***** IMPORTANT ****** Season 26 Mid Season Review

[Mark Jones]

And the problem with that is that the handicapped drivers never get to drive the fun cars.  What was wrong with the counting system - where you can use any car, but only once per season.  That was pretty good. 

I also think the F2's should be dropped, and just make the GT races twice as long.

[EvilClive]

Some of you might have noticed my absence from races and the forums lately, some of you might even have welcomed the relative silence from this quarter  .  Real Life has just been very complicated for me lately and the evenings when we run GPL races have been swamped by other commitments.

It is Saturday morning and I found myself with a spare hour or so to catch up. It is raining so I cannot mow the lawn, and frankly I feel knackered enough not to do anything at the moment, so thought I would throw in a few comments.

The overriding topic seems to be tokens and handicapping, which has rightly been pointed out by some as being 2 different things.

Handicapping, in whatever form it takes,  places a restraint on the drivers that are able to extract the fastest and more consistent lap times. These drivers are traditionally identified by their position in the points table and generally we have selected the top 3 for special treatment.  The intention of handicapping is to artificially keep the season "alive" for the whole 10 races by preventing one or two aliens from amassing so many points in the first 5 races that the championship effectively becomes a 2 or 3 horse race at half distance. In the past when this happened many of the mid table drivers and those lower down dropped out and the last 3 or 4 races had very small grids composed only of the elite drivers who still had a shot at the title.

Going back into the mists of time when there was only GPL67's to race ( YES! I am that old!!!) there were pitstops that were calculated on the performance of the various cars. Phil Thornton has a spreadsheet that would use the current World Record times for each car on a given track. It would calculate the differences and apply a pit stop time to each chassis that theoretically would meant that all of the cars crossed the finish line together. Of course this assumed that all cars were driven by drivers of equal ability and no-one made any mistakes ( Yeah! we get a lot of those races don't we??). But what it did do very effectively was ensure that anyone taking a Lotus, for instance, could not blast in the first 10 laps and pull out a nice lead and then cruise for the final 50% of the race.
The Lotus would inevitably attract the longest stop in the pits and believe me, if you had to sit in the pitlane for 30 seconds and watch your hard won 20 second lead vanish as slower cars ( which maybe required no stop at all) droned past and took your position it certainly focused your driving on the rest of the race as you chased them down and tried to regain your "rightful" place.  In general this system did not handicap the driver, but handicapped the car choice. An alien would be expected to be faster then a mere mortal in any race in the same car, so results still showed the fast guys getting the champagne, but they had to work for the whole race to earn it.
The big drawback with pitstops is the GPL software that does not like cars loitering anywhere for more than 30 seconds...it disconnects you without warning!!  Whilst there are ways around this it has always been a source of extreme irritation when GPL suddenly kicks you out of a race for doing nothing wrong and so many members understandably do not like it.

We ( the secret society of admins and moderators) discovered a few seasons back that once someone became bored enough to drop out half way through the season, there was a strong chance that they would not sign up for the next one and numbers started to dwindle to the point where the admin and moderators became very concerned about membership. Ask yourself a question... if you have a choice of joining 2 leagues, will you join the one that has regular grids composed of 5 aliens each week , or one that has 12-15 drivers of varying ability, or possibly 2 divisions where you are certain to find someone of similar pace to race against?? there is a critical mass element at work here and we are currently doing some things right because our numbers are pretty constant and we have new people still joining. Not bad for a 16 year old PC game?
We have tried various forms of handicapping from limited car choice, single chassis allocation and even pit stops and all have their plus and minus points, but all have been intended to keep things interesting.

Tokens were introduced to the 67 series as a way of preventing the all Lotus/Eagle grids that we were regularly seeing, persuade/force drivers to use the other available cars AND turn up for those races even if they were in a slower chassis. Although IMHO not a perfect system, there is no doubt that it has worked well and does indeed see mixed grids and a little tactical thinking by the competitors.  Tokens applied across the board, as in this system,  do not offer any handicapping because that was never the intention.

We did try a variation on the token system for the early Friday series, where each car was given a token value ( similar to Tommy's F2 suggestion) and at the outset drivers were given a quantity of tokens that had to last the whole season, but no extra tokens were earned just because you turned up for a race. At the beginning of the season  faster drivers were given less tokens than the slower members and this allowed the fast driver to select the fastest car if he wanted it for a particular race, but it made a big hole in his budget for the season. Whereas a slower driver with a larger initial budget could take faster cars more often.
This was effectively a token system that handicapped, but it took a lot of admin time to keep a check on all drivers and which cars they had/had not used.

As with all things each and every variation has its plus points and minus points and these will, or will not, appeal to members. All the administrators can do is be as democratic as possible, and where it is a practical proposition that can be implemented without the need for a full time software engineer and 27 backroom staff , they put the suggestions into operation.

