Wow, haven't seen am email form LFS for awhile. I guess I will have to see whats new. My wheel has been collecting dust.
I can't believe that so many of you are still bitching and crying about this game and it's slow progress. It's a god dam small development team, they have created an amazing product that rivals any other software of its time for functionality (Circa 2008) and it still has an active community.
It was bound to happen that the rate of development would slow down to point where we no longer see the advancement for ages at a time and other products would start to catch and surpass it, but if you just want fun pickup races with fairly realistic physics then you still have that. If you want something more then go get it and quit polluting this forum and community by moving on.
LFS is still the best product on the market for what it is. If that is not what you want, then shove the (fill in color metaphor of your choice here) off.
It was bound to happen that the rate of development would slow down to point where we no longer see the advancement for ages at a time and other products would start to catch and surpass it, but if you just want fun pickup races with fairly realistic physics then you still have that. If you want something more then go get it and quit polluting this forum and community by moving on.
LFS is still the best product on the market for what it is. If that is not what you want, then shove the (fill in color metaphor of your choice here) off.
Well as with most things this issue has both a positive and negative effect on car stability. The basic shape of most street cars is actually Aerodynamically backwards and the XRT is a prime example of this. It's shape is not unlike that of a Pontiac Fierbird with a long sloped nose, the passenger section at or behind the physical center of the car and a shorter sloped aft section. Basically the exact opposite shape of a rain drop.
This means a vehicle natural tendency is to swap ends at high speed is the force exerted on the car is not overcome by the forces trying to hold it to the ground. This is the reason why down force is such a major factor in all forms of high speed racing and vehicle design.
Now the weather-vane effect the OP is talking about is also in effect but deals with the surface area in profile and is also dependent on the pivot point, which is the point of contact with the ground that has the most traction.
Which all just goes to say this is not in any way a simple subject or equation.
This means a vehicle natural tendency is to swap ends at high speed is the force exerted on the car is not overcome by the forces trying to hold it to the ground. This is the reason why down force is such a major factor in all forms of high speed racing and vehicle design.
Now the weather-vane effect the OP is talking about is also in effect but deals with the surface area in profile and is also dependent on the pivot point, which is the point of contact with the ground that has the most traction.
Which all just goes to say this is not in any way a simple subject or equation.
I like the idea but I also agree with Woz in that there are far more important core features that need to be implemented first. I also do not think that the Dev team is large enough to make those kind of year to year changes while still adding in missing features. Again, would be cool, but not going to happen until after S3 is code complete. Even iRacing with its budget and dev team do not do this yet.
I do see your point. I am sure that some measure of fine tuning could be accomplished with the option of several different wheel/tire size/width combinations so long as they are restricted to what might be appropriate for each individual car. Like in most racing series there are imposed limits.
Maybe but not by much, however a larger diameter wheel also means a larger diameter tire. Any time you go larger you increase total mass if you do not also reduce total volume of matter. Given the same wheel and tire design a larger diameter one will always weight more. This increase in weight is small up until the point where the total wheel/tire diameter or width is increased at which point it ramps up faster.
Also while it is true that a wider tire will also increase the potential grip as the contact patch grows but you also have increased drag due do the increase of the tires cross section as it tries to push through the air. This increase in drag effects lowered powered vehicles more then high powered ones. This trade-off is there for the choice between cornering grip vs top speed and acceleration. In the end most racing sanctioning bodies set limits on wheel/tire size and width options for a given class.
Last edited by Gimpster, .
I think the option for distance is redundant and not needed given every track has a specific length but the option to use minutes or a decimal portion of an hour would be a welcome addition.
Well first off there is not a single car in LFS that is anything like an BMW 3 series. The closest thing in power and weight is the XRT but that vehicle has a completely different suspension setup. McPherson strut (XRT) vs double wishbone (BMW 3 Series). But any car can be made to drift, you just have to know how vehicle dynamics work.
Left foot braking is and advanced driving technique which is discouraged by driving instructors with reference to new drivers because new drivers often panic when faced with an emergency and may depress both the brake and gas at the same time. Here in the US drivers training is usually performed in a car with an automatic transmission and thus we are taught to only use our right foot to drive to avoid the above mentioned situation. So yes under normal street driving for 99% of the population left foot braking is a bad idea. On a track it's a different situation entirely.
Timed races under 1 hour are the result of an insim app.
