Quote from Hyperactive :

But it wouldn't work because of few things:
- penalties would be given by ai, or scripts and triggers. There is huge chance that majority of penalties on first laps would be harsh or unneeded as well as decent amount of all penalties as well because ai can't make a difference between accident avoidance, loss of control, accidental cut by just few millimetres and straight-forward cutting with no intention to even stay ont track.

It would be the same for everyone. Also it would very likely, after a period of assimilation, cut out that mad scramble for places at T1. We are supposed to be in control after all!

Quote from Hyperactive :

Tire stacks are an ok system, they clearly show where you can go. Although it would be even better if the tyre collision physics were much better and also bigger tire stacks were available.

I get more whinges about tyre stacks being 'on the racing line' when clearly they are not, than anything else. This, I think, is because LFSers have come to regard cutting as legitimate.
We'll just have to bumble along as usual until a solution is found. In my opinion an answer is necessary if LFS is to 'grow up'

Quote from Shotglass :

pickup truck racing? this is getting a bit too american

getting?

You're quite right, stewards interpret the rules. Basically, they're looking for the piss takers or the downright dangerous!
Maybe in LFS we need our governing body,the Devs, to state what they think is 'legal' and put in place a method of punishment much the same way as speeding in the pitlane, failing to pit etc. but ditch the arcadey messages splashed across the screen. (that's a different subject though) Even if it was a server option like no resetting or compulsory pitting at least it would stop the ongoing, never ending 'cutting' debate.

EDIT: It would eliminate the need for tyre stacks as well.

Quote from [DUcK] :

so you're saying, if in real life, there was this corner that you had to cut, and everyone knew it was stupid to, but to win, you had to, that you wouldn't do it? that's just stupid.
it's got nothing to do with the people of lfs, there are some people who drive just to drive, there are some who race to win. the people that race to win, will bend the rules untill they snap, to win. this includes cutting. the chicanes in lfs for cutting, is like shoving a big mudcake infront of a fat kids face. ofcourse you're going to cut them, since most of them are taken flat out.
the point of this thread is that the chicanes should be made more proper, so people actually have to brake and slow down for them. then we would also get less damage, because you'd take them at a slower speed, unlike the flat out ones that are in lfs now. that's what they are for in real life anyway, to slow the track down.

2c

I think what he's saying is, that in real life at point on a track, i.e. a chicane, where liberties are taken, i.e. cutting (cutting is regarded as having all four wheels off the track. At least two wheels are to be on the track. The kerb is not the track.), a steward is stationed. If he notices a driver cutting deliberately that driver will/could be given a warning. If he does it again he will/could be black flagged! His race will/could be over. The stewards would have discretion. RAC Competitions rules. I don't know about the rest of the world.

Threaten him. Best in the long run. If your threats are effective that is. How big is he?

I don't know why you're all getting so worked up about it. It's not a sport, it's an entertainment! You know, like American idols and Britain's got talent

Quote from AlienT. :

Meh my first iRacing race using the Nixim G25 break mod and i've managed to pull my wheel from the bloody table during hard breaking.......not bloody easy to drive with your wheel in mid air
Been playing GTR Evo against the AI as a bit of light relief from iRacing, nice feeling to be able to batter your competitors, run of the track and not be punished Yes iRacing has made me a proud AI wrecker.

Get a piece of nonslip matting(looks like very small netting) to put between the wheel and the table. You know, the sort of stuff you put under carpets on a laminated or wood floor. You'll never pull your wheel off the table again!

Quote from amp88 :

Hamilton didn't leave a car's width between his left side tyres and the white line on the left of the track. He also did the same with Fisichella when he was overtaking, pushing him onto the white line and causing him to miss the first chicane. The point is that Hamilton didn't need to be doing that but he felt the need to.

Just like some real life LFS hotshots!

Yep! That'd do it.

Quote from Inouva :

Mmm , why dont use the Entire Hot lap system for all the Game , Single playar and multiplayer?

That was my suggestion only instead of invalidating the lap, dish out a penalty. But it got passed over. Maybe it's technically more difficult.

