I agree that there should be a 'newbie' server. With the short races and only the top 4 or 5 drivers getting points its incredibly difficult for us Copper/Bronze drivers to get anywhere when there are Gold/Silver/Platinum driver on who are wiping the floor with us.

Also I miss the UF1s...

We cant/wont take content away from people who have earned licences, the system is geared to unlocking content not removing it. Server 1 IS our newbie server, and sure some faster drivers like to hang around there - but dont be fooled into thinking if they where not there points would be abundant, the difference [for places] isnt much when your outright pace is a few seconds off, and what you'd eventually unlock is the ability to race against the same people who are going to hand your exhaust back to you on a plate.

I've been wrestling with this fact for a long time, my ego is soooo much faster than I am ! lol

Quote from Becky Rose :

We run concurrent qualifying on the race and single seater servers. You can check the grid at any time with the $grid command. To register a qualifying lap you just have to finish a race, and your fastest lap is taken and remembered until you log off or change car (or has been the case recently, the system is restarted - there's one more rare crash bug to trace, and I cant find the %*£(")*%()£" [kicked by swear filter] thing - although thankfully only 1 crash today).

I was thinking this is just on the one seater. OK, I will take a closer look at it.

BTW, what is that Yellows score meaning? Didn't find anything.

Yellows is how many times you have thrown a yellow flag, at a maximum rate of 1 per sector.

System Announcement:
We still have 1 crash bug in the system that i've not managed to trace yet. I am away tomorrow day time (short trip to hospital) and so is Sam, it is therefore possible the system may fall over and not be relaunched for a few hours.

Tomorrow I start work on X-Monitor, a small piece of software i've been meaning to write since before launch that detects problems and automatically restarts the server, I hope to have this done tomorrow night - and then I plan to start digging deaper into this last remaining problem.

I appologise in advance for any outage of this system this may cause.

EDIT: An experimental patch is currently running.

Quote from garph :

I think the idea is that it is supposed to be difficult to move up! Plus if you got taken out you'd still loose 9 laps of racing if it were set to 10 Not much of a difference.

Depends on how you see it? To me 5 laps makes a lot of difference, thats 33% of the race. The other thing that could be done is to use longer tracks. There´s some tracks in rotation like South City Sprint 2 Rev with 24 laps that just dont make any sense.

Quote from richy :

Hiya

Is this known? Or am I missing something, but the join on lap 2 tends to be worse than letting people leave the pits after the crash in T1 on lap 1 like before?

Is this a known issue being talked about elsewhere that I can't find

Join the race as P1 goes over the race line into lap 2. Drive down the pits, and you are into the pack of racers... Am I the only one who can see this?

If you cant set it so people can join after Last Place has gone into lap 2, maybe add a 10 or 20 second count down to let the rest of the field pass into lap 2 and not meet people on out laps?

What's up with the total lack of points being given on the Single Seater server. We've worked hard to complete 24 lap races and recieved nothing. Though that makes no difference to me since I got wrecked on 4 consecutive occasions...

Quote from ChiliFan :

Though that makes no difference to me since I got wrecked on 4 consecutive occasions...

Reports please. If you're getting wrecked, send a report - that's what it's there for.

Woo nice my 2nd race few mins after this post on the bump and something i got 50 points for been 8th darn if that only happened on the race 1 server oh well lest am getting some where.

Quote from richy :

Is this a known issue being talked about elsewhere that I can't find

Join the race as P1 goes over the race line into lap 2. Drive down the pits, and you are into the pack of racers... Am I the only one who can see this?

This is where you use some self-control and wait until the pack has gone by.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

This is where you use some self-control and wait until the pack has gone by.

I suspect the concern is not that the poster will plough into the field as he/she joins on their second lap, but that Joe Public on the starter servers who doesn't read the forums will do exactly that.

I myself find the no-first-lap joining extremely frustrating (there's plenty of valid reasons why one might want to join in the first lap having missed the start of the race), but still have the sense not to launch myself out of the pitlane into the middle of the pack. But I'd be surprised if everyone else shows similar respect for others racing, which wouldn't be an issue if you were allowed to join after x seconds, where x varies depending upon the circuit/lap time, and is typically about 2/3rds of a flying lap.

Quote from Christofire :

Reports please. If you're getting wrecked, send a report - that's what it's there for.

Unfortunately I didn't think about that at the time. I just tried to get back in the race lol. And I never saved a replay. I'll bear that in mind though.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

This is where you use some self-control and wait until the pack has gone by.

Then you get a traffic jam of 2 or more cars in the pitlane, who should get out there first? Everyone form an orderly line and go when the going is clear?

Aswell as joe public just flooring it out the pits.

It's literally just a coincidence how first place going into lap 2 lets everyone out of the pits. Delay it by a short time and the field has a little more time to go by, and theres more chance of being able to filter into the race cleanly.

It's a difficult once because each race is different and not everyone gets to the finish line at the same time. But it just happens to be more dangerous than it is safe. Thats where I think maybe a 20 second count down once first place has crossed the line? With the pit drive at 49 mph on top, it should let the lead pack by. Of course anyone who is slow on that lap may be at risk. But its a lot less than always having a good chance of meeting the lead pack with little or no room to filter into the flow?

