just bought lfs.....now what

[hughesie89]

hey guys i have just bought s2 and i am wondering what to do you see just because i have the money doesn't mean i have the skill can anyone recommend a good steering wheel that is cheap cus i keep losing in s2 races with the keyboard

[Davo]

G25 or DFP for a wheel. Check out the aussie league and arse forum for more info. http://www.australasianleague.com

[fragile_dog]

hey guys i have just bought s2 and i am wondering what to do you see just because i have the money doesn't mean i have the skill can anyone recommend a good steering wheel that is cheap cus i keep losing in s2 races with the keyboard

dude... you're just going to lose in s2 races period. You need to take the lfs career mode, realise you're crap... get better beating your pb's get nearer the mid pack, learn to overtake and be over taken. learn to get faster then these peeps, then join a league to get some real compution (im at the second stage, beating my PB's)

fd

[XCNuse]

...what career mode....?

dont listen to him hes drunk

all you have to do is just find some servers, race around and pick some you enjoy, then slowly get used to each of the tracks and then learn them

you definately need a wheel though! keyboard isn't gonna cut it if you want to get serious ;)

[Riders Motion]

And do not never give up if your style is side wayz, because drifting is hard :thumb:

[XCNuse]

And do not never give up if your style is side wayz, because drifting is hard :thumb:
uh.. did you purposely put a double negative in there "not never"? lol

just practice.. theres no 'real' way of learning the ways of LFS, just get in any car (and i mean any) and just .. go find a track you want to learn and just tear it up

[thisnameistaken]

And do not never give up if your style is side wayz

"Sideways". It's one word, and ends with an S, not a Z.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that the last time you saw it written was in the 1980s, when the letter Z was sometimes substituted for the letter S by complete cretins, to make the words they were using uglier and more stupid-looking.

[dawesdust_12]

I think that you could pull a Kev and go for a WR (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=14214&highlight=Kev). Do some of the STCC licence driving, or just find a server that you enjoy the people occupying it (dSRC?) and just have fun.

[Riders Motion]

"Sideways". It's one word, and ends with an S, not a Z.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that the last time you saw it written was in the 1980s, when the letter Z was sometimes substituted for the letter S by complete cretins, to make the words they were using uglier and more stupid-looking.

Sidewayzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sounds good nah? :razz:

[Hyperactive]

hey guys i have just bought s2 and i am wondering what to do you see just because i have the money doesn't mean i have the skill can anyone recommend a good steering wheel that is cheap cus i keep losing in s2 races with the keyboard

Just pick a car and track that has players online, do some practise laps offline to learn the track and try to get within... say... 5 seconds of the world record on that track. After that put some Ai drivers and drive against them. The Ai drivers are complete a**holes (:D) but the thing you can learn with driving against the Ais is to avoid collisions and learn to overtake cleanly. Never hit anyone, especially from behind and be prepared that the other drivers may brake early and can drive a bit carelessly. A good car to start with the FXR. It is fast, fairly easy to drive and has lots of grip. Just have fun and don't spoil the fun for others and you will enjoy the experience.

Welcome to LFS :)

[hughesie89]

what about a good steering wheel
and has anyone tried the wireless xbox 360 one

i am looking for one that works with both

[Becky Rose]

Logitech (http://www.logitech.com) make the excellent G25 in my totally biased opinion. :)

[Cue-Ball]

what about a good steering wheel
and has anyone tried the wireless xbox 360 one

i am looking for one that works with bothA wheel that works with "both", being the PC and the Xbox 360? Sorry. No such animal exists.

[Jakg]

what about a good steering wheel
and has anyone tried the wireless xbox 360 one

i am looking for one that works with bothworks with both? that wheel is your best bet, but far from good

[Crashgate3]

I've had S2 for about a month and am very quickly realising that pretty much everyone online is incredibly good at this game. Be prepared to lose *a lot*. Don't let it dishearten you however, as the feeling you get when you start finishing in the top half of the pack is brilliant. The main thing to get over is the difference between online play and single-player driving games, which are usually made deliberately easy to cope with the short attention-span of the mainstream audience.

My suggestion is to pick a track, pick a (low powered) car and practice as much as you can, then when you have mastered that, change track. The LFS desktop ( http://www.lfsworld.net ) is a weatlth of useful information, particularly the Hot-lap section. Here you can download replays of the world record laps so you can study the lines and braking points to see how best to drive.

The STCC servers are also a good place to start learning how to drive in a pack, as they are tiered, generally keeping you with drivers of a similar skill - you have to earn points to be allowed access to the servers running the faster cars.

Also, the Caribbean Cruise servers are a good start as the emphasis is on simply driving about rather than balls-out racing. This allows you to have fun, enjoy the occasional spur-of-the-moment race and generally get to know the cars and one of the most used tracks in the game in an environment where you don't always have to be pushing each car to its limits.



As for wheels, I recommend the Logitech Driving Force Pro ( have one and its brilliant). It has 900 degrees of movement compared to 360 degrees of most wheels, seperate axis for the brake and accelerator and both a paddle and sequential stick gearshift. Its RRP is £99.99 (around AU$250) but if you shop around you can get one for under £70 (AU$175). Its intended for the Playstation 2, but as its USB, works perfectly on the PC, using the drivers for the Logitech MOMO wheel, which you can get from their website.

If money is no object, you can go up to the Logitech G25, which has a proper clutch and 'H' style gearshift but at £200 RRP (nearly AU$500!) its a bit dear for most people.

[Jakg]

erm, the DFP (and Momo) are both £50, and a LOT of LFS'ers (inc me, only mines dead) use the G25 which costs £140 (+ Postage)

[Crashgate3]

erm, the DFP (and Momo) are both £50, and a LOT of LFS'ers (inc me, only mines dead) use the G25 which costs £140 (+ Postage)

:wtf2: OK... I don't know why I thought they were that price....:chairs:

I think I may have been looking at a price list that was a year or so old...


I still think £140 is a bit steep for a wheel unless you start to take LFS very, very seriously.

[thisnameistaken]

I still think £140 is a bit steep for a wheel unless you start to take LFS very, very seriously.

Given that you get a set of three pedals, a high-quality FFB wheel and a H-pattern shifter it's actually pretty good value. Or it is if you get one that doesn't break in 3 months which a lot of them appear to do.

[Jakg]

I still think £140 is a bit steep for a wheel unless you start to take LFS very, very seriously.i have spent £70 on a Momo (loooooong while ago), and then £60 on a set of new high quality pedals, and after buying my G25 i absolutely love(d) it, it feels like its worth more like £500!

I miss it :(Given that you get a set of three pedals, a high-quality FFB wheel and a H-pattern shifter it's actually pretty good value. Or it is if you get one that doesn't break in 3 months which a lot of them appear to do.mine went for 2 months! :D

[Greboth]

i have spent £70 on a Momo (loooooong while ago), and then £60 on a set of new high quality pedals, and after buying my G25 i absolutely love(d) it, it feels like its worth more like £500!

I miss it :(mine went for 2 months! :D

Oh gawd, mines getting on 2 months old now :( *touch wood*

First thing i did when i got s2 was go and race the fox at westhill, not the best idea though lol. After that i raced round blackwood to find a car i liked (FXR) and learnt it round blackwood. Then switched to FXR other tracks, learnt other tracks. Got bored of the FXR and learnt other cars at the tracks i knew. Eventually you find you know all the tracks - not in all cars but you know the track well enough to not crash ont he first lap in a new car.

[Shotglass]

what about a good steering wheel
and has anyone tried the wireless xbox 360 one

i am looking for one that works with both

xbox wheels dont have ffb so dont buy one

[keiran]

I still think £140 is a bit steep for a wheel unless you start to take LFS very, very seriously.

I guess you've not seen the prices of the BRD wheels :p

Keiran

[Crashgate3]

Heh.. I'm sure there are people who could have bought a real racing car with the amount they have spend on their sim setup :D

[Jakg]

the rather snazzy rotating cockpit which is a complete setup will put you back $38,000, makes the G25 seem cheap in comparison :D

[geeman1]

I still think £140 is a bit steep for a wheel unless you start to take LFS very, very seriously.
LFS, serious business :smileypul

[Crashgate3]

For all my talk of 'a bit steep' I must confess to buying TrackIR 4 at the same time as I got my wheel...:tilt:

[Mysteroius]

grab a cheap (or better more expensive second hand) joy, gets you racing for under $20AU, its a bit odd at the start but its tonnes better than KB or Mouse.

