try and keep up. Overtaking will have to wait until I grow in confidence a bit more. At this stage, if I can keep up with the other cars, while staying at the back, I'm doing better than I thought.

do not limit yourself to 'staying in the back and try to keep up' and 'will stick to last place and away from overtaking for a while' (i forget the exact words :shy overtaking will come naturally, if you follow the advice from up the thread you will be a great racer some day remember just try to follow their lines, braking points, steering angle, if you can throttle control, listen in to what gear they are in, you name itjust focus on learning, and if you feel you can go in for an over-take...you probably should go for it

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

...
Also, I'd like to add that I can't even remember the last time someone sent me an XFG setup that didn't defy conventional wisdom.
...

What we need is LFS Setup Restricter.　　( But so much work, programming ...... :schwitz

It's great to know that VWS would be a car with limited setup options.　

Quote from Keling :

What we need is LFS Setup Restricter.　　( But so much work, programming ...... :schwitz

It's great to know that VWS would be a car with limited setup options.　

i like the freedom maybe you can turn off limiting the options

Quote from logitekg25 :

i like the freedom maybe you can turn off limiting the options

I don't think most leagues or public servers would use it when it's done ( Unless only ban rally tyres on tarmac, etc. ). A "Get a car and race" ( Normal club racing on circuits, track day with rental cars, AutoX time attack, ROC style battles, etc. ) event would be fun, and a "realistic road car racing" server would cheer up some (including me), but there won't be much difference in our every-day racing experience.

off topic, but hows china :hide: