Depends whether you've got a 10 minute lead or only a very minor one.

Doesn't this belong in the OT forum, though?

Quote from Californian :

Maybe some of you 1:14x's in BL GP woul ike to attach your .spr's so we slower ones could learn something

I like that idea! Since we can't download hotlaps, yet: +1

Quote from xaotik :

Yeah - we were both with 50% since it was in practice mode.

There goes my theory.

Maybe they can shift blindingly fast?

Quote from xaotik :

What I can't figure out is why they're faster than me on the BL straight when I'm faster coming out of the chicane, faster in the following turns yet they got about +5km/h on me at the end of the straight. I even tried much less downforce and different gearing... same deal...

I found that fuel load makes a huge difference in the FBM especially for top-speeds. Have you checked how much you're carrying as opposed to the AI?

I feel soo slow.

I can't even beat the AI on Blackwood and they're doing 1:16s, I think. How people get low 1:13s is currently beyond me (probably time to have a close look at some alien-laps to see how this car is actually supposed to be driven).

I am a little better on SO chicane reverse, though, with a high 1:07. But I bet the current 1:06.060 will not stand long, and times are probably not as quick, yet, because it has not been driven as much as bl1 or so chicane regular.

Also, I rely heavily on other people's setups, as I'm useless as building my own.

I just gave the XFG a little spin around bl1 with bob's road going setup and an open dif. I tried to drive it pretty much like I drive my real car around a track (a 169 hp fwd with no dif) and I must say everything seems to behave pretty much as expected. Not too much wheel spin on the unloaded front tyre, tbh. Of course I modulated the throttle on corner exit a lot more than I normally do when racing in LFS, but that's what I do irl, too, slightly lift off when I get a hint of understeer/slipping front tyre. If the power band of the XFG is anywhere close to that in my rl car, I actually doubt that I would get much less wheel spin with it, even considering that it has more power (I mean, I never got below 4k rpm with the XFG, mostly above 5k, actually).

I'd have to to further rl-testing to absolutely sure, but for now I'd say LFS is pretty close to rl, at least not dramatically far off.

edit: don't mind the crappy line through some of the corners, I wasn't really trying.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Yes, you lightly load the lever *just before you shift, maybe for half a second at most*, and as you feel the lever move when the dogs unload you pull a bit harder to get the change, and then ease off so as not to ram it home too hard. We don't have that ability with current hardware, but you can 'simulate' the preload a bit. Unfortunately, we can also sit there preloading it all the time which you wouldn't get away with in reality.

Yep, got it, little bit of cross-posting going on there.

But that's basically how I do it in LFS as far as timing goes, except that I apply a constant force to the lever, and I don't feel that I have to be overly precise in that. The good thing is, that my hand is faster than my foot, so I think "shift" and concentrate on my hand pulling the lever. My foot will automatically lift a tad later than I pull and therfore it's timed just right.

Quote from TomM :

Yes but that is very unrealistic. It doesn't work that way in real life. You can't preload the gearbox like that and magically shift whenever the throttle is cracked momentarily.

I though that was pretty much what a Hewland Sequential Gearbox designer described when talking about how to shift up:

Quote :

Therefore the effective method is to apply load to the gear lever with your hand and then lift the throttle foot off and back on to the pedal as fast as physically possible. In lifting your foot, the loaded gear lever will almost involuntarily flick to the next gear before the foot is re-applied to the throttle.

Surely a real sequential gear lever will feel a lot different from this little plastic thingy on my DFP, but the process is the same and as long as we don't have proper sequential ffb shifters it's as close as it can get, I'd say.

EDIT: Sorry, I overlooked your last post, Tom. I think I get what your problem is now. It's that you virtually put full force on the gear lever in LFS before lifting the throttle, while in rL you'd only load up the lever a little before lifting the throttle. Still, I think the process is the same and it's as close to reality as we can come with the current hardware. But that's easy for me to say as I've never driven a sequential in rL (except on a motorbike, but there I always clutched).

Last edited by Linsen, Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:21.

Quote from Bandit77 :

(...)

There's obviously no point in arguing about feel, so it would probably be wise to leave it at that.

