Quote from Gentlefoot :

Not sure I agree with that mate. I find the braking points in say the FO8 are much earlier than in the FOX. Same with the LX6 and LX4. And in FWD road tyred cars you have to turn in much earlier than say an XRR.

Not that this means the guides won't be useful for beginners but I believe advanced track guides would need to be combo specific.

Ofcourse you can save time by having one guide referred to in another. For example the final chicane at Aston National is the same as the final chicane for Aston Historic.

hmm - how many combos are there? - 19 cars and 48 tracks - only 912 track guides to write Do one a day and you can be finished in 3 years.

Gentlefoot is right I think.

If this is going to be a truly comprehensive guide then it would need to be car specific. Perhaps you should accept and review guides from the community at large or alternatively assign each car a couple of gurus who can write guides for all tracks.

He is right, to a degree, but we need to be realistic about this, with over 900 combos, it would be an impossible task to organise.

I think it'll work well as long as they are beginners guides. I think to write guides to get people within 1.5 seconds of WR they have to be car specific. I've been thinking about writing content like this myself along with a setup for each guide I write. Obviously it will be a long process and I don't expect to cover every combo.

I also want to use AFS and F1PerfView with this. It will all go on my gentlefoot.com website eventually.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Ofcourse you can save time by having one guide referred to in another. For example the final chicane at Aston National is the same as the final chicane for Aston Historic.

hmm - how many combos are there? - 19 cars and 48 tracks - only 912 track guides to write Do one a day and you can be finished in 3 years.

If we got one person to adopt one car

I REALLY suggest adding them to the wiki, ideally it would become an LFS One-stop shop for info, tutorials and stuff...

Yeah, nothing more than beginners guides, I am not quick enough to do expert guides

Are you going do it then?

I don't think that car specific guides are neccessary. In fact, every driver drives differently and more importantly uses his own setup, so breaking points and cornering speeds can vary quite largely even when using the same cars.

I am not half the experienced LfS Racer i'd like to be, so I basically drive every corner in the same gear, regardless of the car. So instead of the speed, perhaps it would be feasable to say in which gear a corner is taken?

Quote from danowat :

Yeah, nothing more than beginners guides, I am not quick enough to do expert guides

Leave it out mate - ofcourse you are. You're faster than me but I still believe I could write these guides. I don't think you have to be able to set WRs to be able to write this kind of guide.

Don´t know if anyone of you saw this, but I think that it would be great to have something similar for LFS...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFLzwRGNHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcGB_SnXaAg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YnbsxhjnE8

Of course this would mean a lot of work and surely not a job for one person only.

dan, but you surely can provide such specific info like (regarding FE Green) - cut T2 up to tyres, start turn T4 (left-right-left chicane btw) at rumble strips and so on.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

I am not half the experienced LfS Racer i'd like to be, so I basically drive every corner in the same gear, regardless of the car. So instead of the speed, perhaps it would be feasable to say in which gear a corner is taken?

The gear the corner will be driven in will be determined by the set. I think it is important that along with these track guides are the sets used.

If I create a guide it'll be for a specific combo. It'll get you to around 1.5 - 2 seconds off WR pace because that's as fast as I get generally. It will include replays and AFS output of my line and comparisons with the WR. A set will be available so people can emulate mine or the WR lines.

If we put them on the wiki, I'll transcribe the [tsr.] video track guides for FOX at Kyoto National normal and BF1 at Blackwood normal.

Quote from duke_toaster :

If we put them on the wiki, I'll transcribe the [tsr.] video track guides for FOX at Kyoto National normal and BF1 at Blackwood normal.

I don't think I will be able to put my stuff in the wiki unfortunately. I plan to run it off my website with some AVIs as well as SPRs so people who don't have LFS can see what it's all about. It may help draw more people into the game.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I don't think I will be able to put my stuff in the wiki unfortunately. I plan to run it off my website with some AVIs as well as SPRs so people who don't have LFS can see what it's all about. It may help draw more people into the game.

