I'm strongly against any assists, Autoclutch included, but more of "Auto gears". @Mikke one should get to know manual clutch, or at least try. The leagues should not dumb down the competitiveness by increasing the assists for just some people.
There is absolutely 0 excuse for someone to need auto gearing in any racing simulator.
A league or race should set its ground rules before, and never change after. One can not change the regulations to adapt to a handful of drivers. The drivers are those with the ability to learn and adapt, and they should do so. Having assists is a no-no.
Yes, autoclutch is an assist. And it should be banished (at least, in terms of leagues).
Manual clutch should be everyone's go-to, be it keyboard, mouse, controller or wheel (d'oh).
With all your talk about clutch assist in shifting, you're missing forest for the trees. The actual, huge assist LFS allows for cars with supposedly manual gearboxes is driving them in “sequential mode”. The assist of allowing you to press only one key on keyboard versus jamming your finger on two (side-by-side keys) pales in comparison so much so it's not even worth discussing.
In any case the subject is shaky considering that LFS does little to simulate gearbox damage caused by misshifts of any kind – and it really even couldn't do that because available gear shifters don't give any input for it to do so (the available input is akin to digital keys from 1 to N, of of which is pressed at a time, which is a very far cry from an actual shifter/gearbox operation).
With this in mind, in most senses pretty much everybody drives the cars as if they had computer-controlled gearboxes with manual gear selection. The option to prevent speed advantage from button-operated “clutch” is then pretty much the only sane one, considering that no actual cars awards you from the fastest pull of a gear shift paddle (or any comparable driver input).
Its funny how this thread turned into button clutch discussion
EDIT
@Mikus
Ohhh you little troll!
If you want buttonclutch allowed, i suggest you to create your own league, make bc mandatory and see what happens. Bet no one joins expect you xD
Autoclutch is a widely used assist because not many have the 3rd pedal on their wheelset! And how do you imagine clutch simulation with a button? Can you press clutch of the car as fast as you can press a button? This is why button clutch gives an advantage over those who use either automatic clutch (because of lack of the 3rd pedal) or even over those who use an axis clutch with their 3rd pedal! Even better - with use of macros you can shift gear with manual clutch with single tap of a button - where's your hardcore simulation is now?
Autoclutch is deffinitelly more realistic (in terms of engagement speed) than manual button clutch.
More races on RO sounds great! And for anyone who missed Nilex's post...
Those who are advocating for button clutch are either ignorant of the advantage/exploit, or want to use the exploit. Why should everyone who wants to be among the fastest be forced to play the simulator in such an unrealistic way (using BC)? I'm sure the issue will be resolved in future releases but in the meantime i think banning BC is the best way to keep the game fun and competitive.