rec.autos.simulators

No not a whinge

I'm getting aqainted with the names that keep re-appearing on VROC races,
and the courtesy shown by these drivers is generally excellent.

Moving over on outlaps, care on re-joining the tracks, quality racing & good
humour via the chat.

I recently enjoyed a race at Monza where on two occasions I overtook two
different drivers in Lesmo 1 where the other driver ran wide. On both
occasions he could have cut back in on me to try to block me (most likely
resulting in contact) , but chose for both of us to hold our line to Lesmo 2
by which point I had the position.

For many of us GPL is the first on-line experience & first racing with other
people experience (other than the work kart race - which we all win!).

A lot of the basic errors & wild overtaking moves (hopefully, myself
included) have virtually disappeared from the core group of drivers I have
been racing with. I, personally have had my best close racing in the last
week or so.

When following it does take a lot of practice to come to terms with drivers
braking much earlier than your own braking marker, which I guess is all part
of the racing experience which for many of us are learning for the first
time rather than against AI which are more consistent.

Also I believe racers are LESS aggresive with real life drivers than AI,
because they are less sure what the other is going to do.

I'll probably be wiped out at the first corner of every race tonight for
saying this

Cheers

Tony

Tony.....so much the truth

worst i experienced so far in GPL was a guy from somewhere in Scandinavia
called "T.O." at Spa. In practice he was driving real slow on a straight and
doing some chatting. He was letting his car roll in the middle of the track
and i couldnt react anymore at a speed of 300 km/h. I ironically thanked him
for his behaviour and therefore earned some comments his country fellow
Mikkel Andersson thought he needed to make: " Oh, what a bad boy ! T.O. will
beat you in the race, GH !!!"

However, drivers running you in the back on 1st corner is a rather usual and
common habit, unless you get a bunch of clean drivers together. Confronting
"rear-enders" with the bitter truth most of the times ends up in a
discussion where everybody seems to have great knowledge about driving in
general and sees himself as a perfect driver: "Everybody else can't drive,
only i can, you know."
Therefore i agree 100 % of your analysis above where you state that
following is the hardest part. As a matter of fact if you can't do that for
a couple of laps i dont consider it racing.

I feel like i should be quoting John Burrowes here:

                    "Be fast, but be clean first."

Regards
Greg Hellmann

 The Improvement in the driving standards is simply that those who cant have
stopped trying and those that can have are getting better.

I think what is happening now is the serious racers are starting to group
together PRC is a prime example of this. Not just a racing league but a
network of hosts conducting password protected pickup and league races . PRC
members have been invited to join due to reputation as not just fast but
more importantly clean racers. This makes people responsible for there
actions and once everyone gets to know how everyone else drives then the
races will get better.

 While Im here and talking about clean racing The GPLWS ran its second
Zandvort round yesterday and what a race it was Wolfgang pulled off another
worlds record in practice 124.34 I think it was something ridiculous anyway.
Even with that time there were 8 cars within a second and a half. and a
couple more in the high 125s. Ian lake was the flyer from the front row and
he was gone........ 13  sub 126 laps later he was over the line. George
Sandman 2nd and Steve Eyemann 3rd.
 This was defiantly the best race I have ever had In my life 14 laps with a
car in front and a car behind pushing it to the limit , there were a few
spins here and there but a perfect start makes for a good race.

  Todd.

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998 23:39:06 +0800, "T.Galvin"

And you don't have a saved replay for download, right?

GPL "scene" should really recognize what demos did for Quake - people
are able to learn from the best by seeing exactly HOW they're doing
their magic.

The only problem is GPL replays are usually around 10 megs zipped even
with the practice cut out, I don't know of any server web or ftp that
we could up replays to, for making them available to downloads.

If anyone has any server available where we can up replays to, I for one
wouldn't mind uploading some replays, I have already a couple of
hundred megs worth of replays in my gpl dir including some of the IGPLC
Online League Formula 2 division.

I also wonder how many 28.8 modem users would download these large sized
downloads to see replays.

Seeyas on the track.

--John (Joao) Silva

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998 23:39:06 +0800, "T.Galvin"

Could somebody explain this to me: why are the elite division races so
short?

14 laps is really heavily based on luck and a good start. People in
front push to the absolute limit and prey they don't spin, because if
they do, a podium finish is impossible. How is somebody good supposed
to pass an equally skilled driver on, say, Monaco circuit? He should
wait for a mistake. Allright, but people of Ian Lake's or George
Sandman's driving standards don't make mistakes often. Not in a 14-lap
race.

I understand that full 300 km would be rather hard, but I've done a
lot of 100% distance racing in F1RS and winning such a battle was
something to be proud of. You definitely wouldn't tell your opponent
he was lucky he didn't spin.
You could never tell who's going to win, even if the driver in second
place was two laps down.

The only reason that comes to my mind as an argument for shorter races
is replay size. I'm not sure if 30 or 40 laps would fit into even a
fat PC's memory, and this would make it hard to decide who caused an
accident for example.

Oh well, just a thought.

Well, some smart editing would not only cut them in size but also make
more enjoyable. Thonk about the ability to pre-set camera position
(one of the camera views) in replays. You could make movies with that
feature. How cool would that be?

Well, I have a couple, but they're on the other side of the Atlantic.
0.5kb/s transfer...

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998 23:39:06 +0800, "T.Galvin"

 True to some extent.

 No kidding...much more enjoyable in the PRC than on open. The
other big advantage is that you get to know *how* the other
driver's react by spending so much time on track with them...this
makes (hopefully) avoiding incidents a bit easier since you kind
of know what the other drivers will probably do.

 Wolfgang was busy yesterday, as was Eymann. They both ran the
2nd race of my PRC series yesterday afternoon after the GPLWS
race. Wolfgang on the pole, Eymann second at Monaco. Finished the
race in the same order, but the two stayed locked together the
entire race. Better yet was the *politeness* of all the
drivers....even in practice, back markers were pulling over to
let the fast guys through, and only one real "racing incident"
the entire race. Quite a good show.

 Regards,

Doc
phRed '95 - CSP #25
Team Monster Miata Stereo
--
Never a late apex, never a dull moment.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 I'm gonna answer two messages with one reply here, so pardon the
confused look of this: :)

 I have some space, but I have to reserve it for replays of the
PRC series races, since not everyone has enough RAM to record
races. However, these replays are free to download by all who
care to:

http://www.dickson.net/doc/gpl and hit the "Schedule" link.

 Yesterday's PRC series race is 7.03 meg. zipped.

 I may have to put a server online here soon for just such stuff.
let me see how the money comes in over the next few months and I
may be able to offer a site to do it.

 See above. Wolgang and Eyemann going for it for 15 straight laps
at Monaco.

 Yep...being able (at least for a little while) to actually
*follow* them around course does wonders...you see exactly where
you're losing time to them on track, something a replay of a hot
lap cannot accurately do.

 Regards,

Doc
phRed '95 - CSP #25
Team Monster Miata Stereo
--
Never a late apex, never a dull moment.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 I save the race replays but since im using a modem I only get to see 6 cars
at any one time. This also shows up in the replay so does not give a
complete picture of the race. I will talk to the host to see if he could
post his replay somewhere.

 Todd.

I'm the director for IGPS, and am planning on writing all IGPS race
replays to a CD and making them available to any IGPS member who
might want them for the cost of the CD and shipping.

--
=========================================================
John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12)
http://www.members.home.net/jms1/index.html

John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector
http://members.home.net/jsimm/diecast_index.html

IGPS Director
http://members.home.net/jms1/igps.html

If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's
shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame.
=========================================================

 This is our first season. We are only at the 3rd round and are still
getting to know each other on the track. The main reason though is the
internet and distances as this is an international race and disconnection's
do happen. For that reason it seamed a better idea to have 2 short races per
weekend and the best result is used so a disconnection does not mean no
points that race. Time zones also play a part, there is not one time slot
that doesn't have someone racing at 3am in the morning.
 The disconnection's are becoming less apparent though and everyone does
want to have longer races so maybe next season. Im not really sure if it
would make that much difference though a race is a race be it 14 laps or 24.
As for full length races maybe in the future but after driving my ass off
for 14 laps at 1.30 in the morning Im very pleased to see that flag.

 Todd.

On Tue, 8 Dec 1998 21:33:20 +0800, "T.Galvin"

It would be twice as hard to predict who's going to win looking at the
standings after the first corner.

Well, if somebody in Europe does get up to race at 3am, i don't think
he's going to care for the race to finish half an hour earlier.
I'm curious what are the league participants views on this matter. I
would be surprised if they were for 14 lap races instead of 27.

Got it, enjoyed every second of it. I have one question though: is
this how GPL plays over internet? I have no experience racing online,
all I ever did was competing with my friends on a LAN. If the gameplay
is as jerky as the replay, I have no idea how those guys can crank out
lap times of 1:27 at Monaco...

The player's car will always be smooth on his machine.  If he has
a marginal link to the host, then all the _other_ cars will seem
jerky.  In that case, _his_ car will seem jerky to all the
players that do have a good connection to the host (and to the
host as well).  A high-performance host being a given.

So, assuming one does not have an extremely bad connection to the
host (in which case they'll probably get disco'd rather quickly),
one can still run a fast lap as long as the track is clear.

If you're watching a replay recorded on the host's machine, as
you cycle thru the cars you'll probably see some that are pretty
smooth and some that are rather jerky.  The smooth ones have a
low-latency connect to the host, the jerky ones do not.

Rgds,
Mark R.