We use to have offsets but people would just set the track width as wide as they could and this often meant that the tires would protrude through the body work when lowered or under compression loads. In the end the track width was set to be as wide as the bodywork would allow.
As far as wheel diameter, I can't see how you would gain a performance improvement as larger wheels are heavier and thus add weight and rotating mass. Just like the track width everyone would soon settle on the diameter that worked best and having it be adjustable would again be of no use. Grip is less effected by diameter then tire width and for every car there is an ideal size/width to give optimal grip with minimal weight and drag.
LFS is about racing with nearly equal cars and thus it is a drivers skill that determine outcome, having adjustments that alter vehicle performance has never been part of the LFS approach.
It's a nice idea but I do not see how it would enhance LFS in a meaningful way.
As far as wheel diameter, I can't see how you would gain a performance improvement as larger wheels are heavier and thus add weight and rotating mass. Just like the track width everyone would soon settle on the diameter that worked best and having it be adjustable would again be of no use. Grip is less effected by diameter then tire width and for every car there is an ideal size/width to give optimal grip with minimal weight and drag.
LFS is about racing with nearly equal cars and thus it is a drivers skill that determine outcome, having adjustments that alter vehicle performance has never been part of the LFS approach.
It's a nice idea but I do not see how it would enhance LFS in a meaningful way.
There are a lot of differences between a virtual car and a real one. Some of the things not modeled include, chassis flex, bushing compression, variation in spring rate and damper efficiency, tire squirm, etc. One things I have found over the years with LFS is that by using real world chassis tuning techniques you can get to a setup this is reasonably fast, fairly predictable and will get you in to the front halve of the pack consistently given good driving skills. Beyond that it's lots of practice and some little tweaking as needed to exploit the physics model. In the end you either need to adapt your driving technique to the setup and track, adapt the setup to your driving style and track or more likely a combination of both.
Maybe the solution is to make them not solid and give them a mass that puts them in the right weight category as a concrete barrier and then when you hit one it should act more like hitting another car. There is still the potential for adverse physics reaction as is seen some time in car to car collisions but it would happen less. More like a really heave tire stack.
I personally have not touched LFS in some time due to the distribution of LFS racers. Since I am not a fan of Drift, Cruise, Drag, or open wheel I am often left with few to race with.
This is a known issue, it has many facets that contribute to it and it is on the list of fixes that need to be addressed. The short of it is, issues with collision detection combined with the physics engine's response to a situation where two objects are reported to be occupying the same place at the same time.
The collision part of the issue is that due to a lag issue or physics tic rate limitation, two objects are allowed to pass in to one another before a collision is detected. This is what allows the physics response to happen which is to throw the objects apart violently.
The physics part of the issue is that there is not enough energy absorption allowed in the equation. In the real world energy is absorbed as structures compress, deform and or change states and through energy conversion in to heat which all reduce the amount of energy available to redirect the objects back away from each other.
So combine a situation where little of the potential energy is absorbed or dispersed with the physics engine trying to cope with a situation of overlapping objects, which it was not designed to handle and things get funky fast. Correcting the issue is not an easy thing to do and as I am not a coder I will not try offer a solution, but I can see from a logic point of view what sort of things would need to change, if not how those changes could be implemented.
The collision part of the issue is that due to a lag issue or physics tic rate limitation, two objects are allowed to pass in to one another before a collision is detected. This is what allows the physics response to happen which is to throw the objects apart violently.
The physics part of the issue is that there is not enough energy absorption allowed in the equation. In the real world energy is absorbed as structures compress, deform and or change states and through energy conversion in to heat which all reduce the amount of energy available to redirect the objects back away from each other.
So combine a situation where little of the potential energy is absorbed or dispersed with the physics engine trying to cope with a situation of overlapping objects, which it was not designed to handle and things get funky fast. Correcting the issue is not an easy thing to do and as I am not a coder I will not try offer a solution, but I can see from a logic point of view what sort of things would need to change, if not how those changes could be implemented.
Having been a member of both the LFS and iRacing communities, I can honestly say that quality of racing and that the the driver skill and conduct are better on iRacing servers, if having a serious race is your goal. That does not really mean much though if you are just looking for pickup races. Personally I like the idea of more fragile cars and driver safety tracking, not everyone does though. So whether or not this is a route that is taken by LFS all depends on which direction the developers want to take the game. I would think that LFS will lean towards the wider customer base of more relaxed online racing then towards the narrower customer base that wants a very real racing experience.
