Quote from The Moose :

Yeah, fair shout Sam...and it was pretty much a one off occurrence. it's certainly not something I've seen much on STCC tbh.

I wasn't having a dig at you guys <group hug>

The ZWR boys were on there the same night and it's true it was a bit chaotic due to people getting up to speed wit hthe new ballests etc etc, also on such a small track 28 cars fill it up very quick ,thats like what one ever 2 seconds, therefore if someone does have an incident then its likely that some one will have to make drastic movements which the orignal guy id recovering, which then could and did cuase chain reactions and so on and so forth..

^^^^^

Yup, i was having a moan without thinking. Not for the first time either

Note to self:- Think before you speak.

Something needs to be done about the chicanes at KY GP. The cutting going on there is ridiculous. I saw several record times there tonight achieved by huge cuts.
I was so pissed off that i left and forgot to save the replays, and i wont mention his name on the forum, but seriously, some tires/bales whatever need to go up on all the chicanes because it's blatant cheating.

I happen to know the guy is pretty damn fast anyway, but all respect for his skills just went straight out the window.

Ello Moosey! I've uploaded two KY3 layouts tonight.. one each direction, which should solve the problem. It's well-established how we feel about cutting, so if you know anyone who has a replay, we'd certainly like to see it.

Cheers..

Quote from The Moose :

I happen to know the guy is pretty damn fast anyway, but all respect for his skills just went straight out the window.

How many times, wear those seatbelts kids.......


I'll get my coat.

Just seen some more cutting on FE black at the chicane before the start/finish straight.

Quote from Neil777 :

Just seen some more cutting on FE black at the chicane before the start/finish straight.

http://licence.ukct.net/report.asp

I wish more people would use the report form when they see bad driving and cheating...

If all the circuits end up with huge stacks of 'physics objects' at every chicane, I won't be able to race them. My elderly system can just cope with a large field in a normal race... as soon as someone piles into a big stack of physics objects the frame rate drops to an unacceptable level (I'm talking single figures).

Then of course there's the fact that on a smaller track, once the obstacles have been hit, they stay off until the nearby track is clear - in which case they're useless.
And the problems that happen when someone loses it and ends up in the bails - the road gets filled with bails and tyres, it becomes a lottery who gets through clean and who gets catapulted into the sky

+1 for 'use the reporting system'
-1 for 'stacks of physics objects'

col, yeah.. I'm aware that some of the "fixes" are a bit heavy on physics objects. I've been toying with the idea of using automatically-spectating marshal points, but I have to admit I'm reluctant to introduce them. People shouldn't be cutting, but I'm aware that sometimes people don't get the option. To remove them from the race because they stray too far off the Yellow Brick Road by accident is harsh, and I'm really hesitant to introduce it. It'd be really nice if we could set marshal areas that issue time penalties rather than send drivers to spectate.. then we could mark the boundary with a single red cone, and be done.

I wonder if it's too late to ask Scawen for that, if it's not already been requested. I'll look into it..

Hi, I was playing on ctra1b on fegreen in the uf1 and there were tyres in the chicane. This made the race almost unplayable, causing crashes constantly. It was impossible to finish a race at all as some noob would hit the tyres taking the whole leading pack out every time. I cannot understand why you would make a perfectly good track into wreckers paradise!! Surely if you are going to put tyres there they shouldn't be on the racing line?
I gather from the previous posts that people were cutting but surely that is better than everyone crashing? Everyone who was present on the server complained also.....

The tyres where introduced at Fe Green to solve a problem with people crashing and causing major pileups.

Whilst on the one hand when they are first seen they can be a bit of a surprise, the general census was that they improved the situation quite a lot.

In short, it's a question of which is the lesser evil.

Fe Green is a great track characterised by stationary cars all over the track on the chicane exit. We removed that problem by lowering the speed of the problem, but we dont have the tools to completely remove the issue.

Quote from Becky Rose :

when they [the tyres at FE Green chicane] are first seen they can be a bit of a surprise

Well that's one way of putting it.

I think the more accurate way would be my thought process when racing on a track I thought I knew for the first time, which was "jesus ****ing christ, who the **** put all these ****ing tyres on the ****ing racing line?!"

I can see why there's a need to prevent cutting at that chicane, but can't that be achieved by putting tyre stacks just on the apexes of the chicane kerbs? I don't understand why there's more tyres on the left at the exit than at a Kwik-Fit garage, and nearly every lap they get bounced all over the track making it (as previously mentioned) a complete lottery for any drivers following.

Quote from STROBE :

Well that's one way of putting it.
...I don't understand why there's more tyres on the left at the exit than at a Kwik-Fit garage, and nearly every lap they get bounced all over the track making it (as previously mentioned) a complete lottery for any drivers following.

Yes, this can be particularly bad and is made much worse by the way multiplayer system works...
The fastest line involves just missing all the tyres, however, because of lag and 'prediction' just missing them on your local pc may translate to hitting them hard enough to move them on one or more other machines.... then as the pack fire on through behind (you hope you are in front), some guy with no tyres on his system may be piling through tyres that are in the road on another system... causing them to perform supaPhysics™ antics.. whith so many tyres and so many cars, it can be mayhem - even though nobody actually 'hit' the tyres !!

