Must admit I've struggled on-line. Think either my graphics card or ADSL connection isn't up to the job. It's fine in single player but when I get on-line and there are lost of other cars it goes all 'framey'!

I've taken all you're advice and tried to keep out of peoples way and avoid contact but other people always seem to punt me off going down to the first corner. This often causes an accident as I spin off and then I get people voting to ban me! Bit unreasonable I think. I seem to be slow in a straight line for some reason. Maybe it's my start but this is even in low powered cars.

It doesn't make for much fun and is rapidly putting me off the game. People should show somepatience with new drivers. Especially when they are clearly following the rules of etiquette!

Any advice?

1. Say sorry and explain the cause of the accident. I once had to explain someone that I accidentely bumped him off the track because my cat jumped in my chair when I ignored it for 10 minutes.
2. The more drivers are on the track the more you have to watch out for. That's why I like smaller servers. I usually join an empty server, set it up the way I like, practise some 10 minutes and then a few people come to join me. That way the player number seldomly excedes 7. That makes racing something rather familiar and you will sooner get to know the other driver's habits. That helps a lot with avoiding contact.
Oh, and another thing that helped me: Don't stomp on the brakes when someone is already trying to crawl through your mirror. He will propably ram you because he reacted to slow. Give him a chance by taping the brake shortly before your braking-point. Of course, when you get to know the driver you can leave out this step, because he'll know your braking-points.
3. Only drive close to someone when you are going to take him over. For example Westhill International turn 1. It is rather unpropable that you'll be able to take somone over after that corner, so you can leave a bit space.
Also I developed the technique to take a step to the side before a corner and brake in the direction of the turn-in point. That way I'm not trapped behind the one before me when he brakes harder than I do.

No warranty. Just my experience.

Vain

I did apologise but one guy (FOX19) still wanted to ban me. I don't think any of the others voted to ban me though.

The tips seem eminently sensible but I think I need to know the circuits better to be able to put some of that into practice. Trouble is, when you constantly get punted off you never get into the 'flow' of the track and it makes it even harder.

I'll stick at it. Hope to see you in there sometime mate.

About that guy... Don't mind. There are idiots. That's a feature you signed up for when you got internet.

Before I drive tracks online I learn the track/car-combo offline until I can put the car in any line on the track I want to within a few inches. That is especially important when you try to take somone over, because the track can get extremely narrow when two cars are driving head-to-head and you still have to manage best speed though you aren't on the ideal line.
Oh, and the slower the car the easier competitive driving becomes. Especially downforcecars are evil...

Vain

Also, don't take to heart comments people might spew out at times, alot of it is stuff they've got in their hotkeys. It won't be uncommon to see dialogs like:

"Idiot!!!!"
"sorry"
""
""

Which are orchestrated entirely by using hotkeys... impressive no?

Oh, and another thing, alot of the people online are not english-speaking or their english is not so good - so patience and try using smilies in your replies (as stupid as they look), it kinda gets the message through ("let me draw you a picture")...

I totally agree with what Vain and thisnameistaken said...
I would say that driving in the pack towards T1 is the hardest thing to learn in LFS. You have to be aware if there is space infront and behind you as well on the sides. We have met yesterday on Aston club with UFR/XFR and I saw you had problems with driving in the pack after the start. With the slow starts > with fwd just floor it just before the green comes a the start will be fine (a little "bug" in lfs)... Then when coming to T1 ease of a bit from the gas and brake earlier (starting with a tap on the brake, so the guy behind you know you are about to brake (because of inevitable lag in multiplayer, he sees your brake lights light up, when you are already under full braking for a small moment, so there is no way he could react in time), if you see that you started braking too early, let the brake go for just a moment. And avoid any quick left/right manouvers, because you are very likely going to hit someone...

I think you'll get it right soon. Don't get driven away by some nervous people who try to ban you... It also helps to annonunce that you are new to LFS and people will excuse a lot of your actions, because they will know it was not intentional...

If your frame rate drops through the floor on starts, it is more likely your processor or your lack of RAM that is causing the problem. Either way, the starts are the hardest thing to master and if you are laggy at the same time, you are going to have problems. Chances are, the people who were trying to kick you, were doing so because of your lag. If you lag, it slows other people down too. You get close to a laggy car sometimes and you start lagging too (or so it seems).