Glenn67,
Just who are you calling an "Old Timer"?
DrBen,
I can understand the sentiment on not wanting to pay to try. I chose to because it was something I felt would be better then what was on the market. In the end I only stayed 2 months, the cost is too high for my budget and the progression path for road racing was too focused on open wheel cars which I have no interest in. But none of that takes away from the feeling that you get racing in that sim. It's just not comparable to anything else I have experienced. What they offer is a service not a product. That is the main difference in the way its deployed.
I can understand the sentiment on not wanting to pay to try. I chose to because it was something I felt would be better then what was on the market. In the end I only stayed 2 months, the cost is too high for my budget and the progression path for road racing was too focused on open wheel cars which I have no interest in. But none of that takes away from the feeling that you get racing in that sim. It's just not comparable to anything else I have experienced. What they offer is a service not a product. That is the main difference in the way its deployed.
Becky,
Your words are true. While having the vehicle dynamics nailed is a lofty goal, it's a goal that I fell is unobtainable so long as we are applying them to a static environment. So much of a cars feel has more to do with how the car is reacting to the environment then how the different parts of the car are reacting to each other. How many of the physics updates have been aimed at improving the driving feel of the cars, especially at and just over the limits?
The answer is a lot. Many of the perceived weird feelings in the physics are most likely due to the environment not an incorrect vehicle dynamics model. I would be willing to argue then even back in S1 the physics were close enough to start working on the dynamic aspects of the environment. In the real world which is what sims are trying to simulate, everything in is constant flux. So when we drive our exceptions of how the car is reacting is going to be different then the exact same car in LFS.
In essence every time we tweak the physics to feel more natural we are in fact pushing the physics simulation away from being correct by adding in components that alter the physics to replicate the feeling of driving in a dynamic environment while driving in a static one. In essence it will never be possible to build a correct physics simulation of driving/racing so long as we are building it in a static environment with glass smooth roads, unchanging road surface conditions and unchanging atmospheric conditions.
The environment simulation is the base on which it all needs to be built, without that the rest is just another neat game that feels better then the others. There is currently no sim that has taken this approach. iRacing is closer but it still uses a static environment but at least its tracks surfaces are not like glass, they have character, imperfections and variations in camber/grip. I have yet to see a track surface in LFS that has a crown, uneven surface or difference in grip based on track surface type.
You have a good base but its no where close to where it could be. Keep it up and perhaps it will be what you hope it to be.
Your words are true. While having the vehicle dynamics nailed is a lofty goal, it's a goal that I fell is unobtainable so long as we are applying them to a static environment. So much of a cars feel has more to do with how the car is reacting to the environment then how the different parts of the car are reacting to each other. How many of the physics updates have been aimed at improving the driving feel of the cars, especially at and just over the limits?
The answer is a lot. Many of the perceived weird feelings in the physics are most likely due to the environment not an incorrect vehicle dynamics model. I would be willing to argue then even back in S1 the physics were close enough to start working on the dynamic aspects of the environment. In the real world which is what sims are trying to simulate, everything in is constant flux. So when we drive our exceptions of how the car is reacting is going to be different then the exact same car in LFS.
In essence every time we tweak the physics to feel more natural we are in fact pushing the physics simulation away from being correct by adding in components that alter the physics to replicate the feeling of driving in a dynamic environment while driving in a static one. In essence it will never be possible to build a correct physics simulation of driving/racing so long as we are building it in a static environment with glass smooth roads, unchanging road surface conditions and unchanging atmospheric conditions.
The environment simulation is the base on which it all needs to be built, without that the rest is just another neat game that feels better then the others. There is currently no sim that has taken this approach. iRacing is closer but it still uses a static environment but at least its tracks surfaces are not like glass, they have character, imperfections and variations in camber/grip. I have yet to see a track surface in LFS that has a crown, uneven surface or difference in grip based on track surface type.
You have a good base but its no where close to where it could be. Keep it up and perhaps it will be what you hope it to be.
I chose LFS back in 2003 for the physics, its also the reason I left LFS in 2008.
I was satisfied with S1, S2 took the sim in a different direction then was hoping for. So at this point my answer is no I am not satisfied with LFS despite once being a very die-hard fan.
To be honest I would have to say iRacing is the more realistic racing simulator currently available currently. Before iRacing my answer would have been LFS.
