Hi everyone,

since I have a few days off, I decided to give LFS a spin again, just out of curiosity. And after realizing that my last Online Laps where done in March 2019 I felt like I need to bake a cake to celebrate an anniversary... or to just post here in the Forum ;-)

What got me by surprise when I fired up LFS again after such a long time is, that I immediately felt at home when driving. It is insane how good it feels compared to all the other Sims I played in the last 15 years. I could not believe that after driving around for 10 minutes in Blackwood to get familiar with the controls again and then switching to the LX5 + BL Rallycross that I did not spin out a single time. I had a handfull of maneuvers in those few minutes that would have lead to crashes or spins in the other Sims, but in LFS I could catch them all, keep the drift angle, keep the correct steering angle and correct throttle inputs to get just around the track for multiple laps like I never did anything else. Of course I am not quick, but it all just felt... natural!

I can not believe I stopped playing LFS for so long, but there is one huge reason I did, something LFS is lacking that most other Sims have and (please don't kill me) is the Nordschleife. I need my weekly fix of Nordschleife and the other Sims can deliver it... but they are much worse in almost everything else.

There is hope for me, though that one day Scawen will open up LFS modding also for Tracks (maybe S4?) and this would have the potential to make LFS eternal in the Sim community.

What do I think makes LFS stand out from all the other competitors?

• Physics! When coming back after 15 years, hopping into a Car / Track Combo like LX4 + BL Rallycross, which is probably not the easiest and SMILING the whole run without crashing a single time, feeling every bump, every movement the car makes, then you got Physics just right!
  
• Scripting! Damn you all other Sims which force me to reassign controls when switching a car every single time! Scawen, you nailed that! LFS lets me configure my Setup for Paddle, Sequential and H-Shifter cars and switches automatically with the car. I miss this so much in every other Sim I played to date and I can not believe that a 20 year old Sim has this and nobody else felt the need to implement this too.
  
• Simple UI! The UI might not be pretty on first sight, but it is functional, easy to navigate, intuitive and boy is it quick. No matter where you are in the game, everything is accessible super quick and easily.
  
• Speed! Starting up the game always was super quick. Joining Multiplayer was always super quick. Navigating in the game no matter where you are was always super quick. I emphasise "always", because this is one of the things I remember from 15-20 years ago. It is not the modern hardware that makes it quicker than the competitors, it was always quicker than any competitor out there. Want to join a Multiplayer game in modded AC with a dozen of different cars? Yea, go and grab a coffee. In LFS? You do not even have time to sneeze and you are in!
  
• Multiplayer Experience! This is also tied to Speed, but LFS allows setting up servers where basically every car is allowed and no matter when or how many people join mid-race, there is no hiccup (I know it was in the very early days, but this got improved quickly). In Assetto Corsa, if the car you want to drive on a specific server is "occupied", you have to drive with a car you don't like. In BeamNG, if somebody changes his car and you want the game to update that, you wait a few seconds (game frozen) until that happens. In LFS you do not even realize that someone joined a server or switched his car or skin until you see it.
  
• Autocross! I do not even know if any other Sim has that... maybe BeamNG to some extend, but it is cumbersome to design a track there. LFS has Autocrossing since like forever and I remember that after memorizing all the Tracks, Autocrossing or modified Tracks with obstacles added so much fun.
  

What would make LFS the Eternal Sim (for me?)

• Track Modding
  

I believe this is the only piece missing to level up into the eternal olymp of Racing sims. LFS does almost everything better than its competitors. And it did most of those things that well 20 years ago. And all that time nobody was able to reach that level yet. The advantage many other Sims have over LFS and that kept me away for so long is just modding. LFS opened up for modding a bit with S3 and Car mods, but there is one single piece missing. Getting my favourite track in the game, there would be no need for any other sim in my life ever... OK, maybe Richard Burns Rallye for pure Rallying, but this one lives because of the Mods ;-)


A little bit of a background about me, just in case you survived the wall of text above:
I got my hands on LFS back then the minute it was possible and I remember that it was by far the best Sim experience I ever had. I got S1 and I got S2 the minute it was released and when S3 was announced and the Scirocco and Rockingham I already played for years and I remember that I was a bit burned out. So I decided to come back when the Scirocco and Rockingham are released. Well... it's been a while now and sometimes you just have to give up on your promises and jump over your own shadow.

I did that a bit in March 2023 when modding was released and I got myself an S3 license. In 2023 I just looked into LFS a bit with a Gamepad, tried a few car mods and hoped that one day Track Mods will be allowed too.
Of course this did not happen yet, unfortunately.

