NOTE: This is about a quick update of the existing version. Nothing to do with the major changes in the development version.

Hello Racers,

A test patch has been in use for a long time and some people would like it to become official.

I would like to ask about a few small changes which are easy and safe to introduce, but would make the version incompatible online. So if they are done, they should be tested for the minimum time before becoming official.

I've been asked a few times about increasing the number of AI per player in multiplayer mode. This is easily done but I'm not that confident to allow the full number of 32 drivers per connection. I feel it's better to test in smaller steps but in this case maybe we could go up a lot from the current maximum of 3. How about to 24?

Some other changes have been requested, for the use of GTR cars for drifting and off-road.

Drifters have asked for the maximum steering lock to be increased and to allow the full range of tyres, for the XRR and FZR cars. We received a request to allow up to 65 degrees steering angle but it seems a bit much to me. Those two cars have double wishbone suspension so that seems to put a limit on the amount a wheel could turn before part of the wheel hits part of a wishbone with disastrous results. I don't have any real world reference for what maximum lock is achievable by drifters in real life.

About off-road use, I found a note from about 10 years ago suggesting to allow the off road tyres on the smaller GTR cars as they have some resemblance to rallycross cars and that could allow some fun racing. I've seen a recent request to allow the FXO GTR to use the off road tyres for rallycross.

So, combining the above two purposes it seems like it could be a good idea to allow the knobbly, hybrid, road and road super tyres on all the GTR cars, and to increase the allowed maximum lock on the XRR and FZR.

Reservations:

It might be a bit unrealistic, allowing such tyres on those cars. The big GTR cars are obviousy not designed for off road use, but if it allows more possibilities for drifting and racing, then it seems like a good thing to allow.

Steering lock being increased a lot, with wide front wheels on double wishbone suspension, might seem to defy reality a bit. But I'm interested to hear what you have to say.


P.S. What I mean by "semi-compatible" is that old hotlaps should still be valid if these lock and tyre choice limits were relaxed. But this new version could not connect with the old version online.

Quote from Scawen :

I've seen a recent request to allow the FXO GTR to use the off road tyres for rallycross.

Well,this was my idea and probably on wishlist for some others for long time. The problem is that current hybrids would not suit perfectly FXR on rallycross tracks like BL3,FE5/6 as they would overheat very quickly,probably quicker than on RB4. So I kinda wanted to suggest a harder compound hybrids for FXR for more durability in ideal case. But simple hybrids would be a step forward too.
Regarding equipping FWD GTRs with offroad tyres - I personally have no experience with that,it seems like a good idea in theory. But equipping FZR and XRR with offroad tyres seem unneeded in my view,might even confuse new users.

have the possibility of having slik tires on the TBOs as well

Increasing the miniscule 6pps in multiplayer to atleast 12 should also be an easy and worth while change.

Small question related to that AI-thing: since it requires us to connect to online to test it, could we test this patch on hosts rented on LFS.net or is the only way to test this is to download a Dedi host for that patch or start a new server from LFS itself?

About the AI-thing itself: I think up to 24 is great as I already have a lot of situations where 3 AI's is not enough for me. Those situations vary for having at least 5 AI's per player to having about 15 AI's per player.

However, if having 24 AI's per player is tough for connections, you could make a case for allowing up to 20 AI's per player. There are two reasons why I think that's a good number:
1) LFS has 20 cars, so players could test every car at the same time
2) At the moment, up to 40 (AI-)drivers can race on track at the same time, so you could have full grid while having only 2 users on server.

Concerning the tyres, on the one hand it is opening a can of worms, I guess, but it would be rather interesting to have all compounds available to all cars (well not the single seaters). It would open up options and it could be assessed how viable these options turn out to be. While not perfectly realistic, if you use a steet legal car in a race you most likely use slick tyres as well, so from that point of view, it would make sense to open it up.

Quote from Scawen :

Drifters have asked for the maximum steering lock to be increased and to allow the full range of tyres, for the XRR and FZR cars. We received a request to allow up to 65 degrees steering angle but it seems a bit much to me. Those two cars have double wishbone suspension so that seems to put a limit on the amount a wheel could turn before part of the wheel hits part of a wishbone with disastrous results. I don't have any real world reference for what maximum lock is achievable by drifters in real life.


Steering lock being increased a lot, with wide front wheels on double wishbone suspension, might seem to defy reality a bit. But I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

65 degrees steering angle with double wishbone suspension is possible in real life with a steering lock kit like this one: https://dri.net.au/products/wisefab-nissan-r-chassis-r34-skyline-gt-t-front-steering-lock-kit

As you said to use those kits there has to be backspacing on the wheels to not hit the wishbone. "Recommended backspacing is ~135mm (7" ET45; 8" ET35; 9" ET20). If ET is smaller, then wheels stay more outwards, if ET is bigger, then spacers need to be used."

But that amount of backspacing is pretty normal for any kind of wheels. So in my opinion it's a realistic addon.

Thanks for the feedback.

Quote from rattijonni :

Increasing the miniscule 6pps in multiplayer to atleast 12 should also be an easy and worth while change.

I was wondering about this often requested change. As usual I fear it may make things worse. I believe it can help when all players are near the server, with minimal lag. In this case it can bring similar benefits to using a high pps on a LAN. The problem I have with it is that the really bad lagging you see is usually from players with high latency (time lag to the server).

Higher pps cannot help with this. Such players, if sending twice as many packets per second, will not appear any better to the other players and will still be all over the place. Only now they will consume more CPU on the other players' computers because of the catch-up physics done on each position update.

So the problem is that more packets per second cannot possibly solve the worst problem and could make it worse. Turn 1 slowdowns could become a slide show of carnage.

I feel it's a bit like having a broken cylinder head gasket and increasing the turbo boost to try to get some more power to compensate.

But I can see that it could be worth a test. Maybe I can even run a local multiplayer test here using a remote server to get an initial feel for it before trying it in public.

Quote from tankslacno :

Small question related to that AI-thing: since it requires us to connect to online to test it, could we test this patch on hosts rented on LFS.net or is the only way to test this is to download a Dedi host for that patch or start a new server from LFS itself?

Good question, I'll need to ask Victor about this.


Other comments - thanks for the feedback. I'm reading and thinking...

Please consider allowing co-drivers (with seats) in GTR cars. We could pretend they are rally cars and this wouldn't be totally unrealistic. For example, XF GTR is quite similar to 2-litre kit cars from late 90s and more powerful GTR cars may be thought of as part of R-GT group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_R-GT).

will road tyres manage to hold temperatures at all on those cars?

Quote from Nanex :

have the possibility of having slik tires on the TBOs as well

I think, because of how the physics system works, the road cars just flip in this case and actually this could spoil the fun of the road car racing.

Quote from w126 :

Please consider allowing co-drivers (with seats) in GTR cars. We could pretend they are rally cars and this wouldn't be totally unrealistic. For example, XF GTR is quite similar to 2-litre kit cars from late 90s and more powerful GTR cars may be thought of as part of R-GT group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_R-GT).

That is too much of a change in the current system. The changes we are discussing are really just about a few changes of limits, with no serious coding that I don't have time for in the old version at the moment.

Quote from Pathseeker :

will road tyres manage to hold temperatures at all on those cars?

All I know is that in some drift series they have used tyretools tweak software to allow these changes in the FZR and XRR for drifting. I haven't done any testing at all. I don't want to start trying to code new tyres. The aim here is only to allow what people are already doing but without the need to use memory modifying software.

Quote from Scawen :

I think, because of how the physics system works, the road cars just flip in this case and actually this could spoil the fun of the road car racing.

That is true - there was a slickmod test many years ago for TBO cars - grippy slick tyres made the TBO cars as rollhappy as FWD GTRs... So for proper touring car racing (TBO class with slicks),some updates needed,which would require new version of these cars.

Quote from rattijonni :

Increasing the miniscule 6pps in multiplayer to atleast 12 should also be an easy and worth while change.

I support this, Scawen. As high as you deem it worth it. Current pps might be ok-ish on track (although not ideal), but on stream it looks like lagfest even if people have ok ping.

Regarding the rest, rally with FXR would be fine and helping drifters (within realistic boundaries) is also fine. Plus higher steering could make the cars more usable on tight layouts maybe?

I'm indifferent about the AI, but sometimes, once in a blue moon, if some opportunity arises, some AI races are good fun. So also, why not?

