Live for sped updates on patch for April

Posted by keiran

Live for sped updates on patch for April
Date: April 14, 2006 01:41AM
Posted by: keiran

Registered: 20 years ago

Every day the LFS devs will reveal something new which will be included in the patch, so check out [www.liveforspeed.net]

So far it goes

On the simulation side, things have been coming along well. Eric has recently worked some more on the Aston track, including graphical improvements, texture changes and a new configuration (or two). Scawen has worked on some aerodynamic improvements, most notably, the drag and downforce from wings work correctly depending on their real angle of motion, not just the user setting. A recent push on tyre physics has resulted in much better tyres which have improved the car handling and driving experience a lot. We have also been experimenting with another interesting feature as well...

Day 1
Tyre Sidewalls :
Here are two pictures showing the new tyre sidewalls. Four manufacturers are selectable in the car setup screen. For now, the different manufacturers are selected only for graphical effect... Plain tyres are selected by default on the road cars.

Day 2
Aero physics improvements :
There were two main problems with the downforce calculations in previous S2 Alpha versions : (1) Leaning your car backwards could make the downforce aim slightly forwards, giving a noticeable reduction in drag. This led to the "high nose exploit" and is clearly wrong. It has now been fixed so we won't see everyone using raised front suspension any more. (2) The reduction in drag and downforce when slipstreaming was too severe and acted over the whole car equally, usually causing the loss of rear end grip if you drove too close behind another car in a corner. The effect has been reduced significantly, and is different on the front and rear wings. You now expect to lose more grip on the front end, and not lose control of the car completely, so closer racing is now possible in the cars with downforce.

Day 3 *UPDATE*
Single seater dashboards :
Just a small graphical enhancement to show you today. Tyre and aero physics have been improved a lot recently. The slipstreaming improvements will make the single seater racing cars even more popular. So we spent a few hours making a special dashboard for the Formula XR and Formula V8.

New Dials *AGAIN*

Day 4
Tyre physics :
The way the tyres perform is the most important thing about the behaviour of any vehicle. If the tyres are wrong, you might as well forget about your nice suspension, rigid chassis and all the rest of it!

For racing simulations too, tyres are the key to handling. They are also the toughest thing to get right. A rubber body reinforced with various materials, inflated with air, subjected to loads in various directions, heating, cooling, wearing out... it's a challenge!

We have been on the case recently to meet this challenge and make sure each tyre behaves as realistically as possible, and as well as possible, under all those varying conditions. The key points to how the car feels, are longitudinal behaviour (the way the tyres provide forces under acceleration or braking, which make them rotate at slightly - or greatly - different speeds compared with the car's motion) and lateral behaviour (the way the tyres provide forces under cornering, when their rolling direction is slightly - or greatly - different from their actual direction of motion). And finally, just how these forces are combined together when both of those are happening at the same time - accelerating out of a corner, braking into a corner, etc.

Day 5
Up close : the new Aston configs
Earlier this month we disclosed the addition of 2 new configurations of the Aston racetrack. Today's pictures will give you a good indication of what you can expect them to be like.

"Aston Grand Touring" (5ml / 8km) "Aston North" (3.2ml / 5.2km)

vMax.Keiran
Velocity Maximum Simulation Racing
www.vMaxSR.com
www.liveforspeed.net LFS Status:

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2006 06:41PM by keiran.