Quote from Setu :

I race superkarts in real life. I race LFS in the evenings, when I am not stripping the kart or putting children to bed. I have raced all over Britain on the long circuits, (Silverstone, Brands Hatch etc), within iches of other races at up to 150 mph. I (almost) never crash on the track, and I have won championships.

In LFS I crash frequently, and then someone insults me.

It seems that I have frequently been criticised recently in LFS races for wiping people out, when they are trying MAD manouevres.
For instance, overtaking through a chicane, (but not down the inside of the first corner, down the inside of the second). Going around the outside of someone through the first part of a chicane, and hoping to get down the inside of the second part of the chicane does not work. It never has and it never will, unless the car you are overtaking has only three wheels, and is meant to have four. If you try this in real life, you must be a nutter with a deathwish.

I am sorry, I am not looking in my mirrors for nutters with a deathwish. They try mad manoeuvres and then blame me. For instance having their nose level with my rear wheel when I turn in, but not lifting off. For instance, when I am being lapped, and I am keeping to the outside of the track and braking a little early, to give the leader a chance to get by down the inside, trying to pass me on the outside on the grass!

There is a general rule in racing, which is that the corner is only yours if you are level with the driver you are trying to overtake. This is not a 'made up' rule, it is common sense - if you aren't level, HE CAN'T SEE YOU. Remember that in a real car/kart, he is probably pulling three 'g's, changing gear, coping with a handling problem, wishing his neck didn't hurt so much and hoping that 'that' noise is not another expensive engine problem. He is not looking in his mirrors which vibrate so badly he can't see in them anyway, for your do-or-die attempt to retake 23rd place. In LFS he is probably talking on the phone, listening to some music and pouring a glass of wine as he tries to learn this new track.

Why are standards so bad? Because mostly the racers don't have to pay for crashed cars, and they can't get hurt, and they don't have to face anyone afterwards? Because nobody cares? Because there are lots of nine year olds who think that finishing fourth is too dull? I don't know.

So I am timid, and therefore slow, right? Sometimes. However, I nearly always finish, and I do OK through the first corner melee, and rarely take anyone else off through my own fault. I often start 10th, and finish the first lap 4th. This could be useful for the quicker drivers, so how can this be done?

I would suggest a few tips. Please comment on them, or add your own. Just don't call me names anymore, when you crash into me in some insane manoeuvre:

1) When following a slower car, pull aside as you enter the braking zone. He might be going slower because he brakes earlier.
2) Try to be slow in, quick out of corners. That way you overtake down the straights. Overtaking on the straights is good. Being alongside in a flat-out chicane is bad, unless you really know and trust the other driver, and you probably don't.
3) To finish first, you must first finish. The first two corners on cold tyres are taken much slower than normal. Even if the track is empty. More so when it's full of spinning idiots.
4) If there are yellow flags, assume that there just could be an accident around the corner.
5) If you see an accident, slow down a bit. The driver will probably move. Passing him at 135mph with 2 inches to spare might be risky. It's your race you will lose.
6) Try to be right on the inside going into the first corner. Go a little slower if necessary. Cars spin outwards, therefore you can get by down the inside.
7) Remember net lag! You and the driver along side are reacting about a second apart. You only look like you are racing together.
8) Give him more room than you would on the road. He probably needs it.

If you want to see how a real "I might die if I get this wrong" driver is, see Youtube and search for "Isle of man in a superkart". How many of you would have followed for several laps like he did, looking for the right moment to get by? Of course you wouldn't, you would have rammed him, and then blamed him afterwards for not looking in his mirrors, right?

Setu.

All of the above 'him's probably apply equally to 'her's. It's just impossible to tell on the internet.

Just out of interest. HAve you ever raced at Croft?

My experience with Pro damage in GPL is that you lose most of the field before the end. Unfortunately the innocent get taken out as well as the guilty. Add in a few mistakes and you end up with few finishers. Fine for the finishers although not very satisfying but frustrating for the innocent victims. It might be different in LFS because the road cars can survive minor contact. In GPL touch wheels and you both go into orbit.

