And Bob with his setups analyzer (strictly not limited to LFS at all). Just a random name that springs to mind and should at least be in that community list as well.

There are a lot of well run LFS leagues out there, but apart form the obvious STCC league (the most professional in terms of the overall package) the GFC (Gentlefoot Challenge) is worth looking at as it is the only (as far as I'm aware) multi class Single Seater league in LFS.

EDIT:- Thanks Jakg for mentioning my name in 'the best' category. I'm flattered, but i think your confusing 'The Best' with 'The most addicted no-lifer'

I think Jack was suggesting that STCC is more spectator friendly, which is a fair comment, but as the show is aimed at sim racers I think MoE and any other league could have as much a place in it as any other series.

Quote from sidi :

Does that mean STCC has real tracks and cars or i'm i reading into this all wrong,had to ask incase i was missing out on something.

Imagine hearing that some guy called "Bill Bailey" driving a "ZYZ" at "West Mountain" beat some other guys from a team called "Lithium Racing". Not that interesting if it means nothing.

Imagine WATCHING him beat them - you've then actually got something to reference it against.

Quote from Bob Smith :

I don't think the moderators here were chosen wrong, but we are human and are sadly prone to making mistakes too.

FTR, I don't think I made a mistake, Bob. When I moved the thread to Off Topic (rather than the bin, which is where we normally move unsolicited and unrelated posts), the OP had still only made the one starting post in 10 hours. And I didn't bin it, I moved it to Off Topic - suitable for any conversation relating specifically to sim racing in environments other than LFS. My 2c (which I'd like to get exchanged, if anyone's willing to give me a good rate on small change)

Email sent.

Quote from DarinSRT :

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..

Getting started is quite easy, you can first read through the LfS Manual, take the training lessons or get racing right away... Once you feel confident enough, just join a server, pick-up racing is big in LfS and you'll find a good race 24/7... One word of warning though: The demo, especially the racing conduct of demo racers is sometimes appaling and in no way represents the quality of racing you get on S2 servers... If you advertise the fact that you're new to LfS or sim racing in general, it's not rare you'll get people helping you out with setups, driving tips and other advice (just don't disturb them while racing )...
If you fancy a league, the Original LfS League is a good place to start, it has about 80-150 starters every event, which race in pools, you'll most likely find a equally fast group of racers in there...

Quote from DarinSRT :

2) Who is the best in the LFS community

There is so much variety in LfS, it's impossible to answer that... There isn't one driver dominating, if you mean that... Next to the drivers in the ESL Pro-Series, there are quite many other drivers who are amazingly fast, best example the LX competition week, that ended just three weeks ago...
If I had to pick a "best", I'd have to say the devs... Their closeness to the community and the work they're putting out is truely unique, for that we can't thank them enough!

Quote from DarinSRT :

3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim

As mentioned, it's the only one which calculates the physics involved in racing rather than reads out values and interpolates the steps between them (or at least we guess so, little is known about the code)... It doesn't rely on canned effects like others, but calculates the forces and sends it to the hardware (steering wheel)... In addition, the wheel deformation is unique to LfS (I haven't heard of another sim that does it), and representing rubber as a flexible body is a big advantage when it comes to simulating real physics... All that makes for the (as most of us feel) only sim out there where you actually feel connected to the car, enabling you to know exactly what you've done wrong when things turn nasty...
Also, it's things like LfSWorld, the taking over of another car, the setup sending and the automatic skin download that tells us that somebody really cared and has thought about what could be important in a virtual racing environment...

I'll leave 4) out of this post, the most important leagues have been mentioned already...

Quote from DarinSRT :

5) Interviews with key people in your community

Obviously the devs, but also Vykos, Becky (and Sam), Kegetys, Don, Electric Kar, unseen and DaveWS are the main people that drove LfS to what it is today, but there are so many other people who contributed to the community just as passionate as those, you'll best click here for a better, more complete list...

(Becky and I haven't made LFS anything, we've just taken advantage of some of its fantastic features)

I can't really think of anything more to contribute that hasn't already been covered.

One thing that has been touched on, but could be expanded upon, is the brilliant data available that LFS brings to the table, due to the way the simulation physics are computed.

There are some tools available for extracting the data from LFS and examining it. For the purposes of setting up a simulated car, this data is a goldmine of information, and I'm absolutely sure that a good audience would get a lot from interviews with folk like Tod Wasson, or Bob Smith, or Tristan Cliffe.. all of whom have solid understanding of real-life automotive physics and how they translate to LFS and sim racing as a whole.

In fact, I'd kill for that.

Quote from SamH :

(Becky and I haven't made LFS anything, we've just taken advantage of some of its fantastic features)

Screw you and your modesty Sam!

I second that Becky, your shows are top notch ! I watched it last night and I was very impressed. I'd like to get you in the booth with us for a 12 hour race we're broadcasting live coming up this September 8th in rFactor. Interested ??

Quote from sidi :

Becky+Jakg i watched broadcast #7 and i think i know what was meant now,btw very nicely done and slick looking.

btw if you ever get bill bailey to race give me a shout i would love to see the after race interview.

