Seriously, I've never seen so much truth in 1 topic on the LFS Forums.

I know I'm repeating myself here - and that hardly anyone will pay attention to this - but...


Dead Men Racing. Public server with admins online daily, busiest between 7pm and ~10pm GMT. Racing is as clean as you're likely to find, all mature and fair and very friendly people. Combo's change weekly with a 1hr race on Thursday nights. Even though I don't race LFS myself anymore I still think dMr is one of the best places to race if you're looking for fair and fun pickup racing and don't care about some ranking or licensing system. dMr is proof that it is possible to run a fairly popular public server successfully and keep crashers and the like out for many years. Of course, you won't see the numbers of drivers there that you see on IHR, for example, but the racing is infinitely cleaner and more fun.

Quote from franky500 :

There is a balance somewhere in middle of leaving it too long, and doing it too early.

But finding this balance is no overnight job. It requires patience and in my opinion. "lack" of insim interfeerence.

Me, I Personally feel that the biggest killer of decent racing has been insim applications.

Decent pick up racing died once people became too relient on systems similar to the old CTRA systems.

Ok story time, you may want a nice warm cup of coca

I said,discussed this about ctra when it first started, it creates a "must win" attitude, its hard to resist, this then enhanced the divide perhaps diversification in the class of car pepople had/have the ability to drive on these "popular" insim servers. The rise and fall of certain systems on these servers created a cumminty hooked on this style of racing.
Thus creating a layered experience, not a pure LFS experience.
This is akin to mods, which is in a way the fragmentation or the enhancements of what the core elements of a game provides.
If its for points then theres gonna be people fighting, no matter the objective.
Which brings me to the point of LFS becoming a game which is being at the core of the rot to a certain extent,harsh observation but maybe a certain element of the above can be atrributed to this.

It can be argued that its the users and not the system, but with out the eggs, chickens wouldnt be running around headless.
Its a bit of everything all at the same time, like most of the time

old timers becoming frustrated with the lack or decent races maybe?
new users from the announcement of patch relaease frustated adding fuel to a fire thats burning.
Yes its damn frustrating at times.

Its a balance of force if you can view it from this perspective. Just dont give into hate, use the force luke....

Sorry i couldnt resist that, but in all seriousness, educate the new guys. Help them with track knowledge. When i first strarted LFS many years ago i was a user who downloaded a "rip" of LFS in mid-late 2003, heavy addicted to my original copy of GPL and my trusty sega sturn with Sega rally (and wheel).

The amount of times i swore at that machine and in GPL (and lfs still) is quite amazing. I realised quite soon that this game wasnt your average racer.
Got annoyed that i couldnt really hack the multiplayer system, and bought a liscence.
Now why did i do this?

I raced on demo servers in that few months trying to justify my expenidutre of limited funds (unemployed living at parents, slightly long term unemployed)
Man life was depressing, anyways that story requires vodka and coco not together maybe but, handy.

I started trying to work out why everytime i braked i went in a stright line, NFS never did that and GPL, well that game is the work of the devil.
So i perciveered unwittingly knowing that 7 years down the line, I'd be rambiling on like an old man.

I joined, well later on in this story I did, and became a regular driver at what was a demo server and what was another place i called home.
I met many freinds during this time, and to this day keep in regular contact, maybe LFS isnt a part of their lives these days as it has been mine and others around me physically and of course other memebers of this community,
But any way im drifting here and losing the point.
I'm here because of te attitudes that previeled in this era of LFS, in my first team DeadMenRacing, I met many of the people that proved to be the finest elements of what this Simulator delivers, Fun respectful and fierce racing, with the moments of "doh" thrown in for all.
Listen, I'm not proclaiming that im some acient guru or have a voice that should be listened to, I'm just some guy sat on a chiar typing.
You may of seen me in somthing called "XRT"
Just dont give into hate people, just know that crusie servers should be nuked from orbit

ok ok i joke. But divide exists everywhere, even more so in these times i feel not just in LFS, but for the human species, existance of everything really, but that is again another topic.

Ok before i go (as coffee has run out, all easter eggs munched) , I'll end with this seris of light hearted questions. In relationship to the topic (am thristy)

How to treat the rot?
Will we have to cut out the rot?
Can we relocate this rot?
I wish this rot would Just go away?
Actually this rot is just natural and is part of the cycle of life?
What rot?

/ugh

We have just made a post in the hosts section about some changes we have made to work towards better cleaner racing.

I won't spam this thread with all the details, I will just post the link for those interested.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=67254

Quote from obsolum :

I know I'm repeating myself here - and that hardly anyone will pay attention to this - but...


Dead Men Racing. Public server with admins online daily, busiest between 7pm and ~10pm GMT.

I've never had a bad race on that server. Mainly because the grids are never stupidly large.

Quote from obsolum :

I know I'm repeating myself here - and that hardly anyone will pay attention to this - but...


Dead Men Racing. Public server with admins online daily, busiest between 7pm and ~10pm GMT. Racing is as clean as you're likely to find, all mature and fair and very friendly people. Combo's change weekly with a 1hr race on Thursday nights. Even though I don't race LFS myself anymore I still think dMr is one of the best places to race if you're looking for fair and fun pickup racing and don't care about some ranking or licensing system. dMr is proof that it is possible to run a fairly popular public server successfully and keep crashers and the like out for many years. Of course, you won't see the numbers of drivers there that you see on IHR, for example, but the racing is infinitely cleaner and more fun.

I can vouch for that one! One of the best servers IMO.
I should probably hang out there a little more often though

.... the admins aren't afraid to get rid of idiots either

Quote from Gener_AL (UK) :

(...) in my first team DeadMenRacing, I met many of the people that proved to be the finest elements of what this Simulator delivers, Fun respectful and fierce racing, with the moments of "doh" thrown in for all. (...)

Just picking out this part of your post because it confirms what I stated right above you and I have a feeling most people are not going to read all of your post

There is a way to solve the problems. The programmers can program a 'crash avoider'.
For example, car A drives towards T1 and another car B, right behind car A brakes too late, crash imminent. This can be calculated and an automated sending to the pit lane for car B can be programmed.
Same goes for crashing from the side; excessive sudden movements which mean imminent crash between cars can be calculated, and just before any crash there can be automated measures taken.

Quote from bosbrandje :

There is a way to solve the problems. The programmers can program a 'crash avoider'.
For example, car A drives towards T1 and another car B, right behind car A brakes too late, crash imminent. This can be calculated and an automated sending to the pit lane for car B can be programmed.
Same goes for crashing from the side; excessive sudden movements which mean imminent crash between cars can be calculated, and just before any crash there can be automated measures taken.

But there are many flaws here with that reasoning, lag connection , also this just wouldnt teach any real lessons on car control. and most of all take out the fun.

Quote from Anthoop :

LFSEI is not linked to the safety rating system, it is simply an indication of your LFS experience. Your LFSEI will increase everytime you drive or make a pb, or try new track/car etc. It is simply reading your LFSW stats.

So I am all for that I thought it was using just igniting yelllow flag warning. So newbies have to learn at least PRO AI level with lower classes to get faster cars, and experienced users dont have to do it all over again. It is just the next (last) race that counts

Quote from bosbrandje :

There is a way to solve the problems. The programmers can program a 'crash avoider'.
For example, car A drives towards T1 and another car B, right behind car A brakes too late, crash imminent. This can be calculated and an automated sending to the pit lane for car B can be programmed.
Same goes for crashing from the side; excessive sudden movements which mean imminent crash between cars can be calculated, and just before any crash there can be automated measures taken.

And when you send a /pitlane command over the insim:
1. The connection > Your app. <-> Dedi < will definitely have some(even if it's minimal) lag.
2. I have never seen this command being executed in the millisecond you press Enter on the dedi. So the logic leads to the other connection > Dedi <-> User < , which also has some lag.
3. From 1 and 2 you can see how complicated it gets. You have to track the time to the crash, and how big the risk of a crash is(speed difference). Then based on that you need to decide how many seconds before the crash you want to pitlane/spectate the car. And here's another trick: Which car shall we spectate? If we track which one is making a sharper turn, then what if one of the cars is on a turn, faster and the other one is just close to it, but has cut the turn and is now about to hit the car that is in the right way.

In 2 words: Won't work.
At least not accurate enough with the information we have been provided with by now.

Well those are words from someone who knows almost nothing about coding anyway, so I might be wrong.

I'm a hobby programmer; it could be surprisingly simple; cars have a speed vector V , if both vectors are on a collision course which can not be avoided , action can be taken . Of course reality is more complex. The computer can not decide if it is intentional or simply race accident. Therefore one could introduce a crash rating just like safety rating. I have no knowlegde about networking or lag problems so if it's not possible then it's not..
But i don't know if it's needed; I raced demo for a few months and there it was needed but then I upgraded to S2 and the multiclass server I drive is fairly clean. Without much interfere from admins afaik. Because it is in everybody's interest to not cause crashes , and gain points.

Quote from bosbrandje :

I'm a hobby programmer; it could be surprisingly simple; cars have a speed vector V , if both vectors are on a collision course which can not be avoided , action can be taken . Of course reality is more complex. The computer can not decide if it is intentional or simply race accident. Therefore one could introduce a crash rating just like safety rating. I have no knowlegde about networking or lag problems so if it's not possible then it's not..
But i don't know if it's needed; I raced demo for a few months and there it was needed but then I upgraded to S2 and the multiclass server I drive is fairly clean. Without much interfere from admins afaik. Because it is in everybody's interest to not cause crashes , and gain points.

you know - BECAUSE it is computer sim I would like it NOT having such Avoidance Tool

Quote from AndRand :

you know - BECAUSE it is computer sim I would like it NOT to have such Avoidance Tool

+1

It does seem a little like removing the arm at the elbow , to sort a couple of busted fingers

Is simply forcing someone not to crash the right approach though? Perhaps convincing people not to cause crashes through consequences and punishments is an easier way.

Agree with you AndRand. In racing are crashes included. Its nothing wrong if someone push someone by mistake and end at grass so this wouldnt be good... It just needs to reduce heavy crashes by rammers.

Quote from 5haz :

Is simply forcing someone not to crash the right approach though? Perhaps convincing people not to cause crashes through consequences and punishments is an easier way.

Easier? Debatable. Better, I would say so.




Edit. I think a lot of what's being complained about is a direct result of how approachable LFS is. You can download it and play demo with pretty much anything, hell you could probably get a powerglove to control LFS if you had the right connector. The full version isn't that much more difficult to get into, a one time fee (for the foreseeable future) and you can race on most servers without even having done a lick of practice.

iRacing isn't as approachable (the cost drives many away) and from what I hear has cleaner racing. Then of course it has a built in safety rating. The two games have completely different directions with how they handle things and the communities are going to be different because of this.

I'm not saying we should just accept LFS for what it is and throw our hands up in defeat, because there's people like EQ Worry with his already-mentioned experience index. Just a shame you have to pay/donate to get your hands on that.

Quote from pik_d :

Just a shame you have to pay/donate to get your hands on that.

A shame? I wouldn't call it that. Somebody put some tremendous amount of time in an still ongoing project. I think its reasonable to ask for some compensation when something goes beyond a certain stadium.

I believe he means a shame because it therefore will not be on all servers as not all want to pay for the full version. Not a shame that it's a pay for product.

I'm disagreeing with you about it being a product worthy of a fee though.

I could of course be wrong.

Quote from L@gger :

Agree with you AndRand. In racing are crashes included. Its nothing wrong if someone push someone by mistake and end at grass so this wouldnt be good... It just needs to reduce heavy crashes by rammers.

But.. would you trust a driver with more than 10 of these heavy crash 'mistakes?'
The only way you can identify a crasher is a series of big velocity impacts , with a great relative speed , or a sudden movement sideways which leads another car crashing.
You can have a counter which counts these kind of crashes, and ban a player who has like 5 or more of these idiot crashes. Just like a safety rating, only more precise. So.. i'm not familiar with insim, but if you can get access to all drivers speed and position one could make a plugin. otherwise it's up to the devs who have bigger things on their mind i think.

ramming the cars involved in accident and stopped on track or lag-related bumps will probably also be treated as big relative speeds. Or else Avoidance Tool woul be very complicated. I think it is the drivers to learn not an automated tool and the judgement is sometimes difficult for human looking at all aspects.

I would say - keep it simple and have PBs and track record as best experience indcators.

yes, but if you are constantly involved in crashes and ramming others, on purpose or not, maybe it's then time to protect other drivers, and send you to a server that is more noob oriented. remember it's the car that wrecks that's being removed/spectated/whatever not the car that is being wrecked.
sudden movements on straights, towards the side, are mostly always crashers.

Quote from bosbrandje :

yes, but if you are constantly involved in crashes and ramming others, on purpose or not, maybe it's then time to protect other drivers, and send you to a server that is more noob oriented. remember it's the car that wrecks that's being removed/spectated/whatever not the car that is being wrecked.
sudden movements on straights, towards the side, are mostly always crashers.

heh, "Extreme waving warning" for Hamilton in Sepang

But in fact, such an index per km driven would be an indicator (damn banger racers )

I pretty much left LFS and went to iRacing for this exact reason. I wasn't particularly happy about paying per circuit / vehicle, but I was much more bothered about being able to have clean racing fun, so it was my only real choice.

Quote from pik_d :

iRacing isn't as approachable (the cost drives many away) and from what I hear has cleaner racing. Then of course it has a built in safety rating.

Indeed, it is cleaner racing. I don't think it's just the SR or MPR that make the biggest difference though - I think part of the reason there is less wreckers in iRacing is because wreckers don't want to pay money to drive like a dickhead.

How can LFS make wrecking less appealing to people who can't control their anger to steering wheel ratio?

I have to conclude : increasing realism, raising price