Trying to race close to a driver who is lagging is very, very hard to do. You basically have to get lucky to get around them. I had a driver who seemed to keep brake checking me going into turn 1. He was turning pretty good lap times, and he would always out accelerate me onto the back straight. When I watched the replay, I could not figgure out what I was thinking during the race. I was not that close to him, and he only really brake checked me once when he made a mistake. He was lagging from time-to-time. I think that was the problem more than anything else. At one point, I was riding in his car watching the replay, and the car disapeared, and my car from behind went charging through my virtual body in the now nonexisting car. It was very odd. He had lagged so bad that the replay went kind of goofy for a bit.

This is a long way of saying that you are going to need to get that framerate and potential lag problem fixed before you are going to have any success at starts. Try turning down your LOD settings. You will lose a lost of detail at times, but it will help with your frame rates. I have also found that shortening the Look Ahead distance helps.

DO get a steering wheel

DO get the best one you can afford

DO NOT buy a wheel from your pal just because his son no longer uses his,

because:-

IT WILL be crap,

IT WILL be made for very small people with very small hands,

therefore,

IT WILL be tiny,

therefore,

Your thumbs WILL get stuck !

Mazz

"LFS = the game Forza wants to be, when it grows up !"

You can also use Shift F10 (or even F9, although it's like driving a blur) to drop the resolution for the race start, then use Shift F11 or F12 to put it back a lap or two into the race when you're going down a straight.

Here are a few tips that might help you make it across the finnish line in 1 piece.

1.) at 1st turn stay to the far outside or far inside and be prepared to counersteer quickly if hit. If there was a big wreck last race on 1st turn, then ease off on 1st turn unless you are near the front of the field. People often try to pass on the 1st turn but arent skilled enough to and just cause a big pileup
2.) when battling someone you are unfamiliar with, keep enough distance so that if they spin out you can maneuver around them.
3.)If you are pretty sure you are faster than someone and they happen to catch up to you (i thought you were faster?) sometimes its best to just let them pass and use their slip stream to burn them on the straightaway.

Another T1 Tipp, bu as I haven't read through the whole thread, crucify me, if it was already mentioned:

If you are in the pack and have no chance to get out of the racing line (and therefor are very likely to be crashed by someone behind you): Break very early, BUT very slightly. When your braking lights flash up, the ones behind you will be more cautious, and if you don't brake too hard, they will have time to react and evade.
Don't care if you are overtaken in T1. Most races are long enough for you to catch up with the slower drivers, and the fatser drivers would've overtaken you anyway.

DO NOT SPEED THROUGH THE PITS.

Another tip.

DO NOT SPEED THROUGH THE PITS.

The speed limit is 80 Km/h. That's about 50 MPH if you're using US measurements. If you exceed this limit, you will be penalized. The speed limit is there for a reason--cars are going in and out of stalls, and you need to watch for them. Several cars in the game won't exceed 50 MPH in 1st gear (with standard settings) so drop it into first and you should be OK.

Try not to use the "chase cam" view. Your visibility ahead is great, but you can't see behind you at all.

The horn is there to WARN other drivers that they are doing something incredibly stupid--it is not your personal noise-maker.

And take my word for it, a gamepad is a poor substitute for a wheel. Hard to cram 900 degrees of wheel rotation into about 3/4" of total stick travel.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Must admit I've struggled on-line. Think either my graphics card or ADSL connection isn't up to the job. It's fine in single player but when I get on-line and there are lost of other cars it goes all 'framey'!

There are LOD sliders in the Graphics and Misc options. You can turn down the detail and your frame rate in a pack won't be nearly as bad. If that doesn't do the trick, you can go to wheels-only view for the first lap until the grid spreads out. Wheels-only seems to basically double the frame rate most people experience.

When you're adjusting the LOD sliders I find it best to do so while viewing a paused replay with a lot of detail on screen. That way you can see that you're turning the detail down, not up, and you can watch your frame rate go up/down as you make changes (if you have frame rate turned on).

Quote from Rebeldevil :

DO NOT SPEED THROUGH THE PITS.

Another tip.

DO NOT SPEED THROUGH THE PITS.

.... That's about 50 MPH if you're using US measurements.

Or 49 mph if you're British. If you do 50mph you WILL cop a penalty

Quote from Rebeldevil :

cars in the game won't exceed 50 MPH in 1st gear (with standard settings) so drop it into first and you should be OK.

You'd best not rely on that because you WILL be caught out. Use your speedometer.

I found the pit lane limiter already so that's cool. So long as I remember - been caught out like this a few times.

Played last night and all was OK. I've started using the wheel view and it's much easier to see. Also messed about with screen res and stuff and I was OK.

