I'll try and sneak you one out the back door, I'm sure we will have a few wrecked cars and enough to build one up from all the peices After all it is a turbo F3 school car....crazy if you ask me!

Yup, I'm not demanding anything. I'm just discussing what I would like to see in the future, like I said, LFS has been my sim of choice since the demo days. I'm just very interested in how good the driving and feedback could be with tire physics and setup options that more directly correlate to its real life counterparts.

Another topic for discussion though; why are we able to down shift so fast under braking? I would think if you were to do that IRL or even another sim you'd end up backwards before you got the chance to turn in! Is it drivetrain physics, tire physics...I dunno, but something seems a miss to me.

-Agreed for the dampers, 4 way only for the race cars.


-We don't have adjustable bump stops though. I've heard of cars compressing all of the packers and riding on the bump stops and springs, on purpose. Different bump stops would allow you to have more suspension travel but with the risk of damaging susp. because of smaller stops.

-I have seen different stiffness springs that have been put into the F3 car for testing, they are all the same size, but different coil thickness or more coils. The difference in ride-height because of different springs is minimal. They cars have almost no droop and a small amount of preload, so they sit the same with different springs until they go out on the track. Obviously very different springs will make ride-height different. Or possibly they only have so many stiffness's at the same spring height.

-"Anti-dive is the forces of inertia and mechanical resistance that the brakes create thru the front suspension. On most chassis, the lower control arms are level front to back. The uppers usually have about 2 degrees of angle front to back, higher in the front. This is called anti-dive, because thru the braking force on the front suspension, the chassis will resist dive (weight transfer to the front)."

"Anti-dive can be used to help your corner entry. If you feel that your car transfers too much weight to the right front, you can adjust your anti-dive to help this. How do you do this? You need to have that adjustment built into your chassis to be able to adjust this. You would increase the angle that you have on the right front keeping the front side of the control arm higher. Also, you can decrease the angle that the left side upper control arm has, making it level. Sometimes it can even be set in dive which means that the front side of the upper control arm is lower than the back side. With the settings resembling the settings I just described, the chassis will want to transfer the weight to the left front under braking. When you lift off the brake, the car will set down on the right front causing the chassis to turn."

"Anti-dive can be a good adjusting tool to your chassis handling if you understand how it works and you test it a couple of times. Try different settings so you can understand what changes do what and so you will be able to make the correct adjustments to your set-up."


-Anti-squat is more or less the same thing, but in the rear.


Again, the car we are assembling/testing is a fleet of Lola F3 cars. -The rear upper arm has 5 front pickup points directly vertical of each other about a 1/4 inch apart. Some formula cars have it, some don't.

-Concerning the differential, ramp angles and amount of clutches.

-Air pressure, whether the maximum isn't high enough, or the tires don't change correctly according to pressure, something needs to be done. I find it hard to believe that a Formula Car would be putting in as much pressure as they possibly can. You'd burn up the middle of the tire when you leave the pits, the car would be way too stiff as well. Again, I'm guessing, I'm sure some car some where uses the maximum air-pressure...


-About the camber and toe through travel. A lot of cars, especially the older Formula Mazda's I was painstakingly alignment tested on, have the ability to have 0 toe and 0 camber at ride height and then I can change toe and camber at bump and droop, with it still being 0 at ride height. Some people forget to check their camber/toe through the whole travel, but it can cause some nasty toe out in squat, which was horrible for our school cars.

The bump steer is useful, often used in high-powered rear wheel drive race cars, the rear toes in in bump in order to make the car more stable under power. But you are right, most of the time its best and most comfortable for the driver at 0.

I know Scawen rarely frequents these forums, I've been using them for a very long time(RSC as well). This is the best place to "contact" him.

The following is a reply after I sent a message to the "LFS dev's" about setups and physics

"To tell you the truth I can't really answer that question. That is up to
Scawen to decide, and even he will probably not know for sure. Lots of
things in LFS come about as a 'natural' development from what the devs have
been working on at any particular time".

"Of course we want LFS to be as realistic as possible, so the set up options
will be improved and developed as the sim progresses".

"I see that you are active on the forum and this is really the best place to
make comments about the kind of improvements you would like to see".

"Thanks"

I'm not expecting Scawen to give me a ring about this post, I'd be ridiculously
happy if he replied to it.
My point is we've had the same base setup options and suspension physics since the first release of S2. If we can have 1,000s of pages about what cars and tracks to put in this sim, I'm sure there are a few people willing to discuss how those cars do, should and will work on those tracks.

