The online racing simulator
Quote from AndroidXP :You know that I only wrote this because the topic poster started this thread with "no I don't want to start the same old tired discussion again"?

Fair enough... I didn't mean to be harsh... sorry for that.
Quote from MauroDiaz :Fully agree!.... it's just that some people should understand that this community grows continuosly... which is desireable (isn't it?)... Every now and then new/unfrequent members will bring old topics... and discuss repetitive things.... That is when people that have been around for a while should not make them shy... If threads are not great or new.... ignore it!... if they talk plain crap, then burn them...

I generally agree with that. However, I do think that redundancy has reached an all time high recently. I usually didn't get annoyed by the occasional repetitive posting, but it has come to a point where I really have to force myself to try and see it as a good sign of a growing community -- it's hard sometimes, though.

Anyway, that's OT, of course and doesn't even fully apply to this thread, as we haven't had a rFactor vs. LFS discussion for quite some time I believe .
#28 - JTbo
Quote from Linsen :
Anyway, that's OT, of course and doesn't even fully apply to this thread, as we haven't had a rFactor vs. LFS discussion for quite some time I believe .

I really don't see this as another rFactor vs. LFS thread sure could end up to that, but why it would have to?

But why you like from what you like and what it is that you like?
#29 - Iron
Quote from Moonclaw :Similar case to above happened to me 5 attempts in row with either player disconnecting or connecting and finally server full.

I never have had anything like that happen in any of the 50+ multiplayer games I have played or tried, so I think LFS is quite "special".

Haha yeah, when I first saw this in lfs I thought WTF? But the best part was when I wanted to leave a server, clicked the button, and got the msg: "can't leave, a player is connecting". I thought what the hell, I can't even leave a bloody server because someone else is connecting, the netcode must be crap. I was surprised that I didn't see anyone mention this yet here on the forums during these several months I've been lurking here (or I just didn't notice perhaps). By now, I've learned to live with it, it doesn't happen that often after all, I guess it's just a limitation of the netcode.
#30 - JTbo
Quote from Iron :Haha yeah, when I first saw this in lfs I thought WTF? But the best part was when I wanted to leave a server, clicked the button, and got the msg: "can't leave, a player is connecting". I thought what the hell, I can't even leave a bloody server because someone else is connecting, the netcode must be crap. I was surprised that I didn't see anyone mention this yet here on the forums during these several months I've been lurking here (or I just didn't notice perhaps). By now, I've learned to live with it, it doesn't happen that often after all, I guess it's just a limitation of the netcode.

In 5 years I have got maybe one or two of those messages, maybe I'm just lucky, but such things have not happened to me
It never really annoyed me for some reason. I don't have much experience playing online games, so maybe it was my lack of experience. I never hated the message, I only got stressed out when I got the message "too many clicks".

O/T: I got into the group after all (I guess :tilt
Don't forget that LFS is NOT A FINISHED PRODUCT. Most, if not all of the issues you raised are know about and will be sorted at some point in the near future. Rfactor (As far as I know) is a finished product.

LFS has a long way to go and I think that if you read through some of the bug reports, improvement sudgestions and post that Lord Scawen has posted on the subject you will find that most things are/will be addressed.

As for Rfactor. Never played it, wouldn't know.
Quote from aceracer :
LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...


Opininion is not fact. Fullstop.
#34 - DeKo
Quote from sgt.flippy :It never really annoyed me for some reason. I don't have much experience playing online games, so maybe it was my lack of experience. I never hated the message, I only got stressed out when I got the message "too many clicks".

O/T: I got into the group after all (I guess :tilt

yeah, the too many clicks is what really annoys me. the others dont bother me at all.
confesion time

although ive played rfactor demo and not got on with it i did re dowload and patch it the other night and was going to buy it!!!

however when i clicked the purchase link the screen came up saying that the publisher didnt support this game yet !!??!!


could this have been a sign from above ?
#36 - axus
Quote from tinvek :confesion time

although ive played rfactor demo and not got on with it i did re dowload and patch it the other night and was going to buy it!!!

however when i clicked the purchase link the screen came up saying that the publisher didnt support this game yet !!??!!


could this have been a sign from above ?

