Maybe this isn't the time or place. But I've been sitting on it for a while now. Please bear with me for a minute. I actually have a point. Or maybe it's a question.

I have, for a long time, had a problem with the physics. The single most frustrating thing being the RWDs spinning at turn in. Next, the mid corner spinning. Then the car loading up and not resonding to corrective input in a manner that represents real life. The old right foot just doesn't do what it should over the limit. I'm starting to wonder if it's more setup than physics. (Forget GUI/AUI/FUI for now, those are NOT a factor.)

I've recently been driving the LX6. I've tried no less than 20 setups, maybe even 30. All of them except one, dealt with the problem by making the rear of the car smushy by comparison to the front which was always too hard or mute. Thus, forcing the driving style to become heavily proactive. Then, when it went over, there was no getting it back. All of my LFS heros use really unrealistic LX6 setups that have major flaws. When I say unrealistic, I mean you wouldn't race 60 laps under pressure with much chance for success.

I have no problem learning the limits of a car and driving under them. But in real life it's about hanging out on the edge. I'm not so concerned with under the limit. I'm talking about how the cars act on and over the limit. LFS seemed illusive in that regard.

Real cars are much easier to handle at 9/10ths and 11/10ths. Especially racing breads. What I mean by that is, there is no wondering at 9/10ths whether or not the thing is going to stick. At 11/10ths there is always some inidcation of what the car is going to do, so one can muscle it back into shape. 10/10ths is another story altogether, but the race breads are certainly easier to deal with at 11/10ths. (Keep in mind I am not talking about fatal mistakes. I am talking about progressive slides or other reasonable situations that should fall to easily to hand.)

Why is this important? Because in racing situations we make mistakes. In LFS I frequently lose 0.5s where I should have only lost 0.1 because I'm flinging wheel and pedals trying to figure out what it wants.

One setup for the LX6 comes along and all of the sudden it handles like a real car. Throttle, brake, and steer inputs magically do what I expect. I would say it's a balanced car. No neutral throttle turn-in oversteer. No mid corner loss of grip, or at least, when it does, you can drive out of it. Throttle rotation is not only possible, it's effective and gleeful! No excessive understeer. The rear is solid and snappy. (Relative to the marque, anyway.) And I can gather the thing up when I step over the limit. Heck, I can dowright drive the thing sideways at racing speeds.

So... Why are the default setups like they are? Even the FO8 is ridiculously touchy at what should be reasonably grippy speeds. Is it physics or simply setup? Should a car that has 10mm to much ride height or 0.2 degrees negative camber be so evil? Is that how it is in real cars? I don't know, seriously. But I have a mid engine sports car that gets pretty weird if the rear alignment is out. Nonetheless, I don't hit things before I get a chance to visit the mechanic.

There are some really good setups out there. Why aren't they defaults? Wouldn't that give the beginner (meaning anyone who drives a certain marque for the first time) a better impression?

I think all the default setups are fairly good... but as with every simulation, I always see the default setups becoming obsolete. Faster setups and configurations that people make for each car become way more advanced and the time they spend on them is probably way more than how the default setups were made.

I don't know anyone who has a world record with the default setups. Maybe in the next big release/patch of S2 there could be better default setups. Some of the sets... I agree... are not the best.

All the custom setups we have now are from refinement and people are becoming way more acustomed to the physics. There are a few bugs that people can use (like the raised nose on race cars), but once those are all taken care of, setups will change once again. Happens all the time... and still the default ones are a base that many people work off of. But we all have our own preference -- some find the sets great, some know they aren't the best or fit their style.

You make some good points. I think the Race_1 sets, especially for the LX, RA and FZ cars should be much more balanced then they are. It would give a much better impression of those cars to drivers trying them for the first time. Also, I personally think the brakes are generally set too high and too far forward. The basic sets provided with the game should not be "on-the-edge" max hotlap speed types of sets, but 60 lap tire saving consistent types of sets. Once the player gets good and consitent laps out of these sets, then they can start tweaking to get the car more to their liking for speed. I personally really enjoy tweaking sets, but I like to have something close to start with.

As far as the sliding goes, well, lets just say it has been dicusssed a lot.

It does seem that with the cars that have a rear weight bias, that the slides are harder to catch than they should be. This could mostly be the result of us not being about to physically feel the back end kick out at the beginning. Or, it could mostly be poor setups. I think both definitely have an effect. It could be the physics are a tad off... almost like the tires tend to stay sliding once they start sliding instead of wanting to regain grip after they start sliding.

