Guys, here's some provisional rules for connectivity. I think these are necessary after last night's event, just in case. Sure, we all hope that it doesn't happen again, but its best to be prepared. Anyway, to the point:

Player connectivity

In the case of a single player lagging out, that player is allowed to reconnect to the server and rejoin the race. However, this will lead to him starting the race from scratch because it is difficult to keep track of laps completed. This may change once time-based racing options expand and we can get closer to our target race lengths, but this change will not take place in the middle of a season.

Drivers timing out during the lag lap will have three minutes to reconnect to the server. This is sufficient time for a reboot a PC and get LFS up and running again. If it is a major issue, the league cannot put the race on hold for a single racer.

Server connectivity

If more than 25% of the field times out before the race is over, the server is considered to be the issue. 5 racers dropping out could lead to major shifts in points and this would not be fair on anybody.

If server problems occur after 2/3 of the race is completed, 50% of the points are awarded to everyone, as per standings before the server crash.

If server problems occur before 2/3 of the race is completed, the race is rescheduled after the end of the season and qualifying is repeated. Due to reserve drivers etc. we can't just shift everything a week forwards because this may lead to a reserve driver's practice for a particular combo going to waste.


Anything to add? Is anything unclear? Does something need to be different? Please post comments etc.

EDIT: Edited according to Tristan's suggestion.

Anton, I think your solution is best, the whole if race is under 2/3's finished, redo the RACE (with quali results staying the same) as a replacement for the next event, because chances has it that the server may puke for the Saturday race. whereas if the race is = or over 2/3s complete, use the results as was.

Anyone, got complaints? I would like to finalise these before Saturday's event.

Sounds good to me.

Perhaps state how long a race start will wait for a driver who times out on a lag lap, or what happens in qualifying if a driver disconnects.

Same applies to server crashes during lag-laps and qualifying.

Best to be prepared.

Quote from axus :

If server problems occur before 2/3 of the race is completed, the race is rescheduled after the end of the season and qualifying is repeated. Due to reserve drivers etc. we can't just shift everything a week forwards because this may lead to a reserve driver's practice for a particular combo going to waste.

This sounds a bit weird...?
---

Weren't teams supposed to use their primary drivers on all races and the reserve drivers only when the main drivers can't participate? And in the case of allowing 4th drivers to take part you are giving a big benefit to organized teams because for big teams it's just a question of ask. For a small, temporary teams it is a lot harder because you don't have 20 people in reserve just waiting the call to jump in. When signing up for the league you need to make sure that your 3 drivers can make it. If you are unsure, you are taking a risk to not be able to paricipate on all events, not relying on the rules to allow more persons outside the original team to participate for you
---

Still huge thumbs-up for you to making this LXCC league.

Hyperactive, what I'm trying to say there is that, say your reserve driver knows that he's racing for this race in advance. So if he's been practicing and there's server problems and the combo he's racing gets changed, then it just gets complicated and it'd be better to put the race at the end if a redo is necessary.

As for small teams, they can probably find a replacement here on the forum. There are often complications and certain things come completely unexpectedly. Joose was meant to be driving last night, not me but his internet line got struck by lightning and its taking several weeks to fix. What can you do? That's why I say a reason must be provided when doing this.

Anton i'd set the lag-lap disconnect to 5 minutes. Some PCs tkae a while to load up (mine takes about 2-3 minutes to get stable on the desktop - starting up GMail notifier, IRC, messenger,... takes a while)

Well, once the three minutes are up, we will have to do another lag-lap etc. and added to the initial comotion of "what happened", I'm sure that anyone without serious PC problems will make it in time. It should give you about 4 - 4.5min or so. Or do you still think it needs to be more?