Quote from Batterypark :

What is your server called then? I just want to make sure I'll never accidentally join.

don't worry, it's private.

Mighty fun server. They aim for realism. And I'm almost positive in real life you don't magically jump from the track to the pit lane.

Quote :

The difficulty is that in most types of racing car, its extremely difficult to actually know that someone has a 1/10th overlap on you. So the rule is designed to make it the other guys responsibility until such times as you would reasonably be expected to know they had an overlap, ie. third to two thirds up.

How about: if in doubt, leave room? It would be the equivalent to "if in doubt, don't". I do it simply due to self-protection: I might lose a position, but especially early in a league race, it is not worth risking a lengthy pitstop or even a DNF because you want to defend a position. In the last two or three laps of course this would look a little different, but even then: The points for a position lower are more than no points at all.

Quote from -wes- :

No one has the 'right' to the racing line or track.
No one can force another off the track or cause them to spin.

adding any more rules to this and you end up with follow the leader. and "oh would you let me past please? OH go on, ooo your mean! please?!!!"


When you go off line to pass someone, you automaticly have less control than the other car. Expecting them to be able to abort the pass is folly.

If your on the inside of me I will give your 1 car's width at the apex, but I might pinch you down at the exit. I might give you as much room as possible at the exit, but never expect it.

When you on the outside I will give you 1 car's width at the exit, you can pinch me down. And I'll do my best not to hit you, but don't assume we won't make contact.

Driver's who expect to have the racing line(or anything while racing) will end up out of the race hammering the votekick button.

I see this as being fair without being overly restrictive.

That's exactly how I would put it (when racing with friends on our private server we always keep to these rules) - and it provides for great racing. I can remember gonig several laps side to side, overtakong and being overtaken. That's racing, not overly controlled follow the leader stuff.
And I'm absolutelly agains any blocking moves on the straight. Not a single line change in/right before braking zone ...

Of course I'm going to "close the door" right before the braking zone if I know you're one of those suicide squeeze-in-corner drivers. Just because we add more responsibility to the one being passed doesn't mean he hasn't got the right to fight for his position. But I agree on the straight thing, weaving left and right is a big no-no there.

Well I'm still a newbe, but it was very interesting to follow this discussion and I hope I learnt some proper behavior. In particular trying to let someone a car width room, if he tried to force you to slow down before a corner, seems to be very sensible.

My experience with good racing simulations is almost constraint to the multiplayer demo of LfS for 4-7 round races. So I have some questions, too.

If I'm racing with the same guys for several races and there is somone who is about 2 seconds faster than me per lap, shall I let him pass, or give him a fight for the position? Guys who are much faster than me can overtake me inside 2-3 corners without problems. If they have the patience and don't kick me out the 1st corner, claiming me of braking too early. I don't complain much about such things, instead of this I try to change the set-up in order to brake later, if that happens to me several times in the same corner. Nevertheless I find it unnescessary and dishonorable for the better driver.

But if someone is only a little bit faster, there is not much he can do, as long as I make no major mistakes. Sure it could lead into a crash, if he tries to force me to slow down before a corner, but, hey that's racing! Or is it a wrong attitude?

Nevertheless in the beginning or middle of a long run race I would properbly pass him without much resitance, because it makes no sense to ruin the lap times of both drivers, giving other players the chance to hang on.

Quote from Sunday Driver :

My experience with good racing simulations is almost constraint to the multiplayer demo of LfS for 4-7 round races. So I have some questions, too.

If I'm racing with the same guys for several races and there is somone who is about 2 seconds faster than me per lap, shall I let him pass, or give him a fight for the position?

Hard to answer. If he is that much faster that you, he will propably pass you anyways on a straight. So no need to give him the position as a gift. But still, you should not block him in an "unsportsmanlike" manner. If you see him coming fast into the turn, don't get into his line on the single purpose to slow him down. If you see him exiting the turn faster than you, no need to block him by getting into his way.

Quote from Sunday Driver :

Guys who are much faster than me can overtake me inside 2-3 corners without problems. If they have the patience and don't kick me out the 1st corner, claiming me of braking too early. I don't complain much about such things, instead of this I try to change the set-up in order to brake later, if that happens to me several times in the same corner. Nevertheless I find it unnescessary and dishonorable for the better driver.

What to say about that. It happens, and it doesn't feel well. Still, try to remain calm and race on. Really nothing you can do about that, and crashing that guy out in revenge won't solve the issue.

