Quote from ORION :

Hmm more info from the guru

http://www.liveforspeed.net/guru.html

the image is named "geniusloci.jpg"

interesting

Not sure exactly where you guys got that "it's a car" idea from...
Certainly that pic tells me fog.

Quote from Tweaker :

Can anyone explain that 'blackwood guru' quote???!!??!

If anything, that is the most confusing... and they've got some explainin' to do!!!

What I would like to see is what "The old blackwood forest guru" looks like

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Chances are as good as any other day in April I think

Seems like they've peaked on the updates now though, unless they're going to reveal the surprise before the patch comes out, which personally I hope they don't.

Hrrm....we don't know yet wether GTR dashboards have been updated or not. Certainly they need it (and IMO more than the single seaters did) and it's been asked many times, so I can't think that would be the surprise. Therefore they could still post that tomorrow (or today for you people on the other side of the pond).

Edit: on the other hand, I'm going to sleep now and I wouldn't mind seeing a patch when I wake up. I guess I could see for myself that (if) the GTR dashes are updated.

Last edited by Nick_ll, Sun, 16 Apr 2006 02:52.

For information, cars flipping over is an effect from the undertray/flat bottom downforce. Since in LFS that is not modeled properly yet, I doubt cars could flip. But once undertray downforce is correct, just wait to see the guy with high nose who's trying to draft someone.....and have a good laugh

Quote from Yaamboo :

Here's the position of that Aston picture.

Major difference there being spotlights.....hrrm...surprise feature == night racing???
Also where's the location of the GTi pic?

And that pic got me thinking it would be nice if the tires could de-rim

@Orion: I believe wings are like this already. FZR always had a more angled wing.

Last edited by Nick_ll, Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:22.

Quote from ajp71 :

Never even thought about the possibility of a single keel suspension system.

Well it's much more common, more standard and afaik twin keel only exists in F1, and not all teams use it for that matter. There is also the V keel that exists, which provides the rigidity benefits of the single keel and the aero benefits (a hole in the middle under the nose) of the twin keel.
Also last year McLaren started using a no keel suspension. I believe what they do is attaching the lower arms to aero flaps under the nose, which are attached to the car. Since those flaps would be there anyways to improve airflow, using them to attach the arms means that there is a bigger hole under the nose, providing better airflow. Other F1 teams use it this season and that suspension design seems to force the teams to have the upper arms leaning upwards for some reason.

Now that said, the FO8 and FOX are pretty close to a F3000 and a F Renault I believe, and those cars use a single keel suspension (As said previously I believe other designs only exist in F1). So that can mean 2 things: either the visual suspension does not reflect the physical suspension, or if it does, the cars do not behave like they should/would with a single keel, because the lower arms would be longer.

The details is that the wheels in LFS are generated on the fly (I think using a spline and a cross-segment) instead of modeled , and that it is that way because the tires are generated on the fly.
So what I'm asking for basically is for the wheels to be modeled. You really don't want the wheels to deform, never, so I believe they don't need to be generated on the fly. The tires do, but not the wheels. So basically, the wheels can be modeled, which would probably look better anyways. That way they could look better, have bolts, be textured....and I'm sure there are other benefits.

Wondering:
Why are the tire sidewalls textures not as good as nKPro's? I mean if there's one thing that is good in nKp, it's definitely the tire textures. I believe LFS could/should do as good.

Helmet visor sunstrip or new helmet model?

Why aren't there bolts on wheels (still) if there are hoodpins on the GTRs and bolts on the wings of the FO8?

Last edited by Nick_ll, Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:44.

Rrright. Let's just hope there has been some other work from Eric, like better cockpits or wheels or stuff like that. Would also be nice that the unknown feature would be better sounds, but the fact that it's called a feature makes me think it would be more along the lines of a working safety car and rolling start feature or something like that.

Ok so here goes my bet. I don't know for sure so I'll post a few options. Note however that none of these can happen at the same time. It's either one or the other.
- A Formula 1
- A Prototype
- Better cockpits
- Better damage
- Better sounds

Quote from ORION :

Just makes no sense ingame imo - you cant see it anyway, just like those 2048² skins

I mean.... some people don't even see other cars...

Ok so these are headlights, which affect the styling of the car and will not be rendered in theory when you see the back of the car (not to mention LODs can help with fps anyways). So now I'd like you to share your view with us regarding 3D door lines and 3D hood pins.

My opinion is that if we're gonna have this sort of detail, might as well have 3D headlights, at least on the FZ because those flat things we have right now look pretty ridiculous compared to the rest of the car.

rofl good one Kid
Shows that LFS made the right move with their own forum.

Quote from Scawen :

As ever, we are working on the things we've said we're working on

But but but, Scawen, we know that you said you are working on the physics, but you can't say "we've said" because we, the community, have absolutely no idea, at all, of what Eric is working on. We can assume he's working on dashboards among other things, because there have been some complaints about them, but we can only assume. Nothing has been said by any of you devs, and as a matter of fact, Eric still has 0 posts in this forum......

