I saw the thread about other racing types in LFS, and i was thinking about the pros and cons of having karts in LFS...

I was thinking of 2 types of kart, 100cc karts such as ICA and FA, and gearbox classes such as 250cc karts with 6 gears.

100cc karts can reach 0-60 in about 2.3 seconds, and reach a maximum of 100mph on some kart circuits. They rev up to around 21,000rpm.

Gearbox karts have 6 gears and can reach speeds of about 175mph on normal car circuits, and i beleive that they dont have chassis flex like a 100cc kart, so they would be easier to model. Their level of performance is similar to that of a Formula 3 car.

Cons:

• Chassis flex would be hard to model
  
• It might take major alterations to the physics (maybe, i dont know)
  
• When the kart stops, it would be unrealistic to have them remaining running, so they would have to be bumpstarted everytime u stopped.
  
• Braking may be hard to simulate correctly, karts are best braked with a semi lock status, where the wheels are turning slower than the kart is moving, but not 100% locked. Braking like this kicks the kart sideways.
  

Pros:

• Maybe the caster of the kart could be made to be an artificial chassis flex, the rear wheel lifting on entry. (to reduce scrub due to the solid axle)
  
• due to karts having no suspension, tyres provide the only suspension, so i would think that they might be easy to model in that way
  
• There are no decent kart games available, so it may increase LFS' target audiance to include karts
  
• They provide close racing, like the GTI, but faster.
  
• They look damn cool!
  

If the devs are up for the challenge, I think this would, if simulated properly, make an excellent addition to the LFS range.

Hope this discussion is long and interesting...

Edit: If we get a good responce, and the implementation of the physics etc isn't too difficult, then MAYBE (just maybe) it might be a Christmas Present :P Along with the LX8 of course

Edit2: I check this forum too frequently...

well i think that it is similar to the UF, in the way the wheel lifts, the difference is the fact that the karts are lighter, with a faster motor and no suspension.

i think that a kart might be relatively easy to simulate, for pros such as the guys we have making this sim. to then get them near to, or 100% correct would be trial and error.

Im not thinking about rental karts, im thinking of proper 100cc racing machines.

Great idea

Karts would be excellent but they could be the most difficult things to recreate, since everything is more direct than in a car, and so much relies on reaction and feel.

One bonus is that karting is accessible to most people, whereas performance cars and trackdays are not, so the experience could easily be comparable to something that many of us have done.

I wonder if a serious edit to the setup of the MRT5 could give some clues as to how the LFS engine would cope...?

Well the MRT is, with the setups I've got, pretty horrid really, so I can't see that lowering it and removing nearly all suspension travel could make it any worse :P

But remember that the MRT doesn't have any resemblence to a kart. CoG is far far to high. Kart engines are, generally, 2 stroke, not 4, so powerbands are VERY different. Aero is different (probably worse). Solid rear axles...

Come to think of it, I don't think the MRT would make a good test-kart at all...

I think it is a very good idea, and personaly i think it would mesh very well with the style of racing that LFS offers

I made an edit of the MR5 back in the s1 days with less power, but there wasnt enough tweakability with it to make it like a kart..

EDIT : Tristan is copy and pasting my ideas from MSN, LOL

the MRT is nothing resembling a kart, completely different in their principles

The rest of the message the same as tristans above

Quote from ayrton senna 87 :

EDIT : Tristan is copy and pasting my ideas from MSN, LOL

NEVER!

Karts are something I'd love to see in LFS, I quit racing ~8 years ago and have missed them ever since. The only thing is that can we actually drive a kart in LFS without that seat of the pants feel? Driving and adjusting it just with a clock and the steering wheel movement would be pretty hard

Karts being relatively cheap brings an interesting factor into putting them in LFS, since they are easily accessible. One can test a kart, take measurements etc and use that data to develop a kart in LFS. Not something that can be done with the cars we have in LFS at the moment.

Once the chassis and tyre physics would be worked out, there'd be no limits to what classes you could put into LFS! 60cc, 100cc, 125cc, 250cc, with or without gears. And centrifugal clutches for the noob classes

Have to remember that Rental karts are very different from the quick stuff. To all intents, rental karts don't have much suspension flex, whereas the quicker stuff does. Then when you get really quick, you go back to less flex (I think).

Hiring a rental kart won't help develop the quicker stuff...

basically, the karts with softer tyres and higher powered engines need LESS flex, to stop them bogging on the exit of corners. The slower classes of 2 stroke need softer more flexable chassis to generate grip. So, many different size engine classes would be tough to simulate, because the chassis are completely different for each class, they need different attributes. It would be hard just to take measurements and produce an accurate model, because the materials that the chassis are made of affect the flex alot, and there are MANY different grades of steel used in 1 chassis.

like i say, i think it woule be a case of trial and error, but overall a good addition to LFS. But i think that the chassis flex could just be simulated by using purely the caster, saving lots of physics alterations. The principles to car driving and kart racing, are almost completely different.

btw The reason why renatl karts have no flex is so that they will last for many years, solid peices of kit. This makes the rear inside wheel trail along the floor in corners, making resistance, a higher powered kart using softer tyres and the same renatl kart chassis would be subjected to more force, and could probably lift the wheel a little more. Rental karts arent designed with much caster, or the weight of the kart would mean the rear wheel cant lift, and it would wear the front tyres badly...

so they think, meh, we cant get the wheel to lift, we might aswell make the most of a bad situation.

Rental karts being the only racing thing that I drove in real life, I'd surely love to have them in LFS. But on the other hand, LFS and other sims before it have taught me to drive fast and that helped me imensely to be fast in a real kart in short time without too much experience in it, just a bit of adjusting. As principles are the same it doesn't really matter that much what we drive in a sim.

No, I'm not agianst karts in LFS. We already have a hidden kart track in autocross area and we suspect devs have tried that already. I'm sure they will do it when they can do it right.

And just a personal preference... I really don't like shifter karts racing on big tracks, even if they do it in real life. Thats even stranger than racing MRT's. Its just weird and out of the place.

ahh yea, that track. really to run a 100cc kart you would need FE Club or AS Cadet at the miniumum, i doubt u could drive them properly around that tiny track, would be hard to get a feel.

if the devs ever need feedback, im here

OK I dug up my old go-kart tweak for S1 and started playing with it again. The handling is real bad, so I can understand why karts weren't added at the S1 stage.

Kart car types are available already in LFS so it's obviously something the devs have played with, I would have thought they already have a basic kart built which has never been released (I mean what else would kart car types get used for). And the hidden kart track in LFS strengthens this point.

If a kart was actually released for LFS it would obviously handle better since there are some major hurdles you can't get around just by tweaking (the driver position not being central is a biggie). Also I suspect that, if I could make the same tweak for S2 (hurry up Fonnybone ) that it would handle much better.

But, like Ayrton mentioned, chassis flex is important and to our knowledge it is not modelled in LFS (yet).

Oh and about the braking, do you just mean that the brakes work best with a very high slip ratio?

yes, the brakes bite best at about 110% slip angle, so just when the tyres make a chirpy bouncing deep sound.

mmm that chirpy bouncing deep sound. But I was getting that on exit of the curve mostly and steering wheel was shaking. I suppose thats good.

not really, your kart was bogging
did u drive Rotax Max?

EDIT : Opps, i've gone OT..

Hehe, I was driving 13 KS rental kart here: www.adakart.co.yu
I was talking about going through the second part of that long decresing radius left turn. But the laptime was very good even if it felt I could use more of the track here and there and go a tad more faster.

PS those pictures are old, no curbs have been done yet at that time. Yeah sorry going OT.

i would love to see karts in lfs too , i want to hear the devs opinion about it and how hard is to model them right , hope that the engine is at a state that we can see a kart soon together with a simple track for beta testing , i tried all the other racing sims and i don´t like them so i can only hope on lfs for all types of racing
bye !

Been lokking for a good Kart game forever.... there isn't one. I'd love some karts for LFS too.

Same, would be good too see. Devs?

It's one thing making a kart for LFS and releasing it, but we've nowhere to really race a kart. Slower karts need really twisty tracks, maybe some autocross editor presets could ship with LFS by default. The faster karts would really need their own tracks made for them.

That's the main reason we don't have the new rally stuff with the initial S2 release, while obviously creating cars is no quick process it's making the tracks that really takes the time.


If anyone still has LFS v0.3H and LFSTweak installed, I've attached the tweak file for a 125cc shifter kart. So at least you can see how bad a kart would have handled back then. Unfortunately the L/R weight distribution is really messed up so that makes matters worse too. Oh and if you fit 5 inch wheels the brake discs clip with the ground so you can't move, so they need to be at least 8 inches in diameter.

if they put karts in, they would HAVE to make kart tracks.

I vote for late 80's touring cars

I would love to see carts in, we could make cart tracks around the skid pads and stuff...would love that!

Yea!!! I would love to see Carts in LFS... Rental Carts would be just fine.. since that is the most of us have driven.. It would be great!!!