Quote from Sunday Driver :

But if someone is only a little bit faster, there is not much he can do, as long as I make no major mistakes. Sure it could lead into a crash, if he tries to force me to slow down before a corner, but, hey that's racing! Or is it a wrong attitude?

If you are about the same speed, no need to let him pass unchallenged. That's the true spice of online racing. Again, try to avoid bodywork contact, as it is regarded rude. At close races, victories achieved by psychological force are sweeter than those achieved by physical force.

Quote from Sunday Driver :

Nevertheless in the beginning or middle of a long run race I would properbly pass him without much resitance, because it makes no sense to ruin the lap times of both drivers, giving other players the chance to hang on.

The longer the race, the more it pays off to drive cautiously and devensively. Try to get a good pace, but don't stress it. You won't succeed if you either spin every two laps because you stressed your limits or your tyres are just patches of black melting rubber at your wheels.
That's why there is no need to fight for a position too agressively. The ones who just pull a few hotlaps will be behind you in the end due to more driving mistakes and tyre-wear, and those who constantly are 2 secs faster than you will win anyways.

Ok, thank you.

Quote from Hoellsen :

How about: if in doubt, leave room? It would be the equivalent to "if in doubt, don't". I do it simply due to self-protection: I might lose a position, but especially early in a league race, it is not worth risking a lengthy pitstop or even a DNF because you want to defend a position. In the last two or three laps of course this would look a little different, but even then: The points for a position lower are more than no points at all.

Yes, self protection is important. Real drivers, despite even fierce rivalries usually maintain a "we're all in this together and we all want to finish in one piece" attitude. You will never see the final turn if you destroy your car at the first turn. But you shouldn't open the door for an opponent who is no position to attack, even if he thinks he is. Adversely, a driver should not attack where there is no room to complete the manouvre. If getting half way past the car in front means you are both going to crash, then it is obviously unwise to attempt your attack at that point. You shouldn't have to yield just because the other guy wants to try the impossible. When the other racers around you are also aware, like you are, of each car's position and race together cleanly all trying to finish in one piece then it is surprising how few incidents occur. Sure, contact and crashes still happen and some corners are hotly contested with mixed results, but overall the racing is fast, fair and furiously contested with little incident. This is why I will always encourage people to join or form a team or club, participate in a league or organised event or organise a serious race meeting for their peers. Do it at your own level or comfort zone with a light heart, an open mind, and a severe desire to perform well.

Even the best public servers are prone to people joining and leaving mid-race, chatting, voting, telepitting and often have very short races (3-10 laps). Many of the frustrating aspects people speak of occur for innocent reasons and are a product of a public racing environment. Some racers get frustrated when a race is unrealistically interrupted, others feel it's ok to join or vote while a race is already underway. If you want realistic racing with few distractions, hot qualifying sessions and serious opponents then a public server has its shortcomings. When an admin is present and conducting races in an orderly manner public servers can be fun and educational for any racer, for sure. But if you can gather a few bodies together for a private session with no distractions, a proper qualifying session and a decent length race, I believe Live For Speed really comes into its own and is nothing more, and nothing less than an Online Race Simulator. Bloody marvelous stuff it is too.

Absolutely. I only joined a team and started league racing after S2 came out, and it's a whole different world. Much more rewarding and challenging.

Ok Gunn, top notch responses there . When I asked about the kick for teleporting to the pits, I was assuming public server and short pickup racing for fun. Private is a different matter. I have no problem with your responses here, my opinion is if you are on someone elses server, public or private, then you play by their rules, period. I now spend all my time in the NAL servers practicing for the next race there, but before I joined NAL, I would just run in the public 5-7 lap servers as I'm not on very long in the weeknights. I'd rather just "teleport" to the pits if I crash just to not ruin someone elses fun. I usually don't rejoin, but just watch the rest of the action on the track. If I do rejoin, I wait until the field has gone past before coming out on the track. And I said spin earlier, but say crash here. If I spin, I try to pull off as soon as I can before I try to recover and continue. If I crash with enough damage, I just pull myself from the race. Sending yourself to spectate as you say is probably better. Disabling the shift-s to pit gets rid of the rejoining mid-field and messing up other racers.

I was wondering then, what server is it? And why is it private? League or team? Or just a gathering of drivers that know each other? Just curious. When racing with those you know night after night, you learn what to expect from them rather than in public when you could be racing people you've never seen before every night. Much more enjoyable.

If we compare LFS to real race driving, we notice some not so obvious points. These include the fact that in real life competitions we have drivers that are generally already fast people and make maybe less errors than we do in LFS. This, I think, is because in real life you have stay alive and keep your car in one piece. In LFS we don't need to worry about things like that.

