Whilst driving in a league race it was noticed that a couple of drivers sustained damaged and instead of driving to the pits they must have either pressed Shift+S or gone to options and selected Pits to return them to the garage. They then returned to the race and finished x laps down, this is not fair on the other players who actually got to the pits to get fixed, and may have been more laps down.
Is it possible to have an option on the server that stops drivers going direct to the garage during a race, they must either complete a proper pit stop are if unable to make it to the pits spectate. This would be most helpful to All leagues.
I agree mostly. But for the sake of keeping the frustration to a minimum, some sort of option to "virtually get towed" to the pits would be ok. You go to the pits and lose 5 - 10 laps but may still be in the competition.
If I get stuck in the sand with the XRR, I almost never can come lose. And if I'm in an enduro, maybe with someone else waiting to take over the car, I think it could be a good to at least have a "tow truck" option rather than the usual "go to the pit and start from the beginning" option.
Cars never get towed back to the pits whilst the race is in progress. They get towed out of the way, then at the END of the race, they get towed back, usually along the track.
I agree with D43NO on this. It's okay during qually/practice/testing, but in racing it should be disallowed as a NOOB aid.
The laps might get reset, but some people couldn't care less if they're on the lead lap or not. Allowing them to reset their car or rejoin the race after teleporting back to the pits simply encourages bad driving. The server should have the option to disable car resets (and resets should be disabled by default). You wreck out or get stuck in the sand, that's where you sit until the race is over, just like in real racing.
There needs to be something to keep damaged cars off the racing line though. Perhaps after 30 seconds of sitting on-track a car could be automatically moved back to the pits, but not allowed to rejoin the race?
True, but not the case for cars stuck in the sand. The sand is usually in a place where cars often go off. This makes the stuck car a hazard. Generally those cars are towed out of the sand. For sports cars, it is very common that they can restart and re-enter the race. Sure, they have lost laps, but they are not out of the event.
Bottom line, we do this for fun, and we do it for the competition. This is NOT real world stuff. If I join a server to race a 40, 50, or more lap race, and on lap 15, I get pushed into the sand by another car, well too bad for me. My fun is over. I have no chance at all in the race now. I will not pass anybody. I have to jump to the pits, lose all my laps and start over. I think the "tow" option would be nice in this case. I have as of yet never damaged a car so much that I could not drive to the pits. I don't have to lose all my laps. Why is it then that a simple slip into the sand ends my day? The sand forces you to jump to the pits. Having an option that disallows this is OK, but the tow option should be available too. Maybe it is enabled as a super slow reset that puts your car back on the the edge of the track when no other trafic is in the area (like GPL). The reset process could take a minute or more to do.
You don't want to make this sim more frustrating than fun. And this is not like just joining up on some random server and racing. What I am talking about is a organized league race when you have dedicated time and hours of practice to the competition. Then bam, you are screwed. That is a very disheartening occurance and one that is NOT fun. This is an online racing simulator, but guys get real; it is simply entertainment. Being stuck in the sand is not entertainment. Nobody complained about the sand is S1 when all the cars could get out of it. Maybe that is the solution too. Just let all the cars drive out of the sand and we are fixed.
If you let the cars drive out of the sand then there is no penalty for going in the sand in the first place. 99% of the time a car in the sand got there because they were going into the corner too hot, not because they got a bump from someone else. Making cars in the sand stay there would help prevent all the crazy turn one smashers off the track.
If it's against the rules of a league to pit back to the garage then they can just ban or penalise drivers that do so, so either way I'm not fussed if this option is or isn't included.
Hallens suggestion is a good one though and yes people would still be penalised the time that they are actually in the sand Cue-Ball.
After a quick look to inSim protocol, it doesn't seem very hard to automate this ban/penalise task. I'm playing around with this protocol, I may think to add this somewhere... (guess I'll do it in less than 10 lines of perl ;-) )
These administrative options of stopping the ability to go directly to the garage are really meant for league races.
If someone does this and returns to the race they could cause incidents that they should not have been involved in in the first place and it's not fair for those who genuinely make a pit stop to repair damage.
I would like to know what the Dev's views are on this.
Yes only after the replay is watched and with the races getting longer and more cars on the grid thats gonna take up alot more time.
If you go directly to the pits your laps are rest to 0 and you are able to rejoin the race. What I am saying is that this option should not be available during league racing (an option that can be switched on/off at the server by the admins), therfore avoiding any confusion on any rules and ellimiating any possiblility of the racer re joining causing any damage to others. Surely they should go round to the pits off the racing line and complete a proper pit stop, this option is a get out of jail free card especially on first lap incidents and could be classed as cheating.
Yes, well... It doesn't matter if you got pushed, came in to hot or was trying to avoid hitting another car. Sand is sand and does not effect the cars equal. Among the GTR cars, the only one who really gest stuck in the sand is the XRR. The FZR is hard but not impossible to get out of there, and the FXR is 4WD, so no problem at all there.
