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The LFS NASCAR Experiment
(265 posts, started )
All that's needed is a 3D model, textures and the name "International Stock Car"?
Quote from duke_toaster :All that's needed is a 3D model, textures and the name "International Stock Car"?

International Stock Car sounds cool

I agree with the 3D model and textures. Although i know nothing about creating a new car in LFS (so anyone can prove me wrong on this), I think the hard part of creating a stock car officially in LFS is already done with the internals.
Quote from lizardfolk :Although i know nothing about creating a new car in LFS (so anyone can prove me wrong on this)

People are making new cars for LFS I am assuming Bob has already changed the car shape he just can't release it.
Quote from sil3ntwar :I am assuming Bob has already changed the car shape he just can't release it.

You assume incorrectly, I'm no 3D artist, nor have I investigated how to change the shape as it seems rather pointless given the devs stance on it. My motivation is never purely personal, I want others to be able to appreciate and enjoy or benefit from my work, if only to boost my ego.

I'll be online from 1pm to 2pm (local time) again today - my lunchbreak - if anyone fancies annihilating me.

I'm also interested in comparisons between this car and sims like NASCAR 2003, I want to know where things differ and how I might make this mod more accurate, given the limitations of symmetric tyre dimensions, suspension, brakes, etc, and no live axle at the rear.
Quote from Bob Smith :I'm also interested in comparisons between this car and sims like NASCAR 2003, I want to know where things differ and how I might make this mod more accurate, given the limitations of symmetric tyre dimensions, suspension, brakes, etc, and no live axle at the rear.

NR2003 has a heavier feel to the car. The rebound and compression sets are way softer than what you have in your standard setup. Other than that, every difference I notice in car behaviour can be changed by having an asymmetric setup. Unfortunately that leaves us with very few options to fix behaviour. Namely tire pressures.
Quote from Bob Smith :iRacing may be coming up with licenced NASCAR content, but unlike EA's recently expired five year deal, it's not exclusive rights, so no other company is excluding from joining in. Of course I can't see the LFS devs paying for a licence, or wanting to directly compete with iRacing sooner than they have to.

The LFS devs won't need to pay for a licence. Several sims have cars like it. NASCAR do not own the intellectual property rights to a 5.7 litre V8 rear wheel drive car. They own the IP for the NASCAR name et al. Besides, LFS would not be in competition with iRental, as it's on an over-priced subscription scheme, and is posing itself as some mixture of Jesus and Chuck Norris in sim form.
Of course, this is exactly how we have several look-a-like vehicles already. Generic 200mph stock car could easily find it's way into LFS, should the devs wish, but the same could be said for a hundred, if not a thousand, different uniquely identifyable vehicles.
Yes, but you have researched physics. Other people dicking around with tweaks haven't.
Am I the only one btw who thinks this car has potential to be good on road courses as well?
Quote from hyntty :Am I the only one btw who thinks this car has potential to be good on road courses as well?

your not the only one
but i don't think i would have the potential to be able to drive it(i can't even drive the XRT!)
Quote from Bob Smith :Of course, this is exactly how we have several look-a-like vehicles already. Generic 200mph stock car could easily find it's way into LFS, should the devs wish, but the same could be said for a hundred, if not a thousand, different uniquely identifyable vehicles.

The car that you created Bob isn't just someone messing around and not caring about realism. You have researched the internals of the stock car and you have used the best of LFS's ability to emulate it. This in itself excludes this mod from many other mods (if not all of them).

The thing is, the devs doesn't necessarily have to stick to a particular guideline to incorporating mods. Look at ARCA Sim Racing devs, they allow user submitted content to be officially incorporated into the game but their selection process isn't dictated by any rules or guideline.

Very simply, if the community wants it, and if it satisfies the devs then it will be incorporated. Is this process sometimes arbitrary? Of course, but you are the devs and you hold the right to adding or excluding w/e you want. Therefore I dont see how allowing this mod to be officially incorporated would be a prelude for other no-effort mods to be added as well.

Currently the devs have a lot to gain by making this official along with the Scirocco. Yeh, there's only 1 oval. So what? Stock car isn't necessarily exclusively oval and there's still oval leagues out there that uses autoX short track ovals as well. So while I would like to see more oval tracks (especially a Bristol or Dover) it isn't necessarily critical.
Quote from lizardfolk :The car that you created Bob isn't just someone messing around and not caring about realism. You have researched the internals of the stock car and you have used the best of LFS's ability to emulate it. This in itself excludes this mod from many other mods (if not all of them).

The thing is, the devs doesn't necessarily have to stick to a particular guideline to incorporating mods. Look at ARCA Sim Racing devs, they allow user submitted content to be officially incorporated into the game but their selection process isn't dictated by any rules of guideline.

Very simply, if the community wants it, and if it satisfies the devs then it will be incorporated. Is this process sometimes arbitrary? Of course, but you are the devs and you hold the right to adding or excluding w/e you want. Therefore I dont see how allowing this mod to be officially incorporated would be a prelude for other no-effort mods to be added as well.

Currently the devs have a lot to gain by making this official along with the Scirocco. Yeh, there's only 1 oval. So what? Stock car isn't necessarily exclusively oval and there's still oval leagues out there that uses autoX short track ovals as well. So while I would like to see more oval tracks (especially a Bristol or Dover) it isn't necessarily critical.

i totally agree.
BTW anyone wanna get on the stock car server?
Quote from lizardfolk :The car that you created Bob isn't just someone messing around and not caring about realism. You have researched the internals of the stock car and you have used the best of LFS's ability to emulate it.

