The safety rating feature that iRacing has doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to implement in LFS. I think if it's implemented within the core of LFS it will encourage better driving. Instead of matching you up with other drivers like iRacing, server hosts can have the "option" of only allowing drivers with a safety rating of X or higher to join the server.

I think it would also be good marketing wise. People right now can justify paying more money for iRacing because there will be less wreckers. If this feature is implemented, they no longer have that excuse

CTRA has a similar feature, but perhaps it would be better/more noticeable to those outside of LFS if it was a built in and slapped onto the front page of lfs.net. I can see this being a major improvement to the demo servers.

It won't work unless you can turn it off, otherwise banger racing, drifiting or cruising would be detrimental to ones safety rating (maybe not a bad thing).

Also if the N2003 system was anything to go by you have to separate oval and real racing, driving much shorter laps in a circle is much easier and any lap based system will not be able to differ between the two.

Good points and they all seem to be reasonably easy to implement.

I don´t really see what LFS would gain in having a feature like that. I don´t like drifting or see the point in cruise servers, but who am I to say to others what they should do with their game. If I want to meet with some friends and just go around the track the wrong way or crashing each other down the pit lane, why shouldn´t I??? If I want to the race in a ladder system like the one in IRacing, I can join CTRA. If what I want is "real" racing I can join a league or even organize my own with the cars that I want to race and not those I´m "allowed" to race. That´s one of the great things about LFS, the freedom to use it the way I want, and not the way I'm told...
So, for a feature like that to work, it had to be an option, but if it was an option it would mean nothing since the safety rating would only be for "some", and for that it´s better for someone to create some kind of system to use on their servers.

Exactly, it would be an option - it's not forcing anyone to do anything. My guess is that anyone who hosts a server that intends it to be used for "racing" would want this feature.

Hosts that want people going down the track backwards and crashing people in pit lane can turn this option off.

When I click "Multiplayer" and query the master server for hosts, one of the options can be "Safety Rating (On/Off/Any)". So if I felt like joining the wreckers (or drifters/cruisers) I can simply choose off.

A server admin would also be able to set a flag that their server that it doesn't count towards "safety" ratings.

Quote from Technique :

Exactly, it would be an option - it's not forcing anyone to do anything. My guess is that anyone who hosts a server that intends it to be used for "racing" would want this feature.

Hosts that want people going down the track backwards and crashing people in pit lane can turn this option off.

Hosts that want their server used for "racing" can kick or ban the drivers that they think are not "safe"... If they cannot be on the server they can allow for others to vote and keep the server "safe"...
So, sorry, but I still don´t see the point why this sould be a "built-in" system in LFS.

Quote from chunkyracer :

Hosts that want their server used for "racing" can kick or ban the drivers that they think are not "safe"... If they cannot be on the server they can allow for others to vote and keep the server "safe"...
So, sorry, but I still don´t see the point why this sould be a "built-in" system in LFS.

Got to agree with that one 100%.

I think that would actually be a quite good idea. Serious servers could definitely use this. The tricky part would be to implement it in a way to make it forceful and credible enough to actually get players to try to get a good rating without doing the same as iRestriction and removing any freedom of the racers.

The problem with active adminning is that it simply takes a lot of effort to keep it objective and fair. An automated system would, while not being 100% correct all the time, at least give us an official indicator that works the same for everyone.

Dunno. I like the general idea, but I can see quite a few problems:

• Many servers won't take part in the rating, because they do a different type of racing: autox, drift, cruise, banger, rallyx, drag, ...
  
• Private servers will probably not take part either, because they select their visitors in a different way.
  
• You will possibly need separate ratings for road-going cars and pure race cars (or saloon cars vs. single-seaters).
  
• There is a danger of elitism: if too many admins require a high rating, then newcomers can't find a server that accepts them, so there is no place where they can work on their rating.
  
• If the rating is to be widely used, then it should make few errors. (In iRacing you have no choice but to mind your rating, even if the system makes errors. But LFS is more democratic: if the rating is faulty, the server admins will stop using it.)
  

Good points - the biggest being elitism. I'm not sure if the LFS community is big enough for this to work well. As it is, while there's hundreds of servers (which might be a problem in itself) there's only really a few well populated ones at the times I race.

Make the default enabled for ALL servers but let admins disable.

That way the cruse and drift people would disable and most pickup servers would be enabled because most pickup admins don't config their servers anyway. The server option to allow admins to block based on safety rating off by default.

The default then becomes ratings are collected on most servers and admins can filter if required.

Finally have a player state of no rating and have it that rating only becomes active after say X number of races so you have done enough to build a good representation of your safety level on track. A no rating player should not be blocked by the filter.

Technique: Elitism has NOTHING to do with this BTW. It would become the same as CRC of old. People just want to know people on the track are clean. Track safety has NOTHING to do with driver speed. It is the same as yellow rating in CTRA.

Funny, I'm pretty sure I remember some guy called Dajmin suggesting a player rating system that could block players below certain rankings from joining a server but nobody paid him the slightest bit of attention

That said, I'm assuming this one is an automated one which takes into account things like yellow flag incidents and the like, which couldn't hurt.

I am not so sure this would work well without also have the ability to match players of similar rating. I think that is the key to making the whole thing work. By matching players you are more likely to be running with people of similar skill, and as such the number of incidents will drop as you climb the ranks.

Using a system that fails to match players would lead to elitism, where its more of a bragging right then a way to find a more competitive group of people to race with. I do not know what the CTRA is like now but back when I was racing more often then now you alomst never could find a race in the higher ranked servers.

