I just got S2 licensed last week and I'm having a bit of a problem finding my pit when I go to pits. Am I supposed to go to my pitstall (which garage is it? IDK) or an area on pit road. I really like how rFactor has you pit but LFS has got me stumped.

Choose any yellow 'box' you like. Hopefully one day we'll have a fixed box, but I hope it isn't marked with a glowing ring around it - I never see that in real life.

OK thanks. When I get home I'll look for a yellow box. Does it take you to the pit screen or does it service your car right there?

you dont get to the screen where you go when you press shift+s...
you stay in w/e view of the car you are.

Quote from Islandiver2005 :

OK thanks. When I get home I'll look for a yellow box. Does it take you to the pit screen or does it service your car right there?

It services your car on the spot

Quote from Islandiver2005 :

OK thanks. When I get home I'll look for a yellow box. Does it take you to the pit screen or does it service your car right there?

Don't look for a yellow 'box' as such. There are yellow markers on the road all along pit lane. You can stop in any one of these to take your pit stop.

When racing press F12 and you can make some changes. These changes are the ones performed if you 'park' in a yellow pit box. If you want to make more detailed changes you can press Shift & S anywhere to go to the pits/setup screen.

About pitting, can more servers please start forcing pitstops? It makes for a much more interesting race. It seems to be a feature that is ignored mostly. I know league races probably have more need for it with more laps etc. But even the public 5-lap servers would be a lot more fun it they where bumped up to 7-8 laps with 1 mandatory pit stop.

I always ignore mandatory pits because I come to the public server to practice overtaking and close racing - not pitstopping.
Disqualify me as often as you want, I'm not interested in pitting. I know pitting good enough.

Vain

One tip - in public servers, take note on which end of pitroad you enter from when first joining the race. When you pit, choose a pit in the opposite side than where you joined the track as others will be joining through out the race and many don't pay attention if someone is pitting before they blast out of the garage.

I know, Aston regular direction tracks and Kyoto National new joiners come out towards pit exit, Kyoto GP Long and Westhill, they join the track from near the entrance to pitroad.

Quote from Vain :

I always ignore mandatory pits because I come to the public server to practice overtaking and close racing - not pitstopping.
Disqualify me as often as you want, I'm not interested in pitting. I know pitting good enough.

Vain

Its not for you to learn how to pit, its for making a race more interesting by adding a strategic element to it.

I would also like to see more public servers with mandatory pit.

correct me if im wrong but mandetory pits in anything less than a 20 lap race is not realistic and causes more a nucence than anything else.

A mandatory pit doesn't add a strategy element to a 5 lap race because everyone pits. There is a strategy involved when I have to decide wether to use R2s and change tyres every 30 laps or drive R3s and can run the tyres for 50 laps. But in a 5 lap race there is no such strategy involved.
And as long as that stays this way I will forever be disqualified in any event that involves mandatory pits and features fewer than 30 laps.

Vain

Quote from tristancliffe :

but I hope it isn't marked with a glowing ring around it - I never see that in real life.

:hippy:

I agree with Vain and Platinum. Mandatory pit stops are just a nuisance. The only reason to pit is if you need tires, fuel, or repairs. Forcing everyone to pit just penalizes the drivers who are easier on their tires and more careful about avoiding wrecks.

Quote :

About pitting, can more servers please start forcing pitstops? It makes for a much more interesting race. It seems to be a feature that is ignored mostly. I know league races probably have more need for it with more laps etc.

On the contrary it can easily be exploited (pitting on the last lap saves you a pit exit run) and serves only to allow you to get away with more wreckless driving by giving you a fail safe for damage.

It also substitutes ontrack overtaking action for a fastest lap hunt.

Strategy in longer races is great, I love tyre wear & fuel loads effecting my lap times and having to adjust my style to suite my strategy but I have found from experience that in 5-10 lap LFS races compulsory stops take away most of the ontrack action and I just go out there hunting PB's.

When I arrive & drive I like wheel to wheel action and high adrenaline charges up through the field if I start at the back. With pit stops on if I start at the back I just pit on lap 1 and overtake most of the field with faster laps.

Quote from Becky Rose :

On the contrary it can easily be exploited (pitting on the last lap saves you a pit exit run) and serves only to allow you to get away with more wreckless driving by giving you a fail safe for damage.

