Hai!

Here's my try. Just a simple, honest to god track with an extension track as alternate circuit.

Oh, ya, details 0.0

Track Name : Akdant Speedway
Number of layouts : 2
Surface Type : Tarmac
Location : Built-on purpose track
General scenery surrounding the place : Forest, fields, etc (country-side)
Map : To be honest, I haven't thought about heights and other elements, but I guess it would be a bit like Aston; some denivelation, but not too much.
Scenery of each part of the track : It's the same everywhere ^^
Grip level : I guess... 10? However grippy tarmac is supposed to be.
Which car class is it suitable for ? : I'd say any car but the uf1 & XFG/XRG. The alternate layout would be better for faster cars.
Which weather/hour : Clear Day / Cloudy day (does that even exist?)

Last edited by boosterfire, Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:34.

Well, it just makes it more realistic. Unless you're super rich, there's little chance that you'll race with a brand new car. There are a lot of 1990's cars on track days.

Also, I guess this will not be true anymore as we get a brand new Sirocco "soonish". However, I must say that I'd like to see a 2010 looking car designed by Eric.

Interesting concept, it would definitely be a great experience to drive on. However, the current water in LFS is a bit ugly, and I think it would be a good thing to improve the graph engine to get better water before creating a track that relies so much on a watery scenery

It's kind of a silly excuse, but people driving with the mouse will know what I'm talking about. Sometimes, a hair or something gets stuck in front of the optic eye, and the mouse just goes berserk in one direction or another. The result is simple, the car steers full left or right and it's an inevitable crash

It's really interesting how the 'general opinion' pejoratively sees atheists as the annoying people who try to convince others that they're right. From what I see and hear, it's rather people with religious beliefs that feel attacked by atheists, and try to defend their beliefs, often rather angrily.

If there's someone they should feel attacked by, it's other religions before atheists. Atheists just tell them: I don't believe in a god and I think you're wrong. People with different religious beliefs than them will say: I believe in X god(s) and you'll go in hell for not believing in that/those god(s) too.

I really find it kind of amusing that each religion predicts doom for non-believers while there's so many religions on earth. If you assume that the religion X is right and that it predicts doom to non-believers, there's probably a couple billion people to go to hell anyway.

Anyway, I'm an atheist, and I don't want to piss off people with religious beliefs: I've done it in the past and it usually brings no good. However, I do find it hard to have a constructive talk about religion between people with and without religious beliefs. I mean, is it possible to actually talk about it without trying to convince the other that he or she might be wrong? Besides, when they're trying to convince the other, it's always the same thing. One will say the bible is right, the other will say there's a lack of proof.

I don't like the idea of believing in something without having some kind of tangible proof of it. Say, if everything science says was an old textbook with no evidence, I would probably not believe any of it. However, as science is stuff I can see for myself (at least in part), I find it easy to understand.

I would say: "Well, if God wants me to believe, why doesn't he just come down to me to prove me that he exists?". And they would inevitably reply: "God can't prove it to you, you have to believe". I just don't like this unconditional "you believe or you go to hell" thing. It just doesn't seem as something a 'creator' would do. Or someone that loves you. For instance, mr. Smith has never seen his mother. At 40 years old, a woman comes to him and say: "I'm your mother, believe that or go to hell". But she has no way to prove it to mr. Smith. All he has to do is believe or not believe; how will he decide? It's not rational to do so.

I just say: maybe there's a god a maybe there isn't. I don't know.

Last edited by boosterfire, Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:41.

It's not actually possible to have two different rim designs with the same characteristics. They can probably easily weight the same, but their shape do affect a bit aerodynamics. The point is, anything that's not exactly the same on your computer and everyone else computer's will inevitably cause an OOS. Say, you add a single polygon somewhere, you'll get an OOS.

Besides, I agree that it's kind of trivial, but in the same way that skins are trivial. Technically, we could still all be driving white cars and be okay with it, but it's kind of entertaining to see everyone's car's a bit different.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

That's half the fun... I'll be honest I know exactly where the track goes that it's probbably only 5% that I ever faq it up, I'm sure many others are the same. It's a challenge, and it also makes it more exciting in a race environment. If you smash into the wall coming out then I suggest you try taking it differently o_O;;; Many a fun and good overtaking move are executed there...

Yes, I agree that after a while you personally have little chance to fook it up if you're a reasonably good driver; however, if someone else has crashed in the second part of the chicane and that you enter it at normal speed, it's 99% guaranteed crash. And it can get a lot worse if it's in the first laps of a race where everyone is all bunched up. Crashes at the chicane in beginnings of races are a common reason to restart races on classic and chicane route.

