Quote from Ikaponthus :

Look, I was simply saying that racing a Formula One car using your thumbs on a playstation gamepad would not be an effective way to control a car in real life, and thus it shouldn't be in a real simulation either. The fact that it is in GT5P suggests it's not a "real simulation". If you disagree, then fine. Apparently you believe that a playstation gamepad could, in theory, be an effective tool to drive a real racing car. I don't. Never mind the fact that racing in a real car requires the drivers to sometimes use the brake, accelerator and clutch at the same time. But I'm obviously not getting through to you, so leave it at that, we agree to disagree, so no more talk about the gamepad because I think you're intentionally missing the point and confusing the subject.

The crux of what I am saying is basically: GT5P is not a high-fidelity racing simulation. If you don't get, or if you disagree with the point I was making about driving a racing car with a toy gamepad, then fine. Let's drop it and we'll move on to something that might offer more constructive debate: take a look at that video I posted on the last page and compare it to Hammond driving the F1 car.

Still think it's a highly realistic simulation? If so, discuss.

You DO know that GT5P works perfectly with the g25 racing wheel, right? So that pretty much invalidates your point. As you can just as easily plug in that same ps3 controller into your pc, install the appropriate drivers and play lfs with it.

Also, the F1 car in gt5p is HORRIBLE. It drives like a god damn hover craft. By far the worst modeled car in the game. So don't base your opinion of that game solely on that one car. They can't seem to do open wheelers properly, but all their other cars are modeled quite well. Play the game and see for yourself.

Quote from Shotglass :

that would only be true if procedural an oop were the only two ways to code... which of course they arent and often either will be completely ill fit for the problem at hand

What's your point? I never said you can master programming by just learning 'procedural' or just learning 'OOP'. All I said, is you should START with procedural.

Besides, if you take just about any other programming paradigm and compare it against procedural, you'd find my Venn diagram to be (mostly) true ...

Quote from wien :

You make a lot of claims, but I see few arguments to actually back them up. Kinda difficult to argue against. Why is learning procedural programming easier than OO when starting out? You've just asserted that it is, with no explanation as to why.

My claim (and DarkTimes'?) is that OO makes it easier to model concepts from the real world, and as such is easier to pick up for someone unfamiliar with computer programming. It's easier to relate to what they already know. You obviously cover functions (procedures) before you teach classes and objects, but I don't agree at all that OO should be omitted completely.

Imagine a Venn Diagram. With two circles, one encompassing the other. The inner circle is defined as 'knowledge needed to do procedural programming' and the outer circle is defined as 'knowledge needed to do OOP'. Now if you agree with my diagram then you'll have to agree that procedural programming is fundamental knowledge. As such it should be learned first. Unless of course you prefer to learn backwards ... starting with the high level stuff and moving down to the fundamentals .. but .. that's just crazy!

Quote from DarkTimes :

Python is multi-paradigm...

Also you could argue it's easier to learn OOP (which you will have to do at some point) if you get a handle on it early, rather than have to make the change from procedural programming at a later date.

There is no correct language to choose as a first language, it's a choice that the person who is learning has to make themselves. As a general rule I'd say to learn something modern, that's actively being developed, has a large community, and is well suited to making the sorts of programs you are interested in.

My apologies, I was wrong about python ...

but I stand by what I said about OOP, trying to teach someone OOP before procedural is like teaching someone the logarithm function before they know how to multiply. (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration , but you get the point).

I also completely disagree with your last statement. There is a right and wrong language when it comes to your first. I would pick something ancient, popular, procedural and not undergoing any development .. . start from the basics and move on up to the modern stuff.

Quote from Hollywood :

Try C#, Java, Python, etc. Plenty of info on those, they are easier to chew than C++, have available IDEs, etc, etc.

Don't do this. C#, Java, Python are all Object Oriented. While there is less to worry about when you're actually coding, it's a lot more complex for a absolute beginner that has no understanding of the Object Oriented design.

Start with Pascal, it's a procedural language and it was designed to be a learning language. Once you gain some proficiency in Pascal go ahead and move onto C++.

Quote from J.B. :

All that said, the most important part of any sim is of course the physics. What's a shame here is that after being thrilled during my first few outings, the more I drive now the less I like it. The feel is great but once you try to really get on the limit and reduce lap times I feel that the physics encourage you to use unrealistic driving styles such as always staying on the throttle a little bit, using loads of steering lock to balance and slow down the car and yanking the car into oversteer by banging down the gears.

I don't see how staying on your throttle is unrealistic, with the soltice momentum is the main thing you need to keep those rmp's high at all times and staying on the throttle during turns is one way to do that.

Lots of steering lock will only slow you down, if you have to do that, you've already made a mistake and are using the steering to correct it.

I've never had to bang down the gears to go faster, nor have I ever seen this being done during a hot lap, (keep in mind I only race limerock and Laguna). The only time I do this is when a brake wayy too late coming from a straight into a slow turn. Limerock from example only requires gears 3 and 4 on the soltice.

