Gonna second gebinto's recommendation of mouse steering. It takes some getting used to, but it's simply better than tapping away at the keyboard.
LFS aero currently works purely in the longitudinal direction. Drag and lift/downforce is generated in relation to the car's forward speed (forward being the exact direction the nose is pointing - some setups have raised the front for lower overall drag). There are no additional lift and drag coefficients for going sideways.
Raising or lowering either end of the car has no huge aerodynamic effect. You'd basically need real-time fluid simulation to have something like that simulated.
Raising or lowering either end of the car has no huge aerodynamic effect. You'd basically need real-time fluid simulation to have something like that simulated.
Last edited by MeteorIDW, .
The more a differential locks on power, the harder the outside wheel will push compared to the inside when turning and accelerating at the same time. Much the same applies for locking on coast.
So on power, the outside of the car tries to overtake the inside and you get more rotation. The reverse happens for coasting and you get less rotation. The current LFS physics already recreate this in a more exaggerated form: just throw a locked diff on any of the FWDs in the game.
I took Scawen's comment to mean a wider line in general, rather than the car specifically oversteering or understeering. Even oversteer will cause a wider line if enough grip (both lateral and longitudinal) goes away from the rear tires, as there'd simply be less force keeping you on a tighter line then.
We'll have to wait for the finished physics to know for certain, but I'm assuming combined-slip behavior now maintains more overall grip when accelerating hard out of a turn, rotation can happen with less sliding, and the car's torque can push it into a tighter line than before.
We'll have to wait for the finished physics to know for certain, but I'm assuming combined-slip behavior now maintains more overall grip when accelerating hard out of a turn, rotation can happen with less sliding, and the car's torque can push it into a tighter line than before.
Like I explained earlier, this really wouldn't make it easier for beginners. Learning car control is already very hard. It'll be even harder when the car drives completely different all the time.
Just imagine. You're trying to follow a faster driver around a turn, then you get a power increase mid-corner, the car's balance gets disrupted, and you either spin out or understeer off the track. It would be very confusing, and it wouldn't be fun. No one could properly adjust to this. And there are many other ways something like this could ruin someone's lap. It won't help slower drivers. It'll only make things worse for them.
A lot of racing games don't give the players rubberbanding simply because it doesn't work very well, especially when the driving physics are complex. Sometimes they give rubberbanding to AI drivers only, but even they can't properly handle it at times.
I do think it would be nice to make things less difficult for beginners, but I don't think rubberbanding is the answer.
Just imagine. You're trying to follow a faster driver around a turn, then you get a power increase mid-corner, the car's balance gets disrupted, and you either spin out or understeer off the track. It would be very confusing, and it wouldn't be fun. No one could properly adjust to this. And there are many other ways something like this could ruin someone's lap. It won't help slower drivers. It'll only make things worse for them.
A lot of racing games don't give the players rubberbanding simply because it doesn't work very well, especially when the driving physics are complex. Sometimes they give rubberbanding to AI drivers only, but even they can't properly handle it at times.
I do think it would be nice to make things less difficult for beginners, but I don't think rubberbanding is the answer.
I think rubberbanding wouldn't really fit a game like LFS. It works for games that aren't trying to be realistic, but it won't feel right to have cars magically get faster or slower in a racing simulator.
There's also the fact that it'd drastically change how the cars behave. One moment your car's driving like normal, then you get passed and suddenly there's more torque going to the drive wheels, the weight transfer is all different, you get wheelspin more easily, and your car's settings don't fit at all. If you end up in last place, you now have a whole lot more power but your tires, brakes and setup are still the same. That's just going to make things even harder, because you're suddenly driving a completely different car at that point.
This really wouldn't make things easier for the slower drivers. It'd just make things really confusing for them. Having the car's performance change literally all the time will be nearly impossible to get used to.
Dynamically adding weight to the cars isn't a good idea either. You're not simply slowing the cars down by doing that; you're also drastically increasing braking distances, bringing cornering speeds down, increasing tire wear, changing the forces acting on the suspension, and seriously changing the weight transfer and rotational inertia of the car. Again, this would also lead to the car feeling completely different literally every other moment, and would be impossible to get used to.
If you're trying to find a way to bridge the gap between faster and slower drivers, dynamically changing anything about the car is not the right way to do it. It'd only ruin things for everyone.
