LFS needs a "tow" option.

Instead of telepitting (and resetting your laps...great idea that is), have a simulated "tow" feature. No need to actually have a model of a towtruck, just instantly put me in the pits, and start a countdown. The time should be based on how long it would take to get from where you were on the track to the pits at, say, 25mph.

In long races, if you get wrecked in t1...you HAVE to pit. I've seen, and myself done this, people cause wrecks trying to drive back to the pits with busted rear suspension, only to have the diff kick in at the wrong time and turn me into the racing line. If its a 50+ lap race, I certainly dont want to retire at lap one...let us get back saftely (to other drivers) to pit lane and get repairs...it will help everyone, should be extremely easy to implement (telepit is already there, just do that with a timer, and dont reset my lap count). Once the timer runs down, your crew does the pit work, and you can rejoin the race...like real cars do after wrecks, because staying out 5 laps down, you might pass 10 people in a 50 lap race due to attrition...

?

Totally unrealistic to have a tow truck recover a car from the circuit back to the pits then allow it to rejoin the race. Does this actually happen in any real racing series? The closest I can think is that at Bathurst they used to let tow trucks in to recover cars from the gravel and put them back onto the track, but they didn't drive them back to the pits. In real racing if your car is too damaged to continue then you have to stop. It's mainly at the driver's discretion to decide if he/she thinks they can make it back to the pits, but the race officials would no doubt black flag/mechanical black flag any car which was seriously dangerous to other competitors.

-1

Well in a majority of real-life racing, a tow truck does usually pick up a damaged or completely immobile vehicle and bring it back to the pits, but if it's in bad enough condition it obviously has to be either time-consumingly repaired or retired altogether.

Maybe in some "LFS S2 - 'TV Edition'" thing there could be the option to watch a race like a real-life TV broadcast and see wrecked cars be towed back to the pits while the commentators are yappering away.

Actually, that wouldn't be so bad.. :P

Quote from Mithras :

Well in a majority of real-life racing, a tow truck does usually pick up a damaged or completely immobile vehicle and bring it back to the pits, but if it's in bad enough condition it obviously has to be either time-consumingly repaired or retired altogether.

Maybe in some "LFS S2 - 'TV Edition'" thing there could be the option to watch a race like a real-life TV broadcast and see wrecked cars be towed back to the pits while the commentators are yappering away.

Actually, that wouldn't be so bad.. :P

Yes, a tow truck does recover the cars back to the pits, but I'd be willing to bet that in the majority of cases the cars aren't brought back until the end of the current session and that the external assistance disqualifies them from taking part in the current session. This is the case in F1 AFAIK.

Quote from Mithras :

Well in a majority of real-life racing, a tow truck does usually pick up a damaged or completely immobile vehicle and bring it back to the pits, but if it's in bad enough condition it obviously has to be either time-consumingly repaired or retired altogether.

No if wrecked cars are removed from the track they are normally placed in the nearest safe place and taken back to the paddock after the race. Whilst the rules on assistance can vary slightly the vast majority of the time they are a variation of you can't get assistance to move a car unless it is in a dangerous place, otherwise you are automatically disqualified. Drivers can often brag their way to a small push out the gravel or have the kill switch turned back on because some idiot didn't put it in securely (which of course did not happen to one of our single seaters at the weekend) and occasionally maybe get a tow out the gravel, I seem to remember the works Audis managed that when they took each other out at Le Mans. What you don't see though is a tow all the way to the pits if they can't drive back then that's tough, cars run out of fuel so why should it be any different.

TBH though if your routinely having problems on the first lap you (or your fellow competitors) need to re-evaluate what an endurance race is about.

You're right, its much more realistic to have a car just disappear from the track...or to have damaged cars driving at 30-40 miles per hour around the entire track during green flag racing. Or better yet, in real life, new drivers are in a new car and restart on their first lap instantly after a wreck halfway through the race.

Its also hyper realistic to feel no g-forces, to allow people with no experience to drive what would be million dollar racing machines, to not have peripheral vision, to be able to see your tire temps in real time, to have a map showing you the position of every car on the track, to have to make all pit decisions on your own as a driver while driving at speed, to roll a car and continue near full speed, to clip a wall and flip violently 90 feet in the air... do I have to continue.

If you want realism, buy a racecar and get some seat time. This is a game. It's a simulator, but it's still, at it's core, a game. The point of the game is to have fun. Our "realism" is quite interesting in fake cars on fake tracks. Or when opponents jump back and forth 3 feet due to lag... Part of any good racing game/sim, its the ability to make concessions to adapt to the shortcomings it also presents.

