SimRacing.org.uk

Our policy until the end of Season 4 is as follows.

At most corners, we will allow GTR2 to police cutting. This means that the normal rules are relaxed for the purposes of determine whether a corner has been cut or not.

This does not absolve a driver from responsibility for a pass for position or successful defence from such a pass which is the result of cutting. In those circumstances, the guilty driver must still give the place back.

There are a small number of corners at Hockenheim where we will apply stricter rules - please see the track-specific rules below. At those corners, the rules applied will be the "Marked Course" rule from Race2Play (http://www.race2play.com/forum/list_posts/401). This is stricter than our normal rules, because you must keep the full width two wheels within the white lines (inclusive of the width of those lines) on the track; the curbs do not count as part of the marked course, so you may put only two wheels on them.

(I'm seeking clarification (http://www.race2play.com/homepage/show_posts/1304) from R2P of exactly how they interpret the rules.)

We will review the situation again at the end of the season.

Track specific rules for Hockenheim National

Between the final two turns, you must keep the full width of at least two wheels on or inside the white line on the left of the track. If you run wider, you must slow down and rejoin as if going off track - you must not use the extra width to get a better run out of the final corner.

Note that we will allow the game to police turn 1. This allows considerably more leeway than our normal rules.

Update for Endurance Academy and GT Sprint

The line inside the curbs between the final two turns is dotted but for our pursposes drivers should make every effort to avoid running their outside tyres beyond the solid white line outside the beyond the curbs. If the car no longer sounds or feels like its running over the curbs you have probably gone too far and should avoid doing that habitually.

Anyone using the pit exit road as part of their normal path through T1 will be subject to public ridicule.

Barcelona rules will be announced closer to the final rounds.

Well that's nice and clear then.   ::) :( ???

Are we following the rules or not? We allow GTR2 to police but if you cut and make place/defend place as a result of what? our old rules or new rules or what?

I'm now very confused as a driver I have no idea what I should be driving at all and having multiple rules for one race is just impossible to drive.

This whole corner cutting thing has gotten out of hand. We should have just stuck to our perfectly good rules from before and when cuts are reported that break the rules they get moderated like anything else.

GTR2 defines whether you have cut or not, except where we specify otherwise (just one corner at Hock).

You will then know whether you have cut or not.

If you have cut, you can decide whether you gained or defended a place as a result.

It's not complex unless you've set out to misunderstand it. >:(

I don't envy you guys having to work out an answer to it and well done with what you've come up with but I think this situation is a HUGE shame :(

Because winning is so damn important to some people that they will cheat to gain an unfair advantage, SRUK have been forced to adjust the rules and now we're not really driving accurate versions of real life tracks within equivalent parameters that real life races use. Without having the chance to race for real, this is as close as the majority of us will get, except, were all a little further away now because the cheating means we can now all take liberties with massive chicane cuts and the like. Anyone going to genuinely feel pleased with a new fastest lap at Nurburgring in qualifying, knowing that they shot straight through the last chicane whilst the other guy drove it properly?

It's a sim first and foremost. The realism is of prime importance to me, probably more than for most people I can understand but this is a bit too arcade for me. Just to be clear, I'm not criticising SRUK and have no great solution to offer myself. I just wish some people had had the spirit behind SRUK in mind more recently- honest and hard but FAIR racing >:(

To be fair Paul I never wanted to have any rules in this area in the first place; all it does is add administrative overhead and yet another a driver has to remember during the race. I'd much rather the game controlling it because it's far less open to interpretation.

which creates a problem since game gives warning/penalties even if you've messed up and entered chicane... ermmmm.... sideways or even rear end first  ;D

another peculiar AI stupidity is that if you (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't) mess up a corner and you DO cut it whilst on zero throttle - nothing happens. luckily, you can't gain time like that, so all's fine, i guess.


this topic reminds me of Il2 sturmovik forums. i feel your (admins) pain. been there, did that. ;D

I'd also like to offer some support for Dave and the rest of the SRouk team over this, it must be very frustrating and we do appreciate your efforts trying to come up with a workable solution, especially having to come up with something mid-season. Thanks for your efforts guys :-*

My 2p's worth is that I think we should stick to the rules as they were at the start of the season. Let the game handle the penalties for severe corner cutting and allow drivers to report other incidents of cutting. However, the penalties should be extremely severe (note the bold, italics AND red text for emphasis ;)) for violating them, that should be the deterrent.