There's also the fact that it'd drastically change how the cars behave. One moment your car's driving like normal, then you get passed and suddenly there's more torque going to the drive wheels, the weight transfer is all different, you get wheelspin more easily, and your car's settings don't fit at all. If you end up in last place, you now have a whole lot more power but your tires, brakes and setup are still the same. That's just going to make things even harder, because you're suddenly driving a completely different car at that point.
This really wouldn't make things easier for the slower drivers. It'd just make things really confusing for them. Having the car's performance change literally all the time will be nearly impossible to get used to.
Dynamically adding weight to the cars isn't a good idea either. You're not simply slowing the cars down by doing that; you're also drastically increasing braking distances, bringing cornering speeds down, increasing tire wear, changing the forces acting on the suspension, and seriously changing the weight transfer and rotational inertia of the car. Again, this would also lead to the car feeling completely different literally every other moment, and would be impossible to get used to.
If you're trying to find a way to bridge the gap between faster and slower drivers, dynamically changing anything about the car is not the right way to do it. It'd only ruin things for everyone.
I'm certainly aware of that, but some people have said they find it exaggerated even for an open diff. Locked diff setups being so effective is also something I chalk up to the inside tires not gripping as much as they should.
But even if there really is an issue with the inside tires, you're right in that I'm probably focusing on it too much. You mentioned ridiculous camber angles being fine, and one of the old news posts has certainly discussed the excessive camber forces you get with the current physics. It's really just a whole bunch of minor issues that only become apparent when people start driving at WR pace.
I think he meant to say the engine can't easily overpower all the mechanical and aero grip on the FBM, allowing you to run the diff more open. High-grip cars in real life can certainly do this, so this is something LFS gets right for sure.
At any rate, like I said before, I think all these minor issues are going away as soon as the new physics come in. A few of the cars will probably be much more fun to drive as well.
Scawen's discussed it a few times on the forums. Here's one post where he specifically goes into it
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1863422#post1863422
EDIT: If you were asking for a source on inside-tire grip being a problem with the Scirocco, that's more something I inferred from what's observable in the game. Other people have mentioned the issue with the inside tires before (particularly how easily you can wheelspin in the UF1), and having much less grip on one side of the car would drastically worsen handling, especially if it's a FWD like the Scirocco.
Last edited by MeteorIDW, .
It's been known for a while that the game's current approach to tire load sensitivity makes the inside tires grip less in a turn than they're supposed to. It's the main reason that VW everyone gripes about never got added (even with the exact same settings, it didn't handle like the real thing at all). The new tire physics in the works is largely meant to fix that, and I have a feeling this quirk about the current physics is contributing a lot to the sideways driving required for WRs.
Now, I'd need to type a massive wall of text to adequately explain this, but going sideways would basically put a little more weight on the inside rear tire than neutral cornering would. Think of it as the weight transfer becoming less side-to-side and more inside-front-to-outside-rear.
When you consider that the inside tires can easily lose lots of grip with the current physics, every little bit counts, so those aggressive turn-ins would effectively maximize rear grip if done in exactly the right way. You get to quickly rotate the car, quickly stabilize that rotation, and then use more of the inside tire's grip to get yourself around the turn.
Not really the easiest thing to pull off, but it'd give you a clear advantage over neutral cornering if this is exactly what's going on with the tires.
Okay, that ended up being a bit longer than I wanted. But basically, I think this'll go away as soon as the new physics are patched in. It's all to do with some subtle flaws in the current tire physics that took a while to spot, and once those flaws go away, the cars should start driving a bit more normally.
Now, I'd need to type a massive wall of text to adequately explain this, but going sideways would basically put a little more weight on the inside rear tire than neutral cornering would. Think of it as the weight transfer becoming less side-to-side and more inside-front-to-outside-rear.
When you consider that the inside tires can easily lose lots of grip with the current physics, every little bit counts, so those aggressive turn-ins would effectively maximize rear grip if done in exactly the right way. You get to quickly rotate the car, quickly stabilize that rotation, and then use more of the inside tire's grip to get yourself around the turn.
Not really the easiest thing to pull off, but it'd give you a clear advantage over neutral cornering if this is exactly what's going on with the tires.
Okay, that ended up being a bit longer than I wanted. But basically, I think this'll go away as soon as the new physics are patched in. It's all to do with some subtle flaws in the current tire physics that took a while to spot, and once those flaws go away, the cars should start driving a bit more normally.
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