Please remember that what might seem a simple and obvious solution to you,  may, because of the way that SROU operates behind the scenes( which incidentally is run by a very generous and helpful guy for the benefit of many racing sims) not be a possibility.  The results posting, the incident report system, and even the 67 token system are all linked by the same operating system running behind this forum. We are lucky to be able to use it, but we do not have the right to alter things just because it might seem like a good idea to try this season.


Ok I am going back into my hermit's hut now and you can have some peace and quiet again.  Hoping to be home in time for Sunday's race  

[Turkey Machine]

What I've found this season is that the 50% distance rule for finishing ends up penalising those who are unwittingly kiboshed by some poor unfortunate malfunction, be that car-related or, ahem, person-related. I used to have a couple of good races a season but still turn up to most, even when the engine let go I'd still finish decently in the standings. Now, I can be overtaken in the standings by a 1-shot wonder winning 1 race and attempting no more. Whilst it's good in theory, in practice it doesn't reward participation. I'd propose removing that requirement for future seasons.

67s: Token system works well here, and I seem to remember season 18 when it was introduced was one of the closest seasons and had some great racing.

66s: Had some interesting server issues with T7 that caused some obvious warp, otherwise seems to be well behaved.

65s: In my humble opinion, this works better with handicapping of chassis to driver pace and result history.

F2s: I've had the most fun in this series, as whilst the cars are similar on pace to the 65 machines, it goes a bit quicker! Racing appears to be a bit more relaxed too, rather than being so on-edge in other series. Firm keeper for me!

I've no comment on the other series as I don't participate.

Regarding the server issues, I hope T7 do sort these out, as the stability while we've been using it for a number of years has been reliable, but lately just seems unviable. As a result, I've tried to make one I run available where possible some evenings and weekends for practice, but like Badblood I work full-time and this is a hobby, so it's a best-efforts basis!

Provisionally, it needs VNC and loose grids to host any races, plus extra mods and tracks as necessary, otherwise this should be good for next season.

[Cookie]

Jethro, I just uploaded a "loose grid" collection to the UKGPL3 FTP server in the "tracks" folder

[Turkey Machine]

Jethro, I just uploaded a "loose grid" collection to the UKGPL3 FTP server in the "tracks" folder

My hero!!!!

Also, I have no problem moderating if required.

[GregT]

I have no real complaints.

I really like the simplicity of the Works coin system.

I don't like the F2 handicap but that is because I never thought it would apply to me.

I think I would rather have the Friday series run one race on the same track four consecutive weeks. The change in cars bothers me at times but that will lessen as I get more experience with the car choices. My idea also ruins the opportunity to get in some later action if you run into trouble in the first race. So my preference is no improvement. I despise Ford Motor Company so I'm not particularly fond of the GT choices. But all that stuff I can easily endure.

I can't think of a single thing that I would say should be changed. It all seems to work fairly well and it appears that the stewards are close to what they want to achieve.

[john roberts]

Going back into the mists of time when there was only GPL67's to race ( YES! I am that old!!!) there were pitstops that were calculated on the performance of the various cars.

well Clive if you go to the mists of time then i go back to prehistoric times , when dinosaurs walked the earth and played gpl 67 on dial-up using a token system , i joined in season 4 . the pitstop system started later in season six and hit the leagues like an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs in the process , leaving only small animals and bugs under rocks and the vegetation to rule things for awhile .

things have since evolved but not everything has worked right first time , when ukgpl first tried to run a f1 65 div it folded after one season with only a handful of drivers at each race , it wasn’t helped that it was still using vroc . but over time systems for handicapping and a reintroduction of a token system for f1 67 and the introduction of other gpl mods have changed the league and i can safely say that the monkeys now well and truly in charge of the league .

john

[EvilClive]

LOL John.

I was not suggesting that I was the oldest guy in these parts ( I know I am not), or even that when it all started pit stops were the norm.

 Rather, I was trying to show that over time UKGPL has tried many different ways to keep the racing alive and interesting with various handicapping and chassis limiting systems. Some ideas have worked, some have not worked so well or have been tweaked and tried a second time with greater success, but always the mods have tried to improve the UKGPL experience.

 To suggest that the mods ever do things to antagonise the members is obviously wrong, however there have been times when the implementation of certain changes have thrown up unforeseen problems or results. 
The general consensus seems to be that although UKGPL is not perfect ( it never will be for everyone!) it is pretty good at the moment. So I would urge caution about wholesale changes to all of the various classes, because it is their very difference in their handicapping/tokens etc that contributes to the varied racing that you get.

[dave curtis]

I'd like some clarity on what's happening with the Brands F2 race. As it stands I think we're expected to all (A and B) rerun. However, as far as I understand it, there was only a problem with one replay/upload/set of results (no one has told me different), so I don't see why my group should have to rerun (if that is what's being proposed).

Intention is to re-run at the end of the season on one grid. There was only an issue with one grid but we felt it fairer to everybody to re-run the whole round (which) implies both grids.

Not that I'm wishing to harp on about it too much    but there was a question asked as to whether there were any client replays available for the group-B Brands event & I did (try anyway) to supply one as requested.   Granted,  there were some issues from what I could see warp/server-wise from the start round the hairpin (& I think a couple of other occasions with some minor cloaking taking place ahead)  but I think that was about it.

Was it just the case that the client replay was unusable in the end?


Otherwise,  I'm mainly enjoying the various series so far.
If the F2 was not part of the Fri entertainment,  then I would not be in there at all.   I'm not really interested in long GT races (or extended CanAM for that matter)  but a little taster now and again is palatable.   Although,  if a separate series was run for the chaps that like that kind of thing,  then fair enough!   
(or, may I suggest - if driving tin-tops are that appealing - there are other areas of srou that cater for that kind of thing...    )

 I've even managed a couple of good (for me) outings in the 69x & I know nothing about that.  Just turn up in the MS80  (as that was permitted last time out for heavies) with the same setup everywhere & try not to crash too much.


It's probably true to say that nobody is really having the F2 series that they were hoping for;  personally previous seasons were much more enjoyable.    Well,  rather than drag that up again - as it was all covered at the season start;    it's surely better this way where all comers get a Sunday race as deserved.  Although, tonight's event was just not worth the paper my event details were written on...

Anyway,  thanks to all that get the series running & mod team. Appreciated.

Cheers,
Dave.

[Mark Jones]

(or, may I suggest - if driving tin-tops are that appealing - there are other areas of srou that cater for that kind of thing...    )

Ok, whereabouts then?

[BadBlood]

Was it just the case that the client replay was unusable in the end?

Yep. Couldn't reconstruct the result from that replay

[maddog]

I just remembered something I posted awhile back, as background info, and to help explain the origins of the omnipresent potential for handicapping conflagrations . . . . . "The what? ". . . . .

Some folks might not realise why the cars we race, vary as they do between fastest, and slowest.  It's because of their different differences, that different handicap systems are used.  And because of this, new Mods, and Moderators might need experimentation, before they're perfect.

GPL was made to be as realistic as possible.  Wherever possible, everything was, ans still is factored in from actual data.  Some of the lengthy time spent on each new Mod, is involved in accurately recreating each car as it actually was.  

Some racers might argue we should start making cars, with evenly spaced performance.  Why not simply make 5 sets of fantasy cars - Mod A, B, C, D, E, and race them mostly on fantasy tracks.  Well, where's the character in that - what have you to compare with - there's not much room for the imagination to roam in.  Agreed, handicapping would then be easy.

The fact is, the teams who make these Mods have a specific goal - to recreate a moment in time - a specific racing era.  And cars are built to perform as in reality, regardless of all other cars, on the same track,at the same time.  When we drive these cars, we're able to compare ourselves with the greatest drivers of that age, and in the most realistic way most of us will ever experience.  It's then up to our Moderators to do a good job, in making the handicap system fit the cars.  

[Tom van Ostade]

It would be ideal if it was really like in real life, meaning you had to start with an old, slow car, then, if you achieved respectable results, you could land a job at one of the works teams, first one with a slower car, and when you kept doing well, a job at Ferrari or Lotus . If someone could figure out how to implement that in a league, it would be the holy grail of simracing   .

Perhaps for the Friday league, it would be an idea to let everyone start with the slowest car for round 1, then, for the next round, the fastest chassis for P1 in the championship, second fastest for P2, third fastest for P3 etc. and continue this on. You would think that the fastest guys would run away with it then, but there would be pressure to perform, since if you crashed out or blew your engine, you would really suffer for the next race. In addition to rewards for good performances instead of punishments, you could perhaps run a reversed grid in the second heat of the Friday series based on the results of the first (could be achieved simply through join order an no quali), to keep things interesting.

Just throwing some ideas out there.

[dave curtis]

But all of the cars are old!  With some of them being even older;  & I have a feeling that some upcoming new additions may be even older still?!

Good spin of an idea though; although I'd be forever confined to the initial slow offering with the wonky chassis & hexagonal wheels...

edit: On second thoughts, maybe it's a silly idea really

[maddog]

But all of the cars are old!  With some of them being even older;  

A primary function of mine, is to check cars appearance and performance for originality, before these creations finally, hopefully, hit the open road.  Perceptions of 60's racing are easily lead astray.  In GPL, we are racing new cars.  The original champion chosen when you ran the Sim, was Sir Jack.  He was F1 World champion during the 67 Season.  GPL is not supposed to be a Museum, but I daresay ones personage is getting a tad too serious.  Just don't let the cars get too dusty!

And for Tommie - I'm not sure reverse handicapping would prove very popular, except for those at the front, including Tvo's.  I did once suggest a reverse grid, but it was considered such arrangements would cause de-rangements, and an excess of rearrangements.  Would be fun to try if well mannered.