Thanks! I always hoped that setupfield would store setups for the non-aliens.

Perhaps it's good to categorize the setups, so that you won't download setups that you can't use. For example:

• Drift
  
• Cruise
  
• Short race
  
• Long race
  
• Hotlap (WR)

And it would be nice if there was an indication of the controller. Mouse and keyboard drivers have different needs.

Quote from Yiots :

What a coinsidence... I had just ended my Racer fetish when I found LFS. Ofcourse LFS is wholly better in all terms, as Racer is open source for the community to mod, if Im not mistaken.

You're not the only ex-Racer fan here. Development continues to crawl along, and though Racer's graphics still look pretty good, it's outdated in the physics department and in gameplay.

It never was open source, but all cars and tracks were made by the community. The moddability was its strongpoint -- until rFactor came.

Quote from kieran20 :

ok cheers. that pointless, and really annoying!

You can still download old LFS versions from the main LFS site, IIRC.

In glass, damage can accumulate. Small hits appear to have no effect, but there is damage, invisible to the naked eye. The glass may break at a later time, after what seems to be a light bump.

Oven doors are from hardened glass, which has an internal tension. The tension is intentional (caused by the production process). This makes the glass extra rigid, and when it breaks it will shatter into relatively harmless "crumbs". This tension also makes the breaking extra spectacular.

I had a quick glance:
- As remarked earlier: Track display is centered when you zoom, which is awkward.
- It would be handier IMHO if the buttons/hotkeys for the views are toggling: if view is already open then close it.
- There seems to be a bug in the calculation (see screenshot). The track is FE3R, which has 3 sectors. In the results view, the time for the 3rd sector has been added to that of the 2nd.
- When two cars are close, their labels overlap, and thus hard to read. Perhaps you can plot one to the left and one to the right of the moving dot.
- Cosmetic: "Team Results" view is named "Teams Results" on tab.

If you are new to racing sims like LFS, the XRT is a difficult car to start learning. Besides, after the upcoming patch Y, the XRT won't be available anymore for demo users. It should be easier to start with one of the other demo cars. (Try the Formula BMW, it's going to be a popular car.)

The default setups are not really suited for mouse / keyboard users. One thing is that the brake force is too high, which causes blocked wheels under braking, and missed turn-ins. Perhaps you can get a better setup in this thread. Unfortunately, the new patch may turn old, good setups into bad setups. When you get patch Y, you may get help by going to an online server, and ask someone else for a setup.

Quote from Ospi :

Are you going to add so chicane soonish? when Y is released?

Yes. Actually, it's a bug that files from SO Chicane can't be read. I have a fix ready, and will release it soon.

Quote :

also is there a way to show camber settings in the properties section or is that not implemented?

You mean the camber settings from the setup? That's not possible, because this data is not in the RAF file. LFS only writes part of the setup data to RAF files, and LRA shows all that there is.

Quote from Ospi :

Awesome job, works really well, isnt i2 Pro, but brilliant nonetheless.

Thanks!

Quote from tristancliffe :

Whilst I'm sorry to hear of the hand you have been dealt, why post about it on a racing simulation forum? It's not even as though you've been here for years and count many amongst us as friends...

Even though it sounds bad, it could be a lot worse you know!

Michael, just ignore Tristan's postings. He means well, but there's a poltergeist in his keyboard that makes the words he types come out all wrong.

@Tristan's poltergeist: (1) this of the "Off Topic" section, (2) "it could be worse" is possibly the stupidest response to someone who needs comfort.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Have you tried playing with teo/Ackermann to see how this affects the readings? Tyre pressures?

I tried it with zero toe, 100% parallel steer, max tyre pressure, camber tuned to zero degrees... Same result.

LFS can already do this -- in a way. You just need to program your own InSim add-on. Look at how the CTRA servers work, then write something similar, only for offline usage.

Quote from woodymcruk :

bought the game about 1month ago,and multiplayer is quite impressive,hard on a controller tho.., single player very poor

You will find that the AI has improved a lot with the new (upcoming) patch.

Quote from UncleBenny :

And there is no way you can tell me that code written by a group of people is cleaner than a good one man job.

Surprise: Even two programmers working at the same keyboard can produce better code than one man. Under the correct conditions, it's both faster and cheaper.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Don't try and make me care about some random idiot

Why? Are you afraid to?

Quote from harjun :

It'll just end up with a bunch of computer geeks, who haven't even touched a car in real life making the game.

From reading the forum I get the impression that there any many geeks who also love sim-racing. And IIRC, none of Scavier had had any track-time when they started LFS.

Quote from Juls :

I resigned from this job...being a stupid arm was killing me

I guess Scawen must have felt the same when he resigned from his last job i a games company. Perhaps he has no desire to make someone else as miserable as he felt then.

Quote from joeynuggetz :

Hi, I just found this tool. Its amazing and very simple to use. Is it still being developed?

I'd like to reply, but I'm too busy programming LRA.

Quote from JTbo :

your IRL FOV is something near 180 degrees and spread your arms, now how wide is your 'display' to IRL world? It is very same near 180 degrees, now take both arms and put them sides of your monitor, is this how much less than what you really see? It happens to be that 20 degrees or perhaps bit less

It's no use trying to find "the most realistic" FOV setting. Humans can see a small part of their view (what they focus on) in good detail. The rest is blurry and only detects movement and colours, but it gives a fairly wide view, even without head movement. A monitor has moderate detail, but uniformly across the screen. The screen doesn't move and is relatively small (unless you are rich). It's useless comparing the two.

What would be most like the human eye would be to have HUDs for the things that you often need to focus on: the dashboard, the mirrors (which LFS has), and the apex (which is not in LFS).

