The results for the 24h of Aston have been provisional for quite a long time now. The root cause for this has been the advent of longer car damage repair times and the fact that engine damage cannot be repaired under the last patch.

While most teams welcomed this change for the improved realism it brought, it unfortunately gave rise to a certain type of behaviour which we cannot tolerate. It turned out that a few teams used a loophole in the rules to gain an advantage by intentionally disconnecting from the server at favourable spots of the track. The intentional disconnect allowed for the teams to have a second driver reconnect in a very short time which thus saved the team the time of the pit stop, and more importantly gave them a repaired car with no engine damage and no lost lap.

While this activity was not clearly forbidden by the rules, it was nevertheless contrary to the spirit of sportsmanlike behaviour that the MoE organisation has always held up as the main principle of this series. The past seasons' and even the recent 24h race's success were due in large part to the fact that the participating teams bought into this sense of sportsmanship by being fiercely competitive but also friendly and respectful towards their opposition. Even the current issues have not changed this and we are keen to keep it that way.

Therefore, we decided we needed to act upon using this loophole despite it not being in the rules. After lengthy discussions we came up with the following solution:

1. Any disconnect and/or shift-s/-p that a team gains a distinctive advantage from, such as repaired engine damage or the discounted time of the pitstop, will be penalized by deducting one lap from the team's total.
2. If we deem the disconnect/shift-p/shift-s to have been intentional, we additionally deduct 33% of the points the team gained in the race.

For the last race, we will modify this penalty a tad bit: teams who responded to our request for confessions and admitted to their intentional use of the loophole are only charged with 25% of the points gained.

Therefore, the results and standings for the 24h of Aston will be modified as follows:

Team #02: -2L and -33% pts
Team #03: -1L and -33% pts
Team #10: -1L
Team #20: -1L and -33% pts
Team #26: -2L and -33% pts
Team #31: -1L and -25% pts
Team #33: -1L and -25% pts

With the exception of team #10, Pedal to the Metal, the reasons for the investigated disconnects given by the respective teams did not convince the admin team. Team #02, SK-Gaming, admitted one disco which was the one at the end of the race. However, the explanation given for the other one was not convincing which is why the 33% points deduction is applied and not the 25%.

In the future, the 25% points deduction will not exist. We will still investigate suspicious disconnects. We will have to do this manually, so results will be provisional for a couple of days after the race. Since the remaining races of the season are much shorter, we expect the delays to also be much shorter.

Philip Kempermann on behalf of the Admin Team of Masters of Endurance

edit: Additionally, My3id will be given 1 lap back, as their shift-p was due to a LFS bug and not of their own doing.

You are free to discuss this ruling, but do it in a mannered way. If the discussion gets out of hand, we will close this thread.

Protests against the decisions can be filed until the beginning of qualifying for the Blackwook race, upcoming Friday, Feb, 29, 20:00 UTC. Protests must include reasons for the protest.

Quote from Hoellsen :

While this activity was not clearly forbidden by the rules, it was nevertheless contrary to the spirit of sportsmanlike behaviour that the MoE organisation has always held up as the main principle of this series.

Couldn't agree more

Can we please get an overview of the provisional final standings including these penalties?

Well done on this massive investigation.

Quote from Hoellsen :

2. If we deem the disconnect/shift-p/shift-s to have been intentional, we additionally deduct 33% of the points the team gained in the race.

Is this a final decision or possible to protest against that? Like will teams have the possibility to proove themselfs innocent?

Edited OP to add decision on 3id's incident.

Quote from traxxion :

Couldn't agree more

Can we please get an overview of the provisional final standings including these penalties?

Well done on this massive investigation.

Results & standings are coming within the next day or so.

Well, how can you be sure that a dc was intentional?
I have lagged out on several races (and sometimes at the end of my stint) and sometimes even close to start/finish... what if that happend right after start/finish?
And that problem gets even worse on a short track like Blackwood where a laptime is 1:0X for GT1...

I would be penalized twice with a +1 Lap and -33% of the points for having bad luck.

Though I understand that it's hard to find a useful solution to the problem, I don't see that as a fix for the problem.

Thanks admin team for a thorough investigation. Your dedication to integrity and fairness is very much appreciated.

Well done on getting this massive task done but I don't see how teams are meant to be able to proove their innocence if at the same time your not 100% sure if they're guilty or not.

The only protest I have to our disconnection was that our time out occurred on lap 26 of Jonesys stint, we could run full pace for the entire stint and do 28 laps. This early finish to the stint meant that 2 laps before the end of the race we had to make an extra pitstop because our schedule had been messed around.

The only other thing I can think of is that we had 3 timeouts in the full race, 2 of which ending in us losing alot. (With regard to position of the car on the track and the amount of laps done in each stint) Then the last disconnect comes along and happens in the first sector so we get a penalty? Bollocks if you ask me.

If you have a protest to your penalty, we ask that you very carefully lay out your case with all available evidence and email it to admins at mastersofendurance.eu.

We'd prefer it if, as Phil said, the discussions in this thread don't get out of hand.

Thanks.

Thanks to the admin team for getting this done, I certainly don't envy your jobs at all!

Good Job Phil and team

I for one think this is still a long shot, as long as you dont have solid proof, of one's intentional or non intentional disconnect, you are not allowed to penalise that certain team. You basicaly added penalties, to the teams you 'thought' disconnected intentionaly, based on the actions that happened on track, however, that doesnt necesarily mean that the disconnect was intentional.

In other words with your new penalties, your saying that in future races if someone has a legit disconnect they will be penalised.

Im not going to protest further, sincer there is no real way to prove or dissprove one's guilt, in this matter, so we will just leave it at that.

well its always a hard subject, of course its not faire to the teams that had or might have a legit disco but we can´t blame moe admins, its just something that the devs should fix to give the endurance spirit back. But either way in the 24h a lot teams had a big advantage with the discos, intentional or not.

We accept the penalty and say once again sorry to those teams who felt "tricked". Excuse us.

Good Job by the admins.

After reviewing #03 Mercury Racing Team's appeal regarding their 24h penalty, we have made the following decisions:

1. Mercury successfully argued that the disconnect in question was not intentional.
2. Mercury did not successfully argue that they did not gain time from the disconnect.

Therefore:

1. Mercury will not be charged a 33% penalty on their 24h points.
2. Mercury will keep the -1L penalty, similar to the situation with #10 Pedal to the Metal.

The Round 4 points have been updated in their thread and are now official.

Thanks,
MoE Admin Team