Quote :

And there is definitely an issue with the way the game responds to my brake pedal. I spent some time looking at the bar graphs during braking and the brake pedal often jumps to full depression when I'm only at about half way travel. I checked in the driver and in LFS and it's not a problem with my pedal.

It's a bug I think, happens to me too, what I do is recalibrate my pedals before every session, a pain in the butt for sure but it fixes the issue.

I like to think of myself as a Racer , but I do enjoy a drift session every once in a while. I'm glad there are drift servers in LFS, so that when I do feel like drifting, I can do so with others.

I have a lot of respect for good drifters, just like I have a lot of respect for good racers. Because to get good at either; it requires lots of skill and practice.

Quote from Frankestein01nl :

The whole reason i quit this game online is because of the wining on the forums... occasionally me and a friend tear up a parkinglot.. but that's it.


Regards,

Frankestein

You quit playing online because of the forums? ... what?

Anyways, I played on a cruise server once or twice, almost put me to sleep. Yet, I don't see how having them hurts the racers in any shape way or form. Am I missing something? What do you gain by having less cruise servers?

Very cool, The only thing i'd do is find a way to place the shifter lower, maybe attach a board to that tube sticking out on the right? I would also remount the TV so that it's lower, would make for a more immersive experience.

I love:

The gear box simulation.
The FFB is nothing short of amazing.
G25 support.
The constant development.
The physics, of course.

Quote from MAGGOT :

I'd like a new setup option for the GTRs, allowing you to select sequential or gated.

Since these cars are fictional and are not based on any real life models, I'd say this makes the most sense.

I find that I greatly prefer sequential racing gtr's and greatly prefer h-shifter when racing the slower cars.

Quote from Ricerguy :

Sorry, I may be off topic but I stopped reading this thread as I realised that those planning to "switch" to iRacing, are those with the least posts on lfsforum. Not that it matters, but I smell advertising. This is LFS forum if you want to discuss how competitive an ALFA game is, consider the fact that arguing on the internet is [ insert random angry word here ].</offtopic> iRacing may or maynot be an awsum GAME, I am sticking with LFS because I like to witness the progress, however slow and dramatic.

I'm probably the guy you're referring too. (not affiliated with iRacing, i swear) Maybe 'switch' is too harsh of a word, it's just that I expected more from the online experience in lfs. The public servers aren't doing it for me. I wanted epic online races but that doesn't happen with 4-10 laps and people constantly quiting and joining. There's fun to be had, that's for sure, but without lfs enforcing structure like iRacing does, I just can't see it staying on top of the game.

With that said, $50 well spent! I look forward to future versions.

Very reassuring, can't wait for the improved collision modeling.

Quote from jayhawk :

Of course, of course...as we all know, paying a little bit of money every month will radically alter human behavior, for the better.
No, iracing won't see any of the above grievances you state, because as we know, people are rational and logical when it come to their money and winning, they would not DARE to bump, push, cheat...whatever it takes to win.

You missed my point completely. Charging money monthly won't change behaviors, but it will change demographics . The casual sim racer won't be able to justify spending a monthly fee and will stick with whatever he/she is currently playing. While MOST sim racing enthusiasts , given iRacings superb offering will jump at the opportunity.

Wait, that's not all! There is another reason why iRacing will feature much cleaner races; iRacing tracks your safetly rating, and the developers had placed great importance on it. Even as far as to drop you in class/rank if you're safety rating gets too low. So every time you try to bump, push or cheat that safety rating will plummet.

So let me ask you this, jayhawk, in which scenario do you imagine people driving more carefully?

a) Where crashing has no consequences (LFS)
b) Where crashing has consequences (iRacing)

It aint a trick question, just common sense.

The more I play LFS, the more I like to prospect of iRacing. Here's why;

- T1 wrecks every.god.damn.time.

- people constantly rear-ending me; I don't know the tracks, so i'm about 2-4 seconds slower, yet given the practice some of these people must of had, surely they'd know how to make a pass?

- very short races,

- inconsistent drivers ( I start out 10th and I finish 3rd because the people in front, although fast, can't keep their cars on the track)

- lag, this one is probably my fault, I'm located in North America while the server hosts are mostly located in Europe.

I've only been playing for a week or so, but so far I'm not impressed with the racers on the public servers at all. I can't seem to get immersed because it feels as though I'm driving against psychopaths with ADD. With iRacing, I'm hoping that the subscription fees and the steering wheel requirement will weed out some of the less serious (and less mature) sim racers. The races are hosted in-house and are probably more local to where I live, so that should take care of the lag. The fact that the races are longer and your account has a safety rating should make people think twice before crashing into you.

I'm going to continue playing lfs for now, but once iracing goes live I will most likely be making the switch.

Hi, I just bought S2 yesterday. Loving the multilayer, wished there was more GTR servers with people playing in them though, For the most part people race a lot cleaner on the Licensed servers, which is awesome. Anyways, it's great to finally be part of this community!

I have a couple of questions:

1) Can you extract setups from replays? I know you can test drive, but i'd like to save the setup as well.

2) If I download the test pathces, will I still be able to play on servers that don't have them?

3) How do I do a proper pit stop during a race?

4) What are 'cruise' servers all about?

Thanks guys,