But I think the main point of your post was that the setups provided with the game should be improved for stability and to provide a good base for learning. I would have to agree with that.

I'd been meaning to create my own set of "default replacement sets" that would be easier to drive, but obviously not as fast as the setups I would use myself. I think the road going setups I created were generally well received.

Though I'd be very interested if you could post this amazing LX6 set you found.

Quote :

I think the Race_1 sets, especially for the LX, RA and FZ cars should be much more balanced then they are

Hm.. at least the LX6 race_1 setup is *VERY* stable for oval (boring) racing. My tweak was faster though, I think 0.5 secs because you could go faster through the turns and come out faster. But it was also more challenging to drive because it tended to oversteer. Anyway.. for normal tracks the race_1 is not that stable as in the oval, as well as the RAC and FZ5 setups, agreed

Quote from Hallen :

It does seem that with the cars that have a rear weight bias, that the slides are harder to catch than they should be. This could mostly be the result of us not being about to physically feel the back end kick out at the beginning. Or, it could mostly be poor setups. I think both definitely have an effect. It could be the physics are a tad off... almost like the tires tend to stay sliding once they start sliding instead of wanting to regain grip after they start sliding.

Yes. And that makes me wonder, if it's a mixture of both setups and physics, then wouldn't it be critical to get some *really* friendly sets on certain cars? I personally believe that LFS has all that is neccesary to *feel* the car. So the other two are highly suspect in my accessment.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Though I'd be very interested if you could post this amazing LX6 set you found.

BOB!

Where, oh where do I get those setups?!

One day I was at Fe Gold in LX6. This guy pops in and starts running around in an LX6 with a passenger. His laps did not look like any I had seen in LFS. His lines, the way he set up corners, the way the car drifted and oversteered. It looked real! Not stiff and hesitant like most LX6 laps. I asked him for the set, he gave, and explained, "It's one of those 'road going' ones you get at the forum."

Let me explain something about myself. I like to play with rear wheel drive. I drive at the limit daily. In the winter I do about 400 corners a day, wet or dry, or snowy, as quickly as I can because there is no traffic or side roads on my way to work. (I work 7,000 feet above where I live.) I race kart and stock sports car when I can. If there are a few things I love, it's loading up the front of the car with a tap on the brakes and letting the rear come around; using throttle to rotate a car that is on a tangentile trajectory; the ever so thrilling four wheel drift; trailing throttle oversteer; trailing lock oversteer by dumping a gear at turn-in; power on oversteer by dumping a gear with excessive revs that quickly mutates to comprehensive terminal understeer toward the shoulder of the road.... did I mention oversteer?

The road going LX6 set that you probably made is the most balanced beautiful piece of work I've seen. It drives like a real car, and when you goof, or panic, or just plain lose the plot... the extremities do what they do, and the car does what a real RWD car *should* do in response. I love hucking that thing at corners just to see what it will do. I *know* when it's stepping out, and I *know* when it's coming back, and I *know* when it aint coming back.

I've successfully lowered it and maintained about 80% of it's "seat of the pants" feel and controllability for racing. More where that came from would be a godsend.

Thank you.

My road going setups can be found here: http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=150145

Note they are not really intended to be seriously raced with. The biggest difference betweent them and normal setups is they are SOFT. Softer suspension makes a car easier to control, so the uber hard setups most people run doesn't help that it is tricky to drive in LFS at the best of times.

I'll have a go at making those beginner setups tomorrow, hopefully I can retain most of the driveability while making them quicker around the track.

My extraction of your road going LX6 is doing very consistent 1.34s with 60% fuel at Fe Gold. Got a 1.33.32 in it. I'm sure many drivers could do much better. It's very stable and transmits it's intentions well. Balance is balance and your feel is what lead me to realise the LX6 was drivable. I simply tried to maintain ratios the whole way down.

I have one mistake in which I didn't match spring rate well. The car drives the whole way with the suspension bottomed out. Still handles like a dream. It drifts the whole way but you can aim it with ease.

Let me ask you this, if you don't mind sharing some of your knowledge publically. When I get the default LX6 in to a rear end pitch, it seems like the whole car tilts over the front, then I apply opposite lock, an amount that I'm guessing should be correct, I get no feedback, so I hold and hold and hold, then POW... the thing snaps back and I'm in the rail. I never see (feel) the grip coming on at the front until it's too late. (Of course, once it fails to respond I would assume I'm also flinging pedals and making the situation worse.)