The idea of radiator damage might help though as this will only affect the driver behind, the driver going too fast under yellow and the driver trying to go too fast for a corner. Being rear ended by someone who seems to think a slower car is also a ghost car would generally see only one victim.

I do sometimes wonder where the pleasure comes from for some people. It is almost like anything between them and the win doesn't mean anything. They gain no pleasure for lining up someone for a pass and executing it cleanly when it is for a meaningless place. Generally speaking very few peolple are going to win any particular race so why not race the person in front rather then just going flat out and treating anything that gets in the way as an annoyance. Maybe the individual's fastest lap should be an option that can be switched off from the results table?

I look forward to the time when game AI can take over the role of race steward. Until then this problem will always exist.

Maxim

I'd just like to add that IMO realistic (more sensitive) damage would not necessarily help because simply adding a feature doesn't change the attitude of a driver. E.g.: If an aggressive driver consistently blaims someone else in T1 he's going to keep on blaiming them no matter what the damage is. Perhaps damage would reduce crashes because of the "fear" of ruining the race for oneself, but that's not the way to go because it still wouldn't make the participants understand that it's incorrect racing etiquette, not just because it causes some damage.

Quote from Setu :

How many of you would have followed for several laps like he did, looking for the right moment to get by? Of course you wouldn't, you would have rammed him, and then blamed him afterwards for not looking in his mirrors, right?

Don't tar us all with the same brush bro!!

Sounds like you need to join the OWRL!

see these threads for more dicussion about this:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... 7&highlight=racecraft

http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... 3&highlight=racecraft

Quote from Setu :

It seems that I have frequently been criticised recently in LFS races for wiping people out, when they are trying MAD manouevres.

It's not madness. It's quite logical:

Quote from thisnameistaken :

It's just five-lap-race mentality. You can tell people that the race isn't won at T1 all you like, but in a five lap race it actually is most of the time. Anyone left behind won't want to spend a lap putting a pass on someone because there's only five laps total, so they just barge.

(But to blame the other when your kamikaze manoeuvre ends in disaster, well, that is madness.)

I like the ideas being brought up in this thread. Especially the quick test before being allowed on the racetrack I think is a great idea.

When I first started racing I was scared to go near the faster cars (especially FO8) and stuck to the slower classes until I got used to throttle control etc. Perhaps if we had a re-worked tutorial section that only allowed you to drive the cars online after doing a few laps without touching grass (HLVC implemented somehow perhaps) this would at least stop people joining and plummeting straight on at T1

Quote from Woz :

Exactly, but why optional. If it only takes 30 mins for most sane people and it is logged on your LFS account you will never have to re-take the test if you re-install etc so there is no hardship.

Lets face it all current people that are serious racers should walk any test and if someone can't pass the test then why let them online if it means they will cause chaos.

As a paid customer to LFS, everyone has the right to race online. It is not their right to race on servers paid for by folks of the public. That is why IMO it is better as an option.

I see this stuff happening a lot as well. Before I go all balistic on them, I check them out. If you hold ctrl-shift (or is it ctrl-tab) you get their actual registered name in the list. Right click on their name, hit "home" key and type /w tl (checking for total laps stats) in front of their name. If they have only a few laps, then you know they are new. In my opinion, it is better to educate rather than berate in the servers. It doesn't take much to help out the new guys. I do it all the time. I'd rather have one more person after some education to race with than to turn them off of LFS and get rid of them with an elitist attitude or ban. Yes, some don't listen or care. They get right back out there and cause havoc on the track. But you'd be surprised how many will say "Thank you so much for the help!"

Yelling "Blue Flag! You Noob!" doesn't help them in any way when they have no idea what a blue flag is. I had no idea what that was when it was implemented in LFS. I had enough common sense to move out of the way of leaders back in S1 demo, but still had no idea what the blue flag was when we got it in S2. Education is the key, not yelling and screaming at the "noobs".

Remember that GT3/4 and NFS are very popular. The true racing sims of past are not as popular. Thus many folks are coming here from a "game" aspect and thinking this is another cool "game". They do not realize at first the fantastic simulation that has been evolving with "games" like LFS.

Any of you guys read Slashdot? And are familiar with the 'karma' system, and the ability to moderate?

Well - I liked the suggestion of getting your LFS "race license". Sure, this license wouldn't be mandatory for all servers (so as to remain welcoming for the casual newbie racers), but it wouldn't be hard to code in a feature where servers could require a virtual LFS race license to allow people to join. A "hardcore" server filter, if you like.

So how would you get your license? You could organise race license 'driving test' races. I don't know what the equivalent is IRL but I know you have to apply and pass some sort of examination before you get a race license. Here's one possible solution (there would be many other ways, just bear with me and see the principle behind the suggestion): So you'd get a bunch of guys to enter a race under 'supervision' mode. Once the race is over, whether the drivers like it or not, the MPR would be submitted for review by approved examiners (i.e. drivers with high karma - you could call these guys 'moderators' or whatever. Race examiners. Something like that).

You'd get awarded points (oooh, remember them?) for clean races, until you got a certain total which would qualify you for a license. Drive like an idiot? Lose points. Or lose *all* your points for some of the mad manoeuvres described by Setu. You would also have to get at least one lap in within a certain time (e.g. within - say - 115% of wr? or something like that) and obviously have to finish. Maybe force some sort of consistency - i.e. we don't want one superhero lap with every other lap involving a crash or an "off". Maybe even force candidate racers to complete the full driving tests in the game as has already been suggested. Generally, raise the barrier to entry.

There would also have to be some sort of mechanism to catch out people with race licenses going a bit mental after they've received their license. Perhaps licensed racers could click a 'marshall' button that voted for the MPR to be reviewed. Only licensed racers (or even those with high *enough* karma) would get the option to call a marshall vote. If enough marshall votes were amassed, the MPR gets sent off for review by a similar sort of panel, with real consequences if poor racecraft was demonstrated. Potentially driver(s) could be penalised (reducing points, reducing 'class' of license etc), even to the point of revoking their license completely and even blacklisting them for some time (or forever!).

You'd also have to work on making sure that the awarding of race licenses was done fairly, i.e. people wouldn't abuse their moderator priviliges. So possibly a meta-moderate feature like Slashdot could be implemented. E.g. every 10 race licenses awarded would be reviewed to make sure the *moderator* was performing their job properly.

I see a huge flaw here in the amount of work involved to review MPRs to award licenses, and interpretation of what is a fair pass (that goes wrong) versus someone driving like an idiot would need some care. Appeal systems / consistent rules / lack of interest....

... maybe this would never work in practice.

But I am pretty sure that the idea of some prestige or glory associated with "Rakhsh (gold race license - 11,204 credits)" versus "Rakhsh (bronze license - 25 credits)" might be enough to get some folks to commit time to make this kind of system work. Think about the amount of care and effort the forum regulars put in here, for instance.

And of course this would allow us to have licensed-racers-only servers (hardcore servers) which addresses Setu's original point: it gives the net result of some sort of consequence resulting from driving like an idiot - it makes you have to *work* to get that damned license, and it matters if you lose it. And you *could* lose it. In real life, it is $$$s and the threat of personal injury that hopefully slows you down - in virtual LFS racing we need to create something artificial to make racers "care". Being denied entry, and being marked a bit of a poor racer might be enough, or then again maybe not.

Does anyone else remember what it felt like, having to win those races in S1 to get enough points before you got the higher cars? First time I unlocked the XRT .... woah ... this thing *goes*. Same sort of thing for having a race license - that sense of 'damn, I had better be sensible, this took an AGE to earn - better not lose it in a marshall vote....' You'd approach your first races on a hardcore server with a feeling of privilege, and respect, not only to the racing in general but also to your fellow racers, and who wouldn't want that?

Even if all this sounds hare-brained, thanks Setu for a great original post. I'd support this being a sticky (possibly in Newbie section?). Apologies for rambling on.

