In normal racing the one who's behind has to consider that

1. the one infront may be braking earlier because he's new to the track
   
2. his braking is much less efficient when in the slipstream of the car infront
   
3. that for each car in a corner he has to brake a few metres earlier to the normal "hotlap brakepoint"

That said, if someone is an ass and brakes somewhere completely unreasonable, either because of stupidness or deliberately to wreck you (or both :mad:) he should get a penalty like he would in RL™ (read: he gets shot by the anti-wrecker snipers positioned on key points of the track :mischievo).

Quote from AndroidXP :

In normal racing the one who's behind has to consider that

1. the one infront may be braking earlier because he's new to the track
   
2. his braking is much less efficient when in the slipstream of the car infront
   
3. that for each car in a corner he has to brake a few metres earlier to the normal "hotlap brakepoint"

I wish everyone would understand these points. I can't even count all the times I have been bumped in the back when the "faster" guy behind doesn't take those facts in to consideration.

From a faster guys point of view, I still get surprised just HOW SLOW beginners go. Because I'm okay at LFS, it's hard to imagine just how rubbish some people are.

So following someone slow, I brake early, and hard, and they KEEP braking well beyond the apex, and bang, I've hit them. I've taken every reasonable effort to avoid them, I've gone off line, I've braked earlier, I've gone slower. I've gone so slow I could get out and push (if it was in the game). Yet they still go slower than me, and I hit them.

It's not always 'the fast people have no respect' you know. It's often the slow ones are just so mind-bogglingly slow.

Quote from tristancliffe :

From a faster guys point of view, I still get surprised just HOW SLOW beginners go. Because I'm okay at LFS, it's hard to imagine just how rubbish some people are.

So following someone slow, I brake early, and hard, and they KEEP braking well beyond the apex, and bang, I've hit them. I've taken every reasonable effort to avoid them, I've gone off line, I've braked earlier, I've gone slower. I've gone so slow I could get out and push (if it was in the game). Yet they still go slower than me, and I hit them.

It's not always 'the fast people have no respect' you know. It's often the slow ones are just so mind-bogglingly slow.

This is true. I have watched a few replays of me when I started, and compared them to a few I made last night. Same car and track. I was just so damn slow back then D: I'm still slow now, but that's not the point :P

While I understand your point, it's still your fault. But it's kinda hard to really realise that he's now going to be incredibly slow because he's a newbie (or has technical difficulties) in LFS where you don't have any form of 3D perception. IRL you can notice very small amounts of speed change very quickly, while in LFS you only notice that when he gets bigger and bigger.

I just worked out how to fix this without flags, which will be impossable to implement fairly if the computer does them.

Fuel Leak.

Simple fix. If someone stops hard, and you back end them, you rupture their tank, and oh noes, they lose.
And to prevent wreckers abusing it. Split rads

[edit: hmm, maybe it wont prevent wreckers... food for thought.]

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

I just worked out how to fix this without flags, which will be impossable to implement fairly if the computer does them.

Fuel Leak.

Simple fix. If someone stops hard, and you back end them, you rupture their tank, and oh noes, they lose.
And to prevent wreckers abusing it. Split rads

[edit: hmm, maybe it wont prevent wreckers... food for thought.]

Too bad we won't probably get that before S3

Ya but then some jerks will develop a technique to burst your tank on purpose.
There is no perfect way. That's why i can safely say LFS is still essentially a
computer game. Using exploits is not new, but in a game where time is important,
any advantage is legit for some.

A little story relating to this:
A few years ago i was heading to a friend and was kind of in a hurry,
i raced a yellow light and saw this Geo Metro doing the same behind.
I moved to the left lane and as the following light turned red i braked
but it was wet, so i had to threshold brake not to slide through the
intersection. Everything was textbook perfect, and i stopped just in time.

