I know hurricane Dean hit Jamaica yesterday but do we really have to race in it in LFS? Fern Bay last night with high wind was just pointless. To stay on the track you had to take every corner at half speed or risk being blown off.

I remember a lot of people asking for live weather settings when driving on a track. I guess CTRA succeeded in that
But I do agree, the high wind kinda sucked last night.

I was racing Single1 last night, and it was pretty hard going with all that wind, but I managed it! I'm not exactly the most accomplished driver out there, and I'm particularly out of practice in the FOX. I battled cars *and* conditions, and I did an okay job

The wind is the closest thing we have to weather conditions in LFS right now. It's set randomly by the X system, and it never blows harder than *real* wind *might*. FTR, when we get rain we'll implement it. Yeah.. it sucked last night. How unpredictable weather can be! I love it

Hopefully 'when' we get rain it will dynamically update too soo you can get hit with a squall while midrace, now that would be interesting =)

as i said a few times meanwhile: +1 for gentlefood

I tend to agree with you Mr.Foot

The wind for most of the night was ridiculous. On one race of 12 people 10 were blown off the course within the first few corners.

I don't mind some wind, but too much where it would make the track dangerous (in real life) would get the race stopped

wind is the same for everyone, so it is fair, it makes it trickier and sometimes you spin off yes.

wind is good, it shows the men from the boys (in terms of hotlappers) from the racers.

I would say that low wind is fine, high wind is on some circuits fine (blackwood or westhill for instance) but in others its more trickier, FE being an example..

i think the real issue here is people do not like high wind becuase it affects lap times and hence their progress points....

Quote from Dru :

i think the real issue here is people do not like high wind becuase it affects lap times and hence their progress points....

thats it.

i drive the CTRA for fun, but i drive there for points, too.
and as long as the points depend that much on the lap-time,
i think at least strong-winds should be taken out.

another thing are the lap-records. its not fair if you can´t reach
them just because of the wind. and its even more unfair, if
you set a record, just because of the wind...

but i think this is not possible. afaik you just can turn the wind on/off/random...

The wind is the same for everyone, and just like IRL, some people may be better at driving in certain conditions as others, it's the old ego thang rearing it's head again .
I would personally say, keep the wind, but maybe cap it at a sensible level (if at all possible)

I have to agree with Gentlefoot on this one, the wind was too extreme last night on FE allways very high 40's kph I even got into a spin on the straight after the first chicane due to a small bump and the wind combination, Its not that we don't have experience of that combo either as we ran it a month ago in the GF championship so I had my race set to use but the wind meant I personally was just cruising around not racing

This picked me up a 3rd in one race, also the wind seems to gust so one lap you may find yourself ok the next your eating grass or worse you get a face full of wall that combined with cars flying every which way for the first couple of laps I would rather be back on the B and J server you get less incidents there

Could the wind not be set to a range of 0 - 30 kph that way we all get to race which is what we all join the server for as the high wind scenario is just too unpridictable as shown by the extreme case of the recent replay that was posted on youtube.

I also noticed that if you get high wind on race 1 of a combo it seems to follow on until the next track change, all the races last night were with very high wind, it would not be so bad if it was just 1 race every now and again but this seems to be not the case.

I just think it needs sorting as last night half the grid left the server and moved on which I think just proves we have a problem, and you can say it's the same for every driver which it is but we race LFS for enjoyment but this is not enjoyable, it's very frustrating as the wind is so unpridictable it becomes a chore.

EDIT : +1 for the CAP Danowat - I say 30kph as this would give clean races hopefully

A lot of the complaints I heard last night revolved around people who were simply used to driving with particular inputs, at particular speeds, and didn't like the fact that the conditions for driving that way weren't perfect and they just couldn't drive like they always did to achieve the bog-standard ever-repeating results they were used to. This is CTRA, not hotlapping. Sometimes the conditions just don't suit lap record attempts, and sometimes they do. Drive a lot and everyone will get their shot at those times

Keep the wind as it is.
It is the driver's job to alter their braking points etc to deal with it.
I don't think they'd ever got to race in real life either if they'd only do it in perfect weather conditions.
Suck it up and do your job.

Quote from danowat :

I would personally say, keep the wind, but maybe cap it at a sensible level (if at all possible)

Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to this. Except for the barren moorland they call Westhill (where I raced last night). If the wind speed were to drop below 30 knots, there, it would be less realistic

South City, I'm undecided about. You would think the buildings would break the airflow and reduce the wind.. but having lived and worked in Chicago, I know that buildings can accelerate the flow of air, and it can be bloody windy in the city.

The wind is what kept me on the single seater / westhill server last night. The FOX is, frankly, ****ing boring to drive, and the wind made the races interesting.

Funny that, I find the FOX quite hard to drive consistantly, I feel like I am always battling against it.
It's never boring for me, tiring yes, boring no..........

the problem last night SamH was every race was very high wind ( I raced at least 8 races )
I'm not opposed to wind, it just becomes a farse when 5 cars out of a full grid finish an 8 lap race and combined with the fact we had high wind for every race the server soon emptied which suggest's to me there is a problem here.

