It's been a long and in a way rewarding break after the last season. We have had time to think about new tweaks to our fine league – and we even got something new to play with, thanks Devs.
To prepare for the coming season, we've decided to throw in a duo of warm-up events. On Sunday 13th of January is the first one; 35 laps of the new South City Chicane Route (SO6) with the new Formula BMW (FBM). In this event you have to do a mandatory pitstop which cannot happen in lap 1 or lap 35. So remember to practice making a swift pitstop and avoid speeding in the pitlane, if you're not that experienced in that department. The second event will be raced one week after the first one, further info will be announced later.
I like the ideas behind the new qualifying format. Overall I think that this has the potential to be a lot more pleasurable than spending ages hotlapping trying to catch the 'perfect' lap.
I do have a few questions though:
1. Although the warm-up seems to be unlimited laps, in the next season if the number of laps is restricted to 12 laps then do the outlap and inlap count? I suspect the outlap does, but the inlap doesn't if the car does not cross the finish line at the end of the lap
2. Will there be servers available for practicing the combo which do not count for qualifying? I hope so, providing the ability to practice online with other drivers, and then when 'peak condition' is reached, the driver can switch over to the qualifying server.
3. What was the reason for deciding to restrict the qualifying laps? I think that this will encourage people to leave qualifying until the last few days, making it difficult to judge a target qualifying time. I would prefer to see progress during the qualifying period. My suggestions would be one of the following, with option 1 being my preference:
option 1: display best time from the practice servers also, but separately from the qualifying server (this could just be taken from lfsworld stats, if too much effort to capture stats from OLFSL practice servers only)
option 2: run 2 qualifying periods, 12 laps available in each period, with the best lap across both qualifying periods counting for each driver
option 3: make qualifying laps unlimited
It's good to see the changes being made to qualifying. I hope that it proves to be a success.
Thanks for your comments - I will do my best to answer / comment on them.
Thanks
The outlap does not count towards your lap count. The inlap will only count if you cross the finish line at the end of the lap. As LFS does not allow you to drive into the actual garage, doing an inlap is kind of pointless anyway as you might as well just tele-pit at the end of your flying laps.
We (OLFSL) have four servers (as you know). At the moment, the application which controls the qualifying can probably only just, maybe, control 2 LFS servers. I would not like to try it with more unless I code the application to be "aware" of the fact that it is controlling more servers. So the answer at this point is, yes, the other servers will be available to be practice servers - probably in race mode instead of practice mode that the actual qualifying server is in.
We honestly thought that restricting the laps would make it more exciting! Maybe this will work, maybe it won't. We will only find out by trying it and checking the feedback. At the moment, we are all in favour of it so we will run with it. As mentioned in the News, the number of laps for this event will be 60 (which is nearly unlimited ).
Hmm, dont see this as a viable option myself as I would imagine the practice servers will be in race mode, and in race mode you are racing against the other racers not against the clock, so setting your fastest laptime may not be the first thing on your mind.
Hmmm, again possible, but this will actually shorten your qualifying window as you will need to complete at least 2 laps, one within the first half of the period and one within the second half (I can explain this further if required).
I do agree with trying the restricted qualifying laps. My observation was that this will make it difficult to judge a target lap time. In the old format I would generally get some practice and set a qualifying time during the weekend before qualifying finishes. I would then check what times my main competitors were posting, and try for a quicker lap during the last few days if my time was adrift of where I would like to be.
I've seen Hot Tracker used in other leagues. For all the competing drivers this shows some stats about the combo, such as best lap time and number of laps. With the new qualifying format I would be practicing online, using short races on the other OLFSL servers to improve my laptimes and learn the racing lines for overtaking/defending a position. I just think that it would be useful to use something like Hot Tracker within the LFS-League.com site so that we can see our relative performances during the build up.
It's just a thought. I do like these changes that you have made.
It may be me misunderstanding what you mean but for me its like this:
Hotlap qualifying method: Practice: you can practice where you like, offline, online, OLFSL servers, someone else's server running the same combo etc etc. Set a lap: Upload your hotlap whenever you like up to the deadline. Until you upload it, you are the only one who knows what your current fastest lap is.
