Just wanted to mention what a great addition the STCC is to LFS. I've only recently started racing on the STCC servers and I don't know why it should matter so much, but the idea that each race is a chance to score a few more points does make me want to strive to gain a better position. IMHO the system should be integrated into the game right out of the box and include all the car types.

+1 !makes you feel your racing to achieve not just for fun

Quote from goode400 :

IMHO the system should be integrated into the game right out of the box and include all the car types.

You! Starting a discussion!

No, no, no. Unless it's optional. The forced career mode in GTL ruined it for me until I found the file to 'fix' it.

But it is great if you can choose whether to take part or not, like it is at the moment.

-1

Quote from andy29 :

You! Starting a discussion!

No, no, no. Unless it's optional. The forced career mode in GTL ruined it for me until I found the file to 'fix' it.

But it is great if you can choose whether to take part or not, like it is at the moment.

I agree there should be the option to opt out.

There was a discussion before actually, in the STCC 'trial tonight' thread which was about three billion pages long.

Taking GTL as an example, there's nothing wrong with having a career mode. But I have experience of GPL, F1C, LFS, GTR, Nascar 2003 etc. etc... if I want to jump in a GT40 offline, why should the game stop me? It wouldn't have been so bad if it had only applied online, like the STCC license does.

It's great that anyone can go online in, say, the BF1, the day the buy S2, even if that does mean you get some inexperienced people trying to race it. The main point of LFS is the racing, not winning cars!

Having it built into LFS could be good, but then there's the possibility that it ends up being used by all of the servers. And it would no longer be optional.

The STCC license is fun because you can choose whether you can take part or not, and as it only applies to their servers you can always move to another one and race any car you want. I love racing on their servers and it's definitely made me drive some combos that I wouldn't have otherwise. And it makes races 'mean something' without being tied down to a league.

So, err, yes, thanks STCC

the stcc servers are great i've had many good races there.

Quote from Batterypark :

-1

Just so we are clear, you've never actually, ever, connected to an STCC server...

Aside from the detractor, thank you

And rest assured, the STCC public server system wont be integrated to LFS - Scawen has a much higher standard of coding than me for a start ! lol It will always be optional.

I do plan to expand the concept a little in the coming year, we've already seen an LRF Server introduced and endurance nights so far this year, but one step at a time. I'm also cautious that the STCC runs 3 of the 5 key busy circuit racing servers at the moment, and that in itself has stepped on enough toes let alone the "premier" bit of the league aspect, so further expansion is difficult. Plus there's only so many racers to go around !

As always the new things I have planned are a complete departure from the normal 5 lap arrive and drives we see so often online, but i'm not one to reveal too much too soon on my projects so you'll have to wait and see.

First things first, STCC is getting it's own dedicated server box which - as soon as the processor arrives - just needs the software setting up and a few weeks soak test then it's ready to be shipped to the datacentre. This isn't a departure from UKCT, but to give STCC the ability to expand and to provide a total backup solution in the event of a server failure during one of our events.

It is a trial though, financially the STCC is still leaching from my pocket and the new server will put the figure well into 4 digits for this year.

id be willing to donate a fiver to keep the STCC servers running, for once, all my mucking around is actually worth something

I don't know a great deal about racing, but I'm pretty sure that most drivers in real races are competing for some kind of reward. Winning really does matter because if they keep coming last, they won't win any prize money and they won't have a racing career for very long. When I go online on a normal public server I want to win but there is no reward. A new race starts 5 minutes later and any victory is forgotten. All I'm saying is that anything that increases the urge to win surely makes racing more enjoyable and keeps people engaged for longer. I would like to see LFS grow into a hugely recognised competetive activity. I remember reading about people making good money competing in international Quake tournaments. Couldn't LFS be the same?

BTW, has anybody ever offered a cash prize for a LFS race?

(usual apologies to forum veterans who've heard it all before).

Quote from goode400 :

BTW, has anybody ever offered a cash prize for a LFS race?

Heh heh...just wait and watch me in the coming months...

Quote from andy29 :

It's great that anyone can go online in, say, the BF1, the day the buy S2, even if that does mean you get some inexperienced people trying to race it. The main point of LFS is the racing, not winning cars!

This is one of the BIG flaws as I see it. It's hard enough finiding a race sometimes where even half the field can actually complete the number of laps in the race. People just get in cars that are well beyond their skill level and off part way through. They then start calling for a race restart.

That said I get the feeling that once S2 is no longer Alpha the licence system might be used to control car access. S1 had the credits system used to control car access and the licence system does appear to be aimed at the credits replacement. My gut feel is that its waiting an AI update before its rolled.

This does not need to effect every server but would be nice if some servers allowed this to be enforced so serious racing can take place and not just T1 followed by restart again and again because some noob feels that taking the BF1 online the day they get LFS is a good idea.

A thumb up to the STCC from me too!

But i am begging you Becky, to please make the track changes less frequent...
This really detracted me from STCC... In the beggining, there were some very cool combos, and i enjoyed racing very much, but then it started with that track changes every 30 minutes, or what not, and that really ruined the whole feeling for me.
Can you please just stick to the one track per day for example? So when i go online and see that it is for example Aston Club with XFG + XRG, that i can know that it will be that combo all day..
Please, it is really annoying this way IMO.
Just a suggestion..

Quote from goode400 :

BTW, has anybody ever offered a cash prize for a LFS race?

Not sure about cash, but s2 voucher's and other prize's have been given to race/league winner's.


The STCC server's are fun to race on, I too would be willing to donate to keep them around.


Boris: I have noticed recently that the track change's are far less frequent now than they were a while back. Im not so sure about the length of time for each track, but it is longer than it was before.

I dunno, I like the STCC servers, but I'd really hate for what they do to become some sort of standard for all the other servers. I only have time for casual weekend play most of the time. It took me about a month to go from copper to bronze on their server. Could you imagine how long it would take me to "be allowed" to use the LX-4? which is the car I got S-1 for in the first place?
I really wouldn't want a bunch of restrictions as to what car I'm allowed to use online by a bunch of poeple that didn't bother buying the game for me.
I think I'm enough of an adult to make those kinds of decisions for myself.
Also, I see that line of thinking quickly becoming a holier than thou attitude.
Worse than what some licensed ppl have towards demo users.

That being said, I really do like the STCC servers and I think what they do with the licenses is a neat idea. I don't have any sort of time for a league race and the way STCC works, you sort a pursue things at your own pace.
The only real complaint I have against them is as soon as I finally get a car tweaked the way I want it, the damn track changes!!!

And about the newbies jumping straight into the BF-1... Where is this? I rarely see a BF-1 server as it is. And besides a newbie is probably going to race badly in any of the classes to start. If what's been suggested here
is used to prevent those new players from trying different car classes online, then you'll have these servers full of them ruining the races and discouraging others just starting out that are stuck with being in those servers. Gheesh it would be like forcing them to only race in bad demo servers. Wouldn't that be great? Somebody shells out $$$ only to be stuck with the damn demo content and a few tracks.
That would be a good sell: Buy LFS, where someone you don't even know decides what cars you can use...

Nah, as cool as what it is, the STCC idea should only be on STCC servers.

Quote from th84 :

Boris: I have noticed recently that the track change's are far less frequent now than they were a while back. Im not so sure about the length of time for each track, but it is longer than it was before.

But what's wrong with, let's say, one combo per day... and that is a minimum, i would vote for combo a week, or more..

Jeeez, it's like i am playing rFactor or something, every half an our/our, the damn track changes, i didn't come sight seeing, i am not a tourist, i wanna race..
This is why i end up going to our local demo server almost every night, because i wanna race one track and one car, and i wanna be good there.
It is really arcadish this way, that STCC system works, and really annoying..
It would be so much better to have like schedule of combos, displayed on STCC site, and every day, new track changes.. not every bloody 30 minutes..

Quote from Boris Lozac :

But what's wrong with, let's say, one combo per day... and that is a minimum, i would vote for combo a week, or more..

...

This is why i end up going to our local demo server almost every night, because i wanna race one track and one car, and i wanna be good there.

To be fair Boris, if you want to race like that, there are already loads of servers that run the same combo 24/7 for a year or longer. Go drive GTRs at AS3?

I'm the opposite: I like to try something new when I start up LFS, or at least something I haven't driven for a while. Rotating circuits every hour or two sounds great to me.

About the track rotation... I was done with LFS just before Christmas. I was so tired of the only server with anyone racing being Aston National/GTR or Aston Club/FOX. I was heading back out for some online flying, I do this now and then for a month or two. I'll go fly (the server I fly at does monthly rotated hoplist tours) for two months, then come back to LFS. The Caribbean server saved me from leaving LFS for a while. It was something different, and I enjoyed it for some time. Then about a month ago, I saw the STCC S1 server and thought some XFG racing would be nice. That's when I found it and started reading some of the stuff like the licenses and track rotation.

It was pretty bad back then (month or two ago). I would log on around 9 pm my time and just as I got my set figured out, it would change. I don't know if it was on a schedule, but it changed every night at 10 pm. Now it seems to rotate about every 2 hours. That's not so bad. Especially when you are on the servers frequently enough, you eventually get the set you like and don't have to bother with it. But like Boris says, I agree, if I like who I'm racing with on a particular night, I do like to stick to that track and play for the night. A once, twice, or even three times a day rotation would be much better.

The big downfall from an S2 driver standpoint is that the tracks are very limited. I've pretty much have only seen FE Rally and SO Classic (both configs) and the occasional SO Sprint, once Blackwood which is a nastalgic favorite, and FE Green a few times.

Where is FE Gold, which would be a great track to run the XF/XRG's. I'm not fond of FE Club for some reason, but hey? It would be something different. An occasional FE Black and SO Long would be nice too, but not all that often for those.

I feel for the folks with only S1, but I don't thing the STCC public license is for them anyways. They cannot progress off of the STCC S1 server ever, so it may as well not be limited to S1 tracks. S2 tracks would bring so much more variety and just different atmosphere into the copper/bronze XF/XR server. It needs AS Cadet and Club. KY National would be a nice one as well, even if it is a bit long. Same goes for AS North, that is a fantastic track. The longer ones could have less weighting in the rotation if that's how it works, but they need to be there for variety.

The variety in the autorotation and the car class is why I jumped onto the STCC. That and the fact that there were racers frequenting the server and it use to auto start. Very frustrating when you have 15 other racers and 51% of them just hotlap around so you can't get a race started. On that note, what did happen to the auto restart on the S1 server? It hasn't been autostarting for quite a while now.

The STCC server licensing is a fantastic idea. But it should stay unique to STCC. I'm in full agreement with RacerY about the "I paid for LFS, I don't want to be limited to a certain car". As it is right now, there are only 4 servers listed that have a race going on. The rest are drift, the Caribbean, and single connections. How long would the poor new guys have to sit by themselves lapping alone before being able to progress if there was some type of licensing within LFS itself. How many new people would be turned away from the racing community if they either had to lap alone or put up with the few that drive like noobs. Since Christmas, there has been a huge amount of new people as LFS gets better known through the grapevine. I have both helped these completely new people and thoroughly enjoyed racing with the guys who only have a few hundred laps under their belt. I don't want to see these newbies who are interested in learning and becoming part of the racing community be turned off by licensing and going to race something else.

The STCC servers are great fun to race on when there are plenty of people about, Becky has done a great job with the scripting to make sure it all runs smoothly. The Track rotation is great and more servers should do it in my opinion.

I would like to see more STCC servers, perhaps expanding to include almost all of the cars in LFS. That might cure the current trend of driving about at 30mph on FE Black around dodgy barriers and marshalls.

Big thumbs up for the STCC from me too. It has revitalized my interest in playing LFS online. I've been racing combos I wouldn't normally try and have found the racing to be clean for the most part and, more importantly, a lot of fun. My only gripe is that there aren't many users online when I usually play (GMT-8) so I'm trying to do my part to encourage more people in the US and Canada to give it a go. The faux-TV coverage of the main events is very well done too.

Quote :

then it started with that track changes every 30 minutes, or what not, and that really ruined the whole feeling for me.

It was quite frequent at first, you must remember it was a new concept and for many of us we where sick and tired of the same old combo's - rotating tracks was like "oooooooooh, it shimmers gold! Its GLOWS! WOW!".

After the novelty wore off I adjusted it to 2 hours, the reason its 2 hours is simple, it allows anyone playing a normal evening session of LFS to race on 2 combo's. You can find out when the next track change will occur with the $track command, and you can bring about a quicker track change by voting to end, athough this rarely actually happens.

I do realise some people preffer to master a track before moving on, but STCC was aimed at drivers who'd been around a while and on the whole this group of people where tired of the same old tracks being used. It's the odd combo club on steroids in this respect.

I have been slowly extending the range of cars on offer, and recently added an LX4, FZ5, RAC and LX6 server. I plan to add more in time.

Quote :

a great job with the scripting

Scripting ! Scripting ! That's for newbs ! lol. It's a program, I programmed it ! hehe.

Quote :

I feel for the folks with only S1, but I don't thing the STCC public license is for them anyways

When the opportunity arose to make a new tier 1 server I made it S1 in response to Scawens request for more S1 servers. It took a while for the S2 player base to realise they still get the full S2 feature set in an S1 server! Really though, the server is there to encourage anyone with S1 coming back to the game to have a go, see LFS has improved, and buy S2.

Quote :

BTW, has anybody ever offered a cash prize for a LFS race?

I think Vykos' league offers a cash prize. STCC offers a selection of Logitech goodies, we're still chasing cash sponsors to cover costs and expand.

That's about all i've got time for this morning, more ramblings later if this thread survives

EDIT: Auto restart should work on all servers btw, it does break for a while when I relaunched the server manager but should then resyncronise and kick in again. It is based upon 120% of the winners best lap as they cross the line, there's supposed to be a minimum of 1 minute and maximum of 3 minutes that it will wait, but this is an untested thing I introduced a while back. Usually the manager gets restarted most evenings UK time when i've tweaked something - when the latest version has been stable for a while this wont happen so often.

Quote from jayhawk :

Heh heh...just wait and watch me in the coming months...

...interesting!

I don't think I'll ever be at prize winning standard, but I love the idea that top racers could make money from their racing. People would certainly sit up and take notice of LFS then. I imagine a lot of press coverage and probably some known RL drivers giving it a go.

......If the prizes were big enough

The ESL run cash prize competitions for LFS. I think the last winner got 1000 Euros in January, but then they do have both free and premium subscriptions to pay for it

The bonus, for me, is having a framework to develop skills and practice. A big thumb up for the choice of having an S1 server too.

Quote from goode400 :

BTW, has anybody ever offered a cash prize for a LFS race?

http://www.lfsforum.net/calend ... 007-3-5&e=243&c=2