Frankly, LFS is good, but I wouldnt call it a sim. In real life, if I shift from 6th to 1st at speed, my motor only works for about a 10th of a second. If people in real life hit the rumble stips as hard as most people do in lfs, they would blow a tire in a couple of laps. Real drivers wouldnt hit the steep rumble strips at some of the tracks in lfs, they are just too harsh. Open wheel cars dont have a problem when tires hit front to back like they do in real life... Brakes dont go soft in this game, ive ran 100 laps single player before and the brakes felt that same at lap 100 as they did at lap 1, nowhere near realistic...

I don't mean to insult you, but frankly, i've grown amazing tired and irritated at the realism zealots here who don't have a leg to stand on, honestly...

You're attacking me directly but you're not disagreeing with the point I made. I think that says it all really. If someone drives around the track at 30mph with a broken car then yellow flags will be shown for all approaching cars (as long as they're moving along at racing speed). Of course, you could say that's a little unrealistic as they should, depending on the series, be waving a white flag (or other?) for a slow car on the track, rather than yellow. Anyway, I digress...obviously totally unrealistic features should be implemented just because you get yourself involved in first lap incidents.

Quote from amp88 :

You're attacking me directly but you're not disagreeing with the point I made. I think that says it all really. If someone drives around the track at 30mph with a broken car then yellow flags will be shown for all approaching cars (as long as they're moving along at racing speed). Of course, you could say that's a little unrealistic as they should, depending on the series, be waving a white flag (or other?) for a slow car on the track, rather than yellow. Anyway, I digress...obviously totally unrealistic features should be implemented just because you get yourself involved in first lap incidents.

Usually the marshalls located before the scene of an incident and at the incident show a yellow flag, the white flag signals "Last Lap" in most series.

Quote from amp88 :

You're attacking me directly but you're not disagreeing with the point I made. I think that says it all really. If someone drives around the track at 30mph with a broken car then yellow flags will be shown for all approaching cars (as long as they're moving along at racing speed). Of course, you could say that's a little unrealistic as they should, depending on the series, be waving a white flag (or other?) for a slow car on the track, rather than yellow. Anyway, I digress...obviously totally unrealistic features should be implemented just because you get yourself involved in first lap incidents.

I wasn't attacking you directly, I was specifically attacking and disagreeing with your point...maybe your reading a different post? If you want me to attack you personally, I cant. I dont know you, all I know is your point of view on this. I think your point of view is both short-sided and narrow-minded, and fails to understand the environment and situation it applies to.

My point was, and is, that LFS is barely realistic as it is. Most "sims" are this way. If you want a -real- sim, see if you can drop by a boeing training center, for only a couple thousand dollars you can get an hour or so in a real sim. A real sim powered by a bank of high-end computers.

"just because you get yourself involved in first lap incidents." - If you want to try to insult me, man up and say what you want, don't hide behind your words. Frankly, I have been wrecked exactly once on the first lap. I swing wide and let them wreck to my inside...sometimes they don't wreck, and I lose time...but oh well. If you want, we can race, and we can see how many first lap incidents You "get yourself into." If you havent noticed, the people that generally get wrecked in T1 arent the ones that cause the wreck... However, in real life, as you seem to dearly attached to, real race-car drivers who are responsible for the damage they do to their cars (street cars) or are racing million dollar race cars dont generally have someone behind them that doesnt know how to drive.

As I said, compromise has to be made to balance out the shortcomings inherent in a game, especially an online game with people of different experience and connection quality.

Quote from h3adbang3r :

Usually the marshalls located before the scene of an incident and at the incident show a yellow flag, the white flag signals "Last Lap" in most series.

Not under FIA rules...

Quote from ajp71 :

Not under FIA rules...

Ok... Where did my brain go? :smash3d:

We don't need a tow truck. We need cranes around the circuit. When you get beached, run out of fuel, or have a severe crash/roll, your car should be lifted off the track and out of the race.

Quote from Gunn :

We don't need a tow truck. We need cranes around the circuit. When you get beached, run out of fuel, or have a severe crash/roll, your car should be lifted off the track and out of the race.

Nah nothing a bazooka can't sort out. We should also have people hiding in the mountains taking pot shots, would make it far more interesting.

+1 Spectators armed with weapons to take potshots at drivers :S

LFS: Death Rally edition? :P

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

+1 Spectators armed with weapons to take potshots at drivers :S

LFS: Death Rally edition? :P

*sarcasm on*
uuuw and lets have something to let random items fall down from the sky and crush the cars.
*sarcasm off*

Well a tow truck would be cool, but indeed to unrealistic

LFS do not need tow truck, it needs f-16 , tant t-80 and maby apachy ah-64 that would be cool

^ -1000000

LFS does not need choppers, Or tanks (tho tank racing can be cool)

DK

Quote from Mithras :

Well in a majority of real-life racing, a tow truck does usually pick up a damaged or completely immobile vehicle and bring it back to the pits, but if it's in bad enough condition it obviously has to be either time-consumingly repaired or retired altogether.