[KurtG85]

Well, practice is helpfull but some basic instruction on racing 'techniques' such as understanding of the friction circle, the effects of weight shifting on traction and handling, and how much to properly turn the wheel for the given bend are all extremely helpfull for the newbie learning to race. I had to search around the web for weeks to find out about all these techniques when i was new to the game. I was allready able to get all the super licenses on gran turismo 3 so I was pretty experienced with going fast in a racing game but the more subtle and realistic physics of LFS made the application of advanced techniques necessary to even be competitive. For some reason there is practically NO information easily available for new sim drivers on these techniques. The racing guides I have seen on places like IGN.com or something are complete jokes and often give dead wrong information. Ive written out some long ass guides in forums before and whenever i see someone new online I allways take the time to personally coach them about things they need to change.

Actually understanding the techniques you need to be improving is when racing games get fun. Flying blind and going slow/crashing when you dont even know what your supposed to be TRYING to do is when racing games are nothing but frustrating. This is the reason I HATED any racing games for most of my videogame playing life especially sims, and this is a big reason alot of people still hate racing sim games (ie. the reason they arent more popular). Its a shame sim racing games dont introduce new players to the techniques needed to have fun with them. LFS does a better job than most at introducing beginner drivers to the techniques they need through the license tests but it is still not thorough enough.

Anyone know of a thorough guide for racing techniques that isnt a discussion on advanced physics that few people can understand? I think thats what this guy and all beginners need. That and a wheel or some other analog device. :)

[undertech]

http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving/driving_cornering.shtml has some nice basic stuff. The site is a bit of a mess right now but a bit of digging goes a long way.
Anyway, I don't think it's the lack of information that turns off a lot of newbies; it's the fact that they simply don't want to deal with simulating reality (putting in effort) when it comes to racing. Many enjoy the NFS or Outrun-style of driving "physics" and LFS is like a slap in the face to them. (the dreaded understeer on T1 as they approach it full throttle and full lock) Of those who manage to get S2, I can only imagine that the FOX is the next closest thing to what they perceive as "proper" cars.
GT imo is popular not just because it has all the c00l c4rz and tr4ckz (95% of the reason) but because it bridges the total arcade and sim in terms of physics (the other 5%). Basically, it is not as brutal, should you screw up, as LFS. (example: if you go way off, you're just bumped back onto the road, not into the gravel pit from where you shall never return)

[KurtG85]

I know I allways WANTED to learn the (more realistic than most console racing games) physics of gran turismo through gran turismo 1, 2 and 3 but because there was no instruction anywhere on techniques like how to determine the proper racing line (well, actually they had that but it was merely a tease and made things even more frustrating when you didnt understand the techniques to stay on the line), and all the other techniques I mentioned, I wound up hating gran turismo 1 and 2. It was just pure frustration cause I didnt know what i was doing wrong. I forced myself through an insane amount of frustrating trial and error to finally understand how to drive the cars fairly fast in gt3. That took me like 4 months of trial and error and it was by absolutely no means enjoyable in the least (except for when I finally started succeding however). After a ton of frustration at not being able to improve my speed once I reached a certain point, when I was doing everything they told me to do 100% perfectly, I went online and searched forever (like I said, insanely inaccessible, confusing, and often contradictory info on driving techs) and finally found the reason I was screwing up a corner. It was due to the fact I wasnt trail braking, or balancing the car on 4 wheels through the corner or something like that which gran turismo, nor any other racing sim I have ever played adequetly explains the importance of or even how to do it.
So anyway, what im saying is a hell of alot more people would play sim games like LFS if there were adequate tutorials of some kind to help new people along. Im not denying that plenty of people are just completely uninterested in sim physics though regardless of how much help you give them with learning proper racing techniques.
Also im not bashing LFS on this for not being newb friendly or something at all. Im just saying its amazing the lack of available info newbs are faced with. There should be thousands of newb friendly guides on racing techniques it seems, but there are practically none!
That site was actually one of the most helpfull and easy to understand sources of info I remember finding. Thanks for posting that undertech. Someone should sticky that site, or a better one if there is one, to the top of the newb forum! For the love of god! :razz::nod: