Hello everyone !

This is a (very) long post explaining my ideas on how to make the car class system in LFS better, freed and closer to real life. We will go through a lil explanation of how it is right now, what it lacks, the basic idea on what could be upgraded and finally precise and technical suggestions.
Have a good reading
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The car class system as it is right now:

1 : « Low specs low cost cars »
- UF1000 (53hp 1000cc I4 / FWD layout / 4 speed gearbox / 600 kilos / 94 bhp per ton)

2 : « Dynamic road cars »
- XF GTi (110hp 1300cc I4 / FWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 940 kilos / 124 bhp per ton)
- XR GT (140hp 1800cc I4 / RWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 1150 kilos / 124 bhp per ton)

3 : « Roadsters »
- LX4 (140hp 1300cc I4 / RWD layout / 6 speed gearbox / 499 kilos / 286 bhp per ton)

4 : « Sports version of road cars » or « Turbo’ed road cars »
- RB4 GT (243 hp 2000cc turbo I4 / AWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 1210 kilos / 204 bhp per ton)
- FXO Turbo(234 hp 1900cc turbo flat 4 / FWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 1136 kilos / 206 bhp per ton lfs says 210 but when you calculate, it makes 206)
- XR GT Turbo (247hp 2000cc turbo I4 / RWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 1223 kilos / 206 bhp per ton)
5 : « Performance built sport cars » or « LRF »
- Raceabout (245hp 2000cc turbo I4 / RWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 800 kilos / 311 bhp per ton)
- FZ50 (360hp 3600cc Flat 6 / RWD layout / 6 speed gearbox / 1380 kilos / 265 bhp per ton)
- LX6 (190hp 1800cc I6 / RWD layout / 6 speed gearbox / 539 kilos / 358 bhp per ton)

6 : « Mini GT »
- UFR (180hp 1400cc I4 / FWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 600 kilos / 304bhp per ton)
- XFR (230hp 2000cc I4 / FWD layout / 5 speed gearbox / 840 kilos / 279bhp per ton)
-
7 : « GTR »
- FXR (490hp 2000cc turbo Flat 4 / AWD layout / 6 speed gearbox / 1100 kilos / 453bhp per ton)
- XRR (490hp 2000cc turbo I4 / RWD layout / 6 speed gearbox / 1100 kilos / 453 bhp per ton)
- FZR (490hp 3600cc Flat 6 / RWD layout / 6 speed gearbox / 1100 kilos / 452bhp per ton)


My thoughts about this car class system:

It is quite exotic and diversified. It is a totally different experience to race with an UF1 than to race with a LRF or even an XRG. There is a good point of having pre-made classes, and pre-tuned cars à ready to drive, and you focus more on the handling tuning and skills than performance.

However, it is a very limited system. We are limited to a certain amount of combos. As well, usually a car is superior than another one in the same class (example : the XFG surpasses the XRG on all tracks, except long ones like BL1 or some AS, but that’s all). With this system, the importance of teamwork and tuning is very limited: There are usually one or two setups that pop up and end with the best times, and can make a bad driver go fast à This goes against the policy of LFS which insists on the importance of tuning, and differences in setups: as a result, every end up driving an Inferno or a Setupgrid setup.

In my opinion, what does this system lack? :

- Only a few tuning possibilities, which is really far from IRL race tuning : racing teams and racing engineers consider a car as a whole, and improvement in suspensions, wheels, tires or transmission go with engine or weight fine tuning. As a result, in the GT series for example (but it is better seen in F1), two cars on the same basis (let’s say a Saleen S7 Turbo) end up with very different results with the same engine (importance of handling tuning that LFS emphasizes on) or can have very similar results with completely different engines (importance of tuning as a hole, that LFS completely forgets).
- So, this ends up with a community life that makes a day look like another one : same series, same tracks, same cars, same challenges… Moreover (forgive me if I’ve mistaken), LFS doesn’t have yet an Insim app that can check if setups possess a certain number of specs (compulsory tire types, etc.) that leagues could impose as a rule for sprint, or endurance series. Then, community initiative and creation concerning events, leagues, type of motorsport tends to be very limited.

