hi,

i just spent my first 2 days driving online (gtr on aston national) and i do enjoy it a lot. one thing i noticed is that it is very difficult to survive the first 20 seconds of the race. strangely people are banging into each other within meters of the start. after the first corner half the field is usually wiped out. my own laptimes are nothing fancy at all, still i even won sometimes because of that.

these early crashes reduce the quality of the race a lot. i wouldn´t mind being a backmarker if people could realise that it´s easier to overtake one car rather than 5 in one corner.

i read about admins penalizing bad habbits to assure quality races. how do i find such a server?

anyway,

good thing it´s raining and i have an excuse to stay inside

roland

Trust me. EVERYONE that plays LFS suffers from this.

The way I avoid it is to just play totally safe, if you are in the middle of the pack and you think someone behind will hit you, move out of the way and let them through. If you are faster you can get them back, if they are faster then its probably better that they are in front anyway. If you are at the back, hang back and pick your way through the carnage! Being at the front there is nothing to do but start as well as you can, if someone kamikaze's into the 1st corner you can do nothing but hope

If you do get hit and it damages you on the 1st corner, quickly pit (shift - S) and rejoin, you will pass the slower ones and will be further up on the grid for the next race.

dont let it get to you, I had someone purposefully ram me many many times today, just move on and get on with the race.

Keep racing You will become hooked on lfs

Yeah, public servers tend to have a habit of nasty T1 crashes.
Try the well-known teams servers, they usely serve nice races.

The start of the race is always diffcult, everyone is on coldish tyres, and some people might have only just joined the server so don't have what they need fresh in there mind.

Add to that framerate issues (on my own I get 80fps, stick 19 cars in front of me and I'm barely in double figures), so until the pack gets spread out (or I overtake everyone) it is harder to drive anyway.

Actually while I mention this are there any options that just turn down the car graphics? That way everything will still look beautiful once I'm winning but I can still get playable framerates at the start.

Unfortunately there isnt Bob

Quote from Bob Smith :

Actually while I mention this are there any options that just turn down the car graphics? That way everything will still look beautiful once I'm winning but I can still get playable framerates at the start.

Yes there is, Options > Misc > Dynamic LOD Reduction: 1.00
Your wheels will be square at the start and the detail on the other cars will be poor, but you keep your frame rate high. And when the pack spreads out the detail returns to full.

Quote :

i just spent my first 2 days driving online (gtr on aston national) and i do enjoy it a lot. one thing i noticed is that it is very difficult to survive the first 20 seconds of the race. strangely people are banging into each other within meters of the start. after the first corner half the field is usually wiped out. my own laptimes are nothing fancy at all, still i even won sometimes because of that.

The GTR's are hard to race, mainly because of the cars different strengths and weaknesses of each of them. The FXR is fast off the start but slow on straights, the XRR is slow off the start but quick and the straights and the FZR is good all round.

Alot of people get impatient when they're trying to pass so they pass as soon as they can, which mostly causes crashes...

cheers everybody,

funny, though, that by being slow eventually you (can) actually win. some strategy

roland

Just remember the best cars are quick and not necessarily fast.

hehe. i´ll definitely remember that


r.

Usually I'm quite fast. But if you brake very late, I'll hit someone. If I brake very early, someone else will hit me. :/

When I'm on pole I try to brake as late as I can. But still 50% of the time someone manages to hit me.. I don't get it.

Quote from Cropsy :

The GTR's are hard to race, mainly because of the cars different strengths and weaknesses of each of them. The FXR is fast off the start but slow on straights, the XRR is slow off the start but quick and the straights and the FZR is good all round.

With the FZR you have to brake earlier than the other two GTR's (which is a big problem on AS Nat in the first corner).

i must be lucky but with most races i do online i never have big problems at the start...for some reason i can get through all the mess

all grate advice, i race the FO8 99.99% of the time and we get a lot of "speed demons" trying to race through the pack and lots of t1 pile ups...

you carnt change the minds of these idiotic drivers so we have to think round em... personly if im just racing for fun i love t1 pileups becasue if up front i can get away maybe with 2 other cars and race them but if im low on the grid i just hold back (sometimes even throw the pit limiter on ) ROF/LMAO at the carnage unfolding infront watch the foul text mesages role and i just cruse through and pick up 10 place, its grate way to end a hard days work

while in the race and your chasing someone down take your time and remember unless they are a well veted driver they will be watching you in the mirror more than the track and worrying so its only a matter of time before they miss there breaking point and have a date with the barrier

as for people going into the back of you well there has been a few posts on this on who is to blame, personly unless you throw the brakes on a strait (wich is your fault) then its the responsability of the following driver, if im following a unknown driver i will never enter the turn directly behind as you never know what they are going to do, so if they do throw the anchor early instead of a pile up you get a easy pass, i only race close to drivers i have raced with on a given track many times and know there breaking habits, then i can follow within a few feet but on pub servers that few and far between...

Usually what I do going into turn one is let off the throttle just a bit early and very lightly touch the brakes before going to full braking. This way the guy behind me has a better chance of reacting in time when he sees my brake lights and thinks I'm stomping the pedal. Turn one is actually a bit tricky for me too because I just can't seem to figure out a braking point at many of the tracks. Coming from a dead stop the speed isn't usually as high.

I too will just move out of the way and let people pass. Nine times out of ten there's a huge pile up and you're really only a couple of seconds behind the leader anyway, so if you're faster you'll catch up. If not, then it's better for them to be out front anyway.

Quote from jtw62074 :

Turn one is actually a bit tricky for me too because I just can't seem to figure out a braking point at many of the tracks. Coming from a dead stop the speed isn't usually as high.

it depends on where you are in the pack and the length of the s/f straight if youre in the middle of the pack usually the best idea is to brake where you normally would and you have lots of time to brake smoothly watch the carnage and pick a save line through the wrecks ... braking late is only important if youre starting in front and want to keep that position ... in the pack the best idea is to brake when the guys in fron brake (unless you really know what youre doing and who youre racing with)