hi im new to lfs but must say its brill my only concern is the setups from wot ive played the best setup wins not always the best driver how about using 1 standard setup online with all cars being equal then its down to pure driving skill rather than how good u can tweak a car just a thought would be nice if the playin field was equal .

It's actually rarely down to setup, mostly driving skill, just get a decent setup from a fast driver if your slower than his times you need more practice, if your faster you still need more practice and it was because of his setup he beat you...

true but if 2 cars are equal down a straight for instance the best driver will learn to outbrake the other drive or slipstream to gain advantage rather than just out pacing him

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You're welcome.

dude just practice... 10% is the setup (if not less--- 5% i'd say) and 90% skill... okay... 100% skill/practice.

Quote from nncjimbo :

...if the playin field was equal .

The playing field IS equal. You have the same tools available to produce the next super-uber-setup as everbody else.

How much the setup influences your performance is variable. Depends on car/track combo. You can mess up a setup really badly if you tweak it the wrong way. You should be able to be reasonably competitive with one of the default sets supplied. Its called race_s, I think... or something like that.

There are plenty of sources for car setups, download some from other racers or appropriate websites. Discuss setups with other drivers (iow: learn from those in the know).

Eventually, you will have to learn how to at least tweak downloaded setups to suit your driving style. On the other hand, you could learn to adapt your driving to suit the setup. It makes more sense to me to adapt the setup.

In any case, the playing field is equal. And no, the "best" setup doesn't always win, its usually the quickest driver.

To my knowledge, there aren't any LFS servers that enforce a standard setup. Maybe some leagues? Dunno...

But I know of other racing simulators that enforce standard setups. But only for rookies.

How quick you can go, and how well you can tweak setups is usually directly related to the amount of hours you are willing to practice and experiment.

Quote from nncjimbo :

true but if 2 cars are equal down a straight for instance the best driver will learn to outbrake the other drive or slipstream to gain advantage rather than just out pacing him

There is also the fact the better driver will carry faster speed through the corner and hence get better exit speed and hence more speed down the straight.

The more time you spend with LFS the more you will learn that setup is no replacement for pure skill. As LFS is an accurate (mostly) sim it is VERY punishing on mistakes. The smallest stupid mistake can cost loads of time as it would IRL.

Try setupfield or inforno as they are the setups most people actually use TBH

But, yep... fixed setups has come up again and again and there is support for it. I think when it does come in many will realise that the alien drivers are still alien

Setup has a lot of effect, and can be cruicial.
But in the end, to make that extra second, or just the tenth of second you need to feel COMFORTABLE with the setup. Unless you get a setup that suits you and your driving style it will be uselss to have anything than Race_s setup.

My advice is not to go downloading the WR set if your new to LFS, because these are very hard setups that eats tyres, and normally harder to controll than most setups people uses in races. Ask people online and I'm sure someone shares a setup that is pretty well-ballanced-all-round , and still easier to controll and feel comfortable with than the hotlap setups from internet.

I'd say a good setup is about 20% to 30% of the final outcome, with the rest being the driver's skill (practising including). And setup-wise there's more than one way to achieve fast laptimes (meaning, two or more completly different setups are capable of producing similar laptimes, not necessarily driven by the same driver though).

Before patch Z the default setups were not good at all, they are supposed to be better in patch Z but I haven't tried them.
As others have already said, even if the same setup was enforced online you'd find out that you would pretty much again been beaten the same way by the guys who beat you now

Practice is the key

Quote from Lateralus :

That doesn't look like something you can deep fry, keep it

To the OP - with all due respect, unless you turn out to be an alien theres no way you have had enough practice to extract the best from the set ups you do have. I've found the difference a real good set up makes is 2-5%. Of course this figure will vary person to person.

I don't know if you found the Team Inferno and Set Up Field download pages (if not you certainly should!). They contain some proper gems

Just get the heid doon and get some miles under yer belt, then come back and tell us it's all down to set up, cos its plainly not

A bad setup is a bad thing, but a good setup can't make you a better driver.

Quote from HVS5b :

[snip]
I've found the difference a real good set up makes is 2-5%. Of course this figure will vary person to person.
[snip]

I think a good setup contributes a lot more than 2-5%. In patch Y my pb with XFG@BL1 was 1.33.800 while with the default race-s setup I could hardly drop below 1.35

Quote from migf1 :

I think a good setup contributes a lot more than 2-5%. In patch Y my pb with XFG@BL1 was 1.33.800 while with the default race-s setup I could hardly drop below 1.35

Unless my calculations are incorrect that is LESS than 2%

Diff / Targettime = Percent

That is:

(95-93.8) / 93.8 = 1.28%

Regards
Franke... Click

Quote from Franke :

Unless my calculations are incorrect that is LESS than 2%

Diff / Targettime = Percent

That is:

(95-93.8) / 93.8 = 1.28%

Regards
Franke... Click

Hah! Beat me to it

At the OP: I was racing last night, and got a setup from the fastest guy on the track at the time - it improved my lap times by about 1.5 seconds per lap, but I was still about 2 seconds off his pace, and we were using effectively, exactly the same car. Setup alone might equal a second here or there, but it's not a race winner.