Probably. Just don't do it man.
Quote from aceracer :..So this thread is what I "like" about both of these games and why I get frustrated about little details ..

I think the problem is that you "didn't know enough" about some things of LFS. Which is normal if you didn't race as long as some of the old guys who already started with the first demo of LFS years ago. But the longer you use LFS the more you'll find out and the happier it'll make you

Some small tips/hints/remarks to some points that maybe also frustrate you but they are already there or simple to explain:

Quote from aceracer :
In LFS you connect and all you ever do is race!

Well this depends on what you (want to) do. If you want a quick race just for fun then it's fine but you can also join leagues where you have to do qualifying sessions or can practise etc. (and where it makes sense).


Quote from aceracer :
4) Connecting to a race: There has to be a way to implement what's best from both games here, come on. In rFactor I can't connect to a server when a race is on. So from the few populated servers, half get eliminated because the race is on. Silly! Let me at least connect, go to the pits, set up my car and I'll be ready when the next race (erh, practise session) starts! But don't shut people out.

In LFS it's the other extreme: People connect straight into races. So while you're on the lead lap, some monkey who just joined rolls out of the pits and straight into your racing line. Or is on cold tyres and doesn't move over. That's also silly! There has to be a compromise here.

LFS already provides everything the server admin needs/want. You can disable mid-race joining etc. (but most server admins don't do it. Reason i.e.: New joining drivers often came onto a server and then start practise the track or check how much fuel the car needs for a lap, check there setup etc. behind the field for the rest of the ongoing race whithout making any trouble.

People who just enter a server and destroy a race by joining an ongoing race and driving into the middle of the racing pack are usually very new to LFS, have no common sense and often get banned from servers if they do it more then once.


Quote from aceracer :
In LFS there first few times I had no idea where I was. ....
Where do I see whtehr I'm in practice, which track I'm at, how many laps the race will be? I have no info screen in my pits! Or at least I haven't been able to find it

You should first take a look at the server you join, in the server list, it's all there. Click for example on the "?" in the server list before you join a server. Or check the little dots under the car abbreviations etc.
The truth is when you learn the long/short track names (i.e AS4R=Aston Historic reverse etc.) it will also help you much

When you are on the server press F12 key there you can also see how many laps the race has, if you have to pit or not etc.


Quote from aceracer :
5) Pitboard/Damage/Repair

In LFS I never know what state my car is in. What's broken and should I repair it during the pitstop?

Use the F9, F10, F11, F12 keys. You see your tires, damage, fuel burn/lap etc there and you can also change things there during the race before you enter the pits.

Quote from aceracer :
6) How come in LFS my car flies 30 feet into the air and spins 45 times before landing as a complete wreck when I hit some barriers at a given angle at 30 mph? There must be something wrong there, no need to be a real life pilot to know that

That's normal in a lot of racing games. The first time I tested for example GTR2, I touched the curb a bit hard and my car was catapulted straight into the air for half a minute.
If you don't want to have it in LFS, just race without hitting any barriers (no flights and I bet you also get faster laptimes with it ) tbh in the earlier versions of LFS you had much more things like this and things like little contact between 2 cars and big accidents/spinning around but it's getting better from one update to another.


Quote from aceracer :
10) Content/Modability
rFactor:
Opening their source code to the mod community has added neverending quality content to this sim.

Hmm if you say so. For me it's more like 95% of the mods are crap and from time to time you got something useful - like in 95% of any moddable game.

Quote from aceracer :
I do not undertsand why the LFS devs do not want to grant this to their audience. It takes nothing away from how brilliant LFS is, ...

There have been many discussions about this on RSC forums and here. A lot (I don't know if the most) of us longer LFS users think, that exactly this will happen: An endless wave of dumb mods will come up, then every server runs his own car and track and whatever mods and you won't be able to quickly jump into the car for a ride, no you first have to search/find the right mod, install it, (damn not this version, it's outdated, DL another 245MB etc.). Like I experienced in a lot of other racing games over the last years.

And then a lot of people would complain about LFS crashes etc. but it's maybe crashing because the mod was not good etc.

The other but most important thing is LFS is still unfinished. It just doesn't make sense to open it for modding right now. But when S3 it will be finished then we maybe get the abbility to mod LFS. The devs didn't say they'll never release things/tools for it, didn't they ;-)

Enough for today.

If you search a bit here in the forum and follow some discussions (there are still some usefull threads next to the (for me boring) "what colour do you like" stuff then you'll understand a lot more about LFS, find out more cool features of the game etc. Just spend some time with reading. It's worth it.

I hope this was also a bit helpfull for you.
#38 - JTbo
Quote from BBO@BSR :
There have been many discussions about this on RSC forums and here. A lot (I don't know if the most) of us longer LFS users think, that exactly this will happen: An endless wave of dumb mods will come up, then every server runs his own car and track and whatever mods and you won't be able to quickly jump into the car for a ride, no you first have to search/find the right mod, install it, (damn not this version, it's outdated, DL another 245MB etc.). Like I experienced in a lot of other racing games over the last years.

That is just one way to make game moddable, it don't need to be such chaos, all it takes is bit of planning and designing.

Many thinks that automatically moddable game means that there is lot of searching needed to find correct version and weird mismatch errors are everyday trouble, but it does not have to be so, there are countless methods how this can be made to work better than any other game has ever got it done before.
Quote from JTbo :That is just one way to make game moddable, it don't need to be such chaos, all it takes is bit of planning and designing.

Many thinks that automatically moddable game means that there is lot of searching needed to find correct version and weird mismatch errors are everyday trouble, but it does not have to be so, there are countless methods how this can be made to work better than any other game has ever got it done before.

exactly (however i don't think car-mods are usefull at the moment because of the unfinished damage and aero-model) however some people have lots of time to do these kind of stuff twice or more times
Thanks BBO, that was helpful indeed and makes sense.

Just one disagreement: Even if there is a lot of rubbish mods,the ones which are great are briliant and personally I have a great number of those. To name but a few: 1979 GP Season, Porsche Carrera Cup, Meganes, Historic Rally Cars, BMW M3 GTR, Lamgorhini Gallardo, Zonda, Aussie V8s, and then the posssibility to race them on any track imaginable, many of which are absolutely stunning (Nordschleife). This really does make my race pilot heart beat faster...

aceracer
Quote from (-Mark-) :'LFS is a multiplayer game. Fullstop. The AI is not worthy to be called that. However no-one cares as no-one is into LFS to play offline...'

personally i play alot of offline racing... also people that lose internet connection may be looking to race, but can only race offline

I practice a lot offline... LFS' AI's currently a bit* weak, though (probably not adjusted to the improved car handling?)

*I'm just being nice

Nice V.R. avatar, by the way

Quote from BBO@BSR :
LFS already provides everything the server admin needs/want. You can disable mid-race joining etc. (but most server admins don't do it. Reason i.e.: New joining drivers often came onto a server and then start practise the track or check how much fuel the car needs for a lap, check there setup etc. behind the field for the rest of the ongoing race whithout making any trouble.

People who just enter a server and destroy a race by joining an ongoing race and driving into the middle of the racing pack are usually very new to LFS, have no common sense and often get banned from servers if they do it more then once.

(which is why demo servers are so bad )
But I agree, when you join mid-race, it should be no problem to practice a bit while not bugging people who were mid-race.

And while LFS has no mods, it does have the custom car skins, which is fun because everyone can join in the fun (no super skills needed) and it doesn't conflict with the playability of the game.
Quote from aceracer :Thanks BBO, that was helpful indeed and makes sense.

