Again, I stress that forced setup for private races and leagues. Just leave it out of purely public servers. Besides, if the forced setup is a fundamentally good one, it's fine eith me if I happen to find time to join such a short league. But as someone here already said, it's a novelty that could quickly wear off, especilaly those who find the setups particularly unsuited to them.
I apologize if my previous post was a bit on the strong side. I'm just unhappy with someone IMPLYING (but not quite explicitly saying) that people who bother to come up with good personal setups are mostly if not all a bunch of no life junkies. The truth is, those with some basic undrstanding of automotive engineering can quickly come up with a good setups in half an hour, including some limited testing. And if forced setups are actually used, people should be allowed to choose from a LIMITED choice of setups instead of one that favours some and disadvantages others. This would help level the playing field. All you need is a good understanding of your driving and make the best choice.
On the subject of top drivers with NO understanding of automotive engineering and basic physics of car setups, well, think again. Some "top" drivers simply know almost nothing but simply just try to drive to the setup no matter how non-optimal it is.
Then there are CHAMPIONS. People like Micheal Schumacher and Aryton Senna. Aryton Senna was well known as one who was absoultely obsessed with telemetry and engineering of the F-1 cars he drove. He would constantly bug the engineers in his team, asking incessant questions to extract every bit of knowledge and understanding he could. He would spend hours reading his own telemetry, trying to detect and correct every nuance of setup and driving. In essence, he was obsessed with anything that would improve his understanding of F-1 cars and ultimately improve his setup and ultimately driving skills. No wonder he's THE legend.
Micheal Scumacher isn't just a driver, he's a great MANAGER as well. Getting rid of the useless and receiving and mantaining quality staff is essential to thrive in F-1.
Another well know Indycar top driver is Sebastian Bourdois (I think that's the spelling, but I'm no European
) He is well known to be very studious. Give him a car and he'll tell our setup engineer what to do in just a couple of laps to optimise the setup.
Overspecializaton leads to growing weakness and slow death. As technology advances, multi-disciplinary approaches are increasingly important in many fields. Last but not least, RL racing is not a driver gets all the glory glamour fest. It's a TEAM sport, and it doesn't really matter what the media says. The truth of every race success is terribly obvious to those in the know, even if it's only in a limited way.
BTW, when I do get something like the G25 someday, don't bother with banning driver aids. I won't use them at all, as I always try to drive LFS as realistically as my hardware can practically allow me to. Sequentials should be driven as sequentials and vice-versa. And the reason I completely agree with forcing cockpit mode is that that's how we drive IRL, in the driver's seat. When was the last time someone raced in bumper/chase cam IRL? A sim is suppeosed to approximate RL as closely as possible. It's not about eliminating some silly unfair advantages. It's about keeping it as realistic as practically possible. Isn't that the whole point of a hardcore mode?
No, we don't have a need for speed. We LIVE FOR SPEED!