And we don't see people racing who don't even know the track or the car. But the biggest difference is that in real life we have the judges who can see the situations and make the right decision about it (usually...). In LFS the judge is everybody.

When we combine these we get situations where other one is tens of seconds faster than other one, or people driving the track wihout knowing the next corner - learning the track online! - and people who think because they are faster they should be let pass immediatelly.

I saw an interesting situation couple of days ago when a faster driver passed me. The next one to pass was some slower driver some laps behind us. The faster driver decided to use the slower player's slipstream to get some more speed. The slower player used the brakes to let the faster one to make a safe pass... Had a lonely race after it... But I certainly think we need some kind of a basic LFS online rulebook - everyone should read it, maybe even include it to LFS!

Quote from AndroidXP :

Of course I'm going to "close the door" right before the braking zone if I know you're one of those suicide squeeze-in-corner drivers. Just because we add more responsibility to the one being passed doesn't mean he hasn't got the right to fight for his position. But I agree on the straight thing, weaving left and right is a big no-no there.

I alway look at these things fro RL perspective, and in RL the racing depends on it's popularity. Less interesting,m less popular, less money, less racing ...
And if you want interesting races (for fans and drivers), they must have a lot of overtaking, side by side racing.
I don't know where you found "suicide squeeze-in-corner drivers", I never wrote about it. I just said that the main principle should be: if there is someone overlapping with you (or even if you think he could be overlaping with you, so when in doubt just live some room) you live him room - and that is on straight, on corner entry, on apex or at exit ... That's all it takes ...
And added bonus: if the guy overtaking is one of those "suicide squeeze-in-corner drivers" he'll just shoot by you and go off track (yes, I like them, I enjoy watchig that ) - and you will drive on, not end up with a crashed car off the track.
It's that easy ...

Quote from mrodgers :

And why is it private? League or team?

Yes we have team servers that are private. Why? mostly for all the types of reasons discussed in topics like this. I like to race seriously (I now others aren't so serious, we are all different), and LFS is the first sim to really supply great online circuit racing, it is perfect for me. We try to race under realistic rules so we can experience the closest thing to real and clean racing possible in LFS. Having a nice simple structure like this serves to provide an orderly race environment. Nobody has to guess how to behave and what is acceptable, races are not interrupted by new people joining mid-way, we have a long qualifying session usually and the races are from 15-30 laps on most of the tracks. We save a replay of each race, any incidents can be looked at after the flag has fallen. Some small details need to be added yet but we are making good progress. We never see a wrecker and we DO include rookies regularly which is a big challenge for everyone concerned but rewarding to see the green racer improving.

I thoroughly enjoy this style of LFS. Restarts are rare (almost non-existant) and if one of us crashes on the first corner he doesn't ask for a restart, he picks himself up, cirulates back around to the pit and repairs his car. If you are doing 25 laps of Westhill there is plently of time to win (or lose!) the race. Strategic elements like tyre and fuel usage come into play and suddenly it is not good enough just to be the fastest anymore. With this type of LFS you always have the feeling that a race win is possible for you, even if you are trailing the field, even if you are not the fastest car on the track.

The real advantages of a private server are apparent, but of course you need enough racers to make it work. With the large number of racers out there, many of whom have lots of stories about race interruptions and other problems, I would imagine it wouldn't be too hard for many of you to gather together regularly in a private server and start your own serious race session.

You will need:
A server!
At least 4 racers (6 or more is better, especially on the longer tracks, but 4 will get you by).
A regular time slot (try to run your session weekly at the the same day and time to ensure a good level of participation).
A common understanding of what you want to achieve from the session.

I know of other teams and leagues that use realistic rules and guidelines and I bet they are having a similar experience to us. Public servers are often fun, often unpredictable. I prefer consistency and order and will rarely join a public server unless I know it is being managed by an online admin.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

At close races, victories achieved by psychological force are sweeter than those achieved by physical force.

Oh that's sooo true. There's nothing more satisfying than sticking really close to someone's bumper (no contact of course) until they get scared into a mistake, allowing me to zoom past. It's the most fun type of overtaking I can think of.

I agree with you, it's something all should remember, because we can all end up having a massive crash and up getting lapped in the pits. The blue flag only means that you have to let the driver back in front if he/she closes on you and attempts to pass, you don't have to hold back and let them past regardless of whether they are faster.

Quote from Batterypark :

What is your server called then? I just want to make sure I'll never accidentally join.

What's the name of your server I'll try to make sure I do join. Great idea.