Hokay! Time for a discussion about a matter which every now and then puts me in some rather interesting discussions (on servers).

Yellow flag is, as most of you know, a indicator that the an hazard is lurking ahead on the track. Usually a car which has spun or a collision.

When yellow flag occurs in LFS it's apeshit all over place. People do not slow down, but instead tries to overtake and all hell brakes lose since people look on it as an opertunity, not a matter of caution.
Is this a good or bad thing? Give your thoughts please!

Also, following situation happend today, and I want to hear your opinion about that too:
Car in front of me spins and collects me, which then ends up sideways on the track. I have several options here, one is to specate, one is to hold the ground and do not move til field has passed, and one is to try to get away as soon as possible (but with a high risk of causing even bigger mess). I chosed to keep my brakes on and wait for the field to pass, but sadly it ended up with having several cars hit me, and a all hell broke lose. Now the question is: Should I have insta-spectated, or did I do right? I want to do try to drive as I would in real life, where a spin does not put you out of the race, I do NOT want to autospec because I do a mistake and I don't want others to do it either. Yellow flag is yellow flag - hazard aproaching and people just have to learn to be carefull.

Or is it a selfish thought?

Fire away!

Good choice if you're in the middle of the track. The problem is that sometimes people do spectate and when this happens people who throw caution out of the window gain loads of ground for it. It's not selfish to remain on track and attempt to continue if significant damage has not occured.

Of course on ovals you should spectate unless it's a lengthy race, because you'll be taken out of contention anyways if you're in the middle of the track.

My car was not placed at a very ideal place, it was placed on the exit of the hill-S-corner at KY3, but normally it should be at least 100M veiw distance in that corner, so if people had slowed down everything would have been all-jolly-good.
But again, maybe I should have specced, but for me that kills the whole racing. There is trills and spills in racing, yes, shit happens, but I wish yellow flags would be respected more.

Well, as I see it, you did right. It's not your fault if people don't heed the yellow flag.

Actually I'd propose autospecing of a car that overtakes a non stationary car during a yellow flag.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

Well, as I see it, you did right. It's not your fault if people don't heed the yellow flag.

Actually I'd propose autospecing of a car that overtakes a non stationary car during a yellow flag.

Now that would be interesting! Could this be done by insim coding?
Violating yellow flag rules should be a penalty, as speeding in pit causes penalties today.

LFS does have a tendency of throwing yellow flags for pretty much everything, which is part of the reason why people don't slow down too much. But you were correct in not spectating, I've never understood why people complain when you don't spectate the second you spin

As we discussed slightly on the server, it really does depend on your approach to LFS. For example, if you see this simply as a 'game' then sure you would be outraged if somebody was in the middle of the track and did not spectate or pit - which is why you get people in those situations flamed for sitting there. However, if you approach LFS as a simulator (which is what it is) like me then you will sit in the track and wait for an opportunity to rejoin the race safely. In a real life situation one cannot spectate or tele-pit, and those circumstances teach me for similar situations in real life.

However there is a happy medium, on LFS if you have been involved in a huge accident and the car is considerably damaged I can understand why people would want you to get the hell out of there. But my reasoning is that maybe safety rating should decrease if overtaking happens during a corner or something along those lines, as under a yellow flag overtaking is deemed dangerous driving and you will be punished for it in real life. In the end, for me it is those around you who have the responsibility to avoid you, and if they hit you due to lack of awareness or trying to overtake then that is their fault, or if they hit you because there is nowhere else to go - then I'm afraid that is just a racing incident.

Quote from The Very End :

Now that would be interesting! Could this be done by insim coding?
Violating yellow flag rules should be a penalty, as speeding in pit causes penalties today.

Quite impossible to do by insim or anything similar because there can always be someone recovering from an accident going at very low speed and it's not against the rules to pass him, so autospectate for something like this would be pure nonsens imo.

It's 50/50 imo.

If we're talking about public racing, it's hard to tell, what to do, depends on every single situation.
I am for non-spectating, because if you messed up, cars around and behind will take some action, before you press the magic combo and if it's just after start, it will probably cause carnage anyway.
In the other case, when you're already racing in a field spread around the track, you won't spectate, unless you destroy your car in the process, because you still might want to catch up.
Special case is cargame multiclass racing, which is totally insane and has no rules, regardless of the fact, that there are some.

