Quote from majod :

funny, it seems most of us goes to the left while most of political leaders are to the right [/img]

What does the fact that most of LFS players are to the left of center mean, if anything? What is different about them?

Economics = +7.00
Social = +0.31

Since my university economics book was written by a former member of the Communist Party I guess my score proves that I didn't pay attention in class.

I didn't really understand the Libertarian/Authoritarian thing. Government authority is necessary but only for the purposes of preventing people from doing harm to other people and their property. Otherwise there should be as little of it as possible.

Quote from Hyperactive :

The numbers the physics engine need to calculate are close to 0 which makes it very unprecise at that very situation.

This may be correct, but I find it hard to believe that programmers of this ability can't do a simple 'near zero' test on acceleration and velocity and set them to absolute zero.

From what I have seen the programs know the contact patch is on the ground so that the distance to the wheel rim is known and they calculate a vertical force based on the vertical spring rate of the tire. This can be easily linked to tire pressure, etc. But for lateral and longitudinal loads the contact patch's position relative to the rim is not known. Slip angle and slip ratio are combined with empirical equations (such as the Pacejka formulas) to compute the side and longitudinal loads with results based on formula coefficients and not actual tire properties. These coefficients become the guesses that have to be played with to make the tires feel real.

Hopefully the new tire models for iRacing, LFS, and rFactor2 will work on the offsets of the contact patch from the wheel rim in all three directions to get loads based on tire sidewall and tread properties.

With respect to low slip angle and low speed grip, if someone leans against a stationary car, it doesn't slide off the road, even though there is no slip angle. The resistance force is based on the sidewall defection, not slip angle. I would guess that at most speeds there is a corelation between sidewall flex and slip angle and it is easier to work with slip angle curves. But this seems to break down at lower speeds. (GPL uses 6 m/s as a cutoff to switch to a different method.) netKar Pro had problems with cars "gliding" when supposedly stopped.

I think it might be that the track gets grippier, not so much the tires. Less track temp means less oil making its way to the surface.

My situation was that I wanted to drive against safe drivers but in class D cars. If you are a safe driver you can get a Class A license but then you are only protected from the unsafe drivers if you are willing to drive the cars that I don't like.

Quote from DarkTimes :

PyDev 2.0 out, for anyone interested.

http://pydev.org/

Thank you for directing me to this. A lot better than Python IDLE. It quickly pointed to a bug that I had been trying to locate (darn local variable I thought was global ).

Any words of advice for testing from inside pydev/Eclipse while connected to LFS insim or can it be done?

I am still using your old pysim library for my project because I was almost finished with it when 2.0 came out. I guess I should bite the bullet and look into how much I would have to do to update to the new library.

Thank you for you efforts.

I would suggest that you take a look at using intake restricted cars. Our club uses them and they are very nice, especially on small tracks. For example, a restricted FXO drivers much better than the XFG. Even the LX6 can be tamed with enough intake restriction. However, it does not seem to work as well with high downforce, high grip cars.

Last edited by codehound, Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:46.

The perpendicular closing speed of the car with the object would be useful for a program idea that I have. We want to assign ballast penalties for out of control driving and this would help especially on the city tracks.

When I drove the Skip Barber formula car in iRacing on the skidpad I observed that the outside tire would heat the edges up more and the inside tire would heat the center of the tire more. This was with a symmetrical setup. This makes since because the outside tire has a bigger vertical load and more pressure is needed when a tire has more load. In Grand Prix Legends the effect was just the opposite. The outside tire would heat up and the tire pressure would increase causing the outside tire to be over inflated. It could be the difference between cross-ply bias tires and radial tires. I did all my racing before radials so maybe someone can help me on this.

In LFS I see neither effect. Temperature seems to have little effect on tire inflation and more vertical load increases the size of the contact patch but does not seem to change the temperature profile of the tire. I have noticed that most of the fast setups on street tires use under inflated tires. This makes their handling feel soft and sloppy. However, inflating to the point where the temperature profile looks realistic reduces the grip. I like the sharp, quick handling of the higher inflated tires but then the lap times suffer. I hope the new tire model eliminates these issues.

The lack of G-forces is often mentioned as a handicap in sim racing but the FOV effect is, I think, much under valued. Looking through a wide angle lens at the world greatly distorts ones perception of speed and yaw angles. For those who might not have given a lot of thought to FOV or understand it, below is a link to a discussion I wrote for our club:
http://www.slowdrivers.net/ind ... s/23-the-setup-academy#36

Quote from GreyBull [CHA] :

From my POV Rockingham is a good example of the typical modern race track. Perfect infrastructures and all but goddamn boring and artificial looking layouts. Now you can hardly come with something interresting when it comes to rovals TBH, the absence of elevation changes almost automatically makes a dull track.

