I don't think too many series suffer from brake problems any more.
The compounds used these days to make the pads and discs have ensured your brakes remain fairly consistent for the duration of a race.
Short races sure people don't wear out their brakes, but if you have the wrong disc/pad combination, or the otherway, you do not use your brakes as you should, then you will get higher than expected brake temperatures which will then of course cuase fade and wear on the brakes..
+1 is brake wear ever gets introduced, but it's likely not to have too much effect on short sprint races
The no ALMOST prep point is quite true for the slowest car in LFS aka the painfully slow mini lookalike. But check the more decent cars like RB4, XRT, FXO, LXs, FZ50 and RA and they aren't exactly stock. With a wide range of springs, ARBs and adjustable dampers, they are very track prepared cars, with money well spent to make sure the perform well on the track and remain usable on the street. Why would one spend thousands on suspension and extrem performance road tires and somehow magically neglect to upgrade at least the brake pads to suit? If I were to use my road car on the track I definitely won't miss out on a set of Brembos/AP Racing brakes and of course, adjustable brake bias.
If there is one important factor that sets the apart from full blown race cars is the lack of visible rollcages. Rollcages are illegal for road use, but some track ready cars (e.g. Porsche GT2 996) come with integral chrome molybdenum rollcages that are so well hidden by internal trim they could easily pass as legal and counstable plodd wouldn't ever know if he didn't ask or try to check it out carefully. BTW, if I were to track my road car I definitely won't miss out on chassis stiffening too. Strategically placed braces make all the difference with minimal weight penalty.
The road cars in LFS should be considered track prepared cars, NOT stock OEM cars. It's good that LFS allows all this freedom of adjustment as it allows us to better explore, enjoy and discover the limits of LFS's physics engine. If there is one good way to cover for poor physics is to simply use the setup to fudge things until the right feel is acquired. That's why from us sim racers' point of views, less setup choices would be all loss and no gain. Of course, this doesn't mean that non-realistic adjustablility should be allowed, but since ARBs, springs and adjustable (4-way or even frequency sensitive) dampers are so widely used today, it's simply absurd to disallow what someone could achieve with his OEM car with a few well chosen aftermarket modifications.
1. At least in germany rollcages are allowed in normal traffic. I drove a race prepared car in normal traffic for several months because of the lack of another car. You never get used to the looks of people when you come to school with a car that has no interior but one bucket seat .
2. LFS's roadcars aren't allowed on any track. No roll cage, no external hooks, no hooks for the engine hood, no external off-switch for the fuel-pump, no fire extinguisher, you can't race those anywhere but on trackdays. Racing the XRT is illegal in about every civilized country in the world. It's a road car, not a race car.
3. On topic:
Brake fade and wear is essential and I hope it's in the pipe for patch Y. I could nicely feel the brake pads of a BMW E30 wear away during a 2 hour drive when I did my race driver's license. The temperatures were alright since the E30 has a good cooling system for the brakes, but the wear was excessive. It's interesting to feel the pads wear away lap after lap until I had to stop. Those were production parts though. But quite some Porsches had to throw the towel before me because of brake-fade .
i think brake wear is a fantastic idea, also brake temprature and warping/cracking should be considered too this would make longer races in the road cars for LFS pit manditory in order to cool the brakes down. some may think this idea is pointless or will ruin game experience but lets not forget LFS is a race simulator, brake ware temp and cracking due to brake overheating would make LFS more realistic!
1. Last time I checked rollcages are NOT allowed in Australia (land of silly speed limits applied to all the wrong places to maximize revenue, NOT safety). Germany is a different story, relative to pretty much everyone else it's car heaven.
2. Never said anything about disagreeing with PROPER implementation brake fade and wear. Any important physics improvements from aero to turbo modelling to Torsen differentials gets my vote.
3. No it is NOT true that roll cages are absolutely necessary just to legally drive on racing circuits. Of course they are mandatory in full blown races with cars and drivers competing seriously with each other. There are many roadable cars that are quite commonly run on open track days where poeple like members of car clubs are allowed to run free on the track at much higher pace then draconian (and often made up with moneymaking, not safety in mind) speed limits would allow. People (especially the more skilled ones) do go fast, though still below full race pace. Cars like the Lotus Elise come with no roll cages and are still used for the track. Well, they are actually more track car than road car, with no luggage space, tiny cockpit and suspension that telegraphs every little undulation to you. As for brake wear and fade, try the CCBs (Carbon Ceramic Brakes) from Porsche 997 turbo and Ferrari 430. And please, don't try to track your BMW with OEM pads again. Sheer wastage and reduces both fun and safety. Try these:
WAY better for track use, if you don't mind a bit of noise and dust.
4. When was the last time you got cars in say the TBO class with OEM 2 way adjustable dampers? So it's obvious they are TRACK cars, just not race cars.
As far as I'm concerned, suspension steering and tire settings, etc should remain, though if things go my way all the track driven road cars in LFS would have homologated ratios and preset gearsets to choose from. And final drive would be limited to a few choices that the car(s) in question could use properly.
Of course, 0.001 gear increment adjustment isn't terribly realistic, but that simply not the most pressing physics issue now. There are aero, suspension geometry (need 3D suspension with 3D motion and of course bump steer), etc that are much more pressing and would affect LFS racing much more. And of course brake wear and temps, fade, etc.
As for brakes, brake bias should remain as it's not too terribly hard to get an aftermarket supplier to fit adjustable bias. Though the ability to adjust brake force down to 1 newton is OTT. We should get a choice of pads, say sticky, good when cold, quick warming and sticky but short lived pads for sprints. Then we should get pads that give less peak friction and poorer cold performance but more consistent and powerful once warmed up, lasting long and well under prolonged and severe braking. And also a compound or 2 in between.
Adding brake wear is a very good idea, because it makes driving the stock cars a lot more difficult and you have to resort to more engine braking (without blowing up the transmission offcourse ).
Here are some ideas:
As the heat goes higher, the braking force should go down in lfs.
As the wear continues, so does the travel before any braking takes place (like if there is 5mm wear, the brake only starts working after 5% of travel).
Also while your at it, don't forget about knockback in the braking system. Here you can see a vid I ripped which explains it.
Just a note, that is not how it happens IRL. Most cars use a hydrolic system which never goes out of adjustment. The pads are always touching the disc, thus there is no difference in pedal travel as pads wear.
5mm of wear on your rotors? I'd say they're gone..
want rice with that?
+1 for this, I took the miata to the track yesterday and got some fade during the last laps, not the best of feelings when you enter the corner faster than intended...
Lets say someone has worn brakes (pads and or discs). They press the brake pedal, and slow down. Then they come off the brake pedal. As they do this, three things happen.
1. The pressure in the braking system disappears.
2. As the master cylinder piston comes back, fluid from the reservoir replaces the additional fluid used to overcome wear.
3. The disc/pad clearance is caused by slight imperfections on the disc 'throwing' the pad away (by thousandths of an inch).
Thus, you end up with more fluid in the system to take up the wear, so the pedal is in the same place.
If his pedal actually moved further down they either have a VERY peculiar design (unlikely, but not impossible), or air was getting in the system which had to be compressed first. A tiny (and I stress tiny!) amount of air might cause a long pedal without completely ruining the brakes.
Either that or the fluid had been boiling locally, and air had been produced that way, causing the same as above.
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