There is nothing really wrong with the design of the Rotory engine. It is a little more fuel hungery and its a motor that does its work with revs not raw torque much like the engine in the S2000. Its weak points in stock form are its expensive and diffacult to apply combustion chamber lining, its fuel ecconomy (The fuel is part of the cooling system) and its sandwhich construction of dis-similar metals.
The main reasons for failure are not unlike that of a traditional engine. Overheating being the primary one. Many people don't understand that with this engine it is vital to allow the engine to warm up before stressing it. The sandwhich of steel and aluminum heat at different rates so you need to let the engine warm up to opperating temp, if you don't you get excessive ware. Conversly overheating it also accelerates ware and can warp the block.
Over reving is also detrimental, since the fuel used to feed the engineis also vital to the cooling abilities of the engine if you bang it off the revlimiter, (At least in the second gen) it cuts fuel flow not spark. With the engine still turning at high speed the lose of fuel causes overheating, which is a design flaw. There are aftermatket piggyback systems to prevent the revlimiter from cutting fuel.
So if you keep the engine in the correct temp range the engine will last a long time. Run it hard when its cold or run it hot and you will rapidly wear out the lining, the apex seals and can warp the block. Disable the rev limiter and run an ECU able to deliver the needed fuel and it will rev till the cows come home.
The main reasons for failure are not unlike that of a traditional engine. Overheating being the primary one. Many people don't understand that with this engine it is vital to allow the engine to warm up before stressing it. The sandwhich of steel and aluminum heat at different rates so you need to let the engine warm up to opperating temp, if you don't you get excessive ware. Conversly overheating it also accelerates ware and can warp the block.
Over reving is also detrimental, since the fuel used to feed the engineis also vital to the cooling abilities of the engine if you bang it off the revlimiter, (At least in the second gen) it cuts fuel flow not spark. With the engine still turning at high speed the lose of fuel causes overheating, which is a design flaw. There are aftermatket piggyback systems to prevent the revlimiter from cutting fuel.
So if you keep the engine in the correct temp range the engine will last a long time. Run it hard when its cold or run it hot and you will rapidly wear out the lining, the apex seals and can warp the block. Disable the rev limiter and run an ECU able to deliver the needed fuel and it will rev till the cows come home.
I think the best option right now would be a very large patch of tarmak and a very large patch of dirt, as new maps, which we can use to then create our own tracks for both Rallycross and Road Racing. Adding in a few new objects could also add to the track feeling. The Dirt and Tarmak maps could be either flat or have some elevation veriation. Its not that hard, it does not require a change to the engine and its just using the code we currently use for autocross.
After spending some time in iRacing and having loads of time in LFS I can honestly say that the two are not comparable. Its not because one is far better then the other but has to do with the fact that they each represent different aspects of this genre.
LFS is and will remain the best sim for getting togeather with your friends and racing door to door with the least amout of fuss and a high degree of fun. It has great accesability, ease of use and just works well for what it does. I will always remain on my hard drive for when I just want to have fun.
iRacing is a more hardcore oriented sim aimed with asperations of blending the world of real amature and profesional racing with that of simulated online racing. They are very structured, comitted to the attempt of turning sim racing in to a legitimate form of motorsports and they are off to a good start, and I feel their future is bright. Since I can not afford to field a real car in even am ammature class this is the next best thing for me.
At least that is how I see it. If the general racing enviernment, racecraft skills and driver respect I have found in iRacing were still the norm in LFS I do not think I would be in iRacing, but LFS has evolved in ways that have shifted the comunity in a different direction, which gives it new character. Not a bad thing but I miss those old days...
LFS is and will remain the best sim for getting togeather with your friends and racing door to door with the least amout of fuss and a high degree of fun. It has great accesability, ease of use and just works well for what it does. I will always remain on my hard drive for when I just want to have fun.
iRacing is a more hardcore oriented sim aimed with asperations of blending the world of real amature and profesional racing with that of simulated online racing. They are very structured, comitted to the attempt of turning sim racing in to a legitimate form of motorsports and they are off to a good start, and I feel their future is bright. Since I can not afford to field a real car in even am ammature class this is the next best thing for me.
At least that is how I see it. If the general racing enviernment, racecraft skills and driver respect I have found in iRacing were still the norm in LFS I do not think I would be in iRacing, but LFS has evolved in ways that have shifted the comunity in a different direction, which gives it new character. Not a bad thing but I miss those old days...
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