Kerbs define the edge of the track. The track is the black stuff. No grey there. Where do you draw the line? Track+kerb+green bit? Some would.

Are we all talking about the same 'cutting'? This the chicane before the home straight at Aston National and this illustrates what I consider cutting. A penalty of 5 seconds per infringement would soon see a difference in driving habits!

As far as I can tell route checkers spectate. That is too severe. a 5 second penalty tops. Enough to discourage cutting but not enough to really alienate the punters. They must also be on the lenient side as to how far out they extend.
@ Dawes. That's the very chicane that's bugging me at the moment.

Quote from Victor :

You know how with autox layouts you can create forbidden areas? I've done the same thing on the insim relay now. Just for one spot so far though; the blackwood chicane. If ppl drive around the chicane, they are forced back to spectating.
Atm that only works on our own host (connected to the relay), but i can make it an option on the relay setup pages if more people want that functionality. I can also easily add more forbidden areas on any other track if needed.

(why not just load an autox layout? Because our host is demo, which cannot load autox layouts)

Ha! Great minds. I've just been playing with autox layouts using invisible marshalls. When you go off line you're given a penalty but I'm not sure what that penalty relates to. I've tried a race with AI and funnily enough they all got a penalty first lap. They learnt very quickly not to do it again! I doubt humans would be so quick on the uptake. At the end of the race the penalties weren't shown nor accounted for on the results list.
Where can I find out more about the effects of marshalls, restricted areas, penalies etc?

Quote from Dajmin :

Sounds like a pretty decent idea as a placeholder until the damage modelling is sorted.

But now that we have the guide line thing, it's pretty damn easy to check whether an obstacle is actually on the racing line or not

I know that and you know that, but try convincing people that habitually cut chicanes that.

Sorry to drag this thread up but I didn't want to start another on the same subject.
My idea is to inflict cutters with a 5 second penalty every time they go off track. The technology is in place as in hotlapping. Go off track and lap is invalidated. Instead of invalidating, plonk a time penalty on 'em! How long would it take to train people up to the art of keeping it on the island?
No only that, you wouldn't have to put tyre stacks/straw bales in strategic places, which elicit howls of anguish (It's on the racing line!) and nothing needs to be done to the tracks themselves.
As a side issue it may well induce a little more care in the general driving standards
Thank you.

The Moose and Sinbad

Quote from ajp71 :

This is the only decent oval racing experience you'll find online (with the exception of any remaining N2003 racing and some organised rF/LFS events).

LFS isn't really suited for oval racing, it only has one boring track and no suitable cars for it and the popular pick up servers all have short races with standing starts (which a lot of the LFS oval racers struggle with) and bumpdrafting F1 cars, not really a touch on real short track racing, which I can understand the appeal of (and enjoyed in my brief stint with iRacing)

When I clicked that link I just KNEW it would be iRacing.
I have to say that since getting iRacing I've grown to love ovals. I would never imagined it could be so exciting.

Quote from titanLS :

I was surprised to find almost no learning curve with iRacing. LFS took me two years to consistently get within 2 seconds of the WR at a particular combo, iRacing took me 2 days...

Ah, I was referring to the 'wrinkles'. Things like, just go by your pitbox a tad before resetting, getting into the idea that you don't go off the track and tapping or being tapped by another car is a no-no. I have to say that I found the interface very confusing but after using it for a while I can't think why I whinged about it. Anyway, steep but short.

Last edited by Doorman, Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:28.

Learning curve=steep.

There's an awful lot of sense talked by this guy. It's long read but worth it:

Quote :

Racing Smarts AKA Savvy
There are a lot of ingredients in the recipe for winning races and series championships and all of them are crucial to success. That recipe includes a LARGE dose of racing savvy. You can do all of the right things preparing for the race but if you don’t do the right things during the race most of the time, your chances of winning it are very slim. Most people will preach about patience and after years of seeing it preached but very few people actually grasping the concept, I’ve decided to take a different approach. I’m not going to preach about patience; I’m going to preach about being smart.

