And keep in mind that simulating water isn't as simple as simply uniformly reducing grip levels. Grip while it is wet is a function of your tires, the depth of the water (which in turn depends on where it pools in puddles), and how fast you're going (because you may hydroplane). Just having grip cut in half when it starts to rain wouldn't entirely cut it, though it would be interesting.

This is different from something like ice where depth and your speed don't matter, it is simply slippery everywhere. Also, ice tends to not appear suddenly in the middle of a race, unlike water.

Basically, implementing water on the track is HARD. Harder still would be having puddles and things show so they looked good (or even showed up at all) and didn't massively increase the system requirements.

I'm not sure if this is expected or not. When you watch a replay that contains AI, then go to 'test drive' mode and start the race, the AI will just sit at the start grid.

Duplication
1. Create a single player race with an AI player, as well as yourself
2. No qualifying, 5 laps, just set off, drive for a minute, then save the replay
3. View the replay, press esc, and choose 'test drive'
4. Start this race. You'll notice the AI never starts.

You can probably also just go from the attached replay and start a 'test drive' from there.

I've done the same thing, and I've found about 8 AI to be decent in terms of not wrecking off the start. Set them to quick or ok so that they're easy to pass, and try to pass them all without touching. If you tap one, then give him his position back and try again.

If you want to practice getting passed, do the same thing except use a slower car than the AI or add add an intake restrictor or weight to your car.

The music industry has spent millions trying to stop copying of digital files, I'm not sure the devs will be able to solve it, or they should expend the effort to do so. Someone would just figure out how to rip the file as it transferred to you, or pull it out of memory.

Quote from pearcy_2k7 :

My advice is if the devs want to make this simulator a huge sucess (already nearly there) they will have to cater to everyoes needs or wants and not just focus on circuit racing they need an oval car rall car and i hate to say it but even a drift car to make the ricers happy.

Yes, but if they were simply driven by what made the game sell more, then they would make the game like NFS or PGR. I'm glad the devs have a vision and are sticking to it.

+1 for having it in a more convenient place, but for the time being, you can check out at least some of that data on LFSW after the race.

Quote from Jakg :

No it's not.

You already CAN do this. Change the setting, add an Ai, change the setting, add an Ai. Notice how they are at different levels?

It used to work this way, at least...

No, I tried this today, which is what prompted me to post the thread. I wanted a very diverse field, so I did that exact thing, but once I was in the race, I noticed that I was passing the RACs (at least one of which should have been a pro) while driving a gimped XFG. Then I added them in a different order with the last one being a pro, and I was getting killed by everyone (even the UF1s ).

It would be great if it was possible to have a field of AI drivers whose abilities could span the gamut from newbie to pro. It's kind of boring if you set up a single-car race to have all the AIs doing the exact same lap times, taking the same lines, never passing each other, etc.

It would be good if you could set up some 'ok' AIs, some 'quick' AIs, and some 'pro' AIs in a single race to get some variation. As it stands now, the setting for AI skill is global to all AIs in your race.

I think this would be a fantastic addition if combnied with another common autox suggestion: an enormous (like 1km x 1km), flat, no-barriers autox area. As it stands now, you can't even fit a mini-oval infield (150m x 350m) in the parking lot.

Thanks for pointing out that LYTe thing though... now i have to go try something.

Edit: Google certainly crawls fast: this is now the second hit for the search "LYTe LFS"

This may be prohibitively difficult, but could you add a bit of scripting to allow a user to 'search' for certain engine specs?

Example: I'm trying to recreate the D16A6 engine in the XFG. It's a whole lot of trial and error to get the hp, torque, AND peak rpm values correct by modifying the settings given.

My proposed feature:Allow the user to enter a 'desired' hp, torque, and peak rpms, then have LFSTune do a search for a combination of the "General HP", "Torque", and "Powerband" settings that get somewhat close to the desired values.

I guess you'd have to have some scripting to trigger LFS to recompute the hp and torque values, and that seems like it'd be the hard (possibly impossible) part.

Anyway, love the program. Thanks a lot.

Quote from Californian :

Some of you really need to understand that drifting is subcategory of racing:

Racing:
-Drifting
-Rally
-etc.

