Just a small suggestion... ditch the gear indicator in all the road cars.

Can't think of many that have them



Regards,

Ian

for now we need them because the shifter doesnt move...

We do!? How many times do you drive a car and look down at the gear lever to see what gear you're in? Most people I know subconsciously know what gear they're in

I've spent 12 months running an XRT with no gear indicator and no moving gear lever, never had a problem



Regards,

Ian

But when you're in a real car and you aren't complete sure what gear you're in, you can just lay your hand on it and feel where it is. The only thing I could be grabbing here only has 2 positions.

Unless you're driving a rig, any car I've driven also only "feels" like 2 positions, fwd and back, the H-pattern on most cars is pretty close together.

The other major cue of course is the ear

I only have a standard DFP here so no fancy H-pattern for me to see so hardware isn't a factor in my request (incase someone may think I'm suggesting it as I have some fancy stuff.. I don't ).



Regards,

Ian

Well, I suppose you'll always be driving in gear 2 or higher, when you're in 2 you feel it close to you and low, in 3 it's high so you can feel that immediately, number 4 is down again, and I guess then is when the hearing comes in, but mostly... knowing how fast you're going, I can't drive 70 km/h in second gear, so it must be fourth. (I might try that one though :razz

Maybe just turn it off, and leave the people who want to see it alone and let them have it. We should get a more realistic dash anways, so maybe with configurable lights/indicators on it?

Quote from sgt.flippy :

Well, I suppose you'll always be driving in gear 2 or higher, when you're in 2 you feel it close to you and low, in 3 it's high so you can feel that immediately, number 4 is down again, and I guess then is when the hearing comes in, but mostly... knowing how fast you're going, I can't drive 70 km/h in second gear, so it must be fourth. (I might try that one though :razz

heh, yup, speed comes into it too.. I rarely look at the clocks though and do most by ear... but have been driving for the past 15 years so maybe my ears are somewhat "trained" without thinking about it.

Quote :

Maybe just turn it off, and leave the people who want to see it alone and let them have it. We should get a more realistic dash anways, so maybe with configurable lights/indicators on it?

You can turn it off? I wasn't aware of that. Any idea on how? That'd work for me

Here's the displays I made and been driving around with for the past 12 months and yet to miss a gear as such This was a replica of a real Starion dash I found a photo of. Gauge in the centre is the boost pressure, the one to the left, the fuel. Something _like_ that in the future would be cool.



Regards,

Ian

That looks pretty nice, wish we could have that in lfs. What game is that anyway? Rfactor?

I meant it could be an option, you can't turn it off though, sorry

Yeah.. it's all I did for 12 months, but no longer installed and slowly getting back into LFS. I guess after having the freedom to add / remove what I wanted when building the conversion I've carried a few ideas with me coming back to LFS and thought I'd make my first request.

An option would be ok too I guess.. but would be good to see them removed completely at some stage for added realism (IMO at least)



Regards,

Ian

Are there any other things you changed to the cars?

Modeled some new wheels, 3 types of exhaust (standard, pretty much as is in LFS, "boy bean" with a 4" tailpipe and the twin tailpipe I posted in the '2 exhausts' thread).. opened bonnet for the car spinner with a mapped photo of a Starion engine underneath and worked a fair bit on the damage (bonnet, both bumpers, rear wing and wheels were all detachable along with vertex damage).

Most of the screenshots I had got wiped in my HDD crash, but have one here of the new wheels and engine / bonnet in the spinner.. and also a rather strange crash (3Mb vid clip) at a track I was making that shows the damage off pretty well (it has flaws that I worked out later, but looked kinda funny at the time, especially from inside the cockpit view ).

The physics side I tried to match LFS's XRT in regards to speeds and the likes. In standard trim, would reach ~140mph much the same as I do down the Blackwood straight but fully upgraded (exhaust, chip, cams, suspension and turbo) would take it up to ~165mph or just over which I thought was about reasonable (have had 172mph out of a road going 2.0L 1987 Ford Sierra Cosworth). The next part was going to be the interior.. but I lost a lot of 3DS files too.

The FO8 I'd also started working on had a redone instrument display too. Somewhat MoTeC looking (black on green) although not exactly the same.

The MRT I had planned to also add wings to like an ollllld screenshot seen in LFS (was never released for LFS) but my HDD crashed about 4 days after getting that ingame.

Most of the time had been spent resmoothing all of the mesh as smoothing groups were of no use to me and I'd never modded anything in me life before either so a fair bit to learn



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Ian.H :

Unless you're driving a rig, any car I've driven also only "feels" like 2 positions, fwd and back, the H-pattern on most cars is pretty close together.

Weird. You must miss a lot of gears! Even with a modified (shortened) lever, I've never experienced any ambiguity; each gear is quite distinct. Anyway, you'd really need to have your head in the clouds to forget what gear you're in... but then I've never driven anything particularly low-reving like an american "car." Regardless, if you're listening to loud music, and your speedo/tacho are broken, the lever keeps no secrets from the hand.

if you use paddles (or sequential) you need the indicator, thats what it's for, thats why racing cars have them.
i find it very handy sometimes in all cars!

I need it, I also need my digital speedo which most cars don't have.

Hmm, thought this was meant to be a sim, not a "game". Certainly didn't know we were supposed to selectively pick one of the 2 as and when we wanted.

No, I've never missed a gear.. yes I can drive fine with analogue clocks and no, I don't need a big fake digital "hey Mr I can't Drive Without Aids... you're in such and such a gear!" display

Race cars, fine.. did I not specifically mention road cars? oh yeah, so I did and no, I don't need it even with sequential gears.. I know what gear I changed into, I'm not a gold fish



Regards,

Ian

i think your missing the point.
the reason race cars (and some road cars) IRL have gear display is because in sequential it is easy to forget what gear your in and sometime when you change up/down it may not change up/down for you, so a display shows what gear your incase of a moment of confusion.
i think we should leave it in LFS because the majority of people use a wheel with either a sequential selector or paddels. so we sometimes need a display to inform us what gear we're in. i know i regularly use it, especially when your battling with someone and not concentrating on what gear your in.

so i would be dead set against "ditching" the gear display, maybe add a option to turn it off for the people that wish to do so, but dont ditch it.

Maybe I've driven the wrong road cars, but the only time I've ever seen some kind of indicator as to what gear was selected was ollllllld column shift cars with an auto box.. which these days are displayed by the side of the lever.

I'll still argue that it's not needed. I use a sequential lever on my DFP as that's all I have (paddles for the formula cars etc which would have an indicator) and always know what gear I'm in.. was something I learnt to assess while driving real cars (from a Mini to a 520bhp Cossie to a 911).

I guess I see requests for the likes of the ability to stall and start in Neutral on the grid (which I'm all for too) and then people request a fake display to assist their driving elsewhere.. some things don't add up

Gears were removed from the likes of the XRT for added realism along with various setup options.. people got used to it and adapted.

An option would suffice for now I guess

Apologies for coming across a bit harsh / blunt maybe too. Was just meant to be a request and my reasons for the request.. not to start an issue with people (incase some read it that way)



Regards,

Ian

You might be able to remember what gear your in while driving in a sequential gearbox car, but a lot of people including myself tend to forget every now and then.
That is why they have gear indicators on race cars IRL, so if you do forget you can have a quick look and you know where you are.
Until everyone has a G25 and are forced to use a H pattern in the road cars (where it's easy to know what gear your in) i think the gear indicator should be left there.

I typically can't see my gear indicator anyways with my FOV. It is either off the screen at the bottom or my actual wheel controller is blocking it.

I neither need the digital speedo nor the gear indicator. Wouldn't matter to me to get rid of them

For the sake of realism, I think it's not a bad idea to get rid of the gear indicator in cars that wouldn't have it IRL either. I do too sometimes forget what gear I'm in (very seldomly, though), but that's just my bad, then. And G25 users are already sometimes complaining that we who do not use clutch and shifter can't really misshift. Without the indicator there would actually be a slight chance for misshifting, just like IRL.

Quote from Mike85 :

...Arcade...

Arcade? Go wash your mouth out!

IMO, arcade is not equal to flexible in a sim. Autoclutch is not arcade, it is flexibility in that not everyone is capable of having a clutch pedal. Gear indicator is flexible in that not everyone has an h-shifter and can determine exactly what gear by the shifter. Digital speedometer is flexible in that not everyone can run 8750947589x7349875987489 resolution to make the analog gauges clear enough to read.

I use autoclutch because I don't have a clutch pedal and using a button is less realistic IMO than autoclutch. I don't have a problem with autoclutch being in a sim IF it was coded not to be an advantage over a pedal as it is now. I use digital speedometer not to drive, but only out of curiousity over what speed I'm hitting because I can not read the analog gauge clearly enough. I do occasionally look at the gear indicator to see what gear I'm in because I use a sequential shifter on my affordable Momo. I actually usually have to sit up and lean forwards to look over the top of my wheel to see the indicator.

Who's to say what is real and what is not real in a fantasy made up car? Who is to say what is sim and what is arcade in a fantasy made up car? Indicator or not, doesn't matter one bit to me. I'm not an elitist who will cry and say it's not fair because I don't need the indicator to tell me what gear I'm in, yet the guy beating me on the track does need it, thus is the reason he's beating me....

If you remove it, I could always get on the blower to a mate of mine that knows some electronics and make an outgauge thing to sellotape on to my moniter so it would be rather futile.

No need to remove gear indicators and no need to remove the digital speedo.

The gear indicator is useful for users of sequential systems to know what gear they are in. Besides, it isn't an Aussie Racing Car.

Ah well, seems most want girly aids to help them around the track.

Best I can do is hope for an option.

As for 'arcade'.. this is LFS, not NFS. Arcade is not (or at least should not) be an option, period.



Regards,

Ian