I ruin it… I haven’t been good this year…

Or to quote the doctor:

Quote :

Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.

Thanks for clarification. So the bytes sent are in reverse order compared to the code of the mod.

Even though the mod data might not be reliable I give it a shot and test them first before discarding them.

Quote from jackson93 :

I don't know if this will be any use for you but I got 5 years worth of best lap...

I saw there are a few laps included with mods. Is there a good way to translate the "cryptic" names given by AIRIO to the HEX codes of the mods system? I naively tried =CODE() in Excel for each character individually for that purpose, without meaningful results.

Reply

Quote from Gutholz :

Are you trying to plot which property makes a car fast?

Yes, I eventually want to do exactly that. As of the early results posted above, you can take the standardized coefficients as a metric for the impact of the properties. Power influences the performance the most, followed closely by the lift, then it is drag, mass, weight distribution and lastly the engine size.

Quote from Gutholz :

I am not sure what I am looking at here. Many numbers for sure.
Some random thoughts:

Races often already have some BOP applied, that makes it hard to compare.
Even if no BOP is used, the track, distance, mandatory pit stops etc might be chosen in a way to make it balanced. Typical example for TBO class might be that FXO is fastest but drivers eventually need to slow down to save tires.

Indeed, the performance over the course of a race differs quite a bit from a single lap performance. Plus lap counts and pitstops impact the performance quite significantly. I tried to model it in the past for the Open Endurance Cup Five and probably need to rehash some of the ideas to make it work here. https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/94326-Open-Endurance-Cup-Five---Balance-of-Performance-Discussion

Quote from Gutholz :

Another idea:
Maybe try to figure out something about the difficulty/technicality of car/track combos by plotting a histogram of all uploaded times.
For example for XFG@Kyoto Oval I would expect that all the top times are very close to each other. On the other hand something like Fo8 at South City might have bigger gaps.
There might be a large plateau at XFG@Bl1 of newbies using default setups or other such things.

I think getting all the uploaded times may be the real challenge, since I basically naively copy’n’pasted the times from the LFSWorld tables into Excel. For XFG@BL1 there are 347 hot laps uploaded across 14 tables. While other combos won’t have as many uploaded times as the demo combos, it is still a lot of effort needed to do such an analysis.

Quote from Gutholz :

The ratio between "average speed" and "theoretical car top speed" (aka how much of a lap is at full throttle or high speed) could be interesting, too.
We know that Kyoto Oval is the fastest track, but which track is second fastest and which is the slowest?
(Also for different cars)

You can already indirectly get a ranking of the different track speeds by looking into the descriptive statistics as these are practically the mean speeds for each track. It does not factor in the theoretical car top speed. I didn’t look into this, but is the value in the car selection screen independent from the used setup? If so, it would be a thought to include it, although it should prove to be highly correlated with other covariates as well.

Quote from Gutholz :

Mildly related:
Do you know of a way to get all WR times and their upload date?
It might be interesting to see how WR times have improved over time, how big the improvements were, which WR was standing longest until it got beaten etc.

I probably would need the whole LFSWorld hot lap database for this. It definitely would make for interesting facts, but to be honest I probably won’t be able to answer these with what I want to pursue.

Quote from rane_nbg :

Hi, very cool idea, tnx for investing time in this.

It's gonna be painful to extract the info you're looking for as there are away too many variables. Generalizing this kind of problems is better done by using some form of machine learning methods for pattern recognition. You're probably not gonna be able to find a simple analytic function to fit it, but it's worth giving it a shot.

You’re right, machine learning is a great tool to do such analysis. However it also is a black box and not easy to understand, why particular results emerge. So I decided to go this route. I furthermore wanted to get practical with JASP.

Quote from rane_nbg :

I suggest to add one more data point as a standard car on the lower end of performance spectrum, like an XFG. Then make a linear fit between XFG and F1. Evaluate all cars against this fit, the deviations may give you something that could be proportional to BOP.

Basically it is a core thought of this method to make a linear fit but to multiple different properties. The resulting fit will be the optimal estimation for the given data set. I further used the logarithm to be able to get the speed by a product of multiple factors using the following properties:


log(s) = β₀ + β₁ × m + β₂ × p + β₃ × w + β₄ × z + β₅ × l + β₆ × d + β₇ + ...
e^(log(s)) = e^(β₀ + β₁ × m + β₂ × p + β₃ × w + β₄ × z + β₅ × l + β₆ × d + β₇ + ...)
s = e^(β₀) × e^(β₁ × m) × e^(β₂ × p) × e^(β₃ × w) × e^(β₄ × z) × e^(β₅ × l) × e^(β₆ × d) × e^(β₇) × ...

(s = speed, m = mass, p = power, w = weight distribution front, z = engine size, l = lift, d = drag with β being the corresponding coefficients from the multiple linear regression, β₀ = intercept and β₇ onwards being the coefficients of the categoric factors)

I got the latter idea from hedonic regressions in the real estate evaluation. I recently took part in a workshop on that topic. There is a similar situation, where statistical analysis is applied to very heterogeneous data sets to get general models and to reapply them to specific objects. For the application in LFS, there are at least metric values and precise categories, which in theory should make it easier then for a real estate index.

