Just a question from a way below average driver, do setups really make such difference?
I mean, since I am not fast by myself (all down to a lack of practice) I have asked quicker guys their setup and often got it.
Then I selected them, drove around for a couple of laps, only to find out that I was more off then on the track, since the setup hard ever suited my driving style.
I believe that the good drivers are fast anyway, just by setting a few things the right way (like brake balance, gearbox).
a lot of the arguments here that suggest that setup sharing should become mandatory/free to the public are implying that it's a "kid with a toy" complex like the people who don't want to share just wont share "because it's mine mine mine" and sure, there's a bit of that to it, can't deny that.
but, apart from not liking that someone can just take something you made from you for their own use i feel as if the mentally of "i wanna drive like that guy, i need his set to do it" doesn't show a whole lot of integrity or progression toward self improvement.
now, i'm known to be on the stubborn side of "do it myself", but my drive to do it myself was a massive part of my improvement as a driver in LFS and every time i got better i would then notice what wasn't right about the behavior of my car so i would work on my setup, improve again, notice something, repeat, repeat and i feel such a mentality and progression is a major thing LFS has that really builds a community of good drivers that actually give a f***.
so, giving people too much freedom to have whatever they want without being part of the process that made it would take that away.
I think it would also be nice to have an option for all of someone's setups to be public, which would work well with that message when someone saves one of them.
Maybe by making them more easily shareable, there would be less need for stealing.
But as I said, there will always be people stealing them as there will always be people using LFS unlockers. Setup stealing costs you something when you wanted to keep it private. LFS hacking costs us developers a lot of money. It's not fair at all. I'd stop them if I could.
You could do a bank of setups in LFS World or giving the opportunity to share the setup in hotlaps when you press save ...
For multiplayer, as far as I remember it was good.
Anyway, I do agree that the "setup extractor" is very powerful and easily available on internet ... this breaks the secret setup option (and I can agree that after spending hours and hours tuning a car, having a 'bot taking your set and destroying your laptimes can be frustrating if it is not your choice to make it public )
Agreed. Community should exclude such behaviour but problem is that it can lead to witch hunts.
Still if some team mate tells you "hey pssst I accquired team XYZ's setup" then maybe tell him how that is not cool.
It is always possible to steal/decrypt/crack data: adding more protection just causes a spiraling arms-race between devs and crackers. For normal user it causes only annoyances.
(That is basically what has happend with piracy protection, DRM and all those things.)
In my opinion people who create such tools are not nessecarily evil, most of them probally do it out of interesst or for the technical challenge.
Problem is when it gets shared around without thinking of consequences, that is just careless thing to do.
So maybe slightly change the protection, just so that existing tools stop working. For example change some memory adresses or the encryption-salt etc, something that can be quickly done. Tool creators have already proven what is possible, so for them there is not much use to do the same thing again.
Also want to say that in various organized racing I have never encountered this drama about not wanting to share setups. But if someone says "Sorry, this is a private set" then that is perfectly fine too, and should be respected! If in higher leagues some "top" teams can not follow such simple rule, would be bit sad.
Yes, the difference between using the "default" or for example a setup for Kyoto on a Fernbay track can be quite large. That is noticeable for slow drivers too.
The publically shared setups (setupgrid.net or SS ingame) are quite good - there is no need to do anything illegal, that will not bring extra seconds or anything like that.
You would have to closely watch someones driving to figure out their set is really better than the ones that you can get on normal ways. If you are willing to spend that effort, then you can as well make your own setup
I'm one of those totally uncapable of making a good setup, let alone driving a good line/scoring a good time...
Few around here will even remember my avatar.
But what a ego-drama I'm reading on this whole setup issue!
If you really want your setup copyrighted, maybe Scawen can come up with a kind of "signature" forged into a setup, so, whoever will make a good PB/hotlap/whatever, there'll always be something like:
"Ripley - WR RAC@SO1 - setup by The_jealous_setupmaker"
So everybody will forever know who Ripley shall be thankful to, and The_jealous_setupmaker's craftmanship will be forever be acknowledged.
