There's already a few topics on this, but I thought I'd make one in the GD to guarantee the devs see it.
Because as far as I can tell, it's a really simple addition that everyone could use right now as a stopgap till the cars are fine tuned, which isn't happening tomorrow.

It would be appliable to either specific cars, or specific drivers, to serve both car class handicap, and league/alien purposes.

ballast is one of the most stupid ideas in motorsport, why the hell would you want it in a sim

/me adds ballast to kidcodea

What is this "ballast"?

stupid or not it should be added sooner or later for the exact reason it exists in real life in some series.
therefore as option for any host, and as fixed for series that use it irl.

u can use girls on backseat as ballast also but i would give them a different use.

Quote from KiDCoDEa :

stupid or not it should be added sooner or later for the exact reason it exists in real life in some series.
therefore as option for any host, and as fixed for series that use it irl.

i agree.

although it might seem nicer to have more balanced cars, that isnt really realistic. ballast would be able to balance the cars, and also balance out different racers in a tournament to maybe mix it up a bit.

btcc use ballast, but im not sure what the rules are as to how it is applied and how much is used.

im sure it is a future feature that the devs have considered anyway.

Oh, you mean weight penalties What a weird name for that... It could be added because its used in real life, just like Kid said

You would want it because there's a demand for it.
It would already be useful in more than a few circumstances, and definitely by more than a few players. Probably by some leagues, to some extent.

It would be an option, and you wouldn't be affected by it if you didn't want to be.

I'm trying to remember, but doesn't some of the GT series (Aussie super cars maybe?) use ballast to even up the field after each race? It does mix things up a bit and encourage more passing, etc.

How about a server setting to add ballast to the winner? This might work really well for sequences of short races where everyone restarts after the race. We can even remove added ballast if you start losing...

Alternatively, there could be a server setting to fetch the WR information and do some handicapping on that basis.

V8 Supercars is what I think you mean, and they don't use ballast. However, on a day when there are two sprint races, they'll use the reverse grid system - that is, the finishing order of the first race is reversed to make the grid for the second race, IIRC. As you could imagine this makes things very difficult for the faster guys who then have to carve their way through the field for the whole race. Great to watch

I can't think of a race series down here that uses ballast, but that doesn't mean there isn't one..

You can do it now, have a serries of short races (5 laps), and the winner of each race has to take on a girl the first one to get a full load of girls wins the serries have done it a few times and its a real blast, it is commonly refered to as "a hoe down" around these parts

I'm not overly in favour of a ballast system, how would you implement it? I think it would be hard to police and easy to hack it would also reduce the efficiency of the ip packet traffic which is one of LFS better points... it's very effiecient net code

Quote from RichardTowler :

ballast is one of the most stupid ideas in motorsport, why the hell would you want it in a sim

Because it simulates real life motorsport . . . . However stupid it may be.

Quote from KiDCoDEa :

u can use girls on backseat as ballast also but i would give them a different use.

Just what I was about to mention

I've seen some people use ballast on the LX cars so they have equal weight on the car, but erm.... more of a bad thing than helpful imo. Ballast would only be useful for oval racing imo.

Quote from Hankstar :

V8 Supercars is what I think you mean, and they don't use ballast. However, on a day when there are two sprint races, they'll use the reverse grid system - that is, the finishing order of the first race is reversed to make the grid for the second race, IIRC. As you could imagine this makes things very difficult for the faster guys who then have to carve their way through the field for the whole race. Great to watch

I can't think of a race series down here that uses ballast, but that doesn't mean there isn't one..

btcc...

Touring car series use it widely. WTCC, BTCC, DTM (okay, DTM is a prototype series, but they call it touring ). FIA GT also uses it.

Using the passengers is a bit much of ballast, they weigh what? 75 or 80kg? Depending on the series, 100kg is the max, in DTM it is even less (20kg). Besides, how do you put a passenger in a GTR car?

But want it just encourage people not to post there best times and always hold something in reserve I suspect that there is a number that already do that as they are waiting for the next major physics update before they go all out anyway

[edit]That could create some more interesting races though a guy who is actually faster doesn't try so hard in hotlaps and qual and therefore starts back in the grid slightly with no ballast or little and a guys that goes all out in qual get to cary 50kg of ballast and is on the front couple of rows well you get the idea will create some good action to watch as the guy back in the field comes through ...[/edit]

Quote from Jakg :

btcc...

<-- BTCC aint down here mate

It would be a serverside option, the same as if the server could restrict or impose tire choices for specific cars or players, the same as servers decide which cars are enabled or not.
Passengers as ballast depend on how many seats each car has, and affect the center of gravity.
I can't see it being hacked anymore than you can hack R1s for cars that don't have them now.

Sandbagging is a valid tactic and isn't a result of ballast. An independent and cumulative ballast for wins during a series of races fixes someone running away with wins.

A coefficient for the dry weight of the cars would work.

Most series use ballast in one way or another, even if its not regulated by the series officials. One of the reasons race team work to lower the car weight is so they can get the car under the minimum weight allowance for the category they race in, and then add ballast wherever they need it to better balance the car.

F1 has been doing this for years, and use incredibly heavy (read expensive) metals so they can locate the ballast with absolute precision.

Regardless, for what its worth, I dont think it has a place in LFS. Adding "success ballast" to guys who win alot just makes them more strategic in which races they want to win and which they dont. I dont beleive it lets others win, cause as they say, the cream always rises to the top.

Quote from Sapient :

... the cream always rises to the top ...

So does the scum

j/k

Sapient, so because you wouldn't use it, others can't have it?

Quote from Sapient :

Regardless, for what its worth, I dont think it has a place in LFS. Adding "success ballast" to guys who win alot just makes them more strategic in which races they want to win and which they dont. I dont beleive it lets others win, cause as they say, the cream always rises to the top.

i dont think you get the point. people are looking for ballast that can be used in leagues. if you have 10 races in the league you cant chose which races u "want" to win.
its not suitable for daily online races but it would work well in leagues imo.

It seems there's no reason not to have ballast, yet.

Players who don't want it wouldn't use it. Admins who don't want to see their public servers empty would not force ballast anymore than we now see them banning players without reason. League rules would only include ballast if enough of the participants agreed to the way it was used.

It would be good to have a column with +(mass) in the post race and qualifying results board.

Quote from nikimere :

i dont think you get the point. people are looking for ballast that can be used in leagues. if you have 10 races in the league you cant chose which races u "want" to win.
its not suitable for daily online races but it would work well in leagues imo.

My point is simple, ballast is a rather complicated means of evening up the field. From the limited league racing I have done, different classes seem to do an adequate job of it.
Besides, do we really need to artificially adjust the racing?

Quote from Sapient :

My point is simple, ballast is a rather complicated means of evening up the field. From the limited league racing I have done, different classes seem to do an adequate job of it.
Besides, do we really need to artificially adjust the racing?

Probably, in RL racing the field is a lot more even to begin with, everyone is a professional and still they use ballast. LFS leagues are more divided in terms of skills and speed even though being much more equal than in daily public server races. If any artificial adjusting is going to be used, wouldn't it be better if it once and for all was properly implemented using a complicated means rather than using a half-hearted solution?

Ballast in touring car racing series is used to even out the different car types... so in LFS, if a FZR wins in a series, the whole FZR would need ballast, not only the driver, cause else it would be a penalty for his skill, not the too fast car.