rec.autos.simulators

Let me clarify something before the shit starts to fly.  I am not accusing
anyone of knowingly cheating.  However I know a lot of people practice with
invulnerability on, and I think that we have all been assuming that F1RST
would catch that and other aids and only allow what the server was set up to
allow.  It is possible that either F1RST does not catch everything that we
thought it did or that the server is not correctly set up to prevent the use
of invulnerability.  Ian, do you practice with invulnerability on?  I think
we need to look into what it takes to make F1RST enforce that setting
properly.

  Perhaps he had damaged enabled but set the percentage slider very low.  I
guess that is a setting we should include in the race day announcements.
dh

I'm all for banning any unrealistic driving aids, ie. everything except Low
TC and auto shift.
I would say that, I can't drive it with them switched on ;)

Be nice to have a level playing field :)

--

Ian P
<email invalid due to spammers>

I can categorically state that,
a: I didn't have any contact with Eldred on my client side ( I can show you
the replay if you require proof) and
b: I most certainly didn't have invulnerability switched on (I never use
it), as was demonstrated by my removal of rear wing after the slightest
brush with the wall opposite pit straight just before my first flying lap in
practice was *due* to start ! ;)

--

Ian P
<email invalid due to spammers>

Well point "a" is not entirely correct.  You had contact with Eldred, that's
why he lost his rear wing and spun.  You may not have seen it due to a warp
issue, but the contact definitely happened.  If he had spun but not taken
damage it could be argued that it was a driver error, but he lost a rear
wing and got pushed sideways, that doesn't happen spontaneously.  Again, not
trying to point fingers at you, just trying to figure out what is going on.
The contact definitely happened but somehow you continued without damage.
That doesn't make sense.  Either F1C has a messed up network model that
allows each individual client to run its own physics independently of the
others, or the damage model is screwed up, or possibly you have damage
percentage turned down and F1RST doesn't catch that.  Is that possible, Ian,
do you have damage percentage turned down?  Doesn't sound like it, but I
have to ask.

I don't agree about TC low.  The real teams don't have a fixed setting for
TC, they tune it to each track.  That being the case I don't think it is
correct to say any one TC setting is more correct than another.  None of us
have the expertise or real world experience to say which TC setting is the
most correct, so I think TC should be either categorically allowed or
categorically disallowed, just as it is in real life.  I am in favor of
allowing it.

   I'll chip in an unrelelated note here:  One of my first online
experiences with f1 C, I had spun at the A1 ring.  I looked down the track
for any oncomming traffic and then rejoined the race.  I immeadiately got
yelled at by the host for pulling out in front of him and hitting him.  I
never saw him, I never heard him.  
dave henrie

Okay now I want to ask a question of everybody who raced - did you have any
network problems - warps, disconnects, or anything else?  Dave got
disconnected in practice, I got disconnected around lap 20, and I saw people
that I was following warping.  F1C's throttling code is supposed to prevent
that.  My disconnect could have been the end of the race, but I didn't see
or hear about the end of the race and I didn't get dropped back to chat, I
just got dropped, period.  Just seems like a lot of the things that happened
yesterday can be traced to a bad network connection.  Eldred's server is
usually solid, but IIRC his "hosts" sometimes***around with the
connection or the server unbeknownst to him.

That is why I said from my client side.

Look at the average GPL replay, if there is a warp crash, the car on the
inside of a turn will have no damage because as far as the client is
concerned, no contact happened.

No, I checked after I saw Daves post and it's set to 100%, but as there was
no contact from my client side, it wouldn't give me any damage regardless.
The same as GPL.

In future, I'm just going to leave a bigger gap for net errors ;)
I normally race on a fast Euro server and warp has never been a great issue
with a ping of 30ms :)

Ian P
<email invalid due to spammers>

The connection seemed fine until the penultimate lap when my modem error
light came on, was then disconnected on the final lap.

--

Ian P
<email invalid due to spammers>

  I wonder is the hurricane Isabel is not causing network problems still

  my problems also concern F1rst2.  Both times I have been dropped, I have
been unable to rejoin due to NOT getting F1rst2 to either display my
prescense properly or even restarting.  I know the F1rst2 server crashed at
the Monza race, but for it to crash AGAIN when I was trying to relog in for
Malaysia is not encouraging.

I guess I'm just not used to the way race sims do their networking.  I have
played a lot of shooters and they are all client/server, meaning the server
is in charge of resolving all movement, physics, collisions, etc. and the
client only displays the data, it does not figure anything out by itself.
That is the most secure model and the only way I know of to prevent these
kinds of errors.  Apparently racing sims don't do this.  For a two car
collision, if it was resolved on the server both clients would experience
it, regardless of whether or not it looked like they touched on the client
side.  Apparently that's not how F1C or GPL works.

Hi Eldred:

   As a semi regular poster, I've read about RAS
group races for a long time.  Communities of
serious sim racers who have grown familiar with
each other over the years as they've honed their
skills for each car and track.  

   Is the playstation mentality a problem?  

   With damage off, if you make a mistake you are
punished by loosing position and time.  Being stuck
in the gravel consumes a lot of time.  And you may
not be responsible for the collision.  

   The obvious benefit to you is that your practice
and qualifying does reward you with the expected
amount of track time.  I would have been benefited
from damage off, I didn't hit anything, I would
have had you to race against.  

   This is RAS, serious sim racers.  I understand
what that means, sigh me up for serious races.  
damage on or off.  I'm only offering a thought as
to getting more enjoyment out of the experience.  
And fewer hurt feelings.  

   Stability assistance bothers me.  

   I've never seen a post to RAS by a real F1
driver, so we're all guessing, but the consensus at
RAS is that real F1 cars are allowed ABS and
traction control.  I'm using Low TC.  

   These are twitchy cars.  I spent plenty of time
looking backward down the track after the slightest
mistake.  But we aren't talking GPL here, they can
be controlled.  I can even get a little slip and
slide, not intentionally, but it's not a death
sentence either.  I haven't mastered them, but I'm
starting to control these subtle and lively
vehicles.  I think you are missing out on a lot of
fun, serious fun.  While you are learning, crank
up the wings and slow down a little in the curves.  

   I should take a moment to talk about your
collision with Ian.  Like most of us, my replay
shows the collision.  I don't see any effort on
your part to relinquish the racing line.  But
that is a tough curve, and you have a right to
drive on the track, and to move over when it is
safe to do so.  If my replay was accurate, the
fault would still be Ian's.  Ian, we all accept
that you weren't presented with the same
environment we were, so I don't think anybody is
blaming you.

   I had a lot of fun.  Thanks again for hosting
the race.  Sorry about being such a pain in the
ass.

                                            Larry

Hi Haqsqu:

   Let me add to the confusion.  

   I didn't see Eldred loose his wing during the
collision.  My replay shows the wing intact until
he regained the track, and scrapped it off on a
shallow skid against a wall after attempting the
next right hander.  

   I don't think anybody is blaming Ian.  

                                            Larry

With all the virus-related mail going around the 'net these days, it's
a wonder that *anything* runs properly. I suspect that, while perhaps
not even the primary cause, this would certainly compound any other
problems that came up -- the proverbial "last straw" kind of thing.

I would recommend waiting until there were no obvious 'net issues
before running full diagnostics on everyone's setups and on the
servers.

--
  Darryl