Could we have car failures like they had in Grand Prix 4, random failures during the race which can be selected as a server option. For example attacking the curbs too hard may increase the likely hood of gearbox failure, or suspension failure from a vibrating tyre caused by a major flat spot like what happened to Raikkonen in Nürburgring 2005. Hydraulic failure is a common issue for retirement in F1. Car failure probability that can be effected by your driving style would add to realism.

I am all for better crash physics and such, but random failures does not get my vote, Although, I would like to see better tyre damage, don't know if it will be coming with the next patch, but if you ride the high kerbs such as FE and KY too much it can lead to sidewall damage (especially in TBO + GTR).
Another one would be aero damage, this would be interesting imo, it could work two ways a: People are a lot more careful when racing, with that races become a lot cleaner or b: People still act in an idiotic way and by the end of the race whoever has lady luck on their side will win.
I don't mind the current damage system because when you get punted off it is easy enough to get back on and drive round to pits, although it would be nice if some more realistic damage was in LFS, but maybe in an option for servers to use?
What I would like to see is more effective gravel traps, yes it is possible to still drive through them at a much lower speed than what you currently can, but with more chance you will get beached.

Random SW failures and damages is NOT best way. I NOT support this idea. Because there are many other components, what can get failure: PC HW, SW, OS, Drivers, USB connections, Wheel/Joystick, many other connected PC and controller peripherals, internet connections, servers, and many other in real life... - I have many experiences with these failures during the race, and it is very unvanted and unpleasant, if you dropped out from race due to some HW or SW failures. But you can take it as random car failures in real life. In real life there are some random failures on the real car. But at virtual race-sim there can be also random failures with HW, SW in real life during race, and not need programmed it to LFS code. I have more experiences with these type of failures, and I can not finish more races due to these HW,SW failures, it is very unpleasant. There is not need programmed random failures in the LFS algorithm, there are enough point of failures with the HW, and SW in the PC and controllers in the real life.

But no failure is random. There is always a reason, why some part of car fails (too rough driving, changing gear fron 5 to R in 150Km/h etc). If the failures would NOT be random, I will be pleased to have that feature

Quote from Bigbob1993 :

But no failure is random. There is always a reason, why some part of car fails (too rough driving, changing gear fron 5 to R in 150Km/h etc). If the failures would NOT be random, I will be pleased to have that feature

LFS needs to remove this thing from any gear shifting to R, in real car thats impossible while u are moving forward if u try to shift you will hear cranking sound and that's all, you wold be able to shift to R if u are not moving or u blocked your front wheels if your car is FWD and rear wheels if it is RWD.

Quote from mxpxun :

LFS needs to remove this thing from any gear shifting to R, in real car thats impossible while u are moving forward if u try to shift you will hear cranking sound and that's all, you wold be able to shift to R if u are not moving or u blocked your front wheels if your car is FWD and rear wheels if it is RWD.

That's not entirely correct, it is possible to shift into reverse, but because the transmission is not declutched from the wheels, its internals are still spinning and shifting must occur at exactly the right time to mesh the gears, or with a lot of brute force which the gearbox is very unlikely to survive.

I've always mentally equated timeouts and stuff like screensavers or popups taking over to mechanical failures.

Quote from mxpxun :

LFS needs to remove this thing from any gear shifting to R, in real car thats impossible while u are moving forward if u try to shift you will hear cranking sound and that's all, you wold be able to shift to R if u are not moving or u blocked your front wheels if your car is FWD and rear wheels if it is RWD.

Not true at all, the Volvo 850 had syncrorings on the Reverse also, so eventho u were moving forward u could put it in Reverse..

Quote from pik_d :

I've always mentally equated timeouts and stuff like screensavers or popups taking over to mechanical failures.

so I always used the option to turn off the damage

Sounds like a great idea... but it would need to be implemented into the game so that it feels fair... dunno how you'd do that though.

The OP isn't suggesting a random failure when you've been driving without incident.

Think of each major component of the car as having a percentage health/hit points like in many fighting games. You do something that does 35% damage to the transmission and 25% to the engine. Now the probability of failure for the transmission is 35% (65% chance of not failing) and the engine 25% of failing.

The randomness would come into play when one time you can do 40 laps with some amount of damage and next time you can only do 10 assuming you don't do any further damage. These are arbitrary numbers of course but hopefully you get the idea.

It'd be great if you can get performance degrades of the parts as well total failures. For example 0.001% of the 25% engine damage will result in a total failure; otherwise the engine will run at reduce power.

Quote from ignite :

The OP isn't suggesting a random failure when you've been driving without incident.

Think of each major component of the car as having a percentage health/hit points like in many fighting games. You do something that does 35% damage to the transmission and 25% to the engine. Now the probability of failure for the transmission is 35% (65% chance of not failing) and the engine 25% of failing.

The randomness would come into play when one time you can do 40 laps with some amount of damage and next time you can only do 10 assuming you don't do any further damage. These are arbitrary numbers of course but hopefully you get the idea.

It'd be great if you can get performance degrades of the parts as well total failures. For example 0.001% of the 25% engine damage will result in a total failure; otherwise the engine will run at reduce power.

Yes, that's what I was suggesting. Your driving behavior contributes to the chance of a particular component failing. Good example with hit points in fighting games, e.g riding the curbs to hard will eventually increase the likely hood of suspension failure. Another good feature would be brake fade, like some of the F1 races with heavy braking, where at the end of the race a lot of drivers complain of a long pedal or even experience brake failure.

Quote from Major Del :

Yes, that's what I was suggesting. Your driving behavior contributes to the chance of a particular component failing. Good example with hit points in fighting games, e.g riding the curbs to hard will eventually increase the likely hood of suspension failure. Another good feature would be brake fade, like some of the F1 races with heavy braking, where at the end of the race a lot of drivers complain of a long pedal or even experience brake failure.

I am for any improvements in damage model and I think it is going in this direction already, look at the clutch, suspenssion, tyre wear... all we need is patience we already have accumulated damage of the parts that alter their behavior, just add some more stress and randomness at the limit and here we go...
let's wait for the braking off parts and see what changes to the damage model will it bring in general
one day maybe we will even get tyre punctures from debris on the track in collision areas...

I'd like to see a more possibility of damage components/parts of car, but not result of randomness.

At this moment I lack most advanced engine damage model.
The general outline of engine damage model in collision you can read in this thread.

Also it would be good to see possibility of damage:
- Brakes (overheating/damage)
- Tyres (burst tyre by hooking sharp edges, eg wall corner etc)
- Car body (scratched skins and break off car parts ie bumpers, spoilers, wheels during collisions with other cars, walls, etc)

I hope that LFS 0.6A bring some of these possibilities.

Quote from adamshl :

I'd like to see a more possibility of damage components/parts of car, but not result of randomness.

just to make clear what I mean by randomness at the limit... I do not want any part to fail without the reason, but the possibility that a heavy damaged part will give up or not within reasonable limits of propability