rec.autos.simulators

        I was host to a race GPL league race yesterday.  One of our rules is
that if a driver uses the Shift-R option, he must pull in to the pits
and make a complete stop.  Then exit the pits and continue the race. (a
stop-n-go penalty).  One of our drivers did have to Shift-R and did pull
in to the pits to take his penilty.  However, just as he was about to
"go", he either disconneded manuely, or was booted from the server.  As
it stands now with GPL, the only way to tell if someone manuelly
disconnected or if he lost the connection is to ask the individuel.

        My suggestion would be.. once the driver presses the excape key-enter
key sequence, this sequence would send a charector to the server.  If
the driver lost connection another way such as an internet spike or
such,  the excape/enter sequence charector would not be sent.

        At the end of the race when the official race resaults were being
tallied by the server,  If the driver sent that charector then the
results would reflect that he manuely disconnected (Car#, DNF, Lap#).
If the driver didn't send that charector, then the resaults would
reflect that he was disconnected because of an internet anomily (Car#,
Boot, Lap#).

        It would be a big help to some of us to know if people are booting them
selves or getting booted by the internet without having to ask the
drivers or looking at the replay.
--
=========================================
Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing?
=========================================
Racing online with the help of......

Race Communications Association
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Holodyne Engineering

Mystic Music

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        On last nights league race results...
==================================
11  19  Drivers name   FER  Susp
==================================

        I asked this driver what he did.. He had an accident and manually left
the race but stayed and watched the remaining cars race.  he didn't
leave the server till after the official results were tallied by the
server.  so we now know that if there is a mechanical problem with the
car and the driver leaves the race because of it, it will be listed as
such.

        now we need something that tells us that a driver didn't finish the
race because of a boot. And something that says that he left manually
with out there being a problem with the car. and we need these things to
be listed no matter if he stays to watch the rest of the race or not.
--
=========================================
Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing?
=========================================
Racing online with the help of......

Race Communications Association
http://members.xoom.com/RCA/toc.html
Holodyne Engineering

Mystic Music

(have Your !!Name/Address!! placed here)

[snip]

While we're on the subject of suggesting features to GPL v1.x, I'd like to
make a contribution.
I would very much like to see a possibility to save a server replay on a
remote, dedicated server.

FGPLC might get a dedicated server with an ATM connection to serve as a
host. This server would be started and managed remotely via GSB/boss
password. The downside is that there seems to be no way to save the server
replay which would include all the cars.

Maybe this could be done with a flag in *.ini, the same way the automatic
results export works? Instead of exporting the results, the server would
dump the replay_buffer to disk ...

My .02 euros

Hena

        I like the idea.  I have been recording GPL races on to VCR tapes where
there are some good battles for many laps.  With GPL 1.0, I have had
many many races with zero warp and full fields of cars.  Once GPL 1.1
came out, It's been hard to race very close because of the small odd
warp here and there.  I'd like to have more of those GPL 1.0 warp free
races to record on to a VCR tape.  I hear from someone that this is
going to be fixed in the next patch.

        The server is the one that will have all the competitors in it and will
have the least warping anomalies.  Then add in the dedicated server
where the computer resources are used much less and there should be
again a zero (or very close to it) warp race.  So, the ability to save
the dedicated servers replay would be the perfect replay to save for VCR
taping.  The only problem is the size of each replay multiplied by how
many replays.... The HDD will fill up so fast that it wouldn't be worth
it.

        One way to by pass this is to have dedicated server setup with a
core.ini option like you suggest.  something to the effect of,
Record_replay 1
Record_replay 0

        With "0" selected, the server would run like they do now.  With "1"
selected, the server will only run one race and record that race in a
replay file.  Currently you can select X number of track and X number of
races to run in sequence... The new core.ini option would only run the
first track in that list and run it only once, over righting the list.
When the race is done, the server would save the replay as "server.rpy"
and shuts down as a server.

        I like the idea and hope Papyrus is listening and considering.
--
=========================================
Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing?
=========================================
Racing online with the help of......

Race Communications Association
http://members.xoom.com/RCA/toc.html
Holodyne Engineering

Mystic Music

(have Your !!Name/Address!! placed here)

So if he quits the race, but hangs around it will either say retired, or list
the damaged part.  That part's ok.  The part aboutsending a disconnect
character is cool, though.  I wish *I'd* thought of it...<g>

Eldred

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