So, if I understand it correctly, any LFS laptime lacking the CL and the AC flag on LFSW is most probably done via the script, am I right?

For example, in the attachment below, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th most probabaly have used the script?

Quote from migf1 :

So, if I understand it correctly, any LFS laptime lacking the CL and the AC flag on LFSW is most probably done via the script, am I right?

For example, in the attachment below, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th most probabaly have used the script?

Or it could be someone that actually has a clutch pedal or manually clutching with a button, that's it you can't know for certain

Quote from Glenn67 :

Well that's just it, a macro is using current ingame options that as Choas and Sidi mention can be done manually all a macro is doing is automating it much like we used to have auto blip for example

Yeap, it's like auto blip which was removed for a reason I guess in recent patches. The script is external to LFS and makes gearshfting super fast effortlessly. When you're playing with hundrends and tenths of seconds, It's a tremendeous boost only to know that you always get perfect shifting with no room for shfting error whatsoever.

Quote from [RF]-art555 :

... It takes quite a lot of practice to learn to time all the actions well.

Just keep in minds that the most of us has a plastic bit under the feet...
Let's just say it :
Heavy foot = hardware problem soon ...
(this apply to a button also)...

Quote from migf1 :

super fast effortlessly

Just like with mouse steering or wheel with low steering rotation which I assure you gives more off an advantage.

Personally I'd like too see an equal playing field as much as the next person, I just can't see why you would call an clutch macro more of a cheat than wheel rotation setting.

Because it's extrenal to LFS.

I call this a cheat. I just tried it, what an advantage! it makes downshifts perfect. better than sequential gearbox...

Anyone who uses this is a llama

-

Hi Guys,

I need to add to this debate, due to me using a button clutch 'macro' when im using the FBM, years ago i damaged my right foot and it gives me problems when i use it a lot, up untill the fbm i had no problems 'lift shifting' but after about 20mins in the fbm my foot kills me because of the fast and long vertical movement, i already have my gas pedal calibrated so that i only use the bottom two thirds to help me with lifting.

Anyway to cut a long story short i use a 'clutch down, shift button down, delay, shift button up, delay, clutch up' macro, this allows me to do a 'half lift' shift, but and a big but! it actually makes me slower at changing gears because the fbm changes gears fast, my delays actually slow the change and also heat the clutch, so much so that i have to put my gearing much closer than i would normally run and be carefull on the timing of my foot down.

So the moral of this story is that macro's are not all bad and for performance, mine is for personel comfort, am i cheating?

BTW all other cars i run auto clutch or h shift with clutch.

Simon

Flint, yes .. if you get a better time than them, you'll be a cheater, otherwise, no matter at all

Quote from Racon :

I participe in a league http://ligainternacional.org and each two weeks, we have a new combo. The actual is SO5-UFRorXFR. The previous wr with UFR was done by zero_0 with a lap time 1:20.650.
Aclaration: Before patch Z, the wr was 1:20:10

So by displaying those images you're agreeing that it's faster?

About the autoclutch topic. Autoclutch was introduced in LFS as a necessity. We NEED the autoclutch to change gears using most controller configurations. But remember, we are using autoclutch on manual cars. So the devs must find a good autoclutch system that won't give people using it a major advantage over the ones using a clutch pedal. It wouldn't be fair to have an autoclutch system in a manual car that works as good as a pure sequential gearbox. So Scawen tries to tweak the autoclutch so it's well balanced against manual clutching, and people who don't have a clutch pedal don't have a great advantage over the ones who do.

Then button clutch appears as a means to get better shifting times, and turning what is supposed to be a simulation of a driver pressing/releasing the clutch pedal into something more like a full sequential gearbox. So, even if you can do it because the game allows it, it's indeed totally against the spirit of the game. This is not different from making a script that performs perfect gear blips when downshifting, when it was already removed from the game.

Another thing that I'd like to know is if it gives you any advantage in terms of clutch overheating. Does this button clutch cause the clutch temperature to rise less or more than autoclutch? It would be interesting to know.

In my opinion it should be studied and solved somehow. I don't know how, maybe having a static, non-configurable button rate for the clutch button.


Now, about cheating:

Let's think -again- about LFS vs real life driving. We are playing a simulator that tries to portray reality as best as possible. To achieve that we play using several kind of controllers that don't match those used in the cars that we are driving in the game.

Many people -I'd say most of us- have wheels with only two pedals, and don't have a clutch pedal. With those settings we are driving manual cars like XFG, XRG, the TBO class, etc. In real life we would need to press the clutch pedal to shift gears, but as we don't have a clutch we use autoclutch. I think everybody thinks this is ok, as somehow we must be able to shift gears! Now, how many of you use left foot braking with these cars? I'm sure that a lot of people do. Is that cheating?

Things that some people consider cheating:

• Using a custom view.
  
• Left foot braking in manual cars.
  
• Up-shifting by pressing the clutch instead of releasing the gas pedal (in cars like the MRT or the FBM).
  
• Copying setup parameters available in lfsworld analyser tool.
  
• Using less degrees of rotation in your wheel than the actual car.
  
• Using paddles instead of a shifter (even if you don't have one, then go and buy it! That's what they say...)
  
• Turning smoke/dirt option to minimum in rally races to have a better view.
  
• And a long etc.
  

People should be a little more open minded about cheating. There are a lot of things that will give you an advantage -big or small-, but... is it really worth it? Some of these things don't deserve a single word, but things like button clutch should be discussed seriously, with arguments. There are a lot of words in this thread but very few people tried to give a reason why button clutch should or shouldn't be used.

Quote from [DUcK] :

So by displaying those images you're agreeing that it's faster?

As i've been saying before...

I hope you understand that the script won't give him a second advantage. It's just him being faster (and this is not given by the script).

Quote from MaKaKaZo :

Another thing that I'd like to know is if it gives you any advantage in terms of clutch overheating. Does this button clutch cause the clutch temperature to rise less or more than autoclutch? It would be interesting to know.

AFAIK the clutch burns even faster.

Edit: Sorry for double post :S

If this script is cheating, so is digital speedo. You might not notice on fast cars, but on slow cars every 0.1kmh counts, and knowing exactly the speed you're going gives a great unfair advantage to those that simply install the game and have to figure it out by the normal speedometer.

Quote from Glenn67 :

Just like with mouse steering or wheel with low steering rotation which I assure you gives more off an advantage.

Driving with mouse has already a big disadvantage by not having proper throttle and brake control.
Also it takes some skill from your hand to be accurate and fast with the mouse...
It doesn’t steer by itself...
It's completely irrelevant. Many of us already have answered to that in previews pages, and you keep repeating it again and again…

I have been a mouse driver for 3 years in demo&S2 and for the last 2 years I use a wheel so I am in position to know the advantages and disadvantages of mouse steering.

Quote from Glenn67 :

Just like with mouse steering or wheel with low steering rotation which I assure you gives more off an advantage.
[snip]

I'd like to comment seprately on this! Low steering rotation hurts badly your tyres, epsecially with understeery cars. When racing this may be a huge disadvantage.

In hotlapping, low rotation surely helps in corner entry (notably in slow corners) but it also ruins corner exit (notably fast, medium bended ones). In hotlapping, optimum tyre temp is crucial for the good laptime, so using too low wheel rotation you risk to screw the exit of the most important corners (those who preceed straights) because tyre heat occurs much much faster (low rotation = prone to understeer).

Now don't get me wrong, low rotation steering does help in general to improve your laptimes, but it does so in the short run. Also, in a lot of tracks and especially with fwd cars, when your fighting for the last couple of hundrends (or even tenths) low rotation steering becomes more of an enemy instead of a friend

Quote from migf1 :

Because it's extrenal to LFS.

So is wheel rotation if you don't set it in logitec profiler the ingame option want have any effect...

And about the above, sorry but I disagree I can do a 1 1/2 hour race with 240deg just fine... but I also could drive fast with an xbox controller in long races

@kaynd I just use it to make a point I don't think its wrong to use a mouse I actually respect mouse dirviers as I certainly couldn't drive with one lol

Anyway guys if you read my posts carefully you will see that I actually agree that something should be done about the fast gear changes from within LFS, I don't dispute that. I just dispute vilafying anyone that may have used or uses a macro to change gears. And also wanted to point out that if you persue realism in LFS in all options then you are more than likely going to be slower than someone who doesn't.

-

I think we have to differentiate between something that is a cheat and sth that is unsportsmanlike behaviour.

A cheat is clearly defined, it's using and illegal tool/strategy/behaviour.

Unsportsmanlike behaviour is not clearly defined, it's a greyzone and different people have different perceptions. there willnever be agreement on it.

Example: I raced against a guy the other day who got angry at me for attacking him when behind or defending my position when in front. My fastest lap was 15hundreths slower than his. He stated it was unsportsmanlike. I should just follow him and learn his line, only if my fastest lap is within 5 hundreths I should dare race him.