Competition exists in all of subcategories of Racing.

Competition and points exists in many things, but that doesn't make them racing:
-Figure Skating
-Ballroom dancing
-Gymnastics
-Synchronized Swimming
-Diving

Those things aren't racing. They are judged sports. They are all sports to be sure, but they aren't racing. Likewise: drifting is a motor sport because it takes plenty of skill and requires a motor, but it isn't a race because time is not the sole determinant of the winner.

Drifting is to racing what figure skating is to speed skating.

There are also drift leagues where time does factor as part of your score. In that case, I'd adjust my analogy to "drifting is to racing what moguls-skiing is to downhill skiing". You don't call figure skating or moguls skiing racing, and you wouldn't call drifting racing.

Last edited by Bongle, Wed 19 Dec 2007, 14:19.

whoops, mis-reply.

I agree that marshals with flags is a good idea, but I'm unsure the resolution on most monitors would be high enough for them to show up. The green light on the X30 version of the main straight in BL1 is only visible to me once I'm probably past the point where I could brake for it.

Last edited by Bongle, Mon 17 Dec 2007, 03:25.

Lol, from the page about the Festo simulating chair:

Quote :

floods the driver with stellar, race-tuned engine and exhaust sounds

Well at least somebody likes LFS's sounds!

What's funnier is that in the video on the page, you can tell that they're using the old sounds.

I got up to 220km/h on the oval in the FBM. I'm sure it could be done faster since I am not good at doing oval setups*.

I also did an oval race with 10 other AIs, and their best was 50.8. My best was 50.2 and I was mainly catching them (I had an off at the start) on the straights, so they aren't getting a speed boost on the oval, at least.

I gotta say though, the AI is fantastic. At one point, I was side by side with an AI where if it had blindly followed the line it would've driven me into the wall, but it moved over and gave me room.

*My setup was no downforce, high pressure tires, with the right side cambered at -2 and the left side cambered at +0.5 and with no toe in/toe out.

Last edited by Bongle, Wed 12 Dec 2007, 15:06.

Quote from Dalarna :

The problem is, that it's not seperating the noobs from the pros. It is bringing the pro's at setup-buildning down to the noob's level. Is that fair just because they know a lot about how to tune the suspension, the gearbox etc?

There would still be servers where people who enjoy and are good at setup-building would be able to work their magic head to head. On those servers, you'd have to have your own competitive setup in order to win. On these servers, you'd need both setup knowledge and driving skill to win.

At least with what I'm proposing, there would also be these fixed-setup servers that focus more on driving skill. People who enjoy doing setups wouldn't enjoy these servers, but people who like simply driving would.

What might also be neat is a combined server where you could have 'pit crews' that make a setup, and drivers that choose from the setups available.

Quote from Dalarna :

It is the way of life.
Some people know what they are doing and produce good settings, some people have no idea what they are doing and they can't create settings at all. Their loss.
And the fun of driving ain't ruined, you can take a WR-set and still not drive WR's with it if don't know what you are doing. If you drive like shit, you drive like shit.

People with better sets know what they are doing and should get "payed" for that, they shouldn't be "dragged down" because you think they drive to fast with their personal settings.

LFS is a racing simulator. Not everyone drives the same set and cars, some series do force settings but not all do. It's a minority that do. Different drivers have different driving styles and this means they need different settings to drive their absolute best, and this is the way LFS should be and it is.

I think you're missing his point (which rjm said before: "There are alot of leagues in RL that force setups, so let the server force the setup. "). He's not proposing removing intricate setups from the games completely, but rather to have a checkbox that server creators can check that says "drivers may only have this specific setup on this server". Obviously you would never go on those servers, but having the choice to go on a setup-restricted server or an unrestricted server would be nice for me and others in this thread. You'd still get to both engineer your setup and race with it, while those of us without the patience and/or talant to do so could race with a setup given to us by the server.

LFS is essentially two seperate games. A setup game, and a driving game. It would be very nice for myself and several others in this thread if we didn't have to be good at the setup game to be successful in the driving game.

Last edited by Bongle, Wed 29 Aug 2007, 21:25.