Things that are detectable in an SPR file with 10ms time resolution are not always detectable in an MPR file with much coarser - maybe 250ms? - resolution. I think this is at the heart of it (but am prepared to be wrong about that ). Thus even though the clutch behaviour may be identical on the client every time as you suggest pik_d, it probably won't look identical to the server or to the other clients.

(Also, I double-checked last night and the clutch pedal does "move" when using auto-clutch.)

If we/anyone can come up with a practical/reliable way to detect it, I'm sure it can be implemented in the future. (Clearly an LFS patch to eliminate the issue would be preferable though!)

If anyone is really convinced it can be reliably detected, I'm happy to have a go at helping to prove/disprove this, e.g. by having someone use it and someone else save an MPR file and then check it frame by frame through a bunch of shifts. However, I have a suspicion that precisely this type of test has already been carried out...

Nah, I reckon Laimiss is OK, let's hear his story first, eh?

I'm not certain I even know what button clutch means.
If it's simply mapping a button to the clutch, then I do it (a wheel button of course). I use it now and then to regain boost in a turbo, but I can't recall for sure why I originally set it up - maybe cos i have some sets that need a 2nd gear start.
I also use auto-clutch (so when I stop the car the clutch kicks in and I don't stall).

The button also means I don't have to lift my right foot when upchanging in the FBM. (God but I really hate doing that, gives me a sore leg. Nothing else against the FBM, but that's more than enough ) No good for FBM races, as it'll burn out, but lasts OK for hotlaps.

Anyway, recently during the FBM/FOX hotlap event, I got a big surprise when I analysed some FBM hotlaps:
I had started out by upchanging (at least for high gears) by holding the upshift paddle and very briefly hitting the clutch button. I expected this to be at least as fast as lifting off, but I wasn't seeking that extra 0.05 (if you check my times, you'll realise I'm not at the top of the table!) - it was simply the sore-leg thing
The online hotlap analyser on LFSW though quickly showed me that this was actually SLOWER than lifting. Bizarre? I haven't checked carefully yet (cba really) but I suspect this is probably unphysical (based on the torque etc.), but regardless of whether or not it's realistic, it's unambiguously slower to do what I did (multiple tenths per lap I reckon). So I ended up setting my laps by lifting my right foot... (ouch! )

Now, is what I did the same "button clutch" thing being talked about here? Or do you have to turn off auto-clutch to get a benefit? Or indeed, use a macro as some mention now and then?

(Maybe the benefit is there in some cars and absent in others?)

Edit:

Quote from pik_d :

It's a slap in the face to those of us who refuse to do something we consider cheating, especially when you asked us to give money.

Not sure what you mean. Is it a slap in the face that some people are doing it? Or a slap in the face that Jason allowed it? If the latter, then Jason's explanation above surely explains the logic: if you can't detect it, then why have a rule against it? The rule would only penalise the honest people, not the cheats.

Last edited by Neilser, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:22. Reason : Added a bit

Quote from dollarek :

here is my videos of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJqU2WslKj8

Great quality footage. Now you can send it on to the police and get that guy thrown in jail

Quote from J@tko :

The sound changes with the number of cylinders

Ah yes, the important bit, hehe

Quote from Patrick v H :

Well, with the inline engines (afaik the XFG/XRG/FMB are all equipped with this type of engine), you're limited to a maximum of 8 cylinders. Get over that point and your LFS will stutter big time. Flat and V-type engines don't have that limit

Aha. But I was assuming you could just tweak the torque and power directly, no? If you can do that, would you care how many cylinders it has?

Eh, does that actually make any difference?

Dead little girl: speechless. Though if the parent is human, being thrown in jail won't be any worse than how they already feel.

Tony Martin (and related self-defence thread): I think the reason people still talk about this is precisely because it was a grey area, and thus it divides people. For my money, shooting a random pickpocket is wrong. But when particular individuals have targeted your home repeatedly (unless memory fails me about his case), the simple fact that they are running away - this time - has no significance to whether or not you feel you are in danger.

Hey - just spotted this thread Sounds like a lot of fun.
Would love to make it. Might be tricky though, as the kids finish school just before that weekend, and we might be heading off on hols, argh.

Will try to sweet-talk SWMBO

Thanks for the links - had a look and saw that EQ Worry has been asking for licence-info from LFSW for some time with no joy

It's almost as if Victor and Bob aren't on the same page on this issue - it seems like it ought to be a no-brainer to allow LFSW (via pubstats) to supply the licence status of a username. Plus, Bob wants mods to use that route rather than Insim. And yet Victor has upgraded pubstats a number of times and NOT added the presumably trivial bit of code to do the licence reporting.
So I must infer I'm missing something about why

Ah well. It's all moot I guess until I've actually written a mod, eh?

Ahh, thanks.

I haven't attempted any tweaks yet, so perhaps I'm just totally missing the point. But in my head, the problem is immediately "fixable" with a modicum of help from the devs... in that the game already has what I imagine must qualify as a secure licence check before you can use e.g. an FZR. Why can't the game provide an in-built check before allowing other user-tweaked stuff?

Like I say, the fact that I'm thinking this is probably an indication that I've missed the point entirely. So if there are any docs about this stuff (didn't spot any so far, maybe didn't look hard enough though) then I'd really appreciate a link

Quote from DavidTiger :

You'll have to query LFSWorld Stats... but thats as much as I can say, I think (Verbal NDA:shrug

Oh boy, I had been imagining that there would be a better way? (Sounds like you mean a check for any recorded races on non-demo combos...)

Thanks though

Did you ever get code for this? I'm pondering playing about with some coding myself...

Wow, nice one!

Quote from arrowkart4 :

+1

Quote from [DUcK] :

+2

Ah, you mean you two speedsters both want to be restricted like NickC? Sounds fair to me

Hey - just spotted this - nice one!
Been looking forward to it...

Quote from JPeace :

...but you dont have the right to hold them up deliberatly by treating them as if you are defending a lead on the final lap of a race. its astonishing to see some of you saying things like its fair to hold them up and that you "noobs have had enough". enough of what exactly? that some other people are faster than you and that you cant compete with them, and then complain that they have a go at you when you dont let them pass easily. which i think the leader is entitled to have a go at you if you have considrable caused yourself a nousence and gone out of your way to block the leader, which a few of you on this thread seem to be pround of.

Maybe my brain auto-filtered as trolls anyone who posted that kind of garbage, but I really don't recall any such posts in this thread The discussion I thought we were having was not about deliberate blocking by the slower car, but about impatient & dangerous passing by the faster cars. Maybe we're coming at this from different angles (But I've done my share of passing too, I should add!)

By the way, I really think the ultimate answer here (particularly if we're considering IHR, where the multi-class issue is a hot topic) is to take a replay of a particularly good example, post it on the relevant server's forum, and say "Hey admins - is this how you feel the faster cars are meant to behave?". If they say yes, you may want to race elsewhere.

Don't think I've ever been on a server where that happened. Do you remember which server(s)?

OK, getting ready to pull the plug on Plusnet, since the problems haven't gone away (except intermittently) and no feedback about it for over a month now.

Am considering Xilo.net, who seem currently to be rebranding their broadband offering as "Uno broadband".

They seem to be a small outfit, and among other things they resell C&W LLU ADSL2+ which is what I'd be going for. (It's "partial" LLU, inasmuch as the phoneline stays with BT.)

The package I'd go for is £15 ex VAT per month, "unmetered" (they confirmed that a good fraction of 100GB per month is no big deal), and has no traffic shaping...

Anybody have any experience with them for LFS?

But isn't it only usable for Z25 right now?

Quote from cobra193 :

but the bottom line is that the rule does state "YOU MUST NOT SLOW THE LAPPING CAR DOWN!!!!"

OMG, only just spotted this sentence in your post.

Can you explain which rulebook you've been reading? Every set of rules I can remember reading states that a car lapping backmarkers should expect to lose time.

Quote from jasonmatthews :

Neils' point... If someone is on the lead lap with you and is 2 seconds a lap slower than your best ever time, tough... It is up to you to pass him, that is called racing

Totally agree - that's racing and it's great fun. But it was exactly the "swerving over the road and making more than two distinct moves" that I was talking about. Drivers who realise at the last second that their mistake at the last corner cost them enough speed that I'm now coming past and so they swerve in front - frequently after some overlap has already been established. That's not racing

Quote from mrodgers :

Really the only way to become a lap down on a public server would be to have wrecked/spun out, to have mid-joined, or be so horribly slow that he really shouldn't be online racing. In this case, then the race really is over for said backmarker (or never started to begin with) and there isn't much point in not getting out of the way.

I agree in general, but that point isn't entirely valid when you've got XFRs sharing the track with XFGs And when you've got both faster and slower cars battling for positions when the leaders catch the slower class, it's quite tricky to have a clean and fair outcome...

And then there's the slow-driver-in-front scenario that menantoll mentioned.
I've also seen a lot of dreadful blocking in the last few weeks, whereby someone slower by a good 2 seconds a lap becomes a roadblock for multiple laps and is only passable when they make a serious error. I've even been punted off the track twice today by people who decided to cut right in front of me to block, just as I was starting to overlap.

In reply to the OP: I sympathise - you're probably in the right. Don't give up on finding servers with sane drivers

[PS: to really see people getting lapped a lot, try the IHR Rally server: LX4 vs. UF1 at FE6 ]

Last edited by Neilser, Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:38.

Quote from Ger Roady :

Seems that he mean this one .

Ah, mucho gracias I believe you're right.

Haven't used that (must have a play), but having recently tried Worry's new Aonio thing, and failed initially to get it to work with a TCP connection problem, I can relay what was wrong there: I needed to give Aonio the password for the local LFS instance (i.e. the admin password that would be used if I created a local LFS multiplayer server using the non-dedicated EXE).
The error message was "TCP: connection refused", which is a bit of a lie really, but that's what LFS tends to say in these cases. In fact the TCP connection was accepted, and then closed by LFS when the passwords didn't match.
Maybe totally separate problem here though...