Why did I not come back sooner? LFS is lacking one thing for me that many other sims can deliver: My weekly fix of the Nordschleife. This might never happen officially due to licensing and labour involved to create such a massive track, but if modding would be allowed in the future, I am sure that all other sims turn obsolete (at least for me).


Thank you SO MUCH for keeping LFS alive, updating it (it got VR support a while ago too!) and improving it still. For me, it is still the best Sim out there that I ever played. And I am Sim racing since Sims exist :-)

Quote from buedi :

Hi everyone,
...

1. "LFS does almost everything better than its competitors":
I disagree, in the span of 15 years, there has only been 1 map release, and some rework on the older maps.

2. "speed"
Well the game is extremely outdated, old and only has 8 track + layout and graphics arent to much to hype about.

3. "Scripting": You can do the same thing in most simulator games. The reason some of the simulator games dont are because the modders are making the vehicles manual only or H-Shifter only, wich make sence, because its what makes the game realistic. You shouldnt be able to change to "automatic/H-shifter" by pressing 1 button, it removes the immersion.

4. Multiplayer Experience! Well, game is extremely dead and most people play on TC wich make every other server kinda pointless.

The physics in this game are ok, but there is alot of more to get from other simulator games wich updates frequently every single month.



You are hyped because you installed lfs again after 15 years, give it a month and you are already bored out of your mind because of the lack of content available.

The reason why most people quit are because the lack of update and releases of new cars or map are so delayed its crazy.

I've been driving in real life for over 15 years, and honestly the simulator game that makes it feel more realistic then anything is assetto corsa.

LFS would be great if it had more to deliver, and make people able to make maps for them, the game would rock up i can gurantee.

But LFS is losing players every single day, i give it another year and most people probably already quit. Sadly, cus it has alot of potential if they actually decided to give it more of a push, hire more devs or modders to help them out. Sadly, this is more of a hobby to the devs wich makes it slowly progressing.

But honestly, it's kinda to late now as the game has been out for nearly 20 years and there is literally nothing to show for

Quote from buedi :

Hi everyone,

I absolutely agree with you, LFS is a great car raсing simulator, and it's good that the developers still support it, this allows the game to survive until now. I agree with you that the main thing that is missing now is a Track Editor. In my list it is also top priority, graphics and physics in second place (with the update we've all been waiting for), weather changes in third.

And Scawen once said he was planning to introduce a Track Editor. In my opinion it would be reasonable to do it after the main update with graphics and physics. But even if it does happen, who knows how many years it will take.

nice to have you back

Maybe this topic is interesting for you https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/91637

Most of these things are not true for people who experienced other sims before LFS. I have managed to get some friends into simracing who started out with either AC or ACC. They will still favor those games over LFS mainly due to factors like;

• ELO and safety rating system like in iRacing (for example, Low Fuel Motorsports* (also known as LFM*)) is one racing community that offers quick hop on racing with sessions happening almost non-stop 24/7 with 5000+ racers online from varying levels of skill,
  
• Plenty of real life and fictional track options,
  
• Modern graphics, modern shader solutions, day and night cycle in endurance settings,
  
• More realistic tire behavior and actual time penalty for paddle shift users on H shifter cars,
  
• Chance to race against actual simrace pros in AC/ACC in the LFM community,
  
• Prize pools are far more frequent which also contribute to the community.
  

The list can go on. LFS is a great game, it offers some cool stuff but you just need to be more realistic about the fact that times have moved on greatly and majority of the new simracers are not interested in a game that gets low traffic compared to AC/ACC. iRacing, WRC titles etc (at this point there are more game simrace game options than there are LFS updates in a year). I can easily hop on LFM any evening and get into either an MX5, Clio or GT3 races where you have more than 1000 people sign up with multiple splits depending on your ELO and SR. I do not know what kind of major changes LFS needs to be competitive mainly because as Scawen has said, this game is a hobby for him so you surely can't expect major changes. We will be getting AC2 before LFS gets to new tire physics bro.

Quote from MousemanLV :

...because as Scawen has said, this game is a hobby for him...

When have I said that? I've never said that.

A full time occupation, working 10 to 12 hours most days, is more than a hobby, I think.

Unless you have a different meaning of hobby?

I have said, I like working on it. Maybe you interpret that as meaning it's a hobby and not a job?

@spoiled kids

once again people are about being "competitive", when it should stay a passion project that allows its authors to keep developping it after 25 years.
I rly dont care about hype graphics or crowded grids, my computer would not handle those graphics, and I wouldnt handle the noise of the crowd.
I would probably take a long break if lfs got crowded that much, as the ban list would grow along with it, and the list of new mods submissions...
You guys should stay on those crowded hype competitive sims instead of writing noisy bullshit to only vent your frustration here.
Spoiled kids.