This was his understanding of fairness. Mine was that a race is a race, and if I'm slower but in front then I can defend m position (fairly of course).

We will never agree on this.

The same goes for the button "trick". It's not illegal as it's in the game - it may be considered unfair, that depends on your perception of what is fair. There will never be any agreement on this.

I read a very interesting article on moral and ethics in different cultures. Since Spanish drivers were singled out here, maybe an attempt to at least propose an explanation. Spainsh and Italian cultures have a different perception of what is really cheating to German or Swedish cultures. From a catholic cultural background which has dominated these countries for centuries the difference between what "appears to be" and what "is" is seen in a much more relaxed way. Why northern and more protestant cultures more strictly apply one to the other.

I say this without any negative connotation whatsoever! I am married to a spanish woman and I live in Spain although I am German. And I love being here and have the highest respect for how people here live their lives!

But just a few examples:

A spanish person will say "ahora mismo" (straight away, right now) and it can happen hours later, but no-one would seriously remind them of the fact that they promised it hours ago. What is said and what is done is not seen with the same strictness as it would be in Germany, where if someone says "right now" it is "right now".

It is normal for a Spanish or Italian person to get the most out of whatever they can by not necessarily applying all the rules 100% as intended. This does not make them dishonest, it's a different interpretation of how things should work. No-one in Italy declares all their taxes and 30% of civil servants in Italy never show up for work. This does not make them less honest or less respectable, it's just how things work there.

At the Tour de France, Italian and Spanish teams have a completely different interpretation of what is doping and what is not. For them pushing what's allowed to the limit is self understood and has no negative connotations. The press celebrates the great victories of Pantani (caught doping) and Contador (not caught) while German press just presents them as junkies.

There are many many more examples.

So unless something is entirely removed from the game there will always be differences on what is fair and what is not and there will not be any agreement on it. This does not make one person more "right" and another more "wrong" - we may not agree with them, but we use our own values to judge another persons, which may be quite different for the above mentioned reasons.

Therefore we need a strictly regulated environment to compete in. And this environment is what in the game and what's not. I for one do not think it's cool to use button clutch and I won't do it (G25) - I do however think it should be removed from the game if your wheel/joystick/whatever has the available axes.
Removing it from the game eliminates the greyzone and margin of interpretation - and makes the 15 mins I spent typing this completely useless - lol

aceracer

Use whatever you like imho: its a game, if using aids makes you better, by all means...

Quote from Glenn67 :

[snip]
And about the above, sorry but I disagree I can do a 1 1/2 hour race with 240deg just fine... but I also could drive fast with an xbox controller in long races
[snip]

Racing or... cruising?

I'd love to see you racing competitevly (how is this thing spelled? ) for example with the XFR in 1 1/2 hours race using 240 deg... let's say in FE

Quote :

Anyway guys if you read my posts carefully you will see that I actually agree that something should be done about the fast gear changes from within LFS, I don't dispute that. I just dispute vilafying anyone that may have used or uses a macro to change gears. And also wanted to point out that if you persue realism in LFS in all options then you are more than likely going to be slower than someone who doesn't.

No argument that we don't play level, due to different setings and equipment. The thing is what is considered legal or ethical, based on the available options ingame. Following your logic, I wonder why Scawen blocked TweakLFS on the master server!

Good post aceracer, sums up one aspect of what I've been trying to convey better than I could


@migf1 I can assure you there a some better than me that could do it at near WR pace with little problem, I am of course not that fast but have confidence it's possible to do at say 102 - 103% of WR pace.

It's not cheating as it is something that is documented in the wheel software and it isn't doing anything to LFS other than what you can do with your bare hands.

I would call it an exploit that possibly needs to be fixed at some point (no different to the high nose exploit before), but to go arround and slander people for doing something that logitec and LFS has enabled/allowed is just abit over the top imo.

As Sidi has said this is nothing new it's been known about for years (I've known about it since 2004 and the majority of old timers in LFS would know about it) and anyone that reads the info that comes with their wheel would be able to work it out. It's not a hack or cheat in the true sense of the word, it's just using a standard feature of your wheel software in a way that is considered unsportsmanlike in LFS.

aceracer is the first spaniard actually posting something useful in this thread.

oh, and the first one not desperately trying to justify the use of clutch-macros too.



edit: oh well, damn it.
will leave that post so you all can point and laugh.

Quote from Biohazard :

aceracer is the first spaniard actually posting something useful in this thread.

I think he is german