This is an uncertain area. I'll try to express my thoughts about grip level.

I've been playing 4 and a half years LFS as a single player via KB controller. I used to enjoy playing LFS earlier, but I started to miss old days after releasing Patch Z. Shortly, this is not the LFS that I loved. Of course the main reason is cutting the grip level drastically. Patch Z makes me feel such I'm on a wild horse/bull in rodeo arena. If I met LFS Patch Z firstly, perhaps I didn't got S2 license.


Let me give 2 different examples herein;

1- A comparison between Patch X and Patch Z. BF1 with 10' front wing and 20' rear wing configuration is controllable on FernBay Green in Patch X. However 15' front wing and 30' rear wing (max. angles) configurated BF1 doesn't stay on same track in Patch Z.

2- One step further interpretation about the existing grip level. How about wet track conditions via available grip level? Do you believe that it's possible any single car will be drivable in that case? i.e We observed a couple of times F1 cars with "slick tyres" was drivable in wet conditions. I can't imagine this in LFS.

As a conclusion every update doesn't mean better. There is no straight upward line. Think about Subaru Impreza case.

Some guys say that LFS has too much grip and this is simulation. I definitely don't think so. LFS was not an arcade game in past patches. In those days it was a common sense that LFS was very realistic and reflected best physics. Finally, tyre or grip threads are getting numerous and this tendency wants to say something the devs.

PS: Maybe it's time to merge tyre and grip threads

If you can't get round the corners because you think you have too little grip, then go slower. If wet conditions are introduced, go slower. That's what they do in real life when they don't have enough grip for whatever reason.

Saying LFS is worse because you have to go a bit slower is just silly.

Quote from tristancliffe :

If you can't get round the corners because you think you have too little grip, then go slower. If wet conditions are introduced, go slower. That's what they do in real life when they don't have enough grip for whatever reason.

Saying LFS is worse because you have to go a bit slower is just silly.

Thanks for advice but the answer is too simple. Tyre modelling is discussable topic and LFS physics is not final given. So there is nothing with being slower or faster. We don't assess racing tips or adapting the existing physics. Maybe KB and steering wheel gap is biggest in Patch Z. So it depends on the user. And labelling someone's idea as silly doesn't make you more clever.

Quote from ADX.14 :

Thanks for advice but the answer is too simple. Tyre modelling is discussable topic and LFS physics is not final given. So there is nothing with being slower or faster. We don't assess racing tips or adapting the existing physics. Maybe KB and steering wheel gap is biggest in Patch Z. So it depends on the user. And labelling someone's idea as silly doesn't make you more clever.

As we all keep saying though, its not the amount of grip as that is actually over done at the mo. It is more the dynamics at the edge of grip that need tweaks.

Trist is right, if you are always skidding in corners you are going too fast so slow down. This also holds true IRL although fear of injury normally stops people over driving in this situation

So not more grip, better definition of the dynamics of grip at the point of slip!

Quick reply: Is it perfect? Nope. But it still feels pretty good. It's pointless to compare LFS's grip to another sim- frankly, any other sim will do it a completely different way so of course there will be a lot of differences.

What I've noticed, (and I've played LFS for a LONG time now) is the interaction with longitudinal grip. That's the part that just isn't right. Lateral grip, without a lot of other influences, works pretty darn good- all of the cars keep lateral G-forces very close to what a real-life car can do. Both with slicks and road tires. But the problem arises when longitudinal grip comes into play. Coming closer to the edge of grip either under accelleration or braking throws the lateral grip completely off- in an unrealistic way. An easy example:

The UF1. Low-powered, open differential, narrow tires. Easy to compare to a lot of real life "normal-people" cars. I had at one time a 1984 VW scirocco- very similar to hp/weight ratio of the UF1 and it had narrow, low-performance tires. Drive the UF1 hard, like in an auto-x situation, and the tires just spin and spin and spin all day long. Or do a drag-race style launch with it, and it will spin the tires easily for a very long time. My Scirocco could spin the tires pretty easily but doing a "drag race" style launch, it would spin the tires through most of 1st gear but it would also accelerate pretty quickly and have full grip by the time you were ready to shift to 2nd. The Scirocco was fun to auto-x, and even in 2nd gear out of a really tight turn, the inside tire would at the most just chirp a bit under full throttle. And the suspension was unmodified so there was a lot more body roll than what the UF1 in LFS would have.

This shows up in the more powerful RWD cars as having an extreme lack of lateral grip when in reality the lateral grip is fine until you either apply braking pressure or throttle input. Even the Raceabout, which is hated by most people on here, is capable of a lot of cornering forces, but the moment you touch the throttle the car gets out of shape.

I know LFS follows the "traction circle" method (at least the last time I heard so it did) for grip levels in tires, but in reality the traction circle does not always apply- that is, many times the "circle" is not actually a circle, sometimes it's a trapezoid or a square. :P

I'll also say that I'm happy that LFS has come this far. I'm not worried either, I'm confident that the grip issue will come around eventually.

Brendan

You can't expect the tyre to maintain the same grip levels under turning, IMO.

Let's take a good example I remember from somewhere (?).

If, when the car is stationary, the tyres have equal grip (denoted by a number):
10 10


10 10

So, a total of 40 grip.

If we then take a right turn, weight is transferred to the outside = left tyres, and the grip distribution might look more like this:

13 5


13 5

Which adds up to a total of 36. More grip on the outside, but less total grip. I think this is how it really is..

Quote from RasmusL :

You can't expect the tyre to maintain the same grip levels under turning, IMO.

Let's take a good example I remember from somewhere (?).

If, when the car is stationary, the tyres have equal grip (denoted by a number):
10 10


10 10

So, a total of 40 grip.

If we then take a right turn, weight is transferred to the outside = left tyres, and the grip distribution might look more like this:

13 5


13 5

Which adds up to a total of 36. More grip on the outside, but less total grip. I think this is how it really is..

well, it's hard to reach exactly balanced balance on to wheels throughout a corner you would alway have something like

12 4
15 6

on apex as you go on the throttle, under brake it would look something like this

20 5

10 1-2

its difficult to say when its perfect or not, depends on the driver really.

You all need to notice that FWD cars in LFS have rather... "neutral" weight distribution compared to real life FWD. Most FWDs have easly over 60% of weight on the front tires, while in LFS the UF1 has just 59% of weight on the front, while FXO has just 57%. VWS will have proper wieght distribution finally ;P... You could try VWS'ish setup in my link below ... open diff is not that bothering .