However, what makes it so hard to understand your point for me is, that you say LFS's road cars don't feel right, because they're operated different from rL. Thing is, the way you operate the road cars in LFS now with autoclutch is the exact same way you operate the FBM, which, and that's the important point, is operated in LFS exactly as it would be operated in rL. Sure you could now argue that the FBM should have a tiptronic also, but not by the same logic you deploy for the road cars. So, imho, at that point your whole line of argumentation collapses.

Unless, of course, the FBM feels perfectly fine for you, which I seriously doubt. But if it does, you might just as well pretend the road cars to use the same sequential gear box as the FBM, as you could pretend the road cars to use some kind of tiptronic (which they don't).

Quote from birder :

Using the FOX on BL1, incar view, when you go over the new long rough grass it comes through the bottom of the car.

Its not much but rather disconcerting having Grass rattle your in the nuts at 120mph.

Certainly made me jump anyway

Same with the FBM. But then again, you're not supposed to go on the grass anyway.

Quote from TomM :

If anything the upshifts require you to be far too precise. That I would attribute to pulling on a switch where you either are 100% trying for a gearchange with the button or not at all. In real life you are putting a load on the gear lever and obviously we don't have the hardware to simulate that.

True, we don't have the hardware to simulate the proper feel of a sequential gear shift lever, but I don't see where you have to be precise on upshifts in LFS. You can just pull the lever whenever you like, wait till the optimal shifting point and then lift the throttle a tad. Gear changed.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

The FZR has a H-Gate, which is so nice to drive after throwing a seq around the track for a few laps.

I could claim that I left out the FZR on purpose and was only talking about sequential GTRs, but than my last sentence about the small GTRs should have still contained the FZR, too, so I'll be honest and admit that I forgot about the FZR. I'll edit my previous post as to not cause any confusion (just in case anyone actually bothers to read this whole thread).

Btw, when will we have our first club meeting? And where? At a race track, maybe? I think we should rent one for a whole day and everybody brings their own cars and we should have a club race. Then we could be glad that real racing is even harder and more realistic than LFS. Although the last part of the meeting would probably have to take place at a hospital.

Quote from Mikkel Petersen :

Any please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think part of the deal with the FBM was that it was supposed to be in the demo.

Afaik, there has never been an official confirmation for this, so it's just a rumour. A founded one, considering that LFS is supposed to be part of some sort of race driver talent thingy, but still a rumour.

Quote from AlienT. :

Do real life GTR cars have sequential gears? If so then there should be no requirement to lift your foot from the accelerator as the computer does it for you.

Not sure if this has come across, or if that even was part of your question, but: The big GTRs in LFS do have ignition cut, so there's no need to lift the throttle on upshifts. The small GTRs use h-boxes, though.

Quote from lococost :

That's basically what I comprehensively wrote above in an answer to your question

You basically wrote that, and I appreciate it, but surely this is more comprehensive. And -- no offence -- this is coming directly from a gear box designer.

Because that's what a demo(nstration) is supposed to do sort of by definition. Otherwise it's more like "LFS light" or something.

And how do you know how alright the devs are doing? Do you really think they couldn't use a little more money, maybe?

But of course, it is not written that a demo that offers less, would attract more people to buy LFS. And there's no guarantee that a more limited demo would convince even one single person to purchase the full product.

Overall, I think that including the FBM in the demo was part of the deal with Fortec and/or V1. And apart from that it also could provide a way of getting new people interested in LFS, those who are not interested in Road Cars but in formulas and who never considered the demo because of lack of the latter. But who knows.

Now that's a comprehensive guide to proper sequential shifting!

Missed that on the other thread, thx a lot!

Quote from ghost racer :

Plus it's werid how you need the full clutch to change gears (up and downshift). I could up shift fine IRL with about half clutch just fine into the next gear (with pushing much clutch. Makes down-shifting with a clutch funny on sequential.

Not quite sure, but I think this has to do with where the biting point of the clutch is. Afaik, you can calibrate your clutch in LFS to have the biting point much earlier than with the default calibration where you obviously have to depress the clutch pedal fully. I don't have a clutch pedal, so I'm not 100% sure about this, but it's what others stated in different threads.

A thought that just crossed my mind:
Since Scawen drove the FBM irl, I'd imagine he would have made it so that the clutch would kick in on downshifts for autoclutchers if clutching had been necessary on downshifts irl. However, for me personally the question still remains if there should be more of a benefit to using the FBM properly (=with blipping on downshifts).

But I'm just not enough of a technical person and unfortunately have no rL experience witha Formula BMW to judge.

Quote from wien :

If that's the problem, put a tennis ball beside your pedals and stomp on that every time you change gear or something.

Thx for making me smile in a thread that is mainly irritating me.

Quote from BlueFlame :

I completely agree Bandit, without a clutch, it's like you are in a car with automatic transmission, and taking your foot off the throttle which BTW, i might add NEEDS do be below 45% or so doesn't feel, look or act right. Linsen you sit here whining, as if we are asking for something really stupid i'm sure bandit(aswell as i) can blip on downchange if we wanted to just as much as cut the throttle, but it's like someone keeps switching my paddle shift off, It doesn't feel consistant enoug to me either, sometimes i can blip sometimes not, sometimes i can change gear othertimes not, and before i know it, i have a messed up clutch. Infact I did 20laps on SO6 cutting the throttle on every upchange, and just letting the engine dictate the revs on downdchanges as not to overrev with blip on downchange, and i STILL had a bust up clutch.

It's not me who is whining, I'm just annoyed at other people whining. And in fact, I am having tremendous problems getting the blip on downshift right in the FBM (not so much in the big GTRs for some reason), but I found out that downshifting works fine without blipping. So I'll stick to that for now under race conditions and work on my timing a little more. Right now, there's hardly a real disadvantage if you don't blip. And as for the whining about cutting on upshift (which was the main point of my post): It's frigging easy. I'm so mediocre at LFS that if I can do it, without burning the clutch, anyone who can't needs more practice. It's that simple.

I have to conceed however, that throttle cut and blip is harder to time right with flappy-paddles, I remember that from when I didn't have a DFP. But the amount of practice needed to get it right is certainly not unreasonable.

The main point is: LFS evolves and it does so basically how the devs want it to evolve. Sure, they always keep an eye on the community, but they determine the general direction and if you're not willing to adjust, you're out of luck I'm afraid.

Quote from ultrataco :

So in real life, with a sequential gearbox (like in the fox, fbm, gtr's, etc), You shift up w/o clutch and shift down and rev-match with a clutch (using normal heel-toe technique when braking)?

In LFS, I can now downshift super-fast in the FOX and FBM (and maybe GTR's - haven't tried them yet) w/o using the clutch and it seems to work perfectly fine. That doesn't seem right to me. The clutch doesn't wear out and the car seems to stay balanced unless I shift down too many gears too quickly.

I like using the clutch and blipping the throttle but if it's not realistic to do so in certain cars, I might as well do it the faster and more realistic way (no clutch).

Exactly what I thought and started a thread about it:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=34823

Quote from ajp71 :

Of course it should be noted that different gearboxes will behave differently so one set of rules doesn't necessarily apply to all.

That's probably true. I'd expect the gear box on the 997 RSR to work a little different from the one in the FBM. Also, engine inertia plays a role here, I suppose? Meaning, shifting down in a 997 RSR is likely to unsettle the car much more than shifting down in the FBM which obviously has a rather small bike-engine. I haven't driven the FXR or the XRR much, yet, but I'd expect blipping on downshift to be more important with those. Unfortunately I'm just not capable of button-clutching manually and I don't have a clutch pedal, so I won't be testing that part.

Anyway, we'll see how it all comes together after we have some more experience with the new physics.

I'd be in, but I just had to learn that we just claim those new features to be more realistic, when in fact they just make LFS harder to handle.












Ah, sod it, I'm in anyways

Quote from Bandit77 :

to put it in your words: I can't help getting really annoyed by people claming a new feature realistic just because it's harder to handle.

do you really want to say that pulling a flappy-paddle just a tad after you release throttle and have some funny autoclutch in between to shift up is more realistic than having a system that works exactly like a tiptronic (which basically does electronically what a good driver would do manually)?

well then, i'm out of here.

Actually, in the FBM you should pull the paddle just before you lift the throttle. But that's not the point.

The need for throttle cut on upshift is not more realistic because it's harder to handle, but because it's how it works on respective rL cars. By your logic, you might as well be in favor of brake help, throttle help, steering help and all other sorts of arcady features, because they basically do electronically what a good sim driver would do manually.

So maybe LFS is in fact not the right game for you?