Look What The Cat Hacked In - S03E05

You can also see in video a track list:
- silverstone 67
- monza junior
- monza road

 

Just as an addition to my previous reply. This would be my idea, which is partly what previous sims have done...

Two kinds of cut zone, light and heavy. Heavy in red, light in blue. Red zones are designed to catch out the griefers, blue is designed to deal with people who are racing properly, but either cutting too much, or are trying to gain too much time through being too kerb happy. Once a car goes into these zones, you then have to decide what action to take. The game already deals with "zones" for things like the trackside cameras, so defining the zones would be already do-able (id have thought).

- In the case of the blue zone, the penalties should be lighter, a warning, 5 second time penalty, 10 second time penalty, drive through.

- In the red zones, again, depending on what the car is doing, the penalties would be more severe, drive through penalty, 30 second stop and go, black flag etc. Obviously, if enough blue zone transgressions occurred then the penalties would get ever more severe

I numbered the lines on the map with the idea that for people who cut like an idiot, the game could calculate how fast they went from point 1 to point 9 (in this case). If it was less than a second, then instant penalty, if it was more than 3-5 seconds, they wouldn't get a penalty, because the all likelihood is that they have recovered from a spin. It would require work and I haven't covered all the possible situations, however I think it might offer a better solution

 

I agree about the "penalty zones", and maybe you can put in consideration for the penalties if the "offender" had gained track position by cutting. May be a warning can be issued to the driver to return the track position he has gained in order to will not be penalized.

Just thinking out loud ...lol

 

Aris talking about el.systems being the hard thing to do .. would be nice challenge with new Honda NSX .. hybrid with 4 engines

 

Yes, I am always thinking about league racing, personally. For pick up races, such penalties don't really make sense. You need an immediate penalty for pick up races, and the "slow down for x seconds" is the best thing. But it should be like 1 second, to offset any fain from cutting, not a race wrecking greater duration. Excessive cuts (3 or more) should give you a drive through, once that's possible.

 

I whould give the option to do a drive trough for the slowdown penalty, so its: slow to 35, off gas x seconds or drive trough "

 

I've always liked the current system in general. With "wild cards" you'd definitely have the last chicane cutters and even if you don't mind loosing your position to such it is a dangerous situation that will in many cases lead to a crash and ruin other people's races this way.

One point of improvement, though: please revise the penalties or let the community do it. Name a track and I'll open a thread for it and send you the results in an organised fashion. The penalties are usually way too strict...going wide on last turn in Barcelona is never going to gain you 20 seconds and I recently picked up a 35 s penalty on the Imoma chicane after messing up entry and struggling to get back on track. The speed limit is also way too low. Any plans on optimising this a bit?

 

Whaaaaat?????
I've ever hated this system since racing is possible in Assetto Corsa. Was good for hotlapping. Nothing else. Also the opportunity to time your penalty around your current lap makes no difference for me.
Since AI and multiplayer implementation it will needs a different penalty system.

Just my 2 cents....

 

Developers have been brainstorming these ideas for decades and due to all the edge cases no real standard has emerged. The leading way to level the feild is by putting a hazard like "stick grass" etc that each racers knows it's their fault when they push too hard... But it's a cheap and dirty bandaid.

But racer behavior has only had one real means to regulate but that first requires a regestration, and a system that governs all drivers.

Just a sign-in requirement cuts out most of the "passer by" weekend warriors, then the system of governance tied to a rating of some sort (much like Aris says about real drivers careers) starts sorting everyone and match making.

The trick is a system that novices can still feel they are progressing while keeping the pros "in line" without different systems. License levels (thanks Gran Turismo 1) is a convenient tear system also that helps create a perpetual progression component.

Racing games are literally decades behind other games due to being a skill based sport that's heavily regulated and governed by real world systems that just don't easily transfer to sims/games without moderation.

And considering real racing relies on race control, marshals, Scrutiniering, tech, etc. these systems are nearly impossible to make autonomous in games without majorly effecting how the game/sim works/plays.

But can it even be done? Yes, and most developers know this, but it's prohibitively expensive and hard to prioritize over more cars and tracks (content). Sims are some of the last games that require a bit of imagination and discipline to truely enjoy...

 

No full course? Monza Road has always referred to the standard layout without the banking.

 

I read only these three in the list

 

In the discussion about changes to the penalty system, I'd like to add a little concept app I made, that uses the idea of using lap delta to determine if an advantage was gained.

As said earlier above, the hard part about using deltas is that a reference lap is needed. However, one can assume that normally, before a driver starts a race, he has at least completed one lap earlier. But if that's not the case, the current (harsher) penalty system is always available as a fallback...

Given a reference lap is available, the solution is quite simple. The moment the car leaves the track, a target delta is set, where the driver needs to get above in a certain amount of time, in order to avoid a (drive through) penalty.

To set a fair target delta, I think it's best to use the delta value that the driver had 5 seconds before the start of the cut, because in some cases, even before the cut starts, the delta may drop already if the driver brakes too late.

So to make this work, AC has to record a reference lap (say, the users fastest clean lap for the track/car combo), and also the delta history of the current lap.

If you want to try/edit this concept (in one session because it doesn't save lapdata), here's the app:

 

I think the license idea is worth looking into. We could tie that to the SteamID/PSN Id of the user (I believe AC is only available through Steam on PC?)
The server admin could define the needed license for the server.

I just realized that without a central point (some master server à la SRS) to coordinate everything nothing would stop the SteamID/License system to be cracked within the launch week.

I came to the conclusion that the penalty system didn't bother me that much, and that's because I think it's disabled on SRS and lately I only play multiplayer there. Those freaking virtual points seem to keep everyone (mostly) in line.