Matk Donohue swore by the locked diff, even in the 917/30 (after a great deal of arguing with the porsche's designers, I'd guess), but I suppose this is something that comes down to driving style, its not something you can be authoritarian about - if you like driving with huge amounts of understeer on entry and huge amounts of oversteer on exit, then locked diffs are a perfectly valid set up option.
EDIT:
Just been thinking about this... And I'm not really that technically minded in terms of set ups ... So perhaps someone can confirm my assumption: a locked diff is going to be more favourable to a style that includes lots of late trail braking and power-on oversteer... less steering input? That said, a locked diff in LFS is ONLY unrealistic when applied to a FWD car?
The stuff abpout the mini-map got me thinking - I rarely look at it, but....
QTF too.
Much of the discussion about these things has very little to do with the quality of simulation, but more about the nature of role play, the quality of the 'game'.
Simulation is all about the relationship between input and feedback. How you get that feedback is an essential part of the simulation, but all the same, being always in the realm of representation means it will always be subjective. I know I'm fairly alone on this forum in that I really don't care about the role-play aspect. It doesn't matter to me how the feedback is represented, just so long as its represented clearly.
Hmmmm... Just thinking aloud... It interests me how stuck simulation gamers are, on the quality of 'naturalism' rather than what I see as 'realism'.
Couldn't we all? But my point was exactly that the only reasons ever given by the "demo is too good" contingent (who frankly whine just as much as the other side) are:
Because that's what a demo(nstration) is supposed to do sort of by definition [sort of = not really. Demos demonstrate and the LFS demo demonstrates very well what LFS does]
Because that's all that the demo needs to do [which again begs the question, "what is so wrong in doing more than what is presumed to be needed?" How will it actually benefit development to do less?]
Because hordes of people will flood to S2 if you .... [yeah, well, we've dealt with that one. And we all know that having more money, more resources, more ... of anything isn't going to make the development of LFS proceed any faster anyway]
Perhaps its time to drop the word 'demo'. Why not, indeed, call it LFS Lite? It certainly won't be the first program to abuse the word 'light', in such a way.
Would be very useful to be able to set a button or key to focus the view on a particular aspect of the cockpit (perhaps this can be done anyway?) - then the question is irrelevant.
Ha ha...all this will be irrelevant when you fire up LFS and the AI says, "I don't really agree with your choice of combo, Dave. My on-board memory store is more than capable of handling all the mission requirements. Take a stress pill and remove yourself from the track, Dave. I wouldn't want anything to happen to you, Dave."
I like your comparisons even though they only show me what your camera sees and not what your eyes see. It is not a matter of what is correct, but what is useful.
Because that's the way demos have always been? I've asked this question before, but haven't received an answer that isn't purely speculative. The demo works. Scawen gets to test drive a single seater, someone bought a new kitchen, blah blah... In short, the devs are doing alright, have a good standard of living, and don't need anyone to look after their income. They are quite capable of making reasoned choices.
And where is it written that restricting supply necessarily increases demand?
Its OT now, but thought I'd just correct both statements - trail braking is simply keeping the brakes applied past the turn in point and gradually easing pressure on the pedal as you approach the apex.
It shortens the distance before the turn during which you need to apply the brakes and can induce some oversteer (this is what's meant by steering with the brakes). Amongst other things, keeping the throttle applied (AKA left foot braking) is a way of controlling that oversteer.
I disagree, and have elaborated why elsewhere. But I reckon the addition of a single seater to the demo is a good idea... Not for the spiteful and adolescent reason that its one in the eye for the drifters [rolls eyes upwards], but for the reason that it makes the demo more balanced... A fwd car, a rwd, and an aero assisted car. Makes loads of sense to me...
Have never used any driving/blipping aids; my opposition to FCV is purely on the basis that simulation is not in any sense bound to a single perspective visual representation; I have no idea what the new patch drives like since I am not able to go online with LFS to unlock it again (grrr ... ); but anyway... I'll join and then resign since:
“...I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” Groucho Marks
boyracer1981, don't worry about Tristan, he becomes a parody of himself if you goad him. He's a nice boy really, with an admirably sharp sense of humour, but tries a bit too hard sometimes...
