its ridiculous that the established anti-tuner's on the forum use "would be too complex and offer too much advantage" as a reason to complain about the possible addition to lfs. more people understand engine's than suspensions. engines have as much to do with a fast lap as a well sorted suspension.

example: drive your favorite set 2 laps around blackwood (no practice laps), than do same in a car with 0 toe settings, 30 spring rate, 15 shock rating, max sway setting, braking bias set to 80.

result: although the car is still drivable, the handling will change significantly, and you would not be able to set a record no matter how good a driver you are.

from what ive learned about suspension tuning over the years (as something that does not interest me), soft springs increase grip, firm shocks increase car control, sways increase grip in corners, and front tires do about 80% of braking on a car. i know more about suspension tuning that most racers, but my best efforts for the first couple months were half-assed and ineffective. yet racers who do know suspension tuning (or know someone who does) insist that suspension tuning does not affect the equality of the playing field, and that it is understood by everyone.

example: put your best set and the example set specified in the example above on ai cars, let them run 10 laps practice and watch their lap times as they proceed.

result: the ideal setup will start with lower lap times, and improve more per lap than the other one. after 30-50 laps, both ai racers will be at their best lap times with the set they are in, and both times will be close (showing what would be possible by top racers even in sets that are not ideal), but the ideal set will still be between 0.1-1.5 seconds faster per lap. this is because suspension tuning has a huge effect on the balance of racing.

it is much easier to play-balance cars with modified engines than it is to balance cars with modified suspensions. modified engines can be limited by peak hp, avg hp, hp per liter, hp per kg, to fit within a class/equal racing system. modified suspensions cannot have their peaks and avg's calculated to balance the field, there is always a "best set" on the field which others will have to keep up with. regardless of driver skill, suspension tuning can make or break a race effort, and cannot be balanced to a class/equality system. even if you calculate a car's slalom/skidpad/acceleration/braking times/distances, you cannot quantify exactly how much of an advantage a set will have over another one on a given racetrack until your actually racing.

Quote from bobvanvliet :

What steering lock do the cars of professional (d1?) drifters have? Seems to me this wouldn't be a unrealistic request if they have 45 degrees as well.

But if it isn't possible in real life, I don't think it should be possible in LFS...

i dont know about any of the other cars, but in an article in hot rod about the rhys millen drift gto (the one that was the 2005 car, not the new muscle car version), the stock lock was 42 degrees, and they modified the suspension/steering to give it 55 degrees.

first, i like lfs alot, when s1 was the only game in town, i tried to convince alot of racers to get into it. their complaint was the same as mine at the time, there wasnt enough to the gameplay to make the game fun for more than brief racing sessions...

i found my fun via lfstweak and drifting/autocross, some might remember my server or au_tracks...

flash forward to s2, physics are significantly improved and crash dynamics are very cool, but the game is less fun not more fun, heres why.

lfstweak not available, cars are not customizable. i dont mean wings and body kits (i couldnt care less what the cars look like aslong as they dont distract from the sim).

i am engineer type and play racing games because i like to build a car better suited to my (or others) driving styles and preferences. nothing more satisfying to me than building a better -class restricted- car and kicking the crap out of someones elses best effort. this has never been possible in lfs, but atleast when i put car-packs together for online play (lfstweak), i could setup competitive but different cars to race and the racers could chose which best suited them or the track we were racing on. tweaking spring rates is boring, tweaking engine specs is not. i want to build engines not play with sway bar settings.

maximum steering angle.....difting was the other thing that really rocked my socks in s1. the drifting community was (is still? i wouldnt know) huge and extremely active in lfs, and attracted alot of people by word of mouth to the game. even though the game had its limitations at the time (bad tire physics) the drifting was beautiful and fun. it made great videos to show off the physics engine, and spoke to an audience that not alot of games have been able to reach without catering to them exclusively (ridge racer comes to mind, or nfsu's failure at trying to include a "drift mode")

but my drifting days were immediately cancelled by s2 alpha's insistence that no car can turn its wheels more than 30 degrees. even at maximum 45, my rb4 drifting was applauded by many, i looked forward to drifting with more realistic physics, but that is not possible because 1/3 of steering lock has been removed. its still possible to power-on oversteer, but not the drift style i had mastered in s1 (i won a fair amount of duels/competitions). im honestly at a loss trying to explain to others why this cut to gameplay was made, the only answer ive been able to come up with was its a bandaid to cover the "tires dont behave properly at low speeds with greater than 30 degrees lock" bug. damn the bug, noone is maximum locking at low speeds in races so it was not effecting the core gameplay elements the devs are trying to adhere to. seems as if the devs just wanted to get rid of the drifters...?

summary: please add more steering angle to the cars. please help (or stop restricting, depending who you listen to) lfstweak's development for online play. ill promise atleast 10 new racers if these changes are made, and im sure it will help others convince their hesitant friends to join also.

ty for taking the time to read this. if your one of those jerks who goes flaming any idea that doesnt fit into THEIR IDEA of what makes lfs great, please ignore this thread, your negative comments do not help, they only make the lfs community more close-minded, arrogant, less fun, and ultimately, smaller. i was too busy having fun to care about improving a lap time by 0.03 seconds, id like to be having fun again.

i may or may not continue reading the forum. feel free to contact me directly at iordshiva on aol's email service with comments, flaming, or updates on lfs gameplay. (i wont be playing lfs or purchasing a s2 license until these changes are made)