Cheers

Rakhsh

well, i think... it's not gonna work



i dont see crc servers online... so maybe bring'em back

or go to well hosted servers

and for noobs: i dont remember manual really (i think many key shortcuts missing there) but the paragraph with blue/yellow flag announcements could have racing ettiquette overview.


btw: lately i was racing on conedodgers server against fzrs with xrr. i was couple seconds slower but i could outbrake them (xrr the beauty :lovies3d from far behind. this could look like kamikaze move but it works. on the other hand i was slower in corner (that can be tweaked in setup i think oh, that car needs just top speed = bigger turbo ) and was pissed off by "league" "team" driver who had to bump me out instead of taking room inside i made for blue flag pass.

imho it's noob/hotlapper attitude - maybe abandoning best lap highlighting would help a bit.

@yellow flag - the rule is "slow down to avoid accident and dont take opportunity to overtake" - so this could be apllied automatically by disqualifying or blackflagging (forced pitting or spectating) as long as cars involved in accident are detected.

Quote from mrodgers :

As a paid customer to LFS, everyone has the right to race online. It is not their right to race on servers paid for by folks of the public. That is why IMO it is better as an option.

I see this stuff happening a lot as well. Before I go all balistic on them, I check them out. If you hold ctrl-shift (or is it ctrl-tab) you get their actual registered name in the list. Right click on their name, hit "home" key and type /w tl (checking for total laps stats) in front of their name. If they have only a few laps, then you know they are new. In my opinion, it is better to educate rather than berate in the servers. It doesn't take much to help out the new guys. I do it all the time. I'd rather have one more person after some education to race with than to turn them off of LFS and get rid of them with an elitist attitude or ban. Yes, some don't listen or care. They get right back out there and cause havoc on the track. But you'd be surprised how many will say "Thank you so much for the help!"

Yelling "Blue Flag! You Noob!" doesn't help them in any way when they have no idea what a blue flag is. I had no idea what that was when it was implemented in LFS. I had enough common sense to move out of the way of leaders back in S1 demo, but still had no idea what the blue flag was when we got it in S2. Education is the key, not yelling and screaming at the "noobs".

Remember that GT3/4 and NFS are very popular. The true racing sims of past are not as popular. Thus many folks are coming here from a "game" aspect and thinking this is another cool "game". They do not realize at first the fantastic simulation that has been evolving with "games" like LFS.

In S1 you had NO access to any other car apart from the very basic you then had to earn credits to buy extra cars. You had to know about the 3 lap with 3 Pro AI "cheat" and even then it would take 7 races that you WIN to get the GT Turbo.

I am all for educating drivers online and when I started people helped me and I also do the same for others from time to time if the server is almost empty. Being a noob is no reason for not understanding what is required racing rules wise before you effect other people by being online.

The fact that bumper car racing games like the GT series etc are so popular is even more reason to ram home to people that this is not the way racing is done. Yes you have purchased the game and have the right to play online BUT if you can't even pass a simple test that takes 30 minutes of your life then what hope have they of not causing a pile up online? None.

Quote from jaws99 :

Just out of interest. HAve you ever raced at Croft?

Jaws99 - Yes I have raced at Croft. It's a great circuit. I had a superb race when it had rained, and the track was drying so I tried slicks. I had been disqualified from the first heat for being 200 grammes(!) underweight (the best of three readings), so I started last. The pole position man and I started on slicks, everyone else was on wets, on a drying track.

The first few laps were hairy with no grip - taking the back section after tower flat in fifth, with full lock is an experience I will never forget!!!! Then the track dried and the wet tyres started to overheat. The final few laps were hairy because I was 20mph faster through the corners than everyone on wets, and was having to pass them inside, outside, every which way and off line on the wet, (Slicks will stay hot enough for one corner on the wet). I didn't hit anyone, and I think I finished about 12th out of 30, the pole man finished second after dropping to about 12th.

To everyone else, thanks for the positive comments. I like some of the ideas. Here's one of my own - how about LFS having a points system similar to that described above, and the people who run the servers can set a points threshold. Then most servers will still be open, but some would require some experience. Maybe some servers would even be for people with less than a threshold, i.e. novices only.

I have seen a problem recently with people who buy the game and jump straight into online racing in a difficult car. I am from the S1 olden days where you had to earn the cars, and i raced the demo of S2 for a while.