"S2 is a significant improvement over S1; important features have been added. For example dynamic camber (improved simulation of suspension and different suspension types), highly detailed tyre physics and a damage model have been introduced. Also the additional content in S2 should be noted - where S1 mostly contains the 'medium' fast cars and tracks, S2 introduces several 'fast' classes (and 'slow')." -LFS Mainpage

We've had tons of updates and we have gotten differential preload since S2. That didn't change the hotlaps, but thats it, no added options for the setup etc.,

I've watched this sim. develop and a lot of it has been by suggestion of the community. Thats why LFS is what it is. I agree with you in the sense that Scawen probably already has thought of everything I could ever imagine, but even if he has, I still want to discuss it anyway. I'm not going to say "Scawen, probably already thought of that, no need to mention it", when who really knows? Its an interesting subject anyways

What does everybody think about;
What will get changed/added?
Will it all be in a huge patch to avoid the hotlap issue?
What do other people think and/or want?

Last edited by KartRacer, Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:36.

Hello guys, been loving the sim for a long time (since demo days )

I apologize for raising subjects we've already discussed.

My question for Scawen is; Are there and if there are, what are the plans to improve physics and
setups? (tire,suspension,chassis,differential,aerodynamic)

My question for the community is; does the majority care
about the physics and setups needing refinement and improvement?


I know there are a lot of setup guru's here, so lets start a list
of either something that needs improvement in the physics, setup parameters,
setup options etc.

I'm sorry guys, this is my favorite Sim to drive and its the
only one I use consistently. I'm just afraid that we are asking for correct
"looking" interiors,different track layouts...etc. when the sim needs
attention at its very base, the physics and setups.

4-way adjustable shocks
packers and bump stops (formula cars)
3rd spring (F1 car)
Spring-pre load
Anti-squat/Anti-Dive
Adjustable Bump-Steer (toe difference in droop-ride height-bump)
Adjustable through travel (camber difference in droop-ride height-bump)

springs that don't change ride height

Differentials - more realistic options and physics

tires
-tires that act more realistically in extreme camber
(they seem to have more grip over bumps with more negative camber)
- extremely small difference in braking with a lot more camber
-small difference when the outside
of the tires are only 5 degrees warmer than they were static
-maximum pressure
should never be near the optimum pressure
-the tire doesn't roll over the tread surface
at extreme low pressures the sidewall stretches instead

There are tons more, of different importance that I can't
think of right this moment.

Discussions not arguments please!

The best explanation for a slide in a formula car was given to me by a Jim Russell driving instructor, I'm not sure where it originates.

"A open-wheel formula car acts like a dart flying backwards"

What I got out of that is; once it wants to turn around on you, you're probably already backwards.

Corrections need to be made very early and very smooth. The corrections are usually made before you can visually notice the car sliding, the steering wheel movement is very small and quick. The return of the counter-steer is also important. It needs to be quick as well, but it needs to build up to the original steering angle or the rear will snap again. Concerning the throttle and brakes, unless it is power oversteer (which is not a common issue in the FOX), the pedals shouldn't move. They shouldn't move because you will upset the pitch and fore-aft weight transfer, which will make the cars grip less predictable and much more difficult to correct.

Sometimes the correction or "catch" isn't even counter-steer, rather its just less steering angle and a pause on the pedals. This lets the tires catch up with what your asking them to do, with out upsetting the car too much.

It takes lots of time to get fast and comfortable in a open-wheel car. While its difficult in all cars, open-wheel cars are particularly challenging regarding correcting mistakes without causing extreme negative results. Theres nothing you can read to teach it to you, its muscle memory, hand-eye coordination and just plan experience. After a while you will notice your hands moving with absolutely no apparent thought crossing your mind of a "slide."

I'm no expert, but I'm fairly sure all of that is, more or less, some good advice. Keep driving

Concerning the left foot braking idea, well it might work in LFS, but in real life your more or less asking to continue off the track at that angle right then. No more the bias, brakes transfer weight to the front, increasing the grip of the front and reducing the grip in the rear. Locking the fronts takes away nearly all the grip in the front and by doing that stops the slide because of the balance of grip front to rear. Or, it may stop the slide because it locks up all four tires, which stops and reduces all control and grip the tires had, so the car holds that angle and slides wherever its heading. If you ever talk to any driving instructors, the last thing you want to do is abruptly lift and even worse than that, would be brake "jabbing." If you've ever seen a car spin because a car in front spun its because the car behind abruptly lifted and/or slammed on the brakes, which makes the weight go to the front and thus, spins the car right around. Braking to save a slide should only be used in circumstances where the car is no where near the point of recovery and if it wasn't used the car would for sure quickly loop around and go off the track. Thats why at most driving schools, they pound the idea of two feet in. You start to spin, slam on the brakes and if you can the clutch. This makes the car slide in which ever direction its heading very predictably so that people behind you can make a decision on where to go around you. It more or less eliminates the possibility to smoothly catch a slide in my opinion.