Quote :

wsinda, sorry if it sounds like that to you, I really suck expressing myself at english, but for example that ban thing, now those threads are for bug reporting, that is to report bugs not wishing new features or anything like that, those are test patches for reason.

Yes, bug threads get misused. But if people complain about the changes in other, more appropriate threads, then they get the same reaction. OK, maybe not from you. But you put "whining" in the thread title, and I think you know that the word has a negative connotation.

Quote from spankmeyer :

Is this the same userbase that keeps getting alienated with every single patch that makes changes in the gameplay? Last time I checked LFS is the most popular racing simulator at the moment and has a steady growth too?

Read again. I'm not saying that past patches have alienated users, or that patch Y would do so for sure. But if the patch would have that effect, then Scawen won't be able to know why, because the grumblers have been silenced by the fanboys.

(Besides, growth in userbase doesn't imply that you're not losing fans. Merely that you're gaining fans faster than losing them.)

Quote from JTbo :

Put your FOV to 20 degrees, then you can see speedo, that is more than you should use anyway when playing with monitor.

If clutch burns, your 1st gear is too tall or you are not driving properly, yes people don't like from changes, specially not when they have to learn or do something, but there will be more things to learn until LFS is ready, there is alpha tag for reason.

If you insist whining on added realism and wish more arcade like big speed displays, then do it somewhere else than in bug report threads and test patch section, that will only cause lot of mess and programmers have hard time to find real bug reports from all that crap.

Then, LFS is simulator, it aims toward realism, there is other games with more arcadish approach.

Most importantly, in future whine in here, mods could you please ban everyone that posts something else to bug report threads than bug related posts, we have this whining thread for that.

Well, since you are asking for an answer...

With patch Y, LFS has changed its course considerably. It has become more "hardcore". Some types of racers will be glad. But others, who have been perfectly happy with LFS so far, may not like it. Among them will be (my guess): drifters, cruisers, and folks who drive with keyboard or mouse. The test patch is the first look of things to come, and the first opportunity to ventilate an opinion.

JTbo, I have put some of your words in bold. The way they sound to me, they are a message to anyone who doesn't like the changes, and the message is: "I don't care if you don't like it. I do, so shut up". Well, that's a nice way to enter a discussion... nicely callous, I mean.

(This is a reaction that I see in many threads about the patch. I'm posting here because you created a thread especially for "whining".)

Moreover, I think you are doing the devs a disservice. If their development decisions alienate part of the current userbase from LFS, then I expect that the devs want to know why. They won't be happy if the "whiners" are silenced because they're chased away from the forum by the hardcore fans.

Had to get that off my chest.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

MAGGOT attacks. He chops Dyllaann for 1129hp with the Sword of Blatantly Obvious Logic (+2).
Dyllaann is no more.

Wsinda takes the Tweezers of Seemingly Less Obvious Logic (-11), and says:
"Less people who like drifting will try out LFS because there's not a real drift car in demo. They won't be willing to cough up for an S2 license, so it might hurt sales." :Kick_Can_

Quote from ColeusRattus :

will attract more serious racers instead of driftkids which on the whole will be more willing to shell out a few squid for S2.

Which is a Good Thing (tm), but only if Scavier likes seafood.

To illustrate how much Blackwood has changed: here is a picture of a lap on the "old" BL1 (the red line), drawn on a map of the new BL1. Almost all turns have become tighter, and there is less space between T1 and the chicane. The track length has decreased some 100 metres.

Graphics glitch: the racing line is sometimes drawn on top of the "plank" of the FBM (see attached screenie), and sometimes halfway through it.

Here are two RAF files of the XRG at Blackwood. The screenie shows them in LRA, zoomed in at the main straight. In both, the longitudinal wheel force is above zero. In the second file (red line in graph), I lifted the throttle near the end of the straight. You can see that the force is a bit higher when the car is coasting.

It's not a bug in LRA, btw. F1PerfView shows the same values. Neither is it an artifact of processing by the analyser: the values for the wheel forces are read straight from the RAF file.

Last edited by wsinda, Sun, 9 Dec 2007 15:22.

This doesn't work on any track, not just Autocross. For single player races, it's impossible to generate a RAF file from the first lap, even when you start from the back of the grid (filled with AI cars). But for hotlapping there is no problem, even if you pause and click "Output lap data" just before the start line. Perhaps the RAF generator requires that the car has passed the previous timeline (= completed the last sector of the track)?

This does mean that you can't create RAF data from drag races, so you can't use that to optimise your driving or your setup.

I was browsing a couple of RAF files, and looking at the longitudinal wheel force. When going full-throttle, the force is slightly negative for non-driven wheels (because of rolling resistance).

The exceptions were the XRG and XRT. On most tracks, their front wheels have a slightly positive longitudinal wheel force. That would mean that some of the engine power is transferred to these wheels...

The forces are very small (10 to 20 N), so their effect is negligible. But this might point to a bug in the calculations.

Quote from joen :

It would be a bad idea because it would be take a big amount of added development time to create (and maintain!) a version for a second platform. With such a small development team it would slow down the development of both versions. Plus I doubt Scavier would be able to release an XBOX version without teaming up with a big publisher, something they have stated they don't want.

... plus Scavier will have to pay a hefty licence fee to the console manufacturer (since the console hardware is sold below the cost price). That, and the cost of porting the software to the new console platform will cause an increase in sales price -- a steep increase, because LFS is such a niche product.

... plus you might lose the integration with LFS World and LFS Forum, if the manufacturer demands that all online traffic goes through their own systems.

So, technical difficulties aside, the business model of LFS is not really compatible with that of console games.