If it isn't reported then I guess they get away with it <shrug> if it's that important to them to win like that then fine, I don't think it's worth the time or the effort trying to moderate it. If another driver want to make a report, they can do so by checking the replay.

The rules are very clear, if people want to take the piss then they risk the risk of suffering a very, very harsh penalty.

It's not an ideal solution but it's clear, workable and easy to understand.

I know the vast majority of SRouk drivers stick to the rules (in spirit and the written rules) and I'm happy with that.

I'm with Dave on this one...it's just too much work otherwise..I've been down that road as well.

Like Paul said, the anus onus is on us drivers.

Corner cutting aracde...WHAT? Check races like DTM. If poles or other things disappear, they cut as much as possible. I don't think the rules should have changed, not for Donnington nor Monza. Besides, the runoff areas at Hockenheim only slow you down, as it's totally different tarmac, and it isn't banked like the corner is.

I just hate the very idea of changing rules mid-season. Setting rules for specific corners is even more evil! I thought I would never say this after being sacked from TeamShark ;) but Simon is right - just keep the old rules of one pair of wheels on the track and let the moderators do their job if anyone spots a cheater.

The only think I would suggest to implement STARTING NEXT SEASON would be more severe penalty for a driver caught cheating - preferably disqualification.

I totally agree with Simon and Pedro.  We should keep the old rules and then if someone is reported and found guilty of constant corner cutting, they should be then given a severe penalty; maybe disqualification and a ban from the next race.

If the penalties are severe enough people WILL think twice.

I'm not suggesting the Mods should be solely responsible for catching these people, and I'm not suggesting that a report is filed for every corner cutting incident; sometimes people make mistakes.  But if we all condemn such activities when we see them (like in open practise) people will get the message.

By relaxing the rules, you will only encourage it.   

I'll hit kerbs as hard and fast as I can get away with, and repeatedly, Ruskus. But always aiming to keep two wheels on the black stuff. I'm sure you do the same, along with the DTM drivers or can they skip past chicanes? I don't get to see very much DTM stuff with my cable subscription so maybe they can push it further? Driving in a straight line through slow chicanes, as is possible at a few GTR2 tracks though, definitely IS arcade, to me at least.

I'm know I've driven outside these parameters, the recent race at Monza for example, when I made a hash of entering the second chicane a couple of times. Not lap after lap though and that calculating approach is worth masses of time over the length of a race. Without the games being more intelligent though (tighten up the detection but then differentiate somehow between a calculated cut and an accidental one) race series are always going to struggle getting something that suits everyone. Even if SRUK said that a repeated cut, say over 3 successive laps, was worth a severe penalty then that is something that could be exploited by someone cutting only every 5th laps- that would still be worth a lot of time over the length of an endurance race. Ya can't win :-\

Yea it's a tricky one. It's a shame the game doesn't prevent it. At Monza for example, those stripy bumps would rip a wheel of the chassis at high speed lol.

In EOAA, If you're caught intentionally cutting more than once in two laps you get a lot of time added to your final race time. A driver could if they wanted do two clean laps, then a cut lap, then two clean and then a cut.. and get away with it. But they'd have to be driving alone. I guess the lap times might reflect this behaviour too so it might not be too difficult to spot.

