To the comparable cars. I have always felt that LFS worked best for me as a game or simulator because I had that certain sense of realism that other games have obviously lacked. It is another thing to learn even coming from some major titles.
But, how close is it?
I have to say compared to other sims LFS still has better overall feel to real cars even its not even close that.
Peopple complains about too much grip as i say we need more grip on lower speeds. So im waiting so much for the new tyre physics and maybe some other improvements Scawen noaticed during tweaking.
Car on the back make higher pressure in front of him, and the result of this is pushing car in front. But of course this isn't so strong push as for car in back.
On topic, I think tyres are OK now, but we are driving little unreaslistic setups. I have tried to make car same as my real one (same HP...) and it felt pretty much the same. If I could adjust camber on my real car as in LFS, it will have far more grip in turns ...
About draft, it should be much higher at lower speeds. Drafting with friends on highway I've reached top speed over 180 kmph ( rev limiter ), with car which top speed is about 160kmph.
The drafting physics aren't the best. The draft in a very thin area. Directly behind the vehicle infront is the only place that there is any effect, and there is no effect at distances that would have a small effect. Also, having a car behind you don't directly make to quicker such as in real life, and packs also lack effect. I have no drafting experiance in real life though
There's no aero push or aero loose either, just a general lifting of drag it would seem.
I have no comment on the levels of grip though it seems to be okay, and what issues there are are likely being addressed in S3 (when/if that happens)
I don't think that any other game compairs to Live For Speed's physics though. I will say that
ABS off, 95% front brakes, full throttle in first gear will usually get it , but yeah, it does seem like it's too difficult to burnout.
Sounded to me like he was pulling out for a sling shot too early, I've never had a problem with being immdiatly pushed back once I pull out from behind a draft.
Since I am an bloody idiot I'll just say this: Good enough for me to enjoy them, and at same time thinks it's somewhere near of what normal cars would behave under the same situation(s).
About the draft: i've found out long time ago, that it works only if you're less than 0,3 seconds behind someone. Above 0,3s you shouldn't bother trying, because there's no draft at all. No matter what car, 0,29 is the gap you want to be within when drafting.
Not really correct - it's about distance from car in front and speed. The more speed,the further away is the effect. While in slower cars hard to gain anything if the distance is more than 16m,with BF1 you can get some pull from 20-21 meters. Aonio helps here!
I think you've just said the same, what i did, in different words. Speed and distance ofc does matter to some degree, eg. you won't get any or low draft at low speeds, but in the end it's imo the "magical" 0,29s gap.
From my experience, when you try to draft on straight, you could watch, how far behind timewise you are behind your opponent and use it as reference for your next action, be it in UF1 or BF1.
btw a car behaviour is quite simple to simulate. It is basically a body with weight and inertia and 4 not suspended mass linked with the body of the car thanks to flexible links (wishbones geometry, suspension,...).
This isn't really hard to study (M*a=F and J*a=C) but the links with the ground (tyres) is really a hard thing. Many things should be taken in account as temps, pressure, flexibility,...a tyre is the hardest thing to modelise in a car (and basically the only one).
Actually no one have already find any perfect model of a tyre but the nearest we knows is atm Pacejka model (I would suggest a bigger google research about it). This is a really hard model to calculate, you need to make many tests to manage to calculate everything you need to have and then use that model.
In Formula one Pirelli give it to teams but I know that every teams re-calculate it (with each tyres, soft,super soft...)...
I have spoken with an engineer from ART GP, the well known GP2 serie top team (Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Rosberg, Grosjean,Di Resta,...they all raced for that team), and he explained me that they had to do many test, really expensive to determine how the tyre react to each suspension setup (load, camber, pressure, temp, ackermann,...).
I suggest you do some more google research yourself.
Look up "brush tyre models" - that's what the current LFS tyre physics is a variation of - not Pacejka, which I understand is getting a bit long in the tooth.