Quote from Storm_Cloud :

Extrapolating results would mean we pass the 100 mark in Nat B drivers in 40 more days!!!!

I'm going into hibernation then.

Is it really necessary to wait for 100 drivers before opening SS2? That seems a little excessive to me.
The sooner the fastest guys are racing on a different server the better for everyone imho.

A. We aren't winning all the points, allowing more people to progress a bit quicker.
B. I'd rather be racing a grid of (initially) 6-10 top drivers on SS2 than a grid of 75% rookies on SS1.

I've honestly not seen that much terrible driving on SS1, but I guess being near the front most of the time doesn't expose me to the horrors in the back of the field. Most of the time I'm racing with top 25-top 50 SS drivers, and they're almost entirely great racers.

I agree that a intake/weight restricted FOX would be the best way to reduce accidents, provided the restrictions make the car easier to handle at the limit (FOX is already boring as hell at WE1, though... can't imagine it with 25% less HP). The MRT would be a bad, bad choice.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Could those who are interested give this a go in single player:

FOX: 25% Intake restriction, 25kg weight penalty.

Should be easy to handle, hard to make it spin around.
Maybe that could be a start anyway to see how it works.

I'd love to see the oval on the list

Quote from StableX :

I'd love to see the oval on the list

Please god/deity of your choice/Becky, no,no,no,no,no to ovals.

I think its okay once in a while to be honest. It is a track and a skillset too

Aw no, SO Sprint 2 is gone. It's the only track I'm actually fast at.

Fortunatly i havnt seen the S-S server since X hour and by the sound of it that is a good thing! i have been frequenting in the B&J server for the time being, hopefully i will be taking part in some S-S races in the not to distant future once the next tier server is open and there is a bit more room, ( and the fast guys aint taking all the gold )

When aerodynamics and crash damage in LFS sufficiently emulate oval racing we might consider an oval licence extension, probably using FZ5's with maximum ballast in order to make the somewhat unchallenging Kyoto Oval worth racing. Either that or a new, more interesting, oval circuit.

Quote from The Moose :

Rubbish...they are perfectly appropriate for the FOX, some of the best races in the FOX are at FE1/FE1R .
It's some of the drivers that aren't appropriate for FE1

(hopes no one posts replay of my n00bish FE1 T1 cock up )

Completley agree with you Stu.

The track is suitable for racing, not just the standard of public racing that happens occasionly on a public server...

I've never liked FE1, the races there are always pretty dull and processional. FE1 Rev. is a bit better, and flows nicer, but it's still rubbish.

The fuel tank is half empty eh ...

FOX oval is actually really entertaining with the right crowd, but a pickup server (even a CTRA pickup server) definitely isn't the right crowd.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The fuel tank is half empty eh ...

And the other half is mostly sugar.

Really though, if you're racing people who know the circuit and can keep the car on the road you might manage one pass for position every ten laps. If you want to do any better than that you'd have to be really aggressive, and being really aggressive on a narrow circuit in LFS always ends in tears.

Edit: Maybe overtaking the FOX is easier because of the higher speeds, I haven't raced the FOX there - only road cars and the XFR. But then it's got pretty high cornering speeds too and very little braking required, so I doubt it.

I have a suggestion that might help a little bit, rather than having lots of tyres and bales to stop people cutting, why not use the small barriers? On the single seater servers you can't get away with hitting tyres anyway, and when you do you just cause trouble for the other cars. But if you hit a barrier you will crash harder but at least you won't block the track with tyres and bales.

I read all the thread and all I can say that I'm happy with the new feature allowing only one mid race join, I'll reduce lots of accidents involving people trying to hotlap to the front of the grid, I think that was one of the main problems in the single seater server, I have to say I'm guilty of that, but I've never came out of the pitlane recklessly or lapping a racer who's ahead unless he lets me overtake or the situation is 100% accident proof.

About the restrictions in the FOX, I really wouldn't like to see that happen, the FOX is easy to drive if you get an easy to drive set, but almost everyone asks a set to the guys who get the fastest lap and usually that's a low wing tail happy hard to drive set. If there is a restriction to the FOX i think we'll start to see lots of low wing sets and maybe it'll end being a backfire, as I already said, new people tend to ask sets to the faster guys who can manage less wing setups.

I'd really like to see the SS2 open soon, I don't know how much time It'll take to have 100 national b o higher license drivers, but at this rate it may take a long time to archive, soy maybe a little less drivers could be nice, as someone said, I'd rather prefer to race against 10 experimented drivers than almost a full grid of rookies.