A better example is the second last turn at FEclub - I went through there recently and saw the guy in front steam through the barricade... oddly he didn't seem to lose the car - he didn't even slow down !
My guess is that a car in front of him just clipped the barrier, by the time he reached it those objects had disapperared - unfortunately on my system, they had not, so when that driver in front of me cut through the space, on my machine he was hitting the bails and scattering them accross the track !
Big problem there is that you can take a legal line (two wheels on track - track includes curb) that if the bails are there means you hit them, so for some drivers the way is clear to take the optimum line, not realising that on the guy behinds system, they may be filling the road with obstacles... and the guy behind him is wondering why the hell he is swerving all over the road like a maniac

This is all guesswork - maybe these things have happened for some other reason.
Am I correct in thinking that physics objects can behave differently on all the multiplayer clients in a race due to fractional differences in car positions on the different client systems?
If so, then its another considerating when employing barricades.

FWIW, I like the ones thet prevent serious cutting e.g. final chicane of FEGold - they seem to work and don't change the racing line.
But not the ones that change the line through chicanes and add more objects just making it worse when they do get hit.

Quote :

I don't understand why there's more tyres on the left at the exit than at a Kwik-Fit garage

Sounds like CTRA are not using the original STCC layout, but one I threw online for testing. I shall mention it to Sam, the one that worked best may still be on the server somewhere.

I'll have a rummage for it. The one we're using at the moment may be an early experimental STCC one. I definitely didn't create it.

I took some pictures while spectating on the CTRA copper and bronze server last night. 56K warning.

Here is what it normally looks like in single player:


Here is what has been added on the CTRA servers:


Here was a crash caused by the tyres placed on the racing line at the exit of the complex:




From a different angle:

Clean


CTRA


Another crash caused by the tyres placed in the middle of the racing line:




I did some quick testing in single player. Here are some pictures of what I found the fastest way I could take the corner to be:

First apex:


Second apex:


Where I ended up on the exit. That piece of road there just has to be used, or one must brake after they exit the chicane.

IMO, blocking the entire curb with tires and the exit line with that wall of tires is hell. Many times people have accidents due to hitting the tires on the exit line. Other times people take the exit line and obliterate the tires and cause hell for everyone else comming through the chicane. The tires on the curb shouldn't be there because curbs are drivable surfaces, they should be blocking the cut through the grass though.

Just my 2 cents

Edit: As you can see in the above screenshots, you can fit an entire car onto that curb... that's a lot of extra T1 space that's become much more hazardous.

Quote from word. :

Where I ended up on the exit. That piece of road there just has to be used, or one must brake after they exit the chicane.

No, it doesn't have to be used. Simply take the chicane slower, until you don't ram into the tyres. That's the purpose of that modification, after all...

Quote :

Here was a crash caused by the tyres placed on the racing line at the exit of the complex:

I do believe the tyres where there first, and did not move. They did not CAUSE the accident, you can drop that line for a start! Thats the race circuit its your job as a driver to complete it - not to change the track to suite you.

However, that is the wrong layout. I will see if I can find the right one.

IIRC the other STCC layout has more objects in the road at the 1st apex than the few tyres and cones in those screenshots above

Whatever the layout, its important as a driver to choose a speed and line that dosen't impede your control over the car, and preferably one that dosen't strike or move any objects into the path of following cars.

The layouts are there for a good reason, and well done to the people that take the time to make and place them (Sam / Becky)

SD.

Yup, the other layout has more objects at the entrance to the chicane. But i really don't see the problem.
As Sparky says, just pick a line and speed that gets you through safely.Not so hard is it?
I tend to treat any extra objects as if they were a solid barrier and avoid them at all costs.

The only legitimate gripe i can see is the fact that when a load of physics objects go flying it slows down some peoples framerates, but i see no reason at all for moaning about them from a racing perspective.

My only concern is that these tyres/cones shouldn't be on the kerbs. (As Slopi noted earlier) IMO the kerbs/rumple strips are legitimate driving areas of the track and an obstacle on those areas just destroys the natural flow of the track. Anything else off track is fine by me as you're not supposed to be there anyhow.

A rule of thumb here could be that an obstacle should not be anywhere on the track that would not incur a "hotlap" failed lap.

I gotta disagree, Tony. Once a layout is in place on a track, the layout IS the track. If you can't negotiate it then you're driving at an inappropriate speed. The boundaries of the track are whatever the layout says they are, not what the hotlapping system says.

Fair enough Sam. If you say this is the track available, drive it, then so be it. I was under the impression however that the purpose of additional obstacles was to prohibit corner cutting, not to redesign existing layouts

I've just changed the layout for this particular track because Becky pointed out that it was the incorrect one. I haven't checked to make sure that the one Becky's given me includes the anti-cutting additions. I'm assuming it does, though. The layouts for the CTRA servers are based on the layouts used in the STCC league/broadcast, but with additional barriers to prevent cutting on public servers. Those components aren't needed for the STCC league because we go around to errant drivers' houses, steal their first-born child and sell it on for scientific research (aka STCC sponsorship deal)