> >There is no legal issues involved and it could be implemented in 5 minutes.
> Good idea, but I think you just might be underestimating a bit the
> amount of work involved to implement something like that. <G>
> Mike_L
No, I happen to be a software engineer. I know exactly what kind of code that Papyrus is
using to implement the assignment of cars. The function that is called to produce a random
number between 1 and 32 could be replaced by a subroutine that gets a number between 1 and 32
from the driver. It checks to makes sure noone else is using it. If noone is then it assigns
that number to that driver. This doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is driving different
cars. It is possible for everyone to drive the same car. You say how? Well, if everyone has
a different car set where, say Terry Labontes car has been moved to occupy different spots in
each car set, then a random selection could find Terry Labontes car several times. If each
driver were asked what car they were driving and if there were more than 1 #5 Kelloggs car on
the track, the answers could include more than 1 #5 for the first question, but the answer to
the second question would never be 'yes'.
In a series, everyone should be using the same car set. Thus no two drivers would be driving
the same car. I'm not sure about the legalities of trading carsets. It is done every day of
the week. Noone denies it. Heck, Tony Johns makes quite an effort at making sure the world
has the latest paintjobs for more than 1 NASCAR Series. He does a great job of it and I don't
think anyone has suggested that he has broken any laws. Noone is making any money off of this
except Papyrus and the LD companies, but they aren't making any money from the trading and
distribution of carsets. Besides, the simulator doesn't even know what the actual paintjobs
look like. Only the local user does.
Papyrus has mentioned that they are working on this aspect of the project for use with series
racing.
David