Thanks Rooble for your post along with all the other great posts here and emails I've received since this thread started.. I can guarantee that you will see something Sim Racing Tonight on Live for Speed in Episode 2.

Other than my initial brush with the law over here , this community seems incredible.. I'm honestly considering picking up a license and testing these cars out..

The show reports on Nascar sims and I was involved in that community personally for many years because thats all there was.. Im a sim road racer and I must say that from what I've read in the past few days and have seen in the STCC shows, this is a hardcore sim racing community. If I hadn't gone the rFacotr route after running the Trans Am and GTP mods for NR2003, I'd proabably be right here in this community.

My passion is for Endurance racing online and I see that some 24 hour races are planned or have been run.. Besides wanting to report on it, Im interested in fielding a team.. I went to I believe the MoE and it looked a little dated..

Anyway.. sorry for the long winded post.. We hope you like what we have in store for episode 2 and beyond and that we accuately represent your community.. I know if we don't we'll hear about it..

Darin Gangi
Sim Racing Tonight

Quote from Rooble :

1.
Most of the replies are pretty much the same here so there isn't much I could add to it, other then I'm almost certain getting stuck into LFS is a whole lot easier then other sims. I haven't purchased a licence for rFactor but I've heard and read enough to make me not do so, seems the general deal with rFactor is the lack of pick up and play option - as well as all the content mismatch issues.

2.
We already have a star that's progressed into real racing purely because of LFS, his name is Norbi Kiss and is just as fast on a virtual track as he is on a real track - Google his name and I'm sure you'll find some more information on him. There are also plenty of top teams, most of which are currently competing in a league called BoTT (Battle of The Teams - http://www.lfsforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=79) Although this will never ultimately decide who the best team is, you'll get a pretty good idea from the results.

3.
Each to their own for this one really, I'm sure if I started on rFactor before I found LFS Id be other there now. However driving fast isn't difficult in my opinion once you've understood the laws of physics, and with other sims I just found they didn't replicate those laws well and that made the sim too alien from the real life counterpart - which made it difficult to drive.

4.
LFS has loads of different leagues for all types of racing, It all depends on what you want to do and how serious you want to take it. We have huge leagues like the MoE (Masters of Endurance) which also has its own Live Stream and commentary (even on the 24hr events :tilt The OLFSL (Original LFS League) has been running for aeons, it also allows for pick up and play. ESCC Which all the top drivers from the top teams attend, League of the Americas, BoTT - List goes on and on.

5.
Someone with less then 1000 Miles.
Someone with more then 25,000 Miles.
Someone with more then 55,000 Miles.
Scawen.

With that you'll get a good mix of opinions and ideas and such from all types of players from 'newbie' to 'just settled' and to the 'old farts' who have been playing long before Scawen was born. Round it off with a technical insight from Scawen as well as any information on the ideas and plans for LFS.

Quote from DarinSRT :

I second that Becky, your shows are top notch ! I watched it last night and I was very impressed. I'd like to get you in the booth with us for a 12 hour race we're broadcasting live coming up this September 8th in rFactor. Interested ??

Unfortunately the nature of the commitments i've already made do tend to leave me with a really long to do list at the best of times.

Thank you for the offer, I am extremely busy over these next few weeks and dont think I could take enough time out to research the drivers, especially as a race that long will have quite a few of them (60 odd?) to learn about.

What do you want a cranky old Fenlands bint like me for anyway...

Quote from Becky Rose :

What do you want a cranky old Fenlands bint like me for anyway...

Now now Becky , they can definitely use u for your idea's and let u do some commenting...Then put some soft voiced, good looking girl in front of the camera and let her do the intro's and outro's. Maybe even have her dub over your comments so the less informed think that girl is u..how's that for an upside!

With TinyK being american and an active DSRC member/admin they might even find the perfect female presenter within LFS itself?

LMAO! Oooh, harsh!

Much has already been posted. I just wanted to add for these points which hasn't been mentioned. Though, it is a bit old news by now.....
2) Who is the best in the LFS community
4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.

You want the best, you've got the best! The hottest racers of LFS!

Bawbag of the Mercury team (correct?) and Racin Jason of CoRe. Why are they the best? They were the winners of the 3 weeks of LX autocross competition held by the developers themselves, netting in the prizes of a TrackIR system, Triple Head2Go, and a Logitech G25.

See link as #4 pointing you to "leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community". I think the LX competitions were newsworthy.

http://competition.lfs.net/lx_autox/

There are several others I'd add to the best list, but hell yeah, Ray and Jason are definitely among the cream of the crop.

You'd be great for the show ! There's actually 40+ teams with 2-5 drivers each.. So minimum of 80 drivers.. Probably closer to 100..

Actually.. We have bios on a lot of the drivers on our site, we have live timing and scoring so it's actually pretty easy to follow.. You're a natural so you could pick it up in a second !

It'd be great to have you as a guest for even one hour of the 12.. It's dual class LeMans Series style racing.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Unfortunately the nature of the commitments i've already made do tend to leave me with a really long to do list at the best of times.