When I finished 3rd in one race I was the last car on that lap the others were +1 lap down

The kick in the balls last night was that we all held out for the track change and what did we get +46kph I for one as many others did promptly left we had all had enough.

The fact LFS states KPH is niether here nor there it feels like wind speed is more like MPH from the way the wind effects the cars..... is this me or does anyone else agree.

I like the diversity that winds add to the races, personally. But I find it frustrating when I manage to finish in good position and still get no points at all. I've seen races where none of the finishers got any point, as the lap times where too far from the track record just because the wind blew in the wrong direction on the longest straight.

I'd vote to keep the wind, but modify the points system to take it into account. So with high wind, you'd need a smaller percentage of the track record to score points.

The high wind is just shite. Not on only is it ridiculous when half the field get blown off at the same corner, but not scoring any points for 1.5 hours is a waste of time.
Of course i race on these servers for the high standard of racing, but we race for points too.
I have nothing against wind but the way it's implemented in LFS seems highly unrealistic. Never in my life have i seen virtually every car blown off the track in any motorsport event I've watched.

Half the time there's a vote to end the race anyway when high wind is on. It's pointless.

Its also unfair to have points linked to times. For example, Say i join the server and high wind is on, i can spend 1.5 hours working my butt off for next to no reward at all, then Andy(Ger)(random choice) could join at the next rotation with no wind and have to work far less hard for 20x the points i had to struggle for. (if anything you should score more points for winning in high winds. It takes far more skill to keep it on the track than in a no wind situation)

/windy rant off

Quote from The Moose :

(if anything you should score more points for winning in high winds. It takes far more skill to keep it on the track than in a no wind situation)

/windy rant off

I like this bit!!!!! more points

nice post Mr Moosey. If you were not getting points, then I now understand why I didn't

Quote from The Moose :

Never in my life have i seen virtually every car blown off the track in any motorsport event I've watched.

Because those drivers know how to deal with it?

Quote from teaz-R :

Because those drivers know how to deal with it?

they adjust their driving style accordingly. I chatted with my instructors when I did my track experience. They had a Viper CC there and most of those guys raced regularly and he said that on windy days his top speed would change a good 5MPH at RA and he had to adjust his brake points a bit to compensate.

Quote from teaz-R :

Because those drivers know how to deal with it?

Well i think a lot of CTRA drivers know how to deal with it tbh. Last night at as2r i dropped 2 gears lower than normal and went very steadily through the chicane only to get blown off (followed by half the field ).
Its also a complete lottery in LFS. The wind direction can change so much in one lap that it's impossible to get any consistency.

As i've said though, i can live with the wind,(it is fun and a good challenge )but i cant live with points being linked to times. High wind makes this system a farce.

Quote from Viper93 :

and he said that on windy days his top speed would change a good 5MPH at RA and he had to adjust his brake points a bit to compensate.

In LFS top speeds can change by 25 kph in high winds, and braking points by 100 mts.

Quote from teaz-R :

Because those drivers know how to deal with it?

only by being in a live enviroment m8.

if you can tell the wind indication before a corner thats a lot better than not knowing until it affects you.

for instance

on some grids you can see flags, however a lot of the time you can not always see a flag prior to you reaching that corner with the back wind or cross wind.. sure everyone can tell head wind and know that the wind will help braking but not being able to see that wind prior to the corner is pretty daft. sure you could drive defensivley, god knows how many high wind races i've done in my 250 races in the last 2 weeks - loads i think, but you know the trouble then, your near the front and you are cautious to be able to deal with it, and the guys behind get excited cause they have the chance to overtake a national B or now A driver or the legendary Dru (J/K) and go fuill pelt into the corner only to have forgotten about the wind or not realise it and then affect YOUR race even thou you where being the cautious one.

A prime example of this is the right hand bend prior to the chicane on WE1. When on high wind with the wrong direction that corner is 5th gear with brake, but the guy behind will go 6th gear flat and hit you out as they can not react in time....

High wind should be removed and low wind kept. Let people race low wind, what s the betting that the CTRA is the first time many of them have had to use it and just don't know enuff about it or how to deal with it yet.
Like so many things in life, its a learning curve, some are just further along it than others

Regards,


Dru.

Oh, i forgot, also the fact that the wind changes part race, interms of strength/direction does not help the new guys who think it stays the same all race and then have to re-adjust again part race...

Considering that Race 1 and Single Seater 1 are the entry points into CTRA, maybe they could be set to always have low wind, so people would learn how to deal with it (as it's almost always off on public servers and in most leagues). Then, random wind (including high) would be used on higher servers, where it would be much safer because people would then have experienced it (or at least some of it) while getting their license?

Always having low wind in the first level servers could also reduce the track records a bit, because there's no doubt some have been done with favorable high winds, and thus would reduce the frustration that some people are feeling.