So why does the super soft road going setup seem to have such excellent "readability"? I always correct the right amount. I always know when to lift or puch it and by how much. It's not only that it's slower as I've had that thing in some really violent, really sudden slides that I drive out of real nicely. Is it purely grip?

Quote from Slartibartfast :

My extraction of your road going LX6 is doing very consistent 1.34s with 60% fuel at Fe Gold. Got a 1.33.32 in it. I'm sure many drivers could do much better. It's very stable and transmits it's intentions well. Balance is balance and your feel is what lead me to realise the LX6 was drivable. I simply tried to maintain ratios the whole way down.

I have one mistake in which I didn't match spring rate well. The car drives the whole way with the suspension bottomed out. Still handles like a dream. It drifts the whole way but you can aim it with ease.

Let me ask you this, if you don't mind sharing some of your knowledge publically. When I get the default LX6 in to a rear end pitch, it seems like the whole car tilts over the front, then I apply opposite lock, an amount that I'm guessing should be correct, I get no feedback, so I hold and hold and hold, then POW... the thing snaps back and I'm in the rail. I never see (feel) the grip coming on at the front until it's too late. (Of course, once it fails to respond I would assume I'm also flinging pedals and making the situation worse.)

So why does the super soft road going setup seem to have such excellent "readability"? I always correct the right amount. I always know when to lift or puch it and by how much. It's not only that it's slower as I've had that thing in some really violent, really sudden slides that I drive out of real nicely. Is it purely grip?

In general race setups are harder to drive because they have a certain level of instability built into them to make the car react to your control movements faster. A road setup is made so that most of the normal people that use a car as transport instead of people that drive cars are safe in them. The susspension is softer to deal with public roads, they have understeer behaviour etc.

The reason you can read the road setups in LFS better is that the car will roll and pitch more which gives you a better feel visually what your car is doing and how the weight is balanced. With a stiff setup you dont get so much visual information about the weight shifts.

IRL you feel the weight shifts through your whole body which lets you know exactly how the car is balanced and how your input is effecting that balance. This allows you to sit closer to the edge. In LFS you have sound, visualss and force feedback only have have to guess the rest of the information.

Quote from Woz :

In general race setups are harder to drive because they have a certain level of instability built into them to make the car react to your control movements faster.

I am not sure I agree with that-

A good race setup in RL is a balanced setup.

Slartibartfast:

I've tweaked the road going setups a little more, posted here: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=278

I've also created some race setups that should be quicker around the track, yet still reasonable easy to drive. Obviously they are not going to be as chuckable as the road going setups but this should be a better compromise. http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=279
Replacements for the default setups? Perhaps. I find them easy to drive but default setups need to be driveable by everyone and I'm well used to LFS.

Hope they help.

complete with furry-dice*

*furry-dice not included

LOL- downloading - making them read-only, and installing.. Thx.

Quote from BWX232 :

I am not sure I agree with that-

A good race setup in RL is a balanced setup.

While you might not agree with this fact it is actually true. Did you know for example that with modern jet fighters they are actually impossible to fly without a computer between the controls and the flight surfaces for the simple reason of allowing the aircraft to move it ways that would not be possible otherwise.

A road going setup is configured to understeer, not react too quickly and not put the power down too quick for the simple fact that for joe public it is safer which makes the road a safer place to be.

A car setup for the track will be made to turn it sharp, be very stiff so it will react fast and have a power band that allows you to get the power down as fast as possible.

While a car with high grip low profile tires on stiff suspension might be set up balanced it WILL have a VERY narrow edge and will be harder to catch when it goes over that edge compared to a road car.

Quote from Woz :

While you might not agree with this fact it is actually true. Did you know for example that with modern jet fighters they are actually impossible to fly without a computer between the controls and the flight surfaces for the simple reason of allowing the aircraft to move it ways that would not be possible otherwise.

A road going setup is configured to understeer, not react too quickly and not put the power down too quick for the simple fact that for joe public it is safer which makes the road a safer place to be.

A car setup for the track will be made to turn it sharp, be very stiff so it will react fast and have a power band that allows you to get the power down as fast as possible.

While a car with high grip low profile tires on stiff suspension might be set up balanced it WILL have a VERY narrow edge and will be harder to catch when it goes over that edge compared to a road car.

