1. AI
2. Aerodynamics

2'. A very long, hilly, winding fantasy track in a forested area.

I, for one, am waiting for AI. I am a misanthropic hermit offline, and that doesn't change when I go online. :geezer:

LFS is so good that I have specially reserved racing socks ... which are starting to smell.

Thanks for your advice. I know now what to look for in my replays, so hopefully I can learn to drive more cleaner.

Here is a replay, just 3 complete laps.

Sorry to be so skeptical about the advice to drive smoothly and not overcook it going into turns, but it seems that all the previous sims I've tried have taught me the opposite, and it's a habit I can't easily break. I will try harder.

P.S. I was reading about the tyre model in LFS. Wow! That is one detailed modelling job.

Wow, there were spots on my left front tyre as hot as 190, possibly even hotter. It seems I can't drive these cars like I used to drive the old GPL cars. But as I said earlier, if I change my style to much more conservative around the bends, and before the major turns, I can't see myself get decent times, especially with the crappy control these DFP pedals give me (but a good tradesman never blames his tools). Maybe I should play around with the setup, but I've never done that before in a rigorous manner; I guess there's always a first time.

OK, I just tried it, once again, tyre blowout on lap 5. I closely watched the tyre temperatures this time. The rear tyres were fine and stable, slowly reaching about 60 or so. The right front tire, was around 65 or 70, but fluctuating rapidly. The left front tyre was about 85, even more wildly fluctuating. I must be locking the front tyres, especially the left one, and as the wheel rotates the hot spots are showing up very, very briefly (so briefly that I can't read their temperatures, but they must be higher than 100).

My next experiment will be to race about 5 laps, and then slow down to a crawl, and see if I can capture the temperatures of those hot spots.

So my next question is, how do I avoid locking up the front tyres? I know you might say to drive more conservatively, or take corners more slowly, but I think I'm doing that, and if I go any more slower, I'm seriously going to be a road hazard, and my times will be way too slow.

Can someone please post a default race_s setup? There's a small possibility I may have inadvertently overwritten it, I'm not sure.

Is it possible that going off-track can cause a puncture? What can cause a puncture in LFS? Is it random, does it depending on tire temperature, something else? Although my front-left tyre was hotter than the others, it didn't seem that hot (I can't recall the actual temperatures; I'll try again, and write down the temperatures).

XR GT Turbo

I worked out what it was: a tyre blowout. Seems I overheat the left front tyre too much. Any hints for how to avoid that? I'm using the Race_S setup.

Quote from SabersKunk :

If its a rear wheel drive car you may be locking the rear brakes, this would cause the engine to drop revs and reduce steering, try taking your foot off the brake

That's definitely not it. Or at least, putting on my scientist's hat, that the least likely suggestion in this thread. But thanks anyway, it good to consider all possibilities.

Thanks guys for advice and ideas. I'll test it out again tomorrow when I finish work, and come back here with some feedback.

This has happened to me a few times now. I've been running 10-lap races against the AI at Aston Historic, and although I'm not 100% sure, it seems that every time I get into a bit of body action with the AI (nothing too violent), and perhaps run off course once or twice (hey I'm still learning), after a few laps -- sometimes more, sometimes less -- what happens is that suddenly when I go to downshift and slow down for a turn, the engine goes all funny sounding down to low revs, and the car doesn't want to turn right or left. Once I slow it right down to a near stop, then it may work again, or I may have to baby the car into the pits. In the latter case, I can't put too much throttle on, or else it will redline even if 5th gear is selected! After the pitstop, everything works properly again. It seems to me that either my gearbox and/or engine is damaged in the sim itself (is there gearbox/engine damage in LFS, and can it produce the behaviour I'm describing?), or my DFP steering wheel is acting up. Any ideas?

I remember playing Brothers in Arms, and it had some kind of a bloom effect. I felt like going to the eye doctor for some prescription glasses.

Quote from Ricou :

Another advice would be watching some WR's replays, you would learn a lot with it.

Yes, thanks, that's exactly what I've been doing. I lose a lot of time after the back-straight, negotiating all those curves and turns. Also, I notice that the WR driver takes a much more optimum path, using more of the track than I do. And he consistently hits the apex and applies the throttle earlier than me and applies less brake than me! Very educational.

Thanks for your help! I have found LFS Replay Analyser very helpful in determining where I am going too slow, or taking the wrong line, or braking too much. Now to put that knowledge into practice!

I have only been Living For Speed for about 5 days, so there are many things I still do not know. I've done all the training tests, and now I'm trying to master one car at one track at a time. I have a few questions I hope you can answer.

1) Can you cut a replay down to just the lap you want? I might hot lap 30 or 40 laps before I get a personal best, and I'm worried about uploading such a large resulting replay file to LFSWorld. Also, does LFSWorld know how to find the fastest lap in a 30 or 40 lap replay?

2) Where is this "Analyse for Speed" program that people keep talking about and recommending? I tried to go here to download it but the site has been down for several days at least.

3) My best time is 1:26.96 with the XR GT Turbo at Blackwood GP, but I notice on LFSWorld the world record is 1:23.10, and my initial reaction is WTF, I'm almost 4 seconds slower, I'll never be fast! Am I a lost cause?

4) When is it time for me to go online? My gut feeling is to wait until I am more stable, and can consistently do within about 3% of the world records on every track with a range of cars. But maybe I should wait longer (or shorter)? I don't want to spoil the online experience for more established racers.

5) I use Gear Change Blip and Gear Change Cut driving aids. I would like to try Gear Change Cut myself. I want to know when is the right time to momentarily ease off the throttle during a gear upshift? How long should I ease off the throttle? Do I completely ease off the throttle or only 50% or ... ?


Sorry for the length of this post!

Good job to both of you!

Thanks for the advice.

Thanks everyone. Glad to be here.

Hello, my name is Bendito Mescalini, and I have arrived from the post-apocalyptic future where all technology is dead, except for petrol-guzzling cars (so much for peak oil) and human-cactus interbreeding. Actually, I've been in the present (and therefore away from my radioactive world) for a long time, enjoying the thrills and spills of GPL (with a barely negative GPLRank ), SCGT, GTR, and GTL. Since GPL, nothing has grabbed my attention so quickly than LFS (why do acronyms go with racing sims so easily?).

On the unlikely chance that the developers read this post, I want to congratulate and thank them for the superbly designed training tests. I have completed 74 out of 90, and I think they are the perfect way to be introduced to the game, the tracks and the cars. "Fun and you might learn something" indeed!

Looking forward to seeing you guys online when I get the necessary skill and confidence.

OK, let me ask a really stupid embarrassing newbie question: during acceleration, when should I change the gear? When the little red light comes on, or when the the RPM needle enters the red zone?

Hello, I'm a newbie demo racer, soon to be S2 racer, who has just gone through all the demo training sessions and enjoyed himself thoroughly. I see there's lots more training sessions in the full game, but that's good because I need it!

Anyway, my question is about AI training. As I understand it, the AI -- which generally sucks -- can learn to race faster. Does the "knowledge" the AI learns carry over into the next time you start up the game, or does it only hold during that session? In other words, does the AI have long-term memory or just short-term memory?

Assuming the AI has long-term memory, is it possible to share this memory with other racers? I assume it gets saved to some file. Maybe some smart and dedicated racer has spent hours and hours training his AI to the best possible level, and if he shared the relevant files with everyone, then the rest of us could have immediate access to the best AI. Or maybe racers would develop different styles of AI, suitable for different tracks, and we could pick and choose those we liked.