An abstract of my improvement suggestions for the revamp of the car class system:

In my humble opinion, there is a way to make the car class system in LFS closer to reality, and at the same time funnier to race with, more interesting for people who would like to specialize in car tuning (not ricer tuning, but making a car have more performance) and also that would give a boost to the community. In real life, it isn’t the car makers (LFS devs) that decide what are the car rules and restrictions for a league or an event. Is it the FIA (CTRA ) or local organizations (Westminster’s Side Car Cross Association) that defines rules and restrictions. Contestants (players) must then comply to the rules and tune their car to achieve the best performance while following their rules. This can go from engine tuning, to suspension tweaking, brakes, etc. If everything of these were allowed to players, and if LFS gave server hosts a mean to check if players followed and eventually have an automatic feature of forcespec or autokick/autoban (not a gameword ) if they didn’t comply to these rules. Server hosters may then create custom leagues, with different spec restrictions that are different from one another, and closer to what Real Life league organization is.

A list of points that would make this suggestion possible and great:

-Allow players to perform engine tuning (changing intake diameter, intake or exhaust pipe diameter, possibility to add a turbo or a supercharger), engine tweaking (changing displacement, bore/stroke ratio, number of valves, number and type of camshaft) and engine swapping. A lot of options would be complicated and take time to add, but is some major where already available in a Beta way, it will be nice

-Allow a freed transmission (number of gears) and layout tuning (in order to create either WRC or rallycross/rallyoval machines).

-Allow players to perform weight (add/remove seats, add/remove roll-cage, etc.) and chassis (change material, change the size) tuning, which will result in very different weight repartition schemes.

-Allow players to change the aeroperformance of the car (allowing people to install bodykits or spoilers that have an aero effect. ß plus, you can let them choose between several ones, so that ricers will be satisfied and let the improvement forum chill out a bit )

-Allow everycar to wear all the tire types.

-Remove the XRR, FXR, FZR, UFR, XFR (because they are already tuned, and if people were able to tune their car to have equal specs, they are then useless), eventually LX6 (because it can be considered as a tuned LX4).

-So (for tin tops), there will only be the following cars: UF1, XFG, XRG, LX4, XRT, FXO, RB4, RAC, FZ5

-Add other road going cars to give more diversity to the game: an American classic muscle (Camaro 1967 or Mustang GT 1968), a coupe sedan cruiser (Mercedes CLK for creating DTM, etc), a 4-wheel-steer (Nissan, Jeep, or Renault Laguna GT), an American sport muscle (Corvette/Viper), a low-power midship (Toyota MR2 mkII-like), a supercar midship (some Ferrari). For all of these cars, plus the existing one, allow the existing customization, plus the points I mentioned above.

-Give Server hosts the ability to chose which kind of customization will be allowed in their server. For example : stock engine or modified engine (allow turbo or not, maximum number of cylinders, maximum displacement, intake mods or not, etc), stock chassis or modified chassis (compulsory roll cage, stock seats), stock body or modified body (no aero, or bodykits but no ground effects spoilers), transmission, suspension, allowed tires, etc. And for each of these, allow them to choose maximal and minimal values.

-Provide them with pre-made options : Full Stock, Pro stock (little engine, chassis, suspension mods), Rally (rollcage and copilot compulsory, minimal weight of 800 kilos, etc..), Trackday (Pro stocks allowing slicks) etc..

-This done, server hosts, league hosts will be able to provide a custom car-class system that will give players a serious and closer to real life experience of what trackday, amateur, semi-pro and professional racing is.

-The same can be done with the different formulas (providing a “basis”), but I can’t tell a thing on this, because my formula knowledge is very limited.

Thank you for reading this (long) thread, and please leave constructive comments and discuss this suggestion. Feel free to answer the poll and I thank everyone for the support you will provide

Hold up, hold up, hold up.

You just posted all of that massive amount of text (well written though it may be) just to suggest f*cking tuning options?!

Dear god, why? Now I need to post my usual tuning comment...

*** C&P ALERT *** C&P ALERT *** C&P ALERT ***

Modifying the cars is pointless. Eventually, people would work out the ideal setup for each track and car and everyone would use it. Look at the number of people who use Inferno setups if you need proof that it would happen.
Therefor you end up with a field of identical cars, and guess what? That's exactly what we already have.

So how about you just drive the cars you have and I dunno, bang a metal trash can lid with your face to simulate the noise of a pointless "masseev zorst!!1111"

*** C&P END *** C&P END *** C&P END ***

I apologise if I've missed some fantastic new idea somewhere in there, but the only thing I noticed was yet another suggestion for tunable cars (albeit from a preset selection). And that's just as pointless as any other tuning suggestion.

