rec.autos.simulators

I intend to post this in irregular intervals, adding new thoughts now and
then, so those of you who are new to GPL and VROC get the idea of how to
improve these events for the benefit of all others and for yourself. If this
gets annoying to you guys and gals, give me a note, if you find this
helpful, apply it.....I don't wanna look like a wise-crack, all I want is to
have fun playing GPL-Online:).......and plz excuse my rusty english, it's
been over 20 years that I've been in the states......

[NEW]
Topic Manuals: I know it's boring and you want to get to the real stuff as
fast as possible, but a lot of problems would not occur if ppl would read
the instructions (RTFM) of each new program they use. For VROC it's
essential to setup your Dial-Up-Network correctly, look at the frame-rates
you're receiving under heavy traffic, install VROC-Software,
Spy-Boy-Software, core.ini's etc etc; all this has to be read about in the
corresponding places, so take an hour and get informed, it's not *that*
hard!

[NEW]
Topic Qualification for a Race: Often I would like to slap ppl with a large
trout (whatever that means..) when I'm on a flying lap and they're pitting
out right in front of me.......lap is ruined even without a crash. Guys, we
have the possibility to use the "live"-button in GPL, where you can see
who's about to cross start/finish, so press it and pit-out right behind the
flyer and don't race him! When on your warm-up-lap, don't go creeping around
at 20mph, run at 90% of your normal racing speed because 1. When a flyer
runs up to a creeper, mostly the flying lap is ruined and 2. You can build
up the rythm (rhythm?) for your own flying lap better this way........

[NEW]
Topic Chatting in GPL: Many drivers find it disturbing when those who
crashed out or just quit a race keep filling the chat with useless stuff. On
the one hand, it's up to them to turn the chat off, on the other hand you
would like to stay informed about the ongoing race......difficult to find a
satisfying solution here, maybe we all should cut down a little to the real
important stuff, moreso as we now have this great toy called Spy-Boy.

[NEW]
My 2-year old daughter now uses the toilet instead of her pants! This had to
be said  :-))

[OLD]
Topic Discipline: Some time ago I joined a GP-Race in Spa hosted by Rick
Sweeney and there were NO incidents on the start with 20
drivers.....incredible......why can't people discipline themselves and try
to equalize this "world-record"? Instead, mostly ppl try to get from last to
first in half a lap .....complete nonsense, just causes pileups and
frustration ;-((. To cool ppl down, I myself only host *Pro*-Races so if you
hit something,.....bye....there should be a lot more of that......

[OLD]
Topic competition: Next thing is we wanna have fun while racing, right? My
driving-policy is, when in the lead and see no1 behind me, I wait (drive
slowly in *safe* places, don't stop, you get kicked if idle too long) for
others to catch up and race them again....who cares if I win a race (except
championship-races of course).....Same applies, if you're in 6th, guy behind
you spins and recovers, why not wait for him?.....I want competition, if I
wanna hotlap I can do that alone offline......

[OLD]
Topic Chat-Keys: Regarding last thought, maybe we all could agree on some
fixed short-message-keys for the in-car-chat (I for myself can't type and
drive at the same time, I know there are some of you out there who can
*fallingonmykneesandworship*), for example "W"= I am waiting, "?"=How many
drivers left in the race, "G"=gaps between drivers, "!"= watch out, I'm
spinning and so on.....Answers should be given by ppl watching the
race.....These keys then should be posted where everyone can see them while
in VROC-Netscape as well as in Spy-Boy.

[OLD]
Topic Bad Connections: Next issue is that ppl join races ignoring bad
ping-showings in SpyBoy or
VROC-Netscape, getting disco'd, trying again, blocking ppl with good con's
from joining, causing warping, and later complaining, what a shitty host
Mr.xyz is....;-((.....Guys'n'Gals, look at the pings *before* joining!!

[NEW]
In China a bicycle has been stolen.