Then BANG, that stupid little teenager on hormone ran into me!! He was
mad at me, but when i got out and stared at him silently, he shut up and
started feeling small (people tell me i have an imposing presence, i can
scare people apparently). Anyways, i got friendly with his girl telling her
how dangerous her boyfriend was and that she should not stand for this
while she's in the car, hehe. Legally, he was blamed since he ran into me.
The lady on the phone just repeated "so he ran into your rear bumper ?
Ok, well then it's his fault."

Quote from Lord_Verminaard :

Most of the time it has happened in key places, like the chicane in BL or the 90-degree turn 3 at SO town.

These are precisely the types of places where you must be cautious approaching the braking zone. If you hit him, it's your fault, not his. He can brake as early as he likes, drive as slow as he likes, take an inefficient line, all three (keeping within the rules of course). Unless he is under blue flag conditions he doesn't need to worry about how fast the car behind him is, he can drive his own race.

In real racing, all drivers are at a level of skill (and track knowledge) that their braking points are similar enough in most cases to prevent incidents with cars that are too slow. But in real racing a very slow car may be still blue flagged (even though he is on the same lap as his pursuer) by track marshalls. This is a decision made by officials and can not be reproduced in a race sim without real-time human intervention.

On any given public race server you are likely to find varying levels of driving/racing skill, varying levels of track knowledge and sometimes greatly-varying setups amongst racers. Incidents as described above are less likey or uncommon in organised racing or league racing etc. I don't think its fair to condemn any unskilled racing on a public server, providing the driver can control the car in the first place. If they have access to the server (public) then they are likely to race. Coming across an early braker is no surprise at all on any public server, it would be the same in real life if any old Joe were allowed to show up and race. We can't black flag all of the unskilled racers and new guys.
I don't know why some racers take public servers so seriously, there are too many variables that can interfere. In my opinion this is why we see so many private servers online: many people use private servers for more serious, even, and organised racing.

It's always classed as the car at the backs fault. Even if the crash was because the driver in front was a moron.
One of my tutors in college was telling us about how his car got totaled.
He came up behind a Jeep Cherokee, jacked up and had a tow bar level with his rad.
They stopped at a roundabout, and started to pull away, when the Jeep then ground to a halt, the tutor had about half a second to try a break... crunch. Tow bar through the front of the car.

The reason the Jeep stopped was because the chick driver was having an argument with her boyfriend on the phone, and in rage put her foot down...
The tutor had to pick up the bill because "he should have given great breaking distance". illepall

I don't think it is about people, newbies, being slow. They just don't know the car and track and therefore they have to brake all the time...

I just today had some FOX fun in BL1...I was driving behind some other guy trying to pass but his driving was actually quite clean even though 2 seconds slower... So in the chicane he drove so slowly that I catched him easily and thought about going past...he takes the corner out slower and leaves some space inside. I just nail the throttle and think about zooming past him. But then he moves back inside and I ram his back (managed to step on the brakes but not enough soon). Completely my fault. He spinned and I went to spectate. I wasn't trying anything desperate, the speed difference was just bigger he may have thought or... I actually find it quite fun to be behind some much slower driver who still has clean lines and makes no errors. Passing or trying it is just pure fun

I just should have been more careful.

Quote from Gunn :

These are precisely the types of places where you must be cautious approaching the braking zone. If you hit him, it's your fault, not his. He can brake as early as he likes, drive as slow as he likes, take an inefficient line, all three (keeping within the rules of course). Unless he is under blue flag conditions he doesn't need to worry about how fast the car behind him is, he can drive his own race.

Well perhaps I didnt explain myself very well. I had been following this guy for about 4 laps, and I knew that my tires were better off than his, and I think he knew it as well. At that point, I knew where his braking points were, and he deliberately slammed on the brakes full lock, and when I hit him, he took off while I spun into the wall. The time that it happened in BL on the chicane, it was another prick who kept saying he was the best racer in the world, well, I was all over his rear bumper for two laps, and he slams on the brakes on the last lap in the chicane, (a place where he hadnt hit the brakes the two laps prior, we were racing GTI's) and again, he goes flying ahead, I spin and crash.

