OK, consider me in, but I'll have to meet you Saturday at the track as I won't be sober enough to travel down Friday night (free bar with work that day).

^^ Ditto. I saw my domains now point somewhere again but only some settings seem to be have been brought over so far (e.g. mail accounts exist but all mail ends up at the default account), and none of the web content itself is yet present. Progress at least.

Update: Sites are now back, can receive emails but not send. Nearly there!

Last edited by Bob Smith, Sat, 21 Jul 2012 09:20. Reason : update

Maybe at some point but I don't have the enthusiasm for this I once had. It's the amount of work that puts me off more than anything.

The download site sould be back up and running again soon, been down over a week now.

What's the lastest update?

Please keep at it Dean, I haven't had any emails for a week now, this bothers me far more than my sites being online! You'd think they would treat this matter with a little more urgency.

Regarding my web-hosting, would I need to make any changes with my registrar for DNS reasons? Realised I've not given you anything in ages, once it's back up expect another charitable donation your way.

Frankly I'd lost interest in updating it until the new tyres physics came along. However I don't think the devs are allowing tweak apps anymore, so getting my motivation back isn't the biggest problem if I want to respect their wishes, which given my position, I really should.

Nice to see the game is picking up. Wonder if they're still using my tyre physics.

Quote from Nadeo4441 :

Does anyone know if there will be clutch support?

It really wouldn't be difficult to add manual control, however some work to the gearbox simulation would be needed for there to be a point to all this. Assuming that this hasn't been added since I worked there, but since last I heard they still don't have a new dynamics programmer, I doubt it.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

Often done when on a long straight at full pelt and they shift and the engine then revs at a higher engine note...........

Everyone knows you have to downshift to accelerate faster.

Or at least they should...

Quote from Becky Rose :

There is nothing about that model which suggests sustainability to me, which I suggest is a contributing factor to why LFS has slowed to a development crawl.

I think the model would be sustainable, if they kept cranking out good quality content. This would also reduced the appeal and desire to mod. Trouble is, they don't. That's the killer. LFS needs more artists... or maybe just one who releases their work.

Yeah it's a known issue even on Windows (though not as pronounced), I've got a good idea on how to fix it. Just need to get around to working on this again.

FYI: cPanel is down again for me. Logged in fine yesterday.

No authorised tweak style app will work with a demo account.

Quote from Tanuva :

Its the clutch part: taking the input force (moving vehicle's torque induced through the wheels), calculating it's effect on the engine and then going that way back: engine output torque -> gearbox -> wheels.

You sound like you're currently simulating the rotation of the drivetrain as a fixed piece. This is fine for normal conditions. When you need the clutch to slip, simply start simulating their rotations separately. Engine speed is dictated by output torque vs clutch torque, while the drivetrain speed is dictated by clutch torque vs the resultant torque generated by the combined longitudinal forces of the tyres in the driven wheels.

If you have more specific questions, just ask. I'll subscribe to this thread.

Quote from lol_men :

Hello!

Download link is not working can You guys update it please?

Works for me?

If it didn't change, it would be a waste of the past few years work.

Requested since the dawn of (LFS) time; we don't need another discussion on the matter. Listed in post 2 in the improvement suggestions log.

Part of me thinks fool you for installing on the desktop but then the installer should not do this when uninstalling. Can anyone else confirm this?

From testing in LFS, they decided just to add an undertray to the MRT6, and not the wings. At least, that's what I recall. The in-game car was never intended to be released to the public.

Quote from Nick7 :

Add rolling resistance of tyre, and ofc - resistance of going thru air, etc, etc...

Intentionally. For the purposes of this comparison, rolling resistance and air drag are identical, thus while the acceleration figures given are too high, it will reduce them both by the (almost) same amount, so it's still acceptable to compare the differences between them, which is what we're interested in here.

Quote from Nick7 :

So in the end, difference is miniscule.

If you add in an arbitrary resistance force (comparable to travelling faster), you'll see that in fact, the absolute acceleration benefit increases (albeit marginally), and the relative benefit can increase significantly.

Quote from rageshgr :

1) A worn out tire due to its lessened radius, will have lesser mass and more importantly lesser moment of inertia. So it is easier to rotate that wheel with the same torque. This I am sure has implication on acceleration. Hence the reduction in linear velocity due to diameter decrease and increase in angular velocity(RPMs of the tire) due to lessened mass and lessened moment of inertia may try to cancel each other

You can work this out. Acceleration can be calculated by a=f/m, where m is this case is translational inertia, rather than simply mass, and force is engine torque over wheel radius.

I took my X-Type as an example, comparing new tyres to those with a full 8mm of wear, the car ends up approximately 2% faster in 2nd gear (higher gears give a larger benefit as the engine inertia tumbels).

It looks like it's always going to be that the vehicle accelerates faster as the tyre wears (at least for typical values). I've attached a spreadsheet you can experiment with. The wheel inertia calculation is very simplified but it will do for now. I could make it generate the wheel masses and inertias for worn and unworn but it's too late and I'm very sleepy right now.

Quote from rageshgr :

2) Theoretically this lessened mass and lessened moment of inertia of the wheel should improve top speed too I believe, hence trying to cancel out the reduction in speed due to lessened diameter. But I am not sure about this second point.

Umm.... no. The only effect on top speed will come from the changed engine velocity and thus power output.

Well that's it, I'm not posting here any more then.

No seriously, help is always useful. Show respect!

I'd say "good luck!" but I can say from personal experience a better sentiment is "have patience!"

Quote from Kid222 :

How the feck is this thread still open.

Because it's damn amusing. I'm sure I've read this before years ago, although back then it was about wheel view, rather than force "mode".

If you're faster with it on, that's great, but I assure it offers no more advantage to changing the FOV or any other camera related setting. Some people even race with the chase cam. We may mock them for being childish and breaking immersion but to be fair, they do have better vision around the car, so as long as they don't crash into me, I really don't care.

Nobody tell this guy about button clutches, macros or hacks. Then he might even have a point and it wouldn't be quite entertaining then.

Quote from col :

Look up "brush tyre models" - that's what the current LFS tyre physics is a variation of - not Pacejka, which I understand is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Scawen discusses current LFS tyre approach here

You misinterperet. The current model you're all driving around on is an empirically based model that Scawen invented, perhaps similar to Pacejka (I don't know the details). I don't know if this is the same basic model that Scawen has been tweaking since 2002, or if he's ever started over.

The first new tyre model Scawen wrote was based on brush model theory. That model never made public as, although better in some areas, went very wrong when taken outside the areas covered by the assumptions and simplifications needed to make it work. So Scawen started a second new tyre model, based more on tread model theory, however it's ended up too slow for real time use in game, so there's now a third new tyre model, that aims to give results similar to the tread model, yet be sufficiently simpler to run in real time. That's no easy challenge.

Quote from Zero7 :

And oh, Bob, if you're reading this, great stuff - thanks. I think we should have road going sets in official releases of LFS.

You're welcome. Thankfully, you're not the only one who thinks this. Scawen is in agreement also. We'll see what the future brings.