Quote from BlueFlame :

My arguement was never that Drag Racing is better than ANYTHING. I was just saying to Chris Raemisch that it's harder to drive than HE thinks.

How is your argument any more valid? Have you ever driven a top fuel dragster either?

Quote from BlueFlame :

You can pluck all the (correct) statistics you want Chris, but driving Top Fuel drag cars isn't the same as anything else.

What do you mean? No-one is saying that top fuel drag cars are the same as anything else. But it's not exactly any better then any other form of racing. It's just, well, different. Just like go karts versus Nascar. They're different, but neither is better then the other.

Quote from sinbad :

The real trick though, kids, is to not get in to one of the situations. Never having to correct a slide in an emergency is more a sign of skill than being able to correct one.

I've had to correct a slide at 80mph in my FWD car on the highway. You're definitely right, as I should have not even gotten into the situation that I got myself into. But that was when I hadn't been licensed for very long. Basically, I was driving like a chav, and was going to swerve around someone who had been tailgating me, until they passed me and cut me off. I turned the wheel hard, but had no experience at driving that fast, and was suprised by how responsively my car pulled to the left. So I all of a sudden snapped the wheel to the right, at which point my rear tires decided they didn't want to accelerate as quickly as my front tires. So then I countersteered a little, but it was too much and I over corrected, but finally got it straight. It was a stupid thing to do, and part of being skilled at driving is actually knowing the limits of your skills. You shouldn't be testing your limits in an uncontrolled environment like the public roads. I agree that new drivers should be required to take some sort of high-speed/high-performance driving class on a large skidpad. People should physically be taught what to do in a oversteer/understeer/emergency braking situation. That way it will be easier to teach people to follow the speed limits, not drive like a chav, etc.

Last edited by wheel4hummer, Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:45.

A drag race is won within the first 60 feet. Anything after that is just keeping the car from crashing. That's why when you watch a top-fuel drag race, sometimes you see a driver spin their tires too much off the start, and they just end up doing a burnout and they just let off halfway down the track because there's no point in continuing since they know they've lost already.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhNLBvcS6xk

Last edited by wheel4hummer, Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:44.

This is what sucks about editing video. What looks good on your screen may look bad on someone elses.

Mirrors are usually made of plastic and they just get cracked and broken off.

It looks like cheesus.

Fuchsia CNC Lathe.

Reading fail on my part.

Quote from DrBen :

it will disengage throttle when the driven axxis signals slip through the difference in ABS-sensor readings.

It depends on the traction control system. With some systems, ignition is cut in one or more of the cylinders, or fuel reduced slightly. There's so many different implementations of traction control.

That may not be a bug, they may have intended for it to look like that.

Quote from J@tko :

Yah would seem wierd to have a gf 3 years older at your age

Not really. A 21yr old dating a 24yr old isn't exactly weird. But for a teenager, it would be weird since when you're still growing 3 years makes a huge difference.

Quote from mookie427 :

I know plenty of girls and I just figure if anything happens between me and any of them it'll happen, not gonna force anything

Of course not, that would be rape.

Such a bad idea. There will be people who will go fast and crash into everyone else on the grid.

Bon Jovi - In and out of Love

Quote from asbjoern :

imaginge going into a gas-station, asking for a new clutch belt

Well, if you have a belt-driven motorcycle, then it wouldn't be weird at all.

Quote from asbjoern :

other useful things are to be found on that site, including a heavy duty clutch belt

But there actually is a such thing as a clutch belt. Not on cars, but on some ATVs and motorcycles.

Quote from MijnWraak :

Say you're in an fzr.

The FZR has no ABS.

Quote from NightShift :

Stability control programs are made exactly to face situations like you mention, though not perfect they are still more reliable than Mr Joe Driver.

Not quite. They are good in certain situations, and worsen other situations. They feel too modular, just as I said in a previous post. You can feel it engaging. It feels like you are interacting with a computer, it doesn't feel like the inputs that you give the car are actually doing anything.

I think I may give up on the physics for a bit, and try learning how to program 3d graphics. I already am decent at programming physics. But my knowledge of programming 3d graphics programs is non-existent.

The thing is, people don't think of a car in the right way. Your car shouldn't be something that you are sitting inside controlling in your mind. You shouldn't think "I tell the car to do this and then such happens". If you do that, you will crash. You cannot solely use logic. Your car starts oversteering/understeering, you can't start thinking about what the book you read said to do.
Your car must be an extension of your own body. You literally must feel what the car feels in my opinion. Like the amount of space that your car takes up. Some people hit things because they think their car is smaller then it really is. You have to be able to feel when you are close to objects. I mean, when you're walking on foot you don't run into things everywhere.
But the problem with your car being an extension of yourself is that traction control, stability control, and such make that more difficult. Traction control systems usually do not interface very well with humans. It ends up feeling un-natural. ABS feels too blocky and digital. Now, if there were an ABS system that worked smoothly, and kept the tires right at optimum slip, then it would feel really natural.

Well, there aren't many factory cars in LFS. For example, the XRT, that may have adjustable aftermarket parts for all we know. [Insert transmission ratio discussion here]

Quote from james12s :

i think with trains, but cannot be 100 percent, the wheel just slip to take curves

That's correct, the motor just drives the whole axle which is solid straight across. The wheels just slip. That's why corners of train tracks have huge radii.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Without modelling wheel slip, things are much simpler. You can convert the engine torque to a force using the wheel diameter, subtract from this the rolling resistance, and accelerate the total translational inertia of the train. This figure is the mass plus the rotational (moment of) inertia of the wheels divided by their radius squared. Don't forget to include engine inertia too (and the effects gearing, if your train has any).

Wow, I really over complicate things. I will try using those calculations instead. Thanks.

Quote from Bob Smith :

So you're not rotating the wheels individually?

Well, I figured that since I'm not simulating slippage, there was no reason to.

Quote from Bob Smith :

There must be a very basic issue here, as your engine torque should give rise to a forward force, and accelerate the train (at least at low speeds) at a constant rate. It shouldn't take many frames (depending on what timestep you are using) to exceed a couple of mph. I find it useful to work it out in Excel and get that right first, before writing the code, and then making sure the figures match.

I took a look at the code i wrote a little while ago, and I am a little confused by my own code. I think I will try using Excel, like you are suggesting. And I may try learning C++ instead of using Java, because there are many different graphics engines that can be used with C++, like ogre.

EDIT: The problem is that I am having difficulty calculating the forward force that propels the train. I'm confused on how to calculate output torque from the angular torque and the inertia. The way my code worked is that the acceleration was calculated by subtracting the resistive torque from the rolling resistance from the torque of the motor. And then to find angular acceleration I divided the torque by the moment of inertia. Then I converted from angular acceleration to regular acceleration. It's really hard to explain, and I think it's wrong.

Last edited by wheel4hummer, Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:52.

Quote from Racer556 :

Also, ABS is a setup option, so it doesn't matter, you can't turn it on incar... or can you?

Nope, doesn't look like you can. You can't disable ABS in most vehicles anyway. Not without removing fuses and the like.