Hope to see some nice clean racing soon!
cya
Markus

1: The idiots who simply have to win on the 1st lap, usually as soon as
the flag drops.  These imbeciles are a hazard to decent on line racing.
  The driver in front of you on the grid deserves to be there as he
obviously had a faster lap time than you, so why take the risk of
proving how big a man you are by passing him on the grid and risk
taking out half the field with the following chaos that WILL follow,
regardless of how easy you think you can do it.   If you really are
that good, then you have the whole race to prove it.

2: Drivers coming out of the pit for their warm-up lap and insisting on
racing with the the guy coming up behind them and totally ruining the
fast lap of the driver who gets stuck behind them.  This stinks of
school boy imaturity.  It is totally unnecessary and not a good way to
make on-line friends.

3: Lack of respect for the driver in front of you in a race.  I have
been taken out of races more times than i could remember by the driver
behind me who thought he could out-brake me into a corner and
consequently rear ends me, or loses control with his overly ambitious
out-braking attempt and takes us both out anyway..  
If more drivers had more respect for the racing side of GPL, rather
than the, 'lets win at all costs' mentality, then GPL on-line would be
a lot more pleasant for all participants.  I would rather take myself
out of a race, than hit the driver in front of me.
Anyway, i have had my winge.. :)    Just couldn't help myself.. :)
Cheers and have a nice day,
Ron

----------

I can type and drive <g>

I agree with everything you say, and also everything Ron's reply said, we've
all had it happen, when I first came to vroc i joined a PRC race, at watkins
glen, i didn't race (i said to them that i'd race on a wider track) i sat
and watched and 'listened' to the chat to learn all the PO etc signals. They
moved to Spa and I finished 3rd, I was stunned, the fastest lap was some
3:17 and I had finished 3rd, I could see right away that this online racing
was going to be fun.

I left the PRC server and went to race on another server, hosting 15 or so
cars, i got wiped out 5 or 6 times on the first lap, NOT because of me, but
because of other 'drivers'. Spa s easily wide enough to make it round, if
you couldn't pass you should wait, i do, and usually get a run on someone
towards the kink, or out of the kink. Then I could see this online races had
it's problems.
--
________________________________________________

                                  Tim Wheatley
                "Yellow menacing helmet in the mirror"
                           http://start.at/igps_stats
    IGPS Driver - Ferrari Challenge Driver - NTT Participant
                      http://drive.to/grandprixlegends

                  http://website.lineone.net/~nascar
________________________________________________

Or have I just been lucky <knock on wood>.

Mikey

|Hi Markus, good post...
|I think the main things that bug me most in GPL on-line are:
|
|1: The idiots who simply have to win on the 1st lap, usually as soon as
|the flag drops.  These imbeciles are a hazard to decent on line racing.
|  The driver in front of you on the grid deserves to be there as he
|obviously had a faster lap time than you, so why take the risk of
|proving how big a man you are by passing him on the grid and risk
|taking out half the field with the following chaos that WILL follow,
|regardless of how easy you think you can do it.   If you really are
|that good, then you have the whole race to prove it.
|
|2: Drivers coming out of the pit for their warm-up lap and insisting on
|racing with the the guy coming up behind them and totally ruining the
|fast lap of the driver who gets stuck behind them.  This stinks of
|school boy imaturity.  It is totally unnecessary and not a good way to
|make on-line friends.
|
|3: Lack of respect for the driver in front of you in a race.  I have
|been taken out of races more times than i could remember by the driver
|behind me who thought he could out-brake me into a corner and
|consequently rear ends me, or loses control with his overly ambitious
|out-braking attempt and takes us both out anyway..
|If more drivers had more respect for the racing side of GPL, rather
|than the, 'lets win at all costs' mentality, then GPL on-line would be
|a lot more pleasant for all participants.  I would rather take myself
|out of a race, than hit the driver in front of me.
|Anyway, i have had my winge.. :)    Just couldn't help myself.. :)
|Cheers and have a nice day,
|Ron
|
|
|----------

|> Newsgroups: rec.autos.simulators
|> Subject: Some more thoughts on VROC-Racing....[Version1.1]
|> Date: Saturday, 17 April 1999 5:49
|>
|> Hi all!
|>
|> I intend to post this in irregular intervals, adding new thoughts now
|and
|
|

It takes two to cause an accident. The start is by far the best
opportunity to pick up places, and incidents there are only made
severe by the number of cars in close proximity. The problem is not
"imbeciles", it is latency which makes precise driving very difficult,
and that is what's necessary at the start. If I pick up a really good
start and the guy in front doesn't then my options are to swing out
and go around or to get on the brakes and hang back - one upsets you,
the other upsets the guy behind me who can't stop. Damned if you do
and damned if you don't.

Or joined the session late..?

This is very poor. If you're not on a qual lap (or even if you are and
know you've screwed it up) get out of the way.

This is a tricky one, and it's probablu the one thing about online GPL
that pisses me off most - the respect that you are _forced_ to give on
the track (in case of killing each other!) is lacking in sims. That
said, latency theoretically makes it difficult to run close, although
I've had some incredible races with people like Mike Laskey where
we've been glued to eah other's bumpers without contact. It's
definitely a case of having some respect for the guy in front, but I
think will only be followed by some people unless leagues or hosts
enforce it. That would be a nice use for "kick" and "ban" lists
maybe....? :-)

Cheers!
John

Good points Markus, just one thing to say on the above one though. I
can't actually see pings in VROC or Spyboy because when I install
Winsock 2 (2.2) on my PC i get all sorts of bizarre behaviour on my
connection. Having said that when i do connect to a bad host i won't
hang around on it
--
Mike Buckley    
Cotswold Pig Development Co Ltd
Tel: +44 (0)1472 371591  Fax: +44 (0)1472 371208

Does it f*ck!

need i say more?
Tim

--
________________________________________________

                                  Tim Wheatley
                "Yellow menacing helmet in the mirror"
                           http://start.at/igps_stats
    IGPS Driver - Ferrari Challenge Driver - NTT Participant
                      http://drive.to/grandprixlegends

                  http://website.lineone.net/~nascar
________________________________________________

What's with the expletives in your recent posts? Haven't seen that reckless
side of you? Having a bad day?

Jack Rambo

Typically I gain 3 or more spots on a start by not being too close to
the accidents that invariably happen.

True enough. I've taken to very controlled starts where I pull off to
my side a bit in case some guy behind me is a lot faster. Then I
usually pass him spinning in the air at the first turn.

But the three-a*** starts in GPL are ***. They just don't work
for online.

I thought it was the other way around.

Unforgivable. Particularly at a place like Spa or Nurburgring, where
so much is vested in getting a lap right. But people do it, endlessly.
The people that don't are 1 in 5, in my experience. I think it is part
of that same driving instinct that you see on the road- people pull
out ahead of you when there was nobody behind you... they just had to
be ahead. SOme human reflex, I guess.

I don't know a solution. Imagine this option on your server- to make
pit-out cars either invisible and non-colliding (not particularly
realistic for a simulation, though!) or perhaps booted and forced to
re-connect the practice session for not moving over under a blue flag.
The latter would certainly be a pain in the butt, and would provide a
way to let people waiting in the wings to get on the server to get on!

Good point. That "fear of death" or pain just isn't there in the sim!
How about electrical shocks on any impacts?! I bet that would change
the complextion of sim racing. ;-)

But seriously, the fastest racers usually, IMO, are also the ones that
know how to race. In general, they try their damndest not to wreck
you. It is these guys who never learned the track in the first place,
and are just online in a sort of meandering haze, that invariably
decide they want to race the leader while being lapped for the third
time, and wreck the race.

Passwording races is one method of trying to keep quality together,
but I think that is *not* a great way- not in the open, inviting
spirit I like. A preferred way, IMO, keeping races truly open while
keeping in the "Sim" spirit, would be to have some sort of qualifying
criterion- either a fixed limit you must beat to be in the race, or
perhaps a 7% rule- that is, by the end of qualifying, you must have
done a lap that is not more than 7% slower than the polesitter.

