Racing hasnt changed at all.

Its the drivers who are changing. I totally agree with racery on the "old days" everyone knew everyone, i remeber watching in awe at the skill and how close the community was and the level of respect on and off the track, after getting S1

Now it seems to me, that we have a situation where the community is much larger and that closeness doesnt really shine as clearly as it did once, im not saying its better or worse. Its like living in a small village and then having new estates pop up everywhere, people bound to feel "out of place"
and that feeling of not being what it was. Too many voices makes it hard to hear whats being said.

What i notice the difference being mostly is lack of commitment, attitude and the most important, highlighted in bold earlier, respect in a slight majority of the "drop in" players on random servers.

Now servers, i have many gripes with the situation mentioned above (over 500 servers) and can you imagine them being all 75% or even 50% full at one point ? Only solution i came up with was one server per account/team (2 if team member count is over 16)

this is somthing i really think should be in a future version of LFS, Also having the ability to set a min distance traveled rule. e.g.

Server_A is set to 15,000Km : This would stop the new newbies from causing problems mentioned in this thread, im not sugestting that all servers have this, id just like to see this as a way of aleviating this issue and helping keep the experience and speed more progressive and banded together. I cant see why this hasnt been done yet

CTRA in a way is similiar to the concept above, helping the skill progression of LFS users imo with experience being the main thing (gaining points to race faster cars) btw becky while im on subject of CTRA , i really feel CTRA Race2 server should be one class only its bloody annoying to have UF1 with TBO and then also have it to swap to mixed GTR, it would be much much better to have One server for each One TBO and one GTR. (pretty please )

LFS needs a credit system Like in S1 if we want to stop the new customer from joining and stepping a BF1 or GTR and creating a mess for themselves and others.
And all this attacking the fast racers is just NOT ON
Most of the people posting in this Forum dont have the online experience or skill to say this at all imo.
Let me draw up a list of what i call Fast racers.

Worm, Jonesy, Eza, Hannu, Plaitcsys, Eckh1, Teaz-R, Pete20
Alles, Autopilot, Fin Skylark, Kraniwani, RudiTurbo, Sinbad, Sparkydave, Z0ic, St0rm, sidi, no_one

Theres more but thats just off top of my head as the best of the best
any of those guys mentioned above, i know im a prat sometimes on the track but i try to keep it clean, as do 90% or so of the "fast" racers. The amount of times ive seen a slower racer lose his temper, or a new racer just cause havock because he has no chance of competing, well i lost count .. now let me think how many times have i seen the fast guys lose their temper ..... mm actually a hell of a lot , but mostly with their car and performance, walls tend to be a target not other cars :P If a fast guy cant compete or has no competetion most will just leave to find it.

Anyway my point being Racing hasnt just changed, its just the racers.
And that has changed everything.

Quote from Rooble :

I don't really bother racing there any more because I've had my fair share of bad drivers ploughing into me, and of course this has nothing to do with the system but its also something it cannot save me from.

What he said ^

Quote from pine-fin :

An another incident (not on ctra)
One anonymous driver was 1-2 seconds faster than me. Still, he couldnt pass me because I drove a defensive line, and nailed all apexes before long straights. Yep, he was mad as hell allright. Driving a defensive line is not blocking is it? It is allowed to change racing line once and go back (though I didnt do this). He was faster than me, but still he cant pass me? And according to him, "I suck!"

Well, you sure are hard to pass when you are at it .
Thanks for the fights on CTRA1! To hell with points, what I'm looking for is close racing at my level (said politely beginner) and I find that easily on CTRA1.
As a bonus I also find fast guys who share advice and setups.
So yes I got S2 and jumped straight into CTRA1 server, and I find my learning curve there is pretty good and I have fun.
I also see no point in practicing offline after you get decent lines for a track, after all this is a racing sim.
Keep LFS welcoming for newbies or it will die...

The best thing that can be done against wrecker is a much harder punishing and realistic damage model from the developers.

I am looking forward to it very much.
It should be very extreme like if you hit someone with about 90-100kph your race is over, or things like cutted of wheels and lost wings and things like this. A big crash should always take you out.

This is by the way the most important thing LFS should improve on.
From that day on, people will realise that it is the first rule not to crash in some other if you want to go on in the race.
I think this should bring a complete new racing experience

Some of the draconian decisions I have witnessed during my time on the LFS servers have made the experience a little off putting. I am banned from RedLine for an incident I have no real recollection of, and the admins don't either. But I am 100% sure no swearing or wrecking was involved.

I think the time will come when you get professional servers, and pay to race. In my opinion this could be the future of sim racing, whether I think it should happen is another story.

I think a good damage model would provide enough self regulation for driving standards. Though If someone wanted to wreck they would be a lot more potent because they could literally DNF a ton of cars.

However the problem is that damage can decrease decisiveness. You will get racers so fearful of crashing at the start, that they will pose more danger than before. And you'll get guys like me exploiting this advantage, and then the complaints will start rolling in as per usual.

In my opinion a good damage model would provide harder racing, and even more action because I would know I could make wilder moves knowing someone would be less likely to turn in on me.....

I know some guys like procession racing, and they think damage modelling would help improve their situation, but it would just fuel me to be even more adventurous like IRL! lololol

Quote from Intrepid :

Some of the draconian decisions I have witnessed during my time on the LFS servers have made the experience a little off putting. I am banned from RedLine for an incident I have no real recollection of, and the admins don't either. But I am 100% sure no swearing or wrecking was involved.

I think the time will come when you get professional servers, and pay to race. In my opinion this could be the future of sim racing, whether I think it should happen is another story.

I think a good damage model would provide enough self regulation for driving standards. Though If someone wanted to wreck they would be a lot more potent because they could literally DNF a ton of cars.

However the problem is that damage can decrease decisiveness. You will get racers so fearful of crashing at the start, that they will pose more danger than before. And you'll get guys like me exploiting this advantage, and then the complaints will start rolling in as per usual.

In my opinion a good damage model would provide harder racing, and even more action because I would know I could make wilder moves knowing someone would be less likely to turn in on me.....

I know some guys like procession racing, and they think damage modelling would help improve their situation, but it would just fuel me to be even more adventurous like IRL! lololol

In rl you would not as you would fear for your life
If damage model is enhanced a racer (not wrecker) would be more careful as he would want to finish a race and not damage car in T1. Of course it is always a matter of interpreting situations. Adventurism is fine as long as it yields positions.

Quote from SpikeyMarcoD :

In rl you would not as you would fear for your life
If damage model is enhanced a racer (not wrecker) would be more careful as he would want to finish a race and not damage car in T1. Of course it is always a matter of interpreting situations. Adventurism is fine as long as it yields positions.

just ask ayrton senna 87 what i am like in real life, and that's in karts!!! if you cock up in karting u could end up on your head at 70mph!!!!! just look as this poor chap - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... ;mode=related&search= - i can't tell exactly what caused that crash but it looked as if he semi looked at overtaking and didn't make a comprehensive decision as to what to do. Indecision is one of the biggest factors in crashes

Ouch, that ones going to hurt all the way to the x-ray room. Looks like it was wheel on wheel.

Bear in mind that driving standards improve DRASTICALLY once drivers get out of gokarts and into cars.

I almost agree with you Tristan . It does depend on the level of the series, Go Karting is seen as entry level but does have its own national, european and world championship level series' too and standards are very high - even at the top of club level if you happen to be unlucky enough to race in the home series of a manufacturer or two (grrr!).

I can't help but go off topic here but....have you ever witnessed top European kart guys race, or even British guys Tristan? The standard is, in my opinion, higher in karting than in cars. Hence the reason McLaren F1 sign kart racers, and not car racers.... they look in karting for the very best standard of young driver. If the standard is so high in cars why did Schumi feel the need to compete in the 2001 World Championships against guys like Luizzi, Fore, Ardigo, Cesseti??? Is it not because he has huge respect for the standard of driving?

What about the standard of driving in the last DTM race, and what about BTCC???... and I have seen plenty of banditry in single seaters.

In cars the costs increases, not the standard. You also get greater distances between cars than in karting thus there is naturally less overtaking, and opportunity. In karting losing 2 tenths in a quali lap can be the difference between pole and 15th!

back on topic.... i forgot what we were talking about! lol

Quote from Intrepid :

If the standard is so high in cars why did Schumi feel the need to compete in the 2001 World Championships against guys like Luizzi, Fore, Ardigo, Cesseti??? Is it not because he has huge respect for the standard of driving?

... or is it because he wanted to learn some new dirty tricks? (Sorry for the sarcasm, but when talking about good clean racing, Schumi is not the first name I think of. Fast, yes, but not clean.)

Quote from Intrepid :

When I started racing as a kid it was crazy... karts would be going this way and that way... but the sooner you learnt how to deal with that, how to plan your starts, and how to be decisive my troubles went away. The biggest accident I was ever in was because I braked too early at the start and got a pile of karts hit me... it wasn't there fault... it was MINE

its no different in LFS

So true, I race karts also, I've never had a major crash or come even close...

You make your own luck. It will always be the same people in the accidents. It doesn't matter if they are fast or slow. If you can't race. You'll crash more often.

Quote from MAM_Racing_40 :

You make your own luck. It will always be the same people in the accidents. It doesn't matter if they are fast or slow. If you can't race. You'll crash more often.

Yeah, right. Senna crashed because he couldn't race. And so did Peterson, Rindt, Clark, Ascari, Rosemeyer, ...

well, he didn´t claim lack of skill was the only reason for somebody to crash, did he?

Quote from wsinda :

Yeah, right. Senna crashed because he couldn't race. And so did Peterson, Rindt, Clark, Ascari, Rosemeyer, ...

More often he said - Senna crashed a few times, but i bet if you put me in the same car i'd be in the wall a heck of a lot more...

he may have crashed a few times, but weighing that up against the times he destroyed the field it levels itself out

Quote from Biohazard :

well, he didn´t claim lack of skill was the only reason for somebody to crash, did he?

As I read it, his (and Intrepid's) stance is: if you crash it's your own fault; become a better driver, and you won't crash.

Quote from MAM_Racing_40 :

So true, I race karts also, I've never had a major crash or come even close...

You make your own luck. It will always be the same people in the accidents. It doesn't matter if they are fast or slow. If you can't race. You'll crash more often.

sometimes, there are things you can do to avoid an accident, even if everyone else on the track is an idiot.

I think it's fairly common knowledge that accidents can be caused by slowing down too early, or unneccessarily- if not the car that follows immediately behind, there is a ripple effect of people braking harder and harder (like on motorways).

It's all a case of keeping your actions predictable, and the best racing comes when the cars around you behave predictably also.

TBH I think the better drivers DO crash less often. Looking at the stats of some of the fast drivers on CTRA, they all have below average yellow flag %'s, with a lot of racers below 10%.

Whether thats because they are more aware of whats around them, or simply because they start ahead of the main pack is open to interpretation.

Sinbads got it right about predictability IMO. In the private servers where everyone knows each other, and have raced together many times, there are very few crashes. Theres more often than not some light contact(depending on car), but again its predictable and managable, most of the time
Public servers however it can be a different story, even the most aware and skillfull of drivers can still get taken out sometimes. although there are some here who can see the "very late braking divebombers" coming and will change their lines through turns to avoid them, in a kind of reverse switchback I suppose to some its like a game, within a sim, within this virtual world we all visit.

SD.

Quote from wsinda :

As I read it, his (and Intrepid's) stance is: if you crash it's your own fault; become a better driver, and you won't crash.

no, he said that if you are a bad driver you will crash more often.

you are saying that if you crash, that means you're a bad driver.

you can't just twist logic around like that.

Quote from Bean0 :

The thing with the CTRA race 1 server is that it has a higher proportion of new/learning drivers than most other servers.

yea thats why i go there

I don't bother with pickup racing these days. I haven't been on CTRA for a while which is a definite step up from pickup, but not perfect.

I only really drive races in leagues these days. The longer the race the better. If it's 75 mins plus then you generally get more circumspection in the first laps and you know most of the guys you drive with.

I love it. Racing has never been better.