I know about unstable jets that are un-flyable without fly-by-wire.. But that does not apply to cars.

Yes you are correct in the fact that if it does get away from you, a stiffly sprung car will be harder to recover from a slide in some circumstances than a softly sprung car, but the limits of the race tuned care are much greater.. and you don't need fly-by-wire to drive them. A race car is not "inherently unstable" so that it performs better in the way an F-117, F-22, a B2, or a French Dassault Rafale is.



I don't think the comparison is a valid one. I saw a few post similar to this from you at RSC, and everyone disagreed with you there too.
A race car without traction control has to be drivable and balanced, it is not set up to be uncontrollable, and then all driver inputs sent to a computer to be adjusted so that you don't fly off the road. So defaults setups being twitchy and hard to drive has nothing to do with a fly-by-wire F-117.


That's me in the back.

Quote from BWX232 :

Yes you are correct in the fact that if it does get away from you, a stiffly sprung car will be harder to recover from a slide in some circumstances than a softly sprung car, but the limits of the race tuned care are much greater.. and you don't need fly-by-wire to drive them. A race car is not "inherently unstable" so that it performs better in the way an F-117, F-22, a B2, or a French Dassault Rafale is.
http://driverheavenuploads.co.uk/BWX/avrafa_1.jpg

You could argue you dont need fly by wire but things like emc, traction control, launch control, Computer controlled gear boxes, abs etc. Some race cars are like computers on wheels. If this is NOT fly by wire what is? The driver with these system in a car is NOT actually connected directly to the car. The computer filter the drivers inputs and correct them as required?

Yes a race car has far more grip and much higher limits than a road car but step over that edge and it will punish you. The thing with racing is that you try to sit on that edge 100% of the time so a race car in any situation will be harder to drive on the edge than a road going car. The margin of error is just far lower and the higher speeds mean the time to react to an error is smaller.

Things like negative camber, slight toe out on rears etc all help the car turn in better but on a straight will make the car feel skittish in a straight line.

When I say unstable I dont mean the car falls off the track as the first possible situation but that they are tuned for agility and NOT stability.

Quote from Woz :

You could argue you dont need fly by wire but things like emc, traction control, launch control, Computer controlled gear boxes, abs etc. Some race cars are like computers on wheels. If this is NOT fly by wire what is? The driver with these system in a car is NOT actually connected directly to the car. The computer filter the drivers inputs and correct them as required?.

I don't think computer corrected inputs are allowed besides traction control and ABS, and most race cars isn't that advanced to have launch control, ABS ain't popular in racing scene either.......even with computer managed fuel injection and so it's nothing like jet fighters...it is perfectly possible to drive a race car without these aids, just look at racing in the 70's, or even formula 1 cars in 1990, those cars are nothing as stable as modern ones, but the quality of driving is still very high.

So I do think this comparison is not a valid one.

Quote from Woz :

You could argue you dont need fly by wire but things like emc, traction control, launch control, Computer controlled gear boxes, abs etc. Some race cars are like computers on wheels. If this is NOT fly by wire what is? The driver with these system in a car is NOT actually connected directly to the car. The computer filter the drivers inputs and correct them as required?

.

Yeah but in LFS no aids are allowed- even in real racing very few are. So in LFS universe, (since we are talking about LFS), default setups, actually all setups- should be balanced and stable up to the limits of adhesion IMO.

In general I agree with Woz. A road car is made to be driveable by your granny. They often throw in ABS and lots of other electronic gadgetry to stop her from killing herself or the squirrel in the hedge. Sports car are usually purer to drive, in that they take away some understeer and half of the fancy electronics (or in TVRs case, all of them).

Race cars are a completely different story, they are setup to attack the track and be as fast as possible within the limits of driveability. I'm only repeating what I've read here, but a reviewer in a car mag got to drive his first proper race car, and said it just felt so awesome to drive, perfectly balanced, immediate, direct, etc. However it would have bitten him a lot harder had he got it over the edge compared to the sports cars he was used to driving. Racecars are not setup to be playful.

Like in LFS, racecars are setup to the drivers needs, to be tuned to just within his limits. So if you've never driven a race setup car before, and you get a fast setup, you're going to think it's unstable and whatnot, and it is IN YOUR HANDS. But whoever made the setup obviously felt it was quite driveable.

Quote from Bob Smith :

In general I agree with Woz. A road car is made to be driveable by your granny. They often throw in ABS and lots of other electronic gadgetry to stop her from killing herself or the squirrel in the hedge. Sports car are usually purer to drive, in that they take away some understeer and half of the fancy electronics (or in TVRs case, all of them).

