Quote from Scawen :

Yes, that's not a bug. It should revert to auto every time. So every time you run LFS you know it will be doing the right thing. It's better this way, better than having bug reports again and again for the next few years, "i used to have a results list but now i never do". And improvement suggestions "how about a list that comes up showing who finished". That's why that setting is not stored in the cfg. Please let's not have a long discussion about this. If there is some very serious reason why this is a major issue then let me know.

Sorry, Scawen. IMHO, you're wrong on this. When I make a change to the way LFS is configured I expect it to be saved. I don't pretend to fully understand the explanation posted above suffice to say that I'd expect that you'll be flooded with "why doesn't LFS remember the way I have my 'Display Results' set?".

The people who take the time, effort and cost to run a server for the community have the right to decide how it's run. How it's run will determine the type of racer attracted to it.

We at dMr have a near zero tolerance of idiots. We're lucky that we have enough admins to allow one of us to spec a race if necessary. Idiots, wreckers and the plain wreckless get banned. We feel we need to do this so that the vast majority of racers who visit us get the best possible racing experience we can offer. In turn, we hope that those good racers become regulars.

If the person banned is mature enough to take up the issue with us on our forum then we can deal with it like adults. Everybody deserves a second chance but it is not automatically given.

I'm not telling you how to run your server but you might want to consider appointing trusted people as admins and then draw up a set of guidelines for them to follow. Banning the idiots as they're detected will demonstrate to your visitors that the server is run to strict standards and that the consideration of good clean racers is the driving force behind those banning decisions.

Good luck.

Quote from MonkOnHotTinRoof :

I believe he is asking as a demo player. There people don't have usernames, only nicknames. And as far as I remember some nicknames can't be banned (containing spaces, weird characters, etc ?).

I knew that :dopey:

/me whistles

Quote from tombarlin :

but the amount of days ie 0 or 1 has to be in the same colour as the last letter in there name

For example a ban would look like this

/ban tombarlin 1

If use CTRL + SHIFT you will see the names toggle between ingame and registered names (colour free). So right-click on the registered name then follow Franky's instructions.

Remember:

0 = 12 hour ban
1, 2, 3 etc = days.

You've been reading my wishlist

Any chance of implementing this?

Quote from Macfox :

Added the /ban and /kick

Cheers.

Quote from Macfox :

/warn I think is covered by /msg. Yes?

Not really. Typing out a full warning takes longer than typing /warn user reason.

And while I'm on a roll ....

How about helping us poor admins even further buy having /b /k /w as shortcuts for /ban /kick and /warn.

Quote from Executioner :

I draw a XFG skin which u can edit in Photoshop format file.You only need to edit text layers and add logo..

screenshot
www.novaracing.net/lfs/xfgexecutionerscreenshot.jpg

.psd file
www.novaracing.net/lfs/XFG_executioner.rar

WOW! That's very generous of you. Not often you see someone willing to share their PSDs. Much appreciated.

/kick user reason
/ban user period reason

Where reason is a 2 character string that refers to an inbuilt list.

For example ...

/kick oldbloke dw (where dw is shorthand for 'deliberate wrecking')

This would place a message on screen saying ...

'OldBloke is about to be kicked for deliberate wrecking'

Five seconds after the message appears - kick.

This is necessary so that the racer (and the rest of the clients) knows he/she is being kicked and the reason for it. The current mechanism just displays a 'disconnection' message which could be interpretted as a network issue.

I would also like to see the following implemented ...

/warn user reason

So again ...

/warn OldBloke dw produces an onscreen message ...

'OldBloke is being warned against deliberate wrecking'

Yet another enhancement would be the use of custom reasons. So that either the list of set reasons is appendable or the command is expanded to allow the use of this format ...

/warn OldBloke "Custom warning here"

Over to you.

Quote from nathanm :

...A note in the motd might be helpful, too.

The MOTD is, in it's present form, too limited to be much use. And if/when it's expanded ... will anyone read it?

