Quote from tristancliffe :

I would pay £100 to have to oval either removed, or removed and replaced with something that isn't flat out with minimum downforce.

@Jakg: See? illepall

Quote from th84 :

I think people dont want another oval because they/I feel that it is a waste of the dev's time when they could/are work/working on something that is more gratifing to the majority of lfs users. If you want a game that is a oval sim, may i recommend n2003. That game is actually challenging, where the current lfs oval is just a handy way to catch up on some sleep.

Who gave you the right to speak for everybody? Thats generalized again from another person that dont likes the oval and tries everything to get rid of it. You dont have to play on the oval dude no one says you have to so where is your goal at all? And who says LFS could not get even better then N2003 + the ability to go and curcuit tracks, rally and...and....and...

And who says the major priority is now another oval?!

Im not speaking for everybody, just myself and anyone who feels the same way.
I dont think they should get rid of the oval, I go there every once in a while and if thing's go well it can be good fun. LFS and n2003 are 2 totally diffrent games so it's not even fair to compare, I brought it up because you seem to want a oval sim and n2003 is (imo) the best. I (and other's) just dont think another oval is needed. Yourself (and other's) think it is. My goal is the same as your's.... to share that opinion.


I couldnt find where it said that another oval was the major priority.

Seriously, LFS currently has the same problem that a lot of driving games/sims have: lack of a good test track. The Nardo test facility is exactly what LFS needs to solve this once and for all. There's currently no good test area to efficiently test all the basic parameters (slalom, skidpad, acceleration and top speed) of all the cars, especially the faster ones.

I fail to see how any of that is important in racing, TBH. The real test is on the track, not some science test in a special environment. Figures from test tracks don't always translate into better performance on the track.

Quote from 510N3D :

...
Drafting should be funny there and the rest of the area looks pretty interesting to

@MAGGOT: That was the idea behind this thread.

Track tests alone won't reveal everything. That's why its still worth doing more standardised tests.

Well, if you create a prefectly balanced setup, it won't be perfect. In fact, it'll be undrivable due to shear lack of ANY stability. As to invalidity of standard tests, tell that to the Lancer Evolution VIII MR. At 0.98g (skidpad) and 70+mph (200ft slalom), it .... guess what, it's brilliant on mountain passes and anything that resembles the twisty nature of the monte carlo rally. In comparison, the McLaren F1 posted 0.86g and 64.5mph (from Road&Track). It's faster on your average high speed F1 style track, but try doing the Japanese mountain passes with it. Truth is, it understeers heavily at any speed that doesn't allow a lot of downforce generation. And guess what, that's exactly what the numbers show.

So much for track tests only mentality. The truth is, both tests are necessary for those who want to thoroughly understand and tweak their cars. Racetracks tend to hide or overamplify some characteristics of your car, that's why standard tests are still necessary to attain a sort of basic balance. If it tests well, it also goes to prove if it is the basic balancr or the driving that is at fault. The problem with track tests only is that cars get overcompromised setups to compensate for some driver deficiency. This will not do the any good t the cars potential lap times.

Quote from Jamexing :

There's currently no good test area to efficiently test all the basic parameters (slalom, skidpad, acceleration and top speed) of all the cars, especially the faster ones.

I dont think so.

1. There IS a skidpad.

2. You can place cones in an autocross layout to make a slalom.

3. You can test acceleration and top speed on the drag track or the current oval.

@Jamexing - Track testing is perfect for a racing car as you're not setting it up to be driven on a mountain pass are you

As for the McLaren F1's lack of downforce what do you expect from a car with so little drag it could do 200mph with 370bhp, that's only a bit more than that Evo's 4 pot

My REAL point is that a test facility such as Nardo is ideal for getting the basic handling (steady state balance and grip, trancient handling,etc) balance of a car right in the first place, so you'll start out with a good baseline to start with. To teak it for each track, just poke around with parameters such as wing angle settings, minor rollbar adjustments, subtle damper tweaks for desrired transient behaviour, etc. This is obviously MUCH better than forcing players to waste hours on trial and error for each circuit with poor baselines to start with. Some might say just download a "fast setup", but you'll never learn too much or improve your understanding of how to setup a car.

Remember, LFS is not your arcady pick up and play daytona style game. True racing simulation entails simulating both driving AND driver adjusted setups. Setup skills are just as important as driving skills and I'm still astonished that so many people still believe that a racer driver's only purpose is to drive as fast as possible.

A driver is defined not only by shear drving skill, but by his ability to tweak his car well. A Nardo style test track is a great way to help generate excellent baselines.

.

+1 :Kick_Can_

Something like GranTurismo's Complex String would be cool, yep.

Quote from Breizh :

Something like GranTurismo's Complex String would be cool, yep.

exactly

Quote from confoundla :

Yeah it may be neat to have a big oval track to seewhat the vehicle toped out at. I have tried to bury the speed omerter on all of the vehicle and I just cant do it. Maybe I need a good setup IDK. But yea It would be a good place to see who has the fastest setup.

TEAM RacerX

A. we have an oval
B. you could just change the gearing to make the "best" setup
C. Why the blue text

I'd rather Castle Coombe. Or Rockingham raceway as it's quite a large square-ish shaped oval but with a track in the middle.
As shown here:

(Sorry I forgot to cut it out).

Is it cheap enough to license?
It looks a lot like a regular racetrack. The point of a test track is to have individual extremes of each quality found on regular racetracks, that is long straights, esses, slow- medium- and topgear corners, increasing- decreasing- and constant radius bends, positive and negative cambers, elevation changes at various parts of corners, etc that you can sample separately from other variables.
I don't mean to mention other games, but the best example I've seen is this one:

The good thing about a test track of this sort is that it'd be easier to build than regular tracks, from a synergic point of view. The corner sections don't have to work together, you just pick which kinds to include (preferably all of em), and fit them together like legos.

Rockingham infield is more boring thana day of boring talk from Mr Boring about engine boring, during national boring day (an internationally recognised day of boredom). If's flatter than a mirror, and is comprised nearly entirely of the same hairpins. You can't even tell where you are if you forget

ANY decent track needs undulations of some sort, and Rockingham certainly has none.

Why don't we just have a dyno sim in the garage? Don't have to show animation or anything, just let the engine calculate. How hard is it to think of that? Click the "test" button, then wait for a few secs... 1 2 3. And there it is, that's how fast your car tops out, that's how fast it goes from 0-100 km/h (0-60 MPH), that's where your gear shifts, and that's how fast this damn thing goes!

no, no dyno thing... one thing i like to see is a very bumpy little track inside this test facility... (like the one on fifth gear, were Vic test an old Mercedez)


[]s

Wow, the Complex String! Haven't seen that monster since I was aiming for 100% completion on some arcadey thing years ago Although it was fun to race a drunken mate on, and had some really fun sections :up:

We need more types of ovals so the skill of oval racing is more clear to non-oval peeps. The current oval should be changed so that the first turn is longer (about 135 degrees instead of 90-ish. The second turn should be the same, and the final turn should be sharper. That way it will look like Pocono raceway.
Besides that we need:
Dover - High banked 1 mile oval.
Martinsville - Flat 0.5 mile oval.
Richmond - 0.75 mile tri-oval.
Daytona - 2.5 mile superspeedway (tri-oval)
Darlington - 1.3 mile eggshaped oval with only half the track banked.
Texas Motor Speedway - 1.5 mile Quad oval with a short dogleg dividing turns 4 and 1.
Milwaukee - 1 Mile flat oval with long flat turns.
California Speedway - 2.0 mile D-shaped oval
Bristol Motor Speedway - 0.5 mile insanely banked oval with concrete surface.
Las Vegas - 1.5 mile Banked Tri-Oval

And we need a 3600lbs V8 car to go with them offcourse.

Quote from TagForce :

Besides that we need:
Dover - High banked 1 mile oval.
Martinsville - Flat 0.5 mile oval.
Richmond - 0.75 mile tri-oval.
Daytona - 2.5 mile superspeedway (tri-oval)
Darlington - 1.3 mile eggshaped oval with only half the track banked.
Texas Motor Speedway - 1.5 mile Quad oval with a short dogleg dividing turns 4 and 1.
Milwaukee - 1 Mile flat oval with long flat turns.
California Speedway - 2.0 mile D-shaped oval
Bristol Motor Speedway - 0.5 mile insanely banked oval with concrete surface.
Las Vegas - 1.5 mile Banked Tri-Oval

And we need a 3600lbs V8 car to go with them offcourse.

We don't need that many ovals, that's for sure.

Edit:

Quote from DTrott :

I'd rather Castle Coombe. Or Rockingham raceway as it's quite a large square-ish shaped oval but with a track in the middle.

Sure, it's not exactly the same, but there are some similarities between this ant KY Nat at least from a top down perspective.

huh... good spot there, i wonder if it really is based off of it

Very nice spot farcar, that does look extremely similar. Too similar to be a coincidence.