Too bad you don't have force-feedback (you're running it via Wine?). It helps a lot in understanding and feeling the weight transfers of the cars, thus helping you (even warning you) in many cases.

Other than that, set your G25 rotation to 720 degrees both ingame and in the drivers and also set the Wheel Compensation to 1 ingame. This will make sure your wheel wont't turn more or less than the intended by the devs steering of each car.

Centering force might also killing you

Quote from bunder9999 :

[snip]
edit: i didn't originally want to play with the brakes, removing the ability to lock up seems... artificial.

It's not artificial, it's a perfectly legit setup option and as most of them it depends on your very own driving style.

Quote from migf1 :

Other than that, set your G25 rotation to 720 degrees both ingame and in the drivers and also set the Wheel Compensation to 1 ingame. This will make sure your wheel wont't turn more or less than the intended by the devs steering of each car.

doesn't work without force feedback (it won't lock at 720, or any other value i set). wheel compensation is already set to 1, the difference between the game-wheel and my wheel would screw with my brain.

word has it, better force feedback support is in the latest wine, but the g25 force feedback isn't supported by the kernel yet. can't dual boot either, the machine is also my PVR.

i feel i'm driving better today, sadly the times don't agree with me. at least i'm getting more consistent.
here's another replay. i think i just needed a clear mind after yesterday.

edit: i think i'm still braking a little hard.
edit2: added another replay, with some more setup changes

Hi Bunder,

It's nice to see that you really want to get better.

I didnt watch your replay, but from my own experience i'd say starting on a single-seater car may be a little bit too hard, since everything happens very fast on it, and especially spinning .

If you want to be fast with it, my advice would be to try to get more experience on road cars (XRG, XRT I'd say) until you understand how a rear wheel drive car reacts when trying to be fast. And then apply it to FBM.

Another thing: I think mastering how to countersteer is really important, otherwise you will spin out every time you get too optimistic with the throttle

Good luck, and remember that it takes much time to get really fast. Be patient and drive often !

i've tried the XRG, i spin out like crazy. at least i can control the FBM.

one of these days i'll get around to getting better at them. i'm a big fan of FWD and 4/AWD, as one could stomp the gas without fear of spinouts.

Quote from bunder9999 :

i feel i'm driving better today, sadly the times don't agree with me. at least i'm getting more consistent.
here's another replay. i think i just needed a clear mind after yesterday.

edit: i think i'm still braking a little hard.
edit2: added another replay, with some more setup changes

I watched 2 laps from your 2nd replay. The biggest problem seems to be the control. It may take some time, but try to get familiar with the handling of the car. If you like the FBM, I think it's a good car to start with.

When you have control over the car (and you can drive 10 laps without crashing or spinning or getting of in any way), try to use every cm there's available of track. That can be curbs and all, everything. Before you enter a turn, get to the outside as far as possible. Don't brake too hard, you still want speed through the turn. The apex is as much to the inside as possible. And then on the exit go as far to the outside as you can. And try to be smooth on the throttle, brakes and steering. I see you are overcorrecting a lot. Just pay attention to what happends to the car.

If you don't have Force Feedback, this can be a mayor disadvantage, because you don't feel the car sliding soon enough (or not at all). Maybe turning the skidding sounds up a lot might help you notice the car sliding..

for me, i found that turning down the maximum amount of braking to each wheel helped me a hell of a lot as i used to lock up loads under braking. i did it bit by bit and went until i had decent stopping power without it locking the front wheels. If you need to stop in an emergancy situation then you will need the handbrake as well for a quick stop but for racing, it will brake ok and never lock up! just a thought.

In your second replay (...5.spr) you've damaged the suspension of the car in your outlap (you can see it by pressing F10). So, all the rest of the laps were done with a damaged suspension. You should have either restarted after you hit the wall or reset the car (put it in complete stop and press the space-bar... if it says "option is not available" or something like that, type: "/canreset yes" (no quotes)).

Quote from migf1 :

In your second replay (...5.spr) you've damaged the suspension of the car in your outlap (you can see it by pressing F10). So, all the rest of the laps were done with a damaged suspension. You should have either restarted after you hit the wall or reset the car (put it in complete stop and press the space-bar... if it says "option is not available" or something like that, type: "/canreset yes" (no quotes)).

i didn't think it was bad enough to warrant starting over or pitting.

haven't had much time this week to practise... i'll get around to posting more replays of my suckage.

Not meaning to drag your thread off-topic, but I'm wondering, where would I find those WR's (I'm assuming those are world records?) and their according tracks?

Despite me being S1 licensed for a long time, I've only recently reinstalled LFS, and by God I'm addicted again :o

So, now I want to improve, and ran across this, and got curious

-Z

use the lfs world link at the top of every forum page. from there, s2 hotlaps, WR tab.

cheers

Another thing I can add: do not get obsessed with lap times. Put enough fuel in the car to last 25 laps and just aim to drive that long. Pretty much the only thing you should be concentrating on is looking ahead on the track (i.e. not at the apex, but past the turn--again, good understanding of this comes with experience). After several laps, you will enter this weird meditative state and your lap times will start improving. The big speedups (up to 1 sec) usually come on laps that seem "slow" and overly relaxed.

Also, if you hit anyting, just reset the car (spacebar). You don't want even slight damage to suspension to influence your practice. Turn off wind as well.