Endurance Championship - Season 2, Round 7, Anderstorp - Apr 9

[Aagramn]

But that could mean that I could be 10 laps down and finish and beat the leader who crashes out on an extra lap over everyone else. That's just not right. It shouldn't matter whether I am 10 laps or 1 lap down I shouldn't be able to beat someone who has completed the race faster than me.

I don't think so, Pops only lost one place because Don completed the same number of laps, drivers several laps down weren't placed above him. Agree it's a bug in the exports though.

It's a shame the exports from the game can't be relied upon.  I'd also be in favour of amending the results manually on the rare occasions it goes wrong, but then I don't have to maintain the results database & importer code, which I appreciate is a lot of work. If it would help, I could review replays and fiddle exports if we could come up with a procedure for doing so when driver appeal. If it's too much work to mess around with I don't see a big problem with a "DNF on the last lap loses you a lap of positions" rule for future races. It's a bit harsh, and doesn't match real-world racing rules, but we have to make compromises due to the limitations of GTR. The Pops & Don situation is awkward because we weren't aware of the problem before the race.

[Paul968]

OK - I see what you mean. If that's the case then I'd also like to see the occasional anomoly corrected (I don't remember this being an issue before?) but if that's not possible then a last lap dnf rule is ok.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

I could be wrong, but the issue I think is that modifying the exported results is a pain for Dave, so he's saying that it's easier to in effect change the rules so that drivers who don't cross the finish line are classified as DNF and will place behind all the finishers, regardless of how many laps they were behind.

That's absolutely not what I've done. What I've said is that if two drivers complete the same number of laps, but one DNFs and one takes the flag, the one who takes the flag is classified ahead. That's because the total race time in the export is only listed for drivers who actually finish, otherwise it's shown as "DNF". If Don had been two laps behind instead of just one, Pops would've won in NGT.

[...] If there was a simple way to frig the export to make this work, would you change your mind Dave?

If I were writing the importer again, I know exactly how I'd do it, but I'm not, and this isn't the first occaision that this issue has been highlighted, just the first time it's happened so far up the finishing order. When GTR2 comes out I'll look at it again (and maybe also for GTL and rFactor).

BTW, adding up all the lap times for each driver in the exports doesn't help because they aren't measured from a single consistent point in time. It is (in theory) possible to look at the start time and lap time for each lap for each driver and work out who crossed the line at the end of what lap and when, but it makes the importer much more complicated.

[Zacari]

I'm now thoroughly confuzed.

From the text file that's with the replay:

Driver=whitham69, Lap=(49, 4837.013, 1:53.750)
Driver=Don1, Lap=(49, 4871.370, 1:37.670)
Driver=popabawa, Lap=(49, 4740.676, 1:35.390)

So why cant the game realise Pops finished ahead rather than behind those two?

[Paul968]

Sorry Dave - the bit that confused me was saying that Pops DNFed. This to me implied he must be behind the other finishers.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

From the text file that's with the replay:

Driver=whitham69, Lap=(49, 4837.013, 1:53.750)
Driver=Don1, Lap=(49, 4871.370, 1:37.670)
Driver=popabawa, Lap=(49, 4740.676, 1:35.390)

So why cant the game realise Pops finished ahead rather than behind those two?

The game does. But it does not record a total race time for Pops, only a DNF. If I had written the importer to ignore the total race times, and/or record those individual laps above, then things would be different, but I didn't so there you go.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

The game does. But it does not record a total race time for Pops, only a DNF. If I had written the importer to ignore the total race times, and/or record those individual laps above, then things would be different, but I didn't so there you go.

I remember now why I couldn't use those individual lap times - it's because GTR (and GTL and rFactor, at least at present) simply doesn't record them if the lap is marked 'invalid' by GTR, usually because a chicane was cut.