I believe the poll was pointing towards TBO.

Short answer: yes.
When I play LFS, the LX6 definitely is my favourite car

Quote from keiran :

Scawen said earlier he is fed up with these threads so I highly doubt he will bother responding.

See how contradictory it is?
If Scawen did report once in a while on what he is doing, say every month or so, along the lines of 2 sentences (i.e. "I am working on aero physics ATM, it requires lot of reading but progress is going well. Eric is working on some cars details these days") , maybe in a locked sticky thread where we could find all of those little reports in posting order, he couldn't ever be fed up with these threads because there wouldn't be such threads at all.
And don't tell me it is too hard to write 2 sentences every month when there is no fixed date.

rofl good one mosquito

Still everyone don't get your hopes up. Don't listen to Tristan or when a patch will be released you'll be sad it doesn't include what you tought it would. Simple logic here: all we know is that a patch one day will come and it will include physics fixes/improvements. We know nothing else, so let's assume it will include nothing else. So I still stand with my point: 6 months sounds a reasonable margin considering the time to read, investigate what's wrong, code, fix bugs, being delayed (because this is software developpement for you) and releasing something...and Eric will have done nothing (or at least it's not gonna be released in that patch).
Oh and Tristan, no matter what, the glass is ALWAYS half empty.

Quote from B2B@300 :

And Nick if thats all that was in the patch it's fine by me but I predict it will be abit sooner in that case

Oh it would be fine by me too.....if there was only one dev....but in case you didn't notice yet, what my prediction says is nothing appart from a new Aston config (which basically is just removing walls and putting others elsewhere) will be released in terms of Eric's work.

Oh and I stand with my point: final physics patch with nothing else than physics in August of this year.

Patch? Ok here goes my prediction of what will happen.
In approx. 6 months from now, a physics patch will be released. It will fix the aero exploit and tire physics. The high nose setups won't be useable anymore and will even (as they should) slow cars down, and maybe flip them over. The cars will be awesome fun to drive with improved tire physics. But! There will not be preload on diff implemented, no lock on clutch pack diff, no speed adjusting dampers, no 3rd spring on cars it would apply to, no ground effects, no non-symetrical suspension settings, the wheels will still have no bolts and be untextured, the dashboards will be the same and there will be nothing changed for the sounds either. Oh but wait wait wait, we will have one new Aston config available! What for anything else? Wait for S2 Final in a year (that's August 2007 for you my friends).

I will say that I have not played LFS for probably 2 or 3 months now, and my life isn't going any worse. I will play it again the day a patch will be out to see what has been made, and hopefully the devs will have proven this post more than 50% wrong with many more features/improvements than I believe we will get.

Quote from AndroidXP :

The needles we have now are physical objects

Nope they are not. They have no centers and they are completely flat. They would be like what was in the 1994 Ford Windstar LX. I think there's a Merc or a Lexus like that too?

Ok let's try to keep the list short:
- wheels with BOLTS
- texture on those wheels that have bolts
- textures that blur (radial blur) on those same wheels
- textured sidewalls on the same wheels still
- while we are on the wheels topic, how about normal maps? They could be used to add some depth to the treads don't you think?
- how about car-specific steering wheels? I mean instead of always using that same Cromo steering wheel.....
- Being at that, maybe racing steering wheels in the GTRs that look more like racing steering wheels? You know with switches on them, a bar on the center top of the grip to show the center....
- how about dynamic dirt? You know the cars get less shiny as time goes by and if you happen to do a bit of off-road in the sand for example.....and that would of course include the windshield getting dirty too.
- DIALS. Real cars don't all have the same dials for one thing, and secondly, they are not digital representing an analog thing. Generally the needles are physical objects.

Quote from micha1980de :

nevertheless it's more important to have some more serious issues fixed than the looks.
all the "Details" are important sure, i'm human and therefore driven by image & sound (thanks to evolution) but if the basis (physics) is setup properly and conclusive, then all these details will come from other people like all these nifty mods...

Scawen takes care of the physics, Eric takes care of the look. Normally, Eric working on better models or textures should not slow Scawen down, unless he's done with everything, and since this is not the case, we can say that at the moment, graphics details are just as important as physics.

That said, the wheels have no bolts.....
I'll also agree that it would be nice to have stuff written on the sidewalls. Would make for a more realistic look of the tires.

Ok so we don't have sideskirts in LFS, but that everyone noticed already I believe....so the real question is: do the diffusers/flat bottoms generate any downforce in LFS, and if so: are they doing it properly. Cause I know for a fact that the graphical representation of the GTR cars, the way the diffusers are modeled in 3D on them wouldn't work. Of course the graphics are not necessarily following the physics, so do they work?

@Bob: I'll gladly prove you wrong here. In F1C I did manage to flip a LMP, more than once, always on the same spot of the track. So the ISI engine can do it.

Ok let's not call it ground effect then if that's not what it is.

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/diffuser.htm

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Explanation??

I don't like hairdryers.