Could you please clarify, Becky or Sam, if a national A or B license holder races on the SS1 server, I thought you were implementing something so they didnt get points to try to push them to use the SS2 server. If this was the case, when was this being implemented?

The only reason I ask is that its increasingly difficult to get points while the faster national license holders are racing. While I love racing with them, I think if the faster of the clubman get points then this will allow them to progress to the national SS2 server helping to populate that.

If the National license holders want to race on the SS1 server great but not for points.

As a silver license holder, I think thats fair if I go race on the Server1 with friends and I dont get points. If I want poionts, I go for Server2, which I do.....

We get reduced points i believe.

Whilst i understand it must be a little frustrating for the lower licensed guys, there just aren't enough higher licensed racers on at any one time to make server 2 worthwhile racing on.

I think Becky was going to wait until 100 racers had National B before opening SS2 originaly. Looks like she was right on that one.

Quote from The Moose :

We get reduced points i believe.

Whilst i understand it must be a little frustrating for the lower licensed guys, there just aren't enough higher licensed racers on at any one time to make server 2 worthwhile racing on.

I think Becky was going to wait until 100 racers had National B before opening SS2 originaly. Looks like she was right on that one.

I watched 5 races this evening and took part in a few. In 4 of those, only 1 clubman license holder received points due to the national guys getting them all, reduced or not.

Don't get me wrong, like with server2, its great racing with you all and great to know that on server2 I race a different class allowing me to still get my points while the gold, plat and titanium, get there's. This allows me to work toward my gold license and get to server3 racing i hope!

I'd like to see something similar for the SS server so we clubman hopefuls, can still get points as we progress while the national A and B might drive say FO8's so all are happy

I'm not quite sure why it is so hard to get points on the single seater server compared to the others, as in only getting a handful of points even for a win. I managed to get to Bronze in an evening when the CTRA system first came out, and so did many others so it seems odd that despite the server being full only a handful have a license 3 weeks on.

With "when the CTRA system first came out", do you mean when it still was the old STCC license? Back then the points philosophy was a completely different one. First you even got points for finishing a race (I think you got even more for that than you do for winning on SS1 now). Second you got much MUCH more points for winning. This had the bad side effect, that pretty much every racer sooner or later gained a license, no matter if they were racing clean or not. Users have whined and CTRA has yielded - gaining points is now much harder than before. I doubt I'd even have a gold license if I had raced everything under the new point system.

i think all the normal licences should be reset(race1,2,3). But leave the points that they got since the CTRA opened, then we would see how good they really are

A possible solution would be distributing points by license level.

So you have the basic scores for the finishign order, and then you get points for you class finishing order, like for example:

first clubman ( no matter how they ranked totally) : 3 points
second clubman: 2 Points
third: 1 Point.

It's horses for courses, I myself was racing with StableX as we joined the server just after SamH, There are benefits to having the higher licence holders racing as it allows the new racers to SS1 to ask for a decent set, also the first 2 or 3 races I was on the steep learning curve of getting upto speed for the Combo FE Gold Rev (Sorry SamH about that Tap )

Once upto speed after following the faster drivers I did infact get two 3rds and a fourth and got my PB down to a 1:16xx

My point is that due to having these drivers on track I was able to gauge the pace and start laying down competitive lap times within half an hour and ended the night quite happy with my progress gaining 20 odd points for the night.

I am sure if these higher licence racers had moved on to SS2 my pace would have been slower overall, I may have not been able to acquire a good set and I would have learnt far less than I did on the night so cheers lads it's a pleasure to race with you.

Sometimes it's not just about the points but learning from faster drivers can be more beneficial in the long term.

My opinion:
If a Clubman can't beat any National B driver, then he is not ready for a National B licence yet.

I think that one of the problems here, with both the SS and the tin top licensing is, higher license may let you move to higher servers, but the higher servers are less liked car classes. I would especially say this about the SS servers. The FOX is by far the most used SS car in LFS. You progress in your licensing, then have access to the higher server, but you are forced into a car/class that you may not like.