Slicks on road cars - no.

Quote from Scawen :

But I can see that it could be worth a test. Maybe I can even run a local multiplayer test here using a remote server to get an initial feel for it before trying it in public.

My interest is piqued. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested, and would be willing to join a test to see the effects of 8/10/12pps during a race start. The pps change was the first thing I was hoping to see when reading your post if I'm honest.

Quote from Scawen :

Some other changes have been requested, for the use of GTR cars for drifting and off-road.

Drifters have asked for the maximum steering lock to be increased and to allow the full range of tyres, for the XRR and FZR cars. We received a request to allow up to 65 degrees steering angle but it seems a bit much to me. Those two cars have double wishbone suspension so that seems to put a limit on the amount a wheel could turn before part of the wheel hits part of a wishbone with disastrous results. I don't have any real world reference for what maximum lock is achievable by drifters in real life.

Personally I never drifted with GTRs, but I guess this wouldn't hurt at all. +1

Quote from Scawen :

About off-road use, I found a note from about 10 years ago suggesting to allow the off road tyres on the smaller GTR cars as they have some resemblance to rallycross cars and that could allow some fun racing. I've seen a recent request to allow the FXO GTR to use the off road tyres for rallycross.

So, combining the above two purposes it seems like it could be a good idea to allow the knobbly, hybrid, road and road super tyres on all the GTR cars, and to increase the allowed maximum lock on the XRR and FZR.

+1 for Hybrid and Knobbly tyres for GTRs.

Road normal and Road super apart from hybrid/knobbly on GTRs? Sounds interesting, but would both road compounds stand the stress from the GTRs, especially road normal?.

-----------------------------------------

More AI in mp could be upped a bit. Maybe it could start with 12 and raise the bar from there?

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks for the feedback.


I was wondering about this often requested change. As usual I fear it may make things worse. I believe it can help when all players are near the server, with minimal lag. In this case it can bring similar benefits to using a high pps on a LAN. The problem I have with it is that the really bad lagging you see is usually from players with high latency (time lag to the server).

Higher pps cannot help with this. Such players, if sending twice as many packets per second, will not appear any better to the other players and will still be all over the place. Only now they will consume more CPU on the other players' computers because of the catch-up physics done on each position update.

So the problem is that more packets per second cannot possibly solve the worst problem and could make it worse. Turn 1 slowdowns could become a slide show of carnage.

I feel it's a bit like having a broken cylinder head gasket and increasing the turbo boost to try to get some more power to compensate.

But I can see that it could be worth a test. Maybe I can even run a local multiplayer test here using a remote server to get an initial feel for it before trying it in public.


Good question, I'll need to ask Victor about this.


Other comments - thanks for the feedback. I'm reading and thinking...

People aren't asking you for more packets per second because they think this can fix bad internet problems. They ask you for that for smoother gameplay. You're working on all those amazing graphic improvements, but when the car I am racing against keeps trembling (or doing mini-teleports) on the road it's a very ugly sight, and that's still a part of the graphics. It just doesn't look natural.

Also when people broadcast sim races, you know this is basically the age of streaming live sim stuff now, and this is a good source of marketing for games, this 6 pocket per sec is again an issue. Cars just skip over the track like skipping stones on a lake. When a new guy watches a stream of LFS he'll be like "What the heck is that?" and not even consider buying it. I am quite used to LFS (speccing in a server for example) and it was even off putting for me to watch the broadcast of skipping stones.

I'd even increase it to 18 packets per second or at least give the choice. Someone's bad internet isn't game devs' problem to solve. Bad internet issues occur in all the other games. And I can only assume people will get faster and faster internet, or lower and lower ping. Why not give people with fast net a chance to play buttery smooth LFS. Every single thing in LFS improved except this stuff. Still back in mid 2000's.

About CPU issue, I can run LFS on a 11 year old laptop with 40 people absolutely fine and not getting bottlenecked by CPU. The cpu is i5-430m. So you shouldn't worry about CPU at all.

And I remember you made replays little smoother back in the day. Would be great if you could make them even smoother too.

IMO, allowing more tyre types on more cars would open up some interesting possibilities.