Quote from Franke :

Unless my calculations are incorrect that is LESS than 2%

Diff / Targettime = Percent

That is:

(95-93.8) / 93.8 = 1.28%

Regards
Franke... Click

Ooops

for beginners only thing to mess with are gear ratios and brake balance
and wings maybe for formulas.
that will be enough until u can lap constantly within half a second or so....

Quote from danowat :

A bad setup is a bad thing, but a good setup can't make you a better driver.

He said it all right there....

My example, I was at Westhill in the FZR, my best combo, with an LFS friend I hadn't seen forever. Just for S&G's, we swapped setups. Now, I don't like a lot of oversteer. He tested my set and couldn't control it, oversteer and spinning out all over the place. I tested his, and the front end plowed off the track everywhere with huge understeer. After about 5 laps worth of getting use to the sets, both of us were running right up to our PB times, using each other's vastly different sets.

Ask for a set on the servers. 95% of the time, the one you ask will state that it is just the Inferno download. It's available to all and used by most people.

Forced same set isn't going to make racing better because the set that is forced may not suit you at all, see my example above. Though we were both using vastly different sets than we were use to and both was able to lap close to our PB times, neither set would work for either of us respectively in a racing situation where you would want to be comfortable. I like a little oversteer, which was immense oversteer for him, and he likes a bit of understeer, which was huge understeer for me. In a racing situation, being forced to a set that you don't like such as my example would not be good or enjoyable, IMO.

When you learn the tracks and nuances of the car's a good setup is like a breath of fresh air,If your new to LFS you will not appreciate the difference I know I didn't.
Setups can and do make a huge difference to the lap times no one races with default sets.

To my shame I have never tried doing a setup My first port of call is always Shop of Inferno

If you're crap at driving you cant expect to win a race by just having a good set...then if it's 10% setup and 90% skills or anything else...i dont know,i just race.Im not gonna do any statistics.
Oh and by the way,a little bit of punctuation is really going to improve your questions,its not difficult.I think primary school are way enough for the job.

I race on the banger racing servers, - -Lfs Bangers- - and Lfs Banger Racing and i have used the default, race_s, and my own setup in the xfg and i found the default setup a bit vague cornering wise, due to body roll and horrible grip. I then tried the race_s setup and found it too stiff and bouncy. All i did was modify the race_s setup so i am running a locked diff, maximum camber (so the bottoms of the wheels stick out wider than the tops, but i cant remember the offical terminology) on all 4 wheels, lower pressures in each tyre and some suspension adjustments involving pure guesswork.
To most people, this setup will seem completely rubbish in every way due to the way the back of the car slides out, but as the servers i am involved with use a short oval track, all it takes is a tap on the handbrake and a flick to the right and i can slide all of the way around the corner in one go. Just steer and it goes! Providing i brake at the right time. too late and im in the fence, too early and the bouncy barriers get me. For me, this is the optimum setup that a few of us banger people collaborated and came up with and nearly all of us use this one.

A good setup is more driver-related than track related. A lap-record setup will not help anyone that does not have the driving style to exploit it.

If you have a good balanced set up that suits your driving, it will work practically anywhere. You would only need some minor tweaks in the downforce and gear ratio department.

That's what I do and I am about everywhere equally slow!

Yup, since about patch X, I have found that my FE Green setup in the XFG as well as the FZR worked fantastic everywhere with only mild gearing modifications.

Except Westhill in the FZR. For some reason, my driving style is completely different at just this one combo.

i use my blackwood race setup for the XRT everywhere, and its fast in most places. westhill just has really long, fast corners and some awkward elevation changes so you need to double the antiroll settings at both ends, and then add 5 to the front to reduce the oversteer.

the faster cars with lots of grip really need to be carefully set up more than the road ones, which need to be driven more carefully.
i dont know how anyone drives with understeering sets though

hi there. I'm relatively new to LFS, i have about 1900 laps under my belt. Most of them FBM on BLGP. I'm using a setup from a unknown gamepad user. IIRC nick was dd100 or something Anyway it's suits me.

My best lap was 1.13.74 until today. I couldn't drive with WR setups. But today i give it a try this wr setup and realised that i'm driving so wrong. I was doing high 1.15s. I tried to cure my mistakes and bam i did low 1.14s consitently. After 20 or so laps i changed to dd100 setup and bam i did my new PB 1.13.67. And realized that i'm just a human being So if you feel comfortable with understeery setups give it a try that WR setups for seiing you mistakes.