Second, it isn't all about points for everyone. Some of us just like to race and run in a clean environment. If the CTRA "beginner" server is the one with all the connections, then that is where a lot of people will race no matter if they get points or not. I race CTRA mainly because it's not cruise, drift, AS3 in GTRs, or FOX at AS2 rather than for CTRA points. I like to race against more than 1 or 2 others and hate the TBO class, thus I race on the Race 1 server even though I'm silver licensed.

The only way to solve it is to force points racing and make the system private or to code something that you have to race on your licensed server and get points or you get forced out of the system. Right now, it is public, and the public are able to race where ever they want, which is in the populated servers that happen to be CTRA. There is a limited choice of places to actually race with others in LFS. That is CTRA bottom tier servers, AS3/GTRs, or AS2/FOX. Everywhere else has too few connections to bother racing on.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

first clubman ( no matter how they ranked totally) : 3 points
second clubman: 2 Points
third: 1 Point.

The danger is on an empty server you just get some idiot driving round crashing into everything still racking up points, I think the laptime limit system should still apply here.

Quote from AndroidXP :

...

Ah right, I still think there's more points awarded on the CTRA servers than the SS servers but maybe it's just the point multiplier for the FOX changing things, if it still exists.

Quote from The Moose :

We get reduced points i believe.

Whilst i understand it must be a little frustrating for the lower licensed guys, there just aren't enough higher licensed racers on at any one time to make server 2 worthwhile racing on.

I think Becky was going to wait until 100 racers had National B before opening SS2 originaly. Looks like she was right on that one.

indeed

There are only 6 NAtional A racers and 63 National B racers.

This may sound alot but as this is globally and people aren't available 24/7 for CTRA, things like sleep and work get in the way for a few people, then other server types leagues etc etc there just aren't more than 6-7 national people on at anyone time tbh

Therefore the SS1 server is used.

I don't want to sound pompus or anything but with the national guys being on the same tracks is a good idea, race craft can be practiced seen, attitude and everything is compared, then i beleive that the presence of the nationals still remaining on the SS1 server actually makes the Clubmans better, they have something to aim at, nearly always get sets they are asked for which is mostly the difference ( apart form some aliens of course)

I understand the frustration, however if the nationals moved on then there would be the potential for the quality of the racing and racing attitude to go down on SS1 server and that would not be good for CTRA as a whole.

You know when you've been beaten by ZWR

It's fine how it is I reckon, apart from the 'high wind, pointless racing' situations.
(You see what I did there )

If lower licensed people can't compete with higher licensed people in the slower cars, how the hell will they cope on the next server up ?

Anyone reading this thinking 'Ah yes, but you're a high licensed racer' can think again, I am still working towards the first SS license.

Quote from Dru :

nearly always get sets they are asked for which is mostly the difference ( apart form some aliens of course)

I'm not sure how helpful always sharing sets actually is, I'm a self pro-claimed rubbish driver, who can obviously think up a thousand reasons why he's slow, people not sharing sets isn't one of them. I find that sticking with one set and modifying it yourself to suit each track and your driving style is far better than just getting a new set each time, keep as much constant as possible the set doesn't actually make a huge difference, maybe a second maximum between a reasonable and WR set. If you are comfortable with the car your far more likely to be able to work on lines and race more safely.

Quote from Bean0 :

It's fine how it is I reckon, apart from the 'high wind, pointless racing' situations.
(You see what I did there )

If lower licensed people can't compete with higher licensed people in the slower cars, how the hell will they cope on the next server up ?

Anyone reading this thinking 'Ah yes, but you're a high licensed racer' can think again, I am still working towards the first SS license.

actually you have a point, high winds mean little chance of scoring points for ANYone as you are so far off the records.

i understand some tracks have high winds to make it more interesting and some NEVER have wind..

