It was the last lap and Villeneuve put his 2 left wheels off the track when he made the pass. And Murray Walker's pants were on fire during the whole thing! (at least that's what his tone of voice conveyed...)
For the sake of mentioning boring number facts and unrealistic suppositions, if Hill's car hadnt've crapped out Villeneuve would have gotten 4 less points. He would've then been -5pts to Schumacher going into the final race and his 3rd place finish there would have left him 1pt behind Schumacher which would have made Schumacher the '97 Champ until the FIA took away his points.
At least this way Villeneuve won the Championship outright without needing to have it be 'awarded' to him by the FIA after the fact.
At the risk of being called a heretic, I found that LX6 with slickmod was a blast. The car still has enough under the hood to keep you cautious in low speed corners but the extra grip makes that car so much more driveable.
Yessir! I've never once raced the AI in LFS and I doubt I ever will. Multiplayer is why I bought it and is its biggest selling point. As long as you need a registered username to race online the best part of LFS is crack-proof.
A track I designed which is a simple oval but in an area that uses mostly pre-existing walls has been kindly hosted by CRC (oh the irony, but then again 'Clean Racing' is following the rules and spirit of the event, whatever it is!) and can be found in the 'CRC CC Practice' server.
There is a thread in the Auto-X Layouts forum about this track with screenshots (though there have been some alterations to the starting area)
If there is enough support for this track I may rent a server for it complete with the name 'Banger Racing' so that everyone knows where it is.
Please come in anytime and test this track out (and have tons of fun in the process!!)
Had lots of fun on this track just a few minutes ago in 'CRC CC Practice' server!!!
Had a high of 12-15 players in it. Most if not all loved it. There will be modifications to the starting chute but the track itself is golden!
Am toying with the idea of renting a server for a month for this. But if anyone has a server that's sitting idle and would like to donate it to a noble cause for a while, PM me and we'll talk.
Also if anyone knows how to do a safe ramp (ie: one that's not going to send cars into outer space!) over the wooden rails that line the BL Car Park please show me how as it would make race starts SO much simpler.
There is little point to racing AI in it, for obvious reasons, and I want to keep tight watch of my creative work. Not that there's much creative about it, but all the same the original Banger Racing layout was never released to the public.
Don't worry though. I have access to a few servers and this will definitely pop up in one of them very soon! I will let you know when it does!
Even though this is similar to the 'offroad' thread, I assure you this is pure coincidence and I devised this layout and the route to it all on my own.
I think it is the ideal Banger Racing layout as the #1 issue with other layouts was the 'flight potential' of the auto-x barriers. Well almost the entire outside wall of this track is pre-existing (brick, chain-link, concrete) so you're not gonna go flying when you get rammed into the outside wall.
Lap times are in the 18 second range which isn't far off the original layout times. The track is narrow in order to create lots of beatin' and bangin'.
There's nothing wrong with off-the-shelf street tires on these cars per se, but if the real-life equivalvents of the LX's have an option for slicks or at least race-designed All Weather tires, so should the LX's in the game, IMO.
That's something a server setting could be able to decide.
I think that road tires only are okay for the bare bones cars such as UF1, XFG and XRG.
RB4, FXO and XRT are also okay on road tires.
But the higher-end road cars such as LX4,LX6,RAC,FZ5 should IMO have a slick option added to them because they are close to being race cars in terms of performance and real-life comparison.
Rules vary by server so there's no one answer to that question.
There are plenty of things that may get other racers pissed off like weaving to shake the draft or blocking at every opportunity but depending on the server you mat get away with that or you may get booted.
And if you try slickmod on this car, it is still a challenge to control especially under braking but its not damn-near-impossible like on road tires.
A full field of LX6's would quickly make us forget about the argument over tires.
And I'm not a 'noob' like some suggest because I'd like to see slicks on some road cars. I just don't have the time to practice on a much slipperier car fast enough to make racing it worthwhile.
The LX6 doesn't have to be 'GTR' with a turbo and whatnot. Just slapping slicks on it makes it a much racier car yet isn't all downforced up or tricked out. That would also leave room for an LX8 GTR with turbo and spoilers and tuner stuff.
Seriously, making the LX6 a race car in S2 Final may be one of the best reasonable/do-able changes the devs could make.
I've been driving the LX6 using the slickmod and it is wonderful!!!
