How much do you think realistic engine and suspension damage will change the face of LFS?

At the moment, we all know that it's advantageous to floor it up through the gears and over-rev down changing. Likewise, we all hammer over the curbs at the likes of Fern Bay because we can, knowing it wont have an adverse effect on our car.

My thoughts are that when realistic engine & suspension damage are implemented,there'll be a revolution driving behavior (especially online). A 'drive it like you own it' mentality will be forced on everyone. One false down-change may end your race, and hitting that chicane like you used will bend your steering like it should.

Everyone will be forced to drive with some of the same fears and cautions of racers in the real world. I can't wait for the day.

NB - this topic isn't about development time-lines or such things, so please don't turn it in to one.

I think you're right. I truly believe that engine and suspension damage would be the number one thing that would change LFS for the better. In real life, people would never get away with the downshifting that they do in LFS. If pushing in your front bumper 5" caused the car to stop running, I think we'd see a lot fewer T1 accidents. If brushing the wall in South City caused your race to be over, races would be a lot more realistic and interesting. There would be no more limping to the pits after hitting a wall going 100 mph.

I'm hopeful that these things are on Scawen's "to do" list for upcoming physics changes (along with a working clutch).

I 100% agree and support this.
I'd rather see this being worked on then anything else.
With X came a lot of responsibility. To me, many races feel like I'm still on demo. People ram, cut, wreck, etc.
This would change things for the better real fast for people like us (clean racers). Something also needs to be done in terms of pitting IMO. I have nothing against mid race joiners, as long as they don't try to be heros. But people crashing 5 times a race then simply Shift+P and rinse and repeat. IMO, once you wreck your car, it's race over for you until the next one. Or at least it should be that way.

I don't really care about flying parts etc. but if the suspension damage was like 200% more sensitive than it is now what comes to ramming over curbs and if there was more severe engine damage (even if it was just very basic kind of, most important is that you get punished for abusing the car, in a way or another) it would totally change how you need to drive. These things should be way ahead of AI stuff on the to do list

I've thought this subject during my day-dreaming.

I would say that the first days or weeks would be total hell on the public servers, I can't believe majority of people can learn and change their bad habits overnight. T1 seems to be a challenge for some people even at the moment, if you crash someone with proper damage your race is over, the end. I really hope people finally see that you can only lose your race in T1.

T1 aside, I'm not much worried about damage. It would have great effect on racing of course. You couldn't cut the kerbs so violently all the time and downshift so aggressively which could stop the hotlap mentality on short races I guess. But I don't think it would change my own driving that much. I've learnt to drive safe because the few endurance races I've had and generally I don't crash that much and don't even flatshift. Southcity must be the only places I do crash every now and then, it will be really challenging with proper damage. You could be much slower and win if the uber fast guys just happen to push too much and kiss the wall. Your day is coming Kev!

Can't wait!

Quote from gohfeld23 :

IMO, once you wreck your car, it's race over for you until the next one. Or at least it should be that way.

I'd like to see this (as a server option) too.
Taking the idea even further, how about public servers where 'credits' are accumulated for finishing and winning races, and over time as well.

The idea being that crashing your car will cost you x amount of credits. You can either spend what you've earned to fix the damage for the next race, or wait until credits accumulate over time.

Kind of simulating the amateur motorsport that some classes in LFS represent.

Imagine the flame wars when people get innocently taken out though.

^ Nah, this has been discussed years ago and it has been rejected back then as it is rejected now. I don't think it would have a positive enough effect to outweigh the negative ones.

Regarding a more complete damage model, yes this would be a very big step in eradicating one of the few blaring arcade bastions left in LFS. Taking care of the car has already been improved with the current tyre wear and suspension damage, but it's far from enough. Sure, I also do it myself because currently it's the only way to be competitive over the relatively short races, but I cringe every time I have to blast over the FE kerbs. Even more so if I see people doing it with the formula cars.

Important bits are IMO:
- Engine damage on impacts
- Misc component damage on impacts (radiator, wings, etc.)
- Suspension breaking (formula cars are ridiculously strong at the moment)
- Transmission & clutch wear due to aggressive shifting + fixing the unrealistically easy shifting for H-Gate shifters (mainly the preselecting)
- Stalling would also be a nice touch, as in some formula cars this would mean the end of your race

awsome <--- enuf said

Quote from AndroidXP :

^ Nah, this has been discussed years ago and it has been rejected back then as it is rejected now. I don't think it would have a positive enough effect to outweigh the negative ones.

Rejected by whom and on what grounds? I'm talking about individual servers implimenting the damage/points system and not the game as a whole.

I agree with the rest of your blurb though.

Well, by "the community" or at least by the majority of those who discussed it back then. Individual servers implementing that is no different than the current license systems floating around, so you're actually suggesting an enhancement of their detection code, no?

However, preventing repairs without credits is nothing that can accurately be done by insim, which means Scawen would have to integrate it as a whole, which again voids the point of "individual servers implementing it". Or maybe he'd have to add that functionality to insim, but this would become very cumbersome and IMO too complex then.