First and foremost is to know your limitations and try your absolute hardest to never exceed them. You will, but you must try as hard as you can, not too. How do you know what your limitations are? Here’s an example, If you’re not absolutely positive that you can hold your line as you’re passing someone low going into a corner, you’ve exceeded your limitations. Even if you’ve successfully pulled off the maneuver, you still exceeded your limitations to that point. Every time you exceed your limitations but succeed, you’ll gain confidence until eventually you totally blow it and wipe out ½ the field which inevitably sets your confidence and your reputation way back, kind of like dieting by not eating. You lose weight for a while but put it all right back on because you’re starved. Confidence in racing should come just like everything else that provides true confidence, from your overall success, not individual instances of succeeding by exceeding. However, doing that offline against the AI is great practice.

Next, we need to discuss respect. Remember racing etiquette, if you don’t respect your competition, you’re not going to have much etiquette but even worse than that, you’re not very smart. There are lots of times when you’re going to have to have help from someone else on and off the track to win races. If you don’t respect anyone else in their endeavors to have fun with this, no one will respect or help you. If you think you can win races all on your own and enjoy this at the expense of others always taking and never giving, once again you’re not very smart and/or just plain masochistic. Now that we respect our competitors, and ourselves we can talk about the difference between being smart and being patient. If you’re a patient driver, you’re pretty darn smart. However, while you have to be patient, you also have to be aggressive. You’re a savvy driver when you know when and how to do both. I see lots of fast drivers, lots of very aggressive drivers, a few patient drivers, and very few savvy drivers. Most people rely on their own common sense when it comes to racing smarts but common sense to one person is not always common sense to another especially when it comes to racing online. A savvy driver realizes this and almost always does the smart thing without having to really think about it. Just like after hours of practice, you instinctively do the right thing if you get into the corner a little to hot, your reflexes take over and you deftly maneuver the car back to where you want to be. A savvy this by sizing up the competition. Forget how fast they are in practice. How smooth are they lap after lap? How nervous do they get when you get right on their rear bumper? How well can they hold their line lap after lap? How well can they checkup if you slow a little more than normal going into a corner. How aggressive are they when they want by? Do they move over easily if they can tell you want by or do they run as hard as they can to stay in front of you? All of these things can be found out during practice and if you don’t take the time to do this, you’re not very smart. This is why most pickup races are such a wreck fest; no one knows each other.

Lastly, let’s look at the smart thing to do in specific situations: A driver you don’t know very well gets up to your B pillar on either the inside or the outside going into a corner, back out of it and let them have it. Maybe you know you can hold your line but do you know if they can hold theirs? Sure you can blame them later for not holding their line and causing the accident but that doesn’t get those valuable points back does it? Conversely, a driver you do know that can hold their line in the same situation does this and you know you can hold your line, what do you do? This depends on what’s smart for you based on the overall objective of winning the race. Do you abuse your tires racing him/her through the corner, if you only have 5 laps to go, abuse those tires J If you have 50 to go, the smart thing to do may be to let then have the spot. This is a bit trickier, You’re in a pack of cars and you’re passing on the inside going into a corner with cars right above & behind you. You know you’re going to have to brake more to stay low and keep your line to pull off the pass. Do you go ahead and make that dive and take that chance? Almost never!!!! Why, have you ever heard of follow the leader syndrome? It’s difficult when cars are all stacked up to judge exactly where you’re at. If you brake later and harder than normal, the chances are good the person behind you is going to punt you into the upper deck even if he or she is a good driver. It’s imperative to be as smooth and as consistent as possible when in traffic especially going into the corners. If those around you want to take chances, back out of it and let them. You can wave as you pass low underneath that huge pileup. From the above 3 situations, you should get the idea that anytime you’re not sure what you, your car, or the other person is going to or can do, the smart thing for you is to be conservative or patient if you prefer to use that term. It doesn’t matter where you are at or where they are at on the track and how anyone else drives. There’s no rule that says you should be here or they should be there on any part of the track except during pace and caution laps. Regardless of what anyone else says, there is also no RULE that says anyone has to do anything on a racetrack except of course what’s mandated in the sim or by the league. Don’t ever assume anything. If you have to assume around drivers you don’t know on a racetrack, you’re exceeding your capabilities and even if it’s totally the other person’s fault when you get into a wreck, who’s really to blame if you ASSUMED they’d hold their line? You are!!! To drive this point home, say you’re leading the race and coming up on a lapped car really quickly going into the corner and you really don’t know this person, lets also say league rules state that lapped cars must let the leaders pass on the inside so you immediately move to the inside, go to pass and this person cuts right down in front of you and takes you both out causing you engine damage. Well, I hate to tell you this but you’re an idiot. You assumed this person read the rules and you also assumed that he saw you coming up on him 25 mph faster. Sure he was at fault but you don’t get your 185 points back for leading the most laps and winning the race. This is why I think a lot of people confuse patience with racing smarts. You can be as patient as a saint but if you expect or assume people you’re not sure of are going to do something, you’re just not very smart. Hmmm, this sounds a lot like defensive driving school. By gosh it is J Now the paradox, this is racing and if we drive patiently the whole race we’re probably not going to win. We have to drive agressively and take at some point in time but we have to be smart about it. The aboslute best way to do this is to do your homework and know the competition. Remember what we did in practice? We did some things to size up the other drivers. Take advantage full of that. Any time you can take and you’re almost positive that other person can and will do their part. Take! If you’re not sure of a person during a race, you have to take the time to size them up then. If you don’t have that time because you’re being pressured from behind, do what’s smart for you and your overall goals. Take the risk of passing or let the guy pressuring you from behind by and see what he can do with the guy in front. Do whatever is smart for you. If you take the risk of pushing a pass and the guy in front can’t handle it, he may be to blame but your decision wasn’t very smart. What it all boils down to is pretty simple, be aggressive when you know you can and be patient when you’re not sure. Even when we’ve done our homework and we’re certain that we can pass a driver that will give us room and either of us screws up, that’s not stupid, that’s truly one of “those racing deals” and it happens to all of us. Laslty, don’t play headgames with yourself. Don’t use warp or justify to yourself that you were sure you could get by and both of you would hold your line when you really weren’t sure of the other driver or your own ability at all.

Again, the above is a draft and needs to be proofed. One other thing I'm going to add to this is more on blame. Blame is irrelevant, blame is a lost cause and worthless, blame is not worth your time or anyone elses. Also, I'm adding a section on common courtesy. It's not a rule but it's common courtesy that if a driver gets upto your door handle on inside to give them room. If the inside driver does not get to the door handle, he should back out and expect the other guy to cut down. If you're a lapped car and the leaders get upto your door handle on the outside, it's common courtesy for you to backout and give them the low line at apex. Having said that, if you don't know what the other guy is going to do, it's always correct to be patient and backout, if you're aggresive and the other guy can't handle it by not doing the proper thing or holding his line, you can BLAME all you want but who really gives a poop? Be smart and be savvy by never having to blame anyone because of you getting caught up in thier mistakes

Bob Stanley

Quote from titanLS :

Did I read somewhere that it's not two wheels off that'll give you points, it's putting the centerline of the car off? Seems to me I can drop two wheels ever so slightly in spots without getting points.

Just ran a couple of laps trying out that theory and you're spot on! Two wheels off = OK. Half the car off = er.. not OK. Seems more than fair to me.

Quote from Itar (CZ) :

....but what's so bad about sharing you real name with others?

The bad people on the internetz will steal your identity and soon you'll have no house to live in.

Quote from NitroNitrous :

Well, I receiced an e-mai form iRacing. They say they need my real name

It doesn't have to be your REAL real name. As long as it sounds like a real name. It's to instill in people a sense of responsibility and not hiding behind "The Stig" and "2f4ST4U" type stuff. Imagine applying for a competition license under the name of NitroNitrous. Call yourself Iso Perse

Quote from spankmeyer :

...Also, I guess I'm a dumbass too for driving with full H-gate and clutch pedal setup?

Not in the least . It's the difference between being a simracer and a gamer.