hello everyone, I just recently downloaded the demo and have been messing around in the game. I've played the tutorials as far as they go and tried some single player races. So far this game is really fun and I am definitely considering buying it for more cars and a chance to race online. However I do have some questions before I buy it, so here goes.

I have been looking for an extremely true to life race sim for a long time, with chances to tweak virtually every component of the car. I've noticed the ammount of tuning you can do, but is there any way to edit the engine horsepower, torque, etc? Also the game feels very real, but how does the physics in this game compare to some of the more mainstream games out now? Examples being TOCA Race Driver 3, Dirt, Forza 2(xbox i know).

The only thing that kind of turns me off is the lack of true to life cars in the game. I love racing in cars as close to the real thing as possible and it ruins the effect a little when I sit in a madeup car. Are there mods or anything that will let you change the looks of the car to something more real?

Speaking of mods, if I do end up buying the game. What mods would you guys recommend? As I said I enjoy tweaking with the cars physics as much as possible.

Thanks for helping me out!

Quote :

I've noticed the ammount of tuning you can do, but is there any way to edit the engine horsepower, torque, etc? Also the game feels very real, but how does the physics in this game compare to some of the more mainstream games out now? Examples being TOCA Race Driver 3, Dirt, Forza 2(xbox i know).

Currently, there is no way to increase baseline HP or torque. From what I've read, there are no plans to add such features.

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The only thing that kind of turns me off is the lack of true to life cars in the game. I love racing in cars as close to the real thing as possible and it ruins the effect a little when I sit in a madeup car. Are there mods or anything that will let you change the looks of the car to something more real?

Nope. The cars are the way they are because it would be to restricting to the development of the game to use mostly real-world counterparts in the sim. What I mean by that is, for example, if the game had a Mustang, Ford Motor Company might not want any damage modled onto their car, which in turn would make it silly to have damage on other cars in the game. This has happened in many games before, and it stinks. There are also no mods to change the cars appearance, but you can use 'skins' to give the car a new paint job. Search the forum on how to skin if you're interested.

As far as tweaks and other mods of that nature, those are pretty much all gone as well in this current version. LFStweak will let you change your HP and other aspects of the power of a car, but only in an older version (can't recall which one). That also means it can't be used online.

So, I hope that helps a bit

EDIT: LFS does have three real world cars by the way. The MRT, the BF1 Sauber and the Raceabout (RAC). You need to have a S2 license to access those cars though

Quote from h4nsm0l3m4n :

Also the game feels very real, but how does the physics in this game compare to some of the more mainstream games out now? Examples being TOCA Race Driver 3, Dirt, Forza 2(xbox i know).

You will of course need a force feedback controller to compare physics in any of these games with LFS. Having said that, LFS is more sophisticated and realistic than all of them. Hope to see you in S2 soon.

Although most of the cars are madeup, they're pretty much a little similar to their counterpart. Like the FZ50 is a madeup of Ferrari and Porsche combined. (Ahem I'm not saying that I'm cracker okay! I saw the picture and specs of it and they're pretty similar to the cars I'm talking about.)

Forza 2 is by most the most realistic game. It has great graphics and great realism. But LFS is the way to go by a 3-man developed game!

Although I won't be able to buy S2 forever until I am working which is 10 years away! I hope to see you joining the S2 group. Since 10 years later is long way to go, I think it should be either still S2 0.8 or something or maybe S3/S4... I'll still buy it and upgrade my computer.

Quote from hiroshima guy :

Forza 2 is by most the most realistic game. It has great graphics and great realism. But LFS is the way to go by a 3-man developed game!

...?

LFS is (imo) the most realistic game there is, last year it won "Best Game", "Best Multiplayer" and "Best Physics" on the top sim-racing awards - since then we've had new cars, better multiplayer and even better physics. LFS is also the only PC sim (except rFactor - but then they are mods, and most are absolute crap) with such a wide range of cars, which means you can race stuff from Mini's, to Saloons, Caterham's, Porsche-Alikes, Single Seaters, F1 Cars, GTR's.

TOCA and DiRT aren't even close to being Sims, and Forza is trying, but is still a bit Arcade.

Quote from h4nsm0l3m4n :

The only thing that kind of turns me off is the lack of true to life cars in the game. I love racing in cars as close to the real thing as possible and it ruins the effect a little when I sit in a madeup car. Are there mods or anything that will let you change the looks of the car to something more real?

The cars might not be real, but they aren't no ballistic rocket from Jupiter either, the cars are a lot like real cars, but to put a real car in would cost a LOT, and while a big company like SimBin can afford to put a few in, LFS can't - but cars like the XFG are a generic hatch, the FXO is the Vauxhall Asta Coupe, the XRT is the Mitsubishi Starion, the RAC, MRT and BF1 are all real cars.