Thank you for the offer, I am extremely busy over these next few weeks and dont think I could take enough time out to research the drivers, especially as a race that long will have quite a few of them (60 odd?) to learn about.

What do you want a cranky old Fenlands bint like me for anyway...

More great info KartRacer! THanks !

I loaded up the demo and went through a bunch of the training stuff.. Took me a few to get my TSW set up.. I really want to check this out with Force Feedback.

Anyway.. I recall trying a very early version of LFS and had trouble setting up my wheel so I didn't get far.

Now that I have, I can see why you all feel these are the most realistic physics. The cars react like they should from what I can tell so far and Im just in the demo.

Off to do more testing..

Quote from KartRacer :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_for_Speed

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..
Try the demo, get used to the physics. Purchase S2, get familiar with the cars and tracks. Join a server, watch the leaders drive (the net code is what sets LFS apart, online races look just like offline races, the cars move "correctly.") There isn't any funky bouncing around and floating. Comparing lap times with the replays that are downloadable on lfsworld.net is the best way to improve your driving. Every submitted time is available for download! Search the forums for information on driving,setups,skins,leagues and different textures and sounds, for setups search the forum or visit the inferno setup field website (tons of WR sets.)

2) Who is the best in the LFS community
-The dev's (they listen! consistently here on the forums)
-Becky Rose (race coverage and the CTRA servers)
-Servers; CTRA,Redline Racing(not to be confused with the other redline team)
-Drivers; there are TONS of fast guys, hot-lappers and league racers alike.
3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim
The feel. From the amazing force feedback to the visual tire deformation LFS looks and feels more realistic than most sims with real cars and real tracks! The physics might not be perfect number-wise as of yet, but S2 hasn't even been finished yet!
Rallycross and drifting are possible by just changing settings, no mod's and inconsistent track addon's along with the lack of too many poorly done mod's make it easy to race online and it makes it more fun!

4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.
http://www.lfsforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=22
CTRA&STCC

5) Interviews with key people in your community
-The dev's
-Drivers who used to race other sim's but now enjoy LFS the most
-Top hotlappers (lfsworld.net)
- League winners
-Some guy online

Quote :

3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim

It's easily the most realistic sim in terms of feel. As mentioned earlier, the force feedback is incredible. It's the only sim, apart from NR2003 or maybe GPL, where you can think the car is actually on the track. It's kind of hard to explain, but in most other 'sims' the car feels like it's floating or gliding over the track. In LFS, it's like they are in one big environment, and I'm sure that's down to the amazing tyre physics. Realism isn't just having bits fall off the cars or having the Nurburgring, it's about feeling like a real car, and this is the best effort at realism in the sim racing world.

As for being the best sim, I think that's down to the community. With things like the STCC, where you're guaranteed to get a race at any time of the day, it's easy to just pick up and play. With 3 classes of racing, all very different styles, and tiered servers, there's something for everyone. It'll get even better, I'm sure, when 'Phase 2' comes in. Then there should be even more variety in the tracks.
I think the fact that the developers are a part of the community themselves is what really puts LFS above the rest. I had the pleasure of actually racing with Scawen during the X Patch tests, and that's something you'd never see anywhere else. The three devs make the community a part of the creation of the sim, allowing them to give feedback on the forum and suggest additions to make the sim better. Can you think of another sim where the creators listen to the customers?

Now if we don't see the "S2 Licensed" status under your nick within two days we'll boycott your show!

j/k

EDIT: and concerning the force feedback: be sure to set the centering force of your wheel on 0 in your wheel settings, because LfS calculates that force via the physics and forces that work on the tyres and steering. Thus, if you leave "centering spring" on, it'll somewhat cripple the response you get from the game.

Question 3 means:

Flamesuits on, flamer 1 - online, flamer 2 -online, all systems are go

For me number 3 is that with LFS I first time was able to feel the car, I did felt car had mass and it actually responded way I excepted it to do based on real life experiences with cars.

I don't feel there is much else with similar feeling out there, almost none I would say, but rFactor with realfeel plugin comes quite close, however sometimes it seem to be that car looses momentum there way I can't explain so LFS still feels best.

Quote from DarinSRT :

More great info KartRacer! THanks !

I loaded up the demo and went through a bunch of the training stuff.. Took me a few to get my TSW set up.. I really want to check this out with Force Feedback.

Anyway.. I recall trying a very early version of LFS and had trouble setting up my wheel so I didn't get far.

Now that I have, I can see why you all feel these are the most realistic physics. The cars react like they should from what I can tell so far and Im just in the demo.

Off to do more testing..

Resist, resist..... You are about to loose all free time you thought you had.

Maxim

To answer Q3

3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim

I would say I could live with many of the SIMs out there and I was heavily into GPL before switching to LFS. What ultimately attracts me to LFS is the fact that as long as I drive the more popular combinations, I can always find an online race. None of the other SIMs seem to offer that. What clearer indication can there be about why LFS is the best online racing sim than the fact that since LFS was released (someone can confirm how long this has been) that it can still boast the number of online players 24hours a day that it does? It doesn't matter how good the AI are in a a game, racing against them all week for a league race never matches the feeling of racing real people.

Maxim