I think another part of the problem that hasn't been mentioned here yet is the wind. Even with low wind on the FOX can be a tricky little bugger, and because we have no way of knowing exactly what the wind direction and conditions are at every corner before we get there it can be unexpected, to say the least. Changes in wind speed and direction from race to race don't help matters either. One race you get it in your head that you have to take turns 1 and 3 slower, brake earlier for turn 4 etc and the very next race you find out that you can now accelerate harder out of turn 1 because the wind direction has changed. When you could go through turn 1 flat last time now you need to go down a gear. I agree that it makes the racing more interesting, but maybe it's not the best thing to have on what is essentially a 'learning' server. Easier to drive setups would be a great addition too, but without a convenient way built into LFS itself that's going to end up being tricky.

I must say that I'm really enjoying the current single seater server though. The sheer number of really quick guys who are on there at most times of the day is great, any time you jump on it you're in for a challenge. I think maybe something needs to be done about the aliens though

P.S. I did my bit with getting the national license this morning, so we're getting there. The list doesn't show non-registered members AFAIK, so we're probably quite a bit closer to the 100 national drivers than the 28 on the list indicates.

oh man... this is so bad now...
Sitt here and wait untill everyone have finnished 16laps couse my speed limiter didnt work and I had to pit again...

Now I hate ppl that can't drive fox!

is there a way to controll where the drivers put the handicap weights ?
ive found that adding 50-100kg to the front works wonders in reducing cornering speeds and making the cars understeery and easy to drive

Keep the wind! Its a real challenge on some tracks when the wind picks up, at Blackwood I won a race by 20 seconds with a time that was a second and a half off my best. Someone spectating commented on how loose my setup was, but it was all the wind, it was like driving on ice in a gale force wind.

Nope, all setup options are quite correctly hidden from Insim and outguage, otherwise useful data could be collected.

I remember once when outguage was allowing me to read off peoples fuel loads which, put in a league context, could have been hugely unfair, that potential exploit was of course solved very quickly - but things like weight distribution could quickly and reasonably escallate too... "Scawen, could we enforce our new users run at least x degree of downforce?" and before you know it you've got significant setup information.

Quote :

Keep the wind! Its a real challenge on some tracks when the wind picks up

I preffer to keep wind as it is now too, from what i've seen the accident black spots are the same ones that have always been accident black spots, and the problems are the same problems that have always plauged online play.

Where the single seater server is currently suffering is we're exposing the "CTRA way" to a number of new people, we've had a few hundred new licences since we where last live, and not everyone is reading from our hymn sheet yet - not that half our existing drivers ever paid much attention to it anyway.

On top of that, Fox racers traditionally have not had a great deal of choice about where to race, a rotating server is new for even experienced single seater drivers - so those drivers who dont compete in the OWRL are seeing combo's for the first time.

One change this is already coded for the next update, on your first login you will get the $rules as normal, but after that the first screen you get when you login will no longer be the $ctra menu, but instead a random selection of $rules, $about, and in the case of the two racing tiers the $blue page.

Perhaps by continually showing this information a little bit of the content might be taken on board for a few new drivers. I dont think a single click 'welcome' screen is much of an annoyance, especially when it is one that is serving to improve the experience of the people who are getting it.

Thats a good idea, it is quite funny when people join and start asking why stuff is happening and what amount of fuel to use, clearly they just ignored the big menu that popped up when they joined. I was suprised and how professional the menus were, so I read them just out of suprise that it wasn't all in the text chat like most rules on servers.

I also enjoy the track rotation, unless it goes to a really boring easy track, but FE Club was a laugh yesterday, also very frustrating at times with the same people crashing on every lap. I am always suprised at how people make the exact same mistake lap after lap and don't learn from it. But the dodgy racing isnt unique to CTRA, I think its due to more mainstream gamers getting LFS, ones who are not used to online racing and simulations. For me I learnt quickly because I had raced a few games online and followed motorsport all my life, so I knew the basics and a bit of race craft.

Other think I noticed while racing is that when someone gets blue flagged or they get really nervous or they think that slowing down in the turn apex is the best way to go, I've hit a lot of drivers when I'm lapping them because they release gas pedal or even brake when I'm in their tail, I'm not asking them to leave me room in the corner, I'd prefer that they take the turn as they always do and then give some room at the next straight line.

also I was just racing in the SS1 and the limited mid join race feature is working wonders, the server is set to AS1 and in 16 laps I only saw one accident and lapped a lot less people, also never had a problem with people going out of pits recklessly, good call on that Becky

i've noticed that since the only one rejoin that the servers have calmed down a bit becky,,you never know things might just work themselfs right out without anymore input from you( thatl be the day m8),,but things were a little calmer today