Signed.

Quote from Crash Dummy :

Australian V8 Super cars also run a locked differential. That's Australia's biggest racing series!

They actually use a spooler locking diff, which gives full locking under acceleration and open diff under coast. So quite different from a complete locked diff.

Comments I've read on them specifically are "the diff being open when no throttle is applied allows safe turn in", "having full locking under power makes them difficult cars to turn in on high speed corners..." and "the spooler locking diffs mean that the drivers have to be very gentle on the throttle on exits from medium to slow corners due to understeer/snap oversteer"

Quote from Glenn67 :

They actually use a spooler locking diff, which gives full locking under acceleration and open diff under coast. So quite different from a complete locked diff.

Comments I've read on them specifically are "the diff being open when no throttle is applied allows safe turn in", "having full locking under power makes them difficult cars to turn in on high speed corners..." and "the spooler locking diffs mean that the drivers have to be very gentle on the throttle on exits from medium to slow corners"

In the US, those were affectionately known as "Detroit Lockers" I believe (someone correct me if that's wrong). Those were the first common type of locking diff for musclecars, so that your Chevelle etc didn't insist on invariably frying one tire, since the solid axle tries to rotate WITH the driveshaft, forcing one tire into the ground and releiving the other of a lot of weight.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I'll just sign for Anton, even though he's sleeping I know he won't mind.

Thanks! I'm in indeed. I dunno how much the petition will achieve though.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

I agree, the locked differential should be removed. It doesn't really exist in RL.

er the porsche 917 ran a locked diff for quite a long time and the 956 used it on occasions


mario andretti used a locked diff in the lotus 78 F1 car at some races in particular south africa in practice to counter the oversteer that resulted when they ran with no rear wing fitted in an attempt to compensate for the lack of power due to altitude*. he'd had experience of using them in US single seater racing.


* if your wondering it was about 2 secs a lap slower than with a rear wing

I sign there, but this is worthless if there is no upper preload limit in the clutch pach configuration (or am I completely wrong?)
And the clutch does heat very slowly in the latest patches, allowing flatshifting for 10 lap races on at least LX4, LX6, RAC (if you don't leave the clutch engaged during well executed SO6 end of straight spins ).

Quote from Crash Dummy :

Also locked diffs are sometimes used in circuit racing. In Australia the (i think) team Suzuki Swift GTI's used to run a locked diff on a front wheel drive car as there was no limited slip differential option AFAIK and it was faster then running an open diff.

I'd love to see some evidence of this. I've still yet to see any proof of a front wheel drive car with a locked diff that has actually seriously been circuit raced, let alone successful so excuse my cynicism.

Quote :

Australian V8 Super cars also run a locked differential. That's Australia's biggest racing series!

No they don't. They run locking differentials, which are completely different.

Quote from tinvek :

er the porsche 917 ran a locked diff for quite a long time and the 956 used it on occasions

You're looking at cars which had fundamental handling issues that were able to cruise to victory for years by being by far the fastest reliable cars, the fact that in reality they just understeered and understeered some more didn't really matter in a 24 hour race with no real opposition running LSDs. Currently in LFS we don't have any 800bhp turbo cars with fundamental design flaws so the addition of the locked diff is pointless and shouldn't be faster.

Quote from chanoman315 :

i dont want to read that thread cuz i dont understand a word of technical issues of cars, but i know that locked diffs help me to be fast with XFR

At the moment you HAVE to use the locked diff to be truly competitive (although I'm sure the aliens with a clutch pack could still beat 99% of players like me). Without the option for locked diff, EVERYONE would be slower (slightly), but have sensible handling and behaviour.

Signed. Was a locked diff user myself.

I have started to make setups with the clutch pack now that i actually know what it does and how to use it.

I am with BBT >:gt:lol

Well, personally i dont use locked diffs, but i want them to stay.

