I tried replicating real-life driving school excercises in LFS, and there are couple of issues:
* in real life you can gently leave the clutch over 5 seconds, and get the car rolling and drive without touching the throttle. I replicated the gear ratios (taking into account the top power revs and wheel size), and still could did not make it in LFS.
* XFG steering angle is lower that in comparable cars. They feel much less manueverable than IRL or RWD cars. My calculations show it should be 35-36 degrees (more below).
I failed to reproduce the backpedal-into-garage excercise. Here's the area where we excercised and how the car should go (backwards):
My measurements in QGIS.
I suppose, the dimensions are round, so the area is 5 by 8 m, and the box is 5.5 by 3.
I reproduced it in LFS layout (see in the replays below), and tested it with a 1080-deg wheel and 3-pedal set. The car won't fit in the "garage" if you drive normally. It only fits if I put it forward as much as possible, and turn the wheel to the maximum while still standing. Then XFG does get into the box. In real life you get it going and then turn the wheel to the limit, which takes a couple of seconds.
Replays: UF1, XFG, XFG with mouse for max steering, XRG.
It seems to me the angle of 30° is too low. My calculations show it must have 35..36°.
In this Stackoverflow thread, a simple formula is proposed:
steering angle = atan(wheelbase / (turning circle radius - car width)) (I suppose it's track width.)
Renault Logan 2005 that I drive:
* turning circle diameter 10500 (radius 5250)
* track width: 1480
* body width: 1740
* wheelbase: 2630
Simple Python code:
So the angle is between 35 and 37 degrees.
Why I bother telling this? Driving forward and changing gears is simple. Backpedaling + steering is hard, because you need to watch many things at once and have your feet act independently from hands. So any extra practice in LFS is very valuable. I can dispense with current cars and just expand the area in LFS a bit and make it work, but it would be nice to have things a bit more realistic.
* in real life you can gently leave the clutch over 5 seconds, and get the car rolling and drive without touching the throttle. I replicated the gear ratios (taking into account the top power revs and wheel size), and still could did not make it in LFS.
* XFG steering angle is lower that in comparable cars. They feel much less manueverable than IRL or RWD cars. My calculations show it should be 35-36 degrees (more below).
I failed to reproduce the backpedal-into-garage excercise. Here's the area where we excercised and how the car should go (backwards):
My measurements in QGIS.
I suppose, the dimensions are round, so the area is 5 by 8 m, and the box is 5.5 by 3.
I reproduced it in LFS layout (see in the replays below), and tested it with a 1080-deg wheel and 3-pedal set. The car won't fit in the "garage" if you drive normally. It only fits if I put it forward as much as possible, and turn the wheel to the maximum while still standing. Then XFG does get into the box. In real life you get it going and then turn the wheel to the limit, which takes a couple of seconds.
Replays: UF1, XFG, XFG with mouse for max steering, XRG.
It seems to me the angle of 30° is too low. My calculations show it must have 35..36°.
In this Stackoverflow thread, a simple formula is proposed:
steering angle = atan(wheelbase / (turning circle radius - car width)) (I suppose it's track width.)
Renault Logan 2005 that I drive:
* turning circle diameter 10500 (radius 5250)
* track width: 1480
* body width: 1740
* wheelbase: 2630
Simple Python code:
In [1]: from math import atan, degrees
In [2]: degrees(atan(2630 / (5250 - 1480)))
Out[2]: 34.900118296332984
In [3]: degrees(atan(2630 / (5250 - 1740)))
Out[3]: 36.843770981210255
So the angle is between 35 and 37 degrees.
Why I bother telling this? Driving forward and changing gears is simple. Backpedaling + steering is hard, because you need to watch many things at once and have your feet act independently from hands. So any extra practice in LFS is very valuable. I can dispense with current cars and just expand the area in LFS a bit and make it work, but it would be nice to have things a bit more realistic.