I agree with you. I think the same thing can be said about all the tracks in LFS. The test is do any of the tracks have a nickname? A track has to have a soul to have a nickname, like the "The Green Hell" (the old Nurburgring). For some tracks it can be just one corner, "The Cork Screw", "Eau Rouge", "Masta Kink", etc.

There is a wide choice of cars in LFS but we need a couple of good real road courses like Clermont-Ferrand or Brands Hatch as it used to be.

We invite you to take a look at our club. We are not exactly beginners but we are not extremely fast either. We are willing to work with new or slow drivers as long as they have the right attitude. That is, we can't all drive fast but we can all drive under control if we slow down enough. We use cars with restricted engine power to help make this easier to accomplish.

So please drop by our website and read about us and ask questions. Then, if you think you can enjoy a philosophy that emphasizes control over speed, join our training sessions and get acquainted.

The official races for the Gentleman Driver's Club begin on the 6th of March. This coming weekend will be the last chance for drivers to apply for membership in the Gentleman Driver's Club and start even with everyone else. We will be holding informal practice sessions Saturday and Sunday from about 1700 to 2000 UTC. Anyone who has visited our website, reviewed our goals, and think they share our idea of safe, courtesy driving can come by for some practice and to get to know us. We have members who range from relatively new to medium fast. Most important to us is that drivers be willing to slow down and keep the car on the track. To make this easier we use cars with restricted engines. This also reduces the difference in lap times for drivers of different skill levels and produces fun racing. Our Safety Rating system rewards safe drivers with lighter cars so drivers who do not drive consistently will be at a disadvantage.

Most sims let you see the hot tire pressure but I haven't seen that anywhere in LFS. Does anyone know if LFS increases the tire pressure as the tire heats up? It doesn't seem to me that it does.

Quote from danowat :

Spoken like a true American

Thank you for the compliment. Even if you probably didn't mean it that way.

I think that the drug crime and the large number of murders really can't be attributed to people protecting their homes with guns. Yes, we are a violent nation and it would be much safer if some how we could keep the guns away from the bad guys. We already have gun control laws but the bad people seem to be ignoring them. New York and Washington D.C. actually had very strict gun ownership laws but still have some of the highest crime rates and murder rates.

I doubt that having a gun, or other weapons, will prevent people from trying to break into one's home since most of us don't put up signs saying we are armed. If I had neighbors with your opinions, which I don't, I think I would suggest that they put up a sign saying "This house is unlocked and I have no weapons". I think the odds of a thief picking my house would then go down significantly.

Do an internet search on "home invasion" "killed". You will find all kinds of situations. Criminals who have their own weapon taken from them and used on them. Home owners who had the reverse done to them. Some armed home owners succeeded in protecting themselves and some failed. Having property stolen isn't the only thing that can happen in a break in. There is also rape and torture just for the fun of it. Here in the USA some thieves have burned the homes they have robbed because they know it will get rid of the DNA evidence. They also kill the inhabitants because they know dead witnesses don't testify in court. Sometimes they kill before they burn, sometimes they just tie up the people and let the fire do it.

Claiming that the rest of us should set a good example by getting rid of our weapons and preaching non-violence is a bit naive. The criminals do not think like the rest of us nor share our values or they wouldn't be criminals in the first place. Is a TV worth a human life? Of course not. But that is the criminal's choice, not the home owner's choice. If he places so little value on his own life as to invade another person's home then that is too bad. The world will be a better place without him and he will at least serve as an example to some other person who is thinking of going down the wrong path. (However, our anti-gun media never reports when guns prevent crimes, just when the use of guns fail.)

But whether a person chooses defense or hope is their right. Both choices come with risk but each person should have a right to make that choice for themselves. Circumstances will have a lot to do with which choice is the most wise.

By-the-way, shotguns make good home defense weapons. The shot doesn't go through walls and risk hurting other occupants, the noise has a tremendous frightening effect, even if you miss, and the cocking of a shotgun is the universal language saying "get out of here" and doesn't need to be translated.

There was some concern expressed that our club's plan to assign extra ballast to drivers who drive in an unsafe manner will cause the slow drivers to be even less competitive with the fast drivers than they already are. But his view assumes that the slow drivers are unsafe and that fast drivers are safer. The fact is that the safe, slow drivers will be at no more of a disadvantage to the safe, fast drivers than they are under a system that does not penalize unsafe driving. In fact, the slow, safe driver may find a fast driver will have less of an advantage if his speed was gained by driving in a risky manner. The unsafe fast driver will either have to slow down or he will be slowed down my the additional ballast that he will acquire and keep until he does slow down.

