One thing that springs to mind is that a number of leagues require high resolution skin submission since LFS doesn't support >1024px yet and/or to verify skins conform to regs before the race.
Being able to upload a skin file or link to an LFSW skin somehow so league admins can easily vet them and download a skin pack zip would be useful.

Otherwise, looks good at first glance 👍

More topdowns:


SO 2022-2024:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/39

AS:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/40

AU:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/41

Comparisons for top downs (zooming in sort of works)

KY:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/37

SO:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/38

Quote from tankslacno :

Daytona Road Course came immediately to my mind with the possibility of oval section being slower by use of chicanes.

Also F1 Indy, a chicane a bit like that was one of the proposals to stop Michelin tyres falling apart, though it's in the wrong place

Quote from Bokujishin :

The new Kyoto looks great! Looking forward to trying the updated tracks and...

You never know, the graphics themselves might run better on some hardware.
The core of the current graphics are designed for DX8/9 - the last DX9 optimised cards are 20 years old at this point, using modern features that modern hardware optimises for might make some things more efficient, even without the multithreading.

Obligatory:

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/01
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/02
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/03
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/04

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/05
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/06
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/07
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/08

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/09
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/10
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/11
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/12

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/13
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/14
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/15
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/16

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/17
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/18
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/19
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/20

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/21
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/22
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/23
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/24

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/25
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/26
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/27
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/28

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/29
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/30
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/31
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/32

https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/33
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/34
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/35
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/36

2D Top Downs:

KY:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/37

SO:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/38

SO 2022-2024:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/39

AS:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/40

AU:
https://imx.tc-g.uk/ky2024/41

Last edited by Degats, Mon 23 Dec 2024, 20:30.

If your antivirus is blocking it, report it as false positive.

Avast: https://www.avast.com/report-false-positive#pc

Quote from Scawen :

I see you have felt under attack from me, but I'd like to mention that I have felt under attack all year so far, not from TC but generally, as most of the time I have been having to deal with people working out ever more ways to try to circumvent every rule or limit we have, to the point of causing problems with the online experience. I've had some success with that but every time I get near the end, another issue seems to come along.

One piece of advice, which may help: Try to treat it as a technical challenge to solve, not an attack against you.
Switching around the thought process may make it less burdensome, or maybe even enjoyable to come up with solutions.

Depending on how your mind works, it may or may not make a difference, but some personalities (especially in programmers/engineers) thrive on challenge.

Quote from Scawen :

I never said they had.
...
Try to keep up and please stop suggesting I've said things that I haven't.
...
I haven't thought that or suggested it any any point.

Firstly, to the above point:

Quote from Scawen :

It's an ugly thing you have created.

Quote from Scawen :

... you are recreating many ugly aspects of capitalism in a game world and supporting a license rental trade in direct contravention of our license agreement ...
... as you have allowed a fun game to shift towards real world earning instead of staying on the fun side ...

The tone and words used heavily implies that you thought we actively created a system for people to buy in-game items for real-world money, and that we knew about and facilitated account renting/sharing. Some others' use of words suggest they had similar assumptions.

Merely having a purely in-game money/trading system is normal and far from controversial (see below).

We only found out about the rental issue as a result of this thread (and/or a DM that started it, I'm not sure of the exact timeline).

Thus, given the words you and others used, it never occurred to me that the fact our system simply allows in-game item/credit trading would result in such language/statements directed against us.

------------

Quote from Scawen :

... supporting a license rental trade in direct contravention of our license agreement

For the record, [TC] have been actively enforcing the "no account sharing" part of the LFS Terms of Service for many years:

• We have actively investigated suspected shared accounts (and have a system to help track this) and permanently banned a number of accounts with sufficient evidence that they are being shared by multiple people.
  
• Our system even automatically bans accounts showing the most obvious signs of being shared.
  
• After seeing more suspicious account activity very recently, we have also implemented an additional feature to disable accounts.
  

I'd say we've gone above and beyond to help enforce LFS account sharing ToS. Enforcing this isn't our responsibility, but we have always done it where we can, to help the LFS community.

------------

Since I was not aware of [TC] "allowing" trading for [TC] money, I have asked around for clarification regarding what that actually means.