Quote from ChiliFan :

Unfortunately I didn't think about that at the time. I just tried to get back in the race lol. And I never saved a replay. I'll bear that in mind though.

Please go and take a look at the reporting system in the game. It's not too late, necessarily, to file the report right now. The server has the replay, you just have to identify the race. Have the system send you an email to download the replay, check it's the one, and file your report. The system is very capable.. make it work

Right.. now I'm off to get drunk.. and drown out the sound of these bloody women singing into this damn karaoke machine!!!

I've been on the servers quite a bit over the weekend and I have to say I'm generally pretty impressed with the way it works. The sector status markers are an especially nice touch, very handy on the city tracks.

I've seen very good behaviour from most of the drivers too. Thanks, racers.

Great racing on the Open Wheel server tonight. Awesome stuff.

Server 1 is as clean as LFS gets. Just amazing. However, me disliking the low class, I tend to join the fox server and man its way different.
Way too many new players not knowing the tracks, braking way early, slamming into walls, etc. And then theres the hotlappers, smashing into your rear just because you're not taking the corner full trottle. (if you're running 2 secs faster per lap then 60% of the grid, what are the chances the guy infront is gonna take the corner the same speed as your fly ass?!!!

But I'm sure once the initial popularity wears off, it's gonna be a beaut. GJ X team. You've made an incredible addition to core LFS.

EDIT: I just woke up grumpy. I do feel that sometimes the community could be a little less aggressive to each other when there is a crash / problem. I will look at the timing of cars leaving the pits, but I think it's harsh to say that the community will do this or do that, you're all part of the community, it's better to stick to reporting individuals who do it than make grand sweeping statements about each other.

Are single seater winings recorded? I just won 2 races and they are not in my licence.

There must be at least 4 cars on the grid for race stats other than laps + yellows to be recorded, otherwise they should be recorded, yes.

Wondering if this is an 'ok' place to make a request but...

If someone joins the race mid-race, and gets the fastest lap, is it really fair that they be rewarded to start in the front of the grid on the next race? Personally I think it would be better if all the actual race finishers and their laptimes would be used to sort the grid. Rather than take a random mid-race joinee and put them near the front of the grid. It would only seem fitting since they just joined the racing, and doing a fastest lap while in the middle of a race shouldn't just grant them a front row seat. Should start in the back with mid-race join order.

Had a good scrap with several drivers in a race and we all got very close times. After the race was over, another driver had the fastest lap, but he was a mid-race joinee. On the restart he was in front of us all, and was rather aggressive. Kinda of surprises you to see a position given for someone that got the time while not even in the previous official race.

Quote from SamH :

Right.. now I'm off to get drunk.. and drown out the sound of these bloody women singing into this damn karaoke machine!!!

Hurray for Karo and Tina?

Becky, sorta tiny note, your little preference for not showing race results, doesn't quite work, but it's a perfect concept, and exactly what I (and other people in distant lands) need to finish in a full server.

Also thinking, that maybe Mid Race Joiners shouldn't have the results come up automatically, just to cut down marginally on connection load?

I actually think the other way, we let people who join mid race take part in the qualifying, imagine if you will that you, as quite a quick driver, just joined the server. You have a choice, you can start at the back the next race, or you can go out and do a qualifying lap under our concurrent qualifying system and start near the front - your a fast driver, you deserve to be there.

LFS has a history of race position determining your starting grid, we're experimenting with this concurrent qualifying system because we think it offers some advantages, for one - imagine a fast or fastish driver tripping over a backmarker - they then start the next race from the back under normal LFS. With our system they get to resume from their warranted position and try again.

Personally I quite enjoy the new system because I think it puts drivers more or less where they are meant to be and helps to keep things calmer when things go wrong, and prevents the uber leetzor alien crowd from having to charge through the field [not really the same as having a good battle with someone of your own level].

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Hurray for Karo and Tina?

Becky, sorta tiny note, your little preference for not showing race results, doesn't quite work, but it's a perfect concept, and exactly what I (and other people in distant lands) need to finish in a full server.

Also thinking, that maybe Mid Race Joiners shouldn't have the results come up automatically, just to cut down marginally on connection load?

Yeah I tried that in the $prefs menu today, but results still pop-up. I didn't have any big lag spikes like yesterday thankfully, but it was probably because there weren't as many people online tonight.

gn

Quote :

Becky, sorta tiny note, your little preference for not showing race results, doesn't quite work, but it's a perfect concept, and exactly what I (and other people in distant lands) need to finish in a full server.

Also thinking, that maybe Mid Race Joiners shouldn't have the results come up automatically, just to cut down marginally on connection load?

Your bug report has an error in it. I wont tell you what error Dustin, and maybe that'll help you see how I cant do anything about it .

For the record: Other peoples buttons do not effect you at all, your connection is to the server. I understand some people with borderline connectivity where being tipped over the edge by the results updates, the option to disable it or the new default of 10 second delay should help these players - but they are buttons only sent to you, not other players, so results to other players do not effect you [unless there are bugs in LFS].