I like the chicane if every thing is going fine and there's a clean race, but I find myself raging on it a lot when there's an accident because I know it's the corner itself that most likely caused the crash, or at least made it worse by being a blind corner.

Besides, the chances that such a corner would be track-legal IRL are next to nil.

This is kind of silly, but it seems it hasn't been suggested before. What people suggest are country-side tracks, but I'd like to be a bit more specific.

I think a forest track would be a good addition to LFS. Say, something like a rally track, but on tarmac instead of being in the dirt. The Nurburgring is of course the best example of this kind of track. I'd just love to drive on a stretch of road with nothing but trees on either side of the track. Add some great denivelation to this and you end up with a really awesome track to drive, I'm sure.

Any thoughts?

Puh-lease, we don't need another 50-50 tarmac-dirt track. It's an awful concept and we already have too much of it in the game.

I agree, however, that some kind of narrow country-side track would be a good thing, and I'm sure there are plenty of those all over the world to take ideas from. Really, I like SO, but after a while, the walls get annoying. For instance, the chicane in SO would be a much better corner if you actually saw where you were going. A blind corner-chicane? That's not only a lack of realism, it's just insanity if you're not on a league race.

I actually wonder what SO would look like if you just took the same circuit and put it in the middle of a field or something.

Well, there's already the rb4 that's a 4WD. However, I agree that it's not really a pure rally car. A car purposefully built for off-road racing, along with a 100% off-road track, not 50-50%, would be a good addition to the game.

However, this has probably, as everything else, been suggested already.

I can't really tell why I hate him so much, but I think it has something to do with him about to win the championship. It's rare that I don't hate the guy that's gonna win. What's sad, though, is that I always hated Massa, and now I find myself supporting him in his fight against Hamilton ><

I also hate Alonso.

Really, the only drivers I wouldn't mind seeing as winner of the championship would be Kimi and Bob (and maybe Bob's team-mate, but he's so awful he'll never get there).

Agreed, SamH; usually, when someone's loved too much in a community, he eventually becomes hated by a part of it. There's also a great deal of chauvinism that springs into view when a country hasn't seen a winner for a while, which is quite annoying to the rest of the world. See Spain for example. There's no country on earth I find more annoying these days; they're just too good in every sport. I really hate Alonso.

I guess this really falls into the category of things that are totally useless to discuss because it has next to zero chance to happen.

I mean, by now, we know Scavier enough to tell that their business plan is something they won't let go off easily. They'd probably let go LFS altogether rather than opening it to mods and what-not, which is quite understandable considering what happens to sims that are opened to mods. It's not a path Scavier intends to go into, and I must say I agree entirely with this decision.

If there was a word to describe LFS's developpers it would be independant.

It really kind of makes me sick. It's Bernie's bluff all over again. The last time he did it with sponsors and what-not. This time he doesn't even bother, it's just a flaw in the contract.

What most people don't know is that unlike all other gps, the canadian one is a private business. All the others are public, and hence ready to pay a s-load of money to get on the map. However, since it's a private business, they always have to go look for a lot of paying sponsors, which is alone quite a hard thing to do. Then you have Bernie coming up to you asking something along the line of "Hey, I want more money. And by the way your track is a piece of crap for X reason".

His reasons really change every year, it's the track itself, the pits, the money, the flaw in the plan (contract). Whatever will do to get more money from this thing.

Now the GP promotor Normand Legault basically said he's pissed and pulled out of this. We've got the Montreal mayor, a federal minister and a couple of other guys trying to convince Bernie (by giving him more money), but in general, the population would just like to let it go, to make sure Bernie doesn't get more money...

It's weird how it just seems like Bernie's a terrorist or something, and he kidnapped our GP. Now we've got to give him a lot of money to get it back

Quote from Takumi_lfs :

Never thought of it before, but it sounds like a great idea yeah

It comes 1045th on the list of easy things to add in the game and that would require little work...

Quote from SauberDrifter :

Awesome track design!

This kind of brings up a good point. The whole thing of having such height change on a corner, was, I guess, to mimic the corkscrew of laguna seca, or at least, to do something somewhat similar.

However, since it's in the middle of two relatively straight parts of the track, cars in both directions arrive there full throttle. In my opinion this thing would gain a lot by being a proper chicane, just with a big height change in it.