It's pretty obvious when things like this happen. I know when there are new people on the track and sometimes they get in the way- it happens, and I've done it before too. It just bugs me that someone has to exploit a part of the game just so they dont come in 2nd place. I guess better damage modeling will help this out a little, as in a real race, if car A going 65 mph hits the back of car B who is going 20 mph (and braking hard) both cars are pretty much screwed. :P

Brendan

You explained yourself well enough, but there's no way of knowing if he deliberately tried to brake early (a risky move anyway because you may be crashed off the track and your race ruined) therefore no fair way of imposing a black flag penalty. It isn't possible for the software to make judgement on people's motives. Perhaps he braked early because his tyres couldn't handle his usual braking point without locking? How can we truly know?

[offtopic]

Quote from Hyperactive :

I actually find it quite fun to be behind some much slower driver who still has clean lines and makes no errors. Passing or trying it is just pure fun

So true! It's really fun to pretend the fight much harder than it is. The slower guy has loads of fun too thinking that he/she does well and enjoys the race, even though you blast pass them in last turn of last lap
[/offtopic]

Or maybe us FXR drivers just pretend ur oh so fast, finally letting you past on the last lap so u don't cry



jk.. (?)

Im going to run out of fingers soon to count how many threads their are for different flag types. Anyway, yes i want black flags. Hopefully on LFS world it will record how many black flags a person has gotten.

Quote from Vendetta :

... Anyway, yes i want black flags. Hopefully on LFS world it will record how many black flags a person has gotten.

i like this idea very much!

Quote from tristancliffe :

From a faster guys point of view, I still get surprised just HOW SLOW beginners go. Because I'm okay at LFS, it's hard to imagine just how rubbish some people are.

true ... a while ago somebody round here linked to a video of him driving to get some tips on how to improve and i was shocked by how bad he was
i allways assumed that people who buy a hardcore sim like lfs have a basic idea of how to take a corner ... what an apex is etc
that guy though ... he didnt even try to use half of the track width for his "lines" ... practically stopped in the corners ... an totally missed the point of accelerating out of a corner instead of pootling away behin the corner

anyway ... i sometimes get the feeling that the skilllevel of some people in lfs is even worse than the one on public roads (admittedly im kinda pissed right now after 2 guys deperately tried to make me crash into them at 2 consecutive (!) intersections ... so dont take this post too serious if i might sound harsh)

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Or maybe us FXR drivers just pretend ur oh so fast, finally letting you past on the last lap so u don't cry

jk.. (?)

Nah :P

I dont know if there is but it would be nice if when some one crashes into u on a corner he would be black flagged.

Quote from Themage :

I dont know if there is but it would be nice if when some one crashes into u on a corner he would be black flagged.

It's called a kick/ban.

Quote from Themage :

I dont know if there is but it would be nice if when some one crashes into u on a corner he would be black flagged.

That is impossible to achieve fairly. A piece of software can not make accurate and fair calls about driver intent. Lag is also an issue. People braking hard and getting slammed into would cause the guy behind to be black flagged. Automatic black flags for car contact won't ever happen.

I think it is possible by software to judge if somebody TRIED to break right or not. I have often the problem that somebody crashes be from behind but I can't figure out who it was!

+1

IIRC, the CRC group introduced a system that handled this in an attempt to reduce or stop wrecking on their server. I believe the system was programmed very well - as well as it could feasibly be done, anyway. It worked using InSim.

Unfortunately, it IS impossible for ANY program to determine whether the car that skids and crashes into a stationary car should be black-flagged, or the stationary car should be banned from the server for causing a road-block because he's a deliberate wrecker.

The system, as a result, caused quite a bit of upset among racers on the server and was eventually removed.

Nice theory, but there really is no substitute for human admin on a server

only black flag systems we need that is feasable, is cutting corners

..which.. even then, sometimes you have to (ei: aston cadet, if you get bumped slightly and have to cut through you'd get a black flag) so.. i guess even thats not possible :/