I would like setup options to be seriously more limited, especially in road cars, but getting rid of the locked diff is pointless, as you can adjust a clutch pack with massive preload to behave just like a locked diff.

stupid idea, locked diff is there to show that it is better to use a lsd. If the lsd are so crap that even a locked diff. is quicker, this is a matter of physics that has to be solved by coding it (the availbale lsd).

Quote from DaveWS :

I would like setup options to be seriously more limited, especially in road cars

+1 for that Dave

As for the locked diff, maybe not removed per say, but it shouldn't be anywhere near as quick in curcuit racing as it is.

I don't want the locked diff gone. As mentioned, it's useful for drifting and drag racing, and on rally tracks too (but we don't have any of those, only rallycross). I'd rather the physics reach a stage where locked diffs are actually bad when used outside the previously mentioned situations. And yes, pre-load can be set too high anyway, but so can springs and dampers, so at least it's consistent. Since the wing angles have been altered, perhaps it shows Scawen is willing to recosnider some of the limits. I don't think you'll get anything in this patch though, it's just too late in the day. Hopefully for S2 final though.

actually the setup options limitation should be pretty easy on the coding side, so I wonder why is it not being worked on, since the general views seems to be that we all want realistic setup options?

Maybe no one have yet figured out what sort of limitation is "realistic" to start with? like basic front/rear spring frequency relation and optimal damping?

Well if Scawen ever wants an opinion on it, I'm sure between us we can sort out some more sensible limits.

Yeah, the finite adjustment of pretty much everything in road cars needs to go for a start.

Fixed gear ratios
Fixed diff settings
etc etc

The trouble is deciding where to draw the line. Enthusiasts often swap parts or change settings. I think someone has pointed out an example of any setting that we have in LFS being changed on various car forums. Gear ratios being the only thing I can't imagine being changed, although final drive could well be on RWD cars.

Quote from Bob Smith :

The trouble is deciding where to draw the line. Enthusiasts often swap parts or change settings. I think someone has pointed out an example of any setting that we have in LFS being changed on various car forums. Gear ratios being the only thing I can't imagine being changed, although final drive could well be on RWD cars.

Firstly you can take the limitations imposed by real series as a baseline, then look at the kind of things people do in real life. It's not even so much the range just the precision of the step size that's silly. IRL you can probably get final drive ratios to cover the useable range for a particular gear set, the difference is you'll have a maximum of 3 maybe 4 final drive ratios, not several hundred increments.

The easiest solution to that is to only pick the number of teeth you want for each gear and have the gear ratios calculated. It's the only way to improve the situation realistically.

^ I agree. I think many more settings should have the actual physical properties changeable, not the result. Gear ratios, ramp angles, damper settings, etc. should all be changed to use the "unit" of what you actually change in real life. Maybe depending on car too, so the XFG would only allow setting the damper from "1" to "3" or something, while the BF1 damper would have much higher adjustability.

This alone would give LFS a much more serious look and reduce the amount of ridiculous setup configurations considerably.

Meh,I would sign this but patch Y has already been released

Agreed, to an extent. It's not sensible to be picking spring diameters and number of coils, the effect is fine there, with dampers it's the same deal and I'd much prefer for units to be kept. The only reason (I can think of) that real dampers use a simple numbering scale is that a) it keeps it really simple b) damper response is certainly not linear like LFS dampers.

This thread is obsolete now

I think that it is just good that LFS is not being developed in democracy as us muppets certainly don't know which is good for LFS and at which stage, of course we can wish pink elephants too, but I think it is better that those would not come into LFS

In future, there is perhaps lot more limiting to setups and things that bring LFS more realistic at some point locked diffs surely will receive what is coming up for them. Meanwhile it is perhaps after all good that those are there, those can be used as fault detectors and bringing up issues in physics wise, which perhaps can lead further improvement of engine.

What about rallyx hybrids on the back of a road-racing fwd car? Surely that should have been booted out a long time ago.