If you look at it from overhead, and don't take heights in consideration, it would just be a pretty quick corner. Making it more like a real chicane when viewed from overhead would be a great addition.

What about adding some bolts to the wheels?

Modding an online game is the last thing you really want. Yes, some people would release some interesting mods, but just because we'd have the other 90% of "modders" creating complete crap and then ADVERTISING IT, I guess we can just yell "puuuuuhhh-leaase, no mods!". Do you really want people to try to make you play some awful mod by saying "plz come plya my bobsleihg mud guzy!!!11111eleventy"?

Besides, it would probably require some work from Scawen, which is a rare occurrence at times.

This goes in the same category of suggestion as 'put bolts on the wheels so they don't fall off when I get out of the garage'.

Can't be done, sorry, it would make LFS much too realistic graphic-wise, which is not something anybody would want.

I don't see how one could get his account hacked. If, like me, you mostly never go to lfsworld, you only ever have to write your password once, when you unlock S2. That's not a lot of opportunities for stuff such as keyloggers to be effective, assuming of course, that's the type of thing we're talking about.

The ToA are quite clear, if you hack, you're facing a permanent ban.

LFS is still reasonably free of the 'empty server disease'. Look at games like Counter-Strike. There's probably like 30000 servers up at any given time, about 27000 of which are empty, or full of bots.

But, seriously, I don't see what's the problem about this. Don't want to see empty servers? Filter it. Don't want to see cruise/private servers? Filter them...

How hard can it be?

Personally, I prefer the tweakers doing their thing on old patches instead of trying to do it on Z. Of course they'll be unable, and they'll come moan here.

Besides, do we really need those people that have fun going around at 300kph in a uf1?

Correct me if I'm wrong, and don't go thinking that I've actually played iRacing, but from what you guys are generally posting, it just seems to be better than LFS.

From what I understand, every aspect, seldom graphics, is similar to LFS. That is, whether it's better or worse, it's very close to what you get in LFS.

I have a feeling that the aspects iRacing promotes and counts on to make itself stand alone from other sims are indeed playing a big part in its sucess. That is, real tracks and cars, along with the graphics. Apart from that, it seems to be quite similar to LFS, maybe with a touch more developpment in it (?).

That Limerock Solstice race does look quite awesome, but I must say, it's very hard comparing it to LFS, or rather, understanding what's the difference. It's obvious the graphics are better, and the replay seems smoother, but else than that, it's hard to say if the netcode is better.

However, it still doesn't convince me to switch to iracing, and that's just because the choice of cars is dreadful.

This actually came to my attentions a few minutes ago, and after a quick search, I didn't find any topic that directly talked about it.

The Raceabout we have in LFS right now kind of sucks to drive, which is why nobody uses it, but let it be known that it was the first RA. Then came the 2005 one, which I'd say is unlikely to come in LFS.

However, I somehow arrived on RA's website moments ago, and found out that they're planning the Electric Raceabout (ERA) for summer 2009 at the Progressive Automotive X-Prize Competition. It seems to only exist in sketches and models for now, but for the interested it's over here: http://www.raceabout.fi/era/

Now, this is probably a subject that has been discussed before, but why not introduce an electric sports car in LFS? With the Tesla, the upcoming ERA, and surely a few more that I don't know about, there's plenty to choose from, and they're all great.

Quote from RMachucaA :

I dont understand one thing, for example, the project gotham racing 3-4 interiors took no more then a week, maybe two if they where REALLY complicated to model and uv\texture.

For lfs, it shouldnt have taken more then 2months tops to do all the interiors, considering also that they are quite low poly and hence are pretty easy to uv\texture. He must have been doing something else, im sure of it, is it so?

Here's an example of a pgr3 cockpit:

I'd take the fanboi hat on and tell you that 'zomg, Eric works alone!', but I'm no fanboi, therefore am going to agree with you. I mean, it's not perfect, or close to it, and you'd kind of expect that after about two years of complaint about the interiors.

Example, when you turn your head in the xrr, the camera clips the seat, and you realise that the texture is quite awful. Another thing; the hazards. On the race car it's fine, because race cars don't always have them, let alone need them, but in the road cars, the orange dot flashing when you turn any signal lights on is just ridiculous.

p.s. my wheels should still fall off when I drive around
p.s.2. oh, and is Westhill really the track that needs the update the most? I reckon Fern Bay is much more overdue than Westhill!

Last edited by boosterfire, Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:24.