I would welcome a system like on the fps Americas Army. On there you have to go through training before being able to use certain weapons. For example to be a medic you have to actually take tests on what to do in medical emergencies. To be a sniper you need to train on a shooting range and get a very good score. To use special forces units you need to take numerous tests, and do some very very difficult missions.

LFS could have a similar system, with car control tests and tasks which let you earn the more powerful cars. There could be tests on track awareness, with picture questions asking what to do in certain situations. Once you have done this you could be given a personal code to unlock all the cars incase you have to re-install the game. If they make that code unique to each persons account then it would stop people just looking on google for a code.

Its a risk as people could be put off by it, but those would be the type of impatient people who do those crazy moves and crash people out.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Its a risk as people could be put off by it, but those would be the type of impatient people who do those crazy moves and crash people out.

It could be a cool single player mode and if the AI is up to notch...

There are lots of great ideas, in this thread, except that they'd require (much) more work from the developers, and I'm afraid they are too busy with their current plans to be able to give us something like that in the near future. However most of these ideas could be implemented by third parties (some of us, that is). Here's how I *think* it could work:

Most public servers would be protected with a "racer" password. Think of it as a federation license. A racer password would be given only to old timers who are in a league or team that already required them to prove their worth, and to people who passed the following tests.

- The federation's site would have a questionnaire, as a web form, with questions about racing rules, how to respect them, and so on. When you get enough good answers in this form, you're given an "applicant" password. This could be fully automatized.

- There would be some servers (with a specific name) set with one or several given races (maybe there could be several categories of increasing difficulty and several different "licenses"?). These servers could be accessed only with this applicant password or with a racer password (or maybe not with a racer password but with a "marshal" password given to the moderators of the federation site only?). Appliquants would be required to finish a given number of races on these servers (which could decrease with their number of podium positions).

I'm not sure how the ban system works, but it could probably be used to give penalties to the worse racers (those who trigger crashes with kamikaze maneuvers and things like that). For example the first ban could last one week, the second one month, etc. There would be a forum on the federation site where you'd have to report having been banned, and where you would ask for being unbanned when your penalty has been fulfilled. Can you save a replay when you've just got banned? If so people unfairly banned could complain by sending the replay to that forum and would be unbanned when proved right. Otherwise, maybe all the races could be recorded and kept a few days on these servers.

Finally, when they meet the conditions, appliquants would post a message on this forum, asking for their racer password. A moderator would then check their online stats and the bans forum to make sure they meet the conditions, and would PM them their racer password.

Such a system would require a bit of voluntary work by some people and some points would have to be worked out, but I think it could lead to have many "clean racers" servers in a short timeframe.

And as a newbie, I wouldn't mind having to go through something like this.

Absolutely fair points by Fl!p and thisnameistaken about the current priority work for the devs and whether we could put enough effort in to make it a reality. Maybe a simple cut-down version like this could work:

* Server admins get together to participate in a federation (a bit like wrecker barricade). E.g. a "hardcore club". Hardcore servers are password protected and an agreed name convention is used for the list of games (e.g. [HC] ProRacingRoom or whatever)
* (Optional) Some hardcore server admins would run two servers - a private one for qualified racers, and a public one to enlist or attract new drivers - let's call these 'qualification servers'. Note that there would have to be at least *one* qualification server!
* New drivers find a public hardcore qualification server. On the welcome message, it explains the concept and gives a contact email for new racers who wish to join
* New racers who are interested in applying for a hardcore race license notify the admin, and they provide their email address (a bit obvious, but see later)
* An evaluation race - or races - is organised to make sure new applicants are up to scratch. Maybe a combo that is a bit infamous or difficult (you guys could guess this better than me) so that the level of race discipline is made obvious. Something like RACs at South City?
* Someone needs to observe the evaluation race. This could be in realtime or just by reviewing an MPR afterwards. Ideally there would be a way of finding places in an MPR that shows contact / accidents to make this easier but that's another topic. So yes, this would involve real effort. Some folks might find themselves more prepared to do this than others. The decisions about whether an applicant racer is awarded their license or not doesn't need to happen on the spot, e.g. if you want a second opinion, you could email the MPR to another qualification 'marshall' or adjudicator
* Server admin for the hardcore server sends a group email to all successful applicants with the server password
* At some point in the future you might need to withdraw someone's license - you do this by changing the password and telling all the drivers - apart from the ones you just banned, of course!
* You could use LFS Lapper to see if any unexpected racer user ID names appear in the stats. This would detect people giving out the password to their mates. You could ban *both* of them - the cheeky guy using the borrowed password, and the idiot who gave it to them in the first place. This might be tricky, or then again might be dead easy. Maybe we should buy Monkster a pint and see what he can do. NB this is an advantage of S2 over demo (ha!) as user IDs can't be changed
* (Optional, but would be extremely cool) Hardcore server admins syndicate their password with other HC servers. So once you have your license, it gets you in on *any* hardcore server
* Banned racers who are blacklisted could always buy another copy of LFS to get a new user ID and try again, but I don't think anyone would really object to that ... least of all Scavier


What do you think?

Rakhsh

I would like to know your opinions on this:

Yesterday, I was driving fairly good, and someone with a faster car (but not so good driver) was in front of me. I was constantly in his ass (not hitting) waiting for him to make a mistake so I could pass him. He didn't make any mistakes, so I had to finish 8th where my regular lap time (when I would have raced alone) would have finished me 5th.

BTW: The guy was mad at me because I made him nerveous. ??

But in reality, I could have been mad (I was just a little pissed off) because he wouldn't give me any chance to pass while he was so terribly slow.

I'm always very very careful (that's probably why I have never been banned or kicked in any S2 server), but being that careful costs me... (and even got me this angry guy yesterday)

What should I have done? Or am I doomed at that point and should I have searched for another LFS server?

You did the right thing, IMO. And the guy should have been thankful because you gave him a chance to train coping with pressure. If he doesn't like it, he should rather look for a cab simulator or something.

I agree. You did nothing wrong. In fact, what you did is an example of excellent race craft.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I agree. You did nothing wrong. In fact, what you did is an example of excellent race craft.

Ah well, I have made my share of mistakes too, so these things make up for the mistakes .

Quote from scippie :

I would like to know your opinions on this:

Yesterday, I was driving fairly good, and someone with a faster car (but not so good driver) was in front of me. I was constantly in his ass (not hitting) waiting for him to make a mistake so I could pass him. He didn't make any mistakes, so I had to finish 8th where my regular lap time (when I would have raced alone) would have finished me 5th.

BTW: The guy was mad at me because I made him nerveous. ??

But in reality, I could have been mad (I was just a little pissed off) because he wouldn't give me any chance to pass while he was so terribly slow.

I'm always very very careful (that's probably why I have never been banned or kicked in any S2 server), but being that careful costs me... (and even got me this angry guy yesterday)

What should I have done? Or am I doomed at that point and should I have searched for another LFS server?

I have had fights where I have held off far faster drivers throught good solid defensive lines through corners. Sounds like he put in a solid enough performance to not slip up too bad and you did the right thing but not overtaking when there was no gap.

Sometimes the slower driver beats you but that is racing

Bet the race flew past and you enjoyed it though as you were having to work to find the gap

Quote from Woz :

Bet the race flew past and you enjoyed it though as you were having to work to find the gap

Not completely true: I think I did 3 races, always got stuck behind that guy . Then it's not so fun anymore .

I think this whole argument for online racing licensing or certification, or what ever it is, is a little off base. There is no need. It only restricts people from racing online. More people online is better. Even if it's a frag fest.

Leagues serve the purpose of joining like minded drivers perfectly well.

To add my two cents to the orignal topic, I like to say this:

Reread the original post. I love it. I have nothing to add. It is a simulator, after all. Let's drive it as if it were real.

Quote from Slartibartfast :

....I have nothing to add. It is a simulator, after all. Let's drive it as if it were real.

That is the problem in that noobs do not do this.

At least back in S1 days the noobs could not jump into a fast car from a fresh install. They had to go through learning the slower cars and then win races to get credits to purchase the faster cars.

This meant that they at least had a rough idea on the tracks and also how the cars performed.