When your in the cockpit, inches from other drivers rears dropping into a chicane i couldn't care more if the care in front isn't actually called an Astra but an FXO, all i care about is trying to get past :P

If you want to see what i mean, then watch this video - it's the broadcast of the "STCC" League, using Turbo'ed Saloons, the XRT, FXO and the RB4 (kinda like a stunted Supra). Who said you needed real cars for close racing?

LFS's main selling point is the online racing - with most other games more people play them, but most do it offline, with a few heading online for a league race - in LFS i see 65-odd servers at night (from the UK at least).

EDIT - Updated Link

Forget the fact it doesn't have "real" cars, and just enjoy the most realistic racing sim there is.

Quote from h4nsm0l3m4n :

So far this game is really fun and I am definitely considering buying it for more cars and a chance to race online.

You can race online with the demo version you know, lots of fun to be had.

That 44 minutes video is cool.

Just get some realistic skins, it's as best as it gets.

Welcome to the community. Buying LFS will be one of the best moves you ever make. No other racing game compares to it. If you've played Forza 2 then you're heading in the right direction, but you'll still get a shock when you step into the high powered cars in LFS!

And think of it this way - when you're sitting inside a car doing 160mph, what difference does it make what the outside of it looks like or what badge is on the front?

No offence but if you want things to be as close to real as possible and you'd like real cars because the made up ones take away some of that realness for you, why would you want mods to tweaks the physics which would totally remove every ounce of the realism that you crave?

I wouldn't buy this game if I were you, I don't think it's what you're looking for with the engine tweaks, body tweaks...physicis tweaks............I'm not trying to be mean but I wouldn't want to see you buy the game then make an improvement suggestion of "real cars" and "horsepower tweaks". This really isn't a main stream game, to make it more so it would remove what LFS is about.

Thanks for the replys guys. It definitely cemented my desire to buy this game... especially if most of you seem to say its even more realistic than forza.

I think I actually came off a little too strong in my last post in regard to the lack of "real" cars in the game. I definitely appreciate the "who cares if its not real when it acts realistic" opinion you guys are all pushing. I was merely saying it would be a little more fun (for me) if the cars were licensed, not that I had any actual problem with it.

As for,

Quote from garph :

No offence but if you want things to be as close to real as possible and you'd like real cars because the made up ones take away some of that realness for you, why would you want mods to tweaks the physics which would totally remove every ounce of the realism that you crave?

I can see how that wouldnt make sense to you, and off hand it does seem a little silly to me as well but let me see if I can make some sense out of it. What I am really looking for is a game which simulates a car to the highest degree possible. The reason I say I want "horsepower tweaks" and such is that I think it would be fun to mess with a car and seeing how it would behave. I still want all the physics in the game to be the same but I want the ability to simulate any kind of car I can come up with and have it behave for me as a real car would. Does that make any sense?

Quote from h4nsm0l3m4n :

I want the ability to simulate any kind of car I can come up with and have it behave for me as a real car would.

But surely they already do?

I can understand wanting to tweak the cars. I'm one of those guys who likes to tweak everything too. But in reality, I think what sets LFS back a little is that there are far too many adjustments. Some of the adjustments are unreal to the point of spinning your car if you change them a little.

Adding adjustments or tweaks to the engine/tranny, etc could only make the situation worse. Now, the question here is what do we want to spend our time doing, racing or engineering a car? So far what I have seen is that I spend far too much time with adjustments for the time I spend racing.

Let's be real. My racing team spends about one month tweaking the adjustments for one monthly race (and more than one guy testing the cars). How do you like that? I don't For that reason, we have a team "engineer" who scopes out the sets and the rest of us test the cars and report our findings to him. This is important on long endurance races where more than one driver gets a chance behind the same wheel.

But there should be a starting base that should not be modified to preserve equality among the racers. So far the developers have done well in restricting some features and that makes all of us equal when it comes to the track.

Don't get me wrong, there are many things I'd like to see changed in LFS, but it is by far the most exciting and realistic simulator when it comes to online multiplayer racing.

Buying and S2 license would be a good investment if you asked me.

Best regards,

Jim

A word of advice:
I missed a chance to get LFS back when S1 came out, and I'm still without a license... don't let that happen to you. Get it while you can.
If you love realistic racing, you *can't* get better than LFS.

... my join date clearly states how long it's been... :-/

Quote from Mravac Kid :

A word of advice:
I missed a chance to get LFS back when S1 came out, and I'm still without a license... don't let that happen to you. Get it while you can.
If you love realistic racing, you *can't* get better than LFS.

... my join date clearly states how long it's been... :-/

You could always get S2 now?