Just one disagreement: Even if there is a lot of rubbish mods,the ones which are great are briliant and personally I have a great number of those. To name but a few: 1979 GP Season, Porsche Carrera Cup, Meganes, Historic Rally Cars, BMW M3 GTR, Lamgorhini Gallardo, Zonda, Aussie V8s, and then the posssibility to race them on any track imaginable, many of which are absolutely stunning (Nordschleife). This really does make my race pilot heart beat faster...

aceracer

I haven't yet tried the 1979 mod, but I've heard it's terrible. The Meganes are a JOKE, and the Porsches have been made so they are as unlike a Porsche to drive as anything before it. Even Outrun in 1988 was a more realistic Porsche experience, and that was a Testicleroaster.
#43 - JTbo
Quote from tristancliffe :I haven't yet tried the 1979 mod, but I've heard it's terrible. The Meganes are a JOKE, and the Porsches have been made so they are as unlike a Porsche to drive as anything before it. Even Outrun in 1988 was a more realistic Porsche experience, and that was a Testicleroaster.

Porsches had Great graphics, Great sound, and FRONT engine

Meganes, again great graphics + sound, physics are however again rather interesting ones, even real racer of this series has helped them and even he says car feels realistic it does not mean it can't be wrong, surely there is many things wrong.

None of these are however completely rubbish, teams have done lot of work to get mods as good as they can, but when there is hundreds of parameters to be learned and generally you need to be at least automotive engineer to understand some of them, it surely effects quality of mod.

My Ferrari 430 don't pull insane Gs at corners, but I made quite few tweaks to it, still not happy to it however, would need to research ton of data to get it closer to real, however I don't have so much time for that and I'm sure this is also issue with many modders, some then decide to take 'looks and sounds pretty, let's make physics bit simpler way' route and majority of those who download mod post 'OMG best mod forevah' and rate all mod areas to be 5 stars even car won't get even puncture of tire or even engine is at roof of car, so do you blame modders or clients from this?

If there would be good tools, then situations might be different, I have created my own tools for some stuff, Dave Purdy has done some great job too with easy engine editor, but some complete modding tools that are easy to use and that would have calculation of many hard stuff (like inertia, how many modders can calculate inertia of car?) ISI would sell it for 20-30€, that would be what is needed.

I never want to see LFS modding done so that you look some numbers from text file and then try to guess right values, oh no, they should make it so that there is editor, where you place things like engine etc to your model by dragging it to place with mouse and give weights, then tool calculates those inertia values for example, same with suspension, you just choose type and drag points etc.
Well, I tell already too much, I don't like to reveal all of what would be my idea of LFS modding, but when I get my planning done I give it to devs and they can then throw it out from window or use it when time comes. I have predicted that it is around 6 years still so I guess I have plenty of time to plan this
Quote from JTbo :None of these are however completely rubbish, teams have done lot of work to get mods as good as they can, but when there is hundreds of parameters to be learned and generally you need to be at least automotive engineer to understand some of them, it surely effects quality of mod.

from what ive gathered all of them have tyre physics that are _WAY_ off and at least according to niels the 79 mod has some very peculiar suspension geometries
if i got it right he basically said that they must have pulled these values from wherever theyve pulled them and never even bothered to look at them in a 3d model or else they would have had to notice something wasnt right

Quote :like inertia, how many modders can calculate inertia of car?

if im not mistaken its simply the moment of inertia which anybody with the least bit of understanding about mechanics should be able to calculate (its just a sum for christs sake)
admitedly there probably isnt near enough data available for most cars to produce an accurate number but at least a reasonably close educated guess should be easily achievable
(it obviously follows from this arguement that any simulation of a fantasy car will allways be a lot closer to the real thing than any representation of a real car)
#45 - JTbo
Quote from Shotglass :from what ive gathered all of them have tyre physics that are _WAY_ off and at least according to niels the 79 mod has some very peculiar suspension geometries
if i got it right he basically said that they must have pulled these values from wherever theyve pulled them and never even bothered to look at them in a 3d model or else they would have had to notice something wasnt right

if im not mistaken its simply the moment of inertia which anybody with the least bit of understanding about mechanics should be able to calculate (its just a sum for christs sake)
admitedly there probably isnt near enough data available for most cars to produce an accurate number but at least a reasonably close educated guess should be easily achievable
(it obviously follows from this arguement that any simulation of a fantasy car will allways be a lot closer to the real thing than any representation of a real car)

Making suspension is not easiest tasks, I can't even imagine anyone getting it even close without looking 3D, also to make it look right does not mean that it works right, because of certain limitations and this is true mostly with other than two a-arms top of each other as that is only thing that engine really has meant to be used, other types are more or less emulation.

