Joining mid race workaround

So letting people join mid race and just drive whilst others are racing is obviously chaos (people blindly flying out of the pits and wrecking the people in the race - maybe blue flags will help, but this idea is a better solution) in public MP so here is an idea that would be the best of both worlds.

allow joining during race, but when you join, you are invisible to all other cars, they are invisible to you, and of course non-collidable, so basically its just like hotlap mode, but youve reserved your slot for after the race finishes and the next session begins. the one good thing about being able to join mid race is that if you find a server with a slot with your preferred car track combo, assist setup etc, then you can get your slot regardless of if people are racing. also i think this will be good in terms of server population, as blocking people joining mid race might end up with more half filled servers than filled ones, because of how people filter in during quali and race, and drop after race... cutting the amount of time available to join in half (by blocking join mid race) might lead to the aforementioned.

 

Thats nonsense.

What should be implemented is server option to allow mid race join or not.

And people forget this is a good thing for endurance racing, when the game is ready for it, so people can join after disconects or even do driver switches.

 

what how is it nonsense. fair point on endurance racing, but thats less than 1% of players, for the 99% that play public, this is surely better than just blockimg people joining mid session. you get to reserve your slot and than hotlap while you wait for the race to end, without ruining others race.

we are already very likely to be getting the server option to block it, but how is this not better

 

The easiest thing would be allow everyone to join at any time, but in race you can't get on track. No need to reinvent the wheel imho.

 

I would find silly to go on track being a ghost and going through other drivers. If I want to play trackmania I'll just go and play trackmania

 

yes that also crossed my mind, but sitting in the pits for 10 laps with nothing to do isnt everyones cup of tea, so this is just a simple way of allowing players to hotlap that track/car combo until the race finishes

thats not what im suggesting, its simply a way of being able to hotlap whilst you wait for the next race, presented in a way that could be easily implemented with minimal effort needed from the devs, as its just a case of hiding you from everyone else, and hiding everyone else from you, with collisions between you and everyone else off.

 

It's insane to have this system the way it is now.

There needs to be an option when an admin sets up a server to make Quali and Race either open or closed. No other choice is acceptable. Right now AC cannot be a serious sim online- it's good to play, but not for serious racing.

The OP's idea is better than the current system, but it is not acceptable IMHO. Bandwidth for the racers should not be sapped by race crashers. IMHO anyone who joins a race in progress is an inconsiderate *****le, I don't want that leach sucking off the bandwidth I need to race.

 

There's nothing wrong joining an ongoing race, because you want to fill a space for when the race finishes and the qualification starts. There's nothing wrong with it, so that should be allowed and shouldn't be seen as a sin for joining during an ongoing race. But obviously it shouldn't be possible to leave your pit spot until the next session starts. But when a player from the race disconnects for whatever reason, the server should save the log and allow him to rejoin the race. But not allow players who weren't previously participating in that race session.

 

I think it is just beneficial to allow people to drive the combo as much as possible. This option suggested in the op allows people to host race-only server for example where the server just goes from race to race. Or short quali in between. And longer races. When mid race joiners can be controlled so that they simply can't physically cause wrecks it is just a nice thing to have with no downsides. If you don't like you don't need to turn it on.

I've suggested this same thing earlier and I think having this kind of setting would help certain type of servers a lot. For example servers that run long races with maybe even pitstops. If you turn off midrace join altogether you end up in a situation where people just can't join your server when the race is going on. This makes it really really difficult to get enough people in to even think about having a race. Other option is to allow people to join but not join the track during the race. The downside is that you have now people who have been sitting and watching for maybe 10 minutes, maybe even 20 or more minutes. Then they are just thrown in without any chance of practise laps. Chaos ensues.

There is of course the option to create a pit out light with penalty. So if the game see a car going on the track near the pit exit light turns to red. Drive on to the track when there is a red pit exit light and you get a penalty or you are auto spectated.

 

well we will almost definitely get an option for blocking mid race join alltogether but i feel this will lead to the issues described below by dauntless. id rather have populated public servers with people able to join mid race at the cost of some bandwidth (as long as they cant ruin the race by being on track, so either keep them in the pits, or allow them to hotlap as i described.

edit: with this idea the position updating could potentially be disabled until a message is received from the server saying the race has ended, removing the bandwidth leeching, giving the best of both worlds

couldnt have put it better myself. i think we will see servers blocking mid race join with v1.1 and i guess we will have to see how it pans out in terms of server population, maybe itll work out for the best but id be surprised.