Hi Everyone

I have just purchased a server from 500 servers, and I must add a very good purchase. Anyway, back to the point.

I’m a huge fan of Touring cars (TOCA), bumper to bumper equal car racing and I wanted to try and simulate this in LFS. I’m really after some feedback to see what people really want when it comes to a race, understandably I’m not going to cater for everyone, but I see some of the more popular servers always having numbers on them.

Are there any "top tips" to have a successful server, while trying to step away from the GTR's and single seaters.

I would like to try and get qualifying sessions, safety cars and leader boards started, to get the whole race feeling.

Is there anyone out there who would be interested in a joint setup, or willing to give someone some advice about this sort of thing?
I have been racing in LFS for over a year, but only now decided to try and setup my own dedi server.

Thanks everyone

I guess you should opt for TBOs then (XRT,FXO,RB4) cause that is imo the best class for close racing, and there isn't that many servers running TBOs all the time.
Then you'd have to get a lot of promo work done to get a decent amount of players on a daily basis. Like having a league, doing something completely new (e.g like the CTRA X-system is), etc.

Thanks for the reply. I will edit my server to have those cars. A few more questions if I may.


1.) Is there a method to change the server colour text, so it stands out a bit more, i cant see anything in the cfg that would allow a colour change.

2.) Any recommended tracks that would suit this style; I was thinking Westfield Internation, as it’s big, open and has plenty of room for over taking?

3.) Im a bit of a n00b when it comes to configs, and I was trying to find how to track rotate so it’s more varied.

Thanks, any feedback is welcome.

The colour change for the text can be found at http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=14954

I'd recommend Blackwood, both regular and reverse, cause its a classic, really.
I'd also suggest South city chicane and town courses, and fern green and gold for these cars.

I personally wouldn't suggest Westhill, cause it might be wide and open, but about 2/3 of the track is driven in full throttle. Not that exciting.

But at the end, it comes down to the preferences of the particular racers and/or your selections.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I have setup the server now, named "BTCC Touring 2008", you should find it under the turbo class.

Hope to see you there

<---- typical touring car fans

hope we can have a BMW 320si soon, after the BF1 & FBM

* I hope so to!

Threes a few guys on, and the turbo class seems to be well suited to this style of racing.

I also added an LX4 just to mix the pack up a bit, however we believe it’s slightly overpowered regardless that its in-fact slower than the others.

Does anyone know a way to implement the restriction setting to all players who select this car?

Thanks

It is quite difficult to do balance the LX4 and the TBO cars in fact. It really depends on the track. The lx4 is way too fast in the corners but way too slow on a main straight, it might be the king in SO, but it definitely the slowest car through most AS and KY tracks. So the balance should be changed from track to track and that will need quite an amount of testing to figure out a good restriction balance. So emmm, i just dont think adding LX4 is a good idea.

Personally for me, the most touring car like experience has been the "xf-jr" (xfr, which if I recall correctly, was with 45% intake rest.) Can't really explin why, but it sorta felt like it. Provided good racing aswell.

It'd be best to drop the LX4 and maybe do a day for it on it's own or something like that.

That race I was in was fun, until my connection went on me. :mad:

I actualy jumped on this server yesturday for about half an hour, while finding some were to race the TBO's and had a great time racing the FXO.
I would suggest you add AS7 into the mix + as many tracks as possible so we can just vote to end race and get the next track on the go..

Please please leave it as TBO and have enduro and a lx4 day, each on a different day. Enduro just double the laps or something..
Drop qualifying time as unless everyone comes into the pits it can go on for ever..

Overall great work nice to have a good TBo server just hope it as a host of tracks and combos to race them on

With such a huge number of servers out there you will find it extremely difficult to get regular large numbers of racers on there. CTRA has been successful because of all the value they have added with their system. You need something similar I think to get good numbers. Often even the CTRA servers are quiet.

When I ran the GFC/GTTC the league aspect helped to get a few racers online occassionally as they would practice for the league. This coupled with some posts here in this forum and occassionally I would get enough racers on there for some good fun racing. But it was the exception rather than the rule.

Don't want to sound pessimistic but I think you may be wasting your time unless you can create something like the CTRA. Sorry dude

Thanks for the feedback. I’m in no way looking to do something major as of this moment, the idea of a league is a fantastic idea, however I just wanted to see how things go.

This is aimed at casual/semi pro racers, who want to race turbo’s and have that touring car feeling. Agreed with the LX4 and having other tracks, I found that a lot of people were commenting about a server that had the LX4 to race with. Apparently there’s not many if none at all.

The server will be upgraded to the maximum race slots available, as we did have the server full two or three times yesterday.

I was playing about with some restrictions, and the xfr fits very well into the tbo class providing it’s restricted. Generally speaking in "toca" you have a mixed class within a race. (i could be wrong)

Me and someone called “dev” were testing out the two, with him in a FB4 and me with the restricted XFR, and it was really quite exciting, he was always getting me on the straights, and I was getting him in the corner. Its nice knowing that you hold an advantage and it went right down to the line.

I think it will be quite exciting seeing a restricted mixed pack, with various advantages over each other, but ultimately balanced non the left.

Track rotation is being worked on, and I’m working out how to work the insim pack.

If anyone has any experience and fancies helping in anwayway, your more than welcome.

Nick

The XFR should have the advantage on corners too since it's on slicks. It'd take some serious restrictions to make it fit the class.

I wouldn't go mixing that way, I'd have either BabyGTRs or stick to TBO. I love the TBO class because it's so well-balanced across the board, and they're quick without being stupidly fast.
Bear in mind you need a load of drivers to check it's not just driver skill causing the balance

Not that it makes any difference to me since LFS just doesn't work that well with joypads.

I play in a small league in a server with some others friends and we played with FXO last season. Most races had between 8-10 players, and
the best tracks for close racing were Aston Historic and Blackwood.
There were 15 min. of qualifying and 2 races (the second with inverted grid positions)
You can see the replay of the Aston Historic race (I don't know if it's allowed to post videos )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAXt-26wkB0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ICxcDtfHj0

And sorry for my bad english!

Just thought I'd come along and say that I was on this server earlier this evening and it was really good. There were about 25 players when I left, with more connecting by the minute. The racing was brilliant, either one of the TBO cars being suited to slightly different tracks.

We even tried a rolling start with a safety car which, actually, went pretty well, considering there were over 20 people in the race.

I'll be back on there often!

Quote from Minimaxman :

I'll be back on there often!

Same here.

Just had some good races on the server. I even won one with RB4.

If this turns into a CTRA, where I need points to drive the TBO class, then it will no longer suit casual racers.

Quote from Ricerguy :

If this turns into a CTRA, where I need points to drive the TBO class, then it will no longer suit casual racers.

Who said that it will?

In the GTTC we ran a 24Kg ballast on the FXO to even up the TBO class and this seemed to work perfectly. There's plenty of replays on my site if you want to see what I mean.

Good luck with this.

Ill try and make it on tonight for a few races

I drove a couple of races today and I reckon its very balanced, it's brilliant, you feel that you wont pass the driver in front of you until he makes a mistake

Quality server had a few races today there. Cheers for this!

Suggestion:
There's an option on lfslapper to enforce restrictions on cars. Maybe attempt to balance the cars over a period of time. You've got enough guys on the server to test it!