Fair enough

Quote from duke_toaster :

I REALLY suggest adding them to the wiki, ideally it would become an LFS One-stop shop for info, tutorials and stuff...

I don't feel the LFS wiki is terribly helpful for anybody other than people who have yet to try LFS, TBH the forum and other sites are far more useful and consistent.

Dan, I enjoyed your FE Green guide a lot. If you're prepared to write more of them, that can only be a good thing.

imho, they wont help noobs, because noobs will be too busy learning the controls and general driving techniques to worry about the nuances of the tracks. honestly, do you really want noobs trying to optimize their braking points when they haven't learned to use their mirrors yet?

i don't think they wont help experienced drivers either, unless they are car specific, which would be a massive amount of work. even then, it there could be setup specific differences. for example, some people setup their FXR's as true 4wd, safe to mash the throttle well before the apex, others with a more rwd bias requiring more throttle control, etc, etc.

they might be useful for marketing, or simple nerd factor for people who would rather read about driving than actually spend time driving. but would that make them useful?

sorry if i sound negative, but i just don't see how there would be much real value, other than for fanboys.

Danowat - very nice idea, +good start with fe green.

My thoughts:

play around with camera angles to give best view of turns.

+ possibly imposing "racing line" on pictures.

careful with grammar. Hit curbs 'too' hard.

Love the idea, and nice work!

Quote from evilgeek :

sorry if i sound negative, but i just don't see how there would be much real value, other than for fanboys.

I think they'd have a huge value, I first started reading track guides when I needed to learn the 'ring in N2003 and it really helped, the fact I was reading a guide for an E46 M3 didn't make it useless for learning to drive the 'ring in a Group C Sauber. Simply having a section of map with the correct line and notes marked on it soon sorts out where the apexes are, whether it tightens/opens where the bumps are etc. All this may seem obvious but it saves hours finding it out the hard way. Whatever format they take though it would be nice if they were printable, as having it printed makes good reading material for the loo

I would think that you could add more tips about overtaking, like this is not place to overtake or here you can overtake relative safely, actually could go bit more into overtaking details also as that could help a lot of newcomers to find how to overtake.

Specially at South City I see lot of completely wrong timing of overtaking attempts and generally people try to overtake on places where that is just plain impossible and specially at speeds they are trying to enter to corners.

So it would be great if it would be covered at least a bit.

Lots of work i know, but I'm a fan of video track guides as well.

I believe it is SimHQ or something similar which did some pretty good video lap guides (albeit of Rfactor).

Definitely a good idea.

A racing line on an aerial view would be good. So long as it has a consistent style between all tracks it'll look good. I'd suggest doing sections along the following lines:

1) General description of the track
- Short / long
- Run off - lots / little / gravel
- Any areas that are important to get right for laptimes

2) Turn by turn description
- Turn name / number
- Screenshot (with racing line?)
- Description of entry, exit, braking, acceleration points
- Any features - gravel trap, don't cut, nasty bumps

3) Lap Description
- How to string the corners together, how to tackle complexes, in depth discussion of the important sections

The above may repeat a little of the information, but it'll be interesting to read, and use as a reference.

To do each track for each car would be hard - you'd need to have section 4 and have a table for braking/accelerating points for each car and turn. Possibly not worth the effort - that's something that each racer will decide for themselves.

Finally, for further insipration, see the BMW track guide for the nurburgring.

It's certainly a nice idea. However, some really good racers should help or just a subjective personal guide will be written

Quote from Storm_Cloud :

Gentlefoot is right I think.

If this is going to be a truly comprehensive guide then it would need to be car specific. Perhaps you should accept and review guides from the community at large or alternatively assign each car a couple of gurus who can write guides for all tracks.

don't think so...that would just be tooo specific, a track guide is to point out the characteristic of the track and it should be the drivers who figure out which line is best with their car/setup. Hell even the same car handles very differently with different setup, so one guide with each combo just don't work.

Even if it's a good idea, I still think that watching the WR replay or a good driver making fast laps remains the best way to learn everything you need to be fast on a specific combo.