Qualifying Server method: Practice: you can where you like, offline, online, OLFSL servers, someone else's server running the same combo etc (ie the same minus the actual qualifying server) Set a lap: Connect to the Qualifying Server and attempt to set your fastest lap when you feel you are ready. Until you start lapping on the Qualifying server, you are the only one who knows what your fastest current lap is (even though it won't count unless you can replicate it on the server)
So, in terms of judging your target laptime, it is the same, as far as I can see - you have to wait for other people to set / upload their lap before you can compare. In some ways the Qualifying Server way means you will be able to see other peoples current attempt earlier because they can not just relax knowing they have a saved replay on their PC which they can upload at the last minute if they can not improve.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your feedback bozo!
As the outlap doesn't count, you can try as many online qualifying laps as you like, as long as you abort the lap before crossing the line if it isn't quick enough. So you may be right here. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
Will the second practice event be run with qualifying laps limited to 12?
That is true, but if you are fighting for tenths of a second, you will not know "exactly" how fast your lap would have been unless you actually cross the line. If you have made a mistake or spun or whatever, you will cancel the lap there, not just at the line.
I wasn't talking about that with the bit you quoted me on!
Don't know yet, I would imagine so as not everyone has got even close to 60 laps this time, so we may try the other extreme. Nothing has been decided yet.
Just to clarify, the outlap does count. If you leave the pits with 10 laps remaining, as soon as you cross the line to start your flying lap, you will only have 9 laps remaining.
This is not the way it is, the outlap is not counted. However, I have seen some instances where it is counted and the reason is this: LFS times your outlap (although it does not show it at the top right of the screen) and it is always exactly 1 hour 0 mins 0 seconds. Sometimes (and I have been as yet unable to figure out why) your outlap is timed at over 1 hour (infact it gets 1 hour and your actual lap time) these laps WILL be counted by the Qualifying application. Normal outlaps (those of exactly 1hour) will not be counted.
Firstly, too busy watching where bozo was after my lap 5 pitstop, that I exceeded the pit lane speed limit. Then, I was able to gain slightly on bozo and Solar until all the front runners kept coming up to lap me, then I had to let them go under the Blue Flags and I lost ground. Then I got disconnected.
I had a few game plans to chose from, depending upon how lap 1 went. I decided to pit after lap 2 so that I could have a clear track for at least the first half of the race. I'd checked before that I could do this with a sufficient gap before the leaders started to lap me. The only risk was if I crashed and needed to pit later, which thankfully I didn't.
The race turned out well. Started 14th, and finished 8th. I'm pleased with that, given that I didn't have the pace to challenge many others in the race. The tortoise versus the hares!
We decided on trying a new format because hotlapping on your own is a bit boring. Giving people the freedom to access a quali server 24 hours, means you can decide to have fun quali-ing with others (by aranging a set time with your friends or team mates), or on your own.
We may well suggest a certain day or time for those who want a semi fixed schedule to quali with others, but, this would be totally non compulsary.
(for example - Wednesday 18:00 to 22:00 GMT for group quali night)
You've got to bare in mind, a full server is much more fun, but other people on track can lose you time and valuable laps (like real life) - if you're a perfectionist and don't want any distractions, you can head to the quali server during off peak hours.
My thoughts about laps - as you can have unlimited practice laps on or offline, only having a set number for the official quali makes it rather exciting, it's much more fun to have some pressure on your quali rather than have an unlimited time to do the perfect lap possible via the old hotlapping method.
12 laps might be too long, or it might be too short, we'll see how it pans out in the next warm up event.
Good work FF Tim!
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The warm up race was great - a spinner in front lost me time and gave me damage at the start, and a weird balance slide cost me more time later on. Other than that, a real fun race - looking foward to the next one.
This was my first real race and i liked it. Too bad it is over. A few laps before the end p8 looked possible but i screwed up which costed me a place and had an accident later which costed me again two places.
I would like to have the replay for the second grid/race to look at mistakes i made but i forgot to make one. Has anybody else made one?
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