Regarding it being potentially unrealistic - there's nothing really stopping people doing it in the real world as long as the tyres exist for the rim size.

All tyre types would work on the various GTRs.

At least the junior single-seaters (FBM, FOX, MRT) would make sense to have Road & Supers. Several real-world series run on all-weather tyres. Even F1 cars sometimes use them for show runs or some types of testing, so they'd probably make sense for *all* single-seaters. (Hybrid/knobbly makes no real-world sense, but might at least be fun).

If it turns out they're too soft, then the new tyre physics would be a good opportunity to tweak the compounds.


Related to this, and I'm not sure if it would count as "quick", but would be a nice visual for streams especially: Would it be feasible to allow different tyre wall textures for different compounds? (ala F1, BTCC, Indy Car etc)



I also agree that it would be worth testing higher pps. If it doesn't work, then at least we'll know - and if performance depends on certain factors, I think it should be available as an option for server admins to choose, with the caveat.

I'm not sure what calculations are going on underneath to account for lag, but is it possible that performance could be improved for higher PPS by not bothering to run physics on cars that are further away (or not close enough to need collision detection) in some cases? More regular packets could reduce the need for so much physics-based prediction, as the motion with no prediction at all would be smoother. (probably wouldn't be a quick change though)



Again, not sure if this is in the scope of this thread; I can move it out into a separate thread if you want.
After playing around with the cameras a lot for Sim Broadcasts, I have a few (hopefully simple) InSim camera requests:

1. Can the minimum FOV on track cameras be (significantly) reduced? 10 degrees isn't much zoom by TV camera standards, which was particularly frustrating when setting up the Rockingham "BTCC" cameras. This would allow for many more realistic camera angles.
From what I read somewhere recently, a lot of "normal" TV cameras can go to 1 degree ish. The Nikon P1000 goes to 0.8 and I've seen F1 cameras take similar or closer shots of the moon.

2. Is there a reason why InSim can't set the FOV for custom onboard cameras? The value is there, but the documentation says it can't be set. I currently have to do a hacky workaround with the /fov command, but it prevents smooth transitions and can cause a noticeable flicker.

3. Would it be possible to have an option for custom onboard views be relative to the "centre view" position (from options > view) rather than relative to whatever the client's saved custom view is? This would make InSim controlled views much more consistent for the general public (and less error prone for streams).
3 b. It would also be nice if it were possible to set the mirror & clocks mode via InSim for similar reasons.

4. The MCI packet rate appears to be limited to 25Hz (40ms). Would it be simple to change the limit to the physics rate of 100Hz? (I have plans...)



That'll do for now I think, sorry

I agree too with the testing of higher pps. We are in 2021, and the majority of us have decent internet connection to play smoothly. If you want to test some people with high pings like myself, then I'll gladly give some feedback on how it feels for me.
I think changing the pps will improve the gameplay for us and at the same time, it will look awesome on stream.

I'm for increasing the pps too!

I really like this idea, you can manage to do incredible work like for example a rally setup for FXR similar to the current WRC´s for example.

Scawen a suggestion, it will be possible to modify the traction of the cars.
Imagine, we have XRT rear wheel drive, there could be an option if we want to make the XRT 4x4 just front wheel drive whoever wants it.
XRT with 4x4 for rally would be something very interesting

Quote from Scawen :

...

APPROVED !!
Making those GTRs some rallycross machines is indeed very appealing
Same for those who wants to have AI online.
For drifting, I have no knowledge, but 65° seems crazy, but maybe real, do not know ...

Sure, why not. Last time I went online last year I only saw cruise and drift servers being active, so that would improve the game for those players.

If it means the beginning of some sort of integrated "tweak" into LFS, where we could customize every aspect of the car (tyres, engine, suspension etc..), I can only agree with this approach.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks for the feedback.


I was wondering about this often requested change.....

I feel it's a bit like having a broken cylinder head gasket and increasing the turbo boost to try to get some more power to compensate.
Other comments - thanks for the feedback. I'm reading and thinking...

Hey! Thanks for putting that in a language I can understand.
The offroad tire option for the GTR cars.... Will that apply to A.I. cars as well? Or more like will we be able to use A.I. road cars and GTR cars for single player/server filler on rallycross layouts?

I'm always for changes