Last edited by KartRacer, Mon, 5 Nov 2007 02:26.

How 'bout this....

When you can drift with the default setup and/or a realistic setup with realistic settings.....

.....then you're good at drifting.

Any of the LFSer's that have a fair amount of driving time can pick up drifting and look as good as 90% of the drifters I see on the servers if they were using these 'drift sets'.

I've watched driving instructors "drift" stock powered Mustangs with fairly soft and high suspension and make as much smoke, angle and speed as the majority of the real drifting I've seen. (D1 and other support drifting competitions at different races)

They smoothly transfer weight onto the front tires and by making a smooth turn in (to prevent wheel jerk understeer) and getting on the power, they are sliding into and through the corner with constant throttle modulation.

Watching 'pro drifters' flick super stiff, low, overpowered cars is not as difficult in my opinion.

Yes it takes skill, just like freestyle motocross, but I'm damned sure Carmichael,McGrath and Stewart could win a freestyle competition easily if the put their efforts into it. Just like drifting, freestyle MX was sparked by the nac-nac and can-can that McGrath used to celebrate after a RACE. People have misunderstood where drifting came from. Suuuper tight corners with a street car, on the street. In order to avoid guardrail smashing understeer they would break the rears loose. That isn't faster on the majority of corners in the world. It wasn't for show either.

A great driver, drift or race, uses more skill and technique to find that tiny space between over/understeer....balanced cornering! Its a much more difficult thing to accomplish.

In my opinion.

Raise the rear

I didn't think it was right either, but today at the track we raised the rear ride height to counter oversteer.(Jim Russell@Infineon, race mechanic program)

It seems to me the effect of ride height can be opposite depending upon the rest of the car. In this case, from what I understand, the higher hear raises the CoG in the rear and transfers more force to the outside rear tire. It also slows down the movement and makes it more smooth in weight transfer.
-The cars are similar to Formula Russell cars
-Like you said, lower the rear if its an aero balance problem

Sometimes this works and sometimes that I think you need to figure out where in the corner and what kind of corner you are having issues in first, then solve.

Last edited by KartRacer, Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:17.

I would like to see the dev's accept community submitted cars and tracks along with textures and sounds, but only after S3 is done. It would also be important to not accept too many tracks and cars too often. It would over-saturate the sim, much like r-factor with a new track and car mod everyday, you have to spend 2 hours finding downloads just to go online, not to mention the different versions of every mod and track.

It would be neat if the dev's had some sort of community vote for a track or type of track, then gave a time frame for its completion and submission. After a few were submitted the community and/or devs could choose the best one. Possibly every 2 months or so. Same thing for the cars or series mods, possibly every 3-4 months. This would let everyone download each mod, keep the mods high quality and not over-saturate the sim. The devs could stay busy with bug-reports, while still getting quality additions as well as remaining in control of the sims content.

Motor racing is so deeply woven into the fabric of society. You cannot just eliminate something that has, does and will create/hold millions of lifestyles and more importantly jobs.

The money that car companies spend on racing and the kick-back they receive with better sales is a good enough reason to leave motorsports alone. Honda or Toyota or Chevrolet, not only expands their market by supporting motorsports but also develops extremely loyal consumers. These both send more and more money back into the company. Not to mention the engineers that hone their skill at race tracks and later transfer their skills and innovation to street cars.

If Honda can raise the attention of 1,000,000 people who drive cars and use consumable energy then that is well worth it. The whole idea is that Honda is keeping track of their emissions and putting that money back into development for more emissions friendly cars. While its still more of a cheap marketing ploy, good, market away, raise millions of peoples attention and more will be done than getting rid of the sport itself.

If we need to ban anything its planes.

Ha! Thats the layout of the kart track I used to race at. Fun layout in a 100cc, repaved the tarmac just for the track in the middle of the parking lot so no dirt! Won a track championship there

-Wheres the rest of the layout, after the back-straight theres a left 180 and then a right 180 (around the light pole) and then a double apex left hander back onto the front straight. Did they use a different layout for drifting?