Read the setup manual too and setup an XFGTR for this circuit. Didn't take to long and boy does it make the game easier to play. I have quite a good knowledge about suspension setup in real life and that helps me. Did notice in the manual it talks about spring frequency in Hertz. It should really mention Spring Effective rates too as the effective spring rate is dependant not only on the spring actual rate, but the distance the spring is from the wheel, the wheel sprung and unsprung weights. And normally in the real world, tuners work out spring frequency in Cycles per minute and not Hertz. If you want me to give you some example workings I can. Target CPM for a track car is usually between about 90 & 110 depending on the smoothness of the circuit.

It would also be cool if you could change wheel widths and offsets. This would bring in interesting concepts like scrub radius and the way it affects steering. Maybe a bit too much for your average player though.

Found LFS desktop yesterday too. How cool is that! The more I find out about this game the better I think it is! Just wondering how often it updates the results though. Nothing there for my new personal best round Westhill (1:59). Can anyone tell me?

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Found LFS desktop yesterday too. How cool is that! The more I find out about this game the better I think it is! Just wondering how often it updates the results though. Nothing there for my new personal best round Westhill (1:59). Can anyone tell me?

I'm still a noob with this game, but I think the PB's are updated almost immediately..... but you only record online times...!

Were you racing offline at Westhill ?

Yeah, I was on-line.

Only records online times!

Edit: Ignore me, too slow...

Don't understand why it hasn't updated then. Didn't do anything different from previous races! Oh well, I'll beat it tonight I should think anyway.

Anyone know of a good league for someone with limited experience like myself?

Quote from Gentlefoot :

This would bring in interesting concepts like scrub radius and the way it affects steering. Maybe a bit too much for your average player though.

in the s1 version you could even adjust the scrub radius

Cool. Scrub radius is defined by the steering axis inclination and the centre point of the contact patch of the tyre. So you can change scrub radius but changing offset. Draw a line along the steering axis inclination to the floor. If it falls in-board of the centre point of the contact patch that is negative scrub. Outboard of the centre of the contact patch = positive scrub. I'm sure you know what zero scrub is now. It can be changed by changing the offset of the wheel. Tyre width doesn't actually affect it for abvious reason.

The only way you can change scrub radius is by changing the SAI or the wheel offset. In the real world the first method is often not an option (requires changing suspension pickup points outlawed in many classes of motorsport). The second method is also limited by clearances.

It would be well cool if they could get all this in to the game. It's stuff I've been wrestling with on my track car which has Mcpherson struts. Want a wider track (to add grip) but too much negative scrub is likely to result in extremely bump sensitive steering or even broken fingers/wrists! I've increased the track all round by about 20mm and already I can feel the affect of the extra negative scrub!

It's mental that I can talk to you guys about this and you know what I'm talking about. I've been on performance car tuning forums discussing this stuff and no-one really knows or cares about this stuff. Yet I come to cyber racing world and its like "yeah - scrub radius, we know about that"! Shouldn't it be the other way around.

Massive respect the the developers of LFS. Wish I'd been involved in it. I'm a software developer of 8 years now and love cars, suspension geometry and engine tuning! I think I missed my true vocation!

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Tyre width doesn't actually affect it for abvious reason.

if im not mistaken a wider tyre will give you a bit more positive scrub (assuming the wider wheels dont cause a wider track)

I used to think that but think about it. Because the scrub radius is define by the centre point of the tyre contact patch it doesn't matter how wide the tyre is, the centre point will always be the same. Its only offset, whcih moves the position of the wheel relative to the hub that makes a difference.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

It's mental that I can talk to you guys about this and you know what I'm talking about. I've been on performance car tuning forums discussing this stuff and no-one really knows or cares about this stuff. Yet I come to cyber racing world and its like "yeah - scrub radius, we know about that"!

Obviously "car tuning" has nothing to do with actual performance for some people...

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I used to think that but think about it. Because the scrub radius is define by the centre point of the tyre contact patch it doesn't matter how wide the tyre is, the centre point will always be the same. Its only offset, whcih moves the position of the wheel relative to the hub that makes a difference.

rethink that again ... the steering axis obiously doenst change and if both tyres are the same diameter the point where its elongation intersects the ground is constant so the only thing we have to think about is the center of the tyre
now if we assume that the wider tyre doesnt affect the track so the distance between the tyres outer edge and the steering axis ground intersection point (is there a shorter term for that ?) doesnt change the only thing that changes in the whole system is the distance between the inner edge of the tyre and the intersection point (it increases)
and with the inside edge the center of the tyre also moves inwards effectively increasing the scrub radius