Actually I did mention about doing clean laps then a cut lap in my rules but then I deleted it and instead decided that if a driver is seen doing it once they get a 50 second penalty. In a 90 minute race I doubt you could make up 50 seconds by cutting so it doesn't make sense to cut.

I do think specific cutting rules per track is a good idea. Most turns you can use generalizations but some turns do need pictures.

 

It doesn't matter what I do, I can't win.

If I leave things alone I'm accused of the rules being a joke because they're not applied very often.

If I let the game decide I'm accused of allowing people to cheat.

If I compromiseand only apply a special rule at one corner I'm accused of making it too hard to remember.

I'm completely and utterly fed up with it. I hated having to introduce the rule in the first place. I was sickened when I saw a member of the moderating team blatantly cutting the chicane at Donington and felt compelled to act to apply the rules. Then along comes Monza in the very next round and despite making it clear that if such cutting was reported it would be acted upon, plenty of drivers chose to display such poor sportsmanship that we are going to have a number of exclusions and large time penalties for blatant cutting. >:(

It's not a nice thing to happen but I have to say that I think that I think that's going to help the situation going forward enormously :-\

The problem is that it's simply not a sustainable position going forward. We've expended a huge amount of energy on just 3 events and even with a few helpers it's just not an approach which is viable.

Once the penalties are handed out I'm sure that'll deter further occurances (at least for a while) so the necessity for the moderators to spend a lot of time on a particular event will hopefully be removed.

Now that we're aware of the ramifications I'd hope that the drivers take more responsibilty for reporting incidents of cutting.

I guess we'll have to see what happens though...

Have just done a few laps practice at Hock National. A racing driver tries to use every inch of the track yet I'm having to be a granny on the last corner and then remember it's ok to cut the first corner. Personally I find it detracts from being able to drive the car fast as I'm just trying to drive on the tarmac now instead of fast and using the whole of the race track and has taken away half the fun away. I don't see how the last corner is any different from most of the corners at Hock that nearly all have extra bits of tarmac on the outside of the curb. If I know that all the corners are one thing or another I can stop thinking about it and just drive it like before with at least two wheels on the curb.

I don't get why we're penalising the last turn and not the first one. It's not corner cutting, it's using the extra width, they are 2 different things. One is straight lining and the other is using the whole of the track. Driving quick is partly about getting a good run out of corners. As far as I see it we're penalising using the whole the track by penalising the last turn and then saying you can cheat on turn 1 because the game is quite generous. The original rules perfectly well covered the potential cutting at T1 and nothing else needs penalising.

Thinking about giving this race a miss as it's not much fun driving 2 sets of rules for 2 consecutive corners.

Something that hadn't been highlighted to me before I set the rule was that to successfully cut T1 you have to head for the pit exit road. If you miss you get a cut warning, if you don't it lets you go through. A truly stupid implementation and something I only established the details of today. :(

It's too late to change the rules again the morning of a race. You only have yourselves to blame! :no:

Of course. Who else could we blame Dave :)

Who are all these people complaining about track cutting?? I have seen but a few I think the rules are fine, cutting is only faster if you are good at it, most turns it can ruin your lap if you do not get it right, changing the rules wont make any difference, the faster people will be slower and the slower people will be slower.... do what you gotta do to win, it's what happens in real life, they will use every inch if they can get away with it........ Good luck policing this one ;)

Well, stupidly as I realised earlier today, the rumble strip between the final two turns at Hockenhiem has a dotted white line on the inside of the curbs and a solid one on the outside. This has led some people to believe that the bit in the first post about the curbs not being part of the track does not apply there.

Well, it does.

If anyone had doubts they should have raised them here, not simply assumed that my first post was wrong.

The Hockenheim rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2707.msg43848#msg43848) have been updated for the Endurance Academy and GT Sprint events to clarify issues surrounding both T1 and the road between the final two corners next to the drag strip.

There are no track-specific rules for Barcelona GP.

As far as we know there are no corners at Barcelona where you can make up time by cutting the track significantly.