OK I know that many threads have been posted before about safety cars, but this thread is not about the AI.

For the sake of realism, I am suggesting that an external program could be created to run alongside LFS to add flashing lights to safety cars. The idea is that the program would monitor the car skin, and when a preset skin is selected, the program switches the car model to add the lights.

This could also work for marshall tow trucks by adding front and rear nudge bars. Obviously this would work with AI too but that's not my concern.

I can't imagine a small light bar would take a huge amount of time to model (maybe I'm wrong) and small nudge bars (maybe something like US police car bars) could be done fairly quickly too.

The only difficulty I see is allowing people to change the skin without making the extra 'parts' available to every n00b racer there is. I'm guessing the program would be given out to all server admins instead of just letting people download it.

One final thought is the lights themselves. I know that not all pace cars have orange lights (this Audi for example) so it would be useful to have the lights skinned as a dds file to allow the colours to be changed at will.

Thanks for your time reading this, I welcome all constructive criticism.

Matt

+/- 0, would be pointless with a proper AI controlled and self-deploying SC.

Quote from duke_toaster :

+/- 0, would be pointless with a proper AI controlled and self-deploying SC.

I'm of the opinion that the Safety Car cannot be accurately and correctly deployed by a computer, no matter how good the simulation. I still trust the judgement and driving of a human.

But yes, lightbars would be a bit of a nice touch, but I'm willing to wait untli S3 for this bit.

And RB4s make decent push cars/towtrucks anyway. :-)

So Generally a +1 from me

d

Quote from dekojester :

I'm of the opinion that the Safety Car cannot be accurately and correctly deployed by a computer, no matter how good the simulation. I still trust the judgement and driving of a human.

Let's split this issue in to two parts - when the SC should be deployed, and driving.

When to deploy the safety car is a mildly different (but still rather similar) question to when to deploy it in real racing. In sim racing, you don't have marshalls trying to extract drivers from the cars, ambulances driving to the crash site (would be a bit of pointless eye candy in LFS but could be amusing) and defrocked priests running onto the circuit.

These are normally the sort of circumstances that cause the SC to be deployed

Car parked up near the track surface and there isn't a snatch crane nearby (Albers in Canada) - shouldn't be hard to detect.
The track is partially blocked by an incident (Glock in Germany) but not totally blocked as it would bring out the red flag - this is detectable by there being car blood and guts over the track or not. Shouldn't be hard to detect, really.
Debris in a dangerous location (If there's a rear wing on the road in a blind spot at the Aston Corkscrew) - that could be difficult. Imagine a points system where.

1 - in runoff
2 - partially on or very near the track
3 - on the track or partially on the track at the racing line side
5 - on the racing line

Multiply that by the size of the debris, if value is greater than n = deploy safety car, if value is greater than n-x = deal with under double yellow flags, if value greater than n-(y+x) mop it up under local yellows.

OK, that's over simplified but you get my point.
Defrocked priests and sundry wildlife on the track - doesn't happen in LFS at the moment, just "if badger on track = 1 deploy safety car"
Weather - n/a

The only issue is drivers spectating their crashed car before the SC is deployed, maybe if the SC is deployed LFS would do the spectating (and as a side point to this, maybe a disconnect could cause the AI to park the car up as if something broke).

Now, driving. All it needs to do is drive at an appropriate speed. If the AI in LFS can race to an extent and rF and GTR2 can have a working SC I doubt it would be that hard in LFS.

Also, I've never seen a normal AA style recovery truck used in motorsport in the UK or internationally. F1 uses recovery crane/JCB things, BTCC package has used recovery cranes or just a Land Rover to pull the cars out. And I have never seen anyone ramming a car out of a gravel trap

Quote from duke_toaster :

"if badger on track = 1 deploy safety car"

Funniest thing all day. Back OT, I really think a pace car option would be more useful than a safety car for yellows. Maybe in big league races where instant spectate/pits isn't allowed, but I'd rather have rolling starts than a car coming out every time someone stuffs it into the wall. When and if the LFS damage model simulates carbon shards and oil, etc., all over the track, then maybe...

imagine in f1. yup just ramming you onto the track.

Quote from Luke.S :

imagine in f1. yup just ramming you onto the track.

Heikki: Just wait there! I will pit and get my rb4
Hamilton: Thnx bai!

IMO, safety cars are not really gonna get used in lfs, they'll only be usefull for big events..

well all cars having the posibility roof light bars would be ideal for endurance events where you race for a set time not set laps as reset been on does repair the car this does seem unrealistic as for example on a rally marshals will roll a turtled car back on its wheels with no repairs (as it used to be im not a fan of how it is now ) so safety cars and tow trucks with lights would be a good idea .
in an ideal world i think having a tow truck as a car choice would be good but probably improbable in lfs .