I didn't post all that massive (well-written may it be) amount of text to ask (or beg as it seems in your mind) for lonely tuning options.

The idea of my post, and I'm sad you didn't understand it is to give more flexibility to the car system and to the events player/organisation can set-up.

If LFS wants to be the best ever racing simulator, as it is close to be right now, it need to insist more on community and allow people to customize the challenges they provide to other people.
Check the rules, restrictions and car specs in the GT, GT2, GT3 and GT4 series. You will see that they are really different.

Instead of begging for new GTRs, or for player-modelled cars (as in rFactor), I submitted and idea that will, at the same time, provide more diversity to people and more times for devs to focus on something else than adding new car/classes, because the hosts, by the restrictions and rules they will impose on tuning, will create those classes.

It is way far from NFSroxxorzs ask, I just suggest more rules (player-based rules and restrictions on each server they make) to prevent from the derives tuning geeks could generate. The point of my suggestion was to be able to create more close to IRL GT or Racing events than we have right now, and I feel really disappointed that you only perceived it as a Tunermanialike suggestion

I hope there would be newer added ''Tuning'' in LFS, except if there would be a Street Modification class in LFS nearly 2030 year. We really don't need it.
If there really would be a tuned car class, then i would be already tuned and not changeable by player.
-1

Quote from Dajmin :

Hold up, hold up, hold up.

You just posted all of that massive amount of text (well written though it may be) just to suggest f*cking tuning options?!

Quote from Zen321 :

I didn't post all that massive (well-written may it be) amount of text to ask (or beg as it seems in your mind) for lonely tuning options.

The idea of my post, and I'm sad you didn't understand it is to give more flexibility to the car system and to the events player/organisation can set-up.

Aye, more flexibilty by adding hundreds of tuning options?
No thanks.

I don't understand, that seems to be pretty much all your OP is? Asking to be able to change engine displacement, exhaust diameters etc.

It's a more coherant request than we normally get for these things, but still *insert burning fruit of your choice*

I understood the idea behind it, but it's still just tuning. I get where you're coming from though, so I'm going to put forward my own modification of your idea.

No parts to choose from, just expand the current selection of complete cars. So you get an XR for both GT1 and GT2 classes, with obviously relative power levels and maybe a slightly different appearance. So it'd be like post-tuning selections and would keep slightly more in the current LFS mindset.
It would also work really well with my idea for an updated car selection interface (I'll make a Flash version eventually, I swear).

-1 for all-tyres-for-all-cars. The most fun to be had in LFS is in the higher-powered road cars, and they would be boring as all chuff if you gave people the option of putting slicks on them, because they would, and they'd never use the road tyres again, because they're all pathetic nutless losers who are scared of actually having any kind of a challenge.

I don't mean anyone who's reading this, of course, I'm talking about those other racers. Yeah, them's the ones. Definitely not you.

I like the idea of all tyres for all cars. Or maybe semi-slicks for the TBO class and up to bridge the gap between Road_Super and full slicks.
Would need to come with a serverside option to restrict them though, or it would be open to serious abuse.

IMHO, engine tuning, weight customization, all tires for all cars, etc are useless. Why? Because people would use the max power settings for the engine, the minimum possible weight and slick tires all time.
And there are some things you said that are already refused in this thread.
I´m not blaming you man, but your idea is not exactly the best for LFS.

User-decided tuning would be a bad idea, but what would be sensible is more variants on the current cars. Most road cars have several engines available. What about a 1 litre XF (to go against the UF1), a FZ5 turbo and a FXO with no turbocharger (after all, Vauxhall did a 2 litre NA version of the Calibra), for example?

Quote from Dajmin :

I like the idea of all tyres for all cars. Or maybe semi-slicks for the TBO class and up

Poof.

Only for you Kev. You know you love it

I never said I'd use it (hell I can't play LFS at all right now, stupid wheel). But that way the TBO class could be turned into WTCC/BTCC equivalents.

man that's a long post...

Back again folks (had to get back to work ).

What I appreciate now is that you guys clearly understood the point of my post. As I said, I don't want tuning for tuning's sake, I say that a bit more customization would be great for making LFS closer to real life.

