Hello, Grampa Here I'm a yank, been playing LFS for about a week. Very realistic - and extremely difficult, without a steering column and pedals (i use keyboard and trackball! :'D ) ...I've noticed that the game is very euro-centric...but it would be too easy to add in support for NASCAR, NHRA Drag, and Indianapolis-type cars...Has someone suggested this already?

Quote from GrampaD :

Has someone suggested this already?

Why don't you search and then tell us.

OK, I will:

[Searching all Google with this query: lfs nascar ]
results: only videos from youtube *showing* lfs nascar 2; no link to download...

[Searching the LFS forums with this query: lfs nascar site:lfsforum.net ]
results: McLaren's Head of Race Operations, a couple of sound resources from the Programmer's forum, no link to lfs nascar 2 download...

...??

he ment search the forums not google


and no im all for extra content but content that will be fun for the majority

...I did search the forums - using google. The google site parameter does this. As for, the developers won't add american stuff like NASCAR cars and tracks, because the majority of their customers don't want it...so be it

- Grampa

Quote from GrampaD :

...I did search the forums - using google. The google site parameter does this. As for, the developers won't add american stuff like NASCAR cars and tracks, because the majority of their customers don't want it...so be it

- Grampa

even the forum search didn't come up with anything for "nascar". search utility seems very poor =/

Anyways, don't let people get you down; the devs said that they are planning on adding mod support some time in the future, so someone can make a NASCAR mod It may be a long time away, though.

Quote from MijnWraak :

the devs said that they are planning on adding mod support some time in the future, so someone can make a NASCAR mod It may be a long time away, though.

...If modding support for LFS is, as you suggest, a long time away, that would be unfortunate. Look what Capture The Flag did for Quake; look what Counterstrike did for Half-Life. The competitors to LFS already have released racing games that support American racing and readily support modding.

What I'm about to suggest may be off-topic here, but I'll risk it...I'm a programmer and have looked at the file structure of LFS in its program directory. In my opinion, having persistent data stored as lots of binary files with proprietary formats and non-standard file extensions is rather old-school. In the first-person-shooter game genre, for example, engines have already been written that store their persistent data in relational databases that can be queried with SQL-like languages.

- Grampa

Quote from MijnWraak :

Anyways, don't let people get you down; the devs said that they are planning on adding mod support some time in the future, so someone can make a NASCAR mod It may be a long time away, though.

Dev post?

The only official stance on mods that I remember reading was something along the lines of "It has not been discounted. We'd like to have it in, but it won't happen until S3 retail."

LFS is a very good sim, though unfortunately progress is (very) slow. If you're much into oval racing I'd actually recommend you to check out iRacing, which is made by US based developers, thus containing much more American content. Its only drawback is the subscription based payment model, so overall it's a good chunk more expensive than LFS, though I won't say it's not worth the money.

Personally, I very much doubt LFS will become a usable oval racing simulator in this decade (yet allow modding). As you surely know, LFS lacks a good oval (only has a superspeedway, which is pointless to race on with low-powered, or high-powered + downforce cars), the cars (neither comes close to NASCAR specs), the setup options (suspension not independently/asymmetrically adjustable) and most importantly the aero model (frontrunner gets no push, resulting in completely unrealistic constant two- or three-way slingshotting each other).

For LFS you basically have to see what it is capable of now and decide if you like it, because you can't expect serious changes to be made quickly. Regard it as 'finished' and be glad about every update and addition that comes along the way, because as it looks now you won't see them all too often. Waiting for feature X to be implemented is like waiting for ice to melt in the freezer - don't do it.

Either way, if you're serious about sim racing I'd recommend you to get a force feedback wheel ASAP, at best a G25 if the budget allows it. Sure you can become very fast with just keyboard or mouse, but that way you rob yourself most of the immersion a good race sim provides.

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Quote from AndroidXP :

LFS is a very good sim, though unfortunately progress is (very) slow. Personally, I very much doubt LFS will become a usable oval racing simulator in this decade (yet allow modding).

...oh, that is very unfortunate.

At the rate that 3D engine technology is progressing, by the time this decade is out, a huge development megacorp like EA will have already released a general-purpose racing simulation engine that will support all vehicles (cars, motorcycles, bicycles) and all tracks, fully support modding, and all the data will be in a database. In my humble opinion.

- Grampa

There's NASCAR Racing 2003, but it's as rare as hen's teeth and commands pretty high prices in the US on eBay (IIRC we're talking three digits ... and that's pounds, not dollars).

rFactor is acceptable for oval racing, it comes with a (fictional) stock car mod and a clone of Daytona, a Bristol-esque half miler and a 1.5 mile track called Orchard Lake. The addon tracks are good, but the addon oval cars aren't so good.

It would be good fun to have a NASCAR-style stock car in LFS, there's already one appropriate oval (Kyoto) and several good road courses. One or more new ovals and rolling starts would be needed.

If LFS was open to modification, it would be an interesting idea but as the first isn't going to happen I don't think this one is likely.

Quote from GrampaD :

At the rate that 3D engine technology is progressing, by the time this decade is out, a huge development megacorp like EA will have already released a general-purpose racing simulation engine that will support all vehicles (cars, motorcycles, bicycles) and all tracks, fully support modding, and all the data will be in a database. In my humble opinion.

Actually I'm not so sure about this. Simracing is the niche of a niche product and big publishers usually only develop games if they look profitable (read: they are mass market compatible). It's hard enough to make profits on arcade racing games, true simulators are nigh on impossible to sell. There are only two ways to create such a product; one is minimizing the development cost (this is what LFS does, only three developers), or being fortunate enough to find a sponsor who is a sim racing enthusiast and doesn't care throwing a few million at development not expecting any returns quickly or at all (which is the iRacing way).

