I know this is not the frist thread on the subject but the point keeps getting lost. Damage was added to S2 to reduce the ammount of wall riding and wreching we see while racing. To some degree it worked. But we have grown use to the damage system and I feel its time for bark to gain some teeth.

Crashing needs to become painful to the point where it becomes feared. Whether that means no warping to the pits, no restarting, no rejoing a race in progress, reduced repair ability in the pits, etc. The only way people will start to drive within their abilities and not constantly pushing the very edge is to make exceeding that edge have potentialy hard penalties. People right now are always trying to attack every corner, braking zone, passing oppertunity etc, with no room for error. This is what leads to most of the wrecks and restart requests.

So until the devs can make it more painful its up to us to do so and we have few tools to accomplish this with. The only way I can see to address this now is to setup some servers in the comunity that do not allow restarts, mid race joinging and are runnng long races. Its either that or we will have to just deal with the restarts and the first corner = win mentality that exists in almost all short races.

I was just thinking this myself.

While comparing real world track days to this game. The difference is you really don't want to damage your car . If the same caution could be put into people in the game, it would be one step closer to a true sim.

there is another thread dealing with the restarts side of things in the improvements section.

but i think you are right about the limiting of the ammount of damage a car can take, and how much can be repaired.

however, i am sure you remember the devs saying that this damage model is very basic and was soley implemented to eliminate wall riding my allowing suspension damage.

therefore, i am pretty sure that the type of damage you are requesting will be implemented along the way.

Race weekends. For some cars you only get one per weekend, others you get two (say the Formula cars and the GTR cars). If you crash you might be able to repair it, but you might miss a session. Some stuff irrepairable in the weekend, so you're out until a restart weekend vote.

Same with changing setups - no nipping into the pits in qually to change your gear ratio's or whatnot, make it take time.

Would be brilliant. And if server configurable (within limits), then the 'fun' races won't be compromised too much.

I bet Scawen's already thought of it though...

its pretty hard to put fear into a video game.

Quote from Gimpster :

I know this is not the frist thread on the subject but the point keeps getting lost. Damage was added to S2 to reduce the ammount of wall riding and wreching we see while racing. To some degree it worked. But we have grown use to the damage system and I feel its time for bark to gain some teeth.

Crashing needs to become painful to the point where it becomes feared. Whether that means no warping to the pits, no restarting, no rejoing a race in progress, reduced repair ability in the pits, etc. The only way people will start to drive within their abilities and not constantly pushing the very edge is to make exceeding that edge have potentialy hard penalties. People right now are always trying to attack every corner, braking zone, passing oppertunity etc, with no room for error. This is what leads to most of the wrecks and restart requests.

So until the devs can make it more painful its up to us to do so and we have few tools to accomplish this with. The only way I can see to address this now is to setup some servers in the comunity that do not allow restarts, mid race joinging and are runnng long races. Its either that or we will have to just deal with the restarts and the first corner = win mentality that exists in almost all short races.

:iagree:

I don't disagree with your suggestion, but I don't drive in a racing simulation to drive like I do IRL, I drive in a sim to push my limits that bit further, and as skill goes, I push that bit harder too. A better damage model that is maybe more realistic would be very nice, but there's a point where you have to realise LFS can't be a perfect sim, like being able to warp to pits, if you couldn't do this I think it would take away from the gameplay more than it would add.

Problems arise when people don't know their limit, and this first corner mentality like you say. I would like to have a damage model in LFS where I have to care about the car (in particular engine damage) more so than now, but how it is now isn't that bad. Take the UF1 around SO classic, you start to fear clipping the walls as you go through the chicane and in T1.

Instead of points for winning, it could be cash. Then if you scratch your paint online it won't get repaired until you pay for it. Same with damage Although then it would be a simulated pc version of Gran Turismo, I wouldn't mind that!

Heh three posts at the same time.

Short races are really the source of people racing in hotlap mode, i've never ever been on a south city / fox / <=10 laps server where even the fastest most experienced racers actually put completing the race reasonably safe as a priority, instead they're in hotlap-pb-limit-n-then-some mode, and crash badly every 2-3 races or so.

That said, even in demo i could see xrt hotlappers transforming into safe driving tyre hugging racers, as the laps were pushed into the 20-30's.

I do however also agree that crashing should be feared even in a 3-lap race.

7 posts while i was writing this, i'm so slow

Quote from Vendetta :

its pretty hard to put fear into a video game.

A FF effect wich destroys your Wheel maybe?
That would take some time to get fixed.

The problem with long-public races is that the no restart tingie will stop after 60 seconds, so when youre on lap 12 of 15 the race just might be restarted. Which is veeery frustrating.

I like the idea very much. It's kinda dumb how people play the game when you think of it. Everybody wants it to be the perfect sim, but when someone crashes, you have to zap yourself to the pits as fast as possible, so the crash isn't noticable for other players illepall If you want it to be real, avoid the crash like it was real. Honestly, how many people actually slow down when the yellow flag comes up?

Well, I don't. But atleast I'm prepared that there might be an obstacle on the track, activating my subconscious escape-route-search routine.

Quote from MyBoss :

The problem with long-public races is that the no restart tingie will stop after 60 seconds, so when youre on lap 12 of 15 the race just might be restarted. Which is veeery frustrating.

The no restart thingie is a configurable setting, you can set it to a week of no restarts if you want to

I don't think the mid-race join causes really troubles. It's the people who join mid-race, don't obey blue flags and vote for restart every time they spin.

But it's always the same thing with longer online races. There are people coming in and going out all the time and waiting 30 minutes or more for the race starts isn't really going to attract people on any server. I think the optimum race length for random online races is something between 20 and 35 minutes.

I don't know why the forced pitstops aren't more common on more servers because it shortens the gap between slower and faster drivers!?

Quote from filur :

The no restart thingie is a configurable setting, you can set it to a week of no restarts if you want to

aite, I thought it only lasted either 30 secs or 60 secs

If you crash hard enough, LFS should permanently disable your user account and irreversibly uninstall itself from your system. Since they already have your credit card information, they should clear out your credit card account. And hire someone to go around and kick your dog.

Ya the only thing that came to mind for me was the money idea, but I wouldn't enjoy that. I play LFS to race, not to manage my money. Thats why I have a manager

Quote from Hyperactive :

I don't know why the forced pitstops aren't more common on more servers because it shortens the gap between slower and faster drivers!?

When I host private servers for mates, we always have forced pit stops. It adds way more tension to the game

Quote from BuddhaBing :

If you crash hard enough, LFS should permanently disable your user account and irreversibly uninstall itself from your system. Since they already have your credit card information, they should clear out your credit card account. And hire someone to go around and kick your dog.

Best suggestion yet
I love this game, I really do, and the current damage model is great (if a little wacky), but what I'd really like to see is wheels coming off (especially for the Single seaters). But engine and gearbox damage would be good as well.

If you crash, it should take relatively the same time to fix your car as it would in real life. Flat tire - almost a lap. Damaged suspension 5-10 laps.
Flipping over and taking out 3 other cars - race over.

The 'laps' could be percentage of race, so 5 or 500 laps, you still get
an equivilent penalty.

You should also be able to use duck tape, and wander around in 4th gear.
And throw your helmet through someone's windshield.
And make free long distance phone calls.
And drink O.J. out of a carton.

(yes, I call it DUCK tape)

All good suggestions

I don't think how it is at the moment is necessarily bad though, it would just be nice if you could set up a server to be more real and then encourage drivers to drive within there limits abit more on those servers, but still have your standard servers also. That way we get the best of both worlds.

I do get tired of racing against guys that often are very fast but crash out of every 3rd race or so (and their the good ones) because they just push too hard. And quite often look for longer races for that reason. So to get that same mentality of longer races into the shorter ones (20-30min) would be a great feature for some servers. I would definately frequent such a server

I'd suggest we need more realistic crashes before we worry about more realistic damage... clipping the pit bay exit at 5km/h in real life doesn't launch you skyward, end over end

Quote from Flycantbird :

(yes, I call it DUCK tape)

Good, because it IS duck tape! There's no better way to make running repairs to your duck...or fasten two or more ducks together.