I finaly finished the $track command tonight along with some of the core features, it was quite a lot of work but then - it does do an aweful lot. Mind you, I am talking to a 3rd party about linking it into their database sooooo, I might be coming back to it.

Anyway i've been programming solidly for 10 hours (including work), so i'm taking the rest of the night off. Tomorrow maybe a new command, or some more toward the core functionality, we'll see which way the wind blows at the time.

we are always with you becky, keep it going

Quote from Becky Rose :

On the plus side the new $track command is really cool, and will help you plan race strategy on longer races, and will reduce one of the most commonly asked questions.

Oo, does it tell you what the next track is?

Speaking of teasers, is it possible to change weathers with rotating the tracks at the same time. For no reason we are always stuck on sunny weather without any wind. Makes it more interesting i think.

@ becky / samh I had a blast last night. I did enjoy myself very much. Well the track what can i say. It was awesome. Thank you both.

Quote from qoncept :

Oo, does it tell you what the next track is?

I reckon if its supposed to help with strategy, then its a fuel load recommendation.

"how much fuel?" gets asked about 400 times a race.

Quote from Damo74 :

I reckon if its supposed to help with strategy, then its a fuel load recommendation.

"how much fuel?" gets asked about 400 times a race.

i saw that feature on another server (i think it was "OT") and the
recommended fuel was far too much, but it was a nice feature anyway

It's simply impossible to suggest a fuel load to the nearest % (as most LFS'rs seem to run without a safety margin) because driving style effects fuel usage. What is possible is to take an average of submitted values, calculate that against race length and add a safety margin.

If the safety margin is too big surely that's better than a safety margin that is too small?

Quote from Becky Rose :

If the safety margin is too big surely that's better than a safety margin that is too small?

absolutely its not like 5% will make a difference at the end of the race

Quote from Shotglass :

absolutely its not like 5% will make a difference at the end of the race

I don't think it matters that much either Add all the fuel into the car and your weight/HP ratio doesn't move all that much. I don't know why people get so picky about their fuel. I just start racing with 20-50% in the tank and bring it down after a couple races. It's not like your first race is going to mean anything, it takes a few laps to settle in.

Well I do have a fuel calculation on the $tracks command, amongst other things, although I am about to link it to a 3rd party database for most of our combo's in order to give us some base data. Of course, this being the CTRA X-System, you can submit a fuel per lap value directly from the server and all rellevent information is collated . It'll upload directly to the third party database, and of course it will seemlessly transition to our own database for layouts with the only visible difference being the stated 'source' of the information .

The safety margin i've awarded is simply 2% ( the value is rounded up too). If you wish to run extra for safety (I would) then that's up to you . It's a guideline only.

EDIT: Many thanks to Crazy Ice for giving us permission and an API to interface with his database, you can start uploading fuel values to the existing site now and the X-System will use that information when it goes live. You can find it here: http://lfstools.crazyice.net/FuelControl

Ah.. that one. I see "pit?" over and over again too, you'd think they'd know. Adding "compulsory pit" to the $track command couldn't hurt, though. I had another idea for a suggestion, but I can't remember right now -- fortunately, it seems you've probably already thought of it along with everything else.

I did a couple races today on non-CTRA servers but the reward of points makes it seem much more worthwhile and I think I may just make this an extended break until CTRA goes live again.

i still can't beliefe people don't read between the lines:

what does "When the system comes back I hope to relaunch it in a major way along with new servers and new services like our event system." mean becky ))

you make me sleepless with speculations what the "event system" could be.
anyways, looking forward to an oval license though *cough FZ5 +200kg on oval*

I find it really amazing the ammount of effort Becky, Sam and the others put in to LFS for the community. I take my hat of to you folks, Well done!

I do rather miss the STCC/CTRA servers, they are what got me hooked on sim racing.

Quote from AlienT. :

I find it really amazing the ammount of effort Becky, Sam and the others put in to LFS for the community. I take my hat of to you folks, Well done!

I do rather miss the STCC/CTRA servers, they are what got me hooked on sim racing.

I am sure they will be happy to hear that =)

This new system will blow people away, I keep saying that, but it's true! I am still blown away by the amount of power Scawen is giving to regular LFSers if they are willing to make the code!