On road tires it is a nearly uncontrollable beast yet on slicks it is a lot of fun and would be an excellent RWD competitor to XFR/UFR.
I noticed a thread further down mentioned LX4 or RAC as possible equivalents. However it noted RAC is slightly faster, and I've tested LX4 with slickmod and found it to be marginally slower. But I think LX6 is just right.
If the LX8 is canned for good would it be possible for the devs to switch the LX6 over to Race Car configuration (slicks, 1 seat, performance parts) in a patch for S2?
After testing the car on road tires and on slicks it becomes obvious that the LX6 is a road car that desperately wants to be a race car.
What do ya say devs? Can you make it's dream come true?
That would increase that car's popularity overnight I guarantee you!
Before you all reach for your torches and pitchforks, let me say I'm suggesting this for the benefit of our good and talented non-wheel racers.
I believe the root of the rather heated debate in the General Discussion forum about Wheel vs. Keyboard/Mouse stems from the issue of car control. Without analog input, keyboard drivers in particular are at a disadvantage with regards to control of the 'torquier' cars like FO8 and FOX.
So what I propose is the simple addition of options for traction control and anti-lock brakes for the 'racing cars' only. The 'road cars' would not have these features as they are less of a handful to manage.
This would not be in any way like the full-blown wuss aids featured in other games that magically make cars more stable and almost arcadish in behavior. The kind of options we loathe with a passion.
This would be a realistic and professional application of 2 common, real-life electronic management devices. And of course, TC and ABS could be disabled by the server admin to provide a more 'honorable' challenge for those that seek it.
But wouldn't it be wonderful if we could help everyone get the most out of the cars and tracks offered in LFS. Hell not even us wheelers can control the FO8 100% of the time. With traction control on that car we could use it on more than just the oval and actually focus more on racing and less on keeping the damn thing pointed in the right direction. And our friends on keyboards and mice could join us as many right now avoid the high-HP cars due to control issues.
Before you all condemn this idea outright, just stop and think for a second. Just maybe instead of dumbing down the competition, we might actually raise it up by doing this.
But so long as this game does not have any assists such as Traction Control and Anti-lock Brakes, racers without analog throttle and brake input are going to suffer a lack of control in most of the cars in this game.
I believe that is the root of this whole debate.
It's not about branding certain devices 'good' or 'evil'.
It's about whether the inherent lack of car control that comes with non-analog input devices poses enough of a risk that some form of limit should be imposed by server admins on their particular server.
I know a lot of keyboard racers and can vouch for their skill and courtesy so I'm not going to alienate them by any means.
But I do believe that the original poster's question is legitimate if worded a little differently.
Now before you reach for your barf bags, hear me out on this.
FO8 racing as it is now is by and large a survival game. Outside of the oval, even at Westhill, we're too busy dancing on the throttle and trying to keep the car under control to actually have a good race.
We need a track almost exactly like old Hockenheim. There should be a windy section to actually reward car control skills of the driver but there should also be a section with really long straights to allow drivers to think more about passing than about whether they can keep the car under control.
Oval racing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but right now it is the best if not only track suited to this car.
Helping k/b and mouse users out is a great idea but nevertheless you should also encourage them to buy a wheel if their situation allows for it because k/b and mouse can be very limiting as to the full spectrum of this game.
Many CRC guys are noting that it seems like the CRC has a love affair with the XFR. Primarily thats because it is FWD and therefore much more k/b-friendly. A bunch of my online buddies are k/b'ers and can't drive cars like the FO8 (on anything but the oval) while some of us can. We have lots of fun racing the FO8 on courses like AS National but many of the guys we know and trust can't join us.
We love them and enjoy racing with them but wish they would get wheels so that certain cars aren't a problem.
That figure-8 track of Stocky's is beautiful. We had a full house in there and it was action packed. the narrow and small track meant carnage everywhere!!! Always a turn 1 pileup!!! Even people bound and bent on 'hotlapping' rather than getting down and dirty couldn't because there was chaos at every corner.
The original Banger Racing server is gone. Why I don't know. That's where everyone always went. Perhaps it was the simplicity of that track that everyone preferred over figure-8's and jumps and whatnot. Perhaps if you could arrange to get the original track for the vmax|Banger server, and make sure you're in it regularly so that it shows up in most peoples server lists, then we could get it going again.