Quote from ajp71 :

I'm not sure how helpful always sharing sets actually is, I'm a self pro-claimed rubbish driver, who can obviously think up a thousand reasons why he's slow, people not sharing sets isn't one of them. I find that sticking with one set and modifying it yourself to suit each track and your driving style is far better than just getting a new set each time, keep as much constant as possible the set doesn't actually make a huge difference, maybe a second maximum between a reasonable and WR set. If you are comfortable with the car your far more likely to be able to work on lines and race more safely.

but we are sharing stable sets suitable for long races - not these unstable hotlaps rubbish

I think the point is that the point of CTRA licenses has switched, or at least moved, from showing "you're clean" to "you're fast". It's the X-System itself - the report feature - that has the job of providing clean races now. IMO, the licenses are now a pure display of performance and dedication, though of course a bit cleanliness filtering still applies.

However this also means that exceptionally clean but a bit too slow drivers have a very hard time gaining a license, which is where IMO most of the recent point-related frustration comes from.

Quote from Dru :

but we are sharing stable sets suitable for long races - not these unstable hotlaps rubbish

Well if that's what you use then maybe it's less of a problem but a lot of people do use Inferno sets for short races, in the end of the day if you can hold it on the road and the tires last then just pulling away at the front and doing hotlaps is the way to win.

For those looking for something stable but faster than Bob's Easy Race sets this thread has some good sets in it as does Gentlefoot's website.

Quote from AndroidXP :

I think the point is that the point of CTRA licenses has switched, or at least moved, from showing "you're clean" to "you're fast". It's the X-System itself - the report feature - that has the job of providing clean races now. IMO, the licenses are now a pure display of performance and dedication, though of course a bit cleanliness filtering still applies.

Yes the licence system doesn't necessarily produce quality racers I recently managed to beat a GTR FXR with a GT2 car because a Platinum licensed racer couldn't drive it, he kept passing me on the straights then falling off at every corner, and that's about the most stable car and easiest car to drive at a reasonable speed in LFS. I'm also not sure about the current laptime restriction system, which doesn't account for wind or cleaness to well, maybe a system based on a mixture of raw speed and laptime consistency would be a better measure of how many points, if any, should be rewarded. Obviously you don't want to give points for drivers who just drive round with no competition and win simply by staying on the track but who are still totally uncompetitive and dangerous, but at the same time it would be nice if you can get points if you have a really close clean race long battle for position and aren't quite as quick.

Quote from CELTIC100 :

It's horses for courses, I myself was racing with StableX as we joined the server just after SamH, There are benefits to having the higher licence holders racing as it allows the new racers to SS1 to ask for a decent set, also the first 2 or 3 races I was on the steep learning curve of getting upto speed for the Combo FE Gold Rev (Sorry SamH about that Tap )

Once upto speed after following the faster drivers I did infact get two 3rds and a fourth and got my PB down to a 1:16xx

My point is that due to having these drivers on track I was able to gauge the pace and start laying down competitive lap times within half an hour and ended the night quite happy with my progress gaining 20 odd points for the night.

I am sure if these higher licence racers had moved on to SS2 my pace would have been slower overall, I may have not been able to acquire a good set and I would have learnt far less than I did on the night so cheers lads it's a pleasure to race with you.

Sometimes it's not just about the points but learning from faster drivers can be more beneficial in the long term.

totally agree with you and it's great having the faster national drivers to race against, same as the server2 works........ my only thing is on the points distribution

well i'm staying put - as i'm not fast - but i've had over 200 races within the last week on SS1 - i've got my points from consistancy over evenings races - you can not just jump in and be quick i'm not quick ,but i avoid most messes and get on with it - some times i get points some times i dont......

Thats the last time I let you pass Dru :P

Slow Pffffff

The mumblings of a true purist

Quote from CELTIC100 :

Thats the last time I let you pass Dru :P

Slow Pffffff

The mumblings of a true purist

Yeah that one makes me laugh also... Or could it be Moose's sets?

Quote from SpikeyMarcoD :

Or could it be Moose's sets?

My sets are nothing to do with me at all. I couldn't set up a car if you paid me.
It's thanks entirely to my 'rivals' that are happy to share their set's that I've got where i have. That's why i always share sets when I'm asked.

I'm firmly in the camp that says sets DO make all the difference.