Hi all! :-) (1st post)

I've got a few hours of racing under my belt, but my version of LFS must be bust cos I can't get my FBM BL1 time below 1:17 :-/
I guess I'm missing the turbo setting or something!

Anyway, I've cleverly figured out how to see replays of how it's reallly done, and then thought "hey, a ghost car overlay would be cool".

One search (here) later, and I learn it's already been done, but died when a version update broke it.

This seems to have happened some time ago, so maybe there's no demand for a new/fixed ghost mod?
Do the regulars & experts not feel the need for a ghost car?

tristan will scream blue murder about how a ghost car is acradey and homo..


I for one would love it, specially when freinds come round and we have a hot lap session, its boring for them to race against nothing but a time they have no chance of beating basically mine... 2 ghost car overlayed would be sweet aswell like forza, one for me and one for my freinds fastest laps so they have to things to achieve..

Quote from Spils :

tristan will scream blue murder about how a ghost car is acradey and homo..

Yeah, well displaying the racing line seems a bit artificial too but it's a damn good training aid. Let them scream it's arcadey and homo if they want Nobody says they should use it

Did a bit more investigation, and turns out the Ghost mod author has said he "might" one day get around to fixing it. People suggested he released the code for others to use but I guess he doesn't want to do that.

Maybe it's not a huge job to reimplement it?
Might be a good idea to ask more about this on the mod forum I suspect...

Quote from Neilser :

Maybe it's not a huge job to reimplement it?
Might be a good idea to ask more about this on the mod forum I suspect...

If anyone else had any interest in doing this, I think they would've done so by now.

I've had this idea, I wonder why I never posted it. Anyway, a ghost car would be Fantastic, I'll certainly vote for it .

fantastic to make it easier to drive unrealistically? ye i guess so. however its clearly bad for LFS and i hope it never gets implemented.

Quote from Dac :

fantastic to make it easier to drive unrealistically? ye i guess so. however its clearly bad for LFS and i hope it never gets implemented.

How would having a ghost car option make people drive "unrealistically"? What do you mean with "driving unrealistically"? And how would it be bad for LFS.

Quote from obsolum :

How would having a ghost car option make people drive "unrealistically"? What do you mean with "driving unrealistically"? And how would it be bad for LFS.

what i mean is that theres nothing stopping you from just following the ghost car and doing exactly what it does apart from maybe taking a slightly better line into a certain corner to improve your time - which is unrealistic.

i remember in GT4 when i wanted to beat a lap time i used this very technique. ghost cars can very easily be used to improve your time which is unrealistic because you dont have that luxury in real life. in real life you have to remember and pick that set of lines and braking points off by heart, not visually cued.

its bad for LFS for the reason mentioned above.

Quote from Dac :

what i mean is that theres nothing stopping you from just following the ghost car and doing exactly what it does apart from maybe taking a slightly better line into a certain corner to improve your time - which is unrealistic.

Wow, I've never found that with ghost cars myself - yes, they help you spot the problems and improve, but it doesn't just magically wear off again when you remove the ghost car. It's not that easy to copy a ghost car... And LFS already has replays.

As for whether anyone wants it, quite a few people seem to be pleading for it on kegetys' (spl?) own website. I'm guessing that not so many people have the programming skill (+time :-) to reimplement it either; wild guess = less than one in a hundred LFSers... And I doubt I do either to be honest, though I might have a go if I buy a licence (which will happen if I can convince myself I won't spend 8 hours a day playing!).

ghost cars and magic racelines dont appear in real life. so why should they appear in a racing SIMULATION? fair enough having them in training mode but anywhere else just goes against what LFS stands for. i think Scawan made a mistake with the racing line and id like to see it removed.

race line don't gives the best time. i don't use it - this is for pepoles who don't know to drive fast. i would like to add ghost mod and remove the line.

Quote from Dac :

ghost cars and magic racelines dont appear in real life. so why should they appear in a racing SIMULATION? fair enough having them in training mode but anywhere else just goes against what LFS stands for. i think Scawan made a mistake with the racing line and id like to see it removed.

No. We meant a Ghost car is a kind of save of a race you do.

Let's say you've just done a hotlap race. When you begin the next lap a ghost car, that was the previous lap you did, will appear. Then you can sort of try to race it and beat it, once you're ahead you know you've beaten your previous time.

Dont be so persimistic and put ideas down straight away.

I think it would be a good "practice tool" Of course only in offline mode.

Quote from Amso :

No. We meant a Ghost car is a kind of save of a race you do.

Let's say you've just done a hotlap race. When you begin the next lap a ghost car, that was the previous lap you did, will appear. Then you can sort of try to race it and beat it, once you're ahead you know you've beaten your previous time.

Dont be so persimistic and put ideas down straight away.

yes i am fully aware of what a ghost car is. and everything that ive said before still applies. whats stopping you from just following the ghost car precisly and then making only slight corner or speed adjustments to get a better lap time? nothing is.

why would you need it to see that yovue beaten your time when you can simply look at the clock at the end of the race like real race drivers do?

a ghost car is a visual cue which aids drivers in getting a better and false laptime which they could not do without it.

Quote from Dac :

yes i am fully aware of what a ghost car is. and everything that ive said before still applies. whats stopping you from just following the ghost car precisly and then making only slight corner or speed adjustments to get a better lap time? nothing is.

why would you need it to see that yovue beaten your time when you can simply look at the clock at the end of the race like real race drivers do?

a ghost car is a visual cue which aids drivers in getting a better and false laptime which they could not do without it.