I would have thought it would be pretty easy to implement, as there are already servers that issue 'points' that aren't within the sim (i.e. STCC or whatever is is now called).

When you join the sever, it creates an account for you with say 1000 credits.
Credits are added to your account from results (and perhaps slowly over time), and deducted based on the level of damage as you cross the line. That last bit may be the hard part.

Then again, I'm no script kiddy, so maybe this is all harder than I think.

It would just end up being annoying. Waiting is no fun, especially when computer can't determine who caused the crash and everyone involved would have to pay the cost.

While you can't prevent some fool punting you in the rear at T1, most crashes are as are avoidable to a certain extent. Or at least it's usually possible to take evasive action of some sort and perhaps lessen the impact.
The idea is to provide incentives for people to drive properly.

I agree that there would be incidents that annoy but as they say, that's motorsport.

Quote from farcar :

I agree that there would be incidents that annoy but as they say, that's motorsport.

Sure, but this is simracing. The goal in simracing is to provide a way to race and not have to worry about the annoying parts like spending time repairing your car after a crash.

It would rule! I'd also like to see radiator damage if you hit a stack of tyres knocked over by another racer. When a car infront of you crashes, too many people keep the gas down and charge through the accident. It'd be nice if they'd have a reason to slow down to avoid getting their front-end hit by the spun car or a gaggle of loose tyres for fear of breaking their radiator.

Quote from geeman1 :

The goal in simracing is to provide a way to race and not have to worry about the annoying parts like spending time repairing your car after a crash.

But you wouldn't have to do this at all. You could simply choose not to join this hypothetical server. Just like I choose not to drift or 'cruise'.

Quote from farcar :

But you wouldn't have to do this at all. You could simply choose not to join this hypothetical server. Just like I choose not to drift or 'cruise'.

Yeah. That's why no server hosts don't want to do this. People don't want this, so they wouldn't join servers like this. Do you now see why this idea has been rejected before?

Quote from geeman1 :

Yeah. That's why no server hosts don't want to do this. People don't want this, so they wouldn't join servers like this. Do you now see why this idea has been rejected before?

I'm not sure how you can speak for every racer and host in the community or on what basis you think the idea has already been 'rejected'. Was there an election?

It's not even possible yet because suspension/engine damage isn't realistic.

Quote from farcar :

I'm not sure how you can speak for every racer and host in the community or on what basis you think the idea has already been 'rejected'. Was there an election?

It has been discussed before few times already and the general opinion has been against it. I am just repeating the majoritys opinion here.

My last post on the damage/credit thing coz it's kinda boring, but I really doubt that the majority of racers have discussed this.

Sure it may have been rejected by posters in whatever forum topic it was bought up in previously (I have no reason not to believe you), but the 'majority' of everyone? Sheesh...

Quote from farcar :

The idea is to provide incentives for people to drive properly.

I look forward to dynamic racing lines, marbles on track, gravel and dirt contaminating track from offs and cars returning to the circiut, water and oil from crashes, dynamic weather i.e. rain, dry and varying temperatures etc. etc. in conjunction with engine and suspension damage

I would race on a server that encouraged "drive it like you own it" attitudes but not one based on credits as that favours the more active users if you seriously damaged your car you have to sit out 1 race I'd be for that

@ others its not just credits he is talking about, credits was a sub thought to the main one of engine and suspension damage - so why focus so much on credits

Just if you want to read up on it a bit:
Credit idea (contains some other related links)
Mileage vs. Engine Damage vs. Credits???

Both threads are from 2005 btw.

Quote from farcar :

Sure it may have been rejected by posters in whatever forum topic it was bought up in previously (I have no reason not to believe you), but the 'majority' of everyone? Sheesh...

Well, sure no one has asked everyone in the LFS community. But I don't think it would make much of a difference because the opinions would probably be shared in similar ways anyway. Sure there might be a more individuals who want this, but still the majority wants just to race.
Sure it would be nice to ask everyones opinions on things, but sometimes we just have to settle with the people who are interested..

Quote from geeman1 :

Sure it would be nice to ask everyones opinions on things, but sometimes we just have to settle with the people who are interested..

Well even in the links Android posted I can see that most are interested in more realism, its only the credit system that was not wanted and Farcar is just dreaming of more realsim which I'd say is what the majority of people want in LFS.

But to keep all levels happy it would be good to have them all as server side options. So that a quick 5 lapper could still be like it is now, but other servers could be for more serious public racing.

Quote from Glenn67 :

Well even in the links Android posted I can see that most are interested in more realism, its only the credit system that was not wanted

I am not against more realism, I just don't like the credit system.

Quote :

But to keep all levels happy it would be good to have them all as server side options. So that a quick 5 lapper could still be like it is now, but other servers could be for more serious public racing.

This I don't like. The realism level should be the same on every server. IIRC like Scawen said somewhere that there is only one mode in LFS which is the hardcore mode (with some arcade features for usabilitys sake).