Maybe so, but I don't see this as being particularly exceptional tbh. It's only a couple of days work. Part of my job is to research everything I can about cars, and then to estimate and fill in all the blanks. I can get 90% of the info I'm ever likely to find in a couple of hours on google, I think I was working at around 6 cars per day at one point, when I was doing exclusively data research. Filling in the blanks and fine tuning of these parameters for handling is clearly a longer task, but I've spent years creating tools and estimators to help get those blanks filled in with sensible values (a fair portion of those now being in VHPA, and the other spreadsheets and applets will no doubt work their way in over time), but I think you can get easily get the majority of cars 95% ready within a day. Of course, that final 5% can make a big difference to driveability*, and it's important to spend the time getting them right in sim (I mean, who wants to churn out crap? not me), especially in cases where all the estimated numbers create a car that handles plain bad.

*I should add, this car has not been through that final 5%, I was hoping to get feedback on that through the release of this mod

I will admit to being surprised by Vic's reaction when I spoke to him at last year's karting meet and told him about the number of cars planning to go into one of the games I'm working on, and that it's basically just me setting them all up, and the time frame involved. I find it curious to think how long the LFS devs work on the handling of a car (in normal circumstances, clearly the Scirocco brings new features with it, which greatly increases the time involved), when so much is adjustable through the setup, and the default sets are invariably poor.
It's hard to find that final 5% (with this mod) within LFS, because of LFS' limitations. There's many actually, and it gets very aggrevating.

-Aero
-Independant suspension adjustments
-Tire wear
-Tire compounds
-No way of changing wedge and trackbar.
-Tire pressures should be able to go down to about 10psi, but not above 60psi.
-Probably more, can't think about it atm.

What type of feedback you actually looking for?
That's true, this mod will never be accurate for those reasons, and thinking about it, without those larger issues fixed, it's hard to pick up on subtler issues, like suspension settings (including front geometry, I only had one reference photo to go from, and it was taken from a less than ideal position).

Your point on tyre pressures is a good one too, what is the maximum that would ever be used in real life?

I've just done some more testing, I make better laptimes using R4 compound tyres, as I can run lower tyre pressures (50psi) without the tyres melting, which presumably more than makes up for harder compound. Increased rolling resistance takes a couple of mph from the end of the straights, but I'm faster the in bends, so all in all it acts like adding downforce.

I am finding the trailing arm suspension at the rear a pain, it's very difficult to prevent more load ending up on the outside of the tyre. Given that is the opposite end of the spectrum compared to a live axle, perhaps using double wishbone suspension at the rear would be a better compromise? It suspect it would make the beast a bit more tame to drive.

I am also considering testing dropping the CoG by a cm or so, and perhaps moving the static weight distribution back a little bit, but then the fuel tank forward a little bit, so the dynamic weight distribution stays at 51% rear regardless of fuel. Might make life a little easier for that front right tyre.
One minor issue is that R/L NASCAR gear doesn't have pit limiters IIRC, but aside from that the only issue I can think of would need small LFS.exe changes (read : adjustable wedge or diagonal weight distribution) or even more LFS.exe changes (read : engine blowups for grille tape). But then again, there are as many issues with the BF1 (the plethora of adjustable things whilst the car like fuel mixtures, diff setings and things that aren't useful).
I'm not quite sure on how high/low the tire pressure normally goes, as I'm not a pit crew member for a NASCAR team.

If I had to make an educated guess I would say it would never go above 48-50psi. The reasoning they don't go higher on the psi is because it would either make the car bounce (ie: Daytona), or it would just make the car slide (less grip). On the flip side, the lowest I have ever heard the psi is about 9-11 psi in the left front, and that was only at short tracks like Martinsville and Richmond.

And no, they don't have pit limiters.
This may be of limited use, since it's a different tire company on different cars, but here's what Hoosier recommends for ARCA stock cars.

https://www.hoosiertire.com/arcasp09.HTM

Note that they use inner-liners at superspeedways, as does NASCAR.
Ah, that's a good find, cheers. I'm assuming the higher figures are for the inner liners? In which case, they're only running 55 psi even at the superspeedways, and Kyoto Ring Oval classifies as an intermediate (under 2 miles). Although those figures are cold pressures, and in LFS we set the warm pressures (I presume pressure when at optimum temp, Scawen wouldn't clarify any further). So 60psi as an upper limit sounds good to me. I did try driving with 70psi but I just lost too much grip, and didn't really keep the tyres much cooler.

I knew about the pit limiter, but that gets applied along with the slick tyres. Plus, you've always got the option not to use it.
Kyoto is unusual in that its banking at least seems to be steeper than other 2 milers - anyone know how steep it actually is?
Quote from duke_toaster :Kyoto is unusual in that its banking at least seems to be steeper than other 2 milers - anyone know how steep it actually is?

it seems around 20+ in the second turn it seems around 15 in turn one and the last turn.
hey can i get that stuff for an xrg?
No, you have to have S2 in order to use this.

Quote from Bob Smith :I knew about the pit limiter, but that gets applied along with the slick tyres. Plus, you've always got the option not to use it.

Doesn't the MRT have slicks and no limiter? Not a real problem though.
Quote from duke_toaster :
Doesn't the MRT have slicks and no limiter? Not a real problem though.

And the FBM and the FOX
Put that pressure data into a table:


Everything I'm finding on hot tyre pressures tell me they should be 5 to 10% higher than cold, so I went with 10% so I can get a pressure reference for LFS.

The LFS NASCAR Experiment
(265 posts, started )
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