Turns out people were using our Off-Topic "Marketplace" forum area, to trade things for [TC] money. This area was intended for people to trade real world items for other real-world items and/or real money.

The only official written stance about paying for [TC] money that we can find is from a discussion in 2012: "We don't encourage or endorse it but we have no control over what people do with their money, real or game-based." Beyond this, [TC] never really decided on an official policy. It apparently was not a problem for us until very recently either. The marketplace area has been removed for now, and we are currently discussing how to deal with advertising of trades.

To be clear, our forum's Marketplace area has never been used to trade, sell, or rent, LFS accounts.


I've always personally been against selling [TC] money for cash, however historically it doesn't seem to have caused any problems. I've even heard reports today of trades resulting in a number of S3 upgrades being bought for people who genuinely couldn't afford it (no actual money changed hands, but LFS vouchers were purchased and gifted).


------------

Background:

What [TC] have is a "credit/'money'/economy based progression system", which is incredibly common on many thousands of very popular games, and many multiplayer games. It is a core mechanic of many genres of games. It goes beyond simply unlocking items at certain stages to be used infinitely, which the majority of players get bored of quite quickly (eventually, you "win" and that's the end of it). The style of progression system, as used by [TC], is normal and far from controversial.

Several of those biggest multiplayer games have implemented payments systems to facilitate purchasing of in-game items with real-world money and/or trading between users for real-world money (Valve, Rockstar, EA etc), and was wildly controversial when it started (blame EA/Valve) and continues to be so. [TC] do not do this and have never done this. As mentioned, some other cruise servers have historically (don't know about now).


To use your Monopoly example. The entire point of Monopoly is to trade money and goods. Someone wins when noone else has any money. People play it because it's fun.
Trading real money/items for Monopoly money isn't in the Monopoly rules, and it's not in [TC]'s rules either.
One difference though, is that you don't win or lose in [TC], unlike Monopoly. In fact, with the mod rental system, you don't even need to have much money to drive all the cars these days, so there's less incentive to gain money quickly other than to make a number go up.

A vanishingly small number of users trading [TC] money with real money, while we would rather they wouldn't, doesn't really make a significant impact to the economy. It certainly doesn't go as far as "unbridled capitalism that appears to be currently corrupting the server"



Within LFS, [TC] weren't the first (or even second I think) to implement a money system. As far as I'm aware, being able to send in-game money to other players has always been a standard feature with cruise InSims and not unique to [TC].

The core implementation of [TC]'s money system is practically old enough to drink. It's an industry standard gameplay mechanic. It has been refined enough so that it doesn't easily inflate to infinity and keeps people interested (mostly).
It's not a novel or controversial concept in LFS or beyond in any way.
It hasn't "caused" any issues until recently being blamed for third-parties unscrupulous activities outside the platform.

This thread started off with 20-40 compromised accounts due to people cracking LFS, and devolved into [TC] being to blame because people who were already breaking laws abused our system?

Quote from Scawen :

I have repeatedly asked why it is necessary to allow money transfer between players, but have not received an answer yet.

It's a core gameplay mechanic. It's how the world works, and has worked before capitalism or even money. Trade is the basis for all economies around the world for millennia. Money is simply a tool to standardise value, or a stand-in for trade where goods aren't appropriate. It's interesting for people and gives a reason to continue playing. That's the reason it's the basis for so many games. If people lose interest, they move on. It is incredibly difficult to come up with a continuous progression system that doesn't include some kind of economy.

------------

I'm not sure what you expect us to do at this point, other than continue to proactively ban accounts with real evidence of sharing, as we always have.

We are considering actively cracking down on advertising in our platforms to sell [TC] money, but will that actually make a difference? People have been trading for real money off-platform, or for non-TC in-game LFS currency for years. As mentioned, other (not [TC]) servers have done it officially where people could pay the server admins for in-game items/money.

I'm not sure it would be helpful to "simply" remove a standard, core feature, which has many positive uses (mentioned previously, by several people). What about blocking trading in-game cars or items? They have "value" (even if we got rid of the money system altogether). Would you require every other InSim system to do the same? It would remove a lot of genuine interactivity between community members and in my opinion (and clearly others', looking at replies to this thread) doing so would ruin a large portion of it. Where do you stop? Does it even make a significiant difference to the account sharing problem?

