SimRacing.org.uk

As we approach the end of Season 37, now is a good time to reflect on what went well and think about what we might want to do next season. In order to help the moderators, some feedback from the drivers would be helpful. All comments are welcome but these are some suggested areas for discussion:

Are the rules fair and do they promote enjoyable racing?

Are there any problems with the rules?

Should we continue to run Grand Prix length races?

Is the Mixed Open Wheel format a good one, can it be improved?

What about more Sports Cars/CanAm races?

Should we continue with the 55 Grand Prix cars? If so, should we retain the current format?

Should we make more use of Olaf's "Dirtgear" patch or Lee's "Pit Stop" patch?

55mod format is excellent and should be retained as is.

I'm asking why there are drivers that are classiefied works in some series and privaters in others  ???
I'm a slow driver, but I'm works in all series.

I don't like too many resets for all in Alfa/Porsche serie.

I like GP lenght race, at least till I wont become blind  8) ;D

I like Mixed Open Wheel, but I would prefer more group restriction for works drivers.

Sport Cars ok, Canam so and so...

Ok for 55

I would prefer keep things simple without use of new patches

Thx all mods for organization!

I'm only interested in the 67 GP series at the moment. I have enjoyed the series very much and I'd like a series with that race length to continue.
As far as I can tell, the refuelling in the pits thing hasn't been used at all. Is there a way that we can have a compulsory pit stop?  Do we handicap drivers by making them wait in the pits?
I think that complicating the rules is bad, but is there a way to improve racing and participation?

I'm not sure whether the issuing of chassis from the moderator god at the start of the season is right. I've done well out of it, but some drivers have been put off by driving difficult cars for long times for little reward. Perhaps if the first race was a free chassis for all, then the top drivers in the table were restricted by chassis for each race. Say, the top two couldn't take Lotus, Eagle, Ferrari or Brabham. Third, fourth and fifth couldn't take Lotus or Eagle. This would require  quick moderation.

None of the 67GP races have been moderated at all. The 67GP races have been very well driven and I don't think that there are many, if any, incidents to review. I guess that no one is going to report an incident more than 2 days after the race. That incident can be resolved by the 7th day and the championship table would be up to date before the next race announcement happens. If there are no reports, then the moderation is done. Therefore, table based chassis handicaps can be posted in the race announcement.

Perhaps there is a lot of unavoidable work behind the scenes to say that moderation is complete even if there are no incidents. I'm happy to help there. I'm happy to count pitstops, check correct chassis and post announcements. I think that the resolving of incidents here at UKGPL is excellent and way beyond my understanding. I'd be banning everyone. But I can do some admin.

One other simple thing ... I have good eyesight and a good monitor, but I find any colour writing on this green background, other than white, is difficult to read.

For me;

We don't seem to get complaints about the rules - so if it isn't broken then don't fix it.

Grand Prix length - I wouldn't have a problem racing GP length but the standard of driving is too high for me.

Mixed Open wheel seems like a good format. It would have an extra edge if we could have a proper constructors championship but probably too difficult to organise.

Sports Cars - my first season with Sports Cars & I haven't quite got the hang of them.

55 Mod seems popular and well supported but Mr Nobrakes doesn't get along with 'no brakes'. 

Fuel stop patches. A bit of a novelty for fun events but I wouldn't vote for them in league racing.

in my opinion, the current format mod gp 67 is ok, good idea.
to improve : championship of 12 months, that is 18 - 20 races
this would be the big reference championship for ukgpl !

andy's reasoning is right:
each driver must choose the car he wants, BUT:
bonus cars : BRM        +8
                 HONDA     +7
                 COOPER    +5
                 BRABHAM   +3

Open wheels : good format

create a new championship with mod 65

Personnaly, I don't like mod 55

Sport cars ok, canam no, and no unlimited shift-r on long tracks

to make it simple

- big championship 67 on one year
- open wheels
- mod 65
- mod sport cars

Pitstops  :  Extra work and problematic.  A four wheel change in the 1960's, would take 1 - 3 minutes, which made them very rare.

Handicap  :  By driving in only 3 rounds of the 1955 Season, I'm able to race competitively.

My review notes for S37...

GP55 Series:
Very satisfactory on all fronts.  I'd like to see the format retained and it feature in S38.

Mixed Open-Wheel:
A novel approach that I think came off quite well.  I enjoyed the mod swap-outs for each event.  You could be a contender in one race; a stone in the next.  Worth repeating.

GP67 Sprints:
My preferred series as the full GP67 races were just so much longer.  Competition tight and rewarding.  I might consider going the full distance races in S38 and step back to the Sprints if it proves too arduous.

Sports Car Cup:
A fun series with handicapping but I'd much prefer straight-up GT racing with a full slate of marques.  CanAm figures in this, too.

As Martin notes above, mandating pit stops for service could prove a bridge too far.

For me the rules are ok.

Pleased with the Mixed Open Wheel format.

No interesse in Sports Cars/CanAm, Grand Prix length races, 55 Grand Prix cars, Olaf's "Dirtgear" patch or Lee's "Pit Stop" patch.

But a complete 68 or 69x Series would be great.

I think it will be no surprise that I favour another 55 series, for me it is the biggest challenge in UKGPL.

I like the challenge of the 90 minute GP races, although I confess that we/I  need to review the chassis allocation and find another way of keeping the races interesting.

The open wheel format opens a myriad of combinations and possibilities for each season, we should keep it and offer a different mix for each season. We have 69x and even thundersports  as yet unexplored?

The sports cars offer something different and I am sure that we could conjure up another series for the next season.

I think that pitstops offer a singularly unique way of handicapping the faster drivers, but I also recognise that drivers need to get used to, and comfortable with, pitstops in GPL. Maybe we can introduce pitstops in fun races and short series  like the JSMT? and when people are more comfortable  with the concept we might try a full season??

One thing I really enjoy about UKGPL is the history of statistics and race results going back to 1999 that can be easily accessed.
I continue to be distracted by the status of moderation here. I have no problem with the moderation of incidents or planning of races. Some races from a couple of seasons back are still inviting incidents to be submitted. Some have moved on to moderation pending or moderation underway. I am sure that most of these should be completed as they are not waiting for any new information. Some races reach the moderation completed status very quickly. Some races stay in limbo for months, years.

Click on the name of any regular driver and under Career Statistics there are Championship Results. Below that there are Current Standings for seasons that have long since finished as well as the current ones. This does seem to be a particular problem for UKGPL as the statuses are used in the same way for RRE, UKAC and UKGTL and they move along quickly and leave nothing outstanding. I don't think this status stasis has anything to do with time intensive incident checking as many of the uncompleted races were without incident.

Maybe no one is as bothered as I am to make it look pretty, so please let me help. I'd love to tidy this up.

Above the driver's Career Statistics, there's a list called Championship Registration and Licenses. They go back only to season 30 and I can't work out what this means. Registration happened before season 30 too.

One point I'd like to make about the actual racing is how much I have liked the spaced out grids in the GP races. This really helps to reduce incidents.

For myself the 67's and 55 mod have been very succesful and should be retained , As for race length I find these are quite challenging any longer races would be an absolute  no no for me .

One grievance regarding the rules , and I'm talking about the situation when driver (A) takes another driver (B) out of the game ,driver (A) is often able to continue racing and if found guilty have some kind of post race  penalty imposed . While driver (B) suffers the ultimate penalty of being out of the race through no fault of his own . hardly fair play IMO .   

Some tracks in need of lappery :

-Adelaide67
Borovaya
-Donington
Interlagos73
-Sachsenring
St. Jovite
Pacific Raceways x 2
Torino (new)
Wat.Glen48
Zolder67

Of these, I'm not 100% certain of reliability from 3 of them.  Recently raced 65's online successfully at Sachs67, and with Ukgpl the other two, some years ago.

Can I ask to insert my track Vallelunga '71? It's well suited for '65, '66, F2 or GT.  :)
http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=3142 (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=3142)
Thx

Thanks for all your feedback on Season 37.

The mod team will discuss the suggestions and try to accommodate as much of them as possible. An announcement on Season 38 will be made as soon as practicable.

   I like the idea that if one driver eliminates another from the race and was blamed for the accident, he should add something else the punishment, just as if the accident can continue and there was clearly a fairplay, (the driver waits for the other to return the position) the penalty must decrease. Thus we will have three levels of penalty, Standart, light and hard.

   I really think the mod55 is very much appreciated, mainly for having so many differences.
  But I'm really frustrated that we don't have a track list, Donington 37, and other old tracks.

1 - A proposal for the 90 mn challenge :

obligation to use all the chassis at least once, (which makes 7/10), then free choice then for the 3 remaining races
a bonus should be awarded for the 3 remaining races,

+ 5 brm
+ 3 honda
+ 2 cooper
- 1 lotus and eagle

2 - I never understood anything about the mod 55, mainly the brake management. So I wouldn't participate in the championship.
It's a pity, I like all mods, except this one!  :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[

3 - A big thank you to all the organizers who make the pleasure last with gpl, who manage the ukgpl site with passion, it's a lot of work, really bravo to all of them  :punk: :punk: :clap: :clap: :punk: :punk:

3 -

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I just discovered that this thread has somehow gone unnoticed by myself.

I drove in the 67 sprint series and I liked the format. As soon as I recognized that I was one of the fastest drivers in there I restricted myself to the BRM and Honda. I had a kind of gentleman's agreement with Bob (the other very fast driver) to only use the slow chassis. Without that I think the two of us would have won most races of the sprint series. It is a problem for the sprint series that fast drivers who do not want to take part in a 90min race are much faster than most sprint series competitors. After the first races many competitors also complained about me and Bob because they thought we should have joined the GP series. The gentleman's agreement solved it, but maybe there is something that can be done with the rules to solve such a situation in the future?

I think next season I will give the long GP a try. Still it sounds very exhausting to me. But from what I have read the level of driving is very high and drivers drive with respect and little incidents as a result. That sounds great. I find myself rear-ending some of my sprint series fellows because our braking points were so much different. Even when I thought I brake much earlier sometimes it was still not early enough. I think the differences are not as big in the GP series because with the fast drivers in the sprint series I could already race very close without such problems.

Regarding the token allocation for the GP series I like the idea that Uli posted in the GP67series Monza10k thread:
I think if you just obligate everyone to use all chassis once races will be much less equal than they were this season in the GP series. For instance, I guess everyone would use an Eagle or Lotus at a high speed track such as Monza10k. To prevent the fastest ones from doing so. but give them something better than a Cooper, BRM or Honda, the system suggested by Uli sounds suitable to me.

And I join with philippe's big thank you to all the organizers!!  :clap:

Please comment in the Laguna Seca race Thread

Late addition :  

Chat during race meetings, used to be officially confined to emergency messages only.  Graphics sometimes suffer glitches, etc.  My older System sees only a momentary streak near screen top, when cockpitted, nowadays.  Is the no chat rule obsolete, or for actual race only?

I agree !

The rule covering this is still active, it is on this page (https://www.ukgpl.com/index.php/rules/online) under "In-game chat".

I always follow the rule but last night I made an exception when Philippe asked if he could remain on the server. I said he'd have to make way if the sever was full and he graciously asked if he could stay. Whilst I wouldn't say it was an emergency, it was a sufficiently important question to warrant bending the rules slightly. But I do agree, the rule should be followed by everyone because as you say Martin, it can have a detrimental affect on the on-line gameplay.

Yes I am with the chat minimizers, but if a mod has to answer a question of a driver there is nothing we can do.

With some drivers not understanding/reading the rules before a race there is little we can do.
I can't switch chat off  at the server - maybe using Teamspeak can reduce it  ::)

TBH I have some experience with pc's and there are long threads in SRMZ about it, it's imho a problem of not optimized settings on the clients side.
If people have big PCs and complain about low fps at 36fps races they also have problems with chat... ;)

Thanks for a swift responce guys. :)  My 'live' comment at Monsanto, was a general observation and not aimed specifically.  Pit out in the past and polite apology now, seem unneeded.  Both friendly, but not of major help.

If this is important, a brief message from a Moderator, at the start of a race chat page one time, would have all drivers see it.  Chat switched off, would prevent emergency messages, but on shows a disreguard for the rule by some.

I suspect some drivers to not read the rules before the race : for example, those asking "are reset allowed ?",  "how many liters for my car (in mod SCX)" ?

Maybe we should add a comment in the race topic : "Reading the rules before the race is mandatory and we will give no answer after race connection" (...or something write in better English words than mine  ;) )

Perhaps a more prominent message on the race post regarding "chat" on the server would help solve this problem.

But, if we are going to ban chat we might suggest that drivers who find any chat messages a problem, select " Turn off in car chat" on their client PC's and check that they FULLY understand the race rules before joining the server. Moderators WILL NOT answer questions once you have joined the server?

 I don't think it is the actual content of the chat message that is the problem, but the fact that any text message pops up on their screen and possibly affects frame rates etc.
A moderator replying to a valid question probably involves 3 pop up messages. 1) the question 2) the answer 3) a thankyou?  Triple problems?

The in car chat function can be turned on again to offer congrats to the podium etc once ALL cars have finished?
 

I completely switched off my chat

- no letterbox does not show it
- in gplshift.ini set fonts to 0
-switch off in game

even though I know by a just little flicker that there was a "join or leave" message

e.g.
I really hate these "help press F1" messages you get when stopping on track- but Olaf found how to kill this at SRMZ!

Definitely, I ask to wait till all cars have ended Q and race session for grats and so on: session complete. Thx  :)

Putting aside the low fps, flickers and missing of emergency messages if chat is off, it is a simple courtesy to wait until the session is complete before chatting. We have all seen the polesitter receiving grats as a banzai lap still on track in the last few seconds beats him.

Admittedly maybe not the most appropriate place to discuss this; but seeing as the conversation is already in progress... :)

Is the chat/stutter issue related to something specific?  Windows10? nVidia driver/card or nVidia generally? Pribluda?

I've been aware of others being affected by that in the past, but I hadn't at that point (even on my old hardware/Windows 7).

However, the same hardware with a clean re-installation of Win7; followed by an update to Windows 10.  Then a subsequent wipe/fresh installation of Windows10  (as the Win7 updated to Win10 seemed to be having more frequent issues booting after updates)  & fresh install of GPL via the 1.08 installer has resulted in the stutter issue.

From a pre-wipe image of my previous (stutter-free; but unreliable) volume;  the PRIBLUDA.INI (and also pribluda log) indicates I was using v1.1.1.0,  with display dash set to 0,  with the gpl.exe patched to use DDM for the bottom of screen information.  I can't recall the reason why I was not using the Pribluda dash (the ini file was last updated in 2015!), but maybe there was a performance hit.

With the later/fresh GPL installation using the 1.08 installer, I have Pribluda v1.1.2.1 (with the additional features/prettier colours). Generally working towards 60FPS, but with the stutter issue.


Now my seasons are over - I've tried a quick replace of gpl.exe / all pribluda-related files from my 'unreliable' image;  but then only get approx 45FPS.
(then back to 60FPS with the newer gpl.exe / v1.1.2.1, with stutter)

Any thoughts/steps out there,  or maybe this is unfortunately just how it is?  Or maybe time to split it to a different thread?  :)

Cheers,
Dave.