Quote from Gutholz :

(...)

I'll answer your questions when I have a bit more time

Quote from jackson93 :

(...)

This will definitely help! Thank you!

Hello everyone,

I've been looking at performance balance in various ways for several years. Professionally I've recently come across JASP and I've now put the LFS world records as of 10th October 2024 and several league races into a multiple linear regression. My goal is to determine the performance factors and perhaps derive a performance index as a way to apply BOP and evaluate the theoretical performance of car mods. The attached preliminary results are a work in progress.

The starting point for the analysis is the LFS World Records. I copied the tables from lfsworld.net on 10 October 2024 and converted the lap times from the typical format to seconds. Knowing the length of the track, the lap times were converted to speeds in metres per second. I also extended the dataset to include selected league races from that year.
Then I collected information about the cars. At first I only took the information available on lfs.net, but it turned out that the car datasets on the content page did not fully match the datasets of the mods on the files page, so I took the data from in-game. This also allowed me to get downforce values for the cars, although I only used the base setup values at 40 m/s in the linear regression.

At first the results were rather unimpressive with large residuals. By including the circuits as factors, the results improved greatly and I am hopeful that I am on the right track. Other covariates such as torque did not produce significant results, so they were not considered at this stage. I also decided to use the natural logarithms of the speeds as the dependent variable to obtain the coefficients "as factors".

The regression model currently has the following dependent variable:

• log(Speed)
  

the following covariates:

• Mass
  
• Power
  
• Weight distribution (front)
  
• Engine size
  
• Downforce Lift
  
• Downforce Drag
  

and the following factors:

• Track (not shown below)
  
• Category
  
• Drivetrain
  
• Tyres
  
• Engine layout
  
• Transmission
  

The input data and results pdf are included in the attached archive. The resulting coefficients must be transformed using the exponential function. The results are based on a formula car driven on BL1 with a paddle shift gearbox. The engine layout is a V-engine and slick tyres are used. All coefficients shown are deviations from this standard car.

Looking at the standardised coefficients, we can already see that power has the greatest influence on the car's performance. However, it is closely followed by the downforce (lift) of the car.

I am at a very early stage in this analysis. I hope to get some meaningful results from it. If not, I will at least gain experience with JASP. I'm looking forward to your ideas and insights. Maybe you will find weaknesses I can work on. I'd like to improve this approach in the future.

Best regards!

Last edited by TFalke55, Tue, 19 Nov 2024 14:26.

Good luck with your business!

I feel like a Morty waiting for a Rick to explain that it is just a reversal of entropy… and I should regret to have stopped playing Roy the game for this

Nice video, I like it

First of all: great work! Seeing where you came from and what path you‘ve taken these results are amazing!

Quote from gaboteam :

I see they are saying u need license to use "NÜRBURGRING BRAND or LOGO or track Silhouette". nothing there about track itself, actually Nordschleife is not even track officially, it is public road, that is why every car needs number plates to go there and on crash police arrives. correct me if I am wrong of course. I am focused on creation. official license for implementation is not my department, it is job for officials. there is always Mod route as we can all see in Modded cars. I could not care less about name "NÜRBURGRING Nordschleife", name is only good for marketing, to get more users, more exposure and that is up to devs/officials. am small time lfs user with imaginary future in my head. I might as well doing it for nothing...oh and I did not write them yet, I can't get around it if I should write them or not.

• Licensing: Licensing is a big and fuzzy topic. I know too little to give good advice but I know architecture can fall under copyright. Therefore some sort of licensing would need to take place. If the silhouette of the track is already under such copyright, it seems recreating it and making an “interactive silhouette” might also fall into that, even if it isn’t a picture nor called Nürburgring Nordschleife. For example in a city I lived in, the administration wanted to change the surface of a street as it wore out quicker then expected. However they were not allowed to change the materials to more robust once as the street was still under copyright and could only be repaired with the original materials, as they were included in the protection of the intellectual property.
  
• Status of the track: The track is a toll road for most of the time. Yet the track is owned by the NR Holding and operated by the Nürburgring 1927 GmbH & Co.KG. So the track is owned by a private entity. Since it is not totally separated from the public roads, the German Highway Code applies and cars must be road legal, hence the number plates. It also has a public road character to it, as it shortens many trips for local residents. Airports on the other hand are often regarded as isolated from the public road network, so service vehicles may not always have official number plates.
  

Hey! There is a forum subsection for textures. www.lfs.net/forum/39-Miscellaneous-Addons

Last edited by Scawen, Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:30. Reason : link didn't work

Quote from CLennon :

Is there still any hope for a revival of this? Multiclass especially. Since...

Hey. Thank you for your interest in OEC.
Sadly my personal life is way different two years ago. I lack time and energy to organise another league, especially an endurance league. That’s why OEC was offered to interested LFSers to take over the organisation https://www.lfs.net/forum/thre ... rance-Cup-%28again%29----.