Because the fact is that, whether you like it or not, cars in GT, GT2 competition are tuned road going cars (engine and/or handling depending on which GT class it is), not by manufacturers, but either by specialized preparetor, or by the team's own engineers.

I'd like to clarify some things for those who still don't understand (and i guess there is only a few left ). Another point of my idea right now is to remove the existing classes, and not allow full customization within a class (IMHO, I find that a NFS-tuned XRG vs XFG race sucks) but to allow hosts to create classes by selecting a certain amount of rules :
For example, a guy who wants to create a GT3 championship will allow on his server : engine mod up to a certain point, add a minimum weight for all cars (player wont have a scroll bar to put their weight down, but will chose which parts to remove), allow certain compounds of slicks, aerodynamic parts, etc. Thus, people can mod every car they want in order to make it follow the rules (and obviously not all the cars will be able to compete : the UF1 would be too light, and weightening it won't make the difference, etc).

The obvious bad point of this idea, and sadly I'm aware of it is that there will be abuse from players who will allow everything in their servers. But, I'm quite an optimistic one, and I guess that all motorsports fans here are quite serious and could use the diversity provided by this suggestion to create a more interesting community, and not to mess up around with.

This leads to the main reason why I've thought of all of this stuff. I guess, and everyone who blames Cruise servers is aware of this, that LFS tends to be boring on the long run. Of course I love this game, of course I paid a lot (G25+license) to benefit fmor the best racing experience ever. But when I race with other guys I am like : "Okay, we have all the same car, so there's no surprises awaiting in this race". It is all the more obvious when you are in some really intense racing institutions and see everyone with FWD (FXO or XFG, not quoting CTRA racers which I deeply respect).
And I have quite a laugh when I read people saying : Multiclass races is the future of LFS ! (How can you enjoy having a race in whichi you are sure to have no competition with half of the grid ??)

Having the possibility to tune-up your own cars to match the GT, GT2, G3, GTR specs, or Pro-Stock would be that people will not only know you for your driving skills, but also for the quality of how you set-up your car under the rules of the league you're in. Pretty much like F1 : All teams race with different cars, and you know that Ferrari, Mercedes and Sauber have got the best cars. Thus, when you a guy enters a LFS GT league (for example), people will think : "Oh it's him and his monstruously well-prepared car."

Finally, when I say tuning, I don't mean Ricer customization. I mean real race preparation. Tuning literally means "adjusting", so my point here is to allow a better adjustment of the car's performance to create more game content

Edit :

Quote from Dajmin :

I understood the idea behind it, but it's still just tuning. I get where you're coming from though, so I'm going to put forward my own modification of your idea.

No parts to choose from, just expand the current selection of complete cars. So you get an XR for both GT1 and GT2 classes, with obviously relative power levels and maybe a slightly different appearance. So it'd be like post-tuning selections and would keep slightly more in the current LFS mindset.
It would also work really well with my idea for an updated car selection interface (I'll make a Flash version eventually, I swear).

This is also a good idea. However, even if I fully agree with it, it would create much more work for the devs, and may end up with Mini version of the GTR class (like the XRT with slicks and aero), whereas people might prefer a racing N/A version of the XRG But I have to admit that this could work and cope with the fear people have against engine tuning under restriction.

Quote from Zen321 :

Because the fact is that, whether you like it or not, cars in GT, GT2 competition are tuned road going cars (engine and/or handling depending on which GT class it is), not by manufacturers, but either by specialized preparetor, or by the team's own engineers.

XRG > XRT.

There is your tuned road class car.

Quote from MijnWraak :

XRG > XRT.

There is your tuned road class car.

What about a better optimized N/A engine ? Because 140hp for 1800cc is a bit few... Upgrading the XRG engine to stay N/A and pull around 210hp IS tuning.

Quote from Zen321 :

This is also a good idea. However, even if I fully agree with it, it would create much more work for the devs, and may end up with Mini version of the GTR class (like the XRT with slicks and aero), whereas people might prefer a racing N/A version of the XRG But I have to admit that this could work and cope with the fear people have against engine tuning under restriction.

Any new vehicles are going to be extra work for the devs. I'm thinking long-term though and it might end up less work to do it now than to make every possible part work in every vehicle.

I'd like to see the comparisons between the N/A XR and the XRT. I'm no expert, but wouldn't the main different be a more even power curve? So it'd be easier on the corners but have less grunt on the straights? Could be interesting.