Quote from AndroidXP :

Actually I'm not so sure about this. Simracing is the niche of a niche product and big publishers usually only develop games if they look profitable (read: they are mass market compatible). It's hard enough to make profits on arcade racing games, true simulators are nigh on impossible to sell. There are only two ways to create such a product; one is minimizing the development cost (this is what LFS does, only three developers), or being fortunate enough to find a sponsor who is a sim racing enthusiast and doesn't care throwing a few million at development not expecting any returns quickly or at all (which is the iRacing way).

...Here's a great way of minimizing development costs: license somebody else's engine. Have you seen what the Source 7 engine can do in the way of vehicles? (Source7 is the engine behind Half-life 2)

- Grampa

The problem is not really the graphics engine but the physics behind it. HL2 might have good physics in general but not regarding the vehicles. Adding to that, last time I checked HL2's multiplayer code cannot handle vehicles properly at all, which is why there are no multiplayer racing mods. Also consider that licensing the Source engine is not cheap, nor did Source exist when LFS started development.

Actually I would be for increasing the dev team. Basically, adding 3 more people would reduce the development time by 2.

Of course, the development cost would be higher, but as suggested in another thread, selling the track banners as advertising space would create a base source of income, which would mean the devs' wealth would not be only linked to subscribers. Finally, new content in LFS will touch enthusiasts of this particular content and will result in new subscribers.
If the development goes faster, then you will have new enthusiasts faster.

Just look at how many new people have joined the LFS community since drift started to appear. Just my 2 cents, but I've learned about LFS by searching drift game or drift simulation on the web. I could discover its content and enjoy the thrill of racing which I only do now.

So basically, while Scavier develops some features, a new dev member/team could work on new content (such as Oval racing or Drag racing) and attract new customers, like Grampa Bubba J said (no offense, just a joke grampa ). More income for the devs.

Additional members to the dev team will be mandatory at one time or another, because they are now starting working on more complex stuff, which will take longer to develop. And as most of the new customers come when LFS is patched, this will delay the time between each wave of massive subscription. So, more devs will reduce this time, and make the new dev income less random.

Quote from Zen321 :

Actually I would be for increasing the dev team. Basically, adding 3 more people would reduce the development time by 2.

This, good sir, is a wrong assumption that has led to many failed projects and bankrupted companies. Throwing more people at a problem doesn't solve it faster, though granted, at such small numbers there would definitely be an increase in development speed (but less than double).

The point is, however, that Scawen knows very well how things could get done faster, he just doesn't want to employ someone and have all the management hassle that comes with it. After all, this hassle was the reason he left Lionhead and started his own little dev team, consisting only of himself as coder.

Quote from AndroidXP :

This, good sir, is a wrong assumption that has led to many failed projects and bankrupted companies. Throwing more people at a problem doesn't solve it faster, though granted, at such small numbers there would definitely be an increase in development speed (but less than double).

The point is, however, that Scawen knows very well how things could get done faster, he just doesn't want to employ someone and have all the management hassle that comes with it. After all, this hassle was the reason he left Lionhead and started his own little dev team, consisting only of himself as coder.

It is a wrong assumption when you reach number of people sufficiently high to counterbalance the increased returns in scales. (the Iraq war is the perfect example of it )
But for numbers that are below ten people, every increased in input leads to high increases in outputs, simply because 3 people can not work on all the aspects of the sims at the same time.

It is a management choice of Scawen, which is perfectly understandable as managing a little team = more control over the actions of everyone, which simulates a higher quality control which leads to a product of better quality. I don't know whether there is a hierarchy between Scavier, but if there is none, hiring 3 more people working as the sidekick for each member of Scavier will not compromise the whole LFS project.

By creating a hierarchy between Scawen and his sidekick coder, Eric and his sidekick modeller and Victor and his sidekick grapher, they will still have the quality control they have now, but twice as much "labour force" to complete their projects.

Just a few of Scawen's views on this:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=642006#post642006
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=851326#post851326
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=263151#post263151
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=857790#post857790
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=58389#post58389

I know what Scawen thinks, don't worry, and I can perfectly understand his view and his arguements. I am just telling that one day or another, he will need more people if he wants the sim to go further. I can understand that he wants LFS to be his baby. But having two more people help him code, and help Eric design will not male them lose their baby, if they spend the same time (sometimes more), etc

...Well, I'm a developer myself and I know all too well how much I hate being pushed to 'get it done now'. However, I think that there's gotta be a balance somewhere between failure/bankruptcy for rushing a project... and vaporware. Just look at Duke Nukem Forever. It too is controlled by just one coder, to the best of my knowledge. It'll be ready...'any month now'...

- Grampa

Why would people want to drive American cars? They are only "good" at straight lines...

Quote from GrampaD :

...I did search the forums - using google. The google site parameter does this. As for, the developers won't add american stuff like NASCAR cars and tracks, because the majority of their customers don't want it...so be it

- Grampa

It isn't that they won't add it, it just isn't a priority. I don't think it is a necessity for the product anyway. There are many Americans that are racing fans that have nothing to do with NASCAR or its products. I also wouldn't call LFS European centric. It is sports car / open wheel car centric with a nod towards natural road courses and street courses.
Personally, that is the way I like it.

There are plenty of Americans who can't stand NASCAR and oval racing in general. I am one of them.

And don't even get me started on DMG and what they're doing to American superbike racing.

Quote from G. Dierckx :

Why would people want to drive American cars? They are only "good" at straight lines...

As somebody already said... driving "perfect" cars would be boring so please no no no for anything like "it doesn't drive"... it's a challenge and at least it wont be boring! Btw. Plently of American cars can drive nowadays!

well, everyone his favorite driving thing...