Really bored of people ruining online racing

It took a while (due to real life) but I finally managed to implement my idea.

We all know that automatically analyzing collision is a never-ending nightmare. This also applies to cuts and other race happenings (what if one is forced to cut to avoid a collision? What if one is bumped from the back and hits another member as a result? etc.).

In real life this kind of events are reviewed by a group of people that run Race Control and no computer can currently replace that.
So I thought why not replicate real Race Control in Assetto Corsa which is an attempt to simulate real life?

The problem with sims is that you can only have eyes on one car and when an accident occur, you have to disconnect, load the replay, check it, come back and rejoin.
Most of the times this is just too complex to be effective (especially for public servers) and the result is that everyone is allowed to think that he can get away with his behavior since very few will know about it (e.g. when admins are not online or not watching).

I thus created Live Race Control that allows everyone to see what happens on servers that run the Kissmyrank Plugin.
Basically every event gets logged there and you can see the sampled driving lines with your Web Browser.

Race Directors can log in and review the penalties given by the automated system.
Players will get a notifications (just like FIA race control) if a Race Director checks an event that occurred during the active session.

You can see the demo here: http://54.37.13.47/race_control

 

Thank you. Data is shown as is coming from the AC server and interpolated. It's as reliable as AC is at a 100ms sample rate (default that the plugin is using). The human brain has to do the rest. Result looks reasonable (not detailed as a replay but you can guess what is going on).
You can wait for a few collisions to occur on one of the servers and see how they look.

 

Once you account for the car size collisions seems to match what happens in the game to some degree of approximation.
It seems as good as the AC.
For example the other day I run a collision test with a friend at high speed and I went right through him in the game.
You could see the same in the animation.
Unfortunately some info is missing regarding the car so it can't be as precise as a replay (you can only guess some) but you can still understand what happened in most cases (at least to the point where the Race Director can take a decision).
I guess it could be refined if the API was providing more info or if this was implemented directly into the game.

 

Whou,
i have no idea,
but i have to say you give yourself the greatest effort for a correct race.
Thank you Minolin and Brioche.

 

Yes, that's the whole point of the Kissmyrank Live Race Control: let humans do what the machine cannot (or, maybe better to say, what I couldn't teach to the machine in a reasonable timeframe as the machine is not responsible for my laziness ). Also to be fair I kinda like the idea to simulate the human aspect of race control (just like in F1 when they can't often take the same decision twice ). That's part of racing too.

 

Last night I had another encounter with that join late, drive hotlaps species.

Generally I don't expect late joiners to sit and wait in the pits until the race is over. Heck, I myself rather use the time to do some laps instead. But the rule of thumb is: "Don't interfere with the race". Period.
Bit several players seem totally immune to common sense. They drive hotlaps like there's no tomorrow, creating unnecessary stressful situations for other players.
When ignorance kicks in, everything goes down the drain.

So last night we were racing at spa. After surviving la source and eau rouge, I got hit by a Vette whose driver overestimated his vehicle's brake power entering les combes. Whatever, **** happens, I continued the race as fifth, fourth.
Over the last laps I noticed Albert Castillo approaching from behind, obviously one of the fast guys, but I did not mind to much, as he was three laps back.
On the last lap, he was still some three seconds behind me, I lost the car's back ans spun in campus. Standing backwards on the track I waited for the dust to settle and a clear track*. So I got a good view of Albert hitting me right in the kisser. However, I maintained to kepp my position and finished fourth.

After the race I congratulated Albert for the dullest move of the race and got two responses:
1. "I did not see you" – Well then, pay attention to that yellow flag, which does not say "clear track, hit it!"
2. "I was 2 seconds faster than you" – Dude, who cares when you're three laps back?

So here's my proposal for a solution (which does not include ghosting, hehe): The server should (optionally) create a parallel session for late joiners, so they can use the track to kill time until the next session starts without interfering with the current race, while their slot stays reserved.

*) Behaviour after a spin is another issue of its own. My advice is: Brake. Wait. Don't move unless the track is clear. It's no big deal for the cars behind you to keep an eye on what's happening in front of them and drive around you, but if you start moving unpredictionable there's a 99.9% chance of causing further crashes.

 

Well written, and a good point.
While I vote for no one to be able to join after race start!

 

Excellent idea, would definitely work!

 

The parralel MP session is actualy a very good idea, it would be a way to let people join servers at any time and not effect people already in a race with random new traffic joining mid race. You also can keep join open to get more in for the next race so nonreal negatives about the option.

This could be as an open practice session where people could spectate the race or do some practice while waiting for the next race. An option to also not allow people to rejoin the race if they escape out but let them enter the parallel practice session instead if they want to go back on track.

Obviously its never going to happen in current AC but maybe something @Lord Kunos could look into for their next project.

This could even be taken a step further where admin could force a qualy time from all joining before they are allowed into the normal qualy or race session.

 

Why not just add spectator mode and an option to force it until the end of the race for late joiners? Spectator mode has a good tradition in mp games not to mention that in some games a certain number of spectators can join when the server is full (allowing for live stream and race commentary without taking any of the grid places).

 

Very impressive. Is it possible to add more intelligence to the collision fault decision? One of your examples shows two cars that have collided and are stationary in the middle of the track. Two other cars come round the bend and hit them and are penalised. If Race Control took into account the speed of the car being hit (that it should be within, say, 10% of race speed) it should not penalise the car that hits it. (But if yellow flags are being shown then the penalty is fair.) Equally, not every collision requires a penalty - Rubbin', son, is racin' - so impacts with a closing speed of less than x MPH should be ignored. You still need human oversight but it cuts down the number of incidents that need to be reviewed.

 

Only cars that should be on track during a race are the ones involved in the race and there definitely should be no ghosting of anything!! If you join mid race wait in the pits until it’s qualifying time that’s what I do as it seems the logical thing to do somewhat as it would happen in real life, it gets to a point in some races that you don’t know if you’re racing or not as most people that join mid race just get stuck right in with blocking and fighting for a position they can’t take anyway.
I don’t use any hud so there’s no visual identification that the car in front of me is not part of the race..

 

Not sure that the implementation of such a shadow session would be clean (it poses more problems than it solves in my opinion). About forcing spectator mode for late joiners I was suggesting it to be optional so you could still get servers where you are allowed to do what you do now.

Thank you! Was the collision status "pending" or "reviewed"? If it was reviewed it means that a human (namely the race director) made that decision.
For auto penalties, currently the only reason why one would get an auto-penalty on collision is if it is the first incident of the race.
That's a KMR (terror) feature to make sure that everyone is careful in the first lap (as getting a -600€ is quite heavy and you won't be able to reiterate it for long).
I didn't implement auto-collision analysis because there is too much missing information (car telemetry etc.) and for each case I can make, I can come up with another case in which the same values lead to a inverse fault (meaning that the values for speed, position etc. that the AC server gives do not allow to unequivocally determine the blame).
I am afraid that currently the only proper accident analysis that is possible is the manual human review and that's why I invested time on Race Control.

 

My main objective behind this suggestion (apart from "don't disturb the ongoing race" of course) is to avoid boredom. As AC does not offer a real MP lobby where you can gather, chat and spectate the ongoing race before joining in the next session, we are in need of something to keep people entertained while queing for the next session.
I order to keep races clean, I once set my own server to "closed after start", just to find out how annoying it is when you cannot enter a server at all.
Like @Minolin I fire up AC after work is done and the kid is in bed, so I'm not quite in the mindset for waiting patiently until the next start and a free slot on a server I like.
So yeah, I like the idea of driving around wreckless (HA! Badum-tssss! ) and keep a reserved slot until the next session starts, even though it's my own. ;-)

Oooh yes yes yes yes!
There's always that one guy who joins just before the race asking "FUEL?" and you think to yourself "Oh boy, why doesn't he ask for the braking point into t1 aswell, while he's at it?"
A mandatory quali (within an optional maximum time) should help at least a bit.

@Lord Kunos please take notes for the maximum uberperfect AC2 multiplayer mode!

 

The solution is far simpler. Just disable the drive button for late joiners. A simulator like Assetto Corsa should not implement unrealistic solutions.
This still allows to spectate the race.

 

While restrictions provide simple solutions, alternatives bring creativity and fun.
Never underestimate the latter!