And yellow flag overtaking you say?

Make yellow flag last longer than it is now showing.
Maybe set a speed limit under yellow and no passing.

If I can drive the car back to pits..

Quote from Mysho :

Quite impossible to do by insim or anything similar because there can always be someone recovering from an accident going at very low speed and it's not against the rules to pass him, so autospectate for something like this would be pure nonsens imo.

I propose to give a penalty, or spectate if a driver does not at least lift off the throttle under yellow flag.

Meh. There are plenty of times when lifting is not needed to avoid anyone. Doing so just because the rules say so, regardless of situation, is annoying. Even more so if the person behind lifts.. less.

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Meh. There are plenty of times when lifting is not needed to avoid anyone. Doing so just because the rules say so, regardless of situation, is annoying. Even more so if the person behind lifts.. less.

Then my understanding of a yellow flag situation must be wrong... You should always lift off or even break when yellow flags are waved.. At least thats what I do.. But then again, I barely race in LFS anymore..

I brake if there appears to be need for braking, regardless of flags. If someone goes off wide in front of me and I can see there is no way they're spinning back on the track I'm not lifting, yellow flag or not.

I voted no but i think there is an exception on the 3 lap demo servers because of the amount of beginners and length of the race. Normally, navigating the effects of accidents are a part of motor racing. I'd prefer it if people who spectate aren't allowed to rejoin the race. I think if any auto spectating goes on it should be because the car is too damaged and FUBAR.

i reckon it should be on the amount of damage. Say if you hit a wall and your toe and camber is messed, it affects your tires, so you cant drive as fast and dont have full control of your car, so its causing a hazard to other drivers as you could loose control easily.

I watched the movie Driven too much. I flip the finger to the flag and heavyfoot it through. Massive wreck or not.

Lol
Well, sure, is your car completely dead then spectating og piting is a suitable sollution, but when spinning and at best only uses some of the tyres I think people should be allowed to try to continue - as long as they show caution. But again, the caution got to be shown and respected by all, not just the inviduals, therfor we have a big task in front of us to try changing the attitute of the normal racer online today.

This is my view...

When was the last time you saw anyway in F1, Nascar, BTCC, WTCC, Rally etc etc hit Shift+S? Never.

This is a realistic game. Cars crashing/spinning and being all over the track is realistic. It's part of racing.

Get over it.

The only time Shift+S applies is if you physically CAN NOT move your car.

Yeah, I dislike this "Shift-S if you crash!" culture, because it has shifted the responsibility to avoiding collisions under yellow away from the person who has control of their car and onto the person having an accident.

I agree with Clarkson - anyone who ignores yellows, piles into a crash scene at racing speed and then blames the stationary car for causing the crash should be taken outside and shot infront of their family.

Ppl dont care about yellow flag on a multi class sever, they BARELY respect the blue flag, what makes you think they gona fully respect a YF?

Is a sad true, and whe have to live with it on cargame...

Joining the spectators was introduced by "OvalJunkies" IIRC as a rule on just their server, but I think since then its become more common overall, lets face it, its not realistic and race drivers really need to learn what yellow flag means.
For me when I see a yellow I don't always lift, but I will check the minimap for stationary cars ahead and be ready and expect to slow/break for stopped or turned around cars.
However to me the more important rule is "no overtaking under yellow flag" it seems whenever I go online (not that often lately I know) people can't wait to overtake yellow flag or not, it seems a pile up is just a good excuse to gain a few extra places regardless of flags, shocking!

TVE the 2 points you made in the 1st post, I would have done exactly the same.

SD.

I think the real issue is that LFS is too keen to get the yellow flag out. It's like violence on TV, people are desensitised to it.

Until then the best you can hope for is to act in the way you would like others to do and hope that it catches on.

And when the inevitable flamewar/voteban starts, just remember you are talking to testosterone and not a person.

The biggest problem, i think, its what in LFS people don't see it as a real racing, but as a simple game...

They just want to win, and forget about racing things...
Some examples i saw while racing:

-Forcing a 3 wide on South city
-Trying to pass someone with damaged car on a corner (SO too)
-Forcing over someone with low car control on a tight corner


Normally, when i was demo user and faster than half of the grid, i never had problems with newbie drivers (drivers from 0,5 to 5s slower), but in the S2 servers i had several problems with the others touching me because im slower...