Ok, I think I may have changed my mind on this one. After two nights of racing on public and CTRA servers, I am now convinced that LFS needs some sort of driver safety rating as a built in piece of functionality with or without the driving matching aspect. I don't care if it dings me every time I drop a tire off track or get punted in to the wall by some other inept driver because even with those incidents I will have a better rating then they do and I will be able to find drivers who have the same respect for me as I do for them.

Built in safety rating - Hell yes.
Every incident counts - Hell yes, even if I was the victim.
Weighted penalty by session type - Sure.
Server Admin ability to disable - if we have to, to keep everyone happy.
Driver matching service - if possible.

Quote from Gimpster :

Built in safety rating - Hell yes.

I have zero interest in iRental: despite the loathsome rental scheme, its obviously a well developed simulation, but the career structure makes it a very rigid piece of software. Its only useful for one thing: iRacing, a form of sport conducted under the officiation of iRacing, and a branch of simulated motorsport in general.

LFS still holds my interest (barely, it must be said...) since its approach is a little more open, and allows for self-organisation. If you want a safety rating it should be programmable via insim (CTRA already count yellow flags so it can't be a huge step). But built in? I don't see the point.

If it's built in, then everybody is held to the same standards. It's also the only way to make it useful, because only then it is "official" enough to be accepted. If every server implements their own version of safety rating then that's about as good as no safety rating at all.

Quote from chunkyracer :

Hosts that want their server used for "racing" can kick or ban the drivers that they think are not "safe"... If they cannot be on the server they can allow for others to vote and keep the server "safe"...
So, sorry, but I still don´t see the point why this sould be a "built-in" system in LFS.

Sorry, but ban currently works like that: you almost lose control and slow down in front of a guy trying to do a qualifying time...you did not wreck, you did not touch him, he is furious, he calls for a ban, 10 other guys vote yes without knowing why or what, and that's it, you get banned.

The kick/ban vote is not satisfying.

There should be a safery rating...server can use it or not. If they use it, they specify which range of safety rating drivers is accepted, and race time statistics are saved to update safety rating. It would ensure high quality racing if you want it, and more relax racing when you want too, on servers where it is disabled. After all, safety rating is something like an automated kick/ban system....less prone to emotions.

Quote from AndroidXP :

If it's built in, then everybody is held to the same standards. It's also the only way to make it useful, because only then it is "official" enough to be accepted. If every server implements their own version of safety rating then that's about as good as no safety rating at all.

No. It isn't the only way. If you require the comforting embrace of standardisation then an open, standardised, insim application would still do the job just as well.

But that wouldn't come from the devs, making it not official and thus most likely much less accepted.

Yeah, any system which would result in eventually making the game unplayable for morons would have to be an integral part of the core game. Otherwise it means nothing and a developer could consider it's use unfair or whatever and overturn the ruling, making it essentially pointless.

Quote from AndroidXP :

But that wouldn't come from the devs, making it not official and thus most likely much less accepted.

But you seem to have missed the point... that would turn the devs into a licensing authority and they have (quite rightly IMHO) never shown any inclination to become as much.

It wouldn't make them an authority, it would just be them making the tools. It would really be self-reliant. Ignoring my system for a second, if it judged you based on number of accidents caused, yellow flags, etc it would be entirely self-driven, meaning no interaction from anyone would be required to keep it running.

Now obviously there would be occasions when the system got it wrong (inevitably), and at that time the devs could be called on to reset an account. But that doesn't make them the authority, just the creators (which they are anyway).

Quote from Dajmin :

Yeah, any system which would result in eventually making the game unplayable for morons would have to be an integral part of the core game.

But suppose someone drives like a moron, finds he can't join races anymore, and then wants to be a good citizen and raise his rating. How would that be done? Or is he doomed to single-player mode forever?

Quote from nihil :

But you seem to have missed the point... that would turn the devs into a licensing authority and they have (quite rightly IMHO) never shown any inclination to become as much.

Yes, one thing the devs won't want is to be drawn into discussions about unjust ratings, or to be flooded with requests to "correct" someone's rating.

Quote from Dajmin :

It would really be self-reliant. Ignoring my system for a second, if it judged you based on number of accidents caused, yellow flags, etc it would be entirely self-driven, meaning no interaction from anyone would be required to keep it running.

If it would be self-driven, then the errors that the system would inevitably make (LFS can't tell who caused the incident, only who was involved) can't be corrected manually (because there's no human interaction). That means that the admins must keep a large safety margin when they deny access based on the rating. Thus, you may still encounter morons on the track.

Quote from wsinda :

But suppose someone drives like a moron, finds he can't join races anymore, and then wants to be a good citizen and raise his rating. How would that be done? Or is he doomed to single-player mode forever?

Pretty much, yeah. But that would teach them to not be a moron. Rating would need to be visible in-game or at least on LFSW though, with maybe a colour code to act as a warning if their rating was in danger of causing trouble.
And with my system they would have the opportunity to improve their rating if they could get on low-restriction servers. I think the very fact it was there would stop a lot of wreckers, since they'd need to pay for a new account if they couldn't join any servers.

Quote from wsinda :

If it would be self-driven, then the errors that the system would inevitably make (LFS can't tell who caused the incident, only who was involved) can't be corrected manually (because there's no human interaction). That means that the admins must keep a large safety margin when they deny access based on the rating. Thus, you may still encounter morons on the track.

That's the biggest problem, isn't it? Without about a thousand different variables, how do you work out whether that incident was player A or player B's fault? I still think it is possible (99% of the time) with a selection of variables based on speed, direction, current action and track position, but any system is going to fail sometime.

That's the entire reason I suggested the system I did. It's not event-specific, it's player-specific. So they might make a mistake that someone punishes them for, but if someone else has a good race with them it will cancel itself out. Or if someone wants to change their rating of that player they can do at any time. But if a lot of players rate them down then it's more than likely down to their behaviour on track.