Couldn't disagree with you more on that one. I've been racing LFS for quite some time now and for a few months on iRacing too. If you spend the time to get used to the iRacing system, it improves your overall skill a lot better and in the right areas!
I enjoy LFS just as much, if not more than iRacing, but if you are looking for a SIM then iRacing so far is where it's at.
For example in terms of reality NetKar's Aim Data association has been a absolutely birlliant tool for training drivers with data.
I thinks sims in general have natural limitations about how much they can teach a driver. Your NOT going to learn the tiny intricacies in a simulator that you get in real life, no matter HOW good they are.
For example I have helped drivers improve their general overtaking using LFS. Teach them the basic concepts of overtaking and how you approach it. Sims are FANTASTIC for this. What it can NOT teach them is the SPECIFICS of how the vehicle will move beneath them or How the body is effected. The actually bodies ability to understand rotation or 'yaw' is quite important. In a sim your static.
To a certain degree it doesn't matter how realistic the simulation is. A good driver can adapt to any vehicle. LFS vehicles are in their own reality and it's up to a driver to adapt. LFS is REALITY, as is iRacing.
Yes simulations are an unbelievably good substitute for racers who don't get on the track that often, but LFS provides as good as substitue as iRacing.
iRacing is for sim racers, and NetKar/LFS is for real racers. And the reason for this is real racers need money for tyres/entries/stuff. LFS/NetKar provide as good a training tool as iR.
BUT of course the sim has to have a level of competance. Need For Speed aint gonna teach you jack
I'd like to believe that they can teach you something about vehicle dynamics. "If you do this, you'll get understeer like this, on the other hand, if you do this you get oversteer like this", and so on. I'd love to take a real life Solstice around a real track, wire it all up with telemetry, then match inputs to outputs with the same in iRacing.
Assuming a simmer could drive the thing in iRacing, and that iRacing is reasonably accurate, couldn't you expect that simmer to be able to do the same in real life once he/she gets accustomed to the g-forces?
Btw. Could we possibly have this thread name changed into iracing.com or something as it has gone horribly offtopic in the sense that the pricing was discussed like 500 pages ago?
Yeah, I do here you on this. My thought is that LFS is certainly unique enough to hold its own. I've played iRacing, rFactor, NetKar, GRT Evo and all act as a compliment and condiment to my staple diet of LFS! In no way would I want to stop people buying LFS and I honestly don't think it would by having an "Other Sims" section. But to put things like this in an "off topic" section, it looks totally out of place and why should discussions on other sims be subject to more strict rules than other sections?
To me its a balls out statement and confidense from the Dev's that LFS is what it is and a knockout product (certainly not an Alpha game!).
So true. There's no reason for most sim racers not to have a nice collection of sims that can completely complement each other.
None of the best three (imo) LFS,nKPro and iRacing do what the others do.
LFS is the clear winner for simply being able to jump into race at almost any time of day, with a huge variety of cars. (for the Europeans at least)
iRacing is the structured, most professional sim, for all your organised racing needs.
nKPro is in a league of its own for your hardcore simulation needs. It makes some of iRacings 'arcade' features stand out.
All three do different things, and personally i find driving all of them makes my driving better in the others. I learn things from each sim that i can put to use in the others.
The LFS devs have nothing to worry about with people driving other sims as well, as they all have their unique features. Only when someone comes up with a sim that offers everything the 3 biggies (imo )do in one package will they have to think about not allowing discussions about it on their forum. And tbh i dont see that ever happening.
Well, it's off the topic of LFS, and Sims aren't General Racing either, so i guess it's currently the right place.
I would certainly like to see a separate section to discuss other racing sims though. Or other sims in general (flight sims/train sims etc. I think quite a lot of race simmers like other simulations as well)
I don't think there's a need for yet another subforum. As the place for topics that don't have to do with LfS or racing, games and sim threads fit here perfectly.
so with the sims we have discussed here thus far wed have a thread on iracing one on nkp one on rfactor and one on gp bikes... a whole new section for 4 threads