It was funny to see on improvement suggestions, as I understand now, devs must have to be like a machine to update all of those suggestions. But who knows what will be on future, as Scawen meant a little rough, though...
I have enjoyed every minute of LFS thus far, and absolutely respect Scawen's choices.
However, I have to wonder if there isn't an opportunity to open LFS up to selected developers, at least on the content front? I know it's tough to release control of any project, particularly one that has such an investment of man-hours, and is a worthy source of pride...
Even leaving the physics and dynamics as-is, I would happily shell out for additional cars and tracks, especially some more real-life examples. I would personally want to avoid community created content in general, because of the hopelessly inconsistent quality of e.g. rFactor mods. However, I'm sure bringing some more developers in to work on content would be orthogonal to the tyre physics developments, while raising the profile of LFS in general and bringing in some welcome income.
well, I'm wondering why? As I remember, Scawen once said that his interest in LFS model of simulation over the simbin way is that it is open - the car can behave correctly in a way not anticipated in details by developer. It is a kind of surprise for me that Scawen doesnt apply that to LFS business model.
@wsinda: I didnt find in your thread a way to give a frame for the mods except gatekeepers that would assure the quality of the content. The other way is to make default models that have so big settings range that car physics stays in boundary for existing models (as car types) and they just look differently.
Track mods should be always checked and approved by devs, but it is so much effort to make complete race track that, I think devs would be able to pick and approve some.
There is no need to insult Scawen he has given us a very good product and we should be thankful but his position is pretty clear, LFS is not being developed as it could and we are urged to stick around until the next patch comes out. I think LFS has become a victim of it's own success, it's not got the workings behind it to show it's full potential and for that I can understand the plea to keep people around but quite frankly the lack of updates and news is simply down to disregard.
Scawen have higher priority things to do guys . I can understand him...The family is infront of everything..But I don't understand why they can't see the big opportunity in LFS? They've already sold a lot of licences, they've earned some money. With bigger stuff, more new things LFS can be more popular, no?...more stuffs, more updates=bigger popularity=more income...hmm? But we know that programmers are bad marketing specialsts ...
Honestly I'm not sure why you would call it that? Perhaps in terms of bytes you may be right since it sounds like a new track will be in there, but there really isn't anything new being added to the LFS experience from what I can tell (which is only what's been explicitly said).
LFS has tracks, LFS has cars, LFS has tire physics. It's going to be the same sim with what is likely a very slightly different feel - if it's better, it'll probably feel more like iRacing.
I would call the transmission model update a bigger patch since it actually added something new to the sim.
A "big patch" would be maybe brake heat/wear, a use for the 8yr old gauges on the dashboards like oil & coolant, better damage modelling, some graphical updates, some track dynamics maybe, etc.
...
I have no idea why anybody is impatient for this patch to hit... When it does, the new track will get beaten to a pulp for a couple of months, 24/7. Same will happen to the (2?) new cars, and then pretty much the exact same (slightly different) driving experience will persist and then this type of thread will pop up again. OR, maybe I'm wrong and the LFS "community" will be eternally gratified by 2 or 3 pieces of new content (not likely).
Tristan is right, you just see it from another angle: content... But the physics haven't been fully rewritten at least since LfS S2 started, maybe longer - only new features were added, so in terms of workload it definitely is the biggest patch ever (pareto principle applies fully here)...
I'd also argue that on importance it may also be the biggest one yet: now that for the first time (more or less) worthy challengers have established themselves this update will determine if people will still follow LfS' development in the future or if they make the switch to another sim of choice complete...
This patch will change just about everything on lfs. New track records will be needed and new setups will be needed as well. But that's just what I think. It might not be needed but you can always have dreams right? So I'm hoping this will be a breakthrough for the devs.