In a lot of championships if a driver gets help and they aren't in a dangerous position they are out. In essence, if you get lifted off the track your race is finished. For FPS a "show marshalls etc." option would be needed. Just show the car getting getting lifted over the barrier and disappearing.

Quote :

Maybe in some "LFS S2 - 'TV Edition'" thing there could be the option to watch a race like a real-life TV broadcast and see wrecked cars be towed back to the pits while the commentators are yappering away.

Good idea, I'll start a new thread about my LFS TV ideas later.

Quote :

<Flag meanings>

White flag is a slow moving race car or an ambulance or similar. Like a car with a tyre failure.

Quote from FIA International Sporting Code, Appendix H Art 4.1.2 E :

e) White flag:
This flag should be waved and is used to indicate to the driver
that there is a much slower vehicle on the sector of track
controlled by that flag point.

The white flag does not mean last lap outside of US national championships for 4 wheels. CART or whatever they are called this 15 minutes now use real flags IIRC. NASCAR and IRL use their own mutliated flags, for example the use of the black flag instead of black and black/orange, green flag instead of national flag for starts etc.

I'm checking the bike rules BTW.

EDIT : It means that riders may change motorcycles. Neither of them.

Quote from duke_toaster :

The white flag does not mean last lap outside of US national championships for 4 wheels. CART or whatever they are called this 15 minutes now use real flags IIRC. NASCAR and IRL use their own mutliated flags, for example the use of the black flag instead of black and black/orange, green flag instead of national flag for starts etc.

For gods sake can you please stop randomly bashing NASCAR, I know you obviously feel insecure about the possibility of some people enjoying something slightly different. Personally I feel it's a load of out of date machinery going round in sleep inducing circles but I don't have to randomly blurt out insults about it, please stop this stupid eTourettes business.

btw. CART do use a white flag to denote the last lap and BTCC sucks

Quote from ajp71 :

For gods sake can you please stop randomly bashing NASCAR,

For the last time I do not have anything against NASCAR at all - it's just the bizzare flag system that they use, as does CCWS.

Quote :

btw. ... BTCC sucks

And that isn't randomly bashing championships?

Quote from duke_toaster :

For the last time I do not have anything against NASCAR at all - it's just the bizzare flag system that they use, as does CCWS.

Well 'bizarre' and 'mutilated' kind of conjure up a slightly more negative image than 'alternative' and 'different'. It's a perfectly sensible system, neither is wrong or morally better than the other.

Quote :

And that isn't randomly bashing championships?

Want a biscuit?

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

FIA seems to be the one varying the most.

Frankly, most series originiated in different countries...its not suprising they have different flag systems...

For me people telepitting spoils the realism when racing. I would like to see cars that are too badly damaged or stuck in the gravel remain at the trackside until the end of the race. Drivers could loose "direct" control of their cars if too badly damaged and the game "pull" them to safety along side the barriers (simulated marshals). If this means yellow flags on a section of circuit for the duration of a race, so be it. Too many cars off at one point, red flag the race. As someone else mentioned we also need a waved white flag to warn of cars limping back to the pits.

Off the wall suggestion (similar to original post) - what about imaginary service roads/tunnels/bridges around the circuits and calculate how far away from the pits someone has crashed. Then make them "button bash" (track and field style) their way back back to the pits before they can start racing again.

Hmm I don't think putting tow trucks into LFS would be a good idea. Why?

Quote from NigelY :

Off the wall suggestion (similar to original post) - what about imaginary service roads/tunnels/bridges around the circuits and calculate how far away from the pits someone has crashed. Then make them "button bash" (track and field style) their way back back to the pits before they can start racing again.

Well in reality anything that goes off the track on a service road is so unlikely to ever re-enter the race, although some teams like Audi are absolutely hell bent on getting whatever is left back to the pits even if it's obvious to everyone that with a big chunk of tub, a wheel missing or the fact it's a huge fireball means it is unlikely to be repairable even in an endurance race. If you can't limp back to the pits that is absolutely it IMO you're out end of story, doesn't matter if it's a 24 hour race that's an accurateish simulation of reality.

If you were to take an alternate route back to pits you'd have to get the car off track and out of danger without assistance then you may be able to get your crew to assist the car back to the pits, but it just would never be a sensible option.

The other thing I'd like to see is proper gravel traps, forget about a damage model if you just couldn't get out of gravel traps, and better still they were anything but flat and had the potential to send you into a roll or dig. Simply modeling the gravel traps like the super bumpy traps at FE Green would be a huge improvement, something has to be done to create a surface that has different deceleration and acceleration properties, I see no reason why a hard surface with a few neatly timed sound effects couldn't offer a pretty realistic gravel trap experience, OK not physics based but what does it matter because IRL a gravel trap normally marks the end of a race, nobody normally attempts to get out of a gravel trap because it's a lost cause.