Sanderman, no offence whatsover taken. You're entitled to your opinion as much as anyone else. I just hate bodge restriction jobs and that's just what will happen. I'm very wary of the overall effect of it. Sure, we want close racing but at what price? Why don't we all just drive the same car if that's so important? Seems that's already been suggested

Um, yea I suspected all the pro-restriction votes would be added to make one score

All that will happen is everyone will move to the faster car, be that the XRT, RB4 or FXO, then people will complain that the restrictions are wrong, and they'll be changed again, ad infinitum.......

As I said before, leave the balancing to the devs, and CTRA should balance it with points, or license restriction.

p.s. I still like the idea of themed days

Yup, I'm all for a points multiplier system until the devs tinker once again.

Thought.......forcing road normals on the FXO, wonder how much difference that would make.........

How? There's no way to check the tyre type via InSim currently.

That aside, if there were, would it be an better way to do it?

I guess someone(s) would have to do some track time and compare times of the FXO on supers and on normals - even comparing the Gs they can pull on the skidpad may shed some light by approximation. However the detection issue is a rather important one if a viable solution is to be found.

Well honestly im not driving the TBOs very much, but in the GTCC endurance league, in which we are racing for 2 hours, we are driving GTR, FWD and TBO all together. We tried to balance the TBO class giving the FXO 1% airrestrictor and 20 kg ballast. Nevertheless all TBOs are FXOs so it seems that this aint enough handicap. The FXO still dominates the TBO class. (even with Z Patch)

I didnt vote here, because i think i am not able to give a serious statement about drivability or laptimes, but i just wanted to share our experience with restricted TBOs with you and maybe it helps you finding a good balance (or not ).

Quote :

How? There's no way to check the tyre type via InSim currently.

There is

Quote from Becky Rose :

There is

but does check also mean the ability to 'restrict' Becky?

Interesting, whos willing to run some laps in the FXO with normals to see how they stack up against supers then!!!!

Quote from Dru :

but does check also mean the ability to 'restrict' Becky?

If CarTyreType=ROADSUPER then useraction=spectate, then PRINT "Please Use Road Normals"?

what Jack said, only with more semi-colons.

Quote from Becky Rose :

There is

D'oh - you're right, I just checked the new insim.txt. I was apparently looking at an older one earlier.

I usually race FXO. Didn't really try others yet in this patch.
As others said, main reason for FXO 'domination' is that it's easier to drive, so more drivers will finish higher, but I've seen the field pretty evenly matched on some tracks. That could make restrictions unbalanced again at higher skill level.
Though, I still don't understand why locked-diff FXO doesn't just completely shed it's rubber in 1/2 a race.

I'd be interested to see some experimentation with restrictions. (FXO can actually benefit in some way from slight power restriction.)
Reason being that a lot of people seem to want the matching done in the code, which actually is the same result, but how would this be determined other than real feedback from many real races, with many different drivers? Such as CTRA.

Quote from Kiyoshi :

I usually race FXO. Didn't really try others yet in this patch.
As others said, main reason for FXO 'domination' is that it's easier to drive, so more drivers will finish higher, but I've seen the field pretty evenly matched on some tracks. That could make restrictions unbalanced again at higher skill level.
Though, I still don't understand why locked-diff FXO doesn't just completely shed it's rubber in 1/2 a race.

I'd be interested to see some experimentation with restrictions. (FXO can actually benefit in some way from slight power restriction.)
Reason being that a lot of people seem to want the matching done in the code, which actually is the same result, but how would this be determined other than real feedback from many real races, with many different drivers? Such as CTRA.

How can it be even if every WR FXO is 1 sec away from others?
Maybe there are few tight tracks, that it's even, but it's only few.
Balanced means........FXO loses on some tight tracks, and wins on fast tracks [it's called balance].
Sure nobody asks to make it same same to others [it can't ever be done]. We need in average to make it close [for best racers].
For medium racers FXO will be faster [ that is Ok].

Well I raced on Race2 earlier this week, sticking with XRT. I had some good battles and great racing, and don't wish to put down the FXO drivers I was racing against.

But by god, the FXO is frustrating. At times I was watching FXOs in my mirrors, putting wheels on the grass, going sideways into corners, and they still power out of the corner as quick as the XRT. Whereas with the XRT if you make the slightest mistake or put the power down a fraction too soon, you're just going sideways where the FXO just goes where you point it.

It shouldn't be up to the CTRA to balance the cars. The devs should do it, but for some reason they don't. I guess when turbo modelling is improved, the balance will be more equal (due to the massive turbo lag, you need ot hit the gas early which makes the rwd XRT much more risky than the FXO). I'm not sure why they try to improve the other cars rather than just curtailing the FXO slightly. And yes, occasionally there's an alien driver who wipes the floor with everyone in a XRT, but amongst "normal" drivers, the FXO is generally the easiest and fastest to drive. Noticeably so, on the majority of tracks.

Just a slight restriction might be ok.
But on endurance days, id take it away, coz in the FXO your tires will get much hotter.

Quote from Stefani24 :

Just a slight restriction might be ok.
But on endurance days, id take it away, coz in the FXO your tires will get much hotter.

+1
But also depends on track,so uhmmm.....
Anyways: +1
Slight restriction of 3%.
Endurance days = FXO as it is, and the problems are solved )

To be quite honest with this, I would be ok with a restriction but only if it were to be a weight restriction.
I feel that it would be more realistic and could work out a lot better then just adding a random % that works out from this discussion.
It would make the FXO a different car for each track (Using the Weight restriction).

@Sander, with having such a small restriction it might only take off 1sec or less on the times and you might find that the quick FXO driver’s are still too quick.
I don’t know, I’m just going by what I’ve seen and read in leagues

@Danowat. Did you try out the normal’s he he?


either way

Imho, adding weight restriction:
1) Will totally kill it's front tires...then it's will be a bit unfair.
2) In real world FWD cars from this type usually always lighter [like Integra Type R etc]

I am fine with this,that Fast FXO drivers will be still fast [same as XRT fast drivers are damn fast].
1 second slower FXO = what we need,imho.
Because now if we look at all WR times......FXO aliens to 1 sec better than FXO/RB4 aliens.
So we can be even by restricting it a little bit.
I think XRT aliens will agree with it,because they are already very fast [not in comparation to current FXO WR makers].

But here - the choice is all yours...we are here to make the conclusion by our Expirience in CTRA racing of how we make Racing more Spirited and interesting.i looked, currect FXO power is 237 hp, with 3% restriction it's 226 hp [11 hp off]. It should make around 1 second off.
They still will win "out of the corner" [if other drivers ain't aliens], but finally FXO will be a bit slower in acceleration and top speed.
Imho - for best close racing we need cars, that each of them has it's own strengths [like in real life].
If any of you watch Best Motoring track battles, so there for example Honda S2000 almost always the weakest car, but it's Balance and Late Braking make her fast around track.
AWD's usually fastest around corners,but their drivetrain "eats" power, so on straights it's visible.

Well, you understood the point )

Is there a possibility to cause SCAWEN to read this thread and to implement it in next LFS patch ? Because we are first-hand racers that "feel" the unbalancing of TBO.

Have a nice day!

Fair enough , its just that a weight restriction would be more in keeping with a realistic feel and make it seem more like a Touring car league. If this does get brought up for a patch change, I think everyone would love to see the rb4 have a nice power and weight change rather than slowing down the FXO.

In my opinion the XRT doesnt have trouble keeping up with the FXO and neither does the RB4 its just the track that changes this and the skill of the drivers.. *A bit of controversy, Yes *

Increasing the power of the RB4 would be a good solution. Of course that would be up to the devs to implement. It always seems that in order to balance the classes, restrictions must be imposed to coincide with the lowest common denominator, namely the RB4. That seems to be the only alternative available to us common folk.

I do think however that people forget that if you restrict the FXO in any way, you must also impose similar restrictions on the XRT as well in order to balance properly with the runt of the litter, the RB4. No point in just replacing one class leader with another is there?

Quote from Swiss_Tony :

Increasing the power of the RB4 would be a good solution. Of course that would be up to the devs to implement. It always seems that in order to balance the classes, restrictions must be imposed to coincide with the lowest common denominator, namely the RB4. That seems to be the only alternative available to us common folk.

I do think however that people forget that if you restrict the FXO in any way, you must also impose similar restrictions on the XRT as well in order to balance properly with the runt of the litter, the RB4. No point in just replacing one class leader with another is there?

Nobody replacing FXO as a class leader...it'll be just 2 class leaders FXO and XRT joking.
If you watching WR times [of best drivers], FXO is 1 sec faster in the class.
RB4 and XRT are fighting on most tracks [RB4 is faster on some SO tracks and some Aston, while the XRT is faster on high speed tracks].

Sure the better solution is to make next LFS patch with XRT with around 255 hp and RB4 with more weight[as said...because AWD MUST be more weight,than RWD and FWD] and with around 255-260hp.
My suggestion 1 to the Devs:
FXO restriction 3%
XRT as is
RB4 as is.

Suggestion 2 to the Devs:
FXO +30 +40 kg and +5 hp [Current Weight is 1140]
XRT = 255 hp instead of 247 current [Current Weight is 1223]
RB4 = +40 kg and 255-260 hp[Current Weight is 1210 !!]

3% restriction was too much, it was tried before and the FXO was reduced to a tail ender and now the suspension improvements on the other cars would just eat it for breakfast.

One point though, the RB4 doesnt "have" to weigh more. They're different cars, not identical - they're not the same in all respects. 4WD would weigh more if all other factors where equal, but they're not necessarily equal.

That aside I think the FXO just needs to loose a little power, but seriously lets not have 3% again, last time that didnt work at all. The FXO should be able to fight for wins too in the right hands.