Inertia of car, you just made me spent few mins searching this and this also this is something required to read.
Some modders can do it, some don't, some even don't have idea what inertia is.
Anyway data is perhaps not problem, at least I have not found it to be problem with my work, bit of dimensions and weights is what is needed.

How fantasy can be real if real is more fantasy than fantasy, isn't all our mods eventually just fantasy of real, right I better leave that to someone else

Problem is that there is n+1 14-16 years old kids that do mods, do you really think they understand inertia and suspension geometry or tire dynamics? I think editor needs to be such simple that you don't need to have too much of insight of car engineering to make mod.
Quote from JTbo :Problem is that there is n+1 14-16 years old kids that do mods, do you really think they understand inertia and suspension geometry or tire dynamics? I think editor needs to be such simple that you don't need to have too much of insight of car engineering to make mod.

right find but wrong conclusion ... typical isi modders (simbin) should just give up on modding and do something they understand how to (not vehicle dynamics)
Quote from JTbo :some complete modding tools that are easy to use and that would have calculation of many hard stuff (like inertia, how many modders can calculate inertia of car?) ISI would sell it for 20-30€, that would be what is needed.

This may be the worst troll of the year, but I think they are after the rest of your money with 2-n more sloppy games with the same sloppy engine, until they release anything more.
#48 - JTbo
Quote from Shotglass :right find but wrong conclusion ... typical isi modders (simbin) should just give up on modding and do something they understand how to (not vehicle dynamics)

LOL, that too, but with simple use editor at least they would have chance to do something even closely right. Of course simple to use editor does not mean you are limited to that, of course there have to be manual input option to parameters.

Frokki, you may be right or wrong, I really can't tell what will happen in future, but we can safely say that our opinion from game engine differs somewhat and that is fine by me, not everyone have to like from everything
Hmm, I can agree that there are tings wrong and that there is rubbish out there. However look at simracing.cz. These uys are a group of hardcore sim fans and developers. They have spent months working with the real teams and drivers of BMW Challenge and Skoda Cup. Countless hours of many many talented individuals have gone ito these mods. This has nothing to do with 14 year old playing with numbers, this is almost at professional level with endless dedication, a labout of love.

Now to say that this and comparable stuff is all simply wrong and rubbish and worthless I find somewhat arrogant. I would never dare say that I understand more about how a car should behave than these people and I think this applies to 99% of the people on these boards.

So maybe there is too much hype and average mods get rave ratings. This does not mean that there is some outstanding work being done by a lot of people who understand leagues more about car bahviour than most people here... after all most of us are just gamers sitting in front of our Pcs...

aceracer
#50 - JTbo
There is lot of great work done for sure and it would be hard for me to call anything really rubbish.

GTR for example is one professional product that is worse than V8 supercars in terms of physics, what I have seen from GTR2 data same could be said from that too. As far as I understand they did worked with real teams too, but it still ended up bit funny, why I can't say why reason that they are bit funny is that there is some parameters that are not correctly put into engine.

Because one thing affects another it is easy to get lost and adjust wrong setting to get certain behavior of car to certain situation, problems arises when you are then in other situation with car. Also personal views and controller settings etc. are causing certain bias. It is really not too easy to make mod, someone may think that it is just putting right values to right places, but it does not work that way, first of all you can't get all numbers from anywhere, so you need to either calculate them or adjust by feeling, now if you adjust by feeling and later someone founds more data of that then it is again error in mod.

Biggest problem has been tires and debate about these continues still, there are different preferences what should be real and until something has been flawlessly proved to be right debate goes on.

I did stopped counting hours used to learn stuff needed to learn to get mod done even close to right after 1000, and it is still going to be at least that much that I need to learn before I understand all aspects well, but when learning these things I have found that mods that get great ratings are not so good in physics. Of course it can be that I have learned things wrong, but I doubt that, sure some errors there must be, but I try to cross check everything I learn even it is very hard sometimes when you can't find even single good source of information that can be understood without being engineer, my math is not strong, I'm car guy, not science guy

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG