...if it's possible, that is.

We all have to deal with the very common first turn crashes and ever present wreckers in servers all over the place. And we've all been trying to figure out a use for the credits. What if we could have something about like this:

In real life, cars costs money, and to take it to the track costs money and if you wreck it it costs money. Even if it's not your fault. What if it costs credit not just to buy (unlock) a car, but also to race it and repair it. And if you haven't got enough credits to repair it, it stays broken. If you don't have enough credits you can't enter the track.
You earn credits every time you finish a race, not just for the top three positions. The further up the field you finish, the more credits you get naturally, but if you finish last, you should still get "the entry fee" back.

Now, I realize this would mean the credits system would have to be locked away somewhere so it's unhackable. It also means that one car type (for example the UF1000) and one track (perhaps Aston Cadet) would always have to be open, credit's or no credits. This, so you have the chance to gain credit's to buy (unlock) faster cars and pay "entry fee's" to other tracks.

Can this be done? In my world, it would do a lot more to prevent first turn crashes and it would probably keep the wreckers far away. Much more efficient than a 60 second wait for a restart of race, witch naturally is going to be a wreck fest all over again.

Now, you say, "But I'm not going to finish in the top three ever cause I'm not as fast as those petrol heads that spend 8 hours a day on Aston National".
You don't have to be fast. I'm not fast and I very often end up in the top five, and often enough I get a top three, with my fair share of wins and seconds. Just by staying out of trouble.
Here is a link to a replay from a race earlier today.
http://www.scoreracing.de/lfs/ ... /AS Nat last to third.mpr
If you like you can keep an eye on the last car starting. After one lap, I'm in the top five. One lap later I'm fourth and I finish third. Not by being fast, (my best was a 1:46,60 I think). Just but keeping away from trouble. Fast has nothing to do with it.

Please excuse any and all misspellings and any bad english!

I think its a good idea, but what if we like to mess around and smash our cars up?

why not implement a system where you can only join a certain sever if you have x amount of credit. that way beginners can be seperated by the more experienced.

Quote from abz1 :

why not implement a system where you can only join a certain sever if you have x amount of credit. that way beginners can be seperated by the more experienced.

Because I don't think it's an experience problem. I'm sort of new to LFS myself, but I got a lot of online racing experience. The problem, I think is attitude. You know you're ganna get away with wrecking, and so, you're not careful.
It's time to change the attitude

Bear in mind, it's easy to gain credits. I've seen it posted before, abusing the AI to gain credits rappidly. I had thousands of credits when I bought my licence, and I went straight out on to online servers. Would've been weeks before I'd have run out.

Could possibly work i think.. but the credit system would have to be revamped and would be better if not all servers had the system (ie the svr admin could choose to enable or disable the system on his/her server

Another thought is this idea probably could be implemented with an insim app, rather like the ladder serries we had back in S1..

A server choice of on or off would be great. Then the bangers and wreckers wouldn't have to worry about being able to crash into each other on servers not using this. Ther could also be a separate credits system for off and online races.

There is obviously a lot of details to work out here, but can this sort of thing be done?

deja vu....

Quote from X-Ter :

...if it's possible, that is.

We all have to deal with the very common first turn crashes and ever present wreckers in servers all over the place. And we've all been trying to figure out a use for the credits. What if we could have something about like this:

There is a good idea behind this.. but i think it need to be refine. It's not that simple. I think most of racers don't know the rules. Actually, there are no rules, except the ones defined in leagues.

I would love to see some kind of "online career mode". Never seen in racing sims before, but often in war fps and in rpg.

In real live, you have to start from the bottom. Drive the slowest cars. And you have to drive a licence.

So, i would love to see something like this:
More advanced "Lessons", where you have to learn handling of a car, and also the _RULES_ of racing. Then, before you can go racing online at all, you have to pass some kind of test. Not too hard, but you have to have basic skills to handle the car, and basic knowledge of rules.

Then you are able to drive online with GT, GTI and maybe some other slow ez to handle cars. Then, after you _FINISH_ enough online races, you can take faster car. Maybe somekind of test in there also?

Also restarting race with clicking 'Pit' and 'Join' should be forbidden on every server. If you click 'Pit' and abort, you should not be able to join again.

Some kind of experience system maybe cool.. like credits, but not. You gain experience when you drive fast hotlaps, or when you finish races online. Then experience limit can be added to server.

Maybe a AI referee, which can give black flags to racers who breaks the rules. But before that, rules must be defined. And lessons need to be add, to learn the rules. When you break the rules experience can be negated.

Something like that.. don't have time to go into more details. In the nutshell, online-career.

I have been thinking about this for a while now and one solution I can think of is this. Its simple to implement, understand and also for normal people it should not be an issue.

Take the time to read and think before you flame.

- When you have a crash that means you have to jump to pits you get forced to spectate for a penalty period.

- You do NOT get a penalty for a crash if you get back to the pits and do a pit stop.

- The penalty period is 1 min for each crash you have. A crash is removed from your record after an hour is up.

1st = 1 mins
2nd = 2 mins
...
5th = 5 mins
...

So in reality the man penalty you will end up with is about 10 mins if you go out of your way to cause pile ups.

Lets face it most impacts mean you could drive on and limp to the pits and so this system would make people more careful.

If this ban worked by being managed in lfs world if will mean the wreckers will get bored quickly because after a few big pile ups it they would have to sit out too long. They would also not be able to jump servers beecause LFS world would give the new server the crash count.

Quote from BlackSpider :

Bear in mind, it's easy to gain credits. I've seen it posted before, abusing the AI to gain credits rappidly. I had thousands of credits when I bought my licence, and I went straight out on to online servers. Would've been weeks before I'd have run out.

AFAIK the credits are already seperated in offline and online credits. You could of course use that cheat in a multiplayer game too, but always racing against two AI's shouldn't be too effective.

I like the idea of entry fees, which are paid back if you finish the race. This would encourage people to actually finish the race and try to race on and get to the pits, even if they are severely damaged. Would be much better than everyone hitting shift-s as soon as they bend their suspension a little and suddenly finding yourself on third place when you started last on a 15 car field.

I believe the main reason for wreckers to stay on the servers is that they can rejoin the race as often as they want. And they'll always have a nice and fast car again and again, so they can again and again wreck you.
Shouldn't be too hard to solve this.

Vain

There is of course the "no mid-race" join option, but that's not so nice for people just connecting who then have to sit out the entire race.

Maybe a "no rejoin" option that remembers people so that you can't just disco en reconnect? That would make a crash the end of your race but would still allow people just connecting to join in.

Quote from bobvanvliet :

There is of course the "no mid-race" join option, but that's not so nice for people just connecting who then have to sit out the entire race.

Maybe a "no rejoin" option that remembers people so that you can't just disco en reconnect? That would make a crash the end of your race but would still allow people just connecting to join in.

I don't think, that "no mid-race join" is a downside, at least if the races are not longer than 6 to 8 laps.

I like the idea of having one single substitute car. But , as I am all for a maximum of freedom, instead of it being "hardcoded", just make it a server option from 0 to infinite, with being one the standard server setting.
So we could keep he racing-servers clean, and still could have banger-servers.

But I am against "unlocking" to drive all the cars, because there is only a very thin line between: "So little effort that it wouldn't be worth the trouble after all" and " So much credits needed, that 'farming' easy races would be neccessary."
As i stated in some of the numerous other threads concerning this topic, if you have to restrict by experince, do not use "points" but rather more precise stats like "miles driven", "laps driven", "races finished" and so on... And again, making these settings server-options, so noone will be excluded, but the "pros" (I am one too, concerning the racing-challenge ) can drive on their own.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

As i stated in some of the numerous other threads concerning this topic, if you have to restrict by experince, do not use "points" but rather more precise stats like "miles driven", "laps driven", "races finished" and so on... And again, making these settings server-options, so noone will be excluded.

I think that is a great idea but probably should be kept at a fairly low level otherwise it would cause eliteism :S

So maybe a max setting of 300 laps required before entry or some such thing, so a particular server could be setup for experienced drivers only (i'm sure the community is mature enough not to exlude all anyway)

Another thing that could be done with this is you can join a server regardless of how many laps you have done on the track, but can only join the race if you have x amount of laps driven - in that way the new guys can still learn from the pro's

The credit-, or ranking-, if you like, system should be dynamic. Instead of gaining a fixed number of points depending on errors and finishing position, it should also take into account who the driver was up against.

This way the points could reflect the drivers experience, and thus allow servers to only allow players within a predefined range of ranking to even out the race - optional, ofcouse.

Back to the ranking system:
Lets say a driver (A) ends as #1 - his ranking is 1500 - the driver that finished second (B) has a ranking at 2500 (higher number = better ). Driver A should gain more points than if he won over someone who had lesser points than himself.

This also reflects reallife somehow - you get alot more joy when finishing before a more experienced driver - than if you played against your grandma - if you know what i mean

AI could have fixed ranking depending on the difficulty level, but yet be a very low number, so gaining easy points by racing against AI would be hopeless task - Besides, all AI is stupid and doesn't reflect human behavior.

The ranking system should also consider how clean you drive - ie. you hit every wall you see, would lead to reduction in final outcome - just small penalties - no need to be that strict.

Furthermore, the penalty should also depend on how hard you hit that wall, or whatever it might be (exept opponents).

I believe in this solution rather than getting a pennalty when crashing into another driver - i dont beleive in computers beeing able to calculate that kind of stuff (yet) - even drivers can seem to have different oppenions on the track when an accident occurs

Besides, theres also lots of moments where its simply no ones fault.

Just my 2 cents.

Quote from r4ptor :

Besides, theres also lots of moments where its simply no ones fault.