And all the problems you've stated dont have to do with why It's bad. A ghost car is functional no matter what anyone thinks because it helps people, good or bad, so you cant put it down.

Quote from Amso :

And all the problems you've stated dont have to do with why It's bad. A ghost car is functional no matter what anyone thinks because it helps people, good or bad, so you cant put it down.

thats exactly the point. LFS is about racing and driver skill, its not about using as many aids as you can to boost your times. real drivers dont have 'ghost' cars so in what aspect is it valid for a simulation?

im all for ghost cars and racing lines in the training section but anywhere else is a big no no. you have to understand what LFS is about before you realise why things like this are bad for it.

Quote from Dac :

thats exactly the point. LFS is about racing and driver skill, its not about using as many aids as you can to boost your times. real drivers dont have 'ghost' cars so in what aspect is it valid for a simulation?

im all for ghost cars and racing lines in the training section but anywhere else is a big no no. you have to understand what LFS is about before you realise why things like this are bad for it.

Hmm, a few years ago drivers didn't have any electronics. So no split times in the dashboard, no lap times. Some had radios for the team to tell them stuff, some didn't. Are split times OK?

If a rich racing formula like F1 came up with head-up displays with ghost cars for training drivers (I doubt it would be allowed during a race! ), would you suddenly change your mind? Would you allow it only in an F1 car, but not in a saloon car?

Or do you think Shift+P should be banned too, along with Shift+S, because they are just unrealistic? Probably Shift+R would go too. In fact, the whole hotlapping mode is just unrealistic, as you don't have to do a whole out lap.

But now a serious question: if somebody used a ghost car mod, and trained themselves against the WR time (if that's possible with the ghost mod), and then went up against you -- without it -- would you feel the race was unfair? And if so, how does that differ from them driving as close as poss behind a really good driver in an online session, and picking up a better line that way?

[PS: I believe most F1 teams do some driver training in sims... I wonder if they have ghost cars in them?]

Quote from Neilser :

But now a serious question: if somebody used a ghost car mod, and trained themselves against the WR time (if that's possible with the ghost mod), and then went up against you -- without it -- would you feel the race was unfair? And if so, how does that differ from them driving as close as poss behind a really good driver in an online session, and picking up a better line that way?

if its used for training purposes i have no problems with that as ive mentioned multiple times in this thread. i think it would be an invaluable training aid and id like to see it in LFS. however if the time generated from following the ghost car could be legitimately uploaded as a hotlap then i would have a problem with that because they are not driving from off their own knowledge and skill but rather copying the input of another driver - almost like using a dance mat. yes they will be a better dancer AFTER they have used the mat, but with it they are not demonstrating as much skill as a dancer with no such mat. therefore it goes against what LFS stands for.

Yeah, that's it - you stamp as much fun out of this game as you can. LFS is full on non-realistic extras which I'm sure you use to improve your lap times - I don't hear you complaining about those.

Jeez, lighten up...

Quote from Dac :

if its used for training purposes i have no problems with that as ive mentioned multiple times in this thread. i think it would be an invaluable training aid and id like to see it in LFS. however if the time generated from following the ghost car could be legitimately uploaded as a hotlap then i would have a problem with that [snip]

Aha. Hadn't realised you weren't totally against it - sorry.
On that point I'd be in agreement - no hotlaps should be uploaded with ghost mod on. Just like the current hotlap mode doesn't allow the racing line to be turned on.

[Edit: reviewed your mention of training - I *had* noticed it, but at the time thought you had literally meant the "training" mode; e.g. acceleration training, slalom, etc, which isn't really useful for a ghost car. If you mean training by racing in single-player, which is actually useful, then we're on the same page :-)]

Quote from Fat-Alfie :

Yeah, that's it - you stamp as much fun out of this game as you can. LFS is full on non-realistic extras which I'm sure you use to improve your lap times - I don't hear you complaining about those.

Jeez, lighten up...

LFS is a simulation last time i looked. also, which non-realistic extras do you mean?

Quote from Neilser :

Aha. Hadn't realised you weren't totally against it - sorry.
On that point I'd be in agreement - no hotlaps should be uploaded with ghost mod on. Just like the current hotlap mode doesn't allow the racing line to be turned on.

[Edit: reviewed your mention of training - I *had* noticed it, but at the time thought you had literally meant the "training" mode; e.g. acceleration training, slalom, etc, which isn't really useful for a ghost car. If you mean training by racing in single-player, which is actually useful, then we're on the same page :-)]

yup. no hotlaps, no multiplayer option, no problem

What do you guys think of this: several replay files can get "overlaid" so you have 2+ ghost cars "racing" one another. Similar to Analyze for Speed, but with in-game graphics. Then you can visually compare the replay of your best hotlap to a WR -- I think it will be easier to judge your lines that way.

Maybe this will sound weird for some people, but what about an AI driver with your same car and setup going on the track with you and showing to you the correct race line? this could be good for training, and yeah, this is realistic because if you go to a track and you want to learn about racing, an instructor ( i don´t know how to write it in english, sry if that one is wrong:schwitz will go in front of you showing how to take the corners and stuff, and that should be good for the training mode.

Adolfo Herrera.

ghostcar being an advantage?

being so have no doubt that f1 uses it, they probably have huds in their helmets, just as air pilots, with a ghost car incorporated

they probably have fast ghost car slow ghost car and medium ghostcar

they can also delay it, right buttom ghostcar delays 5 m left buttom advance it 5 m

so if the f1 drivers have ghostcar why cant we

that all supposing is an advantage, and if is not well then why can not we have it?