Quote from nathanm :

... In the interim, perhaps a better solution than a ban is a gentle reminder that perhaps it's better for them to spectate for a race or two to get a better idea of what they should be doing and where. If they don't respect the admin's wishes in that regard, they have a much bigger problem than not knowing how to drive.

As an admin, what do you do when you can't even get the person to reply to your ingame requests?

This is a failing of LFS. If you kick or ban a racer they get a simple 'disconnection' message. Many will assume it's a network issue and try to reconnect. The 'kicked' get back in, the 'banned' don't. It would be a great help if LFS could emulate one of the mods we used to run on CounterStrike where the following could be used ...

/kick user reason
/ban user period reason

Where 'reason' is 2 character shorthand referring to a set list of reasons. An example ...

/kick user dw

This would put a message on the screen saying that 'user' is about to be kicked for deliberate wrecking. Then no-one is in any doubt as to why they were kicked/banned.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

What if I have no PB for that combo? Then will it not let me connect?

Correct.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

If you are allowed to connect without a PB, then once you do your first lap, you will be kicked if you are more then 10s behind the wr?

You will not be allowed to connect. No kicking is involved.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

-1000000000000

Oh get off the fence.

Quote from CSU1 :

I suggested a similar idea a while back here, and as many people pointed out it would just segregate drivers even further.

Apologies for missing your earlier thread.

It's funny how the majority of the posters see this suggestion (and yours) just as a tool to segregate fast from slow when all I'm trying (badly) to explain is that DMR would use it to filter out the totally inexperienced. If this option existed yesterday I could have safely set /pbconnect to 20 seconds and those three guys would still not have got in.

To be totally fair, the problem yesterday was made considerably worse due to the fact we were driving South City. On any other track those three would have been much easier to tolerate as they would have been spending the majority of the time off-road.

Gunn - well said.

Quote from mrodgers :

I'm sorry, but what you explain that you did here is you possibly turned away 3 potential future racers. Instead of educating them and helping them out, you banned them simply because they don't have experience.

No. I banned them because they were incapable of driving a lap without being totally wreckless and spoiling the enjoyment of the majority. That's the definition of a well admin'd server in my book. If you were one of the other racers on the track would you have been prepared to to do as I did which was to drop into spectator (my race ruined) and watch them carefully for signs that they would, at worst, be a hindrance to others. What I saw was someone who approached every corner at rediculous speeds, bounced off of the scenery and then continued to the next impact with a now uncontrollably damaged car. Would you even have been prepared to accept that the server has a wreckless driver on it and the admins are saying 'just get on with the race'.

We at DMR welcome beginners. I've already stated that. And we are prepared to help anyone who demonstrates a mature attitude to gaming irrespective of ability. In fact it's written into our community rules.

It takes time, effort and cold hard cash to run a server. It takes even more effort to ensure that the server is run to a high standard. It also takes time to build a relationship with visitors to that server so that, having enjoyed the experience, they decide to come back again and again. I don't think it's too much to ask that we admins can sit down to enjoy the fruits of our labours with like-minded racers without having to babysit totally inexperienced beginners ... at least for a couple of hours an evening.

Quote from joen :

... but other hosts could use the same system to be elitist by setting it to WR plus 3 seconds or something. I don't think that would be a good idea. Unless the +10 seconds is fixed and unchangeable.

But it's up to the server hosts to decide how they want to run their server. We already have the option to make private servers that you can only join if you know the password. We also have seen servers running bespoke 'licensing' access methods. So why not servers that restrict on PBs?

Thanks for the quick replies. But just to clarify ... I'm not suggesting that this is used to be elitist. The restriction would apply to those who have yet to achieve a reasonable lap time as dictated by the server. That time, as per my example, could be the WR plus ten seconds. This would not preclude the average backmarker. I agree it wouldn't stop the determined wrecker but we already have ways of dealing with them.

Before making an official 'Improvement Suggestion' I thought I'd ask my fellow hosts to give their thoughts on the following idea ...

