You know this situation: you're in lap 9 of maybe 10 and in 5th position and you might be able to even improve to 4th... but then there's this late-joiner. Yes, he's faster than you, but you're in a race and he is actualy not. Nevertheless he fights with the knife between his teeth, slowing you down in the best case, making you crash in the worst.

Reporting? Naaah...

Solution: Let the late joiners participate in ghost mode. "in race" drivers see them as 50% tranparent and collision is not possible. late joiners see "in race" drivers in the same way... or you don't see each other at all (as opposed to "regularly lapped" drivers who don't have to feel guilty anymore when not pulling to the lawn as soon as the blue flag is shown).

both parties will benefit: "in race" drivers will have a more realistic experience and no unnecessary obstacles on the road, late joiners have a clearer track to drive a qualy-time.

It's not a bad idea actually. Except the midrace joiners wouldn't have to be visible at all in my opinion. But anyway, it would be nice if people could join the race and practice without interfiering the ongoing race.

I don't like the 50% transparency. With no collisions being detected, it would be extremely distracting for the "ghost" late joiner to run "through" your car. I'm sure you wouldn't see him actually in your virtual cockpit screen kind of "running through". But at some point, without collision, they would be able to drive straight through your car and would have to suddenly visibly appear around you.

It would be highly distracting.

+1 for ghost that is NOT visible at all to others.

-1 for the suggestion entirely.

No invisible or transparent cars, invisible sessions, or anything of that nature please. Keep the track alive, and not suddenly have people off the track practicing in some invisible mode, or cars with no collision mesh. How would you have replays? LFS isn't in two worlds....

The idea of having invisible cars is just silly and if mid-race joiners really cause a problem a server can disable them (or limit the number of rejoins with InSim).

Quote from Bandit77 :

You know this situation: you're in lap 9 of maybe 10 and in 5th position and you might be able to even improve to 4th... but then there's this late-joiner. Yes, he's faster than you, but you're in a race and he is actualy not. Nevertheless he fights with the knife between his teeth, slowing you down in the best case, making you crash in the worst.

It is highly possible indeed but ghost car mode midrace joining is not a
good idea, cars passing through each other is could be annoying IMO.
Canceling midrace joining is there as an option.

Quote from Bandit77 :

... or you don't see each other at all

turning mid-race-join off is not really an option. yes, it's realistic (as is paying for fuel and repairs and racing in general). but waiting only 10 minutes to join a race resp. just drive and having no qualification-time might take away a lot of the attractiveness of the whole lfs-online-thing as it is.

replays? is this an argument? you would "record" the "world" your in. spectators would probably see the real race.

Quote from Bandit77 :

replays? is this an argument? you would "record" the "world" your in. spectators would probably see the real race.

-1 to that too.

I have the utmost confidence that a suggestion like this would never appear in LFS. What you are saying is that LFS will need to handle 2 completely different instances of people racing online in one server. Also further detaching people from an online experience, and less of a realistic feel when the actual race is in progress. Quite frankly, if you are so upset about people coming on the track and getting in the way, you don't need to go and suggest that they be 'invisible' or impossible to collide with. Do we get to collect coins and power-ups too?

Watch out buddy, he dropped a banana on turn 3!

People getting in the way of your race is not that much of an issue to warrant this suggestion.

-1
LFS has plenty of unrealistic "components" and I don't want another one. You know BEFORE joining number of race laps and in what lap leader is - so if its 25 lap race and leader is in lap 5, you can have "warm up" in single player and join later.

Quote from Tweaker :

-1 to that too.

I have the utmost confidence that a suggestion like this would never appear in LFS. What you are saying is that LFS will need to handle 2 completely different instances of people racing online in one server. Also further detaching people from an online experience, and less of a realistic feel when the actual race is in progress. Quite frankly, if you are so upset about people coming on the track and getting in the way, you don't need to go and suggest that they be 'invisible' or impossible to collide with. Do we get to collect coins and power-ups too?

Watch out buddy, he dropped a banana on turn 3!

People getting in the way of your race is not that much of an issue to warrant this suggestion.

I think you don't really get the idea. furthermore it is NOT realistic to have more cars joining after a race has started. and if 10 or more cars start from the grid, you will only have fewer than 10 cars on the track if some of them crash too hard.
So from the viewpoint of realism, mid-race-joins should be disabled anyway, but waiting for the next start isnt' too much fun.
"LFS" wouldn't have to handle that much more. In fact, it'd be less. Data from latejoiners would just be ignored for in-race-drivers and vice versa. Then a new race starts, and all the players connected to the server can race against each other.

Quote from Pablo.CZ :

-1
LFS has plenty of unrealistic "components" and I don't want another one. You know BEFORE joining number of race laps and in what lap leader is - so if its 25 lap race and leader is in lap 5, you can have "warm up" in single player and join later.

realism -> see above.
you're right about warm-up, but grid-line-up is another thing.



anyway. it'd be another server-option like "M" (that's "midrace-join", by the way) itselfthat and wouldn't harm anyone and most probably wouldn't take too long to implent (possibly closer to half an hour than half a year).

but perhaps I should stick to my intention not to post in the "improvement suggestions" forum anymore.
yeah, yeah... all the "useful" improvements have already been suggested and when they're finally included in the game, it will be perfect.

nah, I won't add anything... it's really pointless.

If it's really a problem, occasionally I think perhaps it is, I would rather have an option for mid-race joiners to be automatically removed from the circuit once cars on the lead lap are within X metres of them.

-And also an option to automatically remove cars that have finished from the circuit, if they're stopped on or near the road surface. I hate when I join after a race (like a 20+ car grid on a short track where there's no room to join in mid-race without getting in someone's way) and try to do a practice lap or two, only for a bunch of cars to be parked on a chicane or something.

I both like and disslike the idea.
What I likes is that there no longer would be a problem with mid-race joiners that crash people. What I don`t like is that there would be "ghost" cars on the track. It would look strange and on some way looked like Trackmania

+1 if the late joiners are totally invisible and as an option on the server side!

+1 I say that veery nifty so there not bothered by other drivers and they dont bother the not late joiners

But at the same time it screws the realisem

+1. even though it is an arcade thing.

-1. I just think that people shouldn't be allowe more than one mid race join and they shouldn't do it after the first 2 laps. The ghost is too distracting.

Quote from Chrisuu01 :

But at the same time it screws the realisem

so it's more realistic to have late joiners on the track?

"damn rubens, where have you been?"
"i've overslept... which lap are they in?"
"they're in lap 5"
"ok, I'll see what I can do. maybe I can still get into the points if I ram some of the leading cars..."

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

+1. even though it is an arcade thing.

ok, ok, ok... so just FORGET about the half-transparent version. it's a detail.



I said I wouldn't add another thing, didn't I?
It's just nice to see that I'm not completely from a different planet.

+1
I think it can be good to have late joiners (let's say after lap 2) in "offline" mode (totally invisible to others and others totally invisible to them)

It can be another button, so you can choose to spectate, join or "practice"

There are patent / licencing issues when it comes to "ghost mode". I believe they've been discussed here, and definately at RSC previously.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

There are patent / licencing issues when it comes to "ghost mode". I believe they've been discussed here, and definately at RSC previously.

Well it wouldn't be a ghost mode it would be a parallel universe mode or concurent qualify/race mode

Seems like a good compromise to me I'm one of those that would just prefer no mid race joins ever but understand why most don't like that so qualifying concurently in a parallel universe is a good compromise