What about the unsafe, slow driver. Here again another assumption is made. That is, that the unsafe, slow driver will not alter his driving style to avoid getting extra ballast. One would think that if he drives more carefully his lap times will increase, but this may not be necessarily so. If you look at an unsafe slow driver's average lap times for a race they may be something like 1:20, even though he was turning many of his laps in the 1:17 to 1:18 range. The off track excursions and the spins add time to his overall average. If he avoids those time consuming errors by lapping at a 1:18 to 1:20 pace then he will actually finish the race in less time than when he was trying to drive at a 1:16 pace and failing. And how do you factor into the lap times the races that he fails to finish because of his unsafe driving? Finishing races is definitely more competitive than not finishing at all. Also, I think that more consistent driving will eventually make the slow driver better in the long term.

I believe the system will only fail for those who see LFS as a game that can only be enjoyed if the player drivers full speed at all times. Anyone who has done real racing knows that this attitude does not work well in real life racing and that it is knowing that your actions will have consequences that adds the spice to the experience.

Hopefully some of you have made it to our race server and tried some of the cars. If you have done more than four laps you may have wondered what those "avg = 65.023" messages were. We have software installed that averages your last 4 laps. Each new lap replaces the oldest lap and a new average is calculated. The reason we have done this is that we want to encourage fast, but consistent, driving. Quite often drivers chasing that new PB end up driving in a way that they crash on three laps for every time they manage to get that good lap.

Aristotle said that "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” In sim racing this means that if we drive fast and dangerous in our practice sessions we may end up being fast and dangerous drivers. So, by concentrating on keeping a good average rather than going for that lucky hotlap a driver can become quick as well as safe.

The races are this weekend so if you haven't had a chance to visit our site now is a good time.

Quote from sjoblom :

Halloj, sounds like fun racing
Do you have to register as a member to anticipate in the upcoming test event?

We have been discussing this. Our current feeling is that we would like interested people to register at the website. You don't have to be a member of the club or even apply for membership. But we do plan on using a password for the events and this way we can be more certain that people with a non-serious attitude don't spoil the event for others.

By-the-way, the race server is "[S-D] GDC School". The server will be public for the coming week and we invite you to come by and get acquainted and make suggestions. You can get setups and skins (not required) at our website. The skins have already been uploaded to LFS so you just need to put the skin in your skins folder.

As far as fun racing, we may be slow but we are an older bunch who enjoy each others friendship and have a good time trying to race each other carefully.

@GreyBull: Thanks for the kind words about the website. That is due to sylbal's efforts and talents.

@Cawwa: Yes, all thinks not mentioned as fixed (gears, diff, intake restriction) are adjustable. We hope beginners (unlike yourself) would be cautious about changing from the standard setup until they have more experience.

The class 1 cars are intended for our instruction sessions and the class 2 cars are meant for a little more talented drivers. Yes, the cars are somewhat slow but no more so than the UF1 and they handle much better. They will be used on the smaller, tighter tracks and I think they will not feel quite so slow there.

We have written our own insim software that will automate the calculation of the driver performance ratings. The calculation of the safety ratings are partially automated but require that the drivers take responsibility for admitting their driving mistakes and accidents. Since we are club of gentlemen, it is expected that drivers will be careful of maintaining their honour and be honest.

See the following post for a racing club that we are trying to start. If you have the desire to learn how to race safely and with respect toward your fellow drivers then we think you might be interested in our club. We use cars with restricted power that our easy and fun to drive.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=71266

I am trying to write a program that will detect when the connection to LFS insim dies and will restart my client program. I use the insim.close() command but I still get the following message when I try to init (still using 1.6 version of pyinsim, by the way):

InSim Error: A connect request was made on an already connected socket

Quote from DarkTimes :

I've been thinking about how to answer this question for a couple of days, and I guess it does need an explanation.

Basically pyinsim 3000 is not an InSim library, it is a standalone InSim program that you extend by writing plugins.

Thank you for your reply. Re-reading the post a third time it finally makes sense. Two things through me off. One, I was not clear that it was not part of pyinsim. And second, I missed the 'P' in "Plugin" and was reading it as though Plugin was plugin, referring to methods the user had to provide. :doh: Therefore, I was not seeing what advantages there were over just using pyinsim.

Quote from DarkTimes :

OK, only one download in the past three days, I guess using a scripting language to control hosts isn't a popular idea.

Well, my problem is that I didn't(and still don't) understand what it is or what I could do with it.

But I certainly do like pyinsim and thank you very much for the library and the excellent examples (which is the only way an idiot like me can make a program). I used pyinsim to write a program that averages N number of past laps and keeps updating the average after each lap (moving average). It displays the result to the LFS chat screen for each driver. I wanted to duplicate the Time Trail mode from iRacing. It also writes the splits, laptimes, and averages to the Python shell window. Then I just copy and paste the results to a file after my session is over. Not very elegant but it works.

So thanks again and your hard work is appreciated even though we users don't always say so.