Quote from axus :

...you pillet, did you seriously just paste a non-technical definition of understeer from a dictionary where the OP wants a technical definition? I doubt there's a person on this forum that doesn't know what understeer "means", but we can't seem to find anyone that actually knows how to implicitly define when it's happening in engineering terms.

Google...yahoo?

Understeer IN MY OPINION has to do with steering and mostly the drivers opinion. Lose of grip on the front wheels is something different, related but different.

From my karting experience, understeer can be from, not enough front grip, too much rear grip, not enough weight transfer or a bind. So if I was going to explain understeer in a technical sense, I would have to go through nearly all the physics that are related to a car turning. I could recite tech info from some books, but I'm lazy...so heres some stuff I found online.

-Most explain understeer as a technical term...which I don't 100% agree with, but thats what you say he wants.

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

What would a TRUE definition of understeer be!?

You can talk about a cars technical specifications in order to explain why a certain car or situation would be more prone to understeer but the technical explanation (if there really can be one) is the front wheels have less lateral grip than the rears. It can be from weight transfer, weight balance, aero balance, tire characteristics(air pressure,compound,flex), suspension (toe,camber,caster,ackerman etc.) etc. etc. on and on...but the driver can change all that in one swift jerk of the wheel or jab of the throttle.

http://www.autozine.org/techni ... dling/tech_handling_4.htm


"A more precise definition for Understeer is that the front tires are running at a greater slip angle than the rear wheels. This does not have to result in a loss of control of the vehicle. Only at the extreme edges of the vehicles performance envelope will the characteristics described above be observed.
The slip angle of a tire is defined as the difference between the direction of travel of the tire and the direction in which the tire is pointed."

http://www.madabout-kitcars.com/kitcar/kb.php?aid=59


"[BSD] There is a technical definition and the real world one. The technical definition of understeer is when the front tires have a greater slip angle than the rears. Oversteer is when the rear tires have a greater slip angle than the fronts.
In real world terms, understeer is when the car won't turn any sharper, even if you turn the steering wheel more. At some point, the front end may start to grip less even when the steering is turned sharply and the result is the car continues in more of a straight line than a sharp turn. That is understeer."


http://nsxprime.com/FAQ/Track/highperfdriving.htm


-and if you want technical, here ya go.
http://autopedia.com/stuttgart ... ysics/StuttPhysics02.html

Last edited by KartRacer, Mon, 28 May 2007 05:11.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
un·der·steer
–noun
1. a handling characteristic of an automotive vehicle that causes it to turn less sharply than the driver intends because the front wheels slide to the outside of the turn before the rear wheels lose traction.
–verb (used without object)
2. (of an automotive vehicle) to undergo understeer, esp. excessively.
Compare oversteer.
[Origin: 1935–40; under- + steer]


American Heritage Dictionary
un·der·steer
intr.v. un·der·steered, un·der·steer·ing, un·der·steers
To turn less sharply than the operator would expect. Used of vehicles, especially automobiles.
n.
1. An instance of understeering.
2. A tendency to understeer.

You are explaining a situation in which you are forcing understeer. You're asking the front tires to do more than they can.

The whole understeer vs. oversteer thing varies greatly from driver to driver, as each one has a different style. For example Alonso (quick turn in) vs. Hamilton (smooth turn in).

But, like others have said, if the back slips its oversteer, if the front pushes, its understeer.

- oh yeah, keep this in mind as well; a lot of newer drivers complain of oversteer when that isn't really their problem. They are turning in far too rapidly and entering the corner too fast, which causes understeer, the car then slows down by scrubbing speed from the excessive steering angle, then the car reaches a speed at which the front tires regain grip. This sudden transition flicks the back end out and can, by the untrained eye, look like oversteer.

Lock to lock.

I also try and use the same rotation as the car. The FOX has a rotation of 450 and I use 450 on my wheel as well. But, with cars like the TBO's or GTR's I usually use just 500. I find that over 550 or so and it is difficult to turn the wheel fast enough to catch a slide. The couple times a played around with drifting I did find a larger (700 or so) degree of rotation is a bit better. It makes it easier to keep the car balanced in a slide.

Although on a couple other cars I use a bit more than the cars actual rotation. Like with the BF1, I usually use 300-325. With the MRT its the same, I use 400-450 because that thing is twitchy! Anything less and I find myself flying off the track after over-correcting a tiny slide.

Its all about finding the perfect compromise of precise steering Vs. quick steering. Each car is different. I think it has a lot to do with optimum slip angles and the wheel base of the car. A shorter wheel base car tends to need a quicker (lower degree of rotation) steering because they can change direction a lot faster. Its the same with stickier tires and down force dependent cars(smaller slip angles) because they as wheel tend to be more on "edge" and require quick corrections.

I try and use as much rotation as possible without feeling like I can't physically turn the wheel quick enough to make corrections.

Beautiful. Great work unseen. Can't wait for the steering wheel pack!

How 'bout we switch the dirt to tarmac and smooth it out a bit?

All I'm saying is that LFS is a simulation...we can all agree upon that right?

What is it simulating, car racing in real life or car racing in a unlimited fantasy world?

I love tinkering with setups and I actually want more options for the race cars (more realistic) but I want the precision of options to be realistic as well.

If you want infinite gear ratios, then why not infinite down force options adjustable by the tenth of a degree? Weird....thats very similar to how are differential settings are now, and I think that needs fixed...ramp angles etc.

I feel that a lot of hardcore sim/racing fans that open LFS up and see...differential changes by %, infinitely adjustable gear ratios, max pressures, along with a lack of some options, might be turned off.

When LFS goes to say, Sauber, and says "hey, what gear ratios can you guys use in the car?", and they say "almost any, but heres a list." I'm sorry but I personally would rather have the list and know that I'm tinkering with settings that CAN be tinkered with in r/l.

The precise adjustments wasn't even my point with this thread. It was to point out that we are missing some options and need to change some that we have...not to the exact point of how you/how much you change them, but you got my side of the story anyway. I'm lost.

great shots!

Wish I would have found this sooner!

Let me in!

-I'm also on f1racing.net's fantasy F1manager....anyone else there as well?

+10000

both the menus and the options!

This post was about realistic set-up options. It has nothing to do with whats fair for anyone, or who has a lot of money or anything like that.

I recently got a tour of Rahal-Letterman racing (IRL team). I asked him how often they change the differential settings.
He said, "at the ovals, almost never. At the road courses we have about 10 or so different settings to choose from."

I then asked him about changing gear ratios. He gave an example. If the wind changed direction for the race they could change the ratios and often do, but, they only change them if it is a signifigant difference in mph, say a 10mph head wind changes to the opposite direction.

If teams were to spend millions on as many gear ratios as possible (which is still currently less than in LFS), they wouldn't have any money for the car!

LFS is a simulation, it is simulating real world racing. In the real world setup options are not unlimited. But trust me, and I think some people might be missing this point; You will still have more adjustability than you will need.

Some points suggesting that having no limitations on street car settings would realistic are valid, but very weak. If we are going that far, then I should be able to take my passenger seat out,put slicks on my car, or change the track width or put a 6 speed tranny in the XF GTI or blah blah blah.
Yeah sure, that stuff is possible, but when I am tuning a car in LFS, I would like for me to picture someone doing the same thing, with the same car in real life aka...what I'm doing is SIMULATING something not only possible, but FEASIBLE.(not in the same time I do it, but the physical possibility)

-Limit the gear ratio and suspension adjustments on the street cars to FEASIBLE ranges and precision. I'm sure people will still argue what is feasible, but lets be honest, do you see someone in a VW GTI with full interior 140 odd horsepower, street tires, adjusting their differential by 1% at a track day? NO, its not possible or feasible.

The race cars need more setup OPTIONS and more realistic(less precise) ranges of adjustment.


Yes, the "don't stop progress until its bug-free" argument is a popular one and I agree, but these are not only changes in ranges for the options, but new options as well, and with more options comes more bugs. Physics first, everyone says here, well, physics first, differential physics, damper and suspension physics, chassis flex physics, these are integral parts of a racing simulation, they do not need to be done now, but they do need to be done and they should be, in my opinion, not to far down the 'to do list'.

-I love LFS, and everything about it. I love the way the dev's work. I am not suggesting they need to do these now. I am only suggesting that these options/changes should be on the list, for the better of LFS in general, the community and the general idea of a racing simulation.

Last edited by KartRacer, Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:28.

To get Wheel Rate:

SW/ECR=WR

SW- Net corner weight
ECR- Effective Coil Rate
WR- Wheel Rate

New Ferrari/Shell commercial.




http://www.partizan.com/partizan/media/clips/729.mov


Wow

EDIT: mods....go ahead and delete this...

Last edited by KartRacer, Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:34.