My point exactly. If you read my initial post you'll see what I had in mind. It always cost money to crash, even if it's not your fault. You still have to cash up for the replacement parts. There is not one team in real life that hasn't got a crash budget.

hmm interesting stuff

i was thinking myself that i would like to see information displayed on a sever that would highling possible trouble makers..

I would like to see LFS log how many times a person has been kicked and banned and make this information visible on any server they join.. this way we could see that if a guy has 50 kicks and 3 bans he's probably a trouble maker and then every can vote him out of the server thereforre increasing the his kick and ban total and making it harder for him to stay on other servers

maybe this can be used further and we can have a server kick and ban entry limit which can be set.... to join a server u must have below 10 kicks or whatever.....


however this idea would not stop turn one crashes :bump: but might just stop the odd wrecker from ruining a race for others


mad

X-Ter,

I have mixed feelings about the whole cash issue. On one side it sounds cool and interesting, but on the other hand it sounds dull - I bought rFactor where you have to earn credits to be able to buy other cars and upgrades - at first it was ok - I'm fine with career modes.

But on online sessions almost everyone was driving pumped up cars - all because of a simple "cheat" wich gives the player 2 timnes the credits he would ever need :|

I tried to refusing following the same path, but it only lasted a week. It wasn't fun at all to have the slowest car on the block.

My point is, with cash there will be some limitations, and these will imo affect gameplay - if it could be done in a smart way, then I'm all for it, but I do know that an idea can sound very good and then be poorly realized - or visa versa.

Madman_CZ,
Sounds like a good idea, but only if the admins followed some clear guidelines regarding when a ban is valid.

I've been driving online for a while, and experienced some pretty sensitive admins.

The worst case was when an admin was kicking various gamers because they drove in what he described as cheat cars.

The game was rFactor MP demo, and the so called cheat cars were dummy cars for newly joined players

I've been kicked some times myself, and no, not because I ram other or did something really lame.

This was also the reason for my first post in this forum, if I remember correctly.

I tried LfS S2 demo online and experiensed rather bad stuff and unmature stuff. On one server i was even beeing voted for a kick - when i asked why, the answer was "because I'm lame" or something like that - in fact, I was the only one driving as normally, while the rest was either ramming each other, driving in the opposite direction or making burnouts @ pit.

I hate that kind, but I would hate it even more if I weren't allowed in servers because of kicks/bans from such servers.



There are lots of different types of people out there - I've been playing online games for 5+ years in a fairly regular basis, so i would say i do know a bit about it.

All I'm saying is that adding the "cash" factor to online play (at least as a server option) would sooner or later put a stop to any and all careless driving. If you don't like to play on a "Cash Enabled" server, you don't connect to one, but if you do, it will cost credits enter and to repair your vehicle.
I also bought rFactor and as soon as I heard about the money cheat code, I made a second profile. The thing is, that rF and LFS is different in this. In LFS, you don't buy upgrades for your credits. You just unlock cars (or at least did in S1).

In short...
One mode where credits matter and one mode where credits don't matter. If you play in the mode where credits matter, you have to gain credits in online play to unlock vehicles. It costs credits to enter a race and to repair your car. If you finish the race, you should at least get your entry fee back, but if you get a DNF for some reason you lose the credits.

The other mode is like it is now. Credits don't matter at all. Cars are unlocked and available and people ar not the least bit careful and everyone crash in first turn

However it's going to be, let's just hope you can't type LFS_BABYFACTORY

if damage costs, then fuel and tires should also cost something...and if you really let your mind wander off, why not have an indicator for the current number of kilometers (miles) done with the current car ? it would be nice just to have one (at least I'd like to see one) even if overall car damage would not be available - i mean driving 1000 kilometers in a racing manner should theortically ruin at least the clutch, but even some ball bearings, exhaust pipes, suspension...anyway,i think having a credit or money or whatever system is a great idea.of course this would mean individual profiles on a game server (to keep the mileage, credits, car condition).

- apo3d -
Now that is a career mode worth the name
Start in the small cars (uf1000) on the short tracks (aston cadet, sc sprints?) and work your way up to faster cars and more tracks. Make use of the credit system so you have to make a race (and crash) budget including tires, fule, general ware and so on and so on.
Now that would really make most people think twice about careless driving

Quote from r4ptor :

X-Ter,
But on online sessions almost everyone was driving pumped up cars - all because of a simple "cheat" wich gives the player 2 timnes the credits he would ever need :|

This is only a matter of proper implementation. Im not familiar with rF, but let me guess, same credits are shared between single player and multiplayer modes?

In singleplayer, that kind of "hacks" are possible. And impossible to prevent. But in multiplayer it's different. If the player credits are stored and calculated in a server (we allready got LFSWorld), it's allmost impossible to do any kind of hack which would allow you to gain extra credits. It would require you to hack the actual LFSWorld server. And messing with the game is allready prevented in LFS online mode, you can't use any car mods etc.. including the ones affecting credits gain.

Jup, you are right, mdmx - credits are shared in single and multiplayer :|