Have to say, I've had a lot of fun driving the mods in LFS and the addition is a welcome one without doubt.
Nevertheless I've encountered some teething problems which I've yet to see mentioned in full, maybe they've been touched upon in various threads but I felt the need to address them individually.
1. FFB
The ffb strength is wildly different from mod to mod, granted, when driving a kart, you would expect the FFB to be somewhat saturated and stiff, but the issue of FFB between mods I've found to be extreme. Would there be any kind of metric for mods to adhere to? I feel like FFB seems to be created to the mod makers tastes/preferences only and not to any real fixed metric that makes the mod specific FFB relative to all other cars in LFS, mods or otherwise.
2. Steering lock/ratio
I've found this to be much the same as the FFB, wildly different and in many cases, comically high amount or complete lack of steering lock or ratio.
The most evidential one I can think of is the late 60's early 70's F1 mod by Jake_Blasted where the default setting is 30degrees of steering lock within less than 360 degrees of wheel rotation. This makes the car ridiculously twitchy and impossible to enjoy, when the core vehicle dynamics feel really good, its impossible to enjoy them. But there are plenty more where the steering lock far exceeds the realistic maximum those cars would have. Anything above 45 is ludicrous unless its a drift car. I mean a hackney carriage has 43 why would a UF1? I feel like not enough effort is being put into this.
Another example is Flame_CZE's beautiful stock car mod. 20degrees maximum lock might be enough technically speaking, in the real world, but the problem is in game the ratio feels too long. Most stock car setups would run at least of 10:1 on a road course, sometimes even 8:1 on roadcourses and short ovals. I will say I don't know the mathematical calculations of such ratios are but I can feel that it's not enough and I don't know if that's the limitations within the game, or otherwise. I just know that 20degrees in that car does not feel anywhere near enough for road-course usage because even on ovals it feels too little.
3. Setups, specifically the tyre allocation
Whilst driving various cars, I noticed the slick tyres, even R4 are way to grippy for most of the mods themselves in most cases making them incredibly easy to drive and I would like to know if its possible to create a new tyre like an R5 for the mods to use, otherwise I would suggest to mod makers that despite the visual appearance, try using road_super instead of slick compounds.
My favourite mod has to be the transam mod by Chansonje but on slicks [even R4] this car was way too fast and stable and nowhere near lairy enough for the type of vehicle that it is, however on road-super it was transformed to be exactly what you'd expect from such a car and extremely enjoyable.
I just feel that the onus shouldn't be on the player to setup the car drastically to get the car to perform to expectations, almost having to undo the original mod makers preferences in steering lock or FFB just to drive and enjoy the thing.
I don't know or can't think of any methods that would solve these problems, my only hope is that bringing this up in a dedicated thread may give birth to such ideas in a way where we can really standardize at least the FFB and steering lock practices for all mods, that bring them inline with stock LFS cars generally.
Nevertheless I've encountered some teething problems which I've yet to see mentioned in full, maybe they've been touched upon in various threads but I felt the need to address them individually.
1. FFB
The ffb strength is wildly different from mod to mod, granted, when driving a kart, you would expect the FFB to be somewhat saturated and stiff, but the issue of FFB between mods I've found to be extreme. Would there be any kind of metric for mods to adhere to? I feel like FFB seems to be created to the mod makers tastes/preferences only and not to any real fixed metric that makes the mod specific FFB relative to all other cars in LFS, mods or otherwise.
2. Steering lock/ratio
I've found this to be much the same as the FFB, wildly different and in many cases, comically high amount or complete lack of steering lock or ratio.
The most evidential one I can think of is the late 60's early 70's F1 mod by Jake_Blasted where the default setting is 30degrees of steering lock within less than 360 degrees of wheel rotation. This makes the car ridiculously twitchy and impossible to enjoy, when the core vehicle dynamics feel really good, its impossible to enjoy them. But there are plenty more where the steering lock far exceeds the realistic maximum those cars would have. Anything above 45 is ludicrous unless its a drift car. I mean a hackney carriage has 43 why would a UF1? I feel like not enough effort is being put into this.
Another example is Flame_CZE's beautiful stock car mod. 20degrees maximum lock might be enough technically speaking, in the real world, but the problem is in game the ratio feels too long. Most stock car setups would run at least of 10:1 on a road course, sometimes even 8:1 on roadcourses and short ovals. I will say I don't know the mathematical calculations of such ratios are but I can feel that it's not enough and I don't know if that's the limitations within the game, or otherwise. I just know that 20degrees in that car does not feel anywhere near enough for road-course usage because even on ovals it feels too little.
3. Setups, specifically the tyre allocation
Whilst driving various cars, I noticed the slick tyres, even R4 are way to grippy for most of the mods themselves in most cases making them incredibly easy to drive and I would like to know if its possible to create a new tyre like an R5 for the mods to use, otherwise I would suggest to mod makers that despite the visual appearance, try using road_super instead of slick compounds.
My favourite mod has to be the transam mod by Chansonje but on slicks [even R4] this car was way too fast and stable and nowhere near lairy enough for the type of vehicle that it is, however on road-super it was transformed to be exactly what you'd expect from such a car and extremely enjoyable.
I just feel that the onus shouldn't be on the player to setup the car drastically to get the car to perform to expectations, almost having to undo the original mod makers preferences in steering lock or FFB just to drive and enjoy the thing.
I don't know or can't think of any methods that would solve these problems, my only hope is that bringing this up in a dedicated thread may give birth to such ideas in a way where we can really standardize at least the FFB and steering lock practices for all mods, that bring them inline with stock LFS cars generally.