Removing feature(s) from one server will do little to stop people sharing accounts one way or another, as they have done for many years without needing to trade [TC] money.

------------

The crux of the matter is this: how big/widespread of a problem is this actually? How many accounts are involved? Is this even happening with accounts that haven't been hacked?

If it's known that a significant number of accounts have been hacked, industry standards suggest it would prudent to do a global reset of GAME passwords - if not WEB as well, given the evidence of password reuse. This would save you a lot of work chasing down hacks from passwords that were stolen years ago.

------------

Finally, I really don't want to say the below out loud, but this comment just hurts, given the immense time and effort [TC] as a whole has put into LFS for nearly 2 decades

Quote from Scawen :

So after all the support I've given to cruise servers and [TC], now the result is you are recreating many ugly aspects of capitalism in a game world and supporting a license rental trade in direct contravention of our license agreement.

We understand that you, Eric and Victor have given the cruising community support over the years, but please bear this in mind:

• [TC] have been directly responsible for several hundred (thousands?) of S2/S3 licenses being bought. We have had over 44000 unique players connect, since we started tracking them.
  
• We have consistently been in the top few servers and sometimes the *only* server with decent a player base during some of LFS' dark times, no small part down to the sticking power of all our game mechanics.
  
• As mentioned above, we have always - voluntarily - actively helped to enforce LFS ToS on account sharing.
  

The [TC] team have been dedicated to LFS since 2006 and this year it will be 18 years since we began.

A large number of members who were around in 2006 have replied here today, and some who have not yet replied are disappointed to read what has been said about the servers we created and all care a lot about. These members have helped provide thousands of people with entertainment for almost 2 decades.


------------

This was posted after I'd written most of the above, so I'll reply separately:

Quote from Scawen :

It's funny how may people around here are attributing me with all sorts of stuff I haven't said, and aren't reading what I have actually said.

I realise it's 2024, but there must still be a place for replying to what people actually said, instead of making up stuff you pretend they said, and arguing against that? Or is that too old-fashioned now?

Please bear in mind that, especially in text online, the choice of words and tone (which, in hindsight, may have been poorly chosen), or omitted clarification, can give the wrong impression/interpretation.

------------

While I drafted the bulk of this post, I had input from Pete, Chuck and the rest of [TC] management, and we have all been variously working on, and thinking about this all day. We are taking this issue seriously. We believe a solution can be found from the many suggestions that have already been made in this thread to make it more difficult for people to share accounts, without significantly altering core, engrained functionality in use since 2007.

What I hope is clear by now is that there are many, many people who are trying to help LFS. [TC], Sim Broadcasts, NDR, and many other teams have members who are talented developers and IT professionals who can lend some actual help to come up with solutions if you should need it e.g. TOTP-2FA as mentioned by others above.

Quote from Scawen :

Well what you have, by allowing people to buy game credits, is several things.

Just to clarify something as this seems to be getting out of hand.

TC has *never* sold in-game currency (or items) for real money. Various other cruise servers have in the past (maybe still do?), but TC hasn't.

We've always been against it on principle, but there's not really a lot we can do about it - any trading of real money for TC money is happening off-server, between individuals. I'm not sure where you got the idea that TC is doing it ourselves.

Edit:
The only way of generating TC money is by driving, or performing driving-related tasks on our servers.
There are various other transactions/events (such as fines, cars wearing and losing value) that reduces the amount of TC money in the system.
There is no way to pay to generate more TC money than is already in the system "owned" by our users.

Last edited by Degats, Sat 24 Feb 2024, 17:49.

Hmm, I hadn't actually noticed that it blocks the messages from InSim as well. Probably not possible to do what you want then :/

That's how we do it for SBTV, I think that's the only reliable way.

Quote from LuEnric :

Nice, tks Scawen. Just a question, and about the Sirocco? We still gonna have the car in futures updates?

With the physics update, yes
/offtopic

Quote from Scawen :

Are you able to reproduce this?

The crash address points to loading an integer from a file, so not much to go on at this point.

I can't reproduce it by loading a test mod (with popup headlights) driving on another track then loading RO3. I wonder if you can do it again.

It hasn't done it again. It loaded RO3 straight away right after it crashed and I've just tried going from the same track to track combination I did last night (same mod revision I think) with no issue.