The last few nights I havn't done much, I needed to relax a little, but I did get a few bits done. The next major task is the core functionality (points, track cycling, auto-spectating etc). Once I have the core functionality in place I expect a lot of new features to arrive quickly for a while, but there are also still some big things to do like reporting, events, radio, and the new display mods i'm building in.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The last few nights I havn't done much, I needed to relax a little, but I did get a few bits done. The next major task is the core functionality (points, track cycling, auto-spectating etc). Once I have the core functionality in place I expect a lot of new features to arrive quickly for a while, but there are also still some big things to do like reporting, events, radio, and the new display mods i'm building in.

:laola::biggrinfl:bounce8:

I've been thinking today, whilst at work, my biggest objection to mid race rejoin has always been that people have to wait to join their first race on joining the server. The biggest argument for it is that public racers often dont have enough 'fear' - particularly at T1.

I've decided to cater to both scenarios by dissallowing midrace join until the start of lap 3. Drivers who join mid race may have the blue flag message replaced with 'WAVED BLUE FLAG'.

If people are having complaints about people joining midrace then it also jumps back to why wasn't the complaint system used also =)

A system can only do so much, it takes active participation from the users for the the system to work... this goes for anything really =)

I think a lap 2-3 "hold" on the drivers would work. I wouldn't want to see the whole race having a no mid-race join on it because I always use that first race to warm up a bit and get used to playing again.

Quote from Viper93 :

...I always use that first race to warm up a bit and get used to playing again.

i do the same it does make sense

+1 for the 2 or 3 laps wating period
+1000 for the waved blue flag message (so cool)

@Becky is there any space in your thoughts/time to remake/rebirth LFS companion for X (begging and worshiping )

See i have missed an event....

i cant waut for the new system tbo. Thx for all the effort you guys/gals put in for us lot. I hope iy all works out.

PS - Becky - Sorry to hear about the cat thing. Im a cat person aswell. I just wanted to say I have 3 kittens atm - 6 weeks old - potty trained (my bed). and guzzling tuna like the homeless You can have 1 if you want. PM me if interested - I have pics Peace.

I am going to see some kittens soon, they are not quite born yet - but are related to Freddy and my sisters cats. I'm still not sure if i'm going to have another one, he was such a loss.

Anyway, got up, finished the points algorythm, it's different to before and is more progressive, rather than using any form of grouping it now uses an exponential algorythm using power of components, it is very much biased toward the top of the race but there is a bit of a concept change too: Taking on board peoples comments about the licencing aging, i've made the points scored for lap time a multiplyer - so if you get 0pts, it doesnt matter how fast you where you dont get through, so the system is less rewarding of do or die drivers.

Also joining after the midrace rejoin is re-enabled does not give you any points. You are free to practice for the next race, but the entries are considered to be the cars in the race at the start.

Re: midrace rejoin - might it be possible to prevent people entering the race after say 80% or 90% of the race has been run? By that point they won't get much practice in, and it would prevent someone joining, driving out and interfering with the last lap or two of the race.

If not, or not yet, I'll shut up and stop adding to the workload.

I dont want to impede the accessibility of the servers. I really hate it when I join a host and I cant get a few laps in before the first restart, and I dont want to do that to other people. If somebody is safe to join midrace they can join in the last lap too. The reason for the midrace rejoin being disabled in the first two laps is purely to encourage a little more responsibility in turn 1.

Whilst it's true you can be an innocent victim in turn 1, I think everyone accepts the fact that sometimes that happens and the race is run. What annoys racers is crashing EVERY turn 1. Now there are two types of people who might find this annoying: Those who persistently cause the accidents; and those who could have avoided some of them.

Introducing this I hope to encourage people in that second category to drive with a little more care.

Those who perform do or die attempts and causes lots of accidents will soon learn to race elsewhere. I dont think many people fall into this category to be honest.

The biggest problem with T1 in LFS is that many racers dont avoid accidents that they could avoid as they're not willing to loose the time.

Let them spend 2 laps in the pits everytime and they'll soon learn, or race elsewhere.

I would like to prevent restart voting in the second half of the race as on endurance day it can be annoying for someone to be near the end of the race and have newcomers cause a restart, only to dissapear after T1 and have more newcomers joining and bring about a restart... When i've cancelled restart voting before it did cause an unforseen problem and I had to remove it again, but I might have another go at this.

We tested the midrace join code last night and it seemed to work pretty well.