Limit connection to server by PB based on WR+seconds

What I mean by this is the host can set a server variable (let's call it 'pbconnect') with a variety of options to restrict connection to the server according to the client's PB.

Examples

/pbconnect 0 = No restriction.

/pbconnect 10 = Client must have a PB for this cars/track combination that is less than the WR + 10 seconds before they can join the server.

This simple idea can be further enhanced by having variations that allow connection during qualification where you have to meet the limit or you won't make the race. Admin immunity etc.

Why am I suggesting this?

It occurred to me last night (having banned my third racer) that the three people I had just banned were not deliberate wreckers, they were simply wreckless. They were LFS beginners who were simply not ready to make a positive contribution to the multiplayer community. Instead, they frustrate and hinder the enjoyment of the people on the server who want an excellent racing experience as well as the poor admin who has to sit out a race while they try to provide it.

By having the ability to set the server to reject connections from racers who are yet to prove they are at least capable of driving a lap in a set time would be a solution. And it needn't be 'switched on' permanently. We welcome beginners at DMR and our admins are prepared to coach and advise those prepared to listen. But there comes a time in the evening when it would be nice to know that for the next couple of hours the racers on the server have at least got the ability to complete a lap of the track in a reasonable time.

Your thoughts?

Quote from al heeley :

MRT_Cosmo Oil, my entry for Master Sknnerz round 15 challenge.

You forgot the '3M'

Does S2 not feel like a finished product to you? It sure as hell does to me.

After each session on LFS I have to remind myself that it's still officially a 'work in progress' and after each patch I seem to be even more impressed. Compare that to sims you pay much more for which are released with multiple bugs which, if they're not fixed in the one and only patch to be released, you have to just live with (GTL anyone?).

With LFS you know, you just KNOW, that a great sim is going to get even better. Waiting for it is easy when the version already released is as good as it is.

So ... patience people. Race on.

Quote from VorTeX3k :

Could you try to replace the following lines:

$cachestat = @stat('cache.txt');
$now = date('YmdHis');
$file = date('YmdHis', $cachestat[9]);

by those:

$cachestat = @filectime('cache.txt');
$now = date('YmdHis');
$file = date('YmdHis', $cachestat);

Btw, is the output you pasted in here really the _COMPLETE_ output?

I get the same result using the amended code. The error message I posted was complete apart from the line number which I left out.

Anyway, I now have it working but only by enabling cURL in the php.ini

I thought that cURL was optional?

Thanks for the assistance. Much appreciated.

Quote from VorTeX3k :

Hmn.. strange. Well, lets try getting detailed error information:

Go inside the update_cache() function and remove all @ signs. This will enable PHP error reporting for the called methods. Then report back to me

Removing the @ from the stat function produced the only error ...


Warning: stat() [function.stat]: stat failed for cache.txt in c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\lfs\server.php

I get a blank page

The problem appears to be the 'update_cache' function. If I rem out the call to this function (having created the cache.txt manually) then the stats work.

Errrr. No offence people but disputes between racer and host should not be thrashed out here.

Quote from Gai-Luron :

Hello,

Thank's

Lap By lap is out of Date and work only with stat 1.45

I update lapperdisplay and you'll have to read "readme.txt" for installation

Bye

Gai-Luron

I managed to get Lap By Lap working with LFS Stats v1.49 by making a simple change to one line in viewlap.php

On line 90 change from:

to:

Quote from MoonForce :

...is it possible with script system to make the rcm blink? like a time script? [on] [500ms pause] [off] [500ms pause] ???

There isn't a timer in the scripting system and it has been requested by others.

A possible workaround - you can find macro recorders that assign keypress combinations to keys and often they allow the storing of pauses as well (the Logitech G15 kbd does this extremely well).

HTH

Quote from Gai-Luron :

Hello,

Here Lapper 3.6 with bug fix:

a : Fix crash at the next split when player change nickname on the track.
b : Fix crash Lapper on shared file violation in rare case on FTP transfert.
c : Kick on flooding work now


Bye

Gai-Luron

LapByLap? Please?