RIght off the bat, it weeds out the freaks that want to drive backward
on the track and the guys that have never raced the track before but
couldn't resist clicking the join button on the only available race.

I also think it would make qualifying more interesting, and probably
inspire some people to work a bit harder offline before jumping in.

<...>

In all the imaginary upgrades to current GPL/VROC I'm conjuring above,
the idea of ban lists is certainly an option that would be useful- but
not as the primary way of weeding the races, only as a last-chance
method for real jerks. Fact is, ban lists would be hard to implement
with the real jerks, because with dynamic IPs and jerks loving to
change their names constantly, they're going to slip through.

But can they do a qual lap good enough to stay on the server.... ?!

I suppose we'd also want an option that kicks anyone off if they
haven't done a single reasonable lap in a certain amount of time, or
instantly if they drive more than 10 yards backward.

But If I could add only two features to the existing GPL/VROC system,
they would be:

1) automatic track cycling on host computer without a person present
(so all you guys with fast T1 connections at work can let your work
computers surreptitiously host all night!)

2) allow a qualifying threshold in order to be allowed to race on a
server.

Oh, and Papy- regarding a bug, IMO:  when a server discos me, please
don't drop me by default in the reconnect screen. I want to be able to
get to the garage and look at the setup. Nothing worse that getting
discoed after 27 laps in a race... except not being able to even see
what your best times were and how your tires were doing, and make that
one little setup change that occured to you during the previous hour
of racing! And, of course, *I can't reconnect anyway!*

Sounds as if you have a slightly bad install of Winsock2.  I would
suggest removing it and try re-installing it.  It is possible that since
you installed it another installation of some other network protocol may
have overwitten one of the files with an older version.  You should have
a ws2bakup folder in your Windows folder.

1. Click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.

2. At the command prompt, type the following commands, pressing ENTER
after each command

     cd\<windows>\ws2bakup
     ws2bakup.bat
     exit

     where <windows> is the folder in which Windows is installed.

NOTE: If you are prompted to abort, retry, or fail the operation, press
A. This causes the Ws2bakup.bat to continue restoring up all the
necessary files.

NOTE: If you receive sharing violation error messages when you run the
Ws2bakup.bat file, continue with step 3.

3. Click Start, click Shut Down, click "Restart in MS-DOS mode," and
then click OK.

4. Repeat step 2.

NOTE: If you receive error messages when you run the Ws2bakup.bat file
stating that some programs cannot be run outside of Windows 95,
disregard them.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

...which I've often thought would be an awesome setup for racing the
likes of GPL.  But, of course, not practical.

I, too, am "orientationally challenged" :) when using the look buttons
in GPL, but I have found that a quick pop on the button for a check
helps without causing too much difficulty.  Doesn't help with your
button situation, of course.  

Another option is to swerve the car wildly in the opposite direction
and use your mirrors.  Unfortunately this proves no better than the
look buttons, as a loss of control is the mark of successfully
implementing this method.

The only other solution, that I can think of, is to make sure that
you're much faster than everyone else, thus making mirrors
marginally-to-not useful.  For me, this is the least likely of these
three solutions, so I'm working on perfecting  the other two.  ;)

Brett

Try focusing on the right edge of the picture when you use the
look-left function, and vice versa.  This way your attention is focused
down the track, and you'll be using your peripheral vision to look
beside you.  I find it much less disorienting to do this than to
maintain my focus in the center of the screen while using the look
left/right functions.

Randy

--
________________________________________________

                                  Tim Wheatley
                "Yellow menacing helmet in the mirror"
                           http://start.at/igps_stats
    IGPS Driver - Ferrari Challenge Driver - NTT Participant
                      http://drive.to/grandprixlegends

                  http://website.lineone.net/~nascar
________________________________________________

When on very crowded grids, I switch view using F10 until I've passed the
first one or two corners, then I switch back to normal***pit-view. This
gives a better overview of what's going on around you, there are no mirrors,
though, but if you are able to start in a straight line, this is less a
disadvantage, than F10 is of advantage (any1 understood this sentence?).
cya
Markus