What I'd suggest is to make it as an option if it is possible. I mean, the servers where you can save any setup from anyone you desire, and servers where you could just only do SS.
On the other hand, that won't stop sandbagging deko and few others are so afraid of. You could randomly do laps with some other setup before the actual league race in official server, and jump on the correct setup you will use before the race in /end state and use it. So no one would manage to save a setup of the top teams because it is plain sandbagging.
You guys think of a solution, but never figure out the ways that will be used to go around it.
Stagnation, (too) stable - good points, although I see it another way: the racing itself is too static, which allows for certain setups to be "perfect" (given the skill of the driver of course)...
It has been my opinion for a long while that even one dynamic element, be it track conditions or weather (both please!), would make this whole discussion obsolete - as there is no perfect solution if you don't know what comes next. It would also open up the possibility of vastly different but still viable strategies, further decreasing the need of having that "one" setup...
There's no reason why sharing and competing wouldn't work together, it's just some people being afraid of being slower than other people if everyone would be given equal chances.
I think doing things the way speedrunning communities do would be a nice thing. Highly competetive scene of who can be the world record holder or win a race, yet everyone shares their information and strategies how to beat the game quicker, even if that means losing the WR to a better person.
It's all in the mentality. The best racing, in my opinion, comes from having equal opportunities and similar kind of skill level, which results in close battles where positions can switch several times a single lap. Being a tightarse and not sharing setup if someone wants it doesn't promote this kind of racing.
If you want equal opportunities, then ask for fixed setup server ability. Mandatory setup sharing wouldn't give equal opportunities at all, just irritate people who actually put in time to build setups for their team in order to race in leagues.
If people want their ego-fix, they can join a public server that has a fixed setup. They can race with others with "equal opportunities". You know, the people that have the same PC and rig as you, the same wheel rotation, the same h-shifter and clutch use, and obviously car setup.
I believe cargame was using the term "competition" to describe the league environment. For public racing, sure be as arcade as you want with it and be able to freely share setups. But that same mentality should not be in league racing, or in hotlap mode, where the term competition means a bit more.
Note that I didn't ask for mandatory setup sharing feature because it's not the solution... or it is, but it's not the correct one. People who hone their setups to perfection should be allowed to keep them private if they so wish, but that is simply impossible with computer applications, because some hacker will ALWAYS find a way around it.
The only realistic options are simply to suck it up and accept hackers will be able to get your setup or share it yourself, making the hackers work pointless. No amount of encryption in LFS setups will change this, maybe some always-online type of thing would, but who would want that?
If anything, the inflatuated egos are originating from people who aren't willing to share setups. I'd understand the unwillingness a bit better if this was real racing where actual money and fame is involved, but this is sim racing where friendlyness gets you further and results in more fun than being uptight.
That said, I'm all for more server limitations for controllers in servers, no reason why we couldn't have both "competetive" and hardcore sim servers.
I fail to see how "arcade" comes in to play with this discussion. There are real life racing series with bog standard cars or with fixed setups. Setupfield also makes your argument for competetive hotlapping and not sharing setups a bit shaky one.
I don't understand what does that have to do with ego if people want to have own private setups. It's part of racing, even i don't want to be able to get my opponents setups but now when there is a chance, of course I use it because they do the same towards me, and this has happened already. It would be cool if setup making remains as part of racing so I really hope you will find a better solution to this problem.
Yea,these selfish bastards - worked hard to achieve better results for the race and don't want to share their efforts. Awful people. I bet that selfless samarian like you is sharing your salary to help poor people too!
Wow. This, is why I don't do league racing anymore. Uptight people with an elitist attitude to the max. You also seem to bring money in to every single discussion there is, but if that's where you want to go... doctors without borders got 30 euros from me couple days ago. When did you last donate to a charity?
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This will solve some of the problem, in my opinion