The car names would also need updated if there were going to be more versions, because trying to fit them all into 3 letter combos could be a pain. XRG = XR with no turbo. But the 210hp N/A version would be an XR with no turbo as well. Umm. XRN? Could be even more confusing for newbies.

Could you summarise (ie. without writing a book) how you intend for any kind of tuning not to result with everybody running the quickest options rendering it useless?

i susjest less options for settings in road cars

in a real road car u cant change diff ratios gears and other stuf like that cant be changed in a REAL road car without spending racing $$$ on them.

as for ur idea though u went into great detail and such i think the devs have done a awesome job thus far and should do what they think is right. make their live for speed not gran turismo

Quote from ajp71 :

Could you summarise (ie. without writing a book) how you intend for any kind of tuning not to result with everybody running the quickest options rendering it useless?

As I said previously, the idea for preventing abuses is that every server would have options to allow which part of the car is tuneable and to which extent.

I don't write books because I like it, but in this case i needed to go in every detail of this theory so as not to be considered as a ricer fan

Quote from Dajmin :

Any new vehicles are going to be extra work for the devs. I'm thinking long-term though and it might end up less work to do it now than to make every possible part work in every vehicle.

I'd like to see the comparisons between the N/A XR and the XRT. I'm no expert, but wouldn't the main different be a more even power curve? So it'd be easier on the corners but have less grunt on the straights? Could be interesting.

The car names would also need updated if there were going to be more versions, because trying to fit them all into 3 letter combos could be a pain. XRG = XR with no turbo. But the 210hp N/A version would be an XR with no turbo as well. Umm. XRN? Could be even more confusing for newbies.

IMHO, N/A XR (210hp) would be a match for the XRT as the XFG is a match for the XRG : less power, but lighter (no need to really put it on weight in order to manage the chassis stress caused by the turbo's torque), so it would corner pretty well, though as you say you wouldn't have that kick out on straight when the pressure builds up. I don't think it would be easier to corner it, because let's take the example of the XRG : it hasn't got enough power to keep stability in corners if you go hard while tapping the gas, but maybe 210hp would be too strong (for the same weight) and end up with a delicate touch of oversteering exits (which sucks for time )

I guess that the main different would be such a different handling in corners and power right when exiting a curve.

I think it would be utter madness to suggest adding that many serverside options. We have 21 cars (is it 22 now?) and how many upgradable parts on each one? Engine block, exhaust, transmission, brakes and supercharger at the very least.
That's 100+ new checkboxes for the server admins to go through for just those 5 parts! Add a few more options and you could start heading for 1000 checkboxes for a server. Then they have InSim apps to think about on top of that. It gets way too complicated.

A list of pre-made cars with each of the options is far simpler. At least that way you only add 1 new checkbox for each new vehicle

[ ] XRG | [ ] XRN | [ ] XRT | [ ] XRR
for example.

Someon plz , can say what that user want in a short text?

It's pretty easy - tuning and mods

You can skip the first half of the OP because if you've ever used LFS you'll already know all of that. The rest of it is just a long way of suggesting upgradable parts.

I think a more simplier system where you would just have pre-made racing classes you can set the server to would be better.

For example, you could have something like:
- Trackday class
- B race class
- A race class
- Professional race class

The class the server is set to would define various parameters for the cars. For example in trackday class you would have the cars at stock specs, and you could do very little settings tweaking (Adjust tire pressures, etc. that are very simple to do in real life). In the race classes you could have an incremential amount of race-performance tuning done to the cars like extra seats etc. removed, engine tweaked for a bit for more power, better tire options and more settings to tweak. In the professional class you could have (almost?) as much settings as you do currently...

Of course, some cars should be restricted to certain classes only, like you couldn't have a BF1 in a trackday class race. Race rules could also become stricter as you go to the higher classes (black flags, no passing on yellows, etc.) and pit stops would become faster due to more crew (The time it currently takes to do a pit stop in a BF1 is rather dumb) Maybe the GTR versions of the XRT etc. could also be "removed" as unique cars, but exist as race tuned versions of them in the higher classes.

Quote from Zen321 :

As I said previously, the idea for preventing abuses is that every server would have options to allow which part of the car is tuneable and to which extent.

Currently intake and weight restrictions are able to be set on the server (through InSim), none of the servers using this are very popular are they?