I think I've located a bit of a bug in the way X-System counts yellow flags. It's worth saying, to start off with, that I think this is a fantastic part of the X-System, and a really useful way to show a driver's general racing etiquette and awareness.

However, it's not a great measurement if it has issues in it

What I've noticed, at a couple of tracks now - but not all of them - is that the system will add a yellow flag to your count when you start a race. I've got a pair of screenshots taken at Aston National Reversed in Single Seater 1 just now, showing my yellow flag count after one race had ended, and then again a few seconds after the next race had started.



I do think it's rather unfair for us to be given a yellow flag just for starting the race and, apart from being a glitch in the system, as this is only happening at a couple of tracks, it's making for bloody depressing racing at Aston National seeing as I can't really get my yellow flag ratio to move at all in four laps!

I think I've spotted this issue at Blackwood GP Forward in SS1, and Kyoto National Forward in SS1, although I don't have absolute confirmation of this.

Lower-res screenshots here and here

What d'you reckon?

Sam

LFS sometimes throws yellows like confetti. You can't compare yellow flags in LFS with real-track yellows. Very few of LFS's yellows would make it to being actual yellow flags at a track.

The CTRA system doesn't calculate its own yellows, it simply counts the ones LFS tells it about. If LFS tells the X-System that you threw a yellow in a sector, the X-System racks it up.

There are definitely issues with Blackwood REV since Patch Y, reported as a bug already. As for any other tracks, it may be possible but I don't have hard and fast data to support the theory. The average Yellow Flag ratio on the Stats page has definitely climbed since the release of Patch Y, after months of continuous falling. It's now back to almost where it was before drivers took it upon themselves to actively reduce their own ratios.

We can't do anything about it at the CTRA end, I'm afraid. We can't determine which is a good flag from LFS and which isn't. The only way to do it would be to stop counting yellows on tracks that are suspected of being buggy, but that will throw out the yellow flag ratio just as badly. If we also stop counting laps on those tracks, it will throw out other stats further down the line.

The only thing I can suggest is to remember what we've said from the beginning.. that the CTRA doesn't give any credence to yellow flag ratios... and run with that

Quote from SamH :

The only way to do it would be to stop counting yellows

That will be a great idea: stop counting

Sam you do know about the OnOff part of IS_FLG right?

Yeah, but it's quite a chunk of extra coding to work around something that I'm thoroughly anticipating to be redundant with the next patch anyway.

Well tbh, its not a lot of coding. Whats the best thing to do or atleast what i would do. Store there last flag time in the players list. when FLG comes in if its 1 set that player to TRUE then if you recive another within X seconds dont touch it. If you dont set it back to false. Then only issue a flag when they change to true. good plan and easy quick fix IMO

E: Reading that again makes no sence. I hope you understand what i mean? sorry ive not slept all night.

We're only counting one yellow flag max per player per sector already, no matter how many yellows they actually throw in that sector. The issue for us at the moment is that some tracks (BL1R I know of, for definite, possibly others but I don't know for sure) throw flags where there shouldn't be any. I would need to code to temporarily ignore flags thrown in particular areas on particular tracks. Potentially I would be coding out genuine flags since I can't determine the difference, then, between a real flag in a bad path and a faulty flag in a bad path.

[edit] I could check velocity/direction in those bad areas of the path.. but it's definitely beginning to look like a lot of coding for little gain, when I'm expecting the problem to be fixed in a future patch and the CTRA doesn't give any credence to the thing I'm coding to deal with anyway. We're looking at an average flag ratio of 1.4% increase over 1 month, and we've largely (if not completely) dropped BL1R from our cycles already, anyway.

and yeah.. know how you feel.. not slept yet either

ohhhhhhhhhh my bad. i thought you had a problem in general... sorry

Nooo.. we've only got a faulty path on BL1R, not a coding problem at our end (except where created by the faulty path)

Quote from SamH :

Nooo.. we've only got a faulty path on BL1R, not a coding problem at our end (except where created by the faulty path)

Yea. Ok. about your edit. You could borrow some code from LFS Lapper

Also staying up all night isnt healthy

*drinks pints of coffee*

I'd still have to re-code Lapper code for Blitz, since that's what we're in at the moment, until X2 comes out

Quote from SamH :

I'd still have to re-code Lapper code for Blitz, since that's what we're in at the moment, until X2 comes out

I know the CTRA reads flags directly from LFS's reporting of them, but is it not possible to tell X-System to ignore flags given within, say, the first fifteen seconds of a race?

If I understand all the coding-talk correctly, this hasn't been mentioned yet and might be a quick fix for the the problem. But, yes, if it's going to be a large amount of work, there's no point for what would essentially be a short-term issue

Sam

I don't think flags are an issue in the first 15 seconds of a race

You could use nodes or X,Y but like sam says its probley pointless.

Well, quite, but the system still counts them

It just seems a bit odd, though, because LFS itself doesn't display the YELLOW FLAG message at the start of the race, so why is it outputting a yellow flag to X-System? X-System doesn't show the caution-whilst-rejoining message either, so where the hell is that flag coming from? I can't quite get my head around that bit

Sam

x-system did have a timer based exemption for the start of the race, it would unlock sometime on the way down to T1.

I no longer maintain the code, but for my part this was taken care of in early development.

Dunno, maybe I removed it, maybe its been broken since I left, I don't recall.

It`s also anoying to allways get yellow flags if you pit. I know that nothing can be done with that, but it really suck. I bet that 5-6% of my yellows are due to pit, I usually pit if I get some damage, can`t stand driving with screwed up steering.

Yep to fix that LFS needs to properly implement the pit entry and exit lines.

So the code perhaps does exist, but doesn't work on some tracks? Or maybe that particular code's incompatible with Patch Y. I won't pretend to know why it doesn't work any more

As for the pitting, the simplest thing is for LFS to start ignoring yellow flags thrown within the yellow pitlane demarcation lines, but no, there's nothing that can be done on the part of X-System. I suppose you could argue that pitting does show a lack of awareness, care, whatever, just as a yellow flag on-track does - but then again, you would probably have already picked up yellow flag whilst receiving the damage that made you pit, so that argument was nicely self-cancelling

Sam

I'd say just ignore the yellow flag ratio.. but nobody listens

It's a matter of personal pride to get it down lower

Although the knowledge that to get it down to my target 10% would need 6000 clean laps from now is somewhat depressing

Sam

Well Sam.. if others can do it with the existing system, so can you.

The flag ratio calculations are the same for everyone, whether the calculations are flawed or not.. they're equally flawed for everyone.

Getting your Yellow flag ratio down isnt easy, I agree sam. But it is certainly doable. I went from 32% to 26% in a couple off months. It takes time. But with every game it takes time to get better.

Speaking of CTRA, I shoul dget my ass back in the servers. Just so caught up with testing the new wheel and getting it working properly. I miss the racing there.

You got one of those Porsche wheels, Niels?