Hi,

This is especially noticable on the open wheelers, but happens also in other cars. The car always "bumps" completely vertically. I.e., if you're driving the FO8, and watching your front end of the car, then the nose is always symetrically between the two wheels, even through bumps (it goes up and down relative to the wheels, but its vertical distance from one front wheel is always identical to its vertical distance from the other front wheel).

This also happens when you go over kerbs, the whole car "rolls" and the nose is still symmetric to both front wheels. Instead, the suspension going over the kerb should be most affected first, and the car should stay relatively horizontal while the suspension absorbs the kerb, at least if you don't stay on the kerb for too long.

I think it gives a very artificial look to the whole driving experience. It just looks unrealistic IMHO. An example for better suspension behaviour can be observed in GPL. In GPL, if you go over a kerb, or a sidewalk (Monaco) with one wheel, then only that wheel goes up, and the suspension's keeping the car relatively stable.

I've noticed this behaviour before, but it only really got bothered by it recently when I started to check out GPL. They did a beautifull job so many years ago But I want S2 to be as good or better

Does it do the above with softer suspension settings?

Actually I think what your talking about happens with soft and hard suspension in LFS... just remembering my GPL days and it was damn impressive how the suspension in that title was simulated.

Ok, I was not completely right in my observation... yet...

I've watched it again with different suspensions settings. When watching an SPR in slow motion, i see that i was actually wrong, and the suspensions react differently relative to eachother. However, still something looks very artificial in these vertical bumps. Could be the fact that the car bumping up and down much more than the "natural" suspension travel when going over a kerb, or even driving straight. I find it hard to pinpoint, but still, something feels artificial to me with these bumps.

I think the main thing that's affecting the independent wheel suspension acting together are anti-roll bars. Stiff anti-roll bars on race cars make the body very rigid thus, for example, getting one front tyre on curb raises the whole front.

Quote from spankmeyer :

I think the main thing that's affecting the independent wheel suspension acting together are anti-roll bars. Stiff anti-roll bars on race cars make the body very rigid thus, for example, getting one front tyre on curb raises the whole front.

Yes, yet, the body does NOT feel very rigid. That's the point i'm talking baout. The car bumps up and down relatively much on BOTH suspensions. Much more than what happens to the individual suspensions when going over a kerb for example.

Quote from avih :

Yes, yet, the body does NOT feel very rigid. That's the point i'm talking baout. The car bumps up and down relatively much on BOTH suspensions. Much more than what happens to the individual suspensions when going over a kerb for example.

try setting the antirollbars to 0, the function of ARB is to limit bodyroll, but the side effect of that is, that it does make the suspension less independent...

Quote from Chaos :

try setting the antirollbars to 0, the function of ARB is to limit bodyroll, but the side effect of that is, that it does make the suspension less independent...

I have actually. before i posted my 2nd post on this thread. And my observation is still that the car bumps up/down are very noticable and LOOKS absolutely symmetrical. Only in slow motion and ARB = minimum you can notice that the suspensions do work independantly.

If you have GPL (/demo) installed, check it out, there you can actually see the suspensions working independantly. I know it simulates much older cars, but still, you get much better feeling IMHO from how it LOOKS.

Don't forget that the spring is pushing up on the car as well, which should cause the car to roll, which will alter the suspension on the other side. Try using a soft setup with low bump damping, this will slow everything down, since most sets in LFS are uber-stiff.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Don't forget that the spring is pushing up on the car as well, which should cause the car to roll, which will alter the suspension on the other side. Try using a soft setup with low bump damping, this will slow everything down, since most sets in LFS are uber-stiff.

thx I'll try when I get home later today and post my observation again.

you can't see much of that on modern formula cars either. they've just got such stiff springs and short suspension travel.

i have always admired LFS's suspension model, because from the very first demo onwards you could see the suspension working like the real thing unlike in most other racinggames.