About the line... I never got it to work properly on my machine, but it looks to me like the ghostcar mod, drawing the path (you can see the red braking area in one shot). I mean, someone use some sense - why would the devs add a feature that is already available as a mod? For convenience sake maybe, but why is it such a big deal if the mod is already available?
That's probably why you're not a designer. Not to say that 'unusual' means better, just that 'usual' doesn't always mean perfect either.
Interesting concept (though bizarrely sexualised - a phallus studded with phalluses?), but can't help feeling that it rather upsets the notion of proportionality in law.
The bottled Guiness imported from Nigeria is really good... This topic has been covered before... Not sure if I was over-estimating it then, but the stuff being sold at my offie seems to have gone down from 8% to 7.5%...
This is a circuit just outside of Paris. I believe that at certain times of the week it is freely open to motorcyclists who can conform to a bare minimum of rules (decently maintained machine, leathers, etc). Damn good idea...
From the context, I guess you mean you don't have much against it, and I have to say I'm completely in agreement with you, as I am with a great deal of the rest of your post.
I used to go to a lot of the motorcycle stunt spots in London; there was a regular, Sunday all-dayer that I used to love. It was a publicly accessible road, but behind an industrial estate, so it was rarely used. Some extremely talented riders would turn up to that spot, but, by its nature of being a space where people were extending themselves and their machines, it was dangerous.
No, not idiots. Everyone who turned up to that spot did so with a heightened sense of awareness of the consequences, both legal and physical. To condemn such risk taking as the symptom of a diseased mind is to prioritise anxiety as a control mechanism (and as a guarantor of safety). The problem with this is:
that there are benefits to taking risks, even though a majority in society will always be risk-averse
that there is no such thing as a guarantor of safety in life
So I have to admit that I'm divided on the issue, or to be more precise, I will take things on a case by case basis. As I get older I find that this the way I deal with things: black and white forms of morality fail to explain or even cope with most worldly phenomena. So to answer lizardfolk's original question:
Sometimes its just plain stupid and irresponsible. Sometimes it just has to be.
I agree with both your statements, especially the second, edited one (though I agree wholeheartedly too about the badly made, money grubbing titles...). But your second statement seems to suggest that there is a place for street racing, that there is a form of racing that is one of the many blends in the world, that it may be illegal, even immoral, but that neither of those two categories are enough to dismiss it out of hand.
I really don't think many people have actually got what this article is proposing. As far as real-life street racing goes, you either like it or you don't: there's not going to be any middle ground and no room for agreement.
Analogies will therefore be pointless.
However, the original article was suggesting that it should be "discouraged" in all other media. How, is not stated, nor does it even begin explore whether other forms of fantasy that deal with illegal material should be "discouraged" too. I shouldn't even need to resort to analogy to describe how impoverished cinema, literature, gaming, in fact culture in general, will become if we follow to a logical conclusion what is being suggested.
"Get Carter". One of my favourite movies, but basically its all about a gangster who kills people. Quite mercilessly. Its not a mistake, its not due to misjudgement, its cold and deliberate murder. And he's the hero. Should we discourage people from watching this film? If not, then why is there any reason (apart from aesthetic!) to discourage people from watching or even producing films like 2F2F, or games like NFS?
You just have no idea how many people just thought, "I'm going to get me some NOS!!!!"
Ultimately street racing is already illegal and no one cares about a few people re-enacting blokeish revenge fantasies ("Shoot 'em in the head, right on, dude", "Hang 'em, flog 'em, hide my hard on!")
Armed robbery is quite a dangerous activity for everyone involved... People still do it. People still make films about it. People go and watch those films in hordes. Their hearts race and they cheer, and they go home to their mortgages, dull partners (nothing like the stars they idolise), and they lead average, peaceful lives, afflicted only by average, relatively peaceful forms of grief and tragedy.
Stupid article. Street racing is banned in most countries and video games are fiction. Thanks... its not like there isn't enough moral panic in today's world as it is.