Hard crash immediately when loading RO3 in single player, with a test mod selected (which should have already been loaded from driving on another track seconds before)

Any chance you could delay closing by at least half a second when the lights turn off?
Most cars with pop-ups have a delay to save wear on the motors in case you flash more than once.

Also makes flashing lights weird:

You should never need to run anything to do with LFS as admin, unless you installed it somewhere where a normal user doesn't have write access (eg Program Files).

Quote from Gutholz :

Another option is to record your own racing line.
Just record the coordinates over a few laps and eventually you will have enough data. If LFS's path node system is not accurate for your needs, then you can make your own system.
The advantage would be that it works on custom configs, too.

This is pretty much what the LFS pth files are, it's a reference lap with nodes/lines saved at regular intervals (with additional geometry that isn't required for deltas).

For each lap you care about: save the position, direction, speed, and time since the start of the lap in whatever interval is useful. Compare that reference lap against the current lap/latest IS_MCI data and you can calculate the delta.

I can't remember exactly what the calculations are and I haven't got time to dig into it at the moment, but it uses a combination of speed and position of all cars from InSim, and measuring distances from the .pth node lines which are used as references.

LFS limitations for Simbroadcasts usage are mostly described here https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/2056282#post2056282. I don't think they're show stoppers, just make for more edge cases and added complexity that I will need to deal with.
I don't think they'd stop you from recreating LFS Lazy type stuff though.

You can use the .pth files in data\smx for the approx racing line.

I have a WIP live delta implemented for Simbroadcasts, though it needs work to be robust enough for our uses (I mentioned this in the other thread that asked about deltas).

All the data needed to do personal live deltas is available in InSim + .pth files.

Quote from Scawen :

... if a car has daytime running lights, does that mean it doesn't have a "sidelights" option on the headlights switch (traditionally have three settings: off, sidelights, headlights) is their headlights simply off / on / auto?

Yes, DRLs have a sidelights switch (for LED ones anyway):
DRL: Front only (except Scandinavia where they also have taillights); bright enough to outshine the sun
Sidelights: Dim front to not blind people when it's darker + taillights.
Headlights: Normally still have DRL on in dim mode in addition to dipped/full beam.

Auto lights usually have the above plus an auto position.

(Not suggestions, just an FYI 😉).

Quote from Marty_Deslions :

Hey Scawen, could you also add to the interface the "Lights: off/side/low/high" message when the player does the /light head next command? Now it appears when you manually press SHIFT+3, but not when you run the /light head next command.

Does /shift 3 show the message?
If it does, that's an alternative to /light head next if you want the message

Quote from Flame CZE :

The DashLights and ShowLights properties of OutGaugePack will need to be updated at some point to include all the new light features.


enum
{
DL_SHIFT, // bit 0 - shift light
DL_FULLBEAM, // bit 1 - full beam
DL_HANDBRAKE, // bit 2 - handbrake
DL_PITSPEED, // bit 3 - pit speed limiter
DL_TC, // bit 4 - TC active or switched off
DL_SIGNAL_L, // bit 5 - left turn signal
DL_SIGNAL_R, // bit 6 - right turn signal
DL_SIGNAL_ANY, // bit 7 - shared turn signal
DL_OILWARN, // bit 8 - oil pressure warning
DL_BATTERY, // bit 9 - battery warning
DL_ABS, // bit 10 - ABS active or switched off
DL_SPARE, // bit 11
DL_NUM
};

But the packet doesn't seem to have much spare bytes to use

It already has been (see insim.txt in the patch).
The bitmask is 32bits, so will take some filling up, it's just over half used with the new lights.

Quote from Scawen :

Quick poll:

Dipped / Full Beam or Low Beam / High Beam

FWIW, my car's manual alternates between dipped and low, and calls the other one "main"

Quote from KingOfIce :

Hello Scawen,
are you considering adding the new 7D information "engine damage" to insim (more globally, perhaps a new "damage" or "car condition" package with clutch slip, bodywork, suspensions, etc.)?

Yeah, I was also thinking during the race on Thurs that separating engine damage to a separate InSim repair flag would be useful (though I imagine that would also involve changing it to a unique damage type as well rather than generic, which I assume was done to make implementation simpler?).