Hi!

I've made daily-driver sets for the Gti and GT.
I'd really like to start a production cup, but forcing a set is not possible in LFS. How could one enforce a fixed setup cup?

Would sound like fun to me. I think the only way to enforce it would be to have a few things.

1) Trust all the participants in playing fair by not cheating (not changing setup)
2) Have them send the given fixed setup after each race is over... If they pit after the race is over, then put them up for speculation
3) Make sure the setup is driveable and is likeable for every participant. Maybe give the first couple weeks of the season opener to test the fixed setup you will use for the entire season so people can get used to it and make comments where neccessary.

No way of checking with some tool as far as I know, so those are the only 3 things I could possibly think of.

You may want to consider having a few options freely changeable though, like Fuel amounts. However things like seating position, tire pressures, steering ratio, tire compound, etc... those should be fixed. The controls of the player can all be personalized in the options, so there wouldn't really be a problem with having the car as being 'undriveable'.

All in all, it would be tough to enforce, and you have to be spot-on with all your procedures to make sure everyone is playing fair. Other than that, everything else with your planning and car/track choice would go as any other league does I guess.

It's a nice idea, but wouldnt' be for all - how about keyboard / mouse players who use very different setups for control input reasons? Then there is variance in driving style, I cannot drive other peoples sets - and vice versa...

Asking a field of cars to drive on the limit in your driving style is asking for lots of accidents.

On the other hand, setup-phobes may well appreciate it.

Anyway I rattle on needlessly, to answer your question I understand (maybe incorrectly) that the setup data is held inside the replay file. There is no current method of extracting that setup unless the other player sends you authorisation to do so, and this is the way it should be because in other races it would then be possible to extract other peoples setups if they dont want to give them.

So unless somebody makes a setup ripping tool, or more usefully for you a setup comparing tool, there's no automated way to do this.

Mouse and Keyboarders can deal with most setups, but for this case, the league would probably have to suffice to a very dulled-down setup that is easy for everybody.

Also, atledreier kind of mentions a 'production' cup, so it sounds as if the target cars would be the road cars. From what I have seen, the race cars in S2 are not that easy for Keyboard and Mouse users. But for road cars, they can stay within a respectible range to that of wheel drivers.

It is very possible to make a 'universal' setup... and the end result would probably make a setup that is no 'world record' setup, but a decent race-pace setup that anyone could drive. As I said in my previous post, you would probalby need several weeks of testing before the season starts to allow people to join together and make a decision on a final fixed setup to be used. It would take a while and require some adjustments back and forth, but in the end it would allow people to agree.

Afterall, most setups these days are not that different with driving styles. In S1 it was different, many people had setups that others could just not drive at all. But with S2, I haven't seen that very often anymore. Everyone just uses very similar setups, and not much changes to meet their preference from what I've seen.

And there are loads of options in your player control setups to get the right feel you want, it isn't just the setup.

I think a universal setup would be easy to adjust to, it would just need to be very forgiving overall, like a real production car .

You could use something like Bob's Easy Race setups. Those are drivable by about anyone.
To check the setup of everybody have each driver send his setup to you directly after the race. Everyone who warps into pits or otherwise fails to prove his setup will be penalized. The recieved setups can be inspected wether they are according to regulations.

But you can't restrict tyre pressure, camber and wing-angles. People can just drive in the pits and change the tyre pressure on the fly. Also the brake-bias and anti-roll-bars can be changed live on the track.

Vain

Quote from Vain :

For example, you can't restrict tyre pressure, camber and wing-angles. People can just drive in the pits and change the tyre pressure on the fly.

Ahh good point. Then LFS would indeed need some simple restrictions in affect to not allow such changes I guess

Quote from Vain :

Also the brake-bias and anti-roll-bars can be changed live on the track.

I think this idea could really only apply to the road cars, where those settings are not possible (same with wing angles in the pits).

And you could always ban pitting!

The setups I made are simulated road cars, not raceprepped at all. Not even sporty. So tall, soft suspension, understeer, all the thing we all know and love from our own cars. me and Lazer had a LOT of fun racing these sets, because the cars act so much like your family car would. So the sets are pretty forgiving, and mouse/kb should handle them fine. The point is that the field is even, and the ones that can wring the most out of the car will win in the end. Running the actual league is pretty basic, and I have the apparatus to back that up. The idea of having everybody send the set before pitting is a good one. Of course one can change fuel and tire pressure, you can do that on any car, so you should be able to do it on track.

Good ideas, everybody, I'll set this up as soon as possible!

PS. watching my setups in action on the skidpan is awesome!

Do you keep to the stock suspension of similar cars or do you use cup-suspensions? Usually the manufacturer's cups have a harder suspension for their cup.

Vain

I would recommend tyre pressures are kept the same, you can change these on all cars, but if you want to you can also change suspension settings.....

It depends how even you want the field, different tyre pressures cange the grip level and tyre life quite a bit!

i wouldn't let people change tyre pressures.
if you going to go to the effort to make people use the same setups they may aswell be exactly the same.
get everyone to pull into a "parc freme" after the race and one by one send u their setups for u to review after the race.
if anyone pits of spectates disqualify them.

Well.. In any car you can easily control and adjust the tirepressures. In the Lupo cup you can. It's the one parameter you are allowed to adjust, along with fuel.

Why not just use the standard "Hard Track" setup for the cars if you want a fixed setup league? That would be the easiest way to do it. No worrying about distributing your setup. You can still change the fuel loadout, and when it changes your tires, and the like, but the car setups would be uniform otherwise. I think this would be a lot of fun to participate in, but which cars are going to be running? The XF GTi and...?

Quote from Hatemaker :

Why not just use the standard "Hard Track" setup for the cars if you want a fixed setup league?

Because [Hard Track] is not a setup but the soulless materialization of american car engineering from hell?
No one wants to drive that! And no one'd participate in that league if the setup was [hard track].

@ Americans:

Vain

Quote from atledreier :

Well.. In any car you can easily control and adjust the tirepressures. In the Lupo cup you can. It's the one parameter you are allowed to adjust, along with fuel.

yes i'm aware of that, but thats in the "real world" where the track tempeture varies along with the weather.
i think it would just be more level if you didn't allow anyone change anything.

I made some vids to show a little bit of what my road sets are all about. Not very inspiring, and the low framerate take a lot of the subtlety out of all the little chassis movements, but still..

I will release the sets when they are tested a little more...

GTi (30Mb)
GT (30Mb)

The vids are streamed from my server at home, so expect a little slowdowns...

A few modifications to the set, after some very constructive feedback by Xpsionic.

LFSimp (25Mb)
(The video came out really choppy, no idea why...?)

w00t - those Vids look awesome. Sorry I couldn't help sort 'em out tonight (Bloody router problems), but I'm up for joining/helping with the production cup