Quote from turbofan :

@spoiled kids

once again people are about being "competitive", when it should stay a passion project that allows its authors to keep developping it after 25 years.
I rly dont care about hype graphics or crowded grids, my computer would not handle those graphics, and I wouldnt handle the noise of the crowd.
I would probably take a long break if lfs got crowded that much, as the ban list would grow along with it, and the list of new mods submissions...
You guys should stay on those crowded hype competitive sims instead of writing noisy bullshit to only vent your frustration here.
Spoiled kids.

They are not hype graphics, they are just more realistic and showcase better detail rather than having a car that has equal panel count as a roblox car. Also it's 2024, getting a computer to handle AC is super cheap It's not fair to judge something you haven't experienced as it was meant to be. If you don't care about crowded grids, might as well play singleplayer I guess?

Quote from Scawen :

When have I said that? I've never said that.

A full time occupation, working 10 to 12 hours most days, is more than a hobby, I think.

Unless you have a different meaning of hobby?

I have said, I like working on it. Maybe you interpret that as meaning it's a hobby and not a job?

Thanks for the correction. It is simply difficult for one man to do so many tasks as I believe you do not want to involve more people in your project to do the work.
Correct me if I'm wrong Scawen but would you perhaps say you are more or less a perfectionist? It's not a bad characteristic but I feel like considering the work you put in, you are more held back by the fact that you could just release content (even if it's buggy, all that can be fixed, for the most part once it's fixed people will forget anyway what happened 1 day ago).

Perfection is the enemy of good. Can't have anything perfect anyway considering the competition for simracing titles these days.

No, I'm not a perfectionist.

I just want to release something that will be fun and not containing extreme flaws that would destroy racing altogether. No, I will not expand on this comment. I need to spend some peaceful time focused on the tyre physics, to understand exactly what is good and bad about it.

I'd like to get back to the tyre physics so we can get something released, although LFS will never be finished or perfect.

Unfortunately I have not yet worked even one hour this year on the tyre physics as I've been dealing with mod stuff most of the time. There were too many holes in the system and people were exploiting every crack. I hope that is coming to an end now with various improvements.

The mods system is simultaneously the best and worst thing ever to have happened to LFS.

The idea is to release a new version hopefully in a week or two (just like the current test patch with a couple more updates) then I can get back to work on the new version. So basically at start of April I'll be in the position I wanted to be at start of January.

Quote from Scawen :

...

maybe you should have a "to do" list, that will maybe help you, its just an idea for you.

Wow you are a real genius.

As if I don't already have piles of notes of things to do on paper all around my desk.

Seems like no big update this year me very sad

Quote from Viperakecske :

Seems like no big update this year me very sad

Just beliv

Quote from MousemanLV :

Perfection is the enemy of good.

Lets face it, LFS is the enemy of good by itself

Quote from paket42x :

Lets face it, LFS is the enemy of good by itself

Please xplane to me what this supposed to mean

I wonder why almost every thread leads to that same old nonsense posts every single time, resulting in locking it.

Why can't be a little more positive and inspiring? Ah.

Quote from Evolution_R :

I wonder why almost every thread leads to that same old nonsense posts every single time, resulting in locking it.

Why can't be a little more positive and inspiring? Ah.

Totally agree, but my question is how about some good old self-irony instead

Quote from Evolution_R :

I wonder why almost every thread leads to that same old nonsense posts every single time, resulting in locking it.

Why can't be a little more positive and inspiring? Ah.

Yes, great game fam totally innit

Quote from Evolution_R :

I wonder why almost every thread leads to that same old nonsense posts every single time, resulting in locking it.

Because there are always some I-know-it-better people with extra much spare time who need to show their wisdom. Ironically none of them has even started their own better racing simulator.

I feel offended all my messages are getting deleted.... even "i enjoy live for speed"

Guys, just apprecciate the effort scawen does for us

Quote from Viperakecske :

I feel offended all my messages are getting deleted.... even "i enjoy live for speed"

don't go too far now

A person uses a derogatory term for another nation and it is ignored. The same person criticizes the game development (as I have time to notice, the comments were deleted, maybe I am wrong) and the person is banned from the forum.

As an absolutist of freedom of speech, I myself am against banning a person for any of this. But it is not me who decides here, but you, and you have the right to decide what to ban people for on your forum. But imho if it is possible to find consistency in this and not ban people for both the former and the latter, that would be a good thing.