I have been away. Any news on the G25 wheel which is coming out soon please?

From today "23rd June" the real football ends. From this point on the curse of penalty shoot outs could decide the beautiful game.
What a disgrace this lottery has been to decide so many games over the years.

With LFS still, comparatively in its youth, there is plenty of time for new ideas, tracks and cars to be laid on. It's a superb bit of programming and I turn to it every day.
I like the idea that Altquark came up with, it would certainly help to tone down the reckless driving of a good number I come across.
A kind of grading of the driving community and how they build up their points, successes I think would be good. It would also be affected by the manner in which they've been able to upgrade their setups though and maybe the "exchange of setups" would be more jealously guarded.

I would also like to see an easier way of fiddling with the setups which defeats me still.
I wonder how many know exactly what they've done with a setup when they grab it from another racer or whether they know exactly how they've affected the car they're in.

I also wonder whether identifying the track/car combination could indicate that it would be helpful if a racer was within 15 percent of the WR time.
They'd know how likely it was they would have a race against evenly matched drivers.
I've been on some of the Aston circuits and found right away that most of the racers were 20 seconds plus faster per lap and that basically I was going to be like a milk float against such people.
Scarper pronto.
I have to say that there is a kind of snootiness about among some drivers if a person complains of being shunted off and their reply is along the lines of "well, you're going so slow, etc". And the person might being doing a 46 second lap on South City Classic with the FOX.
Maybe its just one of the hazards of having public tracks. Some folks do treat their lap times and performances EXTREMELY SERIOUSLY and don't have much regard either in their way or five seconds a lap slower.
Identifying a bunch of drivers who are about the same standard as oneself and finding somewhere to race is not easy

Not so much accessible, rather that levels of experience, if fancy setups are required in order to compete, that sort of thing.
If newbies were able to see at the outset that only defaults would be driving and not so demanding if mistakes were made.

Being a new boy on these pages (three months), I don't know exactly who is responsible for setting up the Multiplayer host arrangements so we can all pick a car and a track and dive in but from my experience so far I wonder if there is any mileage in setting them up so it is more obvious to see where someone would be more, shall we say, comfortable.

Quote from Gunn :

Do you mean a FFB dead spot?

No, it really is the steering. Somehow I get to a point after a turn and the steering goes for a few seconds and I'm in the barriers. I use very little FFB. In fact I only feel it when some kind soul clatters into me at 100mph and I get this awful stiff neck.....

I can't pin it down but I have noticed this dead spot when I turn the wheel dramatically at slow speeds with my MOMO. Not enough to seriously interfere with racing in that it doesn't happen all the time and I can compensate for it by holding the previous lock more carefully and really sharp positioning but in the mayhem of South City Classic with 55 drivers heading for the first corner line abreast I have to try to back off and pick my way through the debris.
What I'm leading up to is ........I'm looking to find a really convincing reason to tell her so I can shell out for the G25 when it appears in October. Some all surpassing reason which will make my wife agree that life as I know it won't be complete without a G25.
There should be some hints making their way onto this site pretty soon about the performance of the G25 which is going to make 40 percent of us salivate at the prospect of some new piece of hardware which will help us knock 0.34 seconds of our PBs......

Quote from joen :

Probably some of the messages you see on screen are pre set messages which you can post by using keyboard shortcuts. In your options menu, go to Game, and then "F1-8".

Some guys just type really fast though

When a driver is asked for a setup, he can send it to other players in the game by clicking on the "S-S" button behind the name of the beneficiary player in the connection list (press: N to display that if it isn't).
The other player receives a message "player x sent his setup".
Then in the connection lis there will be a green S behind the name of the player who sent the setup. If you click on that there will be a save dialogue, you give it a name, and the setup will appear in your setup list in the garage screen.

Thanks Joen, I didn't know that. May I ask a follow up? Once the player you have asked to send you his set up with the SS you mention, where does it go, how do you recognize it and how do you know it's on your own LFS program? Sori, thats a lot, innit?

Can someone kindly explain how, in the middle of a race at a hundred miles an hour some drivers can chat to each other. It takes all my concentration to keep both hands on the wheel without a chance of going "T" and then typing out compliments or complaints about anothers driving!!
Also they somehow ask for someone else's set up and skins and in the twinkling of an eye they've "presumably" got what they wanted!!
What did they do?
How did they do it?
How do they know that they've got it?

Answers, on a post card please, to.......moi

On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you think that the upcoming World Cup will reduce visits to LFS hosts over the next four weeks?
Will it level out at 70 percent?
Be heavily ignored and sit hurt and resentful at 25 percent?
Sit happily content with 85 percent?
I think that LFS hits will hold tentatively at 67.64 percent but pick up radically if England come unstuck through the mental and optical shortcomings of any Scandanavian referees.......

If you want a crowded race track get into South city Classic in the evening with a FOX or Kyoto National. You can get trampled on there very easily....

Quote from bal00 :

I think the XFG is great to learn the basics in. It doesn't bite your head of when you get it wrong like the RWD cars, it doesn't roast the front tires like the more powerful FWD cars, but it's not pure understeer like the UF either.

As for different tracks, I would suggest one of the shorter tracks like FE Gold or one of the South City sprint configurations.

I remember racing you on the Mercury server. From what I can tell your braking and lines are pretty good. What you should look into is car control. You sometimes lose a lot of speed in corners because you get sideways. That's the downside of WR sets. They're fast, but not really the most stable to drive.

I figure you could pick up a second or more if you learn to catch slides earlier. You might wanna use one of the empty Autocross tracks (parking lot or skidpad) to practice. Just throw the car into a drift and try catching it. Once you're familiar with this, it'll also become easier to avoid or correct slides on the track. And try to listen to your tires. You don't want to hear any squeal.

Oh, thats interesting. I was told somewhere that a little bit of squeal was good. Is "no squeal" really better then as far as LFS is concerned. Maybe the earlier comment was on the subject of Grand Prix Legends (of blessed memory)....

Thankyou tinvek, I was in a session at South City Classic the other night and was busting a gut to stay somewhere within the fortyfive second lap. Four or five lads were consistently lapping at 42/43.
Now you tell me that mid 45s with default is all you're capable of. Great.
I'm doing the best I can with default and you are doing the same.
I agree too, that a table of stats where "default" is the limitation would be a better guide to driving talent/skill.
I suppose there's no way that the devs can build this limitation into the WRs that we see listed and go green with envy over.......??

Quote from bal00 :

That's just the MHR (main hotlap rank). You can select the "Nutter" ranking on the top left, which includes all 800+ tracks.

Sorry but what is this Nutter you're referring to?
I see no mention of it on the screen I'm looking at.
Are you saying that there are more than the tracks that are shown as the variations of Blackwood, South City Aston etc.??
Just how does one access them please?

Many thanks to you all for your help. Cheers.

I am amazed that such a practice was in place actually. Where one driver stalls (or whatever) and his remaining on the track is sufficient for other drivers to be prevented from a clear opportunity of improving on his time.
It doesn't seem as if the organizers have thought through such a scenario and the obvious implications for following drivers.
It seems commonsense to me for all following drivers to be allowed a clear track.

I had a race head to head and it was a finish separated by one hundredth of a second (really) and I want to send him the replay which I had remembered, thankfully, to keep by hitting "2".
Just what is the quickest and easiest method, (step by step please) to send him the replay.
Thank you

Many many thanks to all of you for your help in trying to unravel this for me.
This downloading of the original program sounded simple to begin with but I now realize that I do like the simplicity of banging a disc in. Its just showing me all over again that there's more ways of killing a cat than drowning it with cream!!

Sorry, a correction/addition to the above.
After hitting the LFSFORUM icon i get a large window and there are a number of icons, some of which are like three books strapped together.
The main one, that of the latest patch is named
LFS_S2_ALPHA_U.zip
I double click on that and I arrive at another window which has LFS.exe and when I double click on that, a small grey box with the same title as above, (with a moving percentage figure) reads "Extracting from LFS_S2_ALPHA_U.zip" and the program LFS does appear and I am where I want to be.
I don't believe this should be the right way to open the program every time I want to join it but nothing else is opening it.

Ok, I'll try to explain.
If I want to open GTR there is an icon on the desktop and I double click on that and hey presto, if I have the purchased disc in the drive, the PROGRAM opens.
With LFS I have an icon on my Desktop entitled LFS. I click on that and a huge window opens with a line of files, one of which is lfs.exe. I double click on that another bar appears and after 100 percent of it makes its way across and the main LFS opening credits appears and the PROGRAM has opened. I can then operate as normal.
I originally downloaded LFS demo and used Winrar to open up the program. Whatever I did I have had a large window with a number of lines of files accompanying lfs.exe. How important they are, I don't know. Some I have added (setups but they have not arrived where they should do, in the garage)
I have tried uploading my hotlaps but they don't show up the hotlaps file.
It's not the end of the world, I can use LFS but there are a lot of it which are not explained for twits like me to enable me to easily do all that is available.

I can't speak highly enough of LFS and am enjoying it immensely BUT I still am having serious problems trying to upload, download everything and anything, setups, skins, replays, hotlaps..etc.
Whenever I go to the program it appears to be an LFSWindow all of its own and takes about a minute to "open" courtesy of WINRAR.
There's a whole pile of little icons and lines and titles of files but none of them appear to make their way obediently into the GARAGE of my Formula XR so I can do things to it.
Downloading my mediocre Hot laps is also beyond me.
A certain amount of knowhow is ASSUMED by the devs in to saying what to do to upload or download and thus far it's one big no no.
I would like it to be spelt out i.e. "UPLOADING AND DOWNLOADING FOR DUMMIES".
Any chance out there....please??

Go onto the list of servers.
Pick a race where a car is being used that you're most at home in.
Hit JOIN.
Hit Tab and join the leader sitting in his cockpit and watch his positioning for a few laps.
Choose another car and see how someone else drives it.
Make copious notes.......

Quote from huxorator :

Never heard of a PS2 > USB converter. If there is one, it should work just fine. On the other, I would suggest to buy a ForceFeedback wheel instead of a vibration only wheel. Makes it so much more realistic to drive...

That doesn't sound particularly Germanic, "Beckstown" in Germany. Never heard of that before. Where is it, north, south, mittel???

Is the whole point of having a dedicated server to make money out of people wanting to use a particular program with others?
Who supplies the dedicated servers, BT?