Have to disagree on a point there.. if you drive carefully, you aren't held up as long during your pitstop. Even small bumps can delay you several seconds, adding tension to close racing and I've been in the pits up to 20 seconds or so after a crash. Whereas after driving absolutely clean and not needing fuel or tires, I can exit after 1 or 2 seconds.

True about the pit on last lap "exploit" / tactic.

I can't say I'd always like to have it on, but mandatory pitting does add some fun elements. Like choosing whether to pit early on or late in the race, and coming back out sometimes in the middle of a pack, not to mention the tension of trying to get through as fast as possible without getting a speeding penalty.

Forced pit with anything less than 20 laps is just illepall in my opinion. Most just start with full fuel load and not refuel or change tires. They stop and 2 seconds, they're out. It only breaks up the racing and causes everyone to "hotlap" until the end.

Running around a lap ahead or behind someone just waiting for their turn to pit so I can go by on the front stretch isn't racing.

Quote from Vain :

I always ignore mandatory pits because I come to the public server to practice overtaking and close racing - not pitstopping.
Disqualify me as often as you want, I'm not interested in pitting. I know pitting good enough.

Vain

You race online to learn to drive rather than to have fun?
I think people learn to race not by deciding to learn it, but by racing a lot in order to enjoy themselves.

Quote from Execution Style :

I can't say I'd always like to have it on, but mandatory pitting does add some fun elements. Like choosing whether to pit early on or late in the race, and coming back out sometimes in the middle of a pack, not to mention the tension of trying to get through as fast as possible without getting a speeding penalty.

Thats a better way of putting what i was getting at. I wouldnt like it to be enforced on every server either. But if just a few "10 lap or less" servers had it, it might be some fun thats all .

I had also forgotten about the last lap pit exploit, but I would like to think that most people would honor the unwritten rule of not doing the last lap pitting. Or is that too much to expect these days?

Quote from DratsaB :

I had also forgotten about the last lap pit exploit, but I would like to think that most people would honor the unwritten rule of not doing the last lap pitting. Or is that too much to expect these days?

I'd like for people to honor the blue flag, the yellow flag, the fact that they have taken themselves out of the race by shift-S so shouldn't be racing ANYONE at all, fast racers racing with the slow ones rather than hotlapping..... Yea, I'd think after some of the discussions here, that would be too much to expect these days.

Yeah I got taken out by someone who was a couple of laps down last night. He said sorry he didn't see me. Well shouldn't he have gotten a blue flag to know I was there? Maybe in future releases the dev's could implement a message that says something like "_______ was issued a blue flag" that way you know he got it and should heed way at the safest opportunity.

Quote from K.David :

You race online to learn to drive rather than to have fun?
I think people learn to race not by deciding to learn it, but by racing a lot in order to enjoy themselves.

Both.
I go online to have close ontrack fights with other drivers, which is fun, and also to learn how and when to pass. And I practice to get better laptimes in the leagues I run.
A pitstop just interrupts any good racing. Because, in order to be fast, you always pit in as soon as you come into traffic. The best placed mandatory-pitstop happens the moment where without a mandatory pit a close battle would be fought. That is so because a close battle looses you time. So in order to get the best possible position you pit before any battle occurs and then you can hotlap alone and thus win.
Without a mandatory pitstop the battle has to be fought out. Just yesterday I was hanging on the gearbox of Rel`ax for 6 laps in the FOX on KYNat. If there had been a mandatory pit I would have pitted after the first lap and would have won without ever coming near to him, because my laptimes are better than his when I'm alone. That way we were within a half second over the complete 6 laps. An absoltely great race that would never have occured with a mandatory pit.

Vain

I don't know sometimes I feel I'm faster if I'm chasing someone down. As long as I'm not abusing the car. But you're right about pitting before you get into traffic. But if there's enough people in the race chances are you're gonna be racing someone every lap anyway, which is more fun and the whole reason I go online to begin with, to race real people where their judgement isn't always the right one.

Quote from Islandiver2005 :

Maybe in future releases the dev's could implement a message that says something like "_______ was issued a blue flag" that way you know he got it and should heed way at the safest opportunity.

Theres no need for that. If a lapped driver is right before you, you can be sure, that he got a blue flag.

Imagine, how many messages like these you would get on a full server. Would be very distracting.