Quote from gaboteam :

(Long Text)

Funny how much time has passed. I actually thought of this thread when the state of Rhineland-Palatinate went open data for good chunks of their geospatial information but it was inactive at the time.

If you search for “Geländemodell” at https://www.geoportal.rlp.de you find a dataset with a sparse point cloud in x y z ASCII of the whole state. That might be handy for the terrain modelling. However it is only with a grid width of 25 m. So it really is quite sparse.

My two cents: close the thread, let those people who need to talk to each other talk with one another without constant input from third parties, who interpret the same written text in different ways. Putting the energy that it took to write and read all the posts with all the attacking and defending, with the accusing and judging into working on a solution, probably would have created first results already…

But then again this comes from me, someone who does his best Waldorf and Statler impression…

Great video

Good luck and have fun

Several…

• racing in the Kyoto 250 and the Kyoto 500 in 2008
  
• Racing in the 16h race at Kyoto and having to double stint in the middle of the night as my team mate did not show up
  
• Having a commentary stint in the Masters of Endurance 24 hours of Aston
  
• Organising LFSCART
  
• Collaborating and joining New Dimension Racing
  
• Running leagues with Genuine Racing
  
• Joining the CityLiga team and being involved until its end
  
• My only league race victory in the UF Owner‘s Club by Zwarte Wind Racing (later Concept Racing)
  
• being involved with SimBroadcasts
  
• Hanging out on TeamSpeak with Dom, Deko, Ronald, Pete, Elmo, JJ Wang, … and many many many more
  

It sounds like a very messy affair… my first thoughts were that you actually have a binding agreement and thereby a contract, even when never explicitly calling it that way. On that behalf you could rightfully demand for the agreed service… but at the end of the day it is legal rambling with no effective way to enforce it right now… and due to the internationality of the community legal procedures will never get a result (even when obviously the first objective is to keep lawyers out of it and only ever using their services as last resort)…
While I do not really like the idea to have league specific mod derivatives, it seems to be the only way for league organisers to keep control over the vehicles. As it was pointed out, if mods cannot be made private, people could mess with other aspects of it in spite.

Grid slots are good with 40 available… sure the more the better. I‘d prefer more server slots first though: when races with driver changes take place, it usually is chaos when it is a big event and the pit stops approach. When livestream and live stewards take up 5-7 spots, there are actually none available to replacing drivers joining for the driver change. So some of the staff (stewards and streamers) have to leave the server for those periods. And grid sizes are usually restricted to 26-32 cars already…

Personally my problem with competitions purely organised on Discord is, that they are segregated in their bubble. Dark web, if you want to call it like that, as you cannot search for it from the outside and the stuff that happens there is only visible to those who are on the respective server. I had similar discussions with people who organise leagues purely on Facebook years ago. The only continuous source of information on leagues and competitions seems to be the forums, but only if they are broadly used.

It is true… the forums became a lot more quieter and even sign up threads don’t get as much traffic as they used to… meanwhile discord chats explode and are more often then not overwhelming to follow. Is it a change of communication culture? The classic sign up through forum seems to be outdated. Do league organisers need to adapt or is it the people less interested in the structured league racing or competitions?

Desire of patience used a in-server sign up system… would something like that be more appropriate these days?

I support the idea. There are already social media information on the LFS.net profile, why not add Discord to those.

I was have not been involved in league racing for over a year by now, but from outside it currently gives me the impression that there is a structural issue of casual and competitive drivers having the same pool of leagues to choose from. Casual from my perspective means having a good time a clear and easy to understand event format with only a precise amount of breaks as they want to drive for the fun of diving vehicles quickly around a track and racing with others, at least as quick as they can. On the other Hand competitive drivers are those who want to score good positions and are more tolerant to breaks and off-times on the server as the pursuit of a good position motivates them and maybe the immersion by higher concepts such as the inclusion of Safety Car rules etc. But they also get more easily bored by repeating combos and alike.

I fear it comes down that it lacks the user base: high concept leagues need enough of those what I call competitive drivers to have a stable grid size. Casual drivers are not as interested in those leagues. More casual leagues appear to me to have a more loyal driver base of casual drivers, but when competitive drivers come in the driver base gets pushed out in parts, especially towards the rear of the grid. A sort of gentrification of the leagues, if you want to call it like that… or the conflict between grassroots and professional competition…

I like the idea of fixed setups in this context. It levels the differences between all types of drivers and it appeals at least in parts to both groups as at least in the short term it is novel for what I call competitive drivers and it is easy clear and fair for what I call casual drivers: https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102700-FIXED-setup-races-on-LFS%3F%3F

But maybe it was more rambling then anything substantial I posted here.

Fixed setups might be a great idea for the casual racing scene!
I like the InSim idea a lot… however I could also think of a solution similar to autocross layouts: to have a list of setups on the server and where you have commands to load a fixed setup or to store one. Once you are on the server the user downloads the setup and can only join the session with that setup.

I completely agree with you, that there are many situations such a simple system would not create a fair race. League races are complex and in many situations there is also the question of who is responsible for a situation and who is not. InSim could be designed more intelligently then my original purposual. I also like the idea to combine it with HLVC in some ways.