rec.autos.simulators

1)Swapped engines times using the F1 chassis with different F1 engines are NOT
ALLOWED. Please don't post them. If you have created an account for this please
delete it.

2)The new class of cars using the F1 chassis with F2 or F3 engines really seems
to be catching on with the F2/F3 community and we want to accomodate them. So
feel free to create accounts using this combination. Unfortunately the FD/FG
suffix that is being used to designate these classes doesn't work well with
GPLRanks Search and Multiple Choice Hell functions, so for GPLRank accounts
please use the suffix F1-2 and F1-3 for F1 chassis using F2 and F3 engines
respectively. You will find that F2 and F3 have been added in Multiple Choice
Hell as chassis choices, F1-2 and F1-3 will follow soon, allowing you to
isolate searchs for any for any of the following classes: F1,F2,F3,F1-2,F1-3.
If you've already created an account using the FD or FG suffix please change
the suffix to F1-2 or F1-3 for F1 chassis using F2 or F3 engines. Thanks.

Don

Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.
GPLRank -5.40

Come see how you rank, at the GPLRank site
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

If I can make one suggestion though: add a "class" rank to the account
information screen, and use that instead of searching for F2, F1-2, etc. in
the name.

I know you guys don't do this for a living <g> and this is not an
insignificant change but it will help in the long run,

Of course then you have to somehow convince everybody to update their
account information (somehow :)

Arghh! sorry for the misspelling, at least in a forum I could have
edited out my embarrasing mistake .. it is of course Uwe.

Maxx

I responded to a mail list announcement, so for the r.a.s. audience
I'll post it here as well.

(Don - please read and could you advise Ewe of the MCH Class/
Nations Cup anomoly)

I thought this might cause me a problem, having already posted a rank
using FD. I somehow got it into my head that the GPLRank name had to
be the same as the driver name in player.ini.

It doesn't so you can change that name to be anything you want. It
doesn't effect your buddy list either as this must be keyed on your
login name.

One issue though worth raising is that the F2, F3, F1-2 etc. MUST (at
the moment) be in your NAME, not your login. So if your login is
"leadfootF2" and your name is entered as "Johny Leadfoot", your
laps will be counted as F1 laps,

HOWEVER, the Nations Cups does seem to work on F2 being
anywhere in the login.

Maxx

PS. I can't agree with Robs suggestion, it would take too long
before most accounts where updated (unless done auto).

I think this will work, seeing as you can easilly change your name,
plus I think we should have the F2, F3, F1-2 suffix to our names
as it is clear when looking through listings who is what.

Not sure I follow you Rob.
There are many places withing GPLRank. Everybody(F1,F2,F3,F1-2,F1-3) shows up
in the main rank list, classes aren't segregated, and you want to be able to
distinguish between someone who has a rank of 200 using F1 cars, and someone
with the same rank using say, F2 cars, in the main list, and I assume the F1-2
class ranks are going to be getting a lot closer to F1 ranks than F2 ranks
currently are. So every account other than F1, which is implied, needs to have
a suffix(F2,F3,F1-2,F1-3)added to the name. A class function was just added to
Multiply Choice Hell that lets you select from F1, F2 or F3. F1-2 and F1-3 will
be added soon.

--
Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.
GPLRank -5.40

Come see how you rank, at the GPLRank site
http://gplrank.ringlord.com/

The best thing to do when creating an account is add the suffix to both your
login and your name. If you don't currently have a suffix with your name, use
the Edit your driver account* function to add it to your name. You can always
delete your account and recreate it using the suffix in both name and login.

As Uwe constantly mentions, GPLRank was a quick hack, it's not perfect, and is
constantly evolving.  All sugestions are welcome. To be sure we see them it's

--
Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.
GPLRank -5.40

Come see how you rank, at the GPLRank site
http://gplrank.ringlord.com/

Don't take this as a criticism, but it would be a lot easier and more
sensible to allow the guys who use FG & FD to retain the "fd" & "fg" in
their names, as to help avoid confusion.
I can understand that the data base engine has trouble with picking out
the correct instances of "fd" & "fg", but 99.999% of FD & FG drivers
use a "-" preceeding the "fd" &"fg" in their driver names, either in
their first name or their last name, so we need to retain the correct
names for these classes of cars and get the data base to search for all
instances of "-fg"  or "-fd".
That way we can retain our correct names for the "FG" & "FD" class, and
the data base will find the correct entrants easily.
Too many names for different classes, is just confusing the issue for
everyone, especially new drivers to GPL.

Cheers,
Ron Ayton-fg

Maxx raises a good point about the difficulty of enforcing this, but it
could be assigned to all existing drivers with a few simple SQL updates
(based on their login/name) and made a mandatory field for new users. The
class could be concatenated to the name whenever the name was displayed.

Anyway, not a big deal to me. I don't use the swapper, and only race F2 on
occasion. I can only drive one car with any consistency and that's the stock
F1 Lotus; took me so long to learn it I don't want to change <g>

I'm heard of the combination Mike, but I'm guessing it's not going to be a big
seller ;-). Seriously, it's a judgement call, and were guessing that the F1
chassis with F2 and F3 engines are going to dominate the former F2/F3 scene.  
How many potential combinations are there now? Over 50? If we tried to include
them all GPLRank would turn into a meaningless soup, and the value of the
benchmark would be lost in it. Not to mention the fact that Uwe has a day job
;-)

--
Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.
GPLRank -5.40

Come see how you rank, at the GPLRank site
http://gplrank.ringlord.com/

Hi Don,
The thing is, it WILL work..
This doesn't really make any sense at all, seen as how GPLrank is
expecting all FD and FG drivers to  change their names if they want to
be a part of GPLrank,  to include f1-2 or f1-3 anyway, so why not get
them to change their names to include the 3 distinct letters "-fd" or
"-fg".
I am not ***ing at you, but your theory behind why you need to make
fd or fg drivers change their names is totally wrong, as a data base
WILL find 2 seperate groups of 3 distinct letters, such as "-fd"  or
"-fg", and GPLrank is  making them change their names anyway,  so why
not allow them to change it to "-fd" or "-fg".
I know  a "standard" has to be imposed for these two new classes, but
we need to stick to the class names, and they WILL work for a data
base...
Numerical designations in a search engine data base, are only required
for numerical sorting.
The names are not required to be numerically sorted in GPLrank.
This IS confusing the issue for all new drivers to GPL.

Cheers,
Ron Ayton-fg
Ron Ayton-fd

GPLRank may be the driving force for a decent naming convention for
these new classes.

Kevin Caldwell
Calgary, Canada

Cheers,
Ron

--
Regards,
Bruce Kennewell,
Canberra, Australia.
---------------------------

I didn't actually Bruce,  i had nothing to do with it.
The guys in the GMSS,  chose the two names "FG" & "FD" after they spent
a couple of weeks experimenting with them.
As far as the designations go, the "FG" was originally called  a
"Fgmss" class, as everyone else was screaming "doom & gloom"  about the
Enginechanger patch, but the guys in the GMSS decided to find some good
of it, and that is what they ended up calling the F1 chassis with a F3
engine.
No-one else was interested in trying these combos and anyone using the
Enginechanger was labelled as a cheat, so they decided to call the F1
chassis with a F3 engine a "Fgmss" "FG" for short and keep themselves
happy, rather than try to sell the concept of the Enginechanger to the
doom artists on VROC and RAS..

Regarding the "FD" i don't know where that designation came from, but a
few guys in the GMSS and in the VROC F2 club started calling them that,
and i guess it just stuck.
Since Paul Thurston has enabled both these class names into the
Enginechanger utility, it now seems sensible and less confusing to all
users, both new and old, to continue with these two class names, as
that is what they have become known as amongst the F2 & F3 communitys
now..

There have been two major leagues and a few smaller leagues using the
F3 cars on-line, ever since GPL was released, and we as  a group,
decided that we didn't want the new classes of cars to be named as a
bastardized child of a F1, so we steered clear of the "F1++" naming
protocols and created a new name for each class, which they deserve, as
they are a lot better class of car (both FD & FG) to race on-line than
the F1 cars are, due to better prediction code handling and closer
racing.
So we now have a Formula G and a Formula D class, rather than having
names that included "F1" in their designations...

The GMSS pioneered F3 racing in GPL and have run both the F3 and F2
cars on-line since day one, and were the base from which most other F2
& F3 leagues were derived, so i am happy to bide by their naming
decisions on two classes of cars that no-one else in the VROC or GPL
on-line community wanted untill the GMSS introduced them...

If Papy had of done this to start with, we could have had three classes
of GPL cars, named F1, F2 & F3, rather than a F1 and two trainer
classes.

Hope that explains a bit Bruce.

Cheers,
Ron