Race cars are a completely different story, they are setup to attack the track and be as fast as possible within the limits of driveability.

Why then is the RA and FZ50 so ridiculously unstable? They are road cars with road tires.. Not race setups.. That's why the default setups should be more stable. If those cars were real cars in RL, they would be incredibly dangerous.
I still think it is more of a physics flaw than anything, and the setups have little to do with it.

Quote from BWX232 :

I still think it is more of a physics flaw than anything, and the setups have little to do with it.

I think they are a contributory factor. I've always felt that the default setups exaggerate the flaws in the physics, rather than mask them and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has installed S2, taken the RA out and simply thought, "this is not a realistic sim."

If the default setups are supposed to be the road-going setups then they should be soft, driveable and fun. It certainly shouldn't be impossible to turn into a corner without losing the back end. :eek:

The points about your average road car being setup for safety is generally true but not relevant to LFS. All the cars in LFS are sporty things, and their equivalents in real life would not be setup for little Granny Goggins.

You wouldn't buy a Ferrari, a Caterham 7 or a Lotus Elise and expect it to be soft, wallowy and understeery would you? Almost all the cars in LFS are the sorts of things people should be able to take to a track, and so while their default setups will be compromised for bumpy, speed-bump ridden public roads, they wouldn't be enormously removed from their race equivalents.

Quote from Woz :

When I say unstable I dont mean the car falls off the track as the first possible situation but that they are tuned for agility and NOT stability.

I still disagree.

Just like a lot of sporty road cars, race cars are tuned for agility and stability but without the compromises necessary for public roads. Basically, if you don't have confidence in your car when you turn in, you have no chance of performing well in a race.

I agree that most of the default sets are hard to drive, and ESPECIALLY the RA.
Just yesterday I was wondering if the devs used the actual suspension values etc. of the real RA to make the default set for it's LFS counterpart.
Because I am kind of sure that's not how the real RA is behaving.

Now to the mysterious physics flaws in LFS that everyone keeps complaining about without saying which particular part bugs them and how it could be fixed.
Why not just make a set for the RA with the real thing's values and then take the real RA and the virtual one, to an identical test area. Then compare the results ... shouldn't that maybe give an idea where to start with physics updates?

Quote from tpa :

I agree that most of the default sets are hard to drive, and ESPECIALLY the RA.

Now to the mysterious physics flaws in LFS that everyone keeps complaining about without saying which particular part bugs them and how it could be fixed.
Why not just make a set for the RA with the real thing's values and then take the real RA and the virtual one, to an identical test area. Then compare the results ... shouldn't that maybe give an idea where to start with physics updates?

IMHO- yes.. It makes perfect sense.

It would be interesting to find out what the actual RA real life setup is.. And put that set on the RA in LFS, and see how it handles (if it is not already the default set).

Having a "real" car in LFS gives you the advantage of doing just that. If you got it to handle as close as possible to the real life counterpart, you know you are on the right track. If it doesn't handle close to the real life RA, then you know for a fact there is a flaw, and would be closer to knowing where to start working to improve it. It seems that would be a shortcut in the trial and error. it could be done scientifically with limits of adhesion.

I'm sure that's part of the reason we have two real cars in LFS. I've been told by several people that the default set for the RA is the same as the real car uses, and I totally can't believe it. If the RA uses that suspension IRL then it must have been a track setup, suspension that stiff on the road would make all your teeth fall out.

You're probably right Bob, but if you compare it to something like a Lotus Elise then the standard setup will not sacrifice the handling for comfort and ride. Having said that, maybe the Elise isn't an appropriate comparison. It's a 2 seater Roadster but looks quite comfortable inside so maybe it's more like a BMW Z4 or a Honda S2000...?

Btw, I just tried your setup for the RA and it's an enormous improvement and makes the bleedin' thing driveable, thanks a lot

Yes like Bob said the RAs default set is as close to real as I could get it. Only thing that isn't from real value is the dampers because I don't have the values. On the real thing it's just adjustment "ring". But I did like if the the "value" was like 7/14 I put to slider close half way in LFS. That setup that the default in LFS imitates is the setup used on the track and it's easy to drive and you can use it on the normal roads too.

So you think that I should make the dampers softer?

I'll make changes to the default set after the physics patch is ready and I have more kms on the real car.