The online racing simulator

Poll : Do u think these should be done in S3?

Oh Yeah, that's mad!!!
122
Ummm, either way, I don't care...
9
No, waste of time and effort.
5
Quote from speedfreak227 :i think cue-ball hit the nail on the head.

without actually "feeling" the g-forces of the race car it's tough to know how much grip you actually have. i've done a LOT of kart racing in the rain and love it, but in a video game you can't "feel" with the seat of your pants the same way.

if you want to simulate rain just put knobby tires on for a lap or two.

speedfreak227

it will be the same as in the dry, you will use your hearing to hear loss of grip. you will use your sense of sight to see the car sliding and if your lucky enough to have a FFB wheel you'll use your sense of feeling.
It's not as good as real life but u dont think it will be a problem at all.

I think the 'rain' feature will only be used if its all generated dynamically and there is no 'pre-defined' variables for grip levels of spray levels and so on...
Quote from nikimere :it will be the same as in the dry, you will use your hearing to hear loss of grip. you will use your sense of sight to see the car sliding and if your lucky enough to have a FFB wheel you'll use your sense of feeling.
It's not as good as real life but u dont think it will be a problem at all.

I think the 'rain' feature will only be used if its all generated dynamically and there is no 'pre-defined' variables for grip levels of spray levels and so on...

a locked up tire in teh wet doesn't "squeel". that's the biggest problem.

speedfreak227
It would be awesome if the weather forecast was generated from where the server is located.
Quote from Vendetta :It would be awesome if the weather forecast was generated from where the server is located.

Hmmm..... nice idea. But it would be a bit crap for all the servers located in England. We'd get maybe 2 good racing days a year.
:)
You know in blackwood, after the 4th turn, were the guy in the racing outfit is stood, watching the race, Just give him a umbrella, then we`ll know its raining

Mick
My wet sounds.
Attached files
snd.rar - 495 KB - 139 views
Randomn lightning strikes!

I've played a few games with dynamic weather, creates so much more atmosphere and realism. Operation Flashpoint was brillant for it - you could be fightning under a clear sky and a few minutes later a storm comes and you could even see/hear the rain approach provided wind blew it your way of course. It even works on real time with a 24 hour cycle, had some pretty decent sunrise/sunset lighting as well and the fog was quite convincing.
I must get Operation Flashpoint again!
The random weather model for microsoft flight simulator would be a good place for the devs to start programming weather and time into the game. If you fly a few hours, the time and lighting will change. Also, the weather will change randomly (but slowly) from clear to cold fronts to rain.. Obviously this would be good for a new patch or S3. The program for the weather isn't actually all that big.
Quote from flymike91 :The program for the weather isn't actually all that big.

I beg to differ.

Just because something sounds simple in theory, it is not always so in practice. It could take a thousand lines of code to implement weather.

By the way, since you're browsing through old threads, you should know that this topic has been discussed to death already. There's really nothing more to add.
Unless you have cars outfitted with killer headlights, or the tracks are well lit, I think night racing isn't a good idea.

Even now with the drive dusk it's hard to see the track curbs in critical places. There are 2 tracks I won't even go near any more because of the shadows cast by the buildings in SO Classic and the 2nd SO Sprint track. It's too dam dark to see the track. It's like driving in a black screen. Absolutely NO FUN and completely DUMB. Real drivers can see. Even NASCAR lights up the ovals so it's like driving at day time. When I log into a server and find it's "lo-lit" I turn right around and find another server.

So a hearty, big-time NO on the night driving.

As far as weather is concerned, stay with a nice day. Driving in rain sucks in real life, and sucks exponentially more in every sim I've ever run that tries to simulate rain. Simulating rain is like providing ice for the track. Again absolutely NO FUN and completely DUMB.

So another hearty, big-time NO on the weather garbage.
Just because YOU can't cope with low light condition, or don't have the car control to race in the wet doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Like reality, tracks get brighter and darker, wetter and drier. So they should in LFS (one day).
As far as I can see, the actual physics of the car handling wouldn't need to be changed. The only change would be decreasing the friction of the track, no? The cars have mass and all the relevant forces, gravity won't change or anything just because it's wet. So that part could (in theory, without the graphics changing to show it) be done already with just some minor code changes.

If you ask me, the hardest part would be varying the friction across parts of the track, which obviously we don't currently have. Dry parts under bridges give more grip than wet parts, etc. Right now it's all 100% dry so no friction changes need to be calculated, nor does the track have to be split into parts (that doesn't mean it's not of course).
And because we want the wind to affect the rain, the wet/dry areas around these obstacles would move and change according to the wind. That's where it gets complicated.

I'm sure it'd be fairly easy to do a rudimentary "Friction -40%" calculation and throw a particle effect over the top of it to look like rain, but that'd be crap and go against everything the simulation stands for.
I agree, decreasing the grip by factor x is very easy to do, but that can hardly be called a rain simulation. Apart from the points you made, you'd also have to include a puddle simulation together with aquaplaning, as well as take into account that (afaik) tyres behave quite differently in wet conditions compared to dry tarmac. By that I mean they actually have differently shaped grip curves, not only a downscaled variant of the dry grip one.

Regarding night and rain in general, I can just quote myself here
Quote from AndroidXP :Night and rain seem to be the equivalent to "I love the LX cars" we hear about so often. Yeah sure, I'd sure like to see these features and they're pretty likely to be implemented at some point, but it's kinda funny considering how most drivers poop their pants as soon as low wind is activated.

Yes, night and rain sound awesome in theory, but I believe almost no servers will be running them. I mean, just look at how often wind or different lightning conditions are used right now. Before CTRA they were practically nonexistent. Night and rain have far worse effects on the racing difficulty, so I cannot really see them being used much after the novelty wears off. (That doesn't mean I don't want the features in the game, though.)
I agree with you Android, but if we get this "weather from track location thing" maybe we would never drive with clear sky/no wind again? Well, unless this is the conditions at the track location, of course. If the server can choose the weather it wants (the one from location, or any other), then you're probably right.

Honestly I don't know which option I would find better.
Quote from XCNuse :http://forum.rscnet.org/attachment.p...9&d=1102303950

OH YESSSS!!!! I would love to have wipers on every car that is supposed to have them.

And +1 for this idea. Rain would be cool. If they do make this, they should show raindrops hitting the car (especially on the windshield) and they should make sound effects of rain hitting the car's metal. They should also physically put water on the track so you can see